Greta Christina's Blog

Atheists and the Closet: or, Keith Olbermann, Tonight's Worst Person in the World

If you're an atheist, and you're promoting atheists coming out and knowing that they're not alone -- but you, yourself, are not entirely out of the closet about your atheism -- does that make you a bad person?

Keith Olbermann seems to think so. In his fabled "Worst Person in the World" segment tonight, he had this to say:

Tonight's worst persons in the world. The bronze: To the person who donated the scratch for ten thousand dollars worth of ads on the sides of buses in New York City, promoting atheism. They read, "You don't have to believe in God to be a moral or ethical person." The hope, from president Ken Bronstein of the group NYC Atheists, is to get people to stop hiding their non- belief -- to stop hiding it. No complaint about the message -- however, while Bronstein says, "We want to get atheists to come join us, to get out of the closet," unfortunately the donor who made the ads possible is keeping his identity anonymous. (Contemptuous eye-roll.)

Okay. Here is my question for Mr. Olbermann.

If you were doing a segment about an ad campaign designed to let gay people know that they weren't alone and to encourage them to come out of the closet -- and one of the major donors to the campaign wanted to remain anonymous -- would you decry them as one of the worst persons in the world?

Or would you understand that coming out as gay can -- yes, still, even this day and age -- be a hazardous enterprise? Would you understand that coming out can mean alienating family and friends, losing your job or your kids, getting beaten up or even killed? Would you understand that people have to come out on their own timetable, and that a person who wants to take action to support gay rights and gay visibility still might not be completely out of the closet? Would you understand that even gay people who are out to their families and friends and colleagues still might not want their name, and their gayness, splashed all over the national news?

And if so, then why don't you understand it about atheists?

There are some realities about living as an atheist that you may not know about, Mr. Olbermann. Coming out as an atheist can have serious real-world consequences. Parents get denied custody of their children for being atheists. People get harassed and vandalized by their neighbors for being atheists. Teachers get suspended for being atheists. Teenagers get harassed and suspended from school for being atheists. Politicians whip up anti-atheist fear to try to get elected. (And that's just in the US. I'm not even talking about parts of the world where atheism is a crime, punishable by imprisonment or death.)

I wish atheists would come out of the closet, too. It is the single most powerful act we can do to gain acceptance and understanding. And there's definitely a Catch-22: the world isn't safe for atheists since so few atheists are out... but as long as atheists don't come out, it will continue to be unsafe. Some of us need to take the risk, so it'll be easier and less risky for others.

But I also understand that that is not my decision to make for others. I understand that, while I can encourage atheists to come out, I can't judge them if they decide they can't do it. I understand that coming out is not as easy for some people as it is for others. It was pretty easy for me: my family are atheists; my wife is an atheist; I live in San Francisco, the world capital of alternative culture and "who gives a damn what other people believe"-ism; I work for a hippie punk-rock anarchist business; I don't have kids. (And even I lost friends when I came out as an atheist.) I understand that not everyone is as lucky as me: I understand that there is a substantial amount of anti- atheist bigotry in this country and in the world, and that some people have workplaces, neighbors, schools, custody situations, etc., that make coming out as atheist untenable.

Is there an irony in the fact that the major donor behind an atheist visibility ad campaign is choosing to remain anonymous? You bet there is. But that irony should not be making you think, "What a hypocrite that person is. They're one of the worst persons in the world." It should be making you think, "What a messed up world it is we live in -- that even the person promoting atheist visibility doesn't feel safe being completely open about being an atheist."

Speaking Ill of the Dead

For what are probably obvious reasons, I have been thinking about the strong social taboo against speaking ill of the dead.

And I'm trying to figure out if I think it's an irrational superstition, or a reasonable gesture of respect to people who are in mourning... or some combination of the two.

In the case of private individuals, it makes perfect sense. When people are mourning their Uncle Larry, they don't want to hear about what an insufferable jerk he was. It would be trivializing their feelings of loss and grief.

But with public figures... it seems like the rules should be different. And yet, they're clearly not. If we don't personally know the person, and don't even know anyone who knew the person... we still feel the taboo against speaking ill of them. Even if we found them repulsive at best and morally reprehensible at worst; even if we think it's very likely that they were guilty of one of the worst crimes imaginable; even if, cutting them the greatest possible slack and taking them entirely at their own word about their actions, we still find those actions to be grossly inappropriate and unethical... even then, when a person has recently died, we tend to either say something nice, or not say anything at all. (That's right... I'm talking about Richard Nixon.)

The only exception I can remember seeing is Spiro Agnew, who the press was merciless about when he died. I'm sure there have been others -- I'm sure that when Stalin died, nobody outside the Soviet Union was writing gushing eulogies -- but they are wildly few and far between. (And I strongly suspect that Agnew got slammed, not because he'd been so much more evil than any other dead person, but because he'd been such an insulting schmuck toward the press.)

And I'm trying to figure out if this taboo is reasonable.

I do get that people feel personally attached to public figures, even when they never met them. A little while back, I saw a blog headline that made me think, just for a few seconds, that Richard Dawkins had died. That he'd been murdered, actually. I was filled with shock and grief; despite the fact that I'd never met the man, I felt a deep sense of loss of someone very important to me who'd made a big impact in my life. And complicating my emotions was that fact that one of the people around at the time (we were travelling, and had some people around us we didn't know very well) was a hard-core Christian who'd been making no bones about shoving her beliefs down everybody's throat. The thought of having to go through my grief around this person who I didn't trust to respect it made a terrible situation (or what would have been a terrible situation) much worse.

So there's a part of me that really does get it.

But there's also a part of me that thinks this is dishonest. And while I don't actually treasure honesty as the single greatest virtue we have, while I do understand the social and even moral value of keeping your mouth shut from time to time... in this situation, there's a part of me that's greatly troubled by it.

If it's a public figure who I just didn't care for or find interesting, that's one thing. I'm happy to keep my mouth shut. But if it's a public figure who did serious and lasting harm to people -- again, think Richard Nixon -- it seems that lavishing unfiltered praise on them upon their death is insulting to the people they harmed. I get that we don't want to be trivializing or callous about people's grief when someone they care about dies. But I also don't want to trivialize the damage done by said person... and I don't want to be callous about the impotent outrage their victims must be feeling when they see the person who harmed them lavishly eulogized all over the world.

So I can't figure this one out.

Thoughts?

Iran and the Battle Against Theocracy

I don't know if I have anything to say about the situation in Iran that hasn't already been said. And normally, that's enough to keep my mouth shut. But this time, despite my near-paralyzing fear of being trite, I feel that I need to say something:

I support the protesters in Iran.

And not just for the obvious reasons. Not just because the recent election was almost certainly rigged; not just because legitimate dissent is being violently suppressed; not just because the Iranian government is shooting its own citizens in the streets.

I support the protesters in Iran because they are striking a blow against theocracy.

When Ahmadinejad's "election" was pronounced as valid and Allah-favored by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei -- the leader of the Iranian theocracy -- the protestors took to the streets anyway.

And when Supreme Leader Khamenei warned the protestors that their demonstrations were illegal and that further demonstrations would be firmly shut down and harshly punished... the protestors took to the streets anyway.

In Iran, this is a big honking deal. This isn't just garden- variety anti- authoritarianism. This is defiance of the very notion of theocracy. Faced with a choice between a hope for a legitimately elected government, and a religious/ political leader telling them what to do and calling it the word of Allah... they're going with the hope for a legitimately elected government. The very idea that a religious leader has political authority over them is being rejected, in the most blunt manner imaginable.

This is not an original idea with me. It has been said before, better than I'm saying it. But it's important, and it bears saying again, by multiple voices: Plenty of people in Iran do not support the brutal, despotic, nutball, Holocaust- denying, theocratic government. Plenty of people in Iran are even pretty okay with America and Americans -- even more so, now that Americans on Twitter and Facebook have been so instrumental in getting the word out about what's happening there. (Remember this when you remember the right-wing tirades about the axis of evil, or John McCain's clever little "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" ditty. These are the people they were talking about.)

I doubt that many of the protesters in Iran are atheists. Most of them seem to be moderate Muslims. And I obviously don't agree with them about that. But that is completely irrelevant. They are fighting theocracy on the front lines, in ways that I strongly doubt I would have the courage to do. I am supporting them against the Islamic theocracy of their government, and I want to help them in any way that I can.

To find out what you can do to help, you can follow Mousavi's page on Facebook. No, really. His favorite movie is Groundhog Day, and he's looking for an untraceable cel phone in Mafia Wars.

George Tiller and Bill Donohue: How Religion Twists the Moral Compass

You've almost certainly heard about George Tiller, the abortion doctor who was murdered yesterday: most likely (although we don't know for sure yet) by a religiously- motivated anti- abortion vigilante.

You may or may not have heard about Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, who, commenting on the latest scandal about severe and widespread institutional child abuse in Catholic schools in Ireland, has been vociferously defending the Catholic Church: downplaying the well- documented and horrific abuse, accusing victims of being "gold diggers looking to get money from the Catholic Church"... and screaming at rape victim Colm O'Gorman to "shut up."

I want to talk about the power that religion has to twist the human moral compass.

I'm going to start by being fair. Religion is far from the only belief system or ideology that can inspire people who think they're doing good to commit terrible, heinous acts. Political ideology, for instance, can do the same thing: as we've seen in the Stalinist Soviet Union, or the United States in the W. Bush administration. The process of rationalization is far from limited to the world of religion. And because rationalization is often self- perpetuating -- when we do something bad, we find a rationalization for why it wasn't bad, which makes us more likely to do that bad thing again -- it can lead otherwise sane and moral people, step by step, into committing atrocities we would otherwise recoil from in horror. This is not limited to religion: it is a fluke of how the human mind works.

But here's the problem with religion. Here's what makes religion special, uniquely suited for twisting the human moral compass.

With religion, there's no reality check. There's no expectation of a reality check. There's not even any sense that a reality check is a reasonable thing to expect. Heck, in many religions, expecting a reality check is actually considered a bad thing: a sign of weak faith at best, heresy at worst. (Doubting Thomas, and all that.)

In any other moral system, you're expected to come across. The ultimate criteria of your actions are, you know, your actions, and the affect they have on the world. We can see those actions, and those effects. And while people can argue that their apparently bad actions will have good effects in the long term or in the big picture, eventually they have to come across with those good effects -- or else see their moral system condemned, and have it fall by the wayside.

But religion is ultimately dependent on belief in beings that are invisible; voices that are inaudible; entities that are intangible; and events and judgments that happen after people die. In religion, the Ultimate Arbiter of right and wrong is invisible, and doesn't judge until after you're dead and can't tell anyone. And in religion -- in most religion, anyway -- the Invisible Arbiter in the Sky takes precedence over the actual human reality staring you in the face. You don't ever have to come across. A belief that your actions will have good effects in this world will only take you so far; a belief that your actions will earn the approval of an invisible god has no limits in how far it can take you.

And therefore, religion has a unique power to twist people's innate sense of right and wrong. Religion has the power to bend the moral compass to the point where people will commit murder in the name of protecting life. Religion has the power to bend the moral compass to the point where people will defend or trivialize or explain away the horrific abuse of children -- the literal, physical and sexual, institutional abuse of thousands of actual human children -- and still decry putting a nail through a cracker as a vile offense against all that is right and good. More than family loyalty, more than patriotism, more than political ideology, more than any other belief system, religion has the power to bend the moral compass until it breaks.

(Some of these ideas were developed in a comment thread on Pharyngula.)

Helping the Poor or Vengeful Homophobic Pissery? Father Geoffrey Farrow and the Catholic Church

I haven't seen this story around much. And it seems like it ought to be all over the news... or at least, all over the atheosphere. So you know what they say. When you don't like the news, go out and write some of your own.

You may have heard the story of the Catholic Priest, Father Geoffrey Farrow, who, back in October, went against the request of his bishop and preached a sermon against Propostion 8... and was removed from his post as a result.

This is not that story.

This, if you can believe it, is the even more fucked-up follow-up.

Father Geoffrey Farrow, now out of work, had applied for a position at an interfaith anti-poverty organization, CLUE, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice... an application process that was moving forward.

(An anti-poverty organization. That's important. File it away.)

CLUE gets a significant amount of its funding from the Catholic Church.

Who told CLUE that their Church funding would be withdrawn if they hired Father Farrow.

The full story is on the Bilerico Project and at Pam's House Blend.

So. Just to clarify.

The Catholic Church's position on this matter is this:

It is more important to punish a former priest for speaking out in favor of same-sex marriage, than it is to help the poor.

Or, perhaps, more to the point:

It is more important to spitefully and maliciously block the career of a former priest who dared to defy the Church and speak out against it -- not just to fire him, but to actively get in the way of him being hired elsewhere -- than it is to help the poor.

Okay. Quiz time. How many times in the Gospels is Jesus recorded as saying that it's important to help the poor?

A lot, that's how many. Exactly a lot.

And how many times in the Gospels is Jesus recorded as saying that it's important to ban same-sex marriage? Or that it's important for the church to be pissily vengeful when its priests follow their own conscience instead of obeying the Pharisees -- excuse me, the bishops of the Church?

