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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   4470 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 1, 2026

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This is an image of Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner's profile pic on the messaging app Kik. Notice anything?

I know the real story is supposed to be the fact that he was sending sexually explicit texts to women while married, but I can't stop laughing at the picture. It's obviously no coincidence that his hand perfectly covers the giant totenkopf on his chest. This is art.

It is certainly enjoyable to see a Democratic candidate get run through the wringer the way a Republican would, but I must confess that I find his scandals to be endearingly relatable in a way. Prediction market odds for Platner in the general are collapsing, but I think this is less of a reaction to this specific leak and more of a realization that he is the kind of candidate who will have a scandal every other month all the way up to election day, and then a scandal every other year for his entire term if he wins.

EDIT: Additional unverified reports that I cannot vouch for but would be hilarious if true.

Always Bet on Susan Collins.

With that out of the way, democrats nominating normal guys seems to be a weakness right now- they've got Graham Platner being Graham Platner, the Islamic anti-israel single issue guy in Michigan, and James Talarico trying to convince people he's heterosexual and not a vegetarian.

James Talarico trying to convince people he's heterosexual and not a vegetarian.

What I find funnier about Talarico is them trying to sell him as "Look, he's a Christian! We got Christians in our party, too! Why, he's even a seminarian, how more devoutly orthodox could you get?" and leaving aside the fact that I didn't know Presbyterians called them seminarians, when you look at his positions he's reliably liberal down the line.

...Mr. Talarico’s politics, as he has defined them in his Senate campaign, start with the biblical command to love God and love your neighbor. Those principles, as he sees it, have implications for public policy on abortion, immigration, the separation of church and state, and “economic justice” that elevates the interests of the poor and the oppressed over those of the wealthy and powerful. His campaign slogan, “It’s time to start flipping tables,” is a reference to a passage in the Bible where Jesus displays righteous anger.”

So this isn't going to work for the people who do have a certain position on issues like abortion, and it isn't going to work for people who break out in hives at the very mention of the word "Christian". They'll think he's a Bible-bashing bigot, and the more the local party tries to reassure them that no, he's not that kind of Christian, the more they will lose any cross-party appeal to the believing types.

Plus, it looks like there might be a minor, Obama-style, "oops my pastor could be problematic" issue there:

By his own account, Mr. Rigby has been a major influence and inspiration. And now, Mr. Talarico’s opponents are also turning a critical eye to the pastor. They are finding a spiritual leader whose views on political issues like immigration and abortion, but also questions like the historical truth of the resurrection of Jesus, are out of step with the teachings of many other churches.

Mr. Rigby’s theology and his rhetoric reflect what would be heard at many Mainline and progressive Christian churches across the country. But in Texas, where conservative evangelicalism looms large, they are rarely visible on platforms like the ones Mr. Talarico now occupies.

Mr. Rigby does not use male pronouns for God, for example, because it is a kind of “violence” to imply to a girl that her brother is more like God than she is, he said in an interview after the service. He does not use the word “Lord,” because it conjures a wealthy, European, male God, he said. For that matter, he added, he does not much care for the word “God.” He uses it on occasion, he said, but he tries to use synonyms, because “it’s going to mean something different to everybody.

...Mr. Rigby baptized a baby, and welcomed a family of four as new members, handing them a new copy of the Inclusive Bible, an unusual feminist translation St. Andrew’s has used since the 1990s. In Genesis, instead of writing that God created a man, Adam, the translation refers first to an “earth creature.” It often uses the term “kindom” of God in place of “kingdom,” which it deems classist.

I love this. Unironically, I love this. "In the beginning, Undefined Vague Spiritual Entity According To Your Own Understanding created an earth creature. Let us all enter into the kindom of Undefined Entity. Amen (and awomen and anonbinary)".

Wait, I thought Baptists didn't baptise babies! Either the NYT is getting religion wrong (shocker, I know) or they are misunderstanding a different 'no this is not baptism like the bad old Catholics, this is child dedication which is totally different' practice, or Rigby is baptising babies because hey, rules are for fools.

