Alabama Justice Who Ruled That Embryos Are ‘Children’ Appeared On QAnon Conspiracist's Show
Alabama Chief Justice Tom Parker indicated on the show he was a proponent of the “Seven Mountains Mandate,” an explicitly theocratic doctrine at the heart of Christian nationalism.
Alabama Chief Justice Tom Parker, who wrote the concurring opinion in last week’s explosive Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos have the same rights as living children, recently appeared on a show hosted by self-anointed “prophet” and QAnon conspiracy theorist.
Parker was the featured guest on “Someone You Should Know,” hosted by Johnny Enlow, a Christian nationalist influencer and devoted supporter of former President Donald Trump. Over the course of an 11-minute interview, Parker articulated a theocratic worldview at odds with a functioning, pluralistic society.
“God created government,” he told Enlow, adding that it’s “heartbreaking” that “we have let it go into the possession of others.”
Hear me out.
Buy a massive freezer.
Adopt every single frozen embryo you can. There should be a bunch available in Alabama.
Move to Alabama.
Claim every single one for tax credit.
Bankrupt the state government.
If that doesn't work, keep going.
Register every fetus that's been frozen for at least 18 years to vote. They can't speak for themselves, so someone has to.
Elect sane people to office.
When your freezer conks out and all of your “children” are dead, then you are now liable.
This is why people doing IVF are so terrified. They could be held liable if their embryos become non-viable.
You can also draw a straight line between "embryos are children" and "all embryos must be implanted."
Yes
Exactly. They would probably force implant embryos into women, and then arrest them for murder if the embryo fails to take hold.
It's an act of God that the power went out.
Except in TX
Ar wants your [frozen] children!
I’d definitely get redundant generators and batteries to protect my income-I MEAN, my family.
Can embryos inherit property? Could they be an end around on inheritance tax? The mobile children of the donors could be guardians of the inheriting embryo?
Why are you asking me? Ask the judge in Alabama who figured this all out before making his shortsighted and dickhole decision.
Fine I’ll restate it as a statement. I doubt that the judge who decided that embryos are children has considered whether embryos can inherit property. A cynical person might seek to use their embryonic “children” as an end around on inheritance tax. They might treat the personhood status of the embryo like a corporation, enabling their children and dependents to control assets by becoming a guardian of the embryo in question. It’s clear that you don’t have the interest to consider such issues, so if I have the ability to ask someone I’ll wait until I can ask the dickhole and shortsighted Alabama judge directly. Enjoy your weekend.
How much is a frozen fetus going for these days?
Ima need about tree-fitty.
Partisan judges are automatically unqualified.
Wrong
We need partisan leftist judges to crack down on cops, slumlords, union busting, discrimination, and other vile expressions of rightist ideology.
To me, the things you mentioned lean more towards basic human rights. I don’t think it would be fair to call a judge partisan if he or she rules to preserve those. But I’m just a dude on the internet. Happy Friday friend!
You aren't wrong, and and yet all those things I mentioned fall on partisan lines anyway. The problem isn't partisanship, it's right-wingers. If we got rid of those judges and replaced them with leftist partisans instead we could actually start fixing things. Justice is political, you can't escape that!
But I'm just a girl with a dream. 😏
I don’t think you are wrong either. I just think that the word partisan might be too strong? Ideally, I’d like my judges neutral, but where do you find those nowadays right?
Stay safe sis.
I think that's a trick the right played on us, to convince us that we should be apolitical and stop us from getting politically organized. Meanwhile, they're explicitly partisan and that's why they keep winning. Basic human rights aren't neutral and we shouldn't be either.
Reject idealism. Embrace politics. Solidarity forever. ✊
Everything is about perspectives and everything has nuance that must be taken into account. Yes, that can be really fucking annoying and sometimes works against our hopeful outcomes and does cause our good soundbite moments to be tarnished. There is not a singular universal argument in favor or against every single possible concept we create as a thinking society. To some extent, everything as we conceptualize it is malleable.
