A San Francisco judge has struck an anti-circumcision measure from the city's November ballot.  The measure would have banned non-medical circumcision of male children.  Superior Court judge Loretta Giorgi said the proposed law violated the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of religious freedom. San Francisco would have been the first U.S. city to hold a public vote on outlawing the circumcision of minors.

Michael Kinane, an attorney for the proponents, had argued that circumcision is not usually performed for medical reasons, and that the ballot measure included an exception for medical circumcisions.  The measure did not include exemptions for religious rituals.  The ban's sponsor, anti-circumcision activist Lloyd Schofield, said he is considering an appeal.

Religious groups argued that it is up to parents to decide whether or not to circumcise their children.  Many anti-circumcision activists consider male circumcision just as much a form of genital mutilation as female circumcision.  The US government bans female genital cutting for any non-medical reason.

No professional association of physicians currently recommends routine circumcision, and many argue that it adversely affects penile function and sexual pleasure, is extremely painful, and is a violation of human rights.  The British Medical Association stated in 2006 that "it is now widely accepted, including by the BMA, that this surgical procedure has medical and psychological risks."  A 2002 review by Boyle et al. stated that

"the genitally intact male has thousands of fine touch receptors and other highly erogenous nerve endings—many of which are lost to circumcision, with an inevitable reduction in sexual sensation experienced by circumcised males . . . intercourse is less satisfying for both partners when the man is circumcised."

Neo-natal circumcision was introduced as a way to curb masturbation.  Today, globally 30 per cent of males over 15 are circumcised, and 70 per cent of these are Muslim.  Circumcision is not a condition for converting to Islam or for carrying out religious duties.  Muslim circumcisions are performed as early as 7 days after birth or as late as the onset of puberty and are often done in a medical setting.  Among Jews, ritual circumcision is performed on the 8th day after birth by a man or woman called a mohel, using a knife.  Under Jewish law, a mohel must draw blood from the circumcision wound; some use their mouth for this purpose; the practice has resulted in the spreading of herpes to infants, at least one of which suffered brain damage and another died as a result.

Comic books and trading cards featuring evil Jewish characters distributed by the measure's proponents made the measure even more controversial.

An area of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside has an unusually high number of pedestrian fatalities. So, in it's latest stupid decision,Vancouver city council has voted to reduce the speed limit along six Downton Eastside blocks of East Hastings Street from 50km/h to 30 km/h.  The new slow zone (between the two red marks on the map, left) is a major artery into and out of the downtown core, heavily travelled by buses, cars, taxis and delivery vehicles.

The new slow zone's halfway point is Hastings and Main which, not coincidentally, is also the location of the city's largest open drug market, where narcotics are bought, sold, and consumed openly approximately one block from a large police station and a courthouse.  As anyone who has ever driven along Hastings Street between Cambie Street and Glen Drive will tell you, the issue along the stretch is not speeding drivers, and surveys have confirmed this.  Rather, the problem is the high proportion of junkies, alcoholics and mentally ill people who live and congregate in the area, and who regularly run out into the street without warning or--whether because they're too high or too sick to care about their own safety or anyone else's--simply wander into the road without looking.

Instead of doing something useful, sensible, and effective, such as installing barriers that prevent people from crossing the street except at controlled crosswalks like they do on dangerous streets in other major cities, in its latest idiotic decision, city councilors have decided to punish drivers who are already obeying the law.  Even worse, they have ignored studies going back as far as 1998 which show that changing speed limits on low and moderate speed roads has no significant effect on traffic speed or the number of crashes. 

Of course, new road rules require education and enforcement, and both cost money, but there has been no word on where the money will come from.

Are Torontonians finally realizing they made a mistake with Rob Ford?

The Globe and Mail's Marcus Gee reports that the tide may be turning against Toronto mayor Rob Ford. 

Known for his inappropriate remarks, Ford is coming under increasing fire for controversial behaviour and policies.  First, he boycotted Pride, becoming the first Toronto mayor in years not to attend.  Then he attracted complaints for his handling of the budget review at City Hall.  Residents are growing increasingly uneasy about talk of increasing taxes, cutting street cleaning, and closing public libraries and children's attractions.

Ford's brother, Councillor Doug Ford, has stated that he would close at least one Etobicoke library (he pronounces the word "lie-berry") in a “heartbeat.” When he was reminded that Margaret Atwood is a save-the-libraries campaign supporter, he declared: “she could walk by me, I wouldn’t have a clue who she is.”

Meanwhile, Ottilie Mason claims she was driving on Dundas with her child in the car when she saw Rob Ford talking on his cellphone while driving. When she made a thumbs-down gesture, she says he gave her the finger.  Ford has admitted that he was on the phone but denies making the rude gesture.  Gee reports that when Ford was caught drunkenly shouting insults at an out-of-town couple during a 2006 hockey game, he denied that too, only to admit it later and apologize.

