It's the height of chutzpah to lecture Jewish people on the sanctity of life

Yesterday I wrote that a girl in Utah who was sued because she won a sporting event and the second and third place contestants accused her of being transgender because she wasn’t feminine enough. Marissa Higgins of Daily Kos wrote that the families of three trans students challenged the ban (separate from the incident above) and a judge paused the ban until the legal challenges are resolved. Alas, things still are not cool in Utah. The law had two parts and the judge paused the first. That brings the second part into play. Higgins wrote:

Trans girls who want to play on girls' teams will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis to determine their eligibility. Who determines this? A commission created by Republican lawmakers and filled with political appointees.

That sounds even more humiliating and traumatizing than simply being told no. Higgins also reported that a three judge panel in the Federal Court of Appeals ruled trans folks are protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Kesha Williams had filed a lawsuit because she was housed in a men’s prison. There she was harassed by inmates and guards and her medications to treat her gender dysphoria were denied. Higgins wrote that gender dysphoria can be a disability. Being transgender, in itself, is not. Joan McCarter of Kos wrote about the situation around the legality of abortion in Michigan. I’ll try to wade through the details. There is a 1931 law on the books that bans abortion in Michigan. It hasn’t been enforced since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. Governor Gretchen Whitmer, seeing the leaked draft written by Justice Alito, asked the Michigan Supreme Court to rule that the 1931 law is incompatible with the state constitution that was approved by voters in the 1960s. The governor can bypass the lower courts and make that request because she is the governor. The Supremes have not yet responded. Whitmer and Planned Parenthood together filed suit working the normal way through the courts. A lower court blocked enforcement of the law. On August 1 the Michigan Court of Appeals reversed that ruling, leaving providers confused. Yesterday, an Oakland County judge reinstated the block and much of McCarter’s post is about all the good things in his decision. That block lasts through the November election. I’m not clear what kind of court that Oakland County judge works in, so I don’t know how it can replace what the Michigan Court of Appeals decided. A big reason for this last decision has to do with another factor in play. A citizens group turned in 750,000 signatures to put abortion protections into the state constitution. The proposal has not yet been finalized. However, if it does appear on the ballot (and 750,000 people will be mighty pissed off if it doesn’t) and voters approve it, the judges don’t have to do anything. And that’s best for democracy. Of course, Republicans are going to appeal that Oakland County judge’s decision. A few more abortion related posts that have been in my browser tabs for a couple weeks or more. In a post from two weeks ago jazzed of the Kos community reported that physician recruiters for jobs in red states are getting a lot noes. Candidates do not want to practice in states where abortion is banned. One recruiter talked to an OB/GYN resident in New Mexico who had attended medical school in New Orleans about returning to Louisiana. She wanted abortion care to be part of her practice, so returning to Louisiana is no longer an option. This post said that since Indiana passed its abortion ban big pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly announced it will expand employment growth outside Indiana. I later heard that statement by Eli Lilly isn’t as great as it sounds. It seems company leadership said *nothing* while the ban was being debated in the Indiana legislature – and this wasn’t one of those sneak legislative attacks, so they had plenty of time to make their view known. They only spoke up after the bill was signed. Also from two weeks ago Charles Jay of the Kos community wrote “A rabbi, a reverend, and a Buddhist lama ...” which sounds like it might be the start of a joke. But – no joke – seven faith leaders, who are Reformed Jewish, Buddhist, Episcopalian, Unitarian, and United Church of Christ, all from South Florida filed a lawsuit against Florida’s ban on abortion. They say it is violates their rights of free speech, religious exercise, and the separation of church and state. The ban was driven by the religious right and there are a lot of other people with deeply held religious beliefs who are burdened by the ban, whose religious teachings on abortion cannot be followed. It is “theocratic tyranny.” Rabbi Barry Silver of Palm Beach said:

It's the height of chutzpah for people to tell the Jewish people what the Bible means and lecture the Jewish people on the sanctity of life.

Michael Harriot, a black man, wrote a thread to discuss the Minneapolis Teachers Union and their plan to lay off teachers. The plan to protect teachers of color from being fired first is, of course, being decried as a racist “fire whites first” policy. Yes, it is a race-based decision. But it is still appropriate and a good thing. Harriot gave several reasons. Where was the outrage when the school system made race-based hiring decisions? The school system is not doing well – 90% of black students are failing math, 80% of students of color read below grade level. People are leaving in record numbers – and that’s with white people in control of a system white people created.

Students of color learn better with teachers of color. They behave better. They are more emotionally stable. They actually perform better on tests. ... That's not an opinion. It's backed by research. ... Black males are less likely to drop out when they have Black teachers. White teachers discipline non-white students more harshly & more often. Yet, for years MPS made black students sacrifice their education for white teachers & students' advantage. ... There are Black kids in the prison system because of MPS' race-based decisions. People are stuck in poverty because of it. People DIE bc of it.

Because of the district’s finances, they have to fire some teachers. Since white teachers earn more firing white teachers makes financial sense. Not laying off white teachers because they are white is also a race-based decision.