Zero times, that's how many. Exactly zero. I counted.

Now. Granted, the Jesus character in the Gospels is one of the most complicated and self- contradictory figures in all of fiction. Many of his teachings are muddled and inconsistent, and it's a bit churlish of us atheists to expect consistency from people who claim to follow them.

But on this one, the Jesus character is pretty clear. Helping the poor -- central, oft- repeated tenet of the teachings. Banning same sex marriage -- zilch. Doesn't seem to be an issue. And pissy vengefulness -- heck, he's actually against that. What with the whole "turning the other cheek" thing and all.

And on this one, I've gotta side with the Jesus character. Totally setting aside the whole "gross, self-serving hypocrisy versus having some semblance of integrity about what you claim to be your own values" thing, purely on the merits of the actual question itself... yup, I've gotta go with this Jesus figure. Helping the poor -- better and more important than hateful homophobic vindictiveness. Check.

But of course, as His Eminence Vice-Pope Eric said in an interview with Monty Python in the Brand New Monty Python Papperbok: "After all, you can't treat the New Testament as gospel. And one must remember that Christ, though he was a fine young man with some damn good ideas, did go off the rails now and again."

And later in that same interview:

"Of course people accuse us sometimes of not practising what we preach, but you must remember that if you're trying to propogate a creed of poverty, gentleness and tolerance, you need a very rich, powerful, authoritarian organisation to do it."

Well put, Vice-Pope Eric. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Supporting an interfaith anti- poverty organization on the one hand. Rabid hostility to same-sex marriage, and ham-handed control-freak spitefulness towards a former employee who publicly defied them, on the other. Which did you think the Catholic Church was going to go with?

Oh, btw: If you feel like raising a squawk, you can do so at:

Archdiocese of Los Angeles
3424 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90010-2202
213 637 7000
info@la-archdiocese.org

"The Most Vile, Radical Liberals in America": Anti-Atheist Bigotry in the Senate Campaign

I suppose it was bound to happen.

With the newly- galvanized atheist movement becoming increasingly visible and increasingly vocal, we were pretty much destined to become a political football, the subject of a fear- mongering campaign flyer depicting us as vile despoilers of the American Dream... and using an association with us to smear an opponent. (And the early 21st century being what it is, we were pretty much destined to then to become the subject of a YouTube campaign video, doing exactly the same thing.)

So here's the thing I find fascinating.

It's not the fact that the flyer and video in question told lies about us. It's not even the fact that they insulted us in bigoted, hateful language that, in this day and age, would not be tolerated from a major political candidate about any other religious group.

What I find fascinating is this:

Our very existence is being presented as an abomination. The mere fact that atheists exist, and speak, and express political views, is being presented as part of the package of our vileness, and is being used to frighten voters.

For those who haven't heard already, here's the story. North Carolina Republican Senator Elizabeth Dole -- yes, that Elizabeth Dole -- is in a re-election campaign against Democratic opponent Kay Hagan. Dole had been ahead, but like a lot of Republican incumbents this election, she's been falling behind.

So her campaign sent out an anti-Hagan flyer -- centering on the fact that Hagan attended a fundraiser in Boston, hosted by atheist activists and leaders of the Godless Americans PAC, Wendy Kaminer and Woody Kaplan.

In which atheists are described, among other things, as "the most vile, radical liberals in America."

And the National Republican Senatorial Committee then put out a YouTube video, also centering on this fundraiser, and saying that, because she accepted campaign donations from atheists, "We can't trust Kay Hagan to defend our North Carolina values."

Here's the video. And here's a copy of the flyer. You can click to enlarge if you like. (Pages 2 and 3 are presented separately here, but are meant to be read side by side as one page.) Please note the quotes from my atheist blogging homeboys at Friendly Atheist and Daylight Atheism on Page 4. Both of whom, of course, have blogged about this.

Now. Here's what I'd like you to do. Read the flyer again. Watch the video again. And in the place of the word "atheist," substitute the word "Jewish."

From the flyer:

"Liberal Kay Hagan flew to Boston to pocket campaign cash from leaders of the Jewish American PAC."

"Jewish Americans Political Action Committee is a left-wing organization based in Washington, DC -- dedicated to 'Mobilizing America's Jews for Political Activism.'"

"They actively support political candidates who are Jews."

"And they want Kay Hagan in the U.S. Senate."

"We can't trust Kay Hagan to defend our North Carolina values."

From the video:

"Kay Hagan attended a Massachusetts fundraiser hosted by a leader of the JEWISH AMERICANS PAC."

"DaylightJudaism.org: 'Kay Hagan out to be rewarded for inviting Jews onto her platform.'"

"And what's THEIR platform?"

"And what does Kay Hagan have to say? 'North Carolina deserves leadership that advocates on behalf of North Carolinians, every day, every week, every month, and every year.' Apparently except when Jewish donors in Massachusetts invite you over."

If there were a campaign flyer or video saying that? The candidate would be excoriated by the mainstream media, up one side and down the other. They'd either be distancing themselves from the people who made it so fast it would make your head spin... or they'd be resigning in disgrace. A resignation called upon, not only by every major news organization in the country, but by their own party. And rightly so.

But apparently, not so much with the atheists.

So I never, ever want to hear again that there's no such thing as anti- atheist bigotry, or that atheists aren't discriminated against in this country.

But again, here's what I'm finding really interesting.

It's not the lies and deceptions (thoroughty detailed in the Friendly Atheist and Daylight Atheism pieces). It's not about the transparent fearmongering about how atheists are out to destroy Boy Scouts and Christmas. (It sounds like a joke, doesn't it?) It's not even the fact that they can't seem to spell the word "Atheist" right.

It's not even the fact that we were called "vile."

It's this.

Read again, please, the quotes being used on this flyer from the Friendly Atheist and Daylight Atheism blogs.

"I don't know that I've ever been to North Carolina besides driving through, but I just donated (to Hagan's campaign)."

"Kay Hagan ought to be rewarded for inviting nonbelievers onto her platform."

Pretty inflammatory stuff, huh? Lock up your children, people -- the atheists are going to donate money to a political candidate they support!

The very fact that we dare to exist at all -- and that some of us are daring enough to want our voices heard in the political arena -- that is the monster under the bed. The fact that we expect to be treated as citizens, that we see ourselves as a political movement, that we want our elected officials to be aware of our concerns and to represent us... that, just by itself, is what is being presented as the wicked, terrifying, "vile" threat that must be stopped at all costs.

But you know what?

I actually feel sort of flattered. And I definitely feel encouraged.

Because you know what this means?

It means we're getting through.

If atheists are becoming visible enough that we're the centerpiece of a fearmongering Senate campaign? We must be doing something right.

So if you're an atheist -- or an atheist- positive supporter -- here's what I want you to do.

If you can afford it, donate some money to Kay Hagen's campaign. Even just $25. I know the economy sucks. I know this is a huge election, with a million candidates and initiatives that need donations. And I know I just got through begging you to support the No on 8 campaign to protect same-sex marriage in California. But if you can have it to spare, make a donation to Kay Hagen. Again, even a small one would help.

And then write to her campaign, at myvoice@kayhagan.com, letting her know that you've made a donation, and why. Write to her, and let her know that you're atheist or atheist- positive, and that Elizabeth Dole's anti-atheist bigotry is why you made your donation.

Here's what I wrote:

Hello. My name is Greta Christina, and although I don't live in North Carolina, I just made a donation to your campaign. I wanted to let you know that I did so prompted by recent posts on the Daylight Atheism and Friendly Atheist blogs.

I am appalled by Elizabeth Dole's open bigotry and hatred towards atheists -- a bigotry and hatred that would not be tolerated towards any other religious group. And I am encouraged by Kay Hagan's recognition that atheists are citizens, who have a right to have our voices heard in the political arena.

My funds are limited (especially since I've been donating to other political campaigns this year), so my donation was small. But I plan to write about this on my own blog, and encourage my readers (some who are atheists, many others who aren't but support atheists' rights) to support your campaign as well. Thank you again for your recognition of our growing community, and please know that we are grateful and will not forget it.

Because you know what would be cool? What would be even cooler than being a newly- visible, newly- vocal movement?

Being a voting bloc. Being a political force to be reckoned with. Being an interest group that political candidates can't afford to openly smear and insult, because if they do we'll mobilize against them.

And having a U.S. Senator who know that she's in the Senate, at least partly, because of the atheist and atheist- supportive community.

That would be super-cool.

Election Snippet: Sarah Palin's Supreme Ignorance

My election snippets haven't gone after Sarah Palin in a couple of days, so I think it's time to return to that very fertile ground. This is an excerpt from the now- infamous Katie Couric interview... an excerpt in which Palin was unable to name any Supreme Court decisions, other than Roe v. Wade, that she disagreed with.

The video is loaded with inanities, and I could pick them apart all day. But when I first heard this video, here's what I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs:

Dred Scott.

I learned about Dred Scott in junior high. The day it was decided is generally considered the bleakest day in the history of the Supreme Court. It was the day the Supreme Court said, "Slavery? Sure!" If you can't think of a single Supreme Court decision that you disagree with, surely you should be able to come up with that one.

I can think of others, too. Plessy v. Ferguson. Bowers v. Hardwick. The one, I can't remember the name of it right now, that said corporations have the same Constitutional rights as people. Just off the top of my head. And I'm not running for Vice-President. I'm not even governor of a state. Hell, I'm not even a lawyer. I'm just a layperson with a liberal arts B.A., gassing on in my blog.

You'd think that someone who was running for the second highest office in the country would know enough about the history of interpretations of the Constitution -- the foundation of the country she supposedly loves so much -- to be able to, you know, think of one.

And I'll say it again: A heartbeat away from the Presidency. The Presidency of an elderly man with at least a 1 in 3 chance of dying in office.

Oh, yeah. Here's the video. Below the fold.

Election Snippet: The McCain Women's Clinic

Today's election snippet:

John McCain's record on reproductive rights and women's health.

Which, in a word, sucks.

We have an ever- so- charming list of 10 things that Planned Parenthood thinks everyone needs to know about John McCain. (Just 10 of the reasons that the Planned Parenthood Action Fund gave him a zero percent rating. You heard me -- zero.)

In case you think they might be distorting the record, we have a collection of McCain's own words and deeds on Roe V. Wade, sex education, birth control access, and access to information about abortion.

And we have a fun little video about the McCain Women's Clinic.

Video below the fold.

Election Snippet: "Greed and Corruption"

In today's Election Snippet: The Number One thing I noticed about the Vice-Presidential debate.

Sarah Palin kept talking about the "corruption and greed" in Wall Street that led to the current financial crisis.

But she had not one thing single to say about what she would do to rein it in.

"Greed and corruption" was clearly a mantra. She knows that people are pissed at greedy, corrupt bankers and rich financial muckety-mucks, so she chimed in over and over to say Bad Things about them. But she's certainly not going to say, "The financial industry needs to be better regulated." That's counter to the Republican true belief in the power of the free market to fix all problems, to cure cancer and find lost puppies and bring peace and prosperity to all people across the galaxy. And it would remind people that eight years of Republican rule and deregulation and sucking the collective cock of the stinking rich was a huge part of what got us into this mess in the first place.

No, no, no. Better to just try to make people think you feel their pain and anger... while conveniently ignoring that your party is the one inflicting it, and utterly failing to offer any plans for what you're going to do about it.

Top Ten Other Catastrophes That Fundamentalists Blame On Gay People

So, as you may have already read, Christian Civil League of Maine Executive Director Michael Heath has recently written that the cause of the current U.S. financial crisis is -- not deregulation, not unchecked greed, not insane short-sightedness on the part of the financial muckety-mucks, but...

...wait for it...

...gay people.

No, really.

More specifically, God's wrath at gay people.

In yet another example of God's spectacularly lousy aim. (I mean, if he was trying to punish the sinfully homosexual San Francisco in the 1989 earthquake, why was the overwhelmingly heterosexual Marina district hit the hardest, and the overwhelmingly homosexual Castro district left relatively unharmed?)

So since gay people seem to have such astonishing power to destroy (our secret is out at last! Now I'll have to kill you all!), I thought I'd come up with a list of the Top Ten Other Catastrophes That Fundamentalists Blame On Gay People.

10: The Chicago Cubs.

9: The fact that your cousin ran out of liquor at his bachelor party.

8: The ultimate heat-death of the universe. (Or the ultimate Big Freeze of the universe. Take your pick.)

7: The fact that, after having lived in this apartment for three years, Ingrid and I still have a storage room piled full of unpacked boxes. (No, wait. That is the fault of gay people.)

6: The death of a third to a half of the population of Europe in the Middle Ages due to the Black Death. Retroactively. Our power for evil is so vast, and God's wrath towards it is so massive, that it can strike backwards in time.

5: "Star Wars," Episodes 1-3.

4: Austin Scarlett getting voted off "Project Runway," and Wendy Pepper making it to the final three at Bryant Park.

