The Tennessee state legislature's House Judiciary Committee plans a vote today on HB 836, the so-called Child-Placing Agency Religious Freedom Bill, which we can run through our Bill Title-to-English translator and find, give me a minute, ah, here: "let private adoption agencies refuse to place kids with gay parents because of the gay cooties." Some folks love making a big drama of crying in public over their "religious" "beliefs" being "violated" though literally no one forces them into a gay marriage and literally no one forces them to worship Liberal Gay-and-Muslim-Loving Jesus -- and no one even forces them to stop hating gays, women, and foreigners, though this hatred does seem to comprise the entirety of their "religious" "beliefs." But actual religious folks understand that the tension between religious belief and worldly pursuit is not only intractable but promotes religious growth, and that insisting on codifying "God's kingdom here on Earth" through law is an arrogance God would find intolerable. The Tennessee Equality Project helps you tell Tennessee legislators to reject more pro-discrimination legislation by rejecting HB 836.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is taking public comments on mining development in Alaska's Bristol Bay area. If you thought we'd already chased away mining development there, well, yes, the Pebble Mine project in Alaska has had trouble attracting investors, and yes, even Scott Pruitt's EPA frowned upon mining development in Bristol Bay, but as long as one corporation wants to keep Pebble Mine alive (now it's Northern Dynasty Minerals, after Rio Tinto pulled out), then the Bay's clean water is in danger, and the world's largest sockeye salmon industry is in danger, and the Native American communities who also rely on the salmon are in danger. Hence Sum of Us helps you leave a public comment with the Corps of Engineers opposing mining development in Bristol Bay. You may well be feeling more than a little disgusted that we managed to chase away so many investors and yet we're still trying to save Bristol Bay. Who could blame you? But if we've learned one thing over the years, it's that the forces of evil never stop fighting -- and so neither can we, even after we think we've won. And, as they say, knowing is half the battle.
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