Illinois poised to require paid leave for workers: ‘Don’t we think that should be a basic human right?’
Jeremy Gorner, Chicago Tribune
Sun, January 22, 2023
Paid time off would be a mandatory benefit for Illinois workers under a bill on Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk that represents the latest high-profile measure passed by the Democratic General Assembly to expand workers rights.
Pritzker has said he plans to sign the bill, which would make Illinois one of more than a dozen states with paid-leave policies. The measure would take effect next Jan. 1 and require an hour of paid leave be granted for every 40 hours worked, with employees able to accrue five days of leave every year.
The bill passed through the Senate and House during the final day of the lame duck session earlier this month.
Proponents say the measure’s primary beneficiaries would be low-wage, nonunionized workers. The Service Employees International Union estimates about 1.5 million Illinois workers don’t get a single paid sick day through their employer. The SEIU also said the measure would increase statewide income by $1.5 billion.
Detractors raise fears paid leave will adversely affect small businesses that have struggled to stay afloat ever since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold almost three years ago.
It would be the latest perk granted by the General Assembly for Illinois workers.
In November, the state’s voters elected to codify the right to unionize in the state constitution after legislators put the question on the ballot. And as of New Year’s Day, the statewide minimum wage was raised by a $1 to $13 an hour through a state law that has raised the wage in steps since 2019, when it was $8.25 an hour.
The Paid Leave for All Workers Act applies to workers employed by businesses of any size. The chief Senate sponsor, Maywood Democrat Kimberly Lightford, said during the floor debate prior to a vote that the bill could benefit the 1.5 million workers who “cannot take a sick day without being penalized or losing pay.”
“Imagine you’re down with the flu, you have a bad cold or even COVID and you are one of these millions of people. You have to consider if you’re going to risk getting your co-workers sick or risk not being able to put food on the table,” Lightford said.
“Why should a person have to think for just a second if they were (at) risk (of) losing their job or losing wages if they stay home to take care of themselves or a loved one? Don’t we think that should be a basic human right?” she asked.
State Sen. Jason Barickman, a Bloomington Republican whose last day as a senator was the night of the vote, countered that the bill could be detrimental to small business owners.
“They’re the mom-and-pop shops that are the lifeblood of the economic engine of our state, and while they have continued to try to do their best as they’ve navigated through COVID, historic levels of inflation and otherwise, I think it’s important to put in context the role that they play in our communities,” he said.
“They put our people to work, and we need to make sure that we are supporting our small businesses and our small-business employers. And this legislation unfortunately goes in the wrong direction for that.”
Employees would face fines or other civil penalties if they violate the measure. It would not apply to municipalities, such as Chicago, that already have policies on paid leave or paid sick leave.
Unused paid leave could be carried over annually, but there’s no requirement for employers to grant more than 40 hours of paid leave in a 12-month period. Employers would be allowed to grant more than 40 hours of paid leave time a year.
The legislation would benefit nonunionized workers employed in factories, warehouses, restaurants and in other working-class professions, according to Wendy Pollack, director of the Women’s Law and Policy Initiative at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law, which supported the legislation.
“This was very important to them because so many of them don’t even get an hour of paid leave of any kind, whether it’s sick leave, whether it’s vacation leave,” Pollack said.
Audra Wilson, president and CEO of the Shriver Center, said lack of a paid-leave policy has a disproportionate, negative impact on Black and brown workers.
“Many of them are living in multigenerational homes. So, you’re talking about folks who already had to be subjected to the public and the pandemic,” she said. “They were coming to work sick, unfortunately, if they contracted COVID because they did not have paid time off. You had individuals who had to struggle to figure out what to do with their children when our kids were home for a year.”
A 2020 report from the Illinois Economic Policy Institute said 179 countries — the United States not among them — mandate paid sick leave for workers. Illinois’ policy would allow workers to take time off for any reason, not just to recover from an illness.
Citing some of the arguments voiced by Barickman, the National Federation of Independent Business opposed the bill, noting how many small businesses, especially those with five to 10 employees, have yet to recover from the pandemic.
Chris Davis, the group’s state director, said these businesses have struggled with supply-chain issues, inflation and finding workers. Mandatory paid leave would be “one more tax imposed on them by the state of Illinois that’s just going to be difficult to manage,” Davis said.
“Now they’ve been forced by the government to implement their solution that the government thinks is best rather than what’s really best for the employer and employee,” he said.
He said employers are sympathetic to workers forced to make a difficult choice about going in if they’re sick or have another issue, but that those situations should be worked out with employers.
“They consider their employees a part of the family,” he said of small-business owners. “They’re also best positioned to work with that employee to come up with a solution on an event-by-event basis to determine what enables that employee to meet their personal needs, but would also keep the business open to the public to meet their customers’ needs and to keep the business operation moving forward.”
Davis said his group plans to host seminars and webinars to help businesses understand how to implement the new requirements.
Mark Denzler, president and CEO of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, said his group initially opposed the bill, but shifted to a neutral stance as negotiations progressed over a proposal several years in the making.
Supporters initially wanted at least seven paid leave days, and there was also a “stacking” proposal that would have allowed municipalities that already have paid leave to add the state’s required five days to those already granted.
But both sides eventually agreed to the five days of annual paid time off a year, as well as a policy that would be applied to all 102 Illinois counties, without a stacking provision.
The day after the bill passed through the General Assembly, Pritzker issued a statement lauding the legislation.
“Working families face enough challenges without the concern of losing a day’s pay when life gets in the way,” the governor said. “I’m looking forward to signing this legislation and giving a safety net to hardworking Illinoisans.”
Denzler acknowledged the perk of the paid time off not being limited to just sick leave if it’s signed into law.
“It’s Friday afternoon and an employee wants to play golf or go see their son or daughter at school. Because it was sick time, the employee would fake being sick,” Denzler said. “We should let them use it for anything. If they want to go to their kid’s school, if they want to take their kid to the doctor, if they have to go to the doctor, if they want to go golfing, let’s give it to the employee to use however they want.”
jgorner@chicagotribune.com
Monday, January 23, 2023
Op-Ed: There's one big climate fight that California is losing
Michael W. Beck
Sun, January 22, 2023
After a fire, part of Montecito, Calif., was especially vulnerable to a flood-induced cascade of boulders and debris in 2018. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
It has been demoralizing to witness in Santa Cruz, my hometown, the destructive power of waves and water on our beaches, piers, roads, homes, businesses, rivers and levees. But we knew this was coming, and we’re overdue to adapt to the new realities of our climate.
In 2015, global leaders resolved to cut carbon emissions in an effort to keep the planet from heating more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. California has played a significant role in that campaign, with world-leading policies and innovations on technologies such as solar power and electric vehicles and in the development of carbon markets, which reduce emissions through caps and tradeable credits. All of this has been aimed at averting a future climate challenge. That challenge is here now.
Mitigation must continue, but adaptation has become urgent as well. California should step up once again.
It’s not enough to invest just in strategies to protect future people, property and nature. The risk of climate change to people here and now has become quite clear. It’s clear in California’s historic drought, epic fires and the recent deluge. It’s clear nationally in the supersizing of hurricanes such as Sandy, Dorian, Michael and Ian. It is also clear in the increasing costs of storms. In 2017, Harvey, Irma and Maria caused an unprecedented $300 billion in damages.
Recovering from climate-fueled disasters will take an ever-greater bite out of national and local budgets. The United Nations lauds countries’ mitigation commitments, but finds an ever-widening “adaptation gap” between what is spent, around $29 billion annually, and what is needed, around $71 billion a year now and $340 billion in 2030. For many developing countries, particularly island nations, falling behind on adaptation is an existential crisis.
Californians have done a lot to contribute to this crisis. Among U.S. states, we rank second only to Texas in total carbon dioxide emissions.
So we should help solve this adaptation crisis — as innovators and leaders.
First, that means experimenting with more solutions to adapt to climate change across the state, innovations that we can export elsewhere. This responsibility falls not only to the state government but also to cities, counties, nonprofits, businesses and academia. Many states and countries are already doing more than California has, especially when it comes to nature-based solutions such as the restoration of wetlands and reefs. The U.S. government is ahead as well. For example, the Department of Defense is working on oyster and coral reef restoration to help defend military bases against erosion and flooding.
California can’t afford to lag behind in the race to adapt to existing climate dangers. Catastrophic collapses along our open coasts this month are a reminder that we must greatly expand efforts to reduce risks on our coastlines. For example, we should be working with our rocky reefs to reduce wave energy, erosion and flooding. Enhancing the height and roughness of rocky habitats in shallow nearshore waters could provide risk reduction and conservation benefits and reduce investments in artificial armoring, which has no habitat value. Innovations here could be replicated along rocky coasts worldwide.
Second, California should lead in the development of an adaptation marketplace. California helped build carbon markets, and we need the same leadership for an adaptation marketplace that gives benefits and credits for reducing present climate risks to people, property and nature.
One key step will be to measure risk and the benefits of adaptation solutions, and then we must price them. We already know how to price risk; that’s the basis for the insurance industry. With a little prodding, the risk industry could do more to measure adaptation benefits.
We also need incentives or government requirements to advance adaptation projects. Such incentives are already emerging from the private sector. Companies are increasingly being pushed by investors to report on the risks of climate change to their balance sheets, which has led to voluntary compliance with reporting developed by the business-led Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures.
Starting this year, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is requiring companies to disclose financial impacts of climate-related risks. As businesses increasingly report on risks, they will have more incentives to look for actions to reduce exposure and harm.
Governments already have plenty of incentives given the costs of recovery after disasters. The Federal Emergency Management Agency estimates that funding spent ahead of time to reduce hazards provides a 6-to-1 return on investment.
It makes sense for businesses and governments to get out in front with voluntary adaptation commitments. At the U.N. climate conference in Egypt in November, one of the few points of agreement was that developed nations will increasingly have to take responsibility for the losses and damages that climate change is already driving in developing nations.
California is likely to soon become the world’s fourth-largest economy, and we reap many benefits from that. Californians have also been willing to take ownership of problems we have helped create. We must continue to lead on cutting carbon emissions to protect the future, and we must develop the same leadership on climate adaptation — because Californians and vulnerable nations need those protections now.
Michael W. Beck is a professor and the director of the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience at UC Santa Cruz.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Michael W. Beck
Sun, January 22, 2023
After a fire, part of Montecito, Calif., was especially vulnerable to a flood-induced cascade of boulders and debris in 2018. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
It has been demoralizing to witness in Santa Cruz, my hometown, the destructive power of waves and water on our beaches, piers, roads, homes, businesses, rivers and levees. But we knew this was coming, and we’re overdue to adapt to the new realities of our climate.