3: The fact that Jane Austen only wrote seven complete novels.

2: The Boston Molasses Disaster of 1919. (No kidding. Look it up.)

And the Number One catastrophe that fundamentalists blame on gay people:

1: The cancellation of "Firefly."

Please chime in with your own suggestions!

Election Snippet: The Palin Presidency "like a really bad Disney movie"

Today's election snippet comes from, of all people, Matt Damon. I know. I was surprised, too. But he turns out to be smart, and thoughtful, and articulate, and kind of weirdly radical. There's no new news in this, btw: it's just a really perceptive, really scary analysis of the potential Palin Presidency.

Reminder: If McCain becomes President, Palin will be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. A very weak heartbeat. McCain has, conservatvely estimated, a 1 in 3 chance of dying in office. In his first term alone.

A vote for McCain is a vote for Palin. Remember that, and watch this video. (Video below the jump.)

Why I DO Care About John McCain’s Gay Chief Of Staff: The Blowfish Blog

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It's about the recent revelations that John McCain's chief of staff, Mark Buse, is gay.... and why I think this is relevant and important.

It's titled Why I DO Care About John McCain’s Gay Chief Of Staff, and here's the teaser:

First, in case you haven't seen the story yet: John McCain's Chief of Staff, Mark Buse, is gay.

With a reported penchant for multiple partners, and a sling in his home to boot. (In, of all places, his closet. Sometimes the irony is just too obvious.) The story broke on the BlogActive site of the legendary Mike Rogers, who has given Buse the not so coveted Roy Cohn award "for working against the interests of the lesbian and gay community while living as a gay man." And it's corroborated by Michelangelo Signorile.

And I do, in fact, care. But I don't care about Buse per se, or his ex life, or what it says about him and his character.

I care about what it says about McCain.

Because the point of this story is not, "McCain's Chief of Staff is gay."

The point is about McCain. It’s about McCain's hypocrisy, and lack of integrity, and willingness to suck up to the hatefully homophobic far-right wing of the Republican party -- in direct contradiction to what seem to be his own personal beliefs.

To find out more, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

John McCain and the "Maverick" Snow Job

Of all the things that terrify me about John McCain and his Presidential campaign, one of the worst is this:

The way so many moderates and liberals talk about what a "maverick" he is.

"I may not agree with him on all the issues," the trope goes. "But I admire his independence. He's not just a puppet of the Republican party. He's a real maverick, a straight talker with a good head on his shoulders, who's willing to buck the system and who cares about the little guy." (I'm ashamed to say that I bought this line myself, back in 2000 when McCain was running against G.W. Bush. I certainly wasn't planning to vote for him, but I thought, "If he gets the GOP nomination, we could do worse.")

But on closer examination -- and not even that much closer, really -- this turns out to be total bullshit.

John McCain's "maverick" schtick -- the "independent straight- shooter who'll buck the system and fight for the little guy" schtick -- is, IMO, one of the most successful snow jobs in the history of American politics.

And it terrifies me to see how effectively it's spread. It terrifies me to think that people who would despise McCain's policies and actions might still vote for the man because they see him as a straight- talking, independent maverick.

So today, I'm going to do my best to grind this snow job into dust.


Would an "independent maverick" say that, ”on the transcendent issues of the day, the most important issues of the day, I have been totally in agreement and support of” the sitting President and leader of his political party?

Would an "independent maverick" vote with that sitting President -- the completely disastrous sitting President -- 100% of the time in 2008, and 95% of the time in 2007?

(Quick aside: True, this wasn't always the case: his alignment with Bush and the Republican party has been somewhat lower in the past. But what does that tell you? That he's willing to go against the GOP party line... unless he's running for President? What does that tell you about what kind of President he'll be?)

Would an "independent maverick" fail to nominate either of his two top choices for Vice- President -- and instead nominate a far- right- tip- of- the- right- wing extremist wackaloon with virtually no experience, who thinks dinosaurs and people lived at the same time and believes the war in Iraq is part of God's plan -- because the two guys he really wanted were pro-choice, and the party wouldn't stand for it?

Would a "straight- talking maverick" speak out against torture, and yet repeatedly support policies that enable it? Especially someone who was a torture survivor himself?

Would a "straight- talking maverick" who's "bucking the system" speak out against anti-regulation lobbyists who were a primary cause of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac crisis... and yet hire those same lobbyists to be part of his campaign? Including as his actual campaign manager?

Would a "straight- talking maverick" send out invalid absentee ballots to voters likely to support his opponent?

Would a "straight- talking maverick" dodge questions about AIDS prevention and condom distribution in Africa, by claiming that "I've never gotten into these issues before"? (Or worse: Would a "straight shooter who fights for the little guy" who's been in Congress since 1982 genuinely have never thought about the issues of AIDS and international AIDS prevention?)

Would a "straight- talking maverick" try to weasel out of a debate with his intelligent, charismatic, wildly popular, extraordinary public speaker opponent, on the grounds that the economy is in crisis -- a crisis that's been in process for weeks and months, a crisis created by seven years of his party's failed economic policies which he himself supported -- and he has to pull an all-nighter?

Would a "straight- talking maverick" flip-flop, repeatedly, on dozens and dozens of issues, from the drilling moratorium to warrantless wiretapping to abortion and the repeal of Roe V. Wade... repeatedly changing his mind to get it more in line with that of the Republican Party?

And would a "straight- talking maverick" flat out lie? And lie, and lie, and lie and lie and lie?

Lie about his opponent wanting to teach sex ed to kindergartners? Lie about his opponent suggesting that we bomb Pakistan? Lie about his own support from veteran's organizations? Lie about how many people turned out for his campaign rallies? Lie about his opponent's tax plan -- and do it again, and again, and again and again and again? Lie, even, about what a "tracking lies about politics" fact-checking site did and did not say about his opponent?

Lie so badly, and so often, that even Fox News and Karl Rove called him a liar? Lie so much that lying has become one of the chief hallmarks of his campaign?

I get that all politicians distort and conceal and spin the truth. (Or most of them, anyway.) But there's a difference -- a subtle one, but an important one -- between distorting and concealing and spinning... and flat-out, outright, pants- on- fire, lie- like- a dog lying. And the latter is exactly what Mr. Straight Talk has been up to... again and again and again.

And perhaps more to the point: Not all politicians set themselves up as being different from all other politicians. Not all politicians push an image of themselves as straight-talking mavericks who are bucking the political system.

I could have gone on for many more pages. And I'm not even doing a thorough evisceration of his policies. (Partly because the flip-flopping has made it hard to know what the hell they are.) All I'm talking about here is the "maverick" line.

Which has proven to be one of the biggest and best snow jobs in the history of American politics.

And that's saying something.

You want a straight- talking independent maverick who bucks the system and cares about the little guy? Go rent "Shane." You want a weaselly, right- wing liar? You want someone who was always a pretty hard-core conservative and whose narrative arc of his Presidential campaign has been one of consistent capitulation to his party -- the party responsible for this country's worst economic and foreign policy disasters in decades? You want someone so desperate to become President that he'll abandon whatever principles he once might have had in order to make it happen? Then by all means, vote for John McCain.


Shout-outs to Dispatches from the Culture Wars, Pandagon, and The Huffington Post, which is where I found a lot of this info.

The Obligatory Sarah Palin Column, Or, Why I Don’t Care About A Pregnant 17 Year Old: The Blowfish Blog

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It's a piece about Sarah Palin... and what I do, and don't, think are important questions when considering her (snicker) qualifications to be Vice President of the United States.

It's titled The Obligatory Sarah Palin Column, Or, Why I Don’t Care About A Pregnant 17 Year Old, and here's the teaser:

I just don't care that much.

About the pregnant seventeen year old, I mean.

I suppose this is an abdication of my responsibility as a lefty sex writer. But I just don't care that much that the 2008 Republican nominee for vice-president has a 17-year-old daughter who's unmarried and pregnant.

I don’t even care all that much about the hypocritical double standard: how Sarah Palin and the Republicans want us to respect Bristol Palin's personal and sexual privacy but don't want to respect anyone else's. That sort of double standard isn't the most charming trait in the world, especially in an elected official... but it's also very human. We all cut slack, and make excuses, and act protectively, for the people we're close to. It's probably not morally perfect, but I'm not sure I'd want to live in a world where it wasn’t true.

When it comes to Sarah Palin, here's what I do care about.

To find out what I care about regarding Sarah Palin -- when it comes to her views on sex, as well as other topics -- read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

"People of Faith": Religion as Ethical Misdirection

Ever since I started writing about atheism and religion, I've been troubled by the idea that being a strongly religious person, in and of itself, makes you a good person.

I've been troubled by the idea that phrases like "person of faith" or "man of God" are supposed to be understood to mean "good person." Pretty much by definition.

Well, there's a story in the news that's turning this irritation into a full-flown outrage. And it's making me realize what, exactly, it is about this trope that I find so troubling.

From the AP, via PageOneQ (via a comment on Daylight Atheism, where I got this story as well as the idea for this piece), we have the charming story of David Davis. Florida high school principal. Who, when a student told him that she was being harassed by other students for being a lesbian, told her that homosexuality was wrong, told her to stay away from children, and outed her to her parents.

And who, when the girl's friends expressed their support for her by wearing gay pride T-shirts and buttons, interrogated them about their own sexuality and the sexuality of other students... and in some cases, suspended them.

And we have the story of the community who, when the school district was sued by the ACLU for this behavior, and Principal David was reprimanded and demoted, expressed righteous outrage and anger towards the girl's family and the ACLU, and backed Davis up... because he was a Christian.

Saying things like:

"David Davis is a fine man and good principal, and we are a gentle, peaceful, Christian, family-oriented community."

So today, I want to talk about religion as misdirection.

In stage magic, misdirection is a central skill in which the audience's attention is focused on one thing to distract their attention from something else. You do something that looks big and interesting and important with your right hand; people don't notice the less flashy but genuinely important thing you're doing with your left.

I bring this up because I think religion often acts as a form of ethical misdirection. It creates an illusion of good, ethical behavior... which distracts the observer from the question of whether this person's actions really are, in any useful, real-world way, ethical and good.

Think about the quote above. Think about what it means to look at Principal Davis's actions, and call them fine and good, gentle and peaceful.

What is gentle and peaceful about responding to a teenage girl who tells you in confidence that she's being bullied -- by bullying her some more? By blaming the victim? By ignoring her complaint, betraying her confidence, and telling her that she's a bad person who can't be trusted around children?

And what is gentle and peaceful about using your position of power to silence the girl's supporters -- a.k.a. your detractors -- by interrogating them about their own sexuality and kicking them out of school? It's not even Christian; at least if you take the whole "Turn the other cheek" thing to heart. (And, as Ingrid points out, it's more than a little sexually creepy as well. In any other context, a high school principal going around asking his underage students about their sexual practices would be fired so fast it'd make your head spin.)

And yet, the people of this Florida community have been misdirected into thinking that Davis is a gentle, peaceful person. He's a Christian, after all. And in their mindset, "Christian" means "gentle, peaceful person," de facto and by definition.

Religion, essentially, is serving here as the big flashy gesture done with the right hand, that distracts from the actual moral behavior that's being done with the left. It's the shiny show of fineness and goodness, gentleness and peace, that keeps people from seeing that the actions being done are, in fact, brutal, hurtful, domineering, and evil.

And it creates a misdirection so strong that it can effectively replace the entire notion of right and wrong. When hard-line religious believers slander atheists by saying that we have no morality, insisting that there can be no morality without belief in God... well, what is that but a substitution of religion for ethics? What is that but a replacement of your own moral instincts and perceptions with obedience to somebody else's code?

This is a point Ingrid keeps making. When religious believers accuse atheists of taking the easy way out, her reply is, "Do you know how hard it is to live the way I do? It would be so much easier to just do what some book says -- or to do what some leader tells me about what the book says. And it would be so much easier if I could always convince myself that God wanted me to do what I do. To actually think about my hard moral choices? And take responsibility for them? And live with them for the rest of my life? That's not the easy way out. That's harder than you will ever know."

I'm not saying all religious believers do this. There are certainly believers -- usually of the more progressive, less fundamentalist variety -- who think that God created them with a moral compass and bloody well expects them to use it themselves. I'm not saying all religion is ethical misdirection. I'm saying that some of it is. Way, way too much of it.

And I'm not saying this misdirection is conscious, either. Most of the time, I think it probably isn't. I think many religious believers themselves are convinced that they are good people, and that the strength of their religious faith makes them so.

But in a way, that actually makes it more insidious. After all, if someone consciously knows that they're being deceptive, there's always a chance that their conscience will catch up with them. But if they're completely mired in their own rationalization, it becomes a self-perpetuating circle that's almost impossible to break.

Religion can create an ethical misdirection so powerful, it fools even the magician.

And that scares the crap out of me.

(These ideas were largely inspired by the Imaginary Virtues piece on Daylight Atheism, which everyone has to go and read right this minute.)

Who Marriage is For: A Tale of Two Weddings

Who is marriage for now?

And what is it, anyway?

