Welcome to the nonprofits, and tonight we're going to talk about a politician and how he wants to go back. When I say back, I mean backwards. But Rob is going to fill us in on this, Rob, what do you got for us?
Yeah? Holy wow. Imagine being a lawmaker and trying to push a law that sixty nine percent of all Americans do not want. This seems futile for your own efforts. Josh Josh Shriver wants to outlaw same sex marriage in Michigan. He clearly knows who he's going for because he claims to be Michigan's most conservative state representative, which is fair. I suppose you can pick a camp. But he also always adds I'm a white rapper. I don't know why he keeps adding that it is irrelevant to his points
and it only seems to score points. But he's really proud that he's a white rapper. This story is from Raws story by David Padash the New Civil Rights Movement on December third, twenty twenty four.
Thanks Robin. I can only imagine this guy wrapping. Well, actually I can't because I actually know what that sounds like now. But having said that, Rob, how did this staff react to this tweet? I mean, as you mentioned, this is something that's not even popular on what we would consider traditionally his side of the aisle.
So what did they do? Yeah, so he's apparently gotten into a couple different controversies. And then after this came out, most of his staffers and the people that work with him, most of them resigned, just straight up and out. And when we say sixty nine percent of Americans, we don't even mean sixty nine percent of Michiganders my home state. It is all Americans do not watch to ban same sex. And then when he came out and said this, there
was then more tweets about persecution. And then because he also tweeted a racist conspiracy theory, he said, ooh ooh, I be called a racist, which is yes, if you do that, you get called that. So it's just it's just more of the same. And I am pleased to know that at least some people that were working with and for him had the decency to resign immediately after.
I have to admit I was a little surprised that they're resigned, considering that there is a segment in the United States obviously that not that sixty nine percent, but there is a group that that's like red meat to them. I think he just overestimated the support that he expected to get from that. But Sendy, what do you think motivates politicians to spread information like this when they're defending really a rather indefensible stance. What do you think their purpose?
Why do you think he's doing this?
It's completely eligant to me because first of all, if you have to lie constantly to defend your position, then your position is from by definition, and every single quote from Fear in this article is like every single one. But yeah, he's the symbol of a political party that became about nothing else but hates I grievance and performance.
But one of the reasons I think he keeps talking about this is he's part of a political party that is, as I said, performative, and taking an extreme stance is in itself performative, and so the problem is that it
has consequences. Like when Trump got elected in twenty sixteen, I spent hours explaining to people around me in France why it was such a bad thing, because they didn't take him seriously at the time, and my main argument was that his violeness was going to incite other people like him to be more vocal, more apologetic about their season and bigotry. And that's exactly what happened. We had, well, we the US had a racist, homophobic and anti Semitic
insults and aggressions that skyrocketed after his election. Uh And and now he's just got re elected on the same platform. So it's going to be all the time worse. But it's to me, it's even worse when you think about
it in terms of rights. It's one thing to oppose the right that is being discussed to be given to someone else, like the UK right now is discussing a lot to provide access to theying with dignity, so you can have people who are against it and during this period and that's fine, but it's something else entirely to stay it on purpose unapologically after it's been in place for over a decade.
Uh.
The cynicism at play here, to me, is stuggering the moral and social and class superiority that he must feel in order to say, Okay, I'm going to take this right away from you, and for more reason, just because I don't like it. That's just to me, is really scary. This entitlement and this sense of superiority. Yeah, it's really scary.
For me, you know. And I agree with you on the aspect that it's one thing. And I know that you and I from many other conversations you mentioned the death with dignity. We're on the same page there. But I understand what you're saying that it's one thing for people to debate and discuss in an open forum with their pros and cons for something that we're talking about whether we're going to allow this to happen. But now we're ten years over, ten years past this, and we
should should be needing to have this conversation again. So you know, and I look at it that my oldest child will be impacted because they would fall under this category. And that makes no sense to take people who have families and relationships and say, oh, just kidding, we said
you had this right, but we don't. So switching to YOUAJ, how do you think, and I'm going to worry this carefully because you and I have talked about this before, how do you think the personal religious beliefs that people go to church on Sunday? Because a lot of this is what this boils down to this guy is promoting a religious belief about what he thinks about LGBTQ people. How do you think that that, whether it's religious or something else, should influence a politician or an employee who
provides a service in the public. How should how should they be able to carry that over into their professional lives on Monday morning?
