October 2, 2018

Major Hindu Temple Can't Ban Menstruating Women, India's Supreme Court Rules

Major Hindu Temple Can’t Ban Menstruating Women, India’s Supreme Court Rules
Kerala’s Sabarimala Temple will be open to all women, regardless of whether they might be on their period.
headshot

India’s Supreme Court has lifted a centuries-old ban on women who could potentially be on their periods from entering a popular Hindu pilgrimage site.

Chief Justice Dipak Misra said in the 4-1 ruling Friday that Sabarimala Temple’s restrictions on women could not be considered an essential religious practice.

“All devotees are equal, and there cannot be any discrimination on the basis of gender,” Misra said, according to NDTV.

D.Y. Chandrachud, a Supreme Court justice who concurred with Misra, said that religion can’t be “the cover to deny women the right to worship.”

“To treat women as children of a lesser God is to blink at constitutional morality,” Chandrachud said.

The ruling was the latest in a series of landmark progressive decisions from India’s top court. On Thursday, the court struck down a colonial-era law about adultery. Last month, the Supreme Court decriminalized gay sex.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/prominent-hindu-temple-cant-ban-menstruating-women-indian-supreme-court-rules_us_5bb28495e4b027da00d67d10

In the meantime, Kerala’s government will be attempting to make the temple more accommodating for female devotees, according to NDTV ― installing separate washrooms and baths and increasing the number of female police officers at the site.

Other Indian religious sites have also been opened up to women through recent court cases. In 2016, the Hindu temple Shani Shingnapur and the Muslim Haji Ali shrine in the state of Maharashtra were both independently ordered to lift their gender-based bans, according to the BBC.

Sadhana, an American coalition of progressive Hindus, called the Supreme Court’s decision an “important and progressive step in removing the stigma around menstruation in Hindu communities.”

“No human is pure or impure in the eyes of god,” the coalition wrote on Facebook. “We are all divine.”

October 1, 2018

Trump today with his big piehole

October 1, 2018

Trump commends Kavanaugh for admitting he had a drinking problem. There's just one problem.

Trump commends Kavanaugh for admitting he had a drinking problem. There’s just one problem.
Putting words in his mouth.

During a news conference on Monday, President Trump commended Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh for admitting he had a drinking problem in high school, and questioned whether sexual assaults committed by teenagers should disqualify them from public service 36 years later.

“I watched him, I was surprised how vocal he was about the fact that he likes beer, and he’s had a little bit of difficulty,” Trump said at one point. “He talked about things that happened when he drank, I mean — this is not a man who said he is perfect with respect to alcohol.”

---------------

There’s just one problem — Kavanaugh admitted to neither of those things during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last Thursday. Although he mentioned beer an astounding 29 times during the hearing, Kavanaugh insisted he did not and does not have a drinking problem.

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-kavanaugh-high-school-drinking-news-conference-5ea9cb870556/

October 1, 2018

Judge Kavanaugh Is One Angry Man

?quality=90&auto=webp

That choice confronts any public figure, but judges are constrained in their permissible responses. It is true the accusations have indelibly tainted Judge Kavanaugh. That the truth appears to be unknowable with objective certainty adds an element of tragedy to the situation.

But it is equally true that Judge Kavanaugh’s response to the allegations has tainted his qualifications for the office he seeks. If he is confirmed, it will also taint the institution he hopes to join and not only because his opponents — they, too, are combatants in this continual war — will use it to question every vote he casts on the court that even vaguely touches on a political issue.

There is, again, no glory to be had. Perhaps the F.B.I. will uncover useful evidence about what happened 36 years ago. But to advise and consent to his nomination, the issue the Senate must resolve is not merely how Brett Kavanaugh behaved in 1982. It is how Judge Kavanaugh comported himself in 2018, on television. Whatever else we can say, he did not act like a justice of the highest court in the land.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/opinion/kavanaugh-supreme-court-senate-hearing.html?action=click&module=Trending&pgtype=Article®ion=Footer&contentCollection=Trending

October 1, 2018

Kavanaugh denies Jane Doe rape charge

An anonymous woman accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of repeatedly raping her while they were both teenagers, it emerged Monday.

Kavanaugh, she says, lifted her sweater and bra and digitally penetrated her, and then violently raped her 'several times' along with a friend who followed suit – before striking her and saying no one would believe her if she talked publicly about it.

'Be a good girl,' she claims Kavanaugh told her.

It's the third such claim – and by far the most aggressive one – to reach the Senate Judiciary Committee without a name attached, and without citing the place or time of an allegation.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6227585/Jane-Doe-accuses-Brett-Kavanaugh-raping-times-calls-B-S.html

October 1, 2018

Bar fight triggered by man's shirt.. patrons thought it signified Proud Boy's membership

https://nypost.com/video/bar-patrons-thought-this-mans-shirt-was-racist-so-they-beat-him-up/