I want to tell a story. Two stories, I guess, about two weddings, that show how radically the answer to that question has changed in just the past few years.

The first time Ingrid and I got married at City Hall, the whole thing had a very different feel. Mayor Gavin Newsom's decision in 2004 to authorize same-sex marriages in San Francisco came totally out of left field, and everyone knew that it would probably be overturned by the courts. (Which, of course, it was.) So underlying the exuberant joy was a feeling of urgency: a knowledge that there was an axe hanging over our heads that could drop any time, and an almost panicky feeling of needing to get your joy in under the wire.

There were huge lines out City Hall doors. Dozens of ad-hoc officiants who had been specially deputized to perform weddings. A dozen or more weddings happening all over City Hall at any given time, all day, every day. It was a lean, mean, fast-moving wedding machine. We couldn't even get very dressed up, because we didn't know if we'd have to wait in line in the rain all day (we got very lucky and got a dry day for our wedding); we signed our papers on the steps of City Hall.

And, of course, the overwhelming majority of those weddings were same-sex. If you were a straight couple wanting to get married at City Hall that first week, and you hadn't already made an appointment, you were out of luck. It was a happy, joyful mob scene... and it was all about the queers.

So the whole thing was less like being welcomed into society as first-class citizens, and more like a massive act of queer civil disobedience. (Improbably led by the Mayor of the city.)

Last month's wedding, the second time Ingrid and I got married at City Hall, was different.

There was no mob scene, no line out the door. There is a possible deadline -- the court decision legalizing same-sex marriage in California could be overturned by a ballot initiative in November -- but November is a ways away, and nobody was feeling that if they didn't get married that day they might never get the chance.

There were certainly a whole lot more weddings happening than there would normally be on a Thursday at City Hall, with extra officiants on hand and a host of volunteers there to shepherd everyone through the process. But it was much calmer, much more business as usual, than the weddings in 2004. It still felt like history in the making, and everyone there was aware of it... but it was a much more peaceful joy, a gentle folding of a new flavor into the batter.

And here's the thing, the point I want to make:

It wasn't just same-sex couples getting married that day.

There were plenty of opposite-sex couples getting married at City Hall the day we were there. In fact, when we signed in for our appointment to get our license and have our ceremony, the schedule listed the couples as "Same sex" or "Opposite sex." And just from a quick glance, it looked like it was running about half and half.

So there we were in City Hall: a City Hall dotted with women marrying women, and men marrying men, and women marrying men.

And it struck me:

This is huge.

This is the change: the change we've been working and fighting for.

This is exactly the way it should be.

In California at least, marriage has changed. It's not longer a relationship and contract between a man and a woman. It's a relationship and contract between two people. Any two people.

In California at least (and Massachusetts, and Canada, and Spain, and a few other places around the world), marriage is no longer about maleness and femaleness; the man's role and the woman's role in the family; the husband and the wife. It's about two people. Spouse 1 and Spouse 2, as they put it on the forms we filled out.

Ingrid is my wife, and I am hers. And that means essentially the same thing as the fact that our friends Tim and Josie are husband and wife.

I think this is what I was getting at when I wrote How Gay Marriage Is Destroying Normal Marriage -- No, Really. Same sex marriage is changing what marriage is -- for everybody. For the men and women getting married in City Hall the day Ingrid and I got married, marriage won't be the same. The fact that Ingrid and I were getting married the same day that they were means that their marriages won't be the same. They won't mean the same thing.

The 2004 weddings were about the queers. June's weddings were about everybody.


Important note: The deadline is a few months off, but there is a deadline. In November, there will be an initiative on the California ballot, asking voters to amend the state Constitution and ban same-sex marriage. If you think this issue and this movement are important, please consider supporting Equality California. If you donate through their Love Stories program by July 31, your donation will be part of a matching program which will make your donation even more valuable.

Oh, and to any polyamorists reading this: Yes, I think it should be available to more than two people. Hopefully that change will come someday as well.

I Do -- And Why

Ingrid and I are getting married at City Hall today. I'm scheduling this post so that, in theory, it should go up right around the time we say "I do." This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog; it's been edited in small ways to bring it up to date.

As you all no doubt know unless you've been hiding under the blankets for the last month, the California Supreme Court recently ruled that the ban on same-sex marriage violates the state Constitution. Same-sex couples are now able to legally marry in California.

My partner and I are going to be one of those couples.

And I want to talk a little bit about why.

One of the questions that gets raised a lot when the subject of same-sex marriage comes up is, “Why is marriage so important? Why aren't civil unions or domestic partnerships good enough?”

The usual answers are practical ones. And I'll certainly second them. Marriage is recognized around the country and around the world, and all its practical and legal rights and responsibilities get carried with you everywhere you go... in a way that is most emphatically not true for civil unions and domestic partnerships. Besides, it's a well- established principle that “separate but equal” is inherently not equal. The very act of saying, “No, you can't have this thing that everyone else can have, but you can have that other thing we created just for you that's almost exactly like it -- isn't that special?” It's the creation of second-class status, pretty much by definition.

But I want to talk about something else today. I don't want to talk about the legal and practical benefits of marriage. I don't want to talk about hospital visitation rights, child custody rights, inheritance rights, tax benefits, all that good stuff. That's all important, but it's also well-covered ground.

I want to talk about something more intangible. I want to talk about why we're getting married... apart from all that.

Marriage is an unbelievably old human institution and human ritual. My parents did it. My grandparents did it. My great-grandparents did it, and theirs, and theirs. The word and the concept carry a weight, a gravitas, intense and complex social and emotional associations, from centuries and millennia of people participating in it. And as far as I know (admittedly my anthropology is a bit weak), it's existed in one form or another in almost every human society, in almost every period of human history. There may be exceptions, but I don't offhand know of any. Getting married means being a link in a chain, taking part in a ritual that's central to human history and society.

Yes, much of that history and many of those associations are awful. Sexist, propertarian, oppressive. But the evolution of the institution from its complicated and often terrible history into what it is today is part of what gives it its weight. The history of marriage, and its growth away from ownership and towards equal partnership, is the history of the human race’s maturation. Participating in it means participating, not just in the history and the ritual, but in its growth and change.

Civil unions and domestic partnerships just don't have that.

Let's look at the recent Supreme Court ruling in California. Let's look at what it won't change for my partner and me... and what it will.

On a day- to- day level, it probably won't change much. We're domestic partners, and California domestic partnership does afford most of the legal rights and responsibilities that marriage offers. Within the state, anyway. As long as we stay in the state, not much changes in any practical sense.

And I doubt that much will change between her and me. We had a commitment ceremony two and a half years ago: a joyful, exuberant, larger- than- we’d expected celebration that we spent many months planning. That ceremony and celebration, and everything we went through to make it happen, did change our relationship, profoundly, and very much for the better. I doubt that our legal wedding today will have anywhere near that same impact on how we feel about each other.

But it will almost certainly change how we feel about society, and our place in it. And it will change -- officially -- how society feels about us.

When we get married today, the State of California will officially recognize that our relationship has the same weight as our parents' did, and their parents', and theirs. It will officially drop this “separate but equal” bullshit. It will officially stop seeing us as kids at the little table, poor relatives who should be content with leavings and scraps, second-class citizens. It will officially see us as actual, complete, honest- to- gosh citizens.

Now.

Look at the patchwork of laws around this country regarding same-sex marriage. Look at the states that have banned it, and the ones that have gone so far as to ban the recognition of same-sex marriages performed in other states. Look at the fact that if my partner and I travel to Alabama or Michigan, Alaska or Pennsylvania, or any of over two dozen other states, our marriage will be seen as not having existed at all. Null. Void. Look at the Defense of Marriage Act, passed by Congress and signed by President William Jefferson Clinton in 1996, stating that the Federal government will not recognize same-sex marriages, even if they're completely legal in the state where they were performed.

What does that tell you about how those states, and the country as a whole, sees us?

That's the weird paradox of the California ruling. It's thrilling. It's unbelievably great news. It's a huge historical step. But at the same time, it throws the true meaning of this legal patchwork into sharp focus. It makes it that much clearer that queers in this country are, in a very literal sense, second-class citizens. We pay taxes, we serve on juries, we have to obey the same laws that everyone else does... but in a very practical, codified- into- law sense, we just don't count for as much.

Legalizing same-sex marriage isn't just about the legal and practical recognition of our love and our partnership. It's about social recognition. It's about being seen as a full member of society. Kudos for the California Supreme Court for understanding that. Let's hope the rest of the country figures it out eventually.

Important note: As powerful and historic as this step is, it could be undone. In November, there will be an initiative on the California ballot, asking voters to amend the state Constitution and ban same-sex marriage. If you think this issue and this movement are important, please consider supporting Equality California.

A Tale of Two Martyrs: When Jobs and Beliefs Collide

So what should religious believers do when their professional obligations conflict with their religious convictions?

Here in California, the media has been all over the story of the county clerks in Kern County and Butte County, who decided to stop performing wedding ceremonies -- all wedding ceremonies -- as soon as the California Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage should be legal. (They're still issuing marriage licenses, which they're legally required to do -- but they won't perform the ceremonies, which they're not.) So couples of all genders and orientations in those counties who want to get married have to either do it before the cutoff date, find their own officiant, or go outside the county. Even couples who already had wedding appointments are having to either hurriedly change their wedding dates or go elsewhere.

Now, here's where it gets interesting.

Both clerks transparently lie claim that their decision wasn't motivated by an objection to same-sex marriage. They cite expenses/ logistical problems/ staffing issues with the county performing weddings of any kind. And the fact that they decided to cut off weddings at the exact historical moment that same-sex marriage got legalized in their state? Pure coincidence. That's their story, and they're sticking to it. (The Kern County clerk is actually being caught in the lie... but she's still sticking to the story, and otherwise clamming up.)

See, refusing to marry same-sex couples while still marrying opposite-sex couples would be a clear violation of the law. Refusal to perform a task that's part of your government job, simply because you don't personally approve of the people you're doing it for? That's grounds for dismissal. Maybe even grounds for prosecution. So if these county clerks want to stay true to their presumed convictions by refusing to perform same-sex weddings -- and at the same time, still keep their jobs -- they have to play this weaselly game, refusing to publicly say what they're doing and why, and giving transparently half-assed excuses, even though everyone knows exactly what's going on.

And presumably, they want to keep their jobs.

Now.

Compare, please, with this story.

A high school principal in Columbia, S.C., is stepping down from his post after being asked to allow the creation of a gay-straight alliance club at his school.

Irmo High School principal Eddie Walker had a similar conflict between his professional and legal obligations as a public servant, and his personal religious convictions. He had a professional obligation to let the gay-straight alliance club go forward: federal law says that a school can't refuse to allow a club to form simply based on the club's purpose and viewpoint. And he had religious objections to supporting a club of this nature.

So he resigned.

Now. Obviously, I don't agree with his religious beliefs about homosexuality. Obviously, I think his religious beliefs are misinformed at best, ignorant and bigoted and grotesquely out of touch with reality at worst. I don't even need to go there. Insert boilerplate rant.

But at least he had the courage of his convictions.

At least he was willing to make a sacrifice for his convictions.

Isn’t that what we’re always saying when people’s deeply held religious beliefs conflict with their jobs? Especially when those jobs are in the public sector? When pharmacists don’t want to provide birth control because it goes against their religion, for instance, we say, “Well, if you’re not willing to provide a legal drug legally prescribed for someone by their doctor, perhaps you shouldn’t be a pharmacist.” When public school teachers don’t want to teach evolution and want to teach creationism because of their religious beliefs, we say, “Well, if you feel that way, perhaps you shouldn’t be teaching biology in the public schools.”

So when a school principal doesn't want to support a gay/straight alliance in his school -- and decides that he therefore should no longer be a principal - it's hard for me to say much about it other than, "Yup. You're right. You shouldn't be a principal." I obviously think that his convictions have a screw loose... but at least he has the courage of them. And at least he's acting in a way that both stands up for his convictions and doesn't shove them down everyone else's throat.

A common trope among Christian theists is, "What would Jesus do?" Personally, I think the Jesus character in the New Testament is an ambiguous figure and in many ways a troubling one, and I certainly wouldn't take every piece of his behavior as a model. But whatever else you may think about him, the dude had the courage of his convictions. He said what he thought. And he was willing to accept consequences -- pretty damn harsh consequences -- for what he said and thought. Okay, there was a certain amount of, "You said it, I didn't" pussyfooting near the end of the story when he was being interrogated... but for the most part, covering his ass was not a high priority.

And it shouldn't be for the Kern and Butte County Clerks, either.

I'm not even getting into the whole "You shouldn't base your professional decisions on your religious beliefs, because religious beliefs are notoriously resistant to evidence and reason" thing. And I'm also not getting into the whole "Separation of church and state protects you, too, you don't want some clerk refusing to let you register to vote or file the deed to your house because their religion objects" thing.