True? Absolutely no. These personal beliefs are things that you practice in private at home. But unfortunately Josh Scool isn't going to stop wanting to make gay marriage illegal again. He wants to impuse all of his personal beliefs onto the public, onto the people that he serves in Michigan. Another one of the things that he mentioned is that he wants to refuse gender affirming care for transgender people,
whether there are minors or adults consenting adults. He thinks that, for example, not allowing the conscience exception for d MB employees to discriminate against trans people in Michigan is going to lead to more Christian persecution by the way, the conscience class allows an employee a public employee to refuse service based on their personal beliefs. For example, a doctor in a publicly funded clinic may refuse to perform an abortion if it goes against their personal dogma or whatever
they may believe in. I don't know, I mean speaking of reproductive rights. Like he also wants to refuse birth control to women. He said that if doctors are worn to do no harm, then lawmakers should look into banning hormonal birth control, implying that preventing a pregnancy is harming a baby, which is you know, a very commonly, highly on scientific conservative belief. So I mean to put it simply, not like none of these personal beliefs should come into his office on Monday.
I think that we're seeing some of the side effects. Cyndia talked about this from about a previous situation where we're seeing people in bolden by rhetoric they've heard previously to think that I can say even more intolerable things and push for even more unacceptable things because it isn't just gay marriage that they're concerned in marriage equality. They want to roll back, as you mentioned, body autonomy for
a whole host of issues. But Rob, how do you think we should respond to politicians who use because we mentioned the persecution if they don't get to discriminate, which really means privilege that they're losing. What do you think how should we respond to politicians to use fear and hatred against marginalized groups. Really, what it sounds like is a popularity play. What do you think about that? What is our responsibility?
I think it's society's responsibility for education and fact checking, and that this is really a preventative thing. Once it gets to this point, it's going to be mostly messed up and screwed because I don't even want to push back on what you just said at aj just I agree that their religious beliefs should not come into the government,
and yet that is impossible. It is simply impossible because people have religious beliefs that inform their worldview and also inform their moral system and what they believe is right and wrong. So while it would be really nice that we could literally compartmentalize these things, it would be wrong to ask a person to ask to ask a person to act morally when that moral action is against what
they believe to be moral. The problem is that their morals are wrong, and it is impossible to expect a person to come into power and then go I'm just now going to forget everything I know and the only way to deal with this is to have it never have gotten to this place in the first place. So when these things do happen, I mean, I suppose we can demonize them and say, haha, look at the strange man who has strange beliefs. That's useful. Sometimes public shaming
is actually a very strong motivator. But because their persecution complex, that's also a strong motivator for their base. So what should we do. We should never have a lot. Let it gotten here in the first place, And that could only really be done with drug models and preventative care, which is actually just educating everybody from the outset. It's just the best. Yeah.
No, I completely agree with what you just said, Like, yeah, that the problem isn't like the beliefs that are taken in. It's just like how did they get there in the first place, and how do you get them to not go there anymore?
Yeah, I'm with you, so, Sandy.
Yeah.
Uh.
On the topic of compartmentalization, someone I knew was he was He used to work in UH radio dating UH rocks and and fossil fossils and things like that, and he was working with U with the younger younger creationists so it seems to be a little bit impossible, but actually the guy managed to compartmentalize the two things completely.
Like during the day he was dating uh rocks and fossils and he said, yeah, they're there, are like two hundred thousand years years old, and then went home and taught his kid that the earth was six thousand years old. So it's possible to have those extreme views and still managed to avoid cognitive dissonance. I also, so I live
in Belgium and not many people are religious. I have discovered resetting that I had a few ones in my soccer team and it doesn't influence their view because they're not thought that their religion is the source of morality. So religion is more like, I don't know, cultural thing more than really a very strong belief in an entity. All that exists too, but it's not as important. So I think it's still possible to to have religious beliefs and not have them influence your view of the world.
But that means the religious belief itself has to be taught in a very specific way in order to avoid what we see in the US or any any Muslim country, or any very very Catholic country like Nigeria or some South American countries. So yeah, it's it's it's it's a complicated topic and we should avoidy generalizations.
A j you had mentioned limiting reproductive right, I mean, and this concept of going backwards, because that's precisely what he's doing, is saying, you know, not just let's slow things down, but let's do one eighty in full speed the opposite direction. What do you think the long term consequences of this type of action people throwing this type of rhetoric out there, What do you think this has to do? It can impact the legal landscape and societal norms.