In 2015, global leaders resolved to cut carbon emissions in an effort to keep the planet from heating more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. California has played a significant role in that campaign, with world-leading policies and innovations on technologies such as solar power and electric vehicles and in the development of carbon markets, which reduce emissions through caps and tradeable credits. All of this has been aimed at averting a future climate challenge. That challenge is here now.
Mitigation must continue, but adaptation has become urgent as well. California should step up once again.
It’s not enough to invest just in strategies to protect future people, property and nature. The risk of climate change to people here and now has become quite clear. It’s clear in California’s historic drought, epic fires and the recent deluge. It’s clear nationally in the supersizing of hurricanes such as Sandy, Dorian, Michael and Ian. It is also clear in the increasing costs of storms. In 2017, Harvey, Irma and Maria caused an unprecedented $300 billion in damages.
Recovering from climate-fueled disasters will take an ever-greater bite out of national and local budgets. The United Nations lauds countries’ mitigation commitments, but finds an ever-widening “adaptation gap” between what is spent, around $29 billion annually, and what is needed, around $71 billion a year now and $340 billion in 2030. For many developing countries, particularly island nations, falling behind on adaptation is an existential crisis.
Californians have done a lot to contribute to this crisis. Among U.S. states, we rank second only to Texas in total carbon dioxide emissions.
So we should help solve this adaptation crisis — as innovators and leaders.
First, that means experimenting with more solutions to adapt to climate change across the state, innovations that we can export elsewhere. This responsibility falls not only to the state government but also to cities, counties, nonprofits, businesses and academia. Many states and countries are already doing more than California has, especially when it comes to nature-based solutions such as the restoration of wetlands and reefs. The U.S. government is ahead as well. For example, the Department of Defense is working on oyster and coral reef restoration to help defend military bases against erosion and flooding.
California can’t afford to lag behind in the race to adapt to existing climate dangers. Catastrophic collapses along our open coasts this month are a reminder that we must greatly expand efforts to reduce risks on our coastlines. For example, we should be working with our rocky reefs to reduce wave energy, erosion and flooding. Enhancing the height and roughness of rocky habitats in shallow nearshore waters could provide risk reduction and conservation benefits and reduce investments in artificial armoring, which has no habitat value. Innovations here could be replicated along rocky coasts worldwide.
Second, California should lead in the development of an adaptation marketplace. California helped build carbon markets, and we need the same leadership for an adaptation marketplace that gives benefits and credits for reducing present climate risks to people, property and nature.
One key step will be to measure risk and the benefits of adaptation solutions, and then we must price them. We already know how to price risk; that’s the basis for the insurance industry. With a little prodding, the risk industry could do more to measure adaptation benefits.
We also need incentives or government requirements to advance adaptation projects. Such incentives are already emerging from the private sector. Companies are increasingly being pushed by investors to report on the risks of climate change to their balance sheets, which has led to voluntary compliance with reporting developed by the business-led Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures.
Starting this year, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is requiring companies to disclose financial impacts of climate-related risks. As businesses increasingly report on risks, they will have more incentives to look for actions to reduce exposure and harm.
Governments already have plenty of incentives given the costs of recovery after disasters. The Federal Emergency Management Agency estimates that funding spent ahead of time to reduce hazards provides a 6-to-1 return on investment.
It makes sense for businesses and governments to get out in front with voluntary adaptation commitments. At the U.N. climate conference in Egypt in November, one of the few points of agreement was that developed nations will increasingly have to take responsibility for the losses and damages that climate change is already driving in developing nations.
California is likely to soon become the world’s fourth-largest economy, and we reap many benefits from that. Californians have also been willing to take ownership of problems we have helped create. We must continue to lead on cutting carbon emissions to protect the future, and we must develop the same leadership on climate adaptation — because Californians and vulnerable nations need those protections now.
Michael W. Beck is a professor and the director of the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience at UC Santa Cruz.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
FORMER PRO CHINA CARLYLE GROUP CEO
Virginia Gov. Youngkin stokes 2024 campaign speculation after killing Ford battery plant over its links to China
Alex Seitz-Wald
Sun, January 22, 2023
It seemed like a deal any governor would love to tout, especially if dreaming of a move to the White House: 2,500 high-tech manufacturing jobs for an iconic American company in a long-struggling part of the state.
But this week, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia nixed a proposed $3.5 billion Ford electric vehicle battery factory over its partnership with a Chinese battery maker, saying he would not allow taxpayer money to be used to “recruit Ford as a front for China.”
The decision by the former CEO stunned observers, leading many to see it as further evidence that Youngkin is preparing to run for president and trying to neutralize a potential line of attack on his past business ties to the communist country. (Virginia doesn't allow governors to serve consecutive terms, so Youngkin can't seek re-election.)
“There’s a logic to the politics of Youngkin’s decision,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist and lobbyist. “It tracks with the prevailing tough-on-China sentiment within the party, showcasing a pugilistic side the base craves but that’s otherwise absent from his persona, and seeks to turn a potential vulnerability — Youngkin’s business dealings — into an experience that informs his stance.”
Youngkin became a national GOP star in 2021 when he flipped Virginia’s governorship after a dozen years' drought for Republicans in which they didn’t win a single statewide election.
The first-time candidate had spent 25 years at the Carlyle Group, rising to become its chief executive as he helped to grow the private equity firm into a global powerhouse with billions worth of holdings in China, before leaving in 2020 ahead of his gubernatorial campaign.
“The governor’s record was largely spared from Romney-style attacks on private equity in 2021,” added Donovan, referring to the issue that helped sink Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. “But foes will seek to exploit it as he seeks the national stage, and he is smart to define his career preemptively and on his own terms.”
While it might pay off for Youngkin down the line, critics today are accusing him of putting his personal political ambition ahead of his constituents’ livelihood.
“Shutting down negotiations on this project made absolutely no sense to me or most of my colleagues,” said Sen. Scott Surovell, a Virginia Democrat who called the move “gubernatorial malpractice.” “This is an economically distressed part of our state that is hungry for jobs; 2,500 jobs would be manna from heaven.”
Virginia has long prided itself on being friendly to business, no matter which party is in power, and often ranks near the top on lists of best states for business. Former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe loved to rib his colleagues from other states about poaching their companies and jobs.
Now, Michigan is looking to gain from Virginia’s loss, with Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer telling the Detroit News that Youngkin’s “political determination” created an “exciting opportunity” for her state.
Ford had been considering competing bids from Michigan and a site outside Danville, Virginia, where local officials had spent years and millions of dollars trying to attract a major manufacturer with tax incentives that are common practice in economic development deals.
The conservative Daily Caller first broke the news of Youngkin’s decision to pull his state out of the running, which came after the site criticized Ford’s plan to “help China reap U.S. tax benefits” through its partnership, which was reportedly structured to circumvent limitations for foreign companies.
“The only explanation that I can see for leaking this to the Daily Caller and saying, ‘We don’t want this project because of Chinese connections’ is that the governor is in some kind of a China-bashing contest with Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott,” said Surovell, referring to the Republican governors of Florida and Texas, who are also considering presidential runs.
All three governors have recently moved to ban Chinese companies from buying farmland and other assets in their states, with Youngkin saying in a speech last week that “Virginians — not the CCP — should own the rich and vibrant agricultural lands God has blessed us with.”
And like the federal government, Youngkin banned TikTok from government-issued phones over data security concerns, saying, “everyone knows that TikTok is a tool of the Chinese Communist Party” — though the Carlyle Group owns a large stake in the social media platform’s parent company, which it acquired after he left.
Youngkin spokeswoman, Macaulay Porter, said in a statement that while “Ford is an iconic American company,” the joint partnership was “a front” for the Chinese company, one of the world’s leading battery makers, so allowing it to proceed “could compromise our economic security and Virginians’ personal privacy.”
“I look forward to bringing a great company there,” Youngkin told Bloomberg TV Friday. “It won’t be one that uses kind of a Trojan-horse relationship with the Chinese Communist Party.”
With his rags-to-riches personal story, suburban dad energy and careful triangulation on policy, Youngkin in his 2021 campaign found a winning formula that managed to keep voters loyal to former President Donald Trump engaged without turning off professional-class moderates.
Youngkin has been trying to take that formula national, making frequent appearances on Fox News and other national outlets while traveling the country last year to stump for conservative midterm candidates.
As concerns about China grow inside the GOP, Trump — who endorsed Youngkin's gubernatorial bid but never appeared in person to rally for him — has already hinted that he thinks the governor is vulnerable on China.
“Young Kin (now that’s an interesting take. Sounds Chinese, doesn’t it?),” Trump said in a series of posts on his Truth Social in November, knocking the governor for distancing himself a bit from Trump. “I Endorsed him, did a very big Trump Rally for him telephonically, got MAGA to Vote for him — or he couldn’t have come close to winning.”
Youngkin’s work at Carlyle was overshadowed by other issues during his gubernatorial campaign, but Democrats and Republican rivals are already preparing to put it front and center if he decides to run for president, especially since China has grown increasingly autocratic in recent years.
As other Western companies have begun pulling back from China, Carlye says it is committed to the country, with the head of its Asia division telling a trade publication in September it is “actively leaning in” to China and enjoying having less competition.
“Carlyle makes a lot of money out of China,” said Surovell, the Democratic state senator. “If it’s good enough for him to make his $400 million fortune, I don’t see why it’s not good enough for one of the most economically distressed part of our state.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Iran judiciary to rule on famed filmmaker's release: lawyer
Sat, January 21, 2023
Iran's judiciary is to rule by Friday on whether to release celebrated filmmaker Jafar Panahi on bail after his conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court, his lawyer said Saturday.
Panahi, 62, who has won a string of awards at European film festivals, was arrested on July 11 and had been due to serve a six-year sentence handed down in 2010 after his conviction for "propaganda against the system".
But on October 15, the Supreme Court quashed the conviction and ordered a retrial.
"Early this morning, judicial officials told me that they will make a decision about Panahi by the end of the week," his lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, told AFP.
"Panahi's case had remained blocked in the courts since mid-October, but it was finally sent to the Court of Appeal on Monday to launch the legal proceedings.
"By law, he should immediately be released on bail and his case reviewed again," the lawyer said.
Panahi won a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2000 for his film "The Circle". In 2015, he won the Golden Bear at Berlin for "Taxi Tehran", while in 2018, he won the best screenplay prize at Cannes for "Three Faces".
Panahi's conviction followed his support for mass protests in 2009 against the disputed results of that year's presidential election which saw populist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad win a second term.
As well as the six-year jail term, the court sentenced Panahi to a 20-year ban on directing or writing films, travelling or even speaking to the media. However, he has continued to live and work in Iran.