My point is this:

When your professional obligations conflict with your religious convictions, don't your convictions themselves require you to piss or get off the pot? Don't your convictions themselves call on you to either perform the job you've promised to perform -- or stand up and say, "I can't in conscience do this job anymore, so I'm resigning"? Don't your convictions require you to do anything at all other than refuse to perform the public service that the taxpayers are paying you to do, screw up lots of people's lives in the process... and come up with obviously fake, weaselly excuses for why you're doing it?

Unless, of course, you belong to the First Church of the Weasel.

In which case, knock yourself out.

High school principal story via Friendly Atheist, which is also where I developed part of this piece.

Barack Obama, and the Stupidity of ABC News

Boy, do I hate TV news.

I happened to watch Barack Obama's speech last night. It was purely by accident -- I was watching "Jeopardy," and the speech broke in as breaking news -- but I was extremely glad I did. My support of Obama is not unmixed, but I found myself surprisingly moved and inspired by his speech, and I haven't felt that way about a politician in a long, long time. And I'm enough of a bleeding- heart liberal to feel a thrill of pride at the fact that America is nominating an African- American as the nominee for President in a major party. It was an historic moment, and I was glad to have witnessed it. (I'll feel a lot more pride if he gets elected in November.)

But that's not what I'm here to talk about.

I was watching the speech on ABC News. Again, simply by accident: I'd been watching "Jeopardy" when it came on, and just kept it on that channel. The first part of the speech wasn't very substantive: fairly typical Obama stuff about hope and the future, unity and healing, the wonderfulness of the American people. Inspiring, some of it, and it certainly seemed heartfelt... but there wasn't a lot of there there.

But then he started talking about John McCain. He started talking about the specific, significant ways that his policies and proposals differed from those of McCain.

And at that point -- roughly half a sentence into Obama switching from vague hopeful platitudes to specific policies -- ABC cut in.

They kept the speech on. But they turned down the volume, and put George Stephanopoulos and some other yahoo on the screen. They switched over from airing Obama's speech... to airing ABC's commentary on the speech, with the speech itself burbling along in the background like Muzak.

I was furious. I sat there stunned for a minute, waiting for them to shut the hell up and get back to the speech. And as soon as it became clear that they weren't going to do that any time soon, I frantically scrambled for the remote, and switched over to CNN as fast as my fingers could fly. I was so glad I did, of course: it was an amazing speech, and it did, in fact, go into quite a few specifics about what Obama cares about. And -- whaddya know? -- a lot of what he cares about are the things I care about. Education; global warming; health care; science; an end to the war in Iraq. And he spoke about these things with both intellect and passion -- a combination that is way the hell too rare in American politics. I still have a few mixed feelings about him, I still don't think he's the second coming of John F. Kennedy, but I am now totally on board.

But the more inspired I got by his speech, the angrier I got at ABC News.

What the hell were they thinking?

The tinfoil- hat conspiracy theory part of my brain kept asking: Is this deliberate? Are they trying to play the "Obama is inspiring but doesn't have any policy specifics or detailed plans" story, and the "here is precisely where my proposals differ from those of my opponent" part of Obama's speech doesn't fit into that narrative... so they edit it out?

Or -- and in many ways this is worse -- are they just totally tone- deaf? Do they really think that their talking- heads analysis of Obama's speech is more important and more interesting than the speech itself? Do they really think that this historic occasion -- what amounted to the acceptance speech of the first African- American major- party candidate for President of the United States -- deserved, at most, a couple/few minutes of sound bite, before the really important business of George Stephanopoulos gassing on?

Did they really think that, at this moment in history, what George Stephanopoulos had to say was more interesting and important than what Barack Obama had to say?

I don't know how long they kept it up. Like I said, I switched over to CNN as fast as my fingers could get me there, and I stayed there for the rest of the speech. But I don't care. The fact that they did it at all, even if it was just for a minute or two, shows an insensitivity so appalling that it verges into flat- out racism. And it was a pitch- perfect example of what is wrong with political discourse in this country. Political news in this country consists largely of brief, sound- bite snippets from the actual candidates and newsmakers and people in government... sandwiched in between endless hours of yammering from reporters and pundits and opinion- makers, until the meta-news, the news about the news, becomes more important than the news itself.

And yes, I'm aware of the irony of me gassing on about this, engaging in this sort of meta-commentary and acting as if my opinion is important. True, I'm not interrupting a broadcast of a major speech to tell you what I think about it, but still. So you know? Go watch the speech. It's much more interesting, and much more important, than anything I have to say about it.

I Do -- And Why: The Blowfish Blog

Remember about a week ago, when the California Supreme Court same-sex ruling came out? I was all a-twitter with girlish glee and didn't know what to say, but said I'd say more later?

This is later.

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It's about why we want to get married -- not civil- unioned, not domestic- partnered, but married. It's about why we'd want that even if all the legal and financial and other practical questions were a moot point. And it's about what same-sex marriage in California will change for us... and what it won't. It's called I Do -- And Why, and here's the teaser:

But I want to talk about something else today. I don't want to talk about the legal and practical benefits of marriage. I don't want to talk about hospital visitation rights, child custody rights, inheritance rights, tax benefits, all that good stuff. That's all important, but it's also well-covered ground. I want to talk about something more intangible. I want to talk about why we're getting married... apart from all that.

To find out why, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

They Said Yes!

They said yes!

The California Supreme Court said yes.

Ingrid and I can get married now. Legally. (Or we can in 30 days, when the ruling takes effect.)

I kind of don't know what to say about this. I'm still processing it. And it still could be overturned: it looks like there's going to be a ballot initiative in November to amend the state Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, and it could pass. And of course, all of this is going to affect the Presidential election, and I have no idea how that's going to play out. So part of me is freaking the fuck out.

But the other part of me is so thrilled I can't speak. We've been waiting for this for so long. And -- how shall I put this? -- we've been not waiting for this for so long. When I first came out (over 20 years ago now), same-sex marriage wasn't even on the table. It never even occurred to me that it would be an option.

I don't yet know what to say. I'm sure I'll have more to say in the coming days, weeks, and months. But I know I want to say this now:

Things change. Don't ever let anyone tell you that things don't change.

Multiple Marriage and the Texas Polygamy Case: The Blowfish Blog

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog, about the Texas polygamy case. At first I didn't think I was going to write about it, since I didn't think I had anything original to say about it. (Pretty much what I had to say about it was, "Oh, my god, that is so awful.") But then someone asked me what I thought of the question of legalizing multiple marriage -- in general, as well as in light of the polygamy cults -- and I decided to write this piece. It's called, somewhat unimaginatively, Multiple Marriage and the Texas Polygamy Case, and here's the teaser:

One of the main objections to legalizing multiple marriage is that, in the world as it is today, multiple marriages tend to be abusive. Groovy polyamorous triads aren't the norm, the argument goes. The norm for multiple marriage, in this country and around the world, is coercive and abusive religious cults that effectively imprison women and children. And if we don't have laws against multiple marriage, these abusive cults will be legitimized, and there will no protection for their victims.

I’m not sure whether that's true or not. I don't know if anyone has ever done a good, careful study on the frequency of multiple relationships, either in this country or around the world, to see if the coerced cult variety really does outnumber the consensual free-adult variety. If there has been such a study, I haven't seen it.

But here's the point I want to make.

When the Texas polygamy compound got raided and arrests were made, nobody was charged with bigamy.

The charges so far have all been related to child abuse. And the case seems to be largely in the hands of Child Protective Services.

So how does the illegality of multiple marriage help the victims of these situations?

To read more, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

The Texas Dildo Massacre, Or, Reason Number 2,767 Why Gay Rights Matter To Everyone

The Federal court decision that inspired this post happened a couple of months ago, when I first wrote it. But the issues it addresses are very much current and pertinent... not to mention a rare bit of good sex news in this crappy decade. So I'm reprinting it anyway. This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

As you've probably heard, the Texas law banning the sale of sex toys has been overturned.

This is excellent news, for all the obvious reasons. Most obviously, Texans can now buy and sell sex toys. People can now open sex toy stores in Texas, run fuckerware parties in Texas, sell sex toys to Texans through the mail without fear of entering murky legal waters. Woo-hoo! Go, Texans! (Good articles about it in the Austin-American Statesman, and in Dispatches from the Culture Wars.)

But I want to talk about one of the less obvious reasons why this is astoundingly, excitingly, kick-ass good news.

(Please note: I'm not a legal expert, and I'm definitely not an expert on constitutional law. These are simply the opinions of a smart lay person who’s been paying attention to this issue for a long time, informed by the opinions of people who are legal experts.)

The primary reason for the Texas sex toy ruling -- the main precedent cited -- was the 2003 Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, which overturned sodomy laws and legalized gay sex across the country. Now, Lawrence was important for sexual civil rights for a whole lot of reasons. Most obviously, it meant that nobody in the United States could be considered a criminal simply for having gay sex. And that has huge implications for things like custody rights, housing rights, employment rights, etc. Before Lawrence, gay people could be -- and were -- denied all sorts of basic rights... because, technically, they were criminals. Lawrence upended all that, and it was hugely important for that reason alone.

But this latest case -- the Texas sex toy case, Reliable Consultants and PHE v. Texas -- makes it clear that Lawrence has even broader implications... for everyone. Gay, straight, everyone.

The Texas sex toy case makes it clear that the Lawrence v. Texas ruling established a constitutional right to sexual privacy in the United States.

And that, people, is HUGE.

Before the Texas sex toy case, we didn't have that. You might have had it in the particular state you lived in -- we’ve had it in California since 1975, when the consenting adults law got passed -- but United States citizens did not have any constitutionally guaranteed right to sexual privacy until February 12, 2008.

And we have it now. Yes, the Federal courts have now said that you have a constitutional right to use a vibrator or a dildo. But so much more than that: the Federal courts have now said... well, let me quote briefly from the decision.

Just as in Lawrence, the State here wants to use its laws to enforce a public moral code by restricting private intimate conduct. The case is not about public sex. It is not about controlling commerce in sex. It is about controlling what people do in the privacy of their own homes because the State is morally opposed to a certain type of consensual private intimate conduct. This is an insufficient justification for the statute after Lawrence. (Emphasis mine.)

The Lawrence case didn't just say that gay sex couldn't be criminalized. It said that people -- all people -- have the right to engage in any consensual intimate conduct in their home, free from government intrusion. It said that people's sex lives are not their neighbors' business, not society's business, and most emphatically not the government's business. It said that the fact that the State doesn't happen to like a particular kind of sex doesn't mean they have a right to ban it, or indeed to have any say in it at all.

This case says, "Yup. That's what Lawrence meant, all right."

And that has enormous implications. (Assuming it gets upheld, of course; the decision could be appealed to the Supreme Court, and I haven't read anything yet saying whether or not it will be.)

It has implications for sadomasochists. Fetishists. Swingers. Any other sexual minority you can think of. If you're any of those things... you now have a legal right to it, anywhere in the country. And that's pretty darned important for all those custody rights and housing rights and employment rights and whatnot that we were talking about. It may wind up having implications for porn laws; if we our right to sexual privacy means we can have vibrators, it should mean we have a right to dirty movies as well. (It should have implications for the legalization of sex work, too; but alas, the rulings in both Lawrence and this case made a point of saying that the rulings don't apply to prostitution. Mistakenly, in my opinion.)

So here's the lesson for today. Apart from just, "Hooray for sex toys!" and "Hooray for the right to sexual privacy!"

The lesson for today: Gay rights are human rights.

Gay rights are everyone's rights.

And straight people have a personal vested interest in fighting for gay rights.

This is a point that sex advice writer Dan Savage has made on several occasions. He's pointed out that the right-wing homophobes who want to stop things like same-sex marriage are the exact same right-wing sex-phobes who want to stop things like birth control and sex education and abortion. Gay sexual rights are often on the cutting edge of sexual liberation... and they're often the first on the chopping block when right-wingers try to turn back the clock.

So I want all the straight people reading this to say a big, heartfelt "Thank You" to the people in the gay rights movement who fought so hard for so many years to get the Lawrence verdict. They are the people who, last week, gave you the right to own a dildo or a vibrator in every state in the country.

And I want you to promise to treat the fight for gay rights as if it were the fight for your own.

Because it is.

BTW, does anyone know the current status of this case? Is it being appealed, or is it standing? I Googled it, but couldn't find anything except on the original decision.

*****

Addendum: Important correction to the legal effects of this ruling in Jon Berger's comment below.

Onward Christian Soldiers: Theocracy and the U.S. Military

This one scares the bejeezus out of me.

A lot of atheist blogs have had this story. For some time now, actually, But the New York Times has finally covered the story, which seems like a good excuse for me to talk about it.

The Times headline sums it up pretty darned well:

Soldier Sues Army, Saying His Atheism Led to Threats

And here's a few pertinent quotes before I get into my analysis:

When Specialist Jeremy Hall held a meeting last July for atheists and freethinkers at Camp Speicher in Iraq, he was excited, he said, to see an officer attending.

But minutes into the talk, the officer, Maj. Freddy J. Welborn, began to berate Specialist Hall and another soldier about atheism, Specialist Hall wrote in a sworn statement. "People like you are not holding up the Constitution and are going against what the founding fathers, who were Christians, wanted for America!" Major Welborn said, according to the statement.

