The Undead Crappy First Draft

I am not revising. I’m just tacking a different ending, complete with stripper poles, onto the last ending. The first ending just did not have the right… something. Though it’s still there, so I can borrow from it if I need to.

And I’m still feeling like a huge failure and that I’ve set a task for myself I can only fail at in spectacular and embarrassing ways.

And yet, I plod on. I can’t really say why. But I’m glad for it, really. I mean, I know me sitting around moaning about how much I suck doesn’t seem like gladness and it’s not. But I’m glad that part of me will be dragged kicking and screaming to work, still.

And How Will This Be Constitutional?

Honestly, is it so hard to ask these yahoos who propose laws in our state to outline, even briefly, how they think they’re going to hold up in court? The state legislature is trying to pass a bill that would require all state schools to allow religious organizations that receive school funding to discriminate in who holds their leadership positions. This is in response to Vanderbilt now enforcing a rule that organizations that receive school funding cannot discriminate in who holds leadership positions. So, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes could have an atheist treasurer at Vanderbilt if said atheist got enough votes.

Now, I love Vanderbilt. Don’t get me wrong. And they can and often do wonderful things for great reasons. But they would not have a.) had this rule or b.) started more strictly enforcing it unless they felt it was going to cost them money at some point. I have no inside knowledge of that. I’m just speaking the truth. A staid slow-changing institution doesn’t suddenly go “Oh, hey, big change, happening quickly!” unless something is forcing it.

And while I would have loved for the state legislature to look into this to see why a slow-moving institution would switch course so rapidly, to see if there was some legal liability they might face by not changing, before the state legislature possibly opened all the state universities to that legal liability, I know that’s wishful thinking. So, instead, I’d just like to hear how the State thinks it can defend this law in Federal court. If you have to be Christian to serve in the leadership of a Christian organization at a State school, then someone, acting in the capacity of the state, is going to have to make a decision on who’s Christian.

Once the state is in the business of defining who isn’t and is a Christian, as if the state is the ultimate religious authority, it seems to me you run into church/state issues and the State is clearly going to be in the wrong.

If we have to have fiscal notes on bills, can’t we have legal notes on bills just outlining possible legal challenges the bills might face? And then folks can explain how they think those legal challenges are going to be overcome.

Because you know it’s not going to be the atheist at UT who can’t be the treasurer of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. It’s going to be the Jehovah’s Witness or the Mormon or the Catholic kid.

And that’s going to be ugly.

Tell It

1. On the one hand, I find this upsetting. On the other hand, I surely don’t want my employer to tell me what I can and can’t blog about. AND I think this is useful information for the public to have.

2. Hey, Fitzhugh, at least Governor Baby read your bill.

3. A man talks men. I do think a lot about my boobs, but only because they are constantly doing dumbass shit.

4. I think I have a piece in the real Scene tomorrow. I’m excited to see what photos they have. So be on the look-out for that. I will have to treat myself to lunch some place where I can grab a bunch of copies.

One last thing

I’ve been thinking about how my brothers would have beat up any stranger who was following them in the dark, who got out of his vehicle and started asking them questions. Of course they would have.

The amount of “stranger danger” that we had drilled into our heads as kids, coupled with the amount of creepy behavior we got to see thanks to my dad’s job?

There is no way that they would not, had they been in Trayvon Martin’s shoes, fought Zimmerman.

But I heard this morning that the police who arrived on the scene wanted to charge Zimmerman with manslaughter, but the District Attorney (or State’s Attorney, whatever they have in Florida) declined and there was some speculation that he declined because of his friendship/acquaintance with Zimmerman’s dad.

And I know that well, too. My dad tried, when they were younger (though there seems to have been a change in policy) to make my brothers face the legal consequences for their actions. There just weren’t always legal consequences. They just mysteriously failed to materialize.

I don’t really have anything profound to say except that, yes, this is how the world works.