According to his lawyer, Panahi already suffered from health problems before his arrest and contracted a serious skin disease in prison.
Doctors say he needs to be treated "outside prison", the lawyer added.
Panahi's July arrest came after he attended a court hearing for fellow film director Mohammad Rasoulof, who had been detained a few days earlier.
Rasoulof was released from prison on January 7 after being granted a two-week furlough for health reasons, his lawyer told AFP.
Separately, a court ordered the release on bail of activist Arash Sadeghi, who was detained during mass protests in October against the death in custody of Masha Amini following her arrest for an alleged breach of Iran's strict dress code for women, the Etemad newspaper reported.
ap-rkh/kir
Sat, January 21, 2023
Iran's judiciary is to rule by Friday on whether to release celebrated filmmaker Jafar Panahi on bail after his conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court, his lawyer said Saturday.
Panahi, 62, who has won a string of awards at European film festivals, was arrested on July 11 and had been due to serve a six-year sentence handed down in 2010 after his conviction for "propaganda against the system".
But on October 15, the Supreme Court quashed the conviction and ordered a retrial.
"Early this morning, judicial officials told me that they will make a decision about Panahi by the end of the week," his lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, told AFP.
"Panahi's case had remained blocked in the courts since mid-October, but it was finally sent to the Court of Appeal on Monday to launch the legal proceedings.
"By law, he should immediately be released on bail and his case reviewed again," the lawyer said.
Panahi won a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2000 for his film "The Circle". In 2015, he won the Golden Bear at Berlin for "Taxi Tehran", while in 2018, he won the best screenplay prize at Cannes for "Three Faces".
Panahi's conviction followed his support for mass protests in 2009 against the disputed results of that year's presidential election which saw populist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad win a second term.
As well as the six-year jail term, the court sentenced Panahi to a 20-year ban on directing or writing films, travelling or even speaking to the media. However, he has continued to live and work in Iran.
According to his lawyer, Panahi already suffered from health problems before his arrest and contracted a serious skin disease in prison.
Doctors say he needs to be treated "outside prison", the lawyer added.
Panahi's July arrest came after he attended a court hearing for fellow film director Mohammad Rasoulof, who had been detained a few days earlier.
Rasoulof was released from prison on January 7 after being granted a two-week furlough for health reasons, his lawyer told AFP.
Separately, a court ordered the release on bail of activist Arash Sadeghi, who was detained during mass protests in October against the death in custody of Masha Amini following her arrest for an alleged breach of Iran's strict dress code for women, the Etemad newspaper reported.
ap-rkh/kir
The Women of Iran Are Not Backing Down
Suzanne Kianpour
Suzanne Kianpour
POLITICO
Sun, January 22, 2023
Persian pop music blasts from the speakers of our silver Peugeot as we weave through Tehran traffic. It’s a Friday in early 2007 and I’m taking advantage of winter break from school to visit my cousin who lives in Tehran. We have meticulously planned our outfits, pushing the boundaries of the required dress for women of the Islamic Republic of Iran: a colorful ‘monteau’ (tunic) as short as we can get away with, matching hijab covering our hair with as little fabric as possible.
My Iranian hosts wanted to show me, anIranian American, a good time, and so they offered one of the few pleasures afforded them in the strict Islamic Republic: a ride around town.
The boys sit in the front; girls are in the back. Normally, as an American college student, I wouldn’t bat an eyelash at the scene. But we’re dabbling in dangerous territory: unmarried women riding around with unmarried, unrelated men, listening to “haram” (un-Islamic) music, wearing haram clothes.
Our minds are not on mullahs or morality police — until we spot flashing lights in the rearview mirror.
“Oh my God, it’s the police,” I think.
I remember what I’d witnessed earlier that week: a woman in a long black “chador,” a type of cloak that covers the whole body except for the face, flinging open the door of a green and white van and snatching a young woman off the street. The morality police were active again, and we would not pass the Islamic purity test.
But the car passes by us. My fear, in this instance, is unfounded: Those flashing lights were nothing more than a souped-up whip on a joy ride, attempting some semblance of normality in an abnormal society.
Fifteen years later, the morality police took it too far. In September 2022, during what seemed a typical detention over an inadequate hijab, Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman visiting Tehran, was arrested and beaten. She subsequently died in custody. Two female journalists broke the story. They are now in prison. The country erupted in widespread protests not seen since the Green Revolution of 2009, demanding justice for Mahsa and freedom and civil rights for all women.
At the time I was in production for my BBC documentary on Iran’s war with Israel and the U.S., “Out of the Shadows.” I’d moved from Washington to Dubai — 70km from Iran, the distance between Washington and Philadelphia — to work on the hour-long program. The region felt like a tinderbox.
While no one could have predicted the flashpoint would be a routine morality police arrest, it did not come as a complete surprise to me. Throughout my years of reporting on Iran and the wider Middle East, I’ve always kept a keen eye on the hidden power of the women. All this time, they’ve been quietly, strategically, slowly pulling at a literal thread in the fabric of the Islamic Republic regime: the hijab. Now, it’s unraveling.
Protests are not a new phenomenon in Iran. They’ve flared up over the years — over election fraud, economic woes, civil liberties. But this time is different — an unprecedented revolution led by women, with support from men, encompassing a wide variety of grievances, all laid out in the heart-wrenching Persian lyrics of Shervin Hajipour’s song “Baraye,” or “Because of.” It’s become the anthem of the revolution, striking such a nerve around the world that backlash after Hajipour’s arrest led to his release.
This is a spontaneous civil rights movement made up of people at their wit’s end — unable to afford basic life necessities while forced to adhere to the oppressive rules of a religious autocracy that promised to take care of its people. What’s more dangerous than a mob with nothing to lose? See: The French Revolution.
The politics of fear have been key to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s theocratic rulers’ hold on power for 43 years. Women are forced to cover their hair in hijab and bodies in loose clothing. They cannot dance publicly, cannot drive motorcycles and cannot travel without parental or spousal approval — just to name a few restrictions. The Iranian men’s soccer team was in the spotlight during the World Cup in Qatar, but at home, women are forbidden from watching men’s sports in stadiums. While at a soccer game in Wimbledon, England, I recently challenged this rule to an Iranian man in Tehran who works with a production company close to the foreign ministry. He told me, a reporter who’s covered wars in a flak jacket and helmet, that “the infrastructure of the stadiums is not suitable for women.”
Periodically over the years, women would literally get an inch on what is tolerated in terms of compulsory hijab — they could get away with some hair showing, only to have the rules snap back with no warning. Public dancing for women is another point of leverage. When I was in Tehran in 2005, the soccer team had just qualified for the World Cup. The streets were jam-packed with celebrating men and women, dancing on cars while blasting Western music, which is also banned. Police stood by, letting the scenes unfold. By the time I returned less than two years later, hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had reversed the previous reformist president’s relaxation of the rules. I saw the results years ago, on my visit with my cousin, during that incident with the morality police.
The regime controls its population by unofficially easing up on social restrictions and then suddenly pulling the lever — a litmus test for its grasp on power over the people. This easing is unspoken; it’s not announced, the push-pull is organic. Women are at the mercy of the morality police’s mood. Mahsa’s story was the last straw. She had a few hairs peeping out from under her headscarf, like so many other women often do, not the least because the laws of physics are not forever in the compulsory hijab’s favor: Fabric slips.
One woman who lives in the southern part of Iran sent me a voice note on Instagram. A couple of months ago she received a summons to go down to the police station. She was ordered to pay a hefty fine and her car would be impounded. Her crime? A traffic camera had caught her, sitting behind the steering wheel of her car alone at a stop light, with her hijab having fallen off her head. If it happened again, she’d be imprisoned.
But in the midst of this push-pull, the regime missed a thread: They underestimated the emboldening of women, who had already begun to ditch the hijab, even before Mahsa’s death.
The aging leaders who came to power during the Islamic Revolution are completely out of touch with Gen Z — who are truly the leaders of this revolt. What started out as protests against compulsory hijab have evolved into calls for an end to the Islamic Republic itself, with shocking scenes of schoolgirls defiling images of Supreme Leaders Ayatollah Khamenei and Ayatollah Khomeini.
The protests have now been going on for over three months, and the crackdown has been brutal: hundreds killed, including children; over 10,000 arrested; reports of horrific sexual abuse of men, women and minors in detention.
Iranian officials dismissed a Newsweek report that said 15,000 arrested protesters face execution as a result of a parliamentary vote in favor of the death penalty for them. After the story went viral on social media and shared by multiple prominent Western figures like Justin Trudeau, traditional media fact checked the report labeled misinformation. Newsweek issued a correction that read: "A majority of the parliament supported a letter to the judiciary calling for harsh punishments of protesters, which could include the death penalty."
But in fact, the regime has begun executing protesters by hanging, as is typical in Iran. Four men in connection with the protests have already been executed and at least 41 protesters have received death sentences.
The Islamic Republic’s atrocities have gotten global attention and led to Iran being kicked off the UN commission on women — a win for Iranian-born British actress and activist Nazanin Boniadi.
“The most unprecedented thing we’re seeing is people are fighting back against security forces. Women are not just taking off their headscarves in protest, they’re burning them. And young kids, young girls are protesting,” Boniadi told me.
“Despite the brutal crackdown, they’re showing no signs of slowing down. I think this is a historic moment, I truly believe this is the first female-led revolution of our time.”
In October, Boniadi met with Vice President Kamala Harris and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan at the White House to discuss how the Biden administration can help protesters with internet freedom and hold the Islamic Republic accountable for human rights abuses. Boniadi’s activist work has put her in the crosshairs of the regime for years. Like many members of the diaspora, she is in exile, and cannot return to Iran so long as the present government is in charge.
The Western response has been swifter than usual, but many say it’s not enough. Messages I receive from inside Iran are in particular focused on family members of the regime who live freely in the West. There are calls for assets to be frozen and deportations — both of which are gaining traction in Washington and Europe. Negotiations around Iran’s nuclear program have also been a point of contention, with calls to abandon efforts to revive the JCPOA as the regime cracks down on its own people. In a recent off-the-cuff moment, President Biden said the deal “is dead, but we’re not going to announce it.”
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has said the protests are not about hijab and blamed the U.S. and its allies for stoking unrest. He’s blamed “anti-government” media for manipulating the minds of Iranians, and the regime has even gone as far as threatening punishment for anyone working for or speaking with foreign press. The threat has had an impact: When I followed up with the woman who sent me a voice note with her experience at the start of the protests, her sister, who lives abroad, messaged me instead. She said the regime is monitoring the communications of civil servants and her sister is a teacher, so she can’t talk to me anymore.