Major Welborn told the soldiers he might bar them from re-enlistment and bring charges against them, according to the statement.

And:

Perhaps the most high-profile incident involved seven officers, including four generals, who appeared, in uniform and in violation of military regulations, in a 2006 fund-raising video for the Christian Embassy, an evangelical Bible study group.

And:

Specialist Hall began a chapter of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers at Camp Speicher, near Tikrit, to support others like him.

At the July meeting, Major Welborn told the soldiers they had disgraced those who had died for the Constitution, Specialist Hall said. When he finished, Major Welborn said, according to the statement: "I love you guys; I just want the best for you. One day you will see the truth and know what I mean."

And:

Complaints include prayers "in Jesus' name" at mandatory functions, which violates military regulations, and officers proselytizing subordinates to be "born again." After getting the complainants’ unit and command information, Mr. Weinstein said, he calls his contacts in the military to try to correct the situation.

"Religion is inextricably intertwined with their jobs," Mr. Weinstein said. "You're promoted by who you pray with."

Okay. Do we have the picture now, everybody? Read the whole story if you don't. And this isn't the first time I've seen this story: plenty of atheist blogs have been carrying it for a while, along with many others like it. (More info -- not just on this case, but on an appalling number of similar ones -- at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.)

And here's why this scares the daylights out of me. More than just about any instance of creeping theocracy in our country. More, even, than creationism and other forms of religious fundamentalism being taught in our public, taxpayer-funded schools.

This is the Army.

This is the branch of our government with the big rifles.

And increasingly, they seem to be placing their allegiance to their religion over their allegiance to the country and the Constitution.

There's a story that Ed Brayton (who's been covering this story a lot) had over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars. The whole story is excellent, but here's the truly terrifying part:

One individual, posting under the name "Hidog," suggested Hall put on an orange vest and carry a sign "Bong hits 4 Allah" through the streets of Iraq, "because apparently, your Bill of Rights trump your CO's (commanding officer's) orders."

As Ed pointed out, "Well yes, the bill of rights does trump the orders of a commanding officer when those orders violate the bill of rights."

And it scares the merciful crap out of me to think that the Army is increasingly full of people -- not just mooks with no power, but officers -- who don't understand that. It terrifies me to think of an Army populated by both officers and enlisted men whose hearts -- and guns -- belong, not to the citizens of this country who employ them, but to Jesus.

And it terrifies me to realize these are not isolated incidents. There's so much more to this story that I haven't gotten into, that I don't have time to get into without this turning into an unreadably long screed. It is becoming increasingly clear that this is the dominant culture of the current United States Army.

With support from the Pentagon.

Because that, people, means that we really are living in a theocracy. Right now. The armed enforcers of our Federal government are the defenders, not of our country, not of our Constitution, but of their God and their faith.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Okay. Perhaps I'm being a little panicky, a little overdramatic. The good news is that we're not overtly a theocracy. Yet. When caught in these shenanigans, the perpetrators still have to shimmy and sidestep, deny that it happened or hastily issue regulations to halt the more grotesquely blatant examples of it. And if the Supreme Court hasn't become completely craven, hopefully they'll be spanking the Pentagon long and hard over this. (Military fetishists, take note.)

And the good news is that the story finally got out of the atheist blogosphere and into the New York Times. (CNN has the story, too.)

But this is not a few isolated incidents. This is not a few bad apples. This is, as Mikey Weinsein of the MRFF called it, "the intentional dismantling of the Constitutionally mandated wall separating church and state by some of the highest ranking officials in the Bush Administration and the U.S. military."

The intentional dismantling of the wall separating church and state. By the armed enforcers of the Federal government. By the branch of the Federal government that has the big rifles.

What is that but theocracy?

(P.S. I'm not even going to get into the fact that these are the people who are enforcing our foreign policy overseas, in parts of the world that are primarily and quite passionately not Christian. Except to say: Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. What a colossally, appallingly, mind-twistingly bad idea that is.)

This has been all over the atheosphere; but Susie Bright is the one who sent it to me. So thanks, Susie.

My Trip to the Circus: Albert Hofmann and LSD

Albert Hofmann, the inventor of LSD, has died at the ripe old age of 102. So in honor of him, now seems like a good time to talk about my experiences with the drug he created.

I took LSD a lot in college, and for a year or two after. Quite a lot. For a while, I was taking it almost every week; and for most of my college years, I was taking it about once a month or so. And after I'd been taking it for a while, I was taking moderately hefty doses. You don't get a physical tolerance to LSD -- but you can get a sort of psychological tolerance to it. After I'd been taking it for a while, a hit or two would give me a light, fun trip -- but if I wanted the experience of taking my mind into a radically unfamiliar place, I'd take five, seven, even ten hits.

And for the most part, it was a great experience. Kind of an important experience, too. I had a couple of bad trips (especially early on, before I'd figured out the "don't take seriously the crazy shit your mind comes up with when it's tripping" principle)... but on the whole, LSD was a positive, happy part of my life that shaped me in ways I feel good about. Partly it was just fun and entertaining, like fascinating and hilarious movies in my brain. But I actually got some important insights out of it as well: insights that have stayed with me long after I stopped taking the drug.

I could gas on about this subject for hours. But I realize that there's little in this life more tedious than listening to other people describe their drug experiences. So the main thing I want to say is this: Taking LSD is what gave me the awareness -- not just the intellectual concept, but the immediate, visceral experience -- of just how much of my perception and intuition was about how my brain worked, and how little of it was about how the world worked. There is nothing quite so humbling as putting a chemical into your body -- a chemical measured in millionths of a gram -- and having everything you see and feel and know be radically altered, to the point of being unrecognizable.

So in a lot of ways, taking LSD was the beginning of my skepticism. It was the beginning of my awareness that my brain could fool me, that my brain had its own agenda, and I couldn't automatically trust what it was saying.

Now, the downside is that, in a lot of other ways, it was the total opposite. Many of my stupider woo beliefs came directly out of "insights" I had when I was on LSD or other hallucinogens. The idea that mystical forces were guiding the Tarot cards when I shuffled them. The idea that subatomic particles must have free will, since their behavior isn't predictable. The idea that every person on Earth was in exactly the right place, doing exactly what they were intended to be doing by the great World-Soul. (A pretty Calvinist idea when you think about it, although at the time I would have rejected that suggestion hotly.) I had drug hallucinations that I took very, very seriously, and believed to be accurate perceptions even after the drug faded. (I was, for instance, convinced for an embarrassingly long time that, when I was under the influence of LSD, I could make rosebuds bloom into roses, simply through the force of my concentrated drug-enhanced will. Loki, have mercy.)

So while I'm overall positive about my LSD experiences, I feel that I should acknowledge this side of them as well. I am strongly of the opinion that a lot of the more fuzzy, uncritical, poorly- thought- out ideas of the hippie and post-hippie movement (New Age woo and otherwise) were the result of an entire generation being unclear on the "don't take seriously the crazy shit your mind comes up with when it's tripping" concept.

But you know? All that stuff eventually faded. And what I was left with -- along with a lot of warm, happy, hilarious memories of profound and wildly entertaining times shared with friends -- was the deeply- ingrained, vividly- understood awareness that my perception and intuition did not necessarily represent reality. It was the beginning of my skepticism. And it was the beginning of the end of my solipsism. In a lot of ways, it was the beginning of my adult compassion: my relativism, my understanding that other people saw reality differently than I did and that this didn't automatically mean that they were stupid and wrong. It was the beginning of my borderline- obsessive, sometimes irritating dedication to seeing things, as much as possible, from other people's points of view.

And for that, I'm grateful.

Thanks, Albert.

(Tip of the hat to Susie Bright, both for the news and for the "everyone tell your LSD experiences" meme. Also for this unbelievably hilarious video. Video below the fold.)

Photo of Albert Hofmann by Stefan Pangritz, copyright CC-BY-SA.

The Blasphemy of Creationism

The story of the UC-Calvary lawsuit has been all over the atheosphere in the last few days. I'm not going to get into it in much detail (good pieces about it on Daylight Atheism and Dispatches from the Culture Wars), but to give you a quick summary so you know what I'm ranting about: A federal judge recently issued a preliminary ruling saying that UC Berkeley could, in fact, refuse to give college credit in biology for courses that taught young-earth creationism. (Calvary Chapel Christian School was trying to argue religious freedom; UC Berkeley was arguing that Calvary could have all the religious freedom they wanted, but they shouldn't expect UC to drop its academic standards and recognize non-science as science.)

So the Daylight Atheism piece on this had an excerpt from one of the textbooks in question. The textbook is Biology for Christian Schools, and the excerpt is as follows and begins now:

(1) "'Whatever the Bible says is so; whatever man says may or may not be so,' is the only [position] a Christian can take..."
(2) "If [scientific] conclusions contradict the Word of God, the conclusions are wrong, no matter how many scientific facts may appear to back them."
(3) "Christians must disregard [scientific hypotheses or theories] that contradict the Bible."

And this isn't buried somewhere in the back. This is on the very first page of the textbook. The science textbook.

After the top of my head had finished blowing off, I finally figured out why exactly this bothers me so much. Apart from all the obvious reasons, of course: the arrogance, the close-mindedness, the complete missing of the point of what science is about, etc.

What bothers me so much about it is how grotesquely disrespectful it is to their own God.

Let's say you're a theist. Let's say you believe in God, a creator god who made the world and the universe in all its beautiful and astonishing complexity.

Wouldn't you want to understand that universe, as well and as thoroughly as you could?

To me, the idea that scientific evidence is always trumped by the Bible is one of the most disrespectful attitudes you could possibly have about God. Even if you believe that the Bible was written by God (and you ignore all the evidence to the contrary), wouldn't you believe that the universe was also written by God? And in a much more direct way than the Bible was written, without having to be dictated through human secretaries? Wouldn't you put the universe, at the very least, on equal footing with the Bible? In fact, shouldn't you really be seeing the universe as much higher, much more important than the Bible, because the Bible is just one small part of God's creation and the universe is so much more vast?

It seems to me that setting your human religion above the enormous and awe-inspiring majesty of God's creation is blasphemy of the worst kind. To say that the Bible is always more real than the reality of the universe seems to me to be spitting on God and his creation. And it's not just spitting on the universe: it's spitting on that part of God's creation that is your brain and your mind, your capacity to perceive the universe and use reason and logic to understand it.

Of course, this sort of thinking is a perfect example of what Daniel Dennet was talking about in "Breaking the Spell": the ways that religion functions as a self-perpetuating meme, one that has built up an impressive array of armor and weaponry to defend itself against being seriously questioned. The idea that sacred texts can't be questioned; the idea that letting go of doubts and questions about your faith will make your life easier; the idea that holding onto faith in the face of evidence contradicting it makes you a good person... all of these function as an immune system that stops questions from breaking down the belief, or even from penetrating it in the first place.

But I think that's awfully sad. To think that your faith -- not just a general faith in the existence of God, but your particular version of the specific details of how God does and does not work -- is more real than the reality of the universe.... that's just sad. It's isolating. It's cutting yourself off from reality, from the enormous, majestic, unutterably complex, constantly- surprising reality of the physical universe. And if you believe in God, a god who created all this majesty and whatnot, it's cutting yourself off from God.

It's saying that, given a choice between trying to understand the reality of God's creation, and convincing yourself that you and your sect are right, it's more important to be right. And that really is placing yourself above God... in a way that I think is more blasphemous than anything any atheist could ever come up with.

(Photo of Synchiropus splendidus by Luc Viatour.)

A Tale of Two Scandals: The Obligatory Eliot Spitzer and "American Idol" Stripper Column: The Blowfish Blog

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog, a piece that manages to tie together the two big sex scandals of the week -- the Eliot Spitzer scandal and the "American Idol" stripper scandal -- into one, hopefully not overly belabored analogy. The piece is called A Tale of Two Scandals: The Obligatory Eliot Spitzer and "American Idol" Stripper Column, and here's the teaser:

When the governor of New York resigns due to the revelation that he had sex with a prostitute -- and a contestant on a top-rated TV reality show is found to have been a stripper -- sex columnists around the world are driven to the stories like salmon returning home to spawn. So this is kind of an obligatory column. I am powerless to control myself. Can't... stop! Must... blog... about... Spitzer... and... the "American Idol"... stripper! Send... help!

But until help arrives, I’m going to have fun with it.

To find out why a weird part of me is glad that the latest major politician to get embroiled in a sex scandal is a Democrat -- and to why find out why I think so many Americans are wigging out over the fact that an "American Idol" contestant was once a male stripper -- read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

The Texas Dildo Massacre, or, Reason Number 2,767 Why Gay Rights Matter To Everyone: The Blowfish Blog

As you’ve probably heard, the Texas law banning the sale of sex toys has been overturned. I have a new piece about it on the Blowfish Blog: in it, I talk about what this ruling means -- not just for consumers of sex toys, but for everyone who cares about the right to sexual privacy. And I talk about the Lawrence v. Texas case -- the Supreme Court decision legalizing sodomy and same-sex relations, the case that was the foundation for the Texas dildo decision.