Your whole argument looks wholesale more about rejecting politics to embrace idealism. Which is a good thing in my estimation, and seems better situated to have outcomes more inline with what you, and we all, may be looking for out of life in general. Basic human rights aren't political, they're an ideal that goes beyond the limitations of politics.
So in that way, the following works exactly the same towards your preferential outcomes:
Reject politics. Embrace Idealism. Solidarity forever.
Okay so if you reject politics you literally can't get judges appointed. 👀
With that out of the way-
"Rights", as a concept, are inherently political. A right is literally a political carve-out that enshrines a mandate and creates a political obligation to uphold it. Idealism can be employed to support certain rights, but rights themselves can only exist through politics.
I can appreciate the logic and the fervor behind your positions.
I will argue a step further zooming out that Basic Human Rights are inherent without politics at all. Knowledge comes before politics.
If anything, politics demotes rights from inherent to defined and limited. Which, simply put, sucks.
Politics is a game, don't ever forget that. We are all in the game and have to keep playing as long as everyone else keeps playing. It's all bullshit layered on top of bullshit, rules laid out by someone that came before with rules added by someone after that, and later again someone else to make up more rules.
Some of the bullshit works great and helps overcome life's struggles and adversities. Some bullshit brings us all down together and is ruinous to us as a species. Some bullshit even tends to be ruinous to the entire ecology of life on our tiny blue dot in the universe.
Just be careful to not get too caught up in the bullshit.
Don't get me wrong, I've voted in every election since I was old enough to vote and I do have a certain feeling of responsibility towards civic duty for the sake of a civilized society (and more-so now, for my children, which does help reinforce that ideal). I also try to engage with the news of world and am generally self aware enough to be thoughtful, rational, and capable of compromise.
I don't vote for politics, I vote for ideals.
Cheers.
I am thoroughly enjoying this conversation and topic, both of you. Thank you.
The core belief system of the United States of America has always been to have fair and impartial judges. It's not a conspiracy theory from either side.
Having said that, either side would love to stack the court system in their favor, and the conservatives especially have been actively working on that for quite a while now.
As Americans, we shouldn't allow that to happen (FFS vote smart on judges!), either way. There's a reason why Justice is always shown with a scale.
The bipartisan consensus is right-wing because America is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
The issue is those on the right believe that's what makes judges partisan.
Ah, that’s a perspective I was not seeing. Thank you!
Who defines what makes you partisan?
Well, the judge saying God created government is a strong clue.
Merriam-Webster.
You really failed to understand my question if you think the dictionary definition is all you need.
Well, if someone's chosen lifestyle compels them to start quoting things like "the" bible on the job and endorsing xtian nationalism, even if they have such a powerful role in a secular government, then it's cut and dry, isn't it?
This man is unable to make decisions based on the evidence put before him in a case. He instead refers to religious doctrine.
I'd be claiming a shitload of dependants on my state taxes.
1 ovulation a month.
12 months a year.
Some basic math shows that my wife and I have well over 100 children according to Alabama, a good chunk from before I even met her.
Most couples with at least one female in it will have similar or higher numbers.
And all this just in time for tax season. It’s gonna be like Christmas for women, and hell for state tax officials.
They’d have to be fertilized embryos, not just eggs, so not quite. But pretty damn close.
Maybe I’m ignorant of how IVF works, but I thought as soon as the embryo was made it had to be implanted. The freezer is just for the eggs.
I could be wrong, I’ve been fortunate enough not to have to deal with IVF.
IVF has a lot of frozen embryos that don't get used. Fertilized. They get extra because it can be tricky for it to take, so it often takes several tries
Fascinating.
I thought it would be quite risky to freeze an embryo, as they start dividing extremely rapidly once fertilization takes place.
Man, science is so cool.
God's stepchildren.
If they are children in Alabama then why aren't they working in a coal mine or slaughter house ?
