California NOW

What year is it?

 Is it really 2012?  Because lately, it feels a lot more like 1912!

There's something surreal about watching a congressional hearing in 2012 that consists of all men publicly discussing birth control, menstrual pain, ovarian cancer, and migraine headaches. But that's exactly what happened yesterday when California Republican Congressman Darrel Issa convened a panel entitled, "Lines Crossed: Separation of Church and State. Has the Obama administration trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?"  He refused to hear testimony from women all morning.  Instead, the panel consisted of ten males - all of whom were from conservative religious institutions - testifying on YOUR behalf opposing the Obama administration's birth control rule.

Two days ago, the Republican supermajority from within the Virginia state legislature muscled two of the most restrictive anti-abortion bills in years through the House, including one that would all but outlaw the procedure in the state by declaring that the rights of persons apply from the moment sperm and egg unite.  The other bill requires women to have a transvaginal ultrasound before undergoing an abortion.  Virginia Republican Legislator Todd Gilbert justified the new bills saying that most abortions come as "matters of lifestyle convenience."

According to the Guttmacher Institute, lawmakers across the nation pursued a record number of reproductive health and rights-related provisions in 2011, enacting 135 measures in 36 states — “an increase from the 89 enacted in 2010 and the 77 enacted in 2009.” Sixty-eight percent of the provisions — 92 in 24 states — restricted access to women's reproductive healthcare.

While women are busy just trying to get by in this troubled economy and take care of their families, conservative legislators are focused not on jobs but, instead, on making sure women are thrown back into the dark ages where they have no individual rights and cannot make their own healthcare choices.

And if you don't think this affects you because you live here in California, you're wrong!

The common thread through all of these restrictions is the tie to religious organizations - churches.  We've all watched as the Catholic Bishops have taken center stage in condemning the Obama administration's birth control rule.

This means that if the Catholic Bishops win this fight, EVERY employee at a hospital (doctors, nurses, technicians, administrators, electricians, food service workers, janitorial staff) will be denied full reproductive healthcare coverage because the hospital is owned by the Catholic Church.  It won't matter that the hospital is the only medical facility in town or the only employer available or that the employees are not Catholic.

We're headed down a dangerous path.  The 2012 election is how we stop this once and for all.  Pay attention!  Leave the comfort of your home and get into the street!  Begin organizing NOW to unseat any legislator who puts a religiously affiliated corporation ahead of women’s healthcare.  This battle is too important to sit back and hope that someone else will save us.  It’s time we –women working together – win this fight ourselves!

To read CA NOW President Patty Bellasalma's full blog piece on how recent Supreme Court decisions will impact this issue, click here.

Today's Victory is Tomorrow's Destiny

We should and do celebrate as a victory, women standing together successfully defeating the injustice of denying contraception to millions of women.  With its decision, the Obama administration stood with women drawing a bright line between the religious exemption that covers employees of houses of worship, such as churches, synagogues, or mosques themselves and religiously-connected or associated schools, universities, hospitals and other non-profit institutions.

Celebrate that the broadened exemption, primarily lobbied by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, was rejected and now millions of American women will have contraceptive coverage, including students, teachers, nurses, social workers, other staff and their families.  But also know that the corporations owned by religious institutions have a powerful lobby in Washington and in every state house.  This effort seeks to secure constitutional protection to use the first amendment to legitimize discrimination and segregation against anyone a religious organization or individual finds objectionable on religious or moral grounds.  Five Supreme Court Justices are ready to establish a constitutionally sanctioned Jane Crow Era.

It should never be lost on anyone who works for social justice that only a few days separate the celebration of Martin Luther King's birthday and the commemoration of Roe v. Wade.

In a prophetic letter written by Dr. King on April 16, 1963 from a Birmingham jail, he wrote, “Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.” 

The truth is, all of us are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny when the law segregates out women as being different and treats them unequally.  When that occurs, everyone is affected directly and indirectly.  Dr. King fought against Jim Crow race segregation, a practice based on religious and moral grounds - justified by an argument that the government should not coerce individuals into participating in actions they find religiously or morally objectionable, such as treating African Americans at "white" hospitals, or teaching  African Americans at "white" schools.  Race segregation in its most vicious form may be gone, but its remnants and justifications are alive and well.  Today Jane Crow, sex based segregation remains the law of the land, where our government allows individuals and institutions to refuse to treat pregnant women in distress because they find such actions religiously or morally objectionable.  Our government goes even further by allowing religiously affiliated hospitals to be certified despite knowingly providing substandard care and thereby remain eligible for taxpayer funding.
 
Churches are constitutionally protected in this country but when those rights are enforced through the lens of dominance, as this Court now routinely does, we are but a breath away from theocracy with the full weight and force of the law protecting "religious" corporations' right to discriminate against their employees and patrons while receiving guaranteed government funding while doing so.  When the law allows a religious institution to legally provide substandard care to their patients, we are all affected.  That injustice not only affects the patient but her family, the community she lives in and our society.

