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ATLANTA (AP) A Texas lawmaker would strip the salaries from government officials who honor same-sex marriage licenses.

Other states would protect government officials who opt out of performing gay nuptials.

In Georgia, where lawmakers are considering a bill that critics fear could allow businesses to discriminate against gay customers, the former head of the country's largest Protestant denomination recently urged lawmakers to rein in "erotic liberty."

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in April and could decide by June whether gay couples can marry, and national opinion polls show U.S. voters increasingly unopposed to gay rights. Yet lawmakers in a handful of states are backing longshot legislation targeting gay rights, doubling down on the culture wars. Most, if not all, of the efforts are led by Republicans.

The bills are more political theatre than serious policy. Few seem to have widespread support among lawmakers, and senior Republicans are not adopting these efforts as their own. In Georgia, well-funded business groups oppose them.

Still, the legislation remains popular with vocal and organized voting blocks in states or parts of the states where they've been proposed. But any political points they score could come at a price.

If the bills' backers manage to force a sharp debate in coming weeks, and the Supreme Court rules in favor of gay marriage a few months later, supporters of the bills would be exposed to criticism that they've been fighting for a fringe issue.

"On no issue during my 40-year career have opinions moved as rapidly as they have on the issue of the morality of gay relationships and ultimately gay marriage," said Whit Ayres, a Republican consultant for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam and the National Rifle Association. "When you have conservative organizations like the U.S. military and the Boy Scouts openly accepting gay members, the debate is close to being over."

Not in Georgia. In a devotional delivered to newly convened lawmakers, the former president of the Southern Baptist Convention urged them to defend the freedom to act on religious beliefs, though he stopped short of endorsing legislation that supporters say would do precisely that.

"We are a living in a society that is on a collision course with a choice between erotic liberty and religious liberty," the Rev. Bryant Wright told lawmakers. "... Your role in government is about restraining sin."

Originally posted here:
GOP presses state bills limiting gay rights before ruling

Then this morning, with a cheeky little wink, who should pop up, but Nicole, 22, from Bournemouth. Cue jubilation from the burly, breast-embracing guardians of free speech. Or 40p nipples. And cue splenetic outrage from the heroic superwomen of feminisms crack no boobs at breakfast brigade.

I like culture wars. I think we need culture wars. The alternative to conflicts over culture is conformity over culture. And any society that finds itself practicing cultural conformity, either by accident or design, has serious issues to address.

But if we are going to have culture wars, could we at least go to war over something substantive? Or heroic? Or maybe even just marginally relevant?

When the scrapping of Page 3 was first reported, it was as if we had witnessed a second Charlie Hebdo. In fact, people literally claimed it was a second Charlie Hebdo. Wheres the 'Je suis Page 3' movement? asked Brendan ONeil, in Spiked. As surely as Islamists want to crush blasphemy, so they want to crush the Sun. I know, not with guns, but certainly with pressure and harassment and shame. And as Ray Bradbury said, Theres more than one way to burn a book.

Yes, but thats the point isnt it. The anti-Page 3 campaigners havent burnt anything. Or shot anyone. You may not agree with them. But they got organised, made their case and won. The Sun is currently having a laugh at their expense. But one day soon Nicole, 22, will put on her top for good.

And will it matter? Will the fact that in 2015, a national newspaper doesnt have a semi-naked woman adorning its pages really usher in a new dark age of press censorship?

If the pro-Page 3 lobby want to wage a culture war or a cultural rearguard action on behalf of the oppressed British male, great. Im with you brother. But why not pick a fight worth having? How about the way the debate about maternity rights constantly overshadows the debate over paternity rights. Or challenging the focus on breast cancer, rather than prostate or testicular cancer. Or question the absence of public awareness campaigns to tackle violent crimes committed against men, when a man is twice as likely to be the victim of such a crime as a woman?

I suspect its because fights like that require a bit too much heavy lifting. Which is why the anti-Page 3 lobby have picked their particular cause as well.

A couple of years ago I wrote about the superficiality of modern feminist campaigning. All nipples, notes and internet trolls. Well, the trolls have been jailed. We have Jane Austen on our ten pound notes. Page 3 is on the way out.

And whats happened? Nothing has happened. Yes, the longest march begins with the smallest step. But 87 years ago feminism was securing universal suffrage. Today its engaged in a game of peekaboo with Rupert Murdoch. So what precisely is the direction of travel here?

Continue reading here:
Page 3: If Britain's going to have a culture war, can it be about something serious?

8 p.m. EST January 22, 2015

Abortion(Photo: Getty Images/Hemera)

WASHINGTON There they go again. Given control of Congress and the chance to frame an economic agenda for the middle class, the first thing Republicans do is tie themselves in knots over ... abortion and rape.

Im not kidding. In a week when President Obama used his State of the Union address to issue a progressive manifesto of bread-and-butter policy proposals, GOP leaders responded by taking up the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. But a vote on the legislation had to be canceled after female GOP House members reportedly balked over the way an exception for pregnancies resulting from rape was limited.

The whole thing was, in sum, your basic 360-degree fiasco.

At least there are some in the party who recognize how much trouble Republicans make for themselves by breaking the armistice in the culture wars and launching battles that cannot be won. It looks as if the nation will have to stand by until GOP realists and ideologues reach some sort of understanding, which may take some time.

Its important to understand that the Pain-Capable bill was never anything more than an act of political fantasy. The only purpose of the planned vote was to create an event that the annual anti-abortion March for Life, held Thursday in Washington, could celebrate.

You might think the demonstrators already had reason to cheer. The abortion rate is at historic lows, having dropped by 13 percent in the decade between 2002 and 2011, according to a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The main reason is that there are fewer unwanted pregnancies, which suggests logically that if Republicans really want to reduce abortion, what they should do is work to increase access to birth control.

More to the point, according to the CDC, only 1.4 percent of abortions take place after 20 weeks. This means the bill, if it somehow became law, would have minimal impact.

But it wont become law, as everyone in Congress well knows. The White House has announced that Obama would veto the measure, if it ever reached his desk. To get that far, the bill would have to pass the Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would have to win over enough Democrats to cross the 60-vote threshold, which is highly unlikely.

Read more here:
ROBINSON: GOP still fighting waron abortion

Far Cry 4 - Walkthrough Part 34 - Culture Wars
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Far Cry 4 - Walkthrough Part 34 - Culture Wars - Video

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Bradley Cooper stars as Chris Kyle, a real-life war hero, in Clint Eastwood's American Sniper.

Everyone involved with this week's most popular movie claims it has nothing to do with politics.

Really, star actor Bradley Cooper stressed over and again in interviews, it doesn't. Director Clint Eastwood's American Sniper simply explains the "plight" of the soldier, he told the Daily Beast, providing a "character study".

But this was no ordinary soldier. This was the late Chris Kyle, the much-mythologised "deadliest sniper" in American history. And regardless of what Cooper wants, his movie has become political.

ALSO READ: Review: American Sniper

Before he was shot to death at a Texas gun range, Kyle, who claimed he killed 150 people while working as a sniper in Iraq, oozed conviction and charisma. He wore big boots. He spoke with a languid Texas drawl. He wrote a best-selling memoir. He made millions. And he stirred controversy just about everywhere he went.

The conversation that now shadows the release of American Sniper, which collected a record $105 million over the holiday weekend, has been no different. After days of nationwide screenings, which the Associated Press called an "unprecedented success", the film was subject to widespread praise among conservatives for depicting an American soldier at his best and condemnation among some liberals who question the admitted pleasure Kyle took in killing and dehumanising Iraqis.

And then there were the tales Kyle told about himself, which came under increasing suspicion after numerous journalists tried - and failed - to corroborate them. Among them: Kyle once said he shot dead two armed Texas thugs who wanted to steal his truck. He said he travelled down to New Orleans and killed 30 bad guys in the chaos following Hurricane Katrina. And he also falsely claimed he punched out former Minnesota governor Jesse "the Body" Ventura after Ventura, a former special forces operative himself, disparaged the US Navy Seals.

"There were a lot of things he told people that are really unverifiable," journalist Michael J. Mooney, who wrote a book on Kyle, told The Washington Post in July.

Read more here:
How American Sniper stoked the American culture wars