Q.E.D.
and get jobs you lazy hippy fetuses
Because there's no coal in Alabama. You're thinking West Virginia. It's cotton fields in AL!
/s
The embryos yearn for the cotton fields.
WTAF is a theocrat like this even doing in our government in the first place? He apparently cannot separate his little book club's narratives from his role in a secular government and now we learn he is a conspiracy theorist?
What book club?
I don’t think he,…reads
A lot of members of that little book club don't even read the book they claim is sacred to them. One doesn't have to be a reader to be a member of that book club.
Just being extremely generous and assuming for the sake of argument that every crime that Trump has been proven to have committed was somehow a conspiratorial hit job perpetrated by some massive shadowy leftist cabal. I'll never understand how the "grab em by the pussy" guy is the Christian choice. How the guy who cultivated the image of ruthless businessman, and who fired people for the sake of entertainment is the Christian choice. The man who famously cited second Corinthians as "two Corinthians" to a room full of evangelical Christians is the Christian choice. How the guy who insults people so regularly and often that there is a whole wikipedia article dedicated to it is the Christian choice. And finally, how the Wharton grad, billionaire New York real estate tycoon somehow doesn't represent the "coastal elite" which is supposedly the enemy he is fighting against to restore "true Christian values".
Honestly, I'll never understand how Christianity has become ingrained with right wing politics. Modern day conservative churches are at odds with everything that Christ taught and stood for.
Christianity as a governing body has pretty much always been oppressive and against anything progressive.
Then you take your puritans, who were so far off the horizon of extremities that even established Christian governments in Europe were all like, "dude, you guys are cray-cray," dump them on the shores of an entirely new continent populated by brown people who don't speak Jesus, sprinkle in a bunch of beer and guns, add some African slaves, and you've got the foundation of the land of the free
They're just showing what wins when their politics conflict with their religion.
One need only look at the state to realize it's a shit show. Nothing in the Bible belt is worth saving.
Lotta good people you're throwing out with the bathwater there, but fuck 'em, I guess. You're stoking the flames whose destruction you condemn.
Super-liberal here who moved to Alabama because the jobs were too good and the cost of living is great; I'm going to do my best to vote these fuckers out and try to get more liberals moving into the state. The conservatives are doing their fucking best to disincentivize liberals to move here, but GA is a good example that liberals can flip a state.
I've said this before, but if I was a billionaire like Soros, I'd spend some time on trying to get people to relocate with direct financial incentives. Form some kind of foundation/not for profit that sets up places in red states for people most likely to vote Democratic to move there, have jobs, and have a decent quality of life. Often it's going to be cheaper, too.
It's only due to the way we are dispersed in this country that we keep getting too many cons in office. Someone with the money could hire people to make this happen...
It would not even take that many people moving to the right states and the Republican Party would be nearly powerless.
I don't know where you're seeing "good people" in the South. I live in Tennessee and I have to endure hearing people every goddamn day talking about destroying the country just to get back at the "left."
It's the only place I've ever seen "Trump Stores." And these people are ravenous about a second civil war. I just refuse to engage in trying to save people who don't want to be saved. Fuck the lot of them.
Imagine a gay woman living in Alabama. There's certainly a lot of them, we're everywhere after all. Do you think she's going to say what she really thinks while around strangers? Or is she going to keep her head down and try to avoid getting hate crimed?
You are in the bible belt. Should we abandon you too?
I live in baboon-butt red UTAH where they're trying to eradicate gays from existence as much as possible. So whenever I'm out in public, I make sure I loudly state something about how attracted I am to the other men in the room. I love getting under people's skin. And I love pissing off the conservitard monsters who are ruining this country - it gives me great happiness to be able to do so.
I'm not staying here. I've been planning my exit from this shit hole and the people here for a few months. I'm a gay man who has simply had enough.