Our victory today against the Catholic Bishops shows the power of women rising.  Women, individually and collectively must participate in both direct action and voting.  By that I mean getting up out of your chair and into the street.  And we ALL have to vote, in every single election, not just every four years.  Because our destiny is in our hands.  It’s time we take control of it!

Monday's Action Checklist

Working families are finding it harder to just get by.  They scrimp and save just to ensure that their children have a safe place to live, plenty to eat and warm clothing to wear.  And at this time of the year, they also try to find enough to make it a joyous holiday season.  Back in 2010, a tax holiday was put in place to stimulate the economy.  According to the New York Times, if this payroll tax holiday offers the average working family close to $1,500 a year more to spend.  That's significant.  However, Congress is considering not extending it which would result in middle class families paying higher taxes.  Raising taxes should start with millionaires and billionaires, and with the countless corporations that manage to evade paying any taxes at all rather than with struggling families. Take Action NOW:  Tell Congress to extend the payroll tax holiday for working families.

When you buy Apple's shiny new iPhone 4S, you're not just getting a phone. It comes programmed with a voice-activated personal assistant app that Apple claims can respond to any question you ask -- whether you're looking for driving directions or the best burger in town. You can ask the assistant (Siri) basically any question.  But you can't ask about abortion services unless you want to be referred to a crisis pregnancy center -- fake clinics where anti-abortion activists often lie to pregnant women in order to dissuade them from choosing abortion.  Take Action NOW:  Tell Apple that Siri should not be referring women to fake clinics and, instead, should know where real women's health service providers are located.

When it comes to emergency contraception, the FDA has refused to listen to medical and scientific consensus that says there is no rationale for age restrictions. They're poised to remove restrictions on Plan B, but not from other emergency contraception available over-the-counter.   Take Action NOW:  Tell the FDA to restore scientific integrity to federal policy and end restrictions on all emergency contraception available over-the-counter, not just Plan B.

One of the bedrock principles of democracy is that nobody is above the law--not even Supreme Court justices like Clarence Thomas.  In addition to being on the wrong side of just about every major issue since being appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Thomas has also refused to follow the law for years by failing to disclose his wife's substantial income despite being legally required to report it.  Recently, U.S. Representative Louise Slaughter is demanding that the Judicial Conference uphold the Ethics in Government Act by referring Thomas' apparent misdeeds to the Attorney General for further investigation.  Take Action NOW:  Co-sign Rep. Slaughter's letter demanding action on Clarence Thomas.

An Open Letter to Governor Brown

Right now you have SB 185 sitting on your desk waiting to be signed into law.  This bill would allow the University of California (UC) and the California State University (CSU) to consider race, gender, ethnicity, national origin, geographic origin, and household income in their undergraduate and graduate admissions processes as they seek to enroll student bodies that reflect the diversity of our state.

In the usual fashion, Republicans on the UC Berkeley Campus are staging a publicity stunt to distract you and Californians from the realities of a society that tolerates deadbeats.  By deadbeats, we mean those who take the benefits of society, but refuse to pay their fair share of the obligations – namely corporations and the ultra-wealthy.

The stunt is unfortunately playing out their version of a not-so-funny joke:  A Union member, a CEO and a Tea-Party Member all go into a room where twelve cookies are sitting on a plate.  The CEO eats eleven of the cookies on the plate and then turns to the Tea-Party member and says, the Union member wants your cookie.

The UC Berkeley Republicans are holding a bake sale tomorrow, that is just such a pretense - where white men will be asked to pay $2.00 for a cupcake, while Asian, Latino, Black and Indigenous males pay $1.50, $1.00, $ .75 and $ .25 respectively while women will be asked to pay $ .25 less than their male counterpart.

What the holders of this bake sale want you to forget is the actual historical and present day reality of white male privilege in this society.  Here’s the reality: the flour, oven and all other baking materials were stolen from Indigenous people.  The cupcakes were made by “free” labor provided by minorities and women.  The profits from the cupcakes go to a select few wealthy white men, while they tell working class white men that their share of the profits were taken by women and minorities.

The truth is, for far too long, race and sex supremacy have been hiding behind the skirt of neutrality, pretending that past and present institutional preferences-privileges advantaging one race and/or sex, do not exist.  They do.

From a legal standpoint, the U.S. Supreme Court under former Chief Justice Rehnquist held that the Equal Protection Clause to the 14th Amendment does not prohibit a university from the "narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body."  (Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), 539 U.S. 306, 343.)  With the Grutter rule in mind, SB 185 provides that the State’s legislative intent is to authorize the UC and the CSU to consider a variety of relevant factors in undergraduate and graduate admissions decisions, so long as no preference is given, including:  Race, Gender, Ethnicity, National origin, Geographic origin, and Household income.