The regime’s gaslighting is not holding, however, and Boniadi tells me the opposition — whether inside the country or among the diaspora — all agree no one is interested in interventionism. Change isn’t coming, it’s already here; Iranian women who don’t want to cover their hair just aren’t.
One morning I woke up to an Instagram DM from Iran, as I do most days. This one was from an Iranian man who was a skeptic when the protests first started and thought they wouldn’t amount to much. Now he is firmly convinced the regime in its current form won’t last. He’s been close to power in his profession. The DM was a photo he’d snapped in a food court at a luxury mall in north Tehran: women, casually dining, almost no one wearing hijab. Might as well have been in any mall in America.
“You can share it,” he wrote, with a smiley face.
In a way, the Iranian women have already won: They have the upperhand.
“The Islamic Republic has two options: Continue to brutally crack down on its people, which only compounds the anger and frustration against the regime — eventually, that’s a losing battle for them. Or, they take another approach: abolish morality police, give women freedom to not wear a hijab and introduce some kind of social reform movement inside Iran,” Boniadi told me.
But compulsory hijab is a pillar of the Islamic Republic — without it, the foundation is broken.
“To me, it’s a losing game for them. Whichever course they take, the Islamic Republic as we know it is no longer going to exist,” Boniadi said.
The Islamic Republic is trying to fashion today’s unrest as a political protest instigated by the West, because there are historical hiccups where the U.S. and the U.K. have meddled and botched the job — like the 1953 Mossadegh coup, when a democratically elected prime minister was overthrown. This upcoming year is the 70th anniversary of the regime’s favorite excuse for anti-Western sentiment.
But what’s happening in Iran is not a political movement as much as it is a civil rights movement. Women don’t have basic human rights. In many parts of their existence, a man must make decisions for them, according to the law. And yet they are highly educated. The slogan of the revolution — “zan, zendegi, azadi” or “woman, life, liberty” — is not about politics but about equality.
In the early days of the protests fueled by Mahsa Amini’s death, I was speaking with a U.S. intelligence official who said the regime would crack down on the protesters and they’d dissipate as in the past. But everyone I spoke with inside Iran said this time is different.
Even some people within the regime are privately beginning to budge, however conflicted they may feel.In October a regime source called me and spoke for 45 minutes. This source is close to the Supreme Leader and spent time in the West — a true revolutionary, but clear eyed to some extent about what survival for such a regime in a rapidly evolving world requires. In a seemingly face-saving suggestion for reform, he said he believes if hijab were to be optional, women would be more likely to feel compelled to wear it, because “the Iranian woman is Najeeb (pure and virginal).” Basically, if hijab were optional, more women would want to wear it — but because it’s compulsory now, women are revolting against it. He may not be wrong. The number of women wearing the ultra-conservative chador, a black head to toe veil, alongside those who’ve taken off their headscarves is striking. Ultimately, this is about choice and civil liberties — not the headscarf itself.
Choice was something Ayatollah Khomeini did allow at the birth of the Islamic Republic. In an interview with Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci in which she called the chador a “stupid medieval rag,” he said she was not obliged to wear it. Now Western women do have to wear hijab in Iran —as Lesley Stahl of CBS did in September in her interview with President Raisi in Tehran, drawing criticism on Twitter.
The regime source I spoke with acknowledged there needs to be dialogue, there needs to be reforms, that “this generation is not like that of 1979” when the Western-friendly Shah was overthrown and the Islamic Republic was created. But by the time we got back in touch in late November, the protests had taken a bloody turn. Reform seemed to have been taken off the table and his tone was now aggressive.
“The alternative is ISIS,” he said — repeating the regime’s false narrative that hijab protests were to blame for an October attack on a religious shrine in the city of Shiraz that left 13 dead — a tragedy for which ISIS has claimed responsibility.
But the people aren’t all buying this narrative. When the Iranian soccer team lost a match in the World Cup, memes circulated on Instagram joking that ISIS was to blame.
In a country where the Persian language prioritizes the female in its sentences — instead of “husband and wife,” “men and women” or “brothers and sisters,” Persians say: “wife and husband” (zan o shawhar), “women and men” (zan o mard) and “sisters and brothers” (khāhar o barādar) — the women are finally demanding their rights be prioritized. Looking to the future, questions remain around the viability of a revolution without a leader who has not yet emerged.
“I do think the fabric of the future of Iran as a state will be weaved by the people who have risked the most for a better future,” Boniadi said.
And whereas some make the argument that the protestors do not make up the majority of the country, they’ve been loud enough to make the regime realize the status quo is not sustainable. This genie cannot and will not go back in the bottle.
Sun, January 22, 2023
LONG READ
Persian pop music blasts from the speakers of our silver Peugeot as we weave through Tehran traffic. It’s a Friday in early 2007 and I’m taking advantage of winter break from school to visit my cousin who lives in Tehran. We have meticulously planned our outfits, pushing the boundaries of the required dress for women of the Islamic Republic of Iran: a colorful ‘monteau’ (tunic) as short as we can get away with, matching hijab covering our hair with as little fabric as possible.
My Iranian hosts wanted to show me, anIranian American, a good time, and so they offered one of the few pleasures afforded them in the strict Islamic Republic: a ride around town.
The boys sit in the front; girls are in the back. Normally, as an American college student, I wouldn’t bat an eyelash at the scene. But we’re dabbling in dangerous territory: unmarried women riding around with unmarried, unrelated men, listening to “haram” (un-Islamic) music, wearing haram clothes.
Our minds are not on mullahs or morality police — until we spot flashing lights in the rearview mirror.
“Oh my God, it’s the police,” I think.
I remember what I’d witnessed earlier that week: a woman in a long black “chador,” a type of cloak that covers the whole body except for the face, flinging open the door of a green and white van and snatching a young woman off the street. The morality police were active again, and we would not pass the Islamic purity test.
But the car passes by us. My fear, in this instance, is unfounded: Those flashing lights were nothing more than a souped-up whip on a joy ride, attempting some semblance of normality in an abnormal society.
Fifteen years later, the morality police took it too far. In September 2022, during what seemed a typical detention over an inadequate hijab, Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman visiting Tehran, was arrested and beaten. She subsequently died in custody. Two female journalists broke the story. They are now in prison. The country erupted in widespread protests not seen since the Green Revolution of 2009, demanding justice for Mahsa and freedom and civil rights for all women.
At the time I was in production for my BBC documentary on Iran’s war with Israel and the U.S., “Out of the Shadows.” I’d moved from Washington to Dubai — 70km from Iran, the distance between Washington and Philadelphia — to work on the hour-long program. The region felt like a tinderbox.
While no one could have predicted the flashpoint would be a routine morality police arrest, it did not come as a complete surprise to me. Throughout my years of reporting on Iran and the wider Middle East, I’ve always kept a keen eye on the hidden power of the women. All this time, they’ve been quietly, strategically, slowly pulling at a literal thread in the fabric of the Islamic Republic regime: the hijab. Now, it’s unraveling.
Protests are not a new phenomenon in Iran. They’ve flared up over the years — over election fraud, economic woes, civil liberties. But this time is different — an unprecedented revolution led by women, with support from men, encompassing a wide variety of grievances, all laid out in the heart-wrenching Persian lyrics of Shervin Hajipour’s song “Baraye,” or “Because of.” It’s become the anthem of the revolution, striking such a nerve around the world that backlash after Hajipour’s arrest led to his release.
This is a spontaneous civil rights movement made up of people at their wit’s end — unable to afford basic life necessities while forced to adhere to the oppressive rules of a religious autocracy that promised to take care of its people. What’s more dangerous than a mob with nothing to lose? See: The French Revolution.
The politics of fear have been key to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s theocratic rulers’ hold on power for 43 years. Women are forced to cover their hair in hijab and bodies in loose clothing. They cannot dance publicly, cannot drive motorcycles and cannot travel without parental or spousal approval — just to name a few restrictions. The Iranian men’s soccer team was in the spotlight during the World Cup in Qatar, but at home, women are forbidden from watching men’s sports in stadiums. While at a soccer game in Wimbledon, England, I recently challenged this rule to an Iranian man in Tehran who works with a production company close to the foreign ministry. He told me, a reporter who’s covered wars in a flak jacket and helmet, that “the infrastructure of the stadiums is not suitable for women.”
Periodically over the years, women would literally get an inch on what is tolerated in terms of compulsory hijab — they could get away with some hair showing, only to have the rules snap back with no warning. Public dancing for women is another point of leverage. When I was in Tehran in 2005, the soccer team had just qualified for the World Cup. The streets were jam-packed with celebrating men and women, dancing on cars while blasting Western music, which is also banned. Police stood by, letting the scenes unfold. By the time I returned less than two years later, hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had reversed the previous reformist president’s relaxation of the rules. I saw the results years ago, on my visit with my cousin, during that incident with the morality police.
The regime controls its population by unofficially easing up on social restrictions and then suddenly pulling the lever — a litmus test for its grasp on power over the people. This easing is unspoken; it’s not announced, the push-pull is organic. Women are at the mercy of the morality police’s mood. Mahsa’s story was the last straw. She had a few hairs peeping out from under her headscarf, like so many other women often do, not the least because the laws of physics are not forever in the compulsory hijab’s favor: Fabric slips.
One woman who lives in the southern part of Iran sent me a voice note on Instagram. A couple of months ago she received a summons to go down to the police station. She was ordered to pay a hefty fine and her car would be impounded. Her crime? A traffic camera had caught her, sitting behind the steering wheel of her car alone at a stop light, with her hijab having fallen off her head. If it happened again, she’d be imprisoned.
But in the midst of this push-pull, the regime missed a thread: They underestimated the emboldening of women, who had already begun to ditch the hijab, even before Mahsa’s death.
The aging leaders who came to power during the Islamic Revolution are completely out of touch with Gen Z — who are truly the leaders of this revolt. What started out as protests against compulsory hijab have evolved into calls for an end to the Islamic Republic itself, with shocking scenes of schoolgirls defiling images of Supreme Leaders Ayatollah Khamenei and Ayatollah Khomeini.
The protests have now been going on for over three months, and the crackdown has been brutal: hundreds killed, including children; over 10,000 arrested; reports of horrific sexual abuse of men, women and minors in detention.
Iranian officials dismissed a Newsweek report that said 15,000 arrested protesters face execution as a result of a parliamentary vote in favor of the death penalty for them. After the story went viral on social media and shared by multiple prominent Western figures like Justin Trudeau, traditional media fact checked the report labeled misinformation. Newsweek issued a correction that read: "A majority of the parliament supported a letter to the judiciary calling for harsh punishments of protesters, which could include the death penalty."
But in fact, the regime has begun executing protesters by hanging, as is typical in Iran. Four men in connection with the protests have already been executed and at least 41 protesters have received death sentences.
The Islamic Republic’s atrocities have gotten global attention and led to Iran being kicked off the UN commission on women — a win for Iranian-born British actress and activist Nazanin Boniadi.
“The most unprecedented thing we’re seeing is people are fighting back against security forces. Women are not just taking off their headscarves in protest, they’re burning them. And young kids, young girls are protesting,” Boniadi told me.
“Despite the brutal crackdown, they’re showing no signs of slowing down. I think this is a historic moment, I truly believe this is the first female-led revolution of our time.”
In October, Boniadi met with Vice President Kamala Harris and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan at the White House to discuss how the Biden administration can help protesters with internet freedom and hold the Islamic Republic accountable for human rights abuses. Boniadi’s activist work has put her in the crosshairs of the regime for years. Like many members of the diaspora, she is in exile, and cannot return to Iran so long as the present government is in charge.
The Western response has been swifter than usual, but many say it’s not enough. Messages I receive from inside Iran are in particular focused on family members of the regime who live freely in the West. There are calls for assets to be frozen and deportations — both of which are gaining traction in Washington and Europe. Negotiations around Iran’s nuclear program have also been a point of contention, with calls to abandon efforts to revive the JCPOA as the regime cracks down on its own people. In a recent off-the-cuff moment, President Biden said the deal “is dead, but we’re not going to announce it.”
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has said the protests are not about hijab and blamed the U.S. and its allies for stoking unrest. He’s blamed “anti-government” media for manipulating the minds of Iranians, and the regime has even gone as far as threatening punishment for anyone working for or speaking with foreign press. The threat has had an impact: When I followed up with the woman who sent me a voice note with her experience at the start of the protests, her sister, who lives abroad, messaged me instead. She said the regime is monitoring the communications of civil servants and her sister is a teacher, so she can’t talk to me anymore.
The regime’s gaslighting is not holding, however, and Boniadi tells me the opposition — whether inside the country or among the diaspora — all agree no one is interested in interventionism. Change isn’t coming, it’s already here; Iranian women who don’t want to cover their hair just aren’t.
One morning I woke up to an Instagram DM from Iran, as I do most days. This one was from an Iranian man who was a skeptic when the protests first started and thought they wouldn’t amount to much. Now he is firmly convinced the regime in its current form won’t last. He’s been close to power in his profession. The DM was a photo he’d snapped in a food court at a luxury mall in north Tehran: women, casually dining, almost no one wearing hijab. Might as well have been in any mall in America.
“You can share it,” he wrote, with a smiley face.
In a way, the Iranian women have already won: They have the upperhand.
“The Islamic Republic has two options: Continue to brutally crack down on its people, which only compounds the anger and frustration against the regime — eventually, that’s a losing battle for them. Or, they take another approach: abolish morality police, give women freedom to not wear a hijab and introduce some kind of social reform movement inside Iran,” Boniadi told me.
But compulsory hijab is a pillar of the Islamic Republic — without it, the foundation is broken.
“To me, it’s a losing game for them. Whichever course they take, the Islamic Republic as we know it is no longer going to exist,” Boniadi said.
The Islamic Republic is trying to fashion today’s unrest as a political protest instigated by the West, because there are historical hiccups where the U.S. and the U.K. have meddled and botched the job — like the 1953 Mossadegh coup, when a democratically elected prime minister was overthrown. This upcoming year is the 70th anniversary of the regime’s favorite excuse for anti-Western sentiment.
But what’s happening in Iran is not a political movement as much as it is a civil rights movement. Women don’t have basic human rights. In many parts of their existence, a man must make decisions for them, according to the law. And yet they are highly educated. The slogan of the revolution — “zan, zendegi, azadi” or “woman, life, liberty” — is not about politics but about equality.
In the early days of the protests fueled by Mahsa Amini’s death, I was speaking with a U.S. intelligence official who said the regime would crack down on the protesters and they’d dissipate as in the past. But everyone I spoke with inside Iran said this time is different.
Even some people within the regime are privately beginning to budge, however conflicted they may feel.In October a regime source called me and spoke for 45 minutes. This source is close to the Supreme Leader and spent time in the West — a true revolutionary, but clear eyed to some extent about what survival for such a regime in a rapidly evolving world requires. In a seemingly face-saving suggestion for reform, he said he believes if hijab were to be optional, women would be more likely to feel compelled to wear it, because “the Iranian woman is Najeeb (pure and virginal).” Basically, if hijab were optional, more women would want to wear it — but because it’s compulsory now, women are revolting against it. He may not be wrong. The number of women wearing the ultra-conservative chador, a black head to toe veil, alongside those who’ve taken off their headscarves is striking. Ultimately, this is about choice and civil liberties — not the headscarf itself.
Choice was something Ayatollah Khomeini did allow at the birth of the Islamic Republic. In an interview with Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci in which she called the chador a “stupid medieval rag,” he said she was not obliged to wear it. Now Western women do have to wear hijab in Iran —as Lesley Stahl of CBS did in September in her interview with President Raisi in Tehran, drawing criticism on Twitter.
The regime source I spoke with acknowledged there needs to be dialogue, there needs to be reforms, that “this generation is not like that of 1979” when the Western-friendly Shah was overthrown and the Islamic Republic was created. But by the time we got back in touch in late November, the protests had taken a bloody turn. Reform seemed to have been taken off the table and his tone was now aggressive.
“The alternative is ISIS,” he said — repeating the regime’s false narrative that hijab protests were to blame for an October attack on a religious shrine in the city of Shiraz that left 13 dead — a tragedy for which ISIS has claimed responsibility.
But the people aren’t all buying this narrative. When the Iranian soccer team lost a match in the World Cup, memes circulated on Instagram joking that ISIS was to blame.
In a country where the Persian language prioritizes the female in its sentences — instead of “husband and wife,” “men and women” or “brothers and sisters,” Persians say: “wife and husband” (zan o shawhar), “women and men” (zan o mard) and “sisters and brothers” (khāhar o barādar) — the women are finally demanding their rights be prioritized. Looking to the future, questions remain around the viability of a revolution without a leader who has not yet emerged.
“I do think the fabric of the future of Iran as a state will be weaved by the people who have risked the most for a better future,” Boniadi said.
And whereas some make the argument that the protestors do not make up the majority of the country, they’ve been loud enough to make the regime realize the status quo is not sustainable. This genie cannot and will not go back in the bottle.
'We need to turn this around': About 1,500 turn out for VP speech on abortion in Tallahassee
Douglas Soule and Christopher Cann, Tallahassee Democrat
Sun, January 22, 2023
TALLAHASSEE — Hours before Vice President Kamala Harris gave her Tallahassee speech on the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade on Sunday, hundreds of people stood in the rain, waiting in line.
Some of them traveled a long way to be there. They told the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida that they were bused in from around the state.
Molly Henry, a volunteer with Planned Parenthood in Sarasota, came to Tallahassee via bus with one of her children. They left around 4:30 a.m. and arrived at 9.
"I don't want to go back," Henry said of the landmark abortion rights case that was overturned in June by the Supreme Court. "My mother had a back alley abortion in 1950."
Laura Rodriguez, a 58-year-old member of the National Council for Jewish Women, drove from Miami to Tallahassee for the various pro-abortion events around the capital city.
"We need to turn this around," she said. "Abortion is a religious right."
Douglas Soule and Christopher Cann, Tallahassee Democrat
Sun, January 22, 2023
TALLAHASSEE — Hours before Vice President Kamala Harris gave her Tallahassee speech on the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade on Sunday, hundreds of people stood in the rain, waiting in line.
Some of them traveled a long way to be there. They told the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida that they were bused in from around the state.
Molly Henry, a volunteer with Planned Parenthood in Sarasota, came to Tallahassee via bus with one of her children. They left around 4:30 a.m. and arrived at 9.
"I don't want to go back," Henry said of the landmark abortion rights case that was overturned in June by the Supreme Court. "My mother had a back alley abortion in 1950."
Laura Rodriguez, a 58-year-old member of the National Council for Jewish Women, drove from Miami to Tallahassee for the various pro-abortion events around the capital city.
"We need to turn this around," she said. "Abortion is a religious right."
SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/01/interview-friend-of-satan-how-lucien.html
Then there were the locals, like Kassidy Caride, a public health graduate student at Florida State University.
“I don’t think it’s right,” Caride said about the 15-week abortion ban Florida passed last year. “There’s why we’re here. Everyone should have the right to choose.”
By a little before 11 a.m., hours after the line began, only one anti-abortion counter protester was in sight. That woman is retired Tallahassee resident Helena Sims.
Breaking News
Initially, Planned Parenthood posted to its website that "we'll be joined by VP Harris" at the "Bigger Than Roe: National Day of Action" abortion rights march, organized by Women's March. As of Sunday morning, a message flashed on the site that said "Sorry, this event has reached capacity."
An organizer told the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida that the protest is going to take place as a totally separate event on Apalachee Parkway just outside the Ross shopping center and will happen with whoever comes, weather permitting.
USA Today Network-Florida government accountability reporter Douglas Soule is based in Tallahassee, Fla.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: VP Kamala Harris' Roe v. Wade speech draws long lines amid heavy rain
Then there were the locals, like Kassidy Caride, a public health graduate student at Florida State University.
“I don’t think it’s right,” Caride said about the 15-week abortion ban Florida passed last year. “There’s why we’re here. Everyone should have the right to choose.”
By a little before 11 a.m., hours after the line began, only one anti-abortion counter protester was in sight. That woman is retired Tallahassee resident Helena Sims.
Breaking News
VP Kamala Harris announces Biden White House memo protecting access to reproductive services
Liveblog:
Liveblog:
Sims, wearing a rain jacket and hefting a "CHOOSE LIFE" sign, said she was expecting more counter protesters but explained it was difficult to find information about the event.
"There's another side to the story of 'my body, my choice,'" Sims said. "And that's the baby."
While law enforcement estimate about 1,500 attended the speech at the Moon, the rain appears to have washed out a planned abortion rights march that was to coincide with the speech.
"There's another side to the story of 'my body, my choice,'" Sims said. "And that's the baby."
While law enforcement estimate about 1,500 attended the speech at the Moon, the rain appears to have washed out a planned abortion rights march that was to coincide with the speech.
Initially, Planned Parenthood posted to its website that "we'll be joined by VP Harris" at the "Bigger Than Roe: National Day of Action" abortion rights march, organized by Women's March. As of Sunday morning, a message flashed on the site that said "Sorry, this event has reached capacity."