Oh man, this could be his very own Kamala moment! 'Trans abortions for everybody!' 🤣

But Mr. Wilder, who has written critically of Mr. Talarico, said the attraction may fade after they hear Mr. Talarico’s past progressive comments, such as asserting that “our trans community needs abortion care, too,” as he did in a 2022 sermon at St. Andrew’s.

“That dog’s not going to hunt in Texas,” Mr. Wilder said.

Talarico is not a baptist. Presbyterians are lectionary Protestants who baptize babies, use the term ‘saint’, do not do rock concert services, etc.

Now, differences in beliefs and practice are not necessarily off-putting to evangelicals- there are many elected officials who are Methodist, Catholic, Anglican, etc with broad appeal to the baptist masses. Baptist theology holds that baptism is a commandment and not a sacrament(this is why they do not baptize babies), and that gives them plenty of room to count those baptized as infants as real Christians. In practice their non-negotiables are still things Talarico doesn’t have- genuine belief in the historicity of the biblical account(famously genesis but theologically they would put more importance on the virgin birth and resurrection as literal, factual occurrences) and a certain level of conservatism on moral issues. This isn’t Ireland where Protestant theology has real, defined meanings- they don’t have a creed.

That was my mistake, I have no idea how I got the notion that the church in question was Baptist. I think I got confused because Talarico's grandfather was a Baptist minister, so the church-hopping threw me off.

I was surprised by the NYT seeming to do real journalism (and not just "vote for the Democrat or else the sky will fall in"), and I do think Talarico is less on the fringe than Pastor Bob there, or rather "Dr. Jim" as Talarico is quoted calling him. But Talarico went wading out past his depth on some matters. When you try spinning the Annunciation as meaning "abortion is kewl", yeah, I'm sinking my head into my hands here.

About 20 minutes into his appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Texas Rep. James Talarico started making his case that the Bible sanctions abortion.

In the Book of Luke, the Austin Democrat noted, Mary has a vision from God that she’s going to give birth to a baby who will bring down the powerful from their thrones. But, critically, before she becomes pregnant, Talarico said, an angel “asks Mary if this is something she wants to do, and she says, ‘if it is God’s will, let it be done.’”

“To me, that is an affirmation in one of our most central stories that creation has to be done with consent. You cannot force someone to create,” Talarico, an aspiring Presbyterian minister and U.S. senator, told Rogan, arguing “the idea that there is a set Christian orthodoxy on the issue of abortion is just not rooted in Scripture.”

He went on to accuse the religious right of prioritizing abortion bans and “control” of pregnant mothers, rather than reducing miscarriages and protecting children through expanded health care access.

“I think that’s what we see across this Christian nationalist movement,” Talarico said. “This is religion at its worst: trying to control people and what they do.”

While pivoting to abortion is clearly reaching, I agree with him that it's interesting and noteworthy that the Annunciation is not a rape, or even a seduction, as one sees in the vast majority of e.g. Greek tales.

Christians historically would have said this is a direct parallel to Eve choosing to eat the forbidden fruit. The Genesis narrative describes her being lied to by the serpent, but notably it also describes her making her own appraisal of the situation and making a decision: "When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it."

The original sin is a free choice, and likewise the decision that leads to salvation has to be a free choice.

Well, as a Catholic, imagine my expression 🤨when a Presbyterian starts talking about the Blessed Virgin. Hey, didn't you guys have an entire hissy-fit over Mariolatry during the Reformation? That we honoured her too highly? (Never mind the hardcore Calvinists and their "nobody cares about the human incubator once the baby popped out" line, because Mary didn't have a choice; free will is over-rated and she was only there to have the baby).

And now you're going to talk about Free Will and Consent and Mary's "yes" being important? Wanna talk about the Co-Redemptrix, Jimmy boy, instead of "Mary would totes have had an abortion nowadays" (again, a line I've seen some liberals taking).

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