I think, you know, there's a lot of steak because in the case of Criber, as if trying to you know, take things back in time by trying to make the LGBTQ community disappear, dominating women's bodies or trying to take away by the autonomy wasn't enough. He also has voted against certain bills that will prevent racial discriminations or you know, he's posted racist conspiracy theorist in his professional social media,
not just his private personal page. And according to Josh, just like there is this anti Christian agenda, there's also an anti white agenda. He said that there is a racist plan to replace whites with non whites through illegally equation too irreversibly America's demographics, voting citizens, and national identity to keep power in the hands of the godless regime. Excuse me, sir, but is that not what the conservative white Christian nationalists have been doing like two people for
you know, generations to like people of color, minorities. To me, his set of beliefs are just generally toxic, and that is what we often discuss regarding people that make decisions for entire populations based on their individual personal belief Like Grab mentioned earlier, you can't take away people's religious beliefs from who they are, from how they see the world,
and they can often not separate that. But in the case of a representative, this is somebody that is meant to represent entire populations, like he's supposed to say, okay, to put myself aside and represent these people, and you know, listening to what these people want. And you know, again, Rob says, sixty nine percent of Americans or Michigan and Michigan nurse do not want to do away with gay marriage.
So listen to that right, Like he should be listening to that rather than be listening to his own personal wishness and desires and dogmas. So to me, like, I don't know, she's the bullshit that he's feeling just shows me why why it's a problem to let his personal beliefs seep into the decision making that he's supposed to be making for people.
I want to I want to jump in and say I think the fact that the word representative was used is perfect because he is a representative and he should
represent clearly. I'm an atheist. And when I first watched the movie First Contact and they're trying to figure out which person to go bet the ambassador for the human race with aliens, and then the the lead characters like I should go in the main and in one of like the generals is like eighty nine percent of all of the population of the planet believes in some kind of God. Why do you think you should go? And even as an atheist, like, oh shit, that's a compelling point.
He should be representative.
Yeah, this great replacement theory that ag was talking about, this idea that you know, white are slowly replaced we So it originated from from a French guy, sorry about that. And to me, it's it's one of the most stupid in hypocritical argument because what they're saying is that non white people have more kids than white people, and therefore we need to do something about it. I mean, and the obvious responses, well, why don't white make more kids?
Why don't you make more kids? And usually, and especially in Europe, those people only have one or two kids. And so when you start going into this discussion is why don't you make more kids? Uh, well, why should I be? Well, you want white people to be more represented,
so make more kids. And and they don't see the stupidity of their position because they see a problem, they have the solution, but they don't want to implement it, and that that to me is just just stupid because as soon as you try to answer that question why don't you want more kids, then you start talking about the systemic issues of the society, like the cost of living, like the cost of healthcare in the US, like all this, all this, all this, and and all those problems they
don't want to acknowledge because they don't want to solve them because they hit mostly the other people compared to them so yeah, this, I don't understand how this arguments this position, that this great replacement theory is so popular in the right, right wing media and right wing people, because it's stupid to me.
Well, you have to understand, and this is something I was going to say when Aja first brought this up before I was rude. Not is that this is something that we talked about over thirty years ago in very extreme right wing like White Air and Resistance and other people who I was involved with at the time. This was something that was commonplace then, but they wouldn't say
that in public. And that's what unsettles me is that now I'm saying elected officials propagating something that open racists used to say behind closed doors, and that is very concerning. But one quick thing I wanted to run through because I know where I want a quick answer on this, because this is just what you view about it. Because we're getting close to the end of this. We've talked enough about these kind of people, you rob, do you do you think this is a performance as some we
mentioned before, performative politics. Already think this guy really believes some of these things that he's saying.
Not mutually exclusive and I'm sure that it's actually both. For the existence of all politics, the person who wins is the person who's most popular, or I guess is the person who kills everybody else and takes a monarchy and then nobody else decides to kill them back. But generally, if you're the most popular, you're going to win, and
that requires spectacle. It just does. That's out like even a lot of the ancient Roman stuff and why they'd have large parades about their and things like that, and they would give gifts to the commoners. So of course it's a theater. Of course it's performance. He knows he knows the people he's trying to get, and he's not
afraid about alienating the ones he doesn't. That doesn't mean that he's gonna then have a majority, but the majority doesn't matter as long as there's enough people around that are similar enough to him. So he's trying to make himself deeply popular with the people that he wants, and he's doing it through performance. Absolutely