It's called The Texas Dildo Massacre, or, Reason Number 2,767 Why Gay Rights Matter To Everyone, and here's the teaser:

The Lawrence case didn't just say that gay sex couldn't be criminalized. It said that people -- all people -- have the right to engage in any consensual intimate conduct in their home, free from government intrusion. It said that people's sex lives are not their neighbors' business, not society's business, and most emphatically not the government's business. It said that the fact that the State doesn't happen to like a particular kind of sex doesn't mean they have a right to ban it, or indeed to have any say in it at all.

This case says, "Yup. That's what Lawrence meant, all right."

And that has enormous implications.

To find out what I think the implications are of the Texas dildo case -- and the Texas sodomy case that preceded it -- read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

Hypocrisy or Bigotry -- Which Is Worse? Huckabee and Guiliani on Gay Rights

Via the HRC:

"Unless Moses comes down with two stone tablets from Brokeback Mountain to tell us something different, we need to keep that understanding of marriage."
-Mike Huckabee

"It's the acts, it’s the various acts that people perform that are sinful."
-Rudolph Giuliani on homosexuality

There are so many different ways I could go with this.

I could go with Huckabee's snarky, smirky Brokeback Mountain reference. I could gas on about how "Brokeback Mountain" has become the new "Adam and Steve," the default catch-phrase for when people want to make bigoted jokes about gays.

I could also point out how wildly inappropriate the Brokeback Mountain reference is. I mean, did he see the movie? Did he think it was a ringing endorsement for gay people denying their sexuality and getting into heterosexual marriages? The whole point of that damn movie was that gay people staying in the closet ruins lives -- not just their own lives, but the lives of their wives and their families and everyone around them. To make a "Brokeback Mountain" joke in support of a "traditional marriage" position is clueless to the point of delusion.

And of course, I could go the "laughably hypocritical" route on Guiliani's comment. The twice-divorced, thrice-married, adulterous Giuliani, lecturing gay people on their sinful sex lives? Please.

But that's not where I want to go with this. Instead I want to pose a question that kept me and Ingrid entertained for hours:

Which do you think is worse -- craven hypocrisy, or close-minded bigotry?

Here's the thing. I don't believe for a moment that Giuliani actually thinks homosexuality is a sin. He supported civil unions and domestic partnerships when was mayor of New York. Hell, when his second marriage was breaking up, he moved into the apartment of two gay friends. He did a Victor/Victoria drag show with Julie Andrews. He's far from the most enlightened person on the planet when it comes to LGBT issues; but I doubt that he has anything against us personally.

I think his move to the right on LGBT issues is purely pragmatic. He wants to be President. He thinks he has to suck up to the far right to accomplish this goal. Gay-bashing is the quickest, easiest way to do that.

Huckabee, on the other hand:

I am quite sure that Huckabee means every word of it. His entire record speaks of passionate homophobic bigotry, fueled by a particularly virulent form of close-minded religious fundamentalism. When he said that "homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle," I have no doubt whatsoever that he meant every word.

So here's my question:

Which is worse?

The close-minded, true-believing bigot -- or the craven, self-serving hypocrite?

My thoughts:

From a purely ethical standpoint, I think the true believer has the stronger position. Their bigotry is evil, it's harmful -- but at least it's sincere. It's not held simply for selfish gain. It’s internally consistent.

But from a purely practical standpoint, I think I'd rather have the hypocrite in public office.

Because you can change a hypocrite's mind.

If someone is taking a bigoted position purely to advance their self-interest, all you have to do to change their mind is shift the political scales. Mobilize your forces. Make alliances. Get better organized. Convince the hypocrite that their self-interest would be better served by sucking up to you instead of your opponents, and they'll be your new best friend.

It's much, much harder to change the mind of a true-believing bigot. If their bigotry is a consistent, integral, fundamental part of their view of the world and themselves, changing their mind about their bigotry requires them to rewrite their entire life story. Very few people are up to that.

And while internal consistency can be an admirable trait, it's not so admirable when it comes at the cost of shutting out the world around you. Prioritizing your own belief system over human reality is really just another way of being self-serving.

Then again, as Ingrid points out:

If you do succeed in changing a true believer's mind, chances are that you'll have them for good. The ranks of LGBT supporters are filled with former bigots who changed their minds when their friends, their colleagues, their children or grandchildren, came out as gay. And their newfound tolerance is as strong -- and as sincere -- as their old bigotry.

Whereas the craven hypocrite who makes nice with you today will toss you like last week's leftovers the minute you become inconvenient.

Just ask Giuliani. And the gay friends who took him in when he needed help. The friends who he's now calling "sinful" -- because he wants to be President.

"Trusted adults, including priests, may be the abusers"

From USA Today comes this story about coloring/ comic books that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York is handing out to children to warn them about sex predators. (Click on the image to see it in its full glory.) I quote:

The Archdiocese of New York is handing out coloring and comic books that warn children about sex predators, the first such effort by a U.S. Roman Catholic diocese. In the coloring book, a perky guardian angel tells children not to keep secrets from their parents, not to meet anyone from an Internet chat room and to allow only "certain people" such as a doctor or parent to see "where your bathing suit would be." In a comic-book version for children over 10, a teenager turns to St. Michael the Archangel for strength to report that two schoolmates are being sexually abused. The books have been distributed to about 300 schools and 400 religious education programs to use as a resource. They also can be viewed online. Some critics, while applauding the intent, say the books should say explicitly that trusted adults, including priests, may be the abusers. (Emphasis added.)

My first reaction to the "some critics say the books should say explicitly that trusted adults, including priests, may be the abusers" part was this:

Gee, ya think?

In the wake of a widespread global scandal about priests molesting children as a common occurrence -- and the Church acting to cover it up, even when it meant exposing children to known child molesters -- do you really think it might be a good idea to warn children that priests, specifically, are among the adults who might be sexual abusers?

Gosh, what on Earth might have made you think that?

(We need a sarcasm font. Imagine the above three paragraphs in a sarcasm font.)

But then, it occurred to me.

Of course the Catholic Church can't tell kids that priests, specifically, might be abusers, and that they shouldn't automatically trust them.

Once you start telling children that priests are fallible human beings and that you can't necessarily trust everything they tell you...

...well, you see where I'm going with this, don't you?

Once you start telling children that you can't necessarily trust everything the priest tells you, you undermine the whole foundation of your religion. As Dennett and Dawkins and countless others have pointed out, the survival of religion depends on the indoctrination of children. The single biggest factor, by far, in predicting what religion you are is what religion you were brought up in. Children's brains are designed, for very good evolutionary reasons, to trust what adults tell them. It's like that Jesuit motto: "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man."

The perpetuation of religion depends, not only on teaching children your religion, but on teaching them that religious leaders and teachers are special and trustworthy, that they know more about God than the rest of us, and that they deserve a special level of respect and trust. If you tell children not to automatically trust priests, the whole house of cards falls down.

But it's completely half-assed to to warn kids about generic abusers without pointing out that the adults most likely to abuse them are adults they know and trust -- including parents, teachers, coaches, and, hello, priests.

This doesn't read to me like taking responsibility for the sexual abuse scandal in the priesthood. It reads to me like PR. It reads to me like yet another case of the Catholic Church covering their own ass -- at the expense of children's actual safety.

Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor

I am getting so sick of this, I could spit.

Commenting on the recent shootings at the New Life Church -- and on the bravery of one person who helped stop the shooter before he could do more damage -- the Atheism Sucks blog comments thusly:

What would the atheist do in this situation but run away and scream, "Hey, survival of the fittest! See ya later suckers!"

And when confronted with atheists in the comments, pointing out that this is not even remotely how atheists think, feel, believe or act, the blogger, Frank Walton, still insists that his opinion of atheists and atheism is correct. To quote again:

The atheist can save a life if they want, but according to the atheist worldview man is nothing more than matter and motion - saving a human life is no more better than saving protoplasm.

Okay.

Deep breath.

I can understand this attitude from a theist who hasn't spent any time talking with atheists. I can understand it from the theists who come into the atheist blogosphere without any previous knowledge or experience of actual atheists, who only know about atheists and atheism from the monstrous, pathetic picture their pastors or other religious leaders have painted for them.

But once you've actually spoken with a few atheists -- once you've had, say, half a dozen atheists tell you, "Of course I treasure human life; of course I believe in ethics and altruism; of course I'm not nihilistic or amoral or hopeless or joyless" -- then you don't have any excuse.

You know that it’s not true. You have the evidence of thousands of people telling you, and showing you with the reality of their lives, that it's not true. You have, just for example, atheist soldiers, atheist cops, atheist firefighters... all willing to risk their lives for their fellow humans on a daily basis.

And yet you still insist on saying that atheists don't value human life; that atheists selfishly look after themselves at the expense of helping others.

So what I want to know is this:

Whatever happened to "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor"?

Every now and then, I do an ego-Google search on my name. (No, this isn't a tangent; stay with me.) And experience has taught me to search on my name plus the words "Comforting Thoughts." Because a number of Christian ministers have been using my essay, Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing To Do With God, in their sermons -- as an example of why atheism is a depressing, joyless, terrifying, nihilistic worldview.

How do they manage this, you may ask?

Well, they take the first part of the essay -- the part where I try to be honest about the very real problem of permanent death and how frightening and paralyzing it can be -- and they quote it out of context. They make it seem as if that's the entire thrust of my piece. They conveniently neglect to mention the entire damn point of the essay... which is that, while the permanence of death may seem to be an impossibly horrible buzzkill for atheists, in fact it is not.

It is difficult to see this behavior as anything other than a flat-out lie. It is a deliberate misrepresentation of others, for the sole purpose of supporting your own world view.

And again I ask:

Whatever happened to "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor"?

Even I know that you shouldn't bear false witness against your neighbor. Even I know that you shouldn't intentionally tell lies about people; that you shouldn't deliberately misrepresent other people's actions and beliefs and opinions. And I'm an atheist. I don't think it's wrong because God told it to Abraham. I think it's wrong because it hurts people needlessly.

How difficult is that?

Is your belief that atheism is a joyless, heartless worldview so important to your faith that you have to deny the largely positive reality of atheist lives? Is your belief so important that you not only deny that reality in your own heart and mind, but feel compelled to convince others of it? Is your belief so important that you have to lie about that reality, not just to yourself, but to the rest of the world?

And is your faith so weak that it can't accept the existence of people who don't share it and yet have good, happy lives, full of meaning and connection and concern for others?

"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."

It's not rocket science.

(P.S. Thanks to Susie Bright for the tip.)

Hopelessness, Stalinism, Yawn: Pope Ratzi's Encyclical Against Atheism

It's not like I expected the Pope to be gung-ho about atheism.

It's not like I expected him to be all ecumenical and Unitarian about it. It's not like I expected him to say, "We love our atheist brothers and sisters, and we think they make some good points, and everyone finds God in their own way, and as long as they live ethical lives they're okay with us." I'm not completely stupid.

But really. Is this the best he could come up with? This tired old crap? "Atheism is hopeless," and "Atheism caused Stalinism"?

Here in the atheist blogosphere, we eat arguments like that for breakfast. (We'll start the bidding at, "No, it's not," and, "No, it didn't.") Does he really think that's original? Or, indeed, interesting?

So here's what I actually did find interesting about the Pope's recent encyclical about atheism:

It's such a perfect example of the True or False? Helpful or Harmful? point I've been making -- about how far too many religious debaters mix up the arguments about whether religion is true with the arguments about whether it's beneficial.

I mean, look at it. In this encyclical, Pope Ratzi addresses one of the central atheist arguments for Why God Doesn't Exist: the problem of suffering. He spells it out very eloquently, in fact.

The atheism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is -- in its origins and aims -- a type of moralism: a protest against the injustices of the world and of world history. A world marked by so much injustice, innocent suffering, and cynicism of power cannot be the work of a good God. A God with responsibility for such a world would not be a just God, much less a good God. It is for the sake of morality that this God has to be contested.

Yup.

I rarely say this, but the Pope sure got that right.

But his response? His response to this centuries-old argument against the existence of God?

Atheism is bad.

Atheism is harmful.

Atheism is a philosophy that is devoid of hope; and atheism "has led to the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice."

I'm not even going to get into why atheism isn't, in fact, a hopeless philosophy. I'm not even going to get into why atheism wasn't responsible for Stalinism. Plenty of atheist writers, including myself, have addressed either or both of these questions in lavish detail. (For a couple of examples, here's Ebon Muse on the hopelessness question and the Stalinism question.)

What I want to point out instead is that "Atheism is bad" is a lousy response to an argument for why God doesn't exist.

In fact, it's not even a lousy response. It's not actually a response at all. It's changing the subject because you don't like where the argument is heading. It's a classic example of an ad hominem argument, and a schoolyard one at that. "Dickie says Santa Claus isn't real, and it's just our moms and dads sneaking stuff under the tree." "Yeah, well, Dickie is a nerd, and he made my sister cry." Even if Dickie were a nerd, and even if he had made your sister cry, that's hardly an argument for the existence of Santa.