There's no saving these people. The good ones are leaving, the rest are some of the worst people in the country; they either are dismissive of what's going on or indifferent.
Why would I waste my time voting here when my vote literally means nothing? This is a traitor enclave.
These people don't give a shit about anyone who doesn't go to their church, which is very denomination exclusive. You can't make them be civilized.
Yeah I wouldn't live in Alabama or Kentucky or Texas if I were paid to. I already have it bad enough living in baboon-ass red UTAH. I hate it here, but I'm a caretaker for an elderly parent and forced to live here at the moment. Still - I do what I can to annoy the legislative body.
I keep writing very acid letters to the editor about the idiots who run our state and the conservitard shitheads who believe their religious nutjobbery supercedes everyone else's right to exist.
What I don't get though, is why should I be riled up about this "embryos are children" thing. I mean, the media is making it sound like we on the left and liberal side of things should be outraged. But i'm not at all. The whole reason I'm so pro-abortion is that I believe people shouldnt' have as many kids as they do, especiallyy here in Utah were child abuse is the #1 hobby.
So IVF becomes even more restrictive. Frankly, that aligns perfectly with my goals and ideals. I do feel bad for people really wanting IVF, but if it means LESS kids in the world, I can't be unhappy about it.
I'll put it this way; I'm a gay man, so I'm about as far removed from the abortion issue as anyone can get. But I have a sister and nieces. Call me old-fashioned, but I want them to have rights to do whatever the fuck they want without a crusty old bastard in DC telling them that they can't. I've always said "I don't have a uterus, so it's none of my damn business" but since the Christians and their political operatives, the Republicans, have forced my hand, then I feel like it's my duty to rain on their parade about it.
That said, the IVF debate, to me, just seems like more of the same from the Christians, whose entire mission statement is to take over the whole of the earth so Jesus can give them a present for being the biggest cunts to ever walk. Instead of making life easier for the exact people who are responsible for bringing life into the world, they attack them while simultaneously getting rid of child labor laws and school lunches.
This issue was never about being "Pro-Life." This has always been about Christians wanting to be in control. If this were a "pro-life" movement, Christians would be adopting kids from orphanages and foster care, where they are being abused. But abusing kids is a Christian staple. They mentally and sexually abuse them and have for about 2000 years.
So when I get a chance to piss in the Cheerios of the right wing Christian propaganda machine, I do it, because frankly, they can all eat shit.
I totally get that and don't get me wrong, I'm all for freedom of reproductive choice to the max. I'm so far left and liberal, I actually scare people who are liberal and find my ideas even too radical for them. I agree that the "crusty old bastards" are so removed from the reality of what women go through that they are the LAST people who should be making laws about their bodies.
And I totally agree that the IVF debate seems like more Christian nonsense and stupidity, which is why I simply can't give them any kind of victory here. They are not just cunts, they're abysmal monsters that should be wiped off the earth, in my view.
And you're right, the real issue is these conservative twits want to take over the world and control everyone and everything. And that's something I just won't let them have. I refuse to be riled up into a froth over this IVF debacle, because it's such a ridiculous ruling in the first place.
But dont' get wrong, I totally feel horrible for the women affected by it. And I stand by them no matter what. And if it means illegal IFV has to happen, I would totally support that. Like you, I'm a pisser into the Cheerios bowl of the christian right wing every chance I can get!!
I recent sent a scathing letter about Utah's hateful anti-trans bills this session, and the paper nearly refused to publish it - but surprisingly, they finally did. And it caused a lot of conservative bigotry to come out in the open. And I love getting under their skin!!!
I tell people that I'm so far left that I make Bernie Sanders look like Ronald Regan. If you go far enough left, you get your guns back.
Joking aside, the Christians are coming after the LGBTQ next. I wish them the best of luck. I'm not the "friendly atheist" they think I am. They're gonna have a very hard time loading me into the train car.
I will protect the women I care about though, and I simply will not be nice about it.