Harper government controls, silences scientists

In another example of how Steve "Detective Stephen" Harper is undermining and silencing scientists, Ottawa bureaucrats are preventing a fisheries scientist who heads a $6 million salmon genetics project at the federal Pacific Biological Station on Vancouver Island from talking about a discovery that could help revive plummeting Canadian salmon stocks, a study potentially so important that journalists from all over the world have been clamouring to speak with her.

The Privy Council Office, the secretariat of the federal cabinet, which provides advice and support to the prime minister and leadership, has allegedly forbidden Kristi Miller from talking about her findings, which have already been published in the top research journal Science. Science considers the work so significant it notified more than 7000 journalists about Miller's "Suffering Salmon" study, advising them to contact her for interviews. 

Not only has the Privy Council Office said no to the interviews, it has also blocked a Fisheries Department news release about the study, and Miller herself is not allowed to speak publicly about her discovery, according to documents obtained by Postmedia News under the Access to Information Act. 

Jeffrey Hutchings, senior fisheries scientist at Halifax's Dalhousie University, said:

"There is no question in my mind it's muzzling. When the lead author of a paper in Science is not permitted to speak about her work, that is suppression. There [are] simply no ifs, ands or buts about that." 

The idiot Harper is known for his government's strict control over federal scientists, whose work is financed by Canadian taxpayers.  Issues have included climate change and the environment, but in one bizarre case last year, scientist Scott Dallimore was forced to wait for "pre-clearance" to speak about a study on a northern Canada flood that occurred at the end of the last ice age.  Under der Diktator's the prime minister's rule, researchers, who have always been free to discuss their projects, are now subject to a complicated protocol of "media lines" and approvals by communications officers, strategists and ministerial staff in Ottawa who vet media requests, demand reporters' questions in advance and dictate when (and if!) researchers may give interview.  Most creepily of all, "media officers" record the few interviews scientists are permitted to give.  It is unknown what the penalties are for scientists who do not comply with these ridiculous Communist dictator-style rules.

The government did release 762 pages of documents relating to the Miller study to Postmedia News following their freedom of information request, but many passages and entire pages were blacked out.

Thousands may not have received BC HST ballots

Image courtesy of FightHST.com

Fight HST leaders are asking the B.C. government to intervene in the referendum on the hated Harmonized Sales Tax, saying thousands of people still haven't received their mail-in ballots. Fight HST strategist Bill Tieleman said:

"We are concerned that literally thousands of British Columbians may not get to vote in this referendum who want to vote." 

Fight HST has received complaints from "hundreds of people who have requested a ballot, but haven't received one."  To be counted in the referendum, ballots must be received by Elections BC by August 5.

Tieleman said that the government should direct Elections BC to ensure that anyone who signs a statutory declaration saying that they requested a ballot but have no received one be allowed to get a ballot and vote.

Eighty-two percent of British Columbians opposed the HST, which was forced through by the Liberals after they claimed they would not do so.

Quote of the day

"[The kind of people who elect Michelle Bachmann:] Scum of the earth. Parts of Michele Bachmann's district contain the most smug, pious, conservative rat-buggering jerks on the planet (like Marcus Bachmann and his anti-gay "clinic", for instance). And the symptoms are beginning to show: the Anoka-Hennepin school district, part of Bachmann's domain, home of the Elmer Gantry-wannabe Bradley Dean, is also the epicenter of an epidemic of teen suicides, 9 in the last two years. These are kids who were bullied for being gay, or suspected of being gay, or not fitting in to the their inbred little community (and who would want to?), and the school district has been acquiescing to pressure from religious groups to maintain a policy of intolerance and even demonization of gays." -- PZ Meyers

Italy rejects anti-discrimination bill

Italy’s parliament has rejected a bill which would have extended protection from discrimination to LGBT people.

The Chamber of Deputies voted July 26.  The result was 250 votes in favour and 293 votes opposed.  Gay rights supporters have called on the European Union to intervene.  Gay couples in Italy cannot marry or adopt children.

Prime minister Silvio Berlusconi opposes gay rights.  He has an extensive record of criminal allegations--including mafia collusion, false accounting, tax fraud, corruption and bribery of police officers and judges--and sexual scandals.

Anti-gay groups seek to reverse NY marriage equality law

Twenty-four hours after New York's first legal same-sex marriages were conducted, New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms has filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn it the marriage equality law.  The group claims the Senate violated the state’s Open Meetings Law and ignored the constitutionally mandated three-day waiting period before a bill can be acted upon.  They also claimed that lawmakers approved the legislation in exchange for campaign contributions from "Wall Street financiers."

Gov. Cuomo's spokesman Josh Vlasto said "The plaintiffs lack a basic understanding of the laws of the state of New York. The suit is without merit.”

Meanwhile, State Senator Ruben Diaz, a minister and the only Democrat to vote against the marriage equality law, said that he would try to get Sunday’s marriages annulled claiming that judges broke the law by waiving the 24-hour waiting period without a good reason.

The Undefeated soundly defeated

Even as Sarah Palin documentary The Undefeated has increased its showings by 40 percent, its box office revenues have declined by more than 63 percent, and the film will soon be available on pay per view.  It played in 14 Tea Party-friendly locations this weekend but grossed an embarrassing $24,000.

Written and directed by Stephen K. Bannon and produced by Victory Film Group co-founder Glenn Bracken Evans and Dan Fleuette, "The Undefeated" was independently financed by Victory Film Group and its partners.

Pakistani Senate condemns LGBT function at US embassy

ISLAMABAD - The Senate has severely condemned the hosting of a gay pride ceremony at the US embassy in Pakistan, and has sent the matter to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs for discussion.

The Committee will determine whether any kind of action could be initiated against the organisers of the LGBT function. One lawmaker from every parliamentary party will sit in the committee.

World headlines were made last month when US Embassy Chargé d’Affaires Ambassador Richard Hoagland and members of Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies (GLIFFA) hosted the first ever LGBT Pride Celebration at the US Embassy in Islamabad on June 26, at which the Chargé d’Affaires addressed the Pakistani LGBT community, acknowledging their struggle for rights.  He said:

“I want to be clear. The US embassy is here to support you and stand by your side every step of the way.”

Pakistan has no laws prohibiting discrimination or harassment on the basis of real or perceived sexual orientation, and no legal recognition of same-sex relationships.  The Pakistan Penal Code of 1860, originally developed under British rule, punishes acts of "sodomy" with imprisonment. Under Articles 377 and 496,

"Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which shall not be less than two years nor more than ten years, and shall also be liable to fine. Penetration is sufficient to constitute the carnal intercourse necessary to the offense described in this section . . . Whoever, dishonestly or with a fraudulent intention, goes through the ceremony of being married, knowing that he is not thereby lawfully married, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years, and shall be liable to fine."

Worse, under Islamic laws, the maximum punishment for sodomy is death.  LGBTs are subject to police blackmail, harassment, fines and threats of imprisonment. 

In condemning the event at the embassy, lawmakers said that homosexuality is against the basic principles of Islam and the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and hence could not be allowed.

City wants to remove viaducts

The City of Vancouver wants to tear down the Georgia and Dunsmuir Street viaducts.  The viaducts are key traffic arteries for commuters who work downtown.

Councillor Geoff Meggs says the area between Yaletown and Chinatown has the potential for  development and green space.  So did the site of BC Place Stadium, one of two underused stadiums in Vancouver's downtown, but the city opted to give it a half-billion dollar face lift instead.  Have we mentioned recently that British Columbia has Canada's highest rate of child poverty?

Meggs claimed:

"Right now Chinatown is cut off and quite isolated from the downtown core, and so is the Downtown Eastside.  This area is poised for change.  We turned down the casino proposal but there will be re-development coming around BC Place and Rogers Arena."

This is, of course, not really true.  As can be easily seen from the map at left, Chinatown and the Downtown East Side are actually directly connected to the downtown peninsula, the only parts of the city that are.  On the north side, one can actually drive along Hastings Street right from Chinatown, through the DTS, and right into the central business district.  On the east side, taking the Dunsmuir Viaduct will take one right from Chinatown to the heart of downtown.

In fact, the Georgia (which is eastbound, out of downtown) and Dunsmuir (northwest-bound, into downtown) Viaducts are two of only four bridges connecting the downtown peninsula with Vancouver (the Lions Gate Bridge connects downtown with North Vancouver).  Removing them will place additional pressure on the Burrard, Granville and Cambie bridges, and Quebec Street/Expo Boulevard (which runs through a residential area and connects with the Cambie Bridge offramp) and Hastings Street.

The current options being considered are ending the viaducts at Main Street, tearing them down altogether, or building ramps to connect Georgia Street with Pacific Boulevard and Dunsmuir Street with Expo Boulevard.

Meggs says that the viaducts were closed during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games with little disruption to the surrounding areas.  This is true.  Meggs fails, however, to note the fact that nearly no private vehicles were permitted to enter or even get near the downtown core during the Olympics, and that even business deliveries were restricted to nighttime and early morning hours, when there was less traffic anyway.  A $300,000 study has already been completed, but the city wants another one.

Gregor "Green at Any Cost" Robertson

Gregor Robertson's pet project, the pointless and underused bike lanes in rainy Vancouver's downtown core, have cost local businesses $2.4 million so far, a loss that is being spun as "relatively moderate."

Charles Gauthier, executive director of the DVBIA, said this “moderate” economic impact cannot be taken lightly:

“It is clear the separated bike lanes do have an economic impact.”

Helen and Bong Chung have owned the Edelweiss Cafe on Hornby for 18 years.  They say business is down 30 per cent because of the bike lane: 

“These bike lanes have not been good for business.” 

The Chungs say they may be forced to close.

The city says the bike lanes should stay while additional data is collected.  Its solution is to "encourage" cyclists to "frequent businesses along the bike routes."

The study shows the bike lanes have resulted in increased travel time, and overall public opposition to the lanes remains the same.

Rachel Maddow on Rick "Frothy Mix" Santorum's Google problem

Stephen "ordinary people don't care about the arts" Harper to appear on "Murdoch"

For reasons nobody understands, Stephen "Lego™ man hair" Harper will appear on tonight's episode of "Murdoch Mysteries."  Canada's supreme dictator for life prime minister is known for his disdain for the arts, cutting $45 million from arts and culture programmes, attempting to limit tax funding for Canadian film productions by denying credits to those with so-called objectionable content, and reducing funding to the CBC.  Meanwhile, the Harper government has hiked spending on military projects like new ‎fighter jets.

The idiot Harper will play a bit role as a desk clerk on tonight's "Murdoch," the latest in a series of bizarre, horrible, and some would argue cynical and calculated attempts to appear interested in and engaged with arts, or at least the popular entertainment scene.  These have included performing embarrassing renditions of classic rock songs at Conservative gala dinners and appearing for reporters with 10 year-old Maria Aragon, a little girl who found sudden internet fame after posting a video of herself singing Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" on YouTube.

The latter performance is one that stands out for its sheer audacity and lack of taste: a hard-right, nationalist, pro-military, religious conservative responsible for millions in arts cuts singing John Lennon's "Imagine," a song whose message goes against everything Harper stands for.  The mind reels.

Luckily that is one video that won't be seen again: it was removed from YouTube for "copyright reasons." Yoko Ono, Lennon's widow and a noted anti-war activist, owns the rights to the song (thousands of other cover versions of remain on YouTube).  You can, however, see a clip of Harper on "Murdoch," if you really want to:



Update: Worst. Episode. Ever.

Bachmann's anti-gay clinic in terrifying glitter attack

That shit is hard to get out.

US anti-gay conservative nutjob Michele Bachmann’s Christian counseling clinic, Bachmann & Associates, was the focus of a glitter attack by a more than a dozen "barbarians" Thursday morning.  The clinic is run by Bachmann's possibly gay husband Marcus, who is on record using the term "barbarians" for LGBT people.

The group was protesting the publicly funded clinic's practice of offering so-called "reparative therapy," an approach rejected by all mainstream science, to "cure" people of their homosexuality.  The clinic has taken in more than $137,000 in government funds despite Bachmann's strong opposition to government involvement in health care.

The group's aim was to glitter "Dr." Marcus Bachmann; since he wasn't available, the "glitterati"  glittered the waiting room instead, shouting, “You can’t pray away the gay — baby, I was born this way!”

Update: watch the whole thing on video:

The religious test

Rob at Waking Up Now has posted another wonderful piece in response to the teacup storm NOM and others are desperately trying to whip up over public servants not wanting to do their jobs (see his excellent earlier comments here).

He suggests a new "talking point":

In New York, you’ve got state employees demanding you pass their personal religious test before they’ll help you. That’s not religious freedom. In fact, it’s the opposite.

It’s quick, to the point, and true. If I were to point out a key phrase, it would be pass their personal religious test, as in:

    * Should you have to pass some bureaucrat’s personal religious test before you get the services your tax dollars paid for?

    [snip]

And if you want to take the conversation further, offer hypotheticals that have nothing to do with gays.

    * Do you want a Town Clerk refusing a marriage license to an interfaith couple because they don’t pass his personal religious test?

    * Do you want a city official turning down your permit for a public gathering because you’ll have dancing and that doesn’t pass her personal religious test?

    * Do you want the zoning committee to turn down your church’s building permit because your faith doesn’t pass their personal religious test?

Go and read the whole thing.

DOMA hearing: US Senator Al Franken smacks down Focus on the Family's Tom Minnery

During today's DOMA debate, Senator Al Franken gave us this delicious smackdown of hate group Focus on the Family's head Tom Minnery.  Enjoy:

Live video: US Senate debates Defense of Marriage Act

Broadcasting live with Ustream

GOProud's Chris Barron on supporting Michelle Bachmann

As we reported yesterday, US gay conservative group GOProud has announced that it will support homophobe Michelle Bachmann if she wins the Republican nomination for president.  Here's the group's founder Chris Barron trying to avoid talking about it:

Quote of the day

"When a brutal homophobe sounds and looks like a parody of a big old queen, suppressing that fact becomes close to impossible."

Read more here.