It was actually sort of disappointing. I mean, the guy is the head of one of the largest and most powerful religions in the world. He must have spent years -- decades -- studying theology and apologetics. And this is what he comes up with against atheism? Hopelessness, and Stalinism? Couldn't he at least have come up with something original? Atheism will make you impotent? Atheism makes people root for the Los Angeles Dodgers? Atheism has led to deconstructionism, which is boring and impenetrable? Atheism is the reason the Earth will be burned up in five billion years?

I guess not.

Hopelessness, and Stalinism.

Pathetic.

Sacrificing Your Legal Rights, or, Why Robin Tyler is an Asshole

A little backstory first.

There's a big kerfuffle in the world of gay politics about the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, now in front of Congress, that would ban job discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transpeople. Kerfuffle in a nutshell: Some politicos and gay-rights lobbyists are advocating for, or else not speaking very strongly against, stripping the bill of its protections for transpeople, and limiting it to the LGBs in the LGBT community. (To be more accurate, there are now two versions of ENDA, one with the language protecting transpeople and one without: the question is whether we should support both bills or just the stronger trans-inclusive one. To be even more accurate would require me to write a whole goddamn novel. Google "Employment Non-Discrimination Act," or visit the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, if you want to know more.)

Which brings me to what Robin Tyler, longtime lesbian activist, had to say about it:

I agree with Barney Frank. I support full transgender rights. However, when I have been invited to the legal weddings of some of my transgender friends, not one of them has said "we will not get married until Diane and you and other same gender couples can get married". They did not sacrifice their legal rights on the alter of political correctness, to give up the benefits of marriage. And yet the lesbian and gay community is expected to do so, leaving millions and millions of us in the majority of states, once again, unprotected.

There are so many things wrong with this, I don't even know where to begin. So I'm going to limit myself to three.

One: How exactly would this help?

In the absence of a well-publicized nationwide boycott on marriage, how would individual transgendered heterosexuals refusing to marry until same-sex couples can get married in any way help the cause of same-sex marriage?

I've had hetero friends nobly say that they won't get married until same-sex couples can get married. I think the sentiment is sweet, but I also think it's completely pointless. Their refusal to get married does me -- and the cause of same-sex marriage -- no good at all. It's a touching personal gesture, and if they feel that strongly about not wanting to participate in an injustice I won't argue with them... but as an effective political act, it's totally useless.

On the other hand, pushing for trans inclusion in ENDA -- and refusing to accept or endorse ENDA if it's not trans inclusive -- does help. As many people in this debate have pointed out, ENDA isn't going to become law while Bush is President anyway. It may not even pass the Senate, even in the watered-down version. It's going to take several practice runs until it gets passed by both houses and signed by the Pres. And if we insist that gender identity be included in this practice run along with sexual orientation, it familiarizes Congress with the issues and the language of trans rights, and makes it that much easier to get the gender identity language included when we actually do get the thing passed.

Two: For lesbians, gays, and bisexuals to ask transpeople to make "sacrifices" for us is laughable. T's have been getting the short end of the LGBT stick for years. The fact that heterosexual T's have one goddamn right that G's and L's and same-sex-oriented B's and T's don't have... this hardly balances the scales. It's hardly the injustice of the century. To present transpeople as a privileged class who should be willing to sacrifice some rights to be in solidarity with their oppressed gay/ lesbian/ bi siblings... it'd be laughable if it weren't so pathetic.

Is Ms. Tyler prepared to give up the rights she has in cities and states where GLB's have legal protections but T's don't? Is she willing to not sue for discrimination, not file hate crime charges, etc., in cities and states that give these protections to gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, but not to transpeople? If not, then she absolutely does not have a point. Or rather, she has a point, but it's shaped like a corkscrew.

Three: She spelled "altar" wrong.

I'm just sayin', is all.

How Gay Marriage Is Destroying Normal Marriage -- No, Really

There's a trope that I hear a lot among people who support same-sex marriage. It goes like this:

"What are these people so afraid of? How does same-sex marriage destroy marriage? How on earth could my marriage in any way affect anybody else's?"

Or, when spoken by heterosexual supporters of same-sex marriage: "How on earth could somebody else's marriage in any way affect mine?"

Of course I see what they're getting at. And I certainly appreciate the sentiment and support behind the statement. But I actually think it's somewhat simplistic, maybe even a bit naive. I think same-sex marriage does, and will, have an effect on opposite-sex marriage.

Not in an immediate cause-and-effect way, of course. When Adam and Stephen get married in Massachusetts, it doesn't send out magical death-rays across the country to destroy the marriage of Alan and Evelyn in Kansas.

But I think it has an effect. Not a trivial one, either. And I think the movement to legalize same-sex marriage does itself a disservice by acting like it doesn't.

Here's why.

In order for our society to accept or even tolerate same-sex marriage, a lot of fairly basic, deep-rooted ideas have to change. The way we define family. The way we think of what it means to be a man, and what it means to be a woman. The importance of sex and sexual fulfillment. What we consider natural and normal. Etc., etc., etc.

All of these things shape our practice of marriage, our understanding of what it is and what it's for. And in order for us to accept or even tolerate same-sex marriage, all of them will need to change.

Thus changing the shape of marriage.

All marriage.

Including the opposite-sex ones.

If for no other reason, the standard default answers to these questions will quit being standard and default. If these changes happen, people will still be free to define family, maleness, femaleness, etc., in the old traditional ways. But they'll be forced to think about it, to see the traditional way as just one choice among many, to live that way because it works for them... instead of unthinkingly falling into it as the one right choice that works for everybody. What's more, they'll be forced to see all these different questions and choices as, well, different questions and choices, instead of a package deal.

And that's a big-ass change.

Of course, while the fight for same-sex marriage is a catalyst for some of these changes, it's hardly the only one. Lots of these changes were already happening, even before same-sex marriage got put on the table. In fact, same-sex marriage couldn't have gotten on the table in the first place if these changes hadn't already been happening. But it is a catalyst for change, and I don't want to ignore that or pretend it isn't true.

What I don't understand is why that's a bad thing.

Opponents of same-sex marriage talk about marriage as if it's been an unchanging institution for thousands of years, one that can't be altered even a little without risking its destruction. But this is clearly absurd. Marriage has been many different things in human history -- radically different things. A property transfer from father to husband. A political and military alliance between nations. A means of producing and caring for children. A means of preserving a religion or race (think of the intense resistance throughout history to both interracial and interfaith marriage). A practical arrangement for keeping a family farm or business. A romantic love match that's meant to last until death. A spiritual bond that's meant to last for eternity. And more. And any combination of any of these.

And marriage has taken many forms in its checkered history. From the hundreds of wives of Solomon and others, to the passing down of a wife from brother to brother (also described in the Bible), to a permanent inescapable contract with mistresses and lovers on the side, to the serial monogamy-in-theory that seems to be the contemporary model... the literal, practical shape of marriage has taken wildly different forms over the centuries, and will no doubt continue to take more.

So the fact that the institution of marriage is changing… that's hardly devastating news. People resisted the legalization of interracial marriage with every bit as much fervor as they resist same-sex marriage now, and for many of the same reasons... and yet the institution of marriage has absorbed that change quite handily, and has soldiered on. The institution is changing, it has always been changing, and it will almost certainly continue to change.

And again I ask: Why is this a bad thing?

And why are these particular changes, the ones that same-sex marriage is both the cause and result of... why are they so much to be feared?

Our definition of family should be broadened. The way we think of maleness and femaleness should be more flexible. Sex should be acknowledged as a central part of human life, and as a basic human right. What we consider to be natural should be more in keeping with the actual reality of nature. And we should be questioning, not only what is and isn't normal, but whether normality is even a quality we should be prizing.

Not just so we can get to a place where we can accept same-sex marriage... but so we can help make opposite-sex marriage, and all relationships, and life in general for everybody, happier and more fulfilling.

Not Just Another Right-Wing Hypocrite Sex Scandal: The Blowfish Blog

My new piece is up on the Blowfish Blog, a take on the latest right-wing hypocrite sex scandal called Not Just Another Right-Wing Hypocrite Sex Scandal. As you may have guessed from the title, I have a somewhat different take on the Larry Craig bathroom-cruising case than I do on the eighty zillion other Republican/ Christian Right sex scandals we've been inundated with. Here's the teaser:

But this time, it isn't sitting right with me. The gleeful Schadenfreude, the “holy shit, not again!” eye-rolling, the cackling over cosmic/ karmic/ poetic justice being served... it isn't sitting right with me this time.

It isn't sitting right with me because of the extremely dubious legal nature of Senator Craig's arrest. And it isn't sitting right with me because of the even more dubious ethical nature of police sting operations on cruising in public bathrooms.

To find out more about why I think this scandal is different, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

"Where is my Faith": Mother Teresa and Suffering

This one came completely out of left field. I'm still taken aback by it.

For the last fifty years of her life, Mother Teresa had lost her faith. In private letters to friends and confessors (as documented in a new book "Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light"), she acknowledged repeatedly that she no longer felt the presence of God in her life. At all. Ever. Not in prayer, not in the Eucharist -- never. She was tormented by God's absence, described her empty spiritual life as one of "dryness," "darkness," "loneliness" and "torture," and once described her pretense at faith as "hypocrisy."

For the last fifty years of her life.

Before I really get into this, I have to say a few words about Mother Teresa. If you have an image of her as the pinnacle of human goodness, the compassionate and charitable woman who selflessly devoted her life to others and founded hospitals and hospices for the desperately poor... I'm going to have to burst your bubble. Mother Teresa was a problematic figure at best, and many of her so-called charitable works were profoundly screwed-up. Despite the enormous amounts of money she collected, her hospitals and hospices offered grotesquely inadequate medical care, revoltingly unsanitary and even abusive conditions, and -- pay attention to this part, it becomes important later -- little or nothing in the way of pain relief, allowing the sick to suffer and the dying to die in terrible pain. They were essentially warehouses for people to convert to Catholicism and die, and the conversion part was far more central to their mission than either healing or the relief of suffering.

(There are other problems with Ms. Teresa, including making nice with dictators such as Duvalier; taking donations from savings and loan racketeer Charles Keating and not returning it to the people from whom it had been defrauded; her rabid opposition to abortion as "the greatest destroyer of peace today"; her non-consensual baptisms of non-Christians on their deathbeds; founding convents and conversion missions with donations intended for the hospitals and hospices (that also becomes important later); and more. Furthermore, when she herself was ill, she spurned her own clinics, and sought out the best and most expensive Western hospitals available. For corroboration and more details, read "The Missionary Position" by Christopher Hitchens, Aroup Chatterjee's "Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict," and her Wikipedia bio, which includes several references to her critics.)

But for now, I'm going to focus on the hospitals and hospices.

I'm going to focus on the lack of pain medication offered in those hospitals and hospices.

And I'm going to come back to her loss of faith.

"What are we afraid of?" NJ State Senator Raymond Lesniak on Same-Sex Marriage

I cried when I read this.

I'm crying again now as I re-read it.

This is a person who gets it. He didn't always get it -- he didn't always support same-sex marriage -- but he gets it now. Not just as a matter of fairness or justice, not just as a matter of rational public policy. He gets it about why it matters.

It's New Jersey State Senator Raymond Lesniak, in a blog post on the NJ.com blog titled Why not gay marriage? And I'm just going to quote the whole damn thing.

What are we afraid of? That we'll tear the fabric of society apart?

Seems like the fabric of society is already torn apart. Fifty percent of first marriages end in divorce. Less than 40 percent of eligible voters go to the polls. There's rampant corruption in government. There are random acts of violence in Virginia and Newark, random acts of violence committed every day in our cities and our suburbs. Religious figures commit sexual assaults. Anti-gay political and religious figures are caught in the same sexual trysts they condemn in their public pronouncements.

I love my church, being raised a Roman Catholic. The Catholic Church does wonderful charitable works for the poor throughout the world, yet when I attended Mass recently, the priest gave a homily condemning those who do not follow the rules of the Church. Not a word about the gospel of the day, a beautiful reading from the gospel by Matthew on loving thy neighbor as thyself.

I left after the lecture and waited for my friends in my car, crying and feeling abandoned and not loved. But I digress.

Civil unions in New Jersey give committed gay couples the same rights as heterosexual married couples. Except the right to get "married". The very law that gives these loving couples the rights of marriage deprives them of the loving feeling of being married. Outcasts only because of their love for each other.

Allowing gay couples to marry is not going to repair the fabric of society, but it's not going to tear it apart either.

To paraphrase John Lennon, let's give love a chance. We might just find out that it works.

BTW, to the folks in this blog who have been arguing that civil unions should be the legal contract and marriage should be the religious ceremony -- for everyone, not just same-sex couples -- I'd just like to repeat what Lesniak said:

"The very law that gives these loving couples the rights of marriage deprives them of the loving feeling of being married."

That's the part that keeps making me cry.

I don't just want a legal contract that mimics marriage. I want the experience of marriage. Marriage is an institution/ ritual/ relationship that has existