You’ve Come A Long Way, Maybe

The Los Angeles Times is rightfully getting some heat for running a photo of President Bill Clinton to accompany a story about Hillary’s historic nomination.

Like other newspapers, The Times illustrated its main story Wednesday on Hillary Clinton’s historic nomination for president with a photo — of her husband.

Of course, Bill Clinton is no ordinary spouse of a candidate (and neither was Hillary Clinton when her husband was president). Still, many readers detected a whiff of sexism in The Times’ decision to feature a large photo of the former president basking the adulation of the Democratic National Convention crowd when it was the former secretary of State who received her party’s nomination for president.

Gee, I’m not sure “other papers did it, too,” and, “Bill Clinton is no ordinary spouse,” are worthy excuses. And I missed the apology in these two paragraphs, too.

My God but it’s going to be a long three and a half months.

It’s Always About Disaffected White People

The same disaffected white people who listen to Rush Liumbaugh and rail against “political correctness” are flocking to Donald Trump and his promise to “Make America Great Again.” Problem is, America has always been great … for them:

Which America is he promising to us? If you ask his supporters, they say life has gotten worse for people like them over the last 50 years. It seems safe to assume that, in the eyes of Mr. Trump’s overwhelmingly white male fans, America was greater a half-century ago. Indeed, it was pretty great — for them.

It’s not just that factory jobs were more plentiful or that women and minorities were largely kept from positions of power. Large national programs that radically changed the country kept America great specifically for white men. New Deal-era systems like Social Security and unemployment insurance; rules that demarcated minimum wages and maximum work hours and protected unionization; and the G.I. Bill at the end of World War II substantially transformed the country and created a booming middle class. But they all purposefully left out most women and minorities.

It’s a little-remembered fact that the social safety net, that product of the Great Depression, initially was available primarily to white working-class men. Social Security excluded domestic and agricultural workers until the 1950s — jobs held largely by people of color and women. Ditto unemployment insurance and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Gays and lesbians, excluded from the right to marry until last year, of course were denied all of the legal benefits of such contracts: inheritance, property settlement in divorce, insurance benefits, Social Security spousal benefits, etc.

So yes, America has always been great for white men. Particularly straight white men. And these are the folks whining that America isn’t great anymore because they have to share their piece of the pie after 240 years? Get the fuck outta here.

I know this isn’t any groundbreaking news to liberals. I’m just really happy to see the paper of record acknowledge what’s really going on with this “Make America Great Again” nonsense. I’ve heard far too much about “wage stagnation” and “income inequality” as if it’s really economics driving the rise of Trumpism. I don’t think that’s it at all. I think it’s the same old shit that it’s always been: loss of white privilege. The news media seems awfully loathe to call out the racism in our electorate, as if it’s impolite to call things what they are. But there you have it.

Here’s something else I learned: watching one of the weekend MSNBC shows, I learned the last Democratic president to receive the majority of the white vote was Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. Gee, now what happened in 1964? Thinking … thinking …

From a presidential perspective, that doesn’t seem to matter: we’ve had several Democratic presidents who managed to get elected without white peoples’ votes. Here’s a nice little run-down. We even managed to have majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate during that time period. So I’m really not too worried about my party losing white voters. If all they want to do is whine about how they have to share their toys, well, let the Republicans have them.

At some point this is all going to change, though. The generation that remembers when they owned the playground is going to die off and a new generation will take over. These will be people who grew up at a time when everyone played together; they weren’t alive at a time when others suddenly got the same rights and privileges they’d been enjoying for decades. That all happened long before they were born. It will be interesting to see what America is like when that happens.

I’m Not Your Smile Monkey

We’ve all been there, amiright right ladies? You’re walking down the street, or in a grocery store, or at the post office, or any old place, really; you’re going about your day (and maybe it was a shitty day, maybe it wasn’t), and you’re thinking whatever you’re thinking, wrapped up in your own business, because the one thing you are not worried about in that moment is what some asshole loser guy thinks about you. And right then the asshole loser guy comes up to you and says, “Smile!”

How much do you want to pop that guy in the nose in that moment? And how much self-restraint does it take to not go full-shrill and tell him to mind his own fucking business and if he doesn’t like your sourpuss face, look at someone else?

This happened to me a lot when I was younger and hotter. Fellas, let me tell you now: if this is your pick-up line, you are Doing. It. Wrong.

“Smile!” is right up there with, “When’s the baby due?” when you’re not pregnant. If I want to smile I’ll fucking smile, okay? And if I don’t, I won’t, and it’s none of your goddamn business how, or why, or when. I’m not here to be your scenery.

I think I speak for all women when I say, Fuck you, asshole. I’m not your smile monkey. Go get some goddamn manners.

So yes, the backlash against Joe Scarborough for Tweeting at Hillary Clinton to “smile” last night is very richly deserved. He actually had the temerity to monitor her facial expressions? We weren’t put on earth to be your set decoration, guys. Ditto the other right-wing assholes who didn’t like the sound of Hillary’s voice. News flash: we don’t give a fuck what you think of our facial expressions, the volume of our voice, or any other aspect of our physical selves. Now go into the kitchen and make me a goddamn sandwich.

The #SmileForJoe hashtag on Twitter is just the kind of smackdown these pompous douche canoes deserve. There’s some brilliant stuff over there. Check it out.

With Friends Like These …

[UPDATE] 2:

And now for Rep. Littleton’s side of the story, via the Nashville Scene:

“Everyone has had a bad experience with service at some point when dining out at a restaurant. It is unfortunate that my private note to the server regarding the quality of service in this instance was made public. Due to the overall experience that evening, I decided not to provide a tip.”

I’m calling bullshit. If the service was poor, why write “sorry”? Why not write, “poor service” or something of that nature?

Let me add, I’ve certainly experienced poor service at a restaurant before, but even I have never refused to tip completely. If the service is really poor I might leave a small amount. But usually my issues with restaurants have been management-related, not server-related (poor quality food, something nasty in my food, etc.) That’s not the server’s fault.

Anyway, an apparent ironic twist to this story is the server is a former constituent of Littleton’s. Which begs the question: when constituents receive poor service from their legislative reps, can we dock their pay?

——————————-

[UPDATE]:

It appears Rep. Littleton dined with a friend, fellow Republican Tilman Goins of Morristown:

And he wasn’t even sorry. What a douche canoe.

——————————————-

Tennessee Republicans are a pretty horrid lot and nothing illustrates that better than this slap in the face a server at a downtown Nashville Hooter’s received from Republican Rep. Mary Littleton of Cheatham County (a suburb of Nashville):

“Sorry”? What is this poor server supposed to do with your “sorry”? Pay her rent or student loans or put food on the table?

Honestly, Republicans should just stop trying to pretend they’re friends to working people. I love that Littleton is a member of the Church of Christ. Maybe she needs to go to more Bible study.

Ironically, Tennessee Republican Rep. Susan Lynn was just in the news for fighting against an equal pay bill, saying it “wasn’t necessary.” And then we have Mary Littleton not giving a tip to a server. I guess the message is, stay poor.

Don’t Shush Me, Bro

It seems the only thing of importance that happened at last night’s Democratic debate is that Hillary Clinton interrupted Bernie Sanders and he shushed her. This has erupted into a big debate on the Twitters and Facespace thing, but I actually think it’s an important topic we need to discuss.

The rules of communication are different for women and men.

Here’s the deal, guys: women don’t like to be shushed. At all. If my husband ever tells me to be quiet or shush — yes, it’s happened — it elicits an intense, visceral, negative response. It makes me furious. And when it happens in a professional setting? It pushes every feminist button I own.

Why? Because you’re telling me I’m not important. You’re discounting me. You’re saying my ideas don’t matter, and that I don’t have the right to express them.

Men interrupt each other all the time and I daresay they don’t have that same response. It’s just how they communicate. But men and women come at communication from very different places.

The way we communicate is one of the many subtle ways women are expected to take a subservient role in society. I know it looks like we’ve come a long way, baby — hey we can vote and wear pants, huzzah — but when you look at basic social interactions, we’re constantly sent the contradictory message that we are second place. We get talked over, our ideas don’t matter, our issues aren’t important to the country at large they’re “women’s issues,” so who really gives a shit. Our work is worth less. Our effort is less valuable. This is the world from a professional woman’s point of view.

“But Beale,” you say, “Hillary interrupted him.” Yes, she did. Of course she did. And this is another thing about the difference between male and female communication: professional women always have to assert themselves to express their opinion. Because women are talked over all the damn time, it’s something we’ve lived with for generations, and many of us have learned how to interrupt if we want to say something.

I’ve become a really brazen interrupter, I am the first to admit it. Because if I don’t, I don’t get to speak!

Men interrupt each other all the time. And they are okay with each other doing it. It’s how they talk. When women assert their right to express themselves, we’re shushed. I’m pretty sure you guys don’t even realize you’re doing it, but we notice it, and we don’t like it. Because again, you’re telling us we don’t matter and our opinions aren’t important. You’re not recognizing our right to express them. I know it’s subtle — subconscious even — but it’s there.

This morning I was asked, “Well, what would you have done if you were speaking and a man interrupted you?” I’d have let him, of course. That’s what we women always do when we’re interrupted, most of the time. It’s how we’re socialized to behave. If we don’t we’re rude, bossy, brassy, bitchy, too aggressive. That’s the world, people.

As a professional woman I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in meetings where I’ve had to assert my right to express my opinion. And that means interrupting. I’ve become a master interrupter, and it’s not a pretty habit, but if I want to speak, that’s how it happens. Too often, it’s different when a woman does it than when a man does it. That is my experience.

I’m sure this sounds really unfair to a lot of men out there. Women should be allowed to interrupt but they shouldn’t be called on it? What was Bernie supposed to do?

Well, life isn’t fair, guys. Bernie could have raised his hand, or that infamous waggling finger of his, as a sort of “placeholder” social cue. I’ve seen men do that, and it’s not a shush, it’s a “I want to respond to that.”

One thing I’ve noticed Republican woman do — Liz Cheney is really expert at this — is that they just talk without pausing. Liz Cheney literally never comes up for air once she gets going. I’m sure these women have received media training for this, and I’m sure this is a big reason why they basically recite talking points. It’s really hard to speak without pausing and also do so extemporaneously (see Palin, Sarah — someone else who speaks without pausing but she ends up coming off like a ditz.)

This is a real thing, people. If you ever watch Bill Maher’s show, you will see it in action. There’s always one woman on the panel and she never gets to speak unless she interrupts. The men interrupt each other all the time but when women do it, it’s rude, so many women are reluctant to assert that right. And once we do get going you’d better not pause for air or else you’ll get interrupted in turn, which isn’t rude when it happens to you, only when you do it.

Something to think about. Have at it.

Rep. Sherry Jones Files “Viagra Bill”

I’m sure you’ve by now heard of the Kentucky state legislator who has filed a bill requiring a note from the wife of any man seeking a Viagra prescription. Rep. Mary Lou Marzian says the legislation,

…is merely an effort to protect men’s health and ensure they are informed about a drug with potentially dangerous side effects.

“I want to protect these men from themselves,” said Marzian, a nurse.

Well of course! Marzian, who is pro-choice, is merely echoing what we ladies hear from male politicians telling us we need to get transvaginal ultrasounds before obtaining an abortion, and abortion clinics must meet higher surgical standards than many plastic surgery suites, etc. It’s all for our own good.

Also:

HB 396 also specifies that only married men may obtain the drug and requires “a man to make a sworn statement with his hand on a Bible that he will only use a prescription for a drug for erectile dysfunction when having sexual relations with his current spouse.”

“This is about family values,” Marzian said.

Hard to argue with that one, right? Aren’t Republicans concerned about the American family?

So I was absolutely thrilled to learn that Tennessee’s Rep. Sherry Jones has her own “Viagra bill” making its way through the legislature, and that it apparently passed out of the insurance and banking committee and will move on to the health subcommittee. It already has a sponsor in the Senate, by the way.

HB 1927 reads, in part:

Before issuing a prescription for a drug intended to treat symptoms of erectile dysfunction, a physician shall:

(i) Obtain from the patient a notarized affidavit in which at least one of the patient’s sexual partners affirms that the patient has experienced symptoms of erectile dysfunction during the ninety (90) days preceding the affidavit’s date, if he has never been married, emancipated by a court, or otherwise freed from the care, custody, and control of his parents;

(ii) Conduct a cardiac stress test and obtain a result, described in writing, indicating that the patient’s cardiac health is compatible with sexual activity;

(iii) Notify the patient in writing of the potential risks and complications associated with taking drugs intended to treat erectile dysfunction, as well as provide alternatives to erectile dysfunction medications, counseling regarding erectile dysfunction, and possible physical and psychological risks of taking erectile dysfunction medications, and obtain the patient’s signature on a form acknowledging the patient’s receipt of the notification; […]

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. You know men never read directions or label warnings. Someone needs to help these poor dears. ED is a known “red flag” for heart disease, the number one killer of American men, after all.

There’s more. To get a refill, under this legislation, the ED patient has a few more hoops to jump through:

(A) Require the patient to be seen in-person by the physician in an office visit for prescribing each refill;

(B) Require the patient to undergo a cardiac stress test every ninety (90) days while the patient is taking the drug to ensure that the patient’s cardiac health continues to be compatible with sexual activity; and

(C) Require the patient to attend three (3) sessions of outpatient counseling within a period of not less than six (6) months after the drug initially is prescribed to ensure the patient’s understanding of the dangerous side effects of drugs intended to treat the symptoms of erectile dysfunction and which counseling includes information on nonpharmaceutical treatments for erectile dysfunction, including sexual counseling and resources for patients to pursue celibacy as a viable lifestyle choice. […]

Again, all perfectly reasonable, don’t you think? According to a recent study,

If every man with erectile dysfunction were screened for heart disease, more than a million events like heart attack or stroke could be avoided over 20 years and more than $21 billion saved, according to a new estimate.

Why, this legislation is a virtual life-saver! But wait, there’s more:

SECTION 2. Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 8, Chapter 27, Part 2, is amended by adding the following as a new section to be appropriately designated:

The group insurance plan for employees under this part shall not cover drugs intended to treat erectile dysfunction as a benefit.

SECTION 3. Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 9-4-5116, is amended by designating the existing language as subsection (a) and adding the following as a new subsection (b):
(b) No state funds shall be expended to pay for drugs prescribed to treat erectile dysfunction unless the expenditure for the drug is required by federal law. SECTION 4. This act shall take effect July 1, 2016, the public welfare requiring it.

Well, this all seems to make perfect sense to me. I think we should insist that the male citizens of Tennessee be protected and fully informed about these dangerous ED drugs. What could possibly be wrong with them receiving information, be required to get regular cardiac screening, and prevent the people of the State of Tennessee from paying for them?

What do you say, ladies?

Weary Of This Primary

I’ve had enough of this primary. The media has been flogging it since, well, Obama’s last inauguration, if we’re going to be honest. The past 6-8 months have worn me out. And I have lost patience for the thin-skinned followers of St. Bernard — not all of them, of course, but a certain faction of rabid Hillary-haters, the reactionary ones who have decided they will define “progressivism” for the rest of us (including those of us who were working the trenches when many of them were still playing with crayons.)

I have no patience for bullshit from “progressive” outlets like this:

Madeleine Albright Throws Shade To Young, Female Voters

No, she didn’t, Talking Points Memo, and you know better. She repeated a quote she’s been saying for years. Years. In fact, she’s been saying this so long, it’s been featured on a Starbucks cup and mangled by Sarah Palin:

This entire nonsense is being ginned up by the media, desperate to divide liberals because it’s so much more interesting and profitable for them when people are at each other’s throats. Lots more advertising money coming their way, amiright? So no, I will not tolerate anyone smearing Madeleine Albright because their fee-fees got hurt. Grow up.

And since I’m on my soap box about fake controversies, I really don’t get what the big deal is with Hillary Clinton’s speeches. Every public official makes speeches for money to various civic groups, business groups, corporate retreats, etc. There is an entire industry devoted to this. Higher profile individuals (like a former First Lady, U.S. Senator and Secretary of State) get bigger paychecks. Republicans do it. Democrats do it. Progressives do it. Tea Partiers do it.

Here’s one of Hillary’s Goldman Sachs speeches which supposedly makes her a Wall Street puppet: she was the main speaker at Goldman Sachs’ “10,000 Women” dinner, an “investing in women and girls” initiative that the firm started in 2008.

Clinton’s topic? Perhaps it was the Rothschild banking conspiracy? Or, “How to screw the poor?” Maybe she revealed details on how she plans to turn the Oval Office over to Wall Street when she’s president? No. It was “Proving the Case for Women Entrepreneurs.”

In fact, Hillary Clinton is represented by a speaker’s bureau. You know who’s represented by the same speaker’s bureau? Bernie Sanders. His All American Speakers bio says he talks about education and Jewish issues. Good for him, I bet they’re great speeches. Maybe someone can go through the 60,000+ YouTube videos of Sanders’ appearances and find one that I can post. I don’t have the time.

I don’t have the time for any of this shit. The reality is, there’s very little difference between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. In the two years they were in the Senate together, they voted the same 93% of the time.

I’m really tired of the demonization of Hillary Clinton. And please stop telling me “both sides do it,” because I’m not seeing nearly the headlines in mainstream media outlets targeting Sanders that I see coming from the other side. Did someone say something mean on Twitter? Yeah, sure. But I’m talking New York Times headlines and Talking Point Memo posts.

Bernie Sanders is the shiny-sparkly new thing, so a certain amount of media adoration is to be expected at this point. But just you wait, the MSM will lose interest just as it always does. The media loves nothing more than to smack down that which it has built up. “Dean Scream,” anybody? And I can just see it now, Hillary Clinton will get blamed for that, too. I’m already seeing people blame her for the more offensive “Bernie Bros” on social media, calling them “Clinton plants.” Seriosuly, people? You’ve got to be kidding me.

I just don’t have the patience for this bullshit, at all. Knock it off, and grow the fuck up. There is too much at stake here for us to be behaving this way.

Big Government, Liars & Abortion

Government is sooooo teeensy weensy teeny tiny in the State of North Carolina that doctors performing abortions must send their required-by-law ultrasounds to the state:

Per The New York Times, doctors who perform abortions at or after the 16-week mark must send North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services “the method used to determine the ‘probable gestational age’ of the fetus, the measurements used to support the assertion and, most controversially, an ultrasound showing the measurements.” The law states that this information is being collected for “statistical purposes only,” and that patients’ and doctors’ names will remain confidential.

But Melissa Reed, the director of Planned Parenthood Votes! South Atlantic, argues that the law, which went into effect on January 1, is “medically unnecessary and purely politically driven. The true intent of the law is clear—to shame women and intimidate the doctors that care for them.”

Anti-abortion activist Tami L. Fitzgerald, who consulted on the bill with Republicans in the legislature, told the Times that the law should “act as a deterrent to the doctors themselves from lying about gestational age. The state has made a public policy decision that babies after 20 weeks have a right to live. So this law is about protecting the rights of those unborn babies.”

Why would doctors lie about gestational age? Just for kicks?

Several years ago I did a blog post where I recounted a conversation I had with my own ob/gyn about mandatory ultrasound regulations the state of Tennessee was proposing, as well as other healthcare issues currently being debated nationally. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why doctors were remaining quiet on an issue that affected their business.

From the 2013 archive:

[…] I asked her if she was aware that there were bills in the legislature requiring women to get an ultrasound before receiving an abortion.

“Really?!” She seemed genuinely surprised. Jesus, lady! I wanted to scream. You’re a gynecologist! This is your field! Don’t you pay attention to what legislators are doing affecting your own business?

I asked if there was any medical reason why this procedure would be necessary. “They need to do it,” she said, “to determine the age of the fetus.”

“But what if a woman is positive that it’s within the first trimester?”

“They still need to do it, to make sure.”

“To make sure?”

“To make sure she’s telling the truth.”

So, ultrasounds are needed to make sure women are telling the truth. This was my own doctor of going on 20-something years telling me this. And now, we have taken that idea to its next logical place: state government bureaucrats must review these ultrasounds becase the doctors might be lying.

Oh and also, “statistical purposes.” Right. (Statistics? Seriously? Of what?)

Where do we go from there? I have to think we’ll need some kind of federal oversight, don’t you? In case the state government bureaucrats are lying, especially if one of those ‘bortion lovin’ LIEberals gets in the governor’s office, right? Could happen! You know it could!

I mean, why not? If a universal background check is the first step towards Obama coming to confiscate everyone’s guns with his magic gun-grabbing super magnet device, how is this not the first step toward fascism?

If government has to check an ultrasound because they think a doctor might be lying about a fetus’ gestational age, and that ultrasound itself is required because the government thinks a woman might be lying about gestational age, it’s not a big leap to assume everyone is lying about everything and the government better just Big Brother-up on everything. Amiright?

Battle Of The Sexes

What is it with Conservatives these days? They seem to have come down with a terrible case of Truth Tourettes — you know, like how Rep. Kevin McCarthy accidentally told the truth about the Benghazi Committee really being about taking down Hillary Clinton?

Now we have Dr. Monica Miller of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, the group organizing anti-Planned Parenthood rallies all around the country, telling the truth about the attacks on Planned Parenthood:

“Planned Parenthood from the top to the bottom is a corrupt organization,” Miller told Ave Maria Radio’s Teresa Tomeo, “corrupt in its view of the sanctity of human life and corrupt in its view of human sexuality. And I say even if Planned Parenthood didn’t perform one single abortion, just the mere fact that its sexual ethic is corrupted means right there, should be the reason right there, that they should not receive any federal money. The kind of sexual ethic that Planned Parenthood promotes is sex for recreation, sex for mere pleasure.”

Sex for pleasure? Quelle horreur! Perhaps she’d like us to adopt female circumcision and nip that in the bud, so to speak?

So, are we clear? The attacks on Planned Parenthood aren’t about abortion. It’s about controlling women’s sexual freedom. It’s about controlling women’s sex lives.

She forgot to use her indoor voice.

Of course, we on the Left have been saying this forever. That’s why right-wingers have been attacking birth control, after all. They just don’t want women getting it on. They are trying to undo the sexual revolution which started, oh, 50-plus years ago. They rail against “consequence-free sex” and talk about babies and life and all that other stuff but really it’s about controlling women. That’s why so many of the movement’s leaders are men, after all.

There is a deeply-rooted womb-envy among certain penis-enhanced members of the human species, and it plays out on the political field as controlling women’s reproduction. This is not a new thing, after all. This has been going on for thousands of years. As I wrote back in 2011:

Look fellas, I’m sorry you lack the plumbing that would enable you to get pregnant, gestate and give birth and all that. I’ve long suspected your inability to create life in the same way we ladies do has been a source of equal amounts fascination and disgust on your parts for thousands of years. Grow the fuck up already.

You know, I can’t imagine what it’s like to have my reproductive organs flying around loose in the breeze where any predator, fungus or hunting accident could come along and snip it all off, making me evolutionarily irrelevant. That’s a hard burden to bear, a not-so-subtle reminder of how biologically dispensable you guys really are. There are always more males out there willing to spread their seed; it’s the female of the species who carries the burden of the species’ survival. We’re the ones who not only bear the young but care for them as well.

This isn’t me talking feminist claptrap, this is basic evolutionary biology: the bird that’s going to get snapped up at the feeder is the bright red highly visible male cardinal, not the drab brown female blessed with a natural protective camouflage. She’s more important in the grand scheme, which is why she’s been given this protection. God I know that chaps y’all’s ass big time.

It’s the battle of the sexes, played out over thousands of years. Men are bigger and stronger and take down a mammoth but for all your bravado it’s we women who keep the species going. And you’re just dying to control that, too.

Women usually win these battles, though. Man smart, woman smarter. Except those dumb-fucks like Monica Miller playing for the wrong team. Except Dr. Miller forgot that other people were listening when she spilled the beans on what the fundies really hate about Planned Parenthood. They hate the sex part.

You know what, Dr. Miller? If you don’t want to have sex, or non-procreative sex, please don’t. Please have a monumental migraine every fucking night of your life. But stop forcing everyone else to live your miserable life.

Maybe David Fowler Should Just Shut Up Already

Here’s an interesting admission from David Fowler, the far-right religious nut who heads the Family Action Council Tennessee:

It happened on a family rafting trip in North Carolina.

David Fowler’s daughter went into the bathroom and never came back out. He sent his wife in to investigate and was later told his daughter had begun menstruation.

“For me, at the time, it was a relief my wife was there to handle a situation I felt utterly incapable of addressing,” Fowler said.

“It truly took both of us to raise our daughter; one without the other would have been a total disaster. My daughter might still think it was a total disaster,” he said with a laugh.

Fowler’s inability to deal with his daughter’s first period is supposed to be the reason we can’t let gays marry, which seems rather weird and not relevant. Should we remove all children from single-parent households, then? But beyond the illogic of his argument as relates to marriage equality, I have another question:

If David Fowler can’t handle his own daughter’s menarche, WHY THE FUCK HAS HE SPENT HIS ENTIRE CAREER TRYING TO LEGISLATE WOMEN’S REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS????????!!!!!!

Just Go. The Fuck. Away.