Existing law declares the Legislature’s intent that, in developing undergraduate and graduate admissions criteria, the governing boards of the UC and CSU develop processes that strive to be fair and easily understandable, and consult broadly with California’s diverse ethnic and cultural communities.  Existing law authorizes the intent of the Legislature that the UC and CSU seek to enroll a student body that meets high academic standards and reflects the cultural, racial, geographic, economic, and social diversity of California.

Section 31 of Article I of the California Constitution prohibits the state from discriminating against, or granting preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.  SB 185 ensures that the state is not discriminating against any individual or group based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin.  SB 185 also ensures that the state is not granting preferential treatment, including but not limited to past or present legal, social, or political privilege based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin.

Governor Brown, don’t be distracted by decades-old publicity stunts designed to divide Californians for the benefit of the elite few.  Sign SB 185 into law – it’s the right thing to do.

Monday's Action Checklist

The latest "Got Milk" campaign was just released, centering around the claim that milk helps reduce PMS symptoms.  The ads for this new campaign will feature the sexist stereotype of menstruating women as volatile monsters. It also supports the condescending idea that any angry woman can be talked down with puppies and glossy compliments. Click here to sign the petition, asking the California Milk Processer Board to end this insulting campaign.

A billboard campaign serving as race-based attacks on a woman’s right to choose have popped up here in California, spearheaded by the Radiance Foundation in coordination with California-based Issues4Life Foundation.  The Radiance Foundation and its supporters have accused Planned Parenthood of committing genocide against communities of color. Anti-choice bilingual billboards owned by CBS Outdoors were first put up in early July in Los Angeles and declared that “The most dangerous place for a LATINO is in the womb.”  These billboards stigmatize Latinas as being incapable of making responsible family planning decisions. The campaign now includes 60 billboards in the Oakland area, targeting African American communities.  The billboards have been intentionally placed along corridors in East and West Oakland that are home to low-income families and people of color. These billboards especially target African American women and stigmatize a personal, medical decision.  Please sign the petition NOW asking Jeff McCuen of CBS Outdoor to remove these billboards immediately.

Bath & Body Works is offering its customers, many of whom are pre-teen and teenage girls, antibacterial soaps with summertime scents containing triclosan, a toxic antimicrobial chemical that accumulates in our bodies.  This commonly used pesticide is also linked to the rise of "superbugs" – antibiotic-resistant bacteria.  The bioaccumulative chemical has been found in our bodies, in breast milk and in the environment. It is an endocrine disruptor with cancer concerns – a serious problem for public health, especially for pre-teens and teens.  Triclosan is found in the majority of Bath & Body Works antibacterial hand soaps (with the tagline: "spread love, not germs"), yet soaps containing triclosan are not more effective at preventing disease or illness than other, less-toxic products. Companies like Johnson & Johnson and Colgate-Palmolive have already taken steps to phase out of triclosan.   Click here to tell Bath & Body Works to be responsible by phasing out triclosan because that pesticide doesn't belong in soaps and lotions popular with our pre-teens and teens.

This week will be the first ever congressional hearing on repealing the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and restoring the rights of all lawfully married couples -- including same-sex couples -- under federal law.  This hearing is an unprecedented step on the path to progress.  We need to finally repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) so that our country stops treating gays and lesbians as second-class citizens.  Senator Dianne Feinstein and others have introduced the Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal DOMA and restore the rights of all lawfully married couples, including same sex couples, to receive the benefits of marriage under federal law.  Click here to email your member of Congress, urging them to support the Respect for Marriage Act and repeal DOMA at this week's hearing!

Did you know that your California public library could be taken over by a private company? In Southern California, public libraries are being targeted for takeover by Library Systems & Services, Inc. (LSSI), a private company headquartered in Maryland and majority-owned by the private equity firm Islington Capital Partners.  LSSI currently operates 14 library systems and is eyeing more in California. When municipalities contract with private library service providers like LSSI, it often results in diminished library services and hidden costs to taxpayers. Concerns also arise over transparency and accountability.   The good news is that there's a bill (AB 438) in the California Senate that will help protect libraries from reckless privatization schemes.  The proposed legislation will require local officials to give their constituents adequate notice of plans to privatize and to demonstrate that privatization will benefit the community.  Click here to sign the petition asking state lawmakers to pass AB 438. 

Last week, the California State Legislature sent AB 96 to Governor Jerry Brown – a bill that would help save Adult Day Health Care (ADHC) services for California seniors.  The elimination of ADHC has left millions of California seniors at grave risk of losing necessary care.  AB96 would help bridge the gap by establishing the “Keeping Adults Free from Institutions” (KAFI) program, providing critical care to the neediest seniors and saving thousands from being institutionalized or forced into nursing homes.   Please contact the Governor’s office to encourage him to sign the legislation establishing the ”Keeping Adults Free from Institutions” Program!  Please click here to call or send a message to Governor Jerry Brown today.