I love that, at least there's a few of us good weirdoes in the world on the far far left.
In Utah the so called "christians" (i.e. hypocritical monsters) are trying their best to eradicate LGBTQ completely, pulling all books that mention such an "abomination" off school shelves, and now disallowing any mention of such things in public.
So I wrote to the legislatures asking them to come clean and admit the reason they don't care that Utah has the highest teen suicide rate in the nation is because so many of the teens who commit suicide are LGBTQ.
Of course they never responded, and the silence was deafening. I obviously said something truthful.
I'm a Taurus, so I fiercely protect everyone I care about, to the point of hurting others in any way I have to. And often the truth does hurt them and expose them for who these monsters really are.
That's a terrifying statistic. I'm gay and I only barely made it out of my Christian family. I knew it was bad out there, but I hoped it was getting better....
These Christians have got to be dealt with. Talk about an enemy at the gates...
Well I'm glad you made it out of your family situation, I know so many gay people in Utah who have been through that. And it's sad to see families "disown" their own children, which strikes me as the most un-christian thing anyone could ever do.
Sadly Utah's fearful right-wing legislators are doing everything they can to march us back into the dark ages. This current legislative session alone, they passed a bill forbidding trans people to use public bathrooms (And I mean, there's like possibly two trans people in the state!) and requiring all schools to remove any books about sexuality from schools.
And the new bill being signed is to demand that the Ten Commandments be displayed in all public schools. And here I had the bizarre idea that church and state were supposed to be separate......how naive of me.
Not everyone can afford to leave. Should we leave them to die?
You, yourself, haven't left yet. What if we abandoned the south before you had time to move? Oh, maybe you're the Last Good Person in the south, and once you're gone we can leave the rest to suffer! It's their fault for being born in the wrong states, after all. Especially the ones that are going to be born because their mothers were forced to give birth. They deserve it.
I'm not saying anything about whether or not I'm a good person. I'm saying that the number of good people here is a lot lower than you imagine. Pull up the draw bridge, IDGAF, I'll swim if I have to, but the American South is a shit hole that didn't deserve the reconstruction. They've not learned a goddamn thing.
Not everyone can escape. Do they deserve to suffer and die?
And maybe we won't just blow up the bridge. Maybe we build a wall! Why not? You're all evil, we don't need that blight on our society. In fact, why not declare war? Why not kill literally everyone! D o n t y o u a l l d e s e r v e i t? 🙄
Jesus Christ, you must be fun at parties...
The writing has been on the wall for quite a long time. Anybody that stays behind does so at their own risk. I'm not being lynched here. I'll take in others who want to leave when I get to where I'm going.
This isn't a fun topic. You're basically saying "everyone who gets lynched deserves it".
No, I'm not "basically" saying that, but nice strawman attempt.
I have no interest in being a white knight. I'm fucking leaving. I don't have any obligation to financially cover people who can't leave; they have to make that decision.
What I'm saying is that the rest of the people here, the ones actively calling for the deaths of the LGBTQ+ are as useful as taste buds on an asshole.
I will not waste another breath on trying to convince them that they're horrible people. Not even within my own family. When the South inevitably attempts a second civil war, I'll help my LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters should they get to where I am. But they have to find the impetus to do so.
Vibe check
Do you think I'm telling you to stay in the south? I never said that. I just specifically am pissed off by you saying "Nothing in the Bible belt is worth saving." That's it. You're free to leave, it isn't your job to sacrifice your life for voting lol
Well, I presume you're one of the good people, aren't you? I don't want to burn you to the ground along with the rest of Tennessee, even if you're a willing sacrifice. Any scorched earth tactic has to be preceded by getting people like you out of harm's way first.
I'm all for an LGBTQ "Underground Railroad"-esque method of getting us out of harm's way. What I'm against is the notion by another commenter that I should have to stay here and help the people who, for whatever reason, are so poor that they can't pack stuff in boxes and leave. The goalpost can't just move that much. If your life is in danger, you don't just stay put because you might not financially recover. That's bullshit. And no one should stick around, under consequence of death, to help me. What kind of person just folds their arms as days "I'm not leaving until someone else risks their life to help me."