An organizer told the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida that the protest is going to take place as a totally separate event on Apalachee Parkway just outside the Ross shopping center and will happen with whoever comes, weather permitting.
USA Today Network-Florida government accountability reporter Douglas Soule is based in Tallahassee, Fla.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: VP Kamala Harris' Roe v. Wade speech draws long lines amid heavy rain
VP Kamala Harris announces Biden White House memo protecting access to reproductive services
Christopher Cann, Tallahassee Democrat
Sun, January 22, 2023
On 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, President Joe Biden said he intends to sign a presidential memorandum to consider "efforts to protect access to reproductive healthcare services."
Vice President Harris announced the presidential memorandum at a speech in Tallahassee, just miles away from the state Capitol where Florida’s Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis passed a ban last year on abortion after 15 weeks.
The memorandum will push Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), "to consider new guidance to support patients, providers, and pharmacies who wish to legally access, prescribe, or provide mifepristone—no matter where they live," according to the White House.
Additionally, the memorandum will explore considerations to ensure that patients "can access legal reproductive care, including medication abortion from a pharmacy, free from threats or violence."
What does overturning Roe mean? A breakdown of the Supreme Court's abortion ruling
Read full memoradum:
Christopher Cann, Tallahassee Democrat
Sun, January 22, 2023
On 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, President Joe Biden said he intends to sign a presidential memorandum to consider "efforts to protect access to reproductive healthcare services."
Vice President Harris announced the presidential memorandum at a speech in Tallahassee, just miles away from the state Capitol where Florida’s Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis passed a ban last year on abortion after 15 weeks.
The memorandum will push Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), "to consider new guidance to support patients, providers, and pharmacies who wish to legally access, prescribe, or provide mifepristone—no matter where they live," according to the White House.
Additionally, the memorandum will explore considerations to ensure that patients "can access legal reproductive care, including medication abortion from a pharmacy, free from threats or violence."
What does overturning Roe mean? A breakdown of the Supreme Court's abortion ruling
Read full memoradum:
President Biden to Sign Presidential Memorandum on Ensuring Safe Access to Medication Abortion
"The President has long made clear that people should have access to reproductive care free from harassment, threats, or violence," read Biden's statement from the White House. "Pharmacies should be treated no differently."
Harris will discuss next steps in the fight for reproductive rights and "reinforce the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to protecting access to abortion, including medication abortion," according to a White House press briefing.
"The President has long made clear that people should have access to reproductive care free from harassment, threats, or violence," read Biden's statement from the White House. "Pharmacies should be treated no differently."
Harris will discuss next steps in the fight for reproductive rights and "reinforce the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to protecting access to abortion, including medication abortion," according to a White House press briefing.
Biden to issue memorandum to protect access to abortion pills
Alex Gangitano
Alex Gangitano
THE HILL
Sun, January 22, 2023
President Biden will issue a presidential memorandum that will further protect access to medication abortion by ensuring doctors can prescribe and dispense it across the United States to mark 50 years since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision.
Vice President Harris will announce the memorandum on Sunday in remarks in Florida for the anniversary.
“Members of our Cabinet and our Administration are now directed to identify barriers to access and recommend actions to make sure that: doctors can legally prescribe, doctors can dispense, and women can secure safe and effective medication,” Harris will say, according to speech excerpts.
The memorandum will direct the secretary of Health and Human Services, along with the attorney general and the secretary of Homeland Security, to consider new guidance to support patients, providers and pharmacies that want to access, prescribe or provide mifepristone legally.
Mifepristone, which is a Food and Drug Administration-approved drug used in medication abortion, has become an increasingly common method for ending pregnancies, especially in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. It accounts for more than half of all abortions in the country.
The memorandum will also ensure patients know their right to access reproductive health care, including medication abortion from a pharmacy.
Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it will allow U.S. retail pharmacies to offer abortion pills directly to patients with a prescription in states where abortion is legal. Medication abortion has been available in the U.S. since 2000, when the FDA approved the use of mifepristone, but many states with strict abortion bans also limit the availability of mifepristone, either through restrictions on who can prescribe and dispense the pill or outright bans.
Harris’s speech on Sunday will focus on the next steps the administration will take to fight for reproductive rights, according to a fact sheet from her office. She is set to call out Republicans for actions to restrict abortion access, including Republicans in Congress who have called for a national ban on abortions.
“The right of every woman in every state in the country to make decisions about her own body is on the line. Republicans in Congress are now calling for an abortion ban at the moment of conception nationwide. How dare they?” Harris is expected to say.
Sun, January 22, 2023
President Biden will issue a presidential memorandum that will further protect access to medication abortion by ensuring doctors can prescribe and dispense it across the United States to mark 50 years since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision.
Vice President Harris will announce the memorandum on Sunday in remarks in Florida for the anniversary.
“Members of our Cabinet and our Administration are now directed to identify barriers to access and recommend actions to make sure that: doctors can legally prescribe, doctors can dispense, and women can secure safe and effective medication,” Harris will say, according to speech excerpts.
The memorandum will direct the secretary of Health and Human Services, along with the attorney general and the secretary of Homeland Security, to consider new guidance to support patients, providers and pharmacies that want to access, prescribe or provide mifepristone legally.
Mifepristone, which is a Food and Drug Administration-approved drug used in medication abortion, has become an increasingly common method for ending pregnancies, especially in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. It accounts for more than half of all abortions in the country.
The memorandum will also ensure patients know their right to access reproductive health care, including medication abortion from a pharmacy.
Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it will allow U.S. retail pharmacies to offer abortion pills directly to patients with a prescription in states where abortion is legal. Medication abortion has been available in the U.S. since 2000, when the FDA approved the use of mifepristone, but many states with strict abortion bans also limit the availability of mifepristone, either through restrictions on who can prescribe and dispense the pill or outright bans.
Harris’s speech on Sunday will focus on the next steps the administration will take to fight for reproductive rights, according to a fact sheet from her office. She is set to call out Republicans for actions to restrict abortion access, including Republicans in Congress who have called for a national ban on abortions.
“The right of every woman in every state in the country to make decisions about her own body is on the line. Republicans in Congress are now calling for an abortion ban at the moment of conception nationwide. How dare they?” Harris is expected to say.
Interview
Friend of Satan: how Lucien Greaves and his Satanic Temple are fighting the religious right
Greaves, who uses a pseudonym as a result of threats, somewhat reluctantly became the Satanic Temple’s spokesperson in 2013, the year after it was founded. The organisation quickly became known for its anarchic activities. That same year, it praised the governor of Florida for having signed a bill allowing students to lead prayer at school assemblies. The decision, the Temple said, was exciting – “because now our Satanic children could pray to Satan in school”. Faced with the threat of litigation from civil rights organisations, it is unclear if any school districts ever took up the student-led prayer option.
That same year, the group held a mocking “pink mass” to protest against the notoriously homophobic Westboro Baptist Church, and specifically its founder, Fred Phelps. The mass featured two men kissing over the grave of Phelps’ mother.
In 2016, in response to hundreds of schools hosting after-class Bible study groups (mostly promoted by the Good News Club, a weekly Christian programme for children), the group announced it would offer its own after-school Satan clubs. The clubs, which are “designed to promote intellectual and emotional development”, are still around: last year there was much purse-clutching when a school in Ohio gave the go-ahead for an After School Satan club.
In recent years, though, the Temple has moved beyond physical stunts, and into the courtroom, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal efforts to secure abortion rights, ensure the right to free speech and protect children from abuse.
“It’s getting really frustrating now with the overturn of Roe v Wade, when people are still treating us not like we’re a minority religion – which we are – but more like, we’re just this kind of clever tactic that may or may not work,” Greaves says.
“That gets to be really tedious, because I think people aren’t terribly invested in the outcomes of the Satanic Temple’s lawsuits. And it shows that they don’t understand that the outcomes of what the Satanic Temple is doing have ramifications for everybody: all minority religious organisations, all different types of viewpoint positions that might be outside the Christian nationalist perspective.”
In recent years, Republicans have ushered in a wave of discriminatory, pro-Christian legislation in states across the country. Conservatives have targeted LGBTQ+ people, in particular, with efforts to prevent transgender people using certain bathrooms, and to prevent LGBTQ+ couples from adopting children. Many of these bills are lifted from model legislation drafted by Christian lobbying organisations under an effort known as “Project Blitz”.
It is this religious crusade that ultimately resulted in the supreme court’s 6-3 conservative majority overturning Roe v Wade, with its Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, which held that the constitution of the United States does not confer a right to abortion.
That is where the Satanic Temple is hoping to find some leeway. It has insisted that its members do have a religious right to receive abortions, as part of its “Satanic abortion ritual”. The Temple’s “fundamental tenet” that “one’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone” is a position that contradicts people being denied the right to end a pregnancy.
During the ritual, the person having the abortion looks at their reflection, before taking deep breaths and reciting two of the seven tenets. Once the abortion is complete, the person must recite the “personal affirmation”: “By my body, my blood, by my will, it is done.” The ritual is conceived to serve an “affirmative function of assuring membership that their decision is their own”, the group says, while also offering a kind of counselling effect.
Once someone determines they want to undergo the abortion ritual, the Satanic Temple believes that the state has no right to intervene in what is essentially a religious practice.
“States are passing laws premised on this idea that foetal tissue has personhood, or is a unique and distinct human life. We don’t agree with that position. We believe it’s a religious position, and we don’t believe states have any right to put any impositions on us,” Greaves says.
Opinion polls, and results such as last August’s Kansas ballot – in which a majority voted in favour of keeping abortion legal in the state – show that most Americans think abortion should be legal, and the Roe v Wade decision sparked protests across the country. This might have buoyed those involved, but Greaves – speaking in a personal capacity, rather than on behalf of the Satanic Temple – thinks it is unlikely to change the opinions of rightwing politicians and courts.
“You’re not going to wave signs now and shame the Republicans into acting rationally,” he says.
The documentary Hail Satan?, released in 2019, helped increase the Temple’s popularity and membership, but exposure has also brought problems.
In June, the Satanic Temple headquarters was subject to an arson attack . A man wearing a T-shirt that read “God” walked up to the front porch, poured an unknown accelerant over it, then set it on fire. The Satanic Temple’s door cam recorded the whole thing. A man was arrested the same night, and has been charged with arson, destruction of a place of worship and civil rights violation charges. If he was genuinely trying to burn down the building, it was a lamentable effort, but the incident was a reminder of the risks the Satanic Temple faces. As the organisation’s visible figurehead, Greaves is particularly – and literally – in the line of fire.
“I honestly felt like I was committing suicide at the point where I was being the public face of satanism, because I’ve seen people’s lives totally ruined on accusations of satanism,” he says.
Greaves recently came to the attention of the Sovereign Citizens, a loose group of Americans who do not believe they are under the jurisdiction of the federal government, and are not subject to US law. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the movement is “rooted in racism and antisemitism” and “some sovereign citizens have turned to violence”.
In late 2021, Greaves received a message from the group that informed him he was to be deported from the US.
After finding a Zoom link for a Sovereign Citizens assembly meeting, Greaves gatecrashed it, and managed to derail the meeting almost immediately by taking on a chairman role and calling it to order. “I suppose you’re all wondering why I gathered you here today,” Greaves said, before being told to “Shut your damn mouth,” by a Sovereign Citizen.
Greaves was eventually ejected from the meeting, which bore all the professionalism of a parish council get-together. Soon after, he says, a $100,000 bounty was placed on his head. A notice on the American Herald news site stated Greaves was wanted “dead or alive”, and called him “a domestic and international terrorist”.
People who post death threats in plain sight could seem like harmless cranks, but Greaves points out that plenty of violence has been committed in the name of quackery: “I don’t know how to distinguish what is more and less serious unless somebody actually comes in and does something.” If a person does attack him, Greaves says: “It’s gonna be someone this dumb.”
He is forced to take precautions nowadays. Last year he moved – “very secretly”, he says – and he tries to keep personal details as personal as possible. But he and his fellow satanists are undeterred. The Satanic Temple will keep chipping away at the inroads the Christian right have made. This religion, one of the most curious churches in a country full of them, is in it for the long haul.
“We have a lot of work to do to bring shit back to a reasonable level. And we’re not close to that right now,” Greaves says.
“It’s going to take many years to undo the damage that has been done. But that’s the opposite of an excuse to give up. There’s no excuse to not be engaged right now.”
Friend of Satan: how Lucien Greaves and his Satanic Temple are fighting the religious right
Satanic Temple co-founder Lucien Greaves: ‘Right now we have a minority, religious theocratic movement, so entrenched in politics and getting away with whatever they want.’
They have protested against a homophobic church and opposed prayer in classrooms. Now this minority religion is defending the right to abortion
Adam Gabbatt
@adamgabbattWed 4 Jan 2023
A statue of Baphomet – a pagan idol used in popular culture as a representation of the devil, with the head, horns and feet of a goat, the torso of a man and the wings of an angel – is the centrepiece of the Satanic Temple’s headquarters in Salem, Massachusetts.
More than 8ft (2.4 metres) tall, jet black and altogether unnerving, Baphomet serves as a reminder of what brought the Satanic Temple to fame. In 2013, the group, which is acknowledged as a religion by the US government, responded to the installation of a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Oklahoma state capitol building – seemingly a flagrant abuse of the US constitution’s separation of church and state – by demanding that its own Baphomet statue also be positioned in the grounds. According to the first amendment, which protects freedom of religion, public spaces should be open to all religions or none, it argued.
It turned out that Republican politicians did not want a big statue of a goat-headed pagan deity on capitol grounds. Amid lawsuits, the Oklahoma supreme court eventually ordered that the Ten Commandments monument should be removed.
The tactic, with its wry and anarchic undertones, is typical of the Satanic Temple’s battle against the religious right in the US. In the decade since the spat over the statue, the Temple has tackled prayer in classrooms, religious holiday displays and the distribution of Bibles in schools.
Now, it is taking on another fundamental issue: the right to abortion.
The overturning of Roe v Wade last June opened the door for more than half of US states to effectively ban abortion or restrict access to it, horrifying supporters of reproductive rights. The Satanic Temple – and many other observers – believe the decision of the supreme court was made on the basis of religion: specifically the extreme form of Christianity that has come to dominate Republican politics in the US.
The Temple has “seven fundamental tenets”, one of which states: “One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.” This, it believes, offers a way around these draconian new laws. It is arguing that its members are exempt from bans or restrictions on abortion, due to their right to a “Satanic Temple religious abortion ritual”, more of which later. With lawsuits already filed in Indiana, Idaho, Texas and Missouri, the Satanic Temple is about to find out whether US courts agree.
They have protested against a homophobic church and opposed prayer in classrooms. Now this minority religion is defending the right to abortion
Adam Gabbatt
@adamgabbattWed 4 Jan 2023
A statue of Baphomet – a pagan idol used in popular culture as a representation of the devil, with the head, horns and feet of a goat, the torso of a man and the wings of an angel – is the centrepiece of the Satanic Temple’s headquarters in Salem, Massachusetts.
More than 8ft (2.4 metres) tall, jet black and altogether unnerving, Baphomet serves as a reminder of what brought the Satanic Temple to fame. In 2013, the group, which is acknowledged as a religion by the US government, responded to the installation of a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Oklahoma state capitol building – seemingly a flagrant abuse of the US constitution’s separation of church and state – by demanding that its own Baphomet statue also be positioned in the grounds. According to the first amendment, which protects freedom of religion, public spaces should be open to all religions or none, it argued.
It turned out that Republican politicians did not want a big statue of a goat-headed pagan deity on capitol grounds. Amid lawsuits, the Oklahoma supreme court eventually ordered that the Ten Commandments monument should be removed.
The tactic, with its wry and anarchic undertones, is typical of the Satanic Temple’s battle against the religious right in the US. In the decade since the spat over the statue, the Temple has tackled prayer in classrooms, religious holiday displays and the distribution of Bibles in schools.
Now, it is taking on another fundamental issue: the right to abortion.
The overturning of Roe v Wade last June opened the door for more than half of US states to effectively ban abortion or restrict access to it, horrifying supporters of reproductive rights. The Satanic Temple – and many other observers – believe the decision of the supreme court was made on the basis of religion: specifically the extreme form of Christianity that has come to dominate Republican politics in the US.
The Temple has “seven fundamental tenets”, one of which states: “One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.” This, it believes, offers a way around these draconian new laws. It is arguing that its members are exempt from bans or restrictions on abortion, due to their right to a “Satanic Temple religious abortion ritual”, more of which later. With lawsuits already filed in Indiana, Idaho, Texas and Missouri, the Satanic Temple is about to find out whether US courts agree.
Lucien Greaves in Hail Satan?, a documentary about the Satanic Temple.
Photograph: Magnolia Pictures
Legal battles are long-running, expensive and frustrating for people desperate for immediate change. But Lucien Greaves, who co-founded the Satanic Temple in 2012, points to the success the Republican party has had in overturning Roe v Wade – a decision brought before the court through decades of lobbying and legislating.
“I get messages from people denigrating us for taking legal action to assert our rights, saying: ‘You can’t change the system from within the system,’” Greaves says.
“And I keep asking them: ‘What the fuck do you think you just saw happen? That’s what they just did.’”
Tall, slim, pale and dressed in black, Greaves is a fitting frontman for a group that is regularly demonised by its Christian opponents. A leather strap wrapped around his wrist, his thin blond ponytail tied up with black bands, he could be in one of the heavy metal bands that terrified neurotic parents in the 1980s and 90s.
“We have to play the long game,” Greaves says. “They spent generations doing this.”
Satanists don’t believe in Satan in a literal, demonic sense, Greaves explains, but rather as a symbol of rebellion and opposition to authoritarianism. According to the Satanic Temple’s website: “To embrace the name Satan is to embrace rational inquiry removed from supernaturalism and archaic tradition-based superstitions.”
The Satanic Temple held its first public activity in January 2013, and a decade on it has more than 700,000 members, with congregations in 24 states and six countries, including the UK, Germany and Finland.
Legal battles are long-running, expensive and frustrating for people desperate for immediate change. But Lucien Greaves, who co-founded the Satanic Temple in 2012, points to the success the Republican party has had in overturning Roe v Wade – a decision brought before the court through decades of lobbying and legislating.
“I get messages from people denigrating us for taking legal action to assert our rights, saying: ‘You can’t change the system from within the system,’” Greaves says.
“And I keep asking them: ‘What the fuck do you think you just saw happen? That’s what they just did.’”
Tall, slim, pale and dressed in black, Greaves is a fitting frontman for a group that is regularly demonised by its Christian opponents. A leather strap wrapped around his wrist, his thin blond ponytail tied up with black bands, he could be in one of the heavy metal bands that terrified neurotic parents in the 1980s and 90s.
“We have to play the long game,” Greaves says. “They spent generations doing this.”
Satanists don’t believe in Satan in a literal, demonic sense, Greaves explains, but rather as a symbol of rebellion and opposition to authoritarianism. According to the Satanic Temple’s website: “To embrace the name Satan is to embrace rational inquiry removed from supernaturalism and archaic tradition-based superstitions.”
The Satanic Temple held its first public activity in January 2013, and a decade on it has more than 700,000 members, with congregations in 24 states and six countries, including the UK, Germany and Finland.
The Satanic Temple stands out among Salem’s traditional cream or white-painted buildings.
The organisation is recognised by the US Internal Revenue Service as a “church or a convention or association of churches” and, as such, it is able to highlight, and attempt to tackle, the disparity in how Christianity is treated compared with other religious groups in the US.
“Right now, we have a minority religious theocratic movement, so entrenched in politics and getting away with whatever they want,” Greaves says. “Now they’ve got the courts on their side and everything – and they don’t need to bend to the will of the majority.”
He is speaking to the Guardian at the Satanic Temple’s headquarters, a three-storey former funeral parlour ringed by neatly trimmed lawns and topiary. The building is not hard to spot. In a residential area where most of the traditional, clapboard homes are cream or white, it is painted black.
The interior matches the gothic exterior. The walls are covered with dark, velvety wallpaper, and daylight is shut out by floor-length crimson curtains. Baphomet lurks in one room, ready to be summoned once more. A gift shop sells “Friend of Satan” mugs, “Hail Satan” T-shirts, and “Satanic Temple official hot sauce”, which comes in four flavours and costs $12 (£10) a bottle. Upstairs, a chandelier-lit throne room features grand mahogany chairs flanked by Norse helmets. The space is also available as a wedding venue, and newlyweds can spend the night in a vampiric-looking bedroom suite.
The organisation is recognised by the US Internal Revenue Service as a “church or a convention or association of churches” and, as such, it is able to highlight, and attempt to tackle, the disparity in how Christianity is treated compared with other religious groups in the US.
“Right now, we have a minority religious theocratic movement, so entrenched in politics and getting away with whatever they want,” Greaves says. “Now they’ve got the courts on their side and everything – and they don’t need to bend to the will of the majority.”
He is speaking to the Guardian at the Satanic Temple’s headquarters, a three-storey former funeral parlour ringed by neatly trimmed lawns and topiary. The building is not hard to spot. In a residential area where most of the traditional, clapboard homes are cream or white, it is painted black.
The interior matches the gothic exterior. The walls are covered with dark, velvety wallpaper, and daylight is shut out by floor-length crimson curtains. Baphomet lurks in one room, ready to be summoned once more. A gift shop sells “Friend of Satan” mugs, “Hail Satan” T-shirts, and “Satanic Temple official hot sauce”, which comes in four flavours and costs $12 (£10) a bottle. Upstairs, a chandelier-lit throne room features grand mahogany chairs flanked by Norse helmets. The space is also available as a wedding venue, and newlyweds can spend the night in a vampiric-looking bedroom suite.
The statue of Baphomet is now housed in the Satanic Temple.
Greaves, who uses a pseudonym as a result of threats, somewhat reluctantly became the Satanic Temple’s spokesperson in 2013, the year after it was founded. The organisation quickly became known for its anarchic activities. That same year, it praised the governor of Florida for having signed a bill allowing students to lead prayer at school assemblies. The decision, the Temple said, was exciting – “because now our Satanic children could pray to Satan in school”. Faced with the threat of litigation from civil rights organisations, it is unclear if any school districts ever took up the student-led prayer option.
That same year, the group held a mocking “pink mass” to protest against the notoriously homophobic Westboro Baptist Church, and specifically its founder, Fred Phelps. The mass featured two men kissing over the grave of Phelps’ mother.
In 2016, in response to hundreds of schools hosting after-class Bible study groups (mostly promoted by the Good News Club, a weekly Christian programme for children), the group announced it would offer its own after-school Satan clubs. The clubs, which are “designed to promote intellectual and emotional development”, are still around: last year there was much purse-clutching when a school in Ohio gave the go-ahead for an After School Satan club.
In recent years, though, the Temple has moved beyond physical stunts, and into the courtroom, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal efforts to secure abortion rights, ensure the right to free speech and protect children from abuse.
The gallery space at the Satanic Temple.
“It’s getting really frustrating now with the overturn of Roe v Wade, when people are still treating us not like we’re a minority religion – which we are – but more like, we’re just this kind of clever tactic that may or may not work,” Greaves says.
“That gets to be really tedious, because I think people aren’t terribly invested in the outcomes of the Satanic Temple’s lawsuits. And it shows that they don’t understand that the outcomes of what the Satanic Temple is doing have ramifications for everybody: all minority religious organisations, all different types of viewpoint positions that might be outside the Christian nationalist perspective.”
In recent years, Republicans have ushered in a wave of discriminatory, pro-Christian legislation in states across the country. Conservatives have targeted LGBTQ+ people, in particular, with efforts to prevent transgender people using certain bathrooms, and to prevent LGBTQ+ couples from adopting children. Many of these bills are lifted from model legislation drafted by Christian lobbying organisations under an effort known as “Project Blitz”.
It is this religious crusade that ultimately resulted in the supreme court’s 6-3 conservative majority overturning Roe v Wade, with its Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, which held that the constitution of the United States does not confer a right to abortion.
Inside the Satanic Temple.
That is where the Satanic Temple is hoping to find some leeway. It has insisted that its members do have a religious right to receive abortions, as part of its “Satanic abortion ritual”. The Temple’s “fundamental tenet” that “one’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone” is a position that contradicts people being denied the right to end a pregnancy.
During the ritual, the person having the abortion looks at their reflection, before taking deep breaths and reciting two of the seven tenets. Once the abortion is complete, the person must recite the “personal affirmation”: “By my body, my blood, by my will, it is done.” The ritual is conceived to serve an “affirmative function of assuring membership that their decision is their own”, the group says, while also offering a kind of counselling effect.
Once someone determines they want to undergo the abortion ritual, the Satanic Temple believes that the state has no right to intervene in what is essentially a religious practice.
“States are passing laws premised on this idea that foetal tissue has personhood, or is a unique and distinct human life. We don’t agree with that position. We believe it’s a religious position, and we don’t believe states have any right to put any impositions on us,” Greaves says.
Opinion polls, and results such as last August’s Kansas ballot – in which a majority voted in favour of keeping abortion legal in the state – show that most Americans think abortion should be legal, and the Roe v Wade decision sparked protests across the country. This might have buoyed those involved, but Greaves – speaking in a personal capacity, rather than on behalf of the Satanic Temple – thinks it is unlikely to change the opinions of rightwing politicians and courts.
“You’re not going to wave signs now and shame the Republicans into acting rationally,” he says.
The documentary Hail Satan?, released in 2019, helped increase the Temple’s popularity and membership, but exposure has also brought problems.
In June, the Satanic Temple headquarters was subject to an arson attack . A man wearing a T-shirt that read “God” walked up to the front porch, poured an unknown accelerant over it, then set it on fire. The Satanic Temple’s door cam recorded the whole thing. A man was arrested the same night, and has been charged with arson, destruction of a place of worship and civil rights violation charges. If he was genuinely trying to burn down the building, it was a lamentable effort, but the incident was a reminder of the risks the Satanic Temple faces. As the organisation’s visible figurehead, Greaves is particularly – and literally – in the line of fire.
“I honestly felt like I was committing suicide at the point where I was being the public face of satanism, because I’ve seen people’s lives totally ruined on accusations of satanism,” he says.
Lucien Greaves at the Satanic Temple.
Greaves recently came to the attention of the Sovereign Citizens, a loose group of Americans who do not believe they are under the jurisdiction of the federal government, and are not subject to US law. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the movement is “rooted in racism and antisemitism” and “some sovereign citizens have turned to violence”.
In late 2021, Greaves received a message from the group that informed him he was to be deported from the US.
After finding a Zoom link for a Sovereign Citizens assembly meeting, Greaves gatecrashed it, and managed to derail the meeting almost immediately by taking on a chairman role and calling it to order. “I suppose you’re all wondering why I gathered you here today,” Greaves said, before being told to “Shut your damn mouth,” by a Sovereign Citizen.
Greaves was eventually ejected from the meeting, which bore all the professionalism of a parish council get-together. Soon after, he says, a $100,000 bounty was placed on his head. A notice on the American Herald news site stated Greaves was wanted “dead or alive”, and called him “a domestic and international terrorist”.
People who post death threats in plain sight could seem like harmless cranks, but Greaves points out that plenty of violence has been committed in the name of quackery: “I don’t know how to distinguish what is more and less serious unless somebody actually comes in and does something.” If a person does attack him, Greaves says: “It’s gonna be someone this dumb.”
He is forced to take precautions nowadays. Last year he moved – “very secretly”, he says – and he tries to keep personal details as personal as possible. But he and his fellow satanists are undeterred. The Satanic Temple will keep chipping away at the inroads the Christian right have made. This religion, one of the most curious churches in a country full of them, is in it for the long haul.
“We have a lot of work to do to bring shit back to a reasonable level. And we’re not close to that right now,” Greaves says.
“It’s going to take many years to undo the damage that has been done. But that’s the opposite of an excuse to give up. There’s no excuse to not be engaged right now.”
Photograph: Tony Luong/The Guardian
YO LIBERTARIANS
Lizzo calls for reproductive rights on 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade: 'My body is nobody's business'
Erin Donnelly
Sun, January 22, 2023
Lizzo is speaking out for reproductive rights in a new Yitty campaign coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling.
"Fifty years later we're still fighting the same fight for reproductive rights," the Grammy winner says in the video, in which she wears an off-white Yitty bra. "We at Yitty are about body autonomy. We don't want to just liberate bodies through clothing; we want to liberate bodies through our voices. We believe that only you should have a say on what you do and how you feel about your body, and you should have access to reproductive health.
"As a brand committed to uplifting all people, we are devastated by the reversal of Roe v. Wade, and we want to highlight these incredible activists and people who are fighting the fight on the front lines," she continued. "Because your body is nobody's business."
One "model" included in the campaign is Chloe, who says she was denied the right to an abortion, ultimately giving birth to a baby who died two days later.
"It's not fair to keep someone pregnant who does not want to be, whose baby has medical issues ... they deserve to have the choice," reads Chloe's quote, while another woman, Macy, addresses being screamed at as she sought out an abortion at age 17.
The Roe v. Wade anniversary, which falls one day after Saturday's March for Life demonstration in Washington, D.C., has also drawn reflections from political figures including Vice President Kamala Harris, who pledged to fight to "protect reproductive freedom," and celebrities like Busy Philipps, who have been outspoken about their own experiences with abortion.
"GET YOUR RELIGION OUT OF OUR BODIES," the actress wrote on Instagram.
Lizzo calls for reproductive rights on 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade: 'My body is nobody's business'
Erin Donnelly
Sun, January 22, 2023
Lizzo is speaking out for reproductive rights in a new Yitty campaign coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling.
(Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz)
Some six months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last June, Lizzo is marking the 50th anniversary of the 1973 landmark ruling legalizing abortion with a new campaign for her shapewear brand, Yitty.
On Sunday, the singer posted a video about the fight for body autonomy, alongside images in which she and a handful of models — all wearing Yitty — speak out on reproductive and trans rights.
Some six months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last June, Lizzo is marking the 50th anniversary of the 1973 landmark ruling legalizing abortion with a new campaign for her shapewear brand, Yitty.
On Sunday, the singer posted a video about the fight for body autonomy, alongside images in which she and a handful of models — all wearing Yitty — speak out on reproductive and trans rights.
"Fifty years later we're still fighting the same fight for reproductive rights," the Grammy winner says in the video, in which she wears an off-white Yitty bra. "We at Yitty are about body autonomy. We don't want to just liberate bodies through clothing; we want to liberate bodies through our voices. We believe that only you should have a say on what you do and how you feel about your body, and you should have access to reproductive health.
"As a brand committed to uplifting all people, we are devastated by the reversal of Roe v. Wade, and we want to highlight these incredible activists and people who are fighting the fight on the front lines," she continued. "Because your body is nobody's business."
One "model" included in the campaign is Chloe, who says she was denied the right to an abortion, ultimately giving birth to a baby who died two days later.
"It's not fair to keep someone pregnant who does not want to be, whose baby has medical issues ... they deserve to have the choice," reads Chloe's quote, while another woman, Macy, addresses being screamed at as she sought out an abortion at age 17.
The Roe v. Wade anniversary, which falls one day after Saturday's March for Life demonstration in Washington, D.C., has also drawn reflections from political figures including Vice President Kamala Harris, who pledged to fight to "protect reproductive freedom," and celebrities like Busy Philipps, who have been outspoken about their own experiences with abortion.
"GET YOUR RELIGION OUT OF OUR BODIES," the actress wrote on Instagram.
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