Also, my initial comment was that nothing in the Bible belt is worth saving. As in putting in effort to try and change their minds or shitty attitudes. Someone replied with something about nukes. I never insinuated anything of the sort. Granted, the entirety of the Bible belt could be hit by tornadoes and the Country would only be out by a can of Skoal, a pack of Marlboro Reds, and the entirety of the incest category on Pornhub.
Almost every front yard in Tennessee looks like a landfill and in one city, the county was discussing starting a code enforcement program and several people threatened to attack the city council. One guy even mentioned using a tank do do it. You cannot even legislate these people to have a modicum of class. These people are trashy and they aim to stay that way. It's all they know or care to know.
I had a coworker bring up the border situation a week ago and I asked him, a guy who could to be "super religious" (his words, not mine) what Jesus would want him to do, and he said, and I quote, "Jesus would want me to help the national guard shoot the ones that are trying to get here illegally." He and our boss, who is Catholic, got into a very heated debate about that. Guns are their solution to everything here, including the LGBTQ.
For as bad as you've read that it is here in the news and online, it's actually worse.
Oh absolutely, there is no expectation at all that you should have to stay and fix the place. It's admirable of those who want to try, but I'm a firm proponent of saving your own ass first. If you're LGBT in a red state, I'd honestly prefer you get the hell out of dodge than stay and try to fix it.
I grew up in Missouri and I lived in Houston for a couple years. I feel no obligation to fix Texas. I don't feel obligated to fix Missouri, although I want to. If laws come out targeting me and my loved ones though, then I'm heading out.
I greatly respect martyrs because I don't think anyone should ever try to be one. I care way too much about saving my skin, selfish as it sounds.
i don't expect you to sacrifice yourself. i just think it's likely you're not the sole "good people" in bama.
I agree. Please send nukes south. Amen.
Is that a Y'all-Quaeda branch?
7 Mountains Dominionism is literally Sharia law but Christianity instead of Islam.
It is funny how similar they are. Only the name is different
So Sharia wants to perpetuate the apocalypse, too?
I've started referring to MTG as "Sharia Twain."
You really have these things upside down in the New World.
Wow that guy looks evil
He looks like the guy that gets bitten but tries to hide it in zombie movies.
Kamoulox
If embryos are children, then every month a woman doesn't fertilize an embryo from puberty to menopause, she's killing a child.
I mean, that's correct, right? That's what this Judge is claiming. I say we roll with that narrative. Any unpregnant woman is killing a baby. LOCK HER UP! But of course the state will have to impregnate the jailed women. Otherwise they'll be an accessory to even more murders every month, so all women in prison will also need to be pregnant.
You need to go back to HS biology. An unfertilized egg is exactly that an egg.
You need both an egg and sperm to make an embryo.
Menstruation happens BECAUSE there isn’t an embryo.
I don’t agree with the ruling any more than the next guy but this take is just dumb.
Comments like the one above, and upvotes on those comments, are shocking common in threads about this ruling. I wonder how many people in America don’t remember their grade school biology, or didn’t get taught this.
I also wonder how much this is playing into America’s abortion laws. If people don’t understand the grade school biology, how can they possibly make an informed decision at the ballot box?
They seem to understand that a embryo is a fertilized egg, I think they are just pointing out the next logical step would be to arrest any woman who doesn't get her eggs fertilized and any man who spills his sperm on the ground because that's children being murdered..
Agreed. There's plenty to be upset about without also inventing things the way conservatives often do.
And getting things wrong just gives them the opportunity to dismiss everything you say based upon a single flaw they can latch upon: "Oh, clearly you haven't done enough research into the topic to be taken seriously."
Embryos are the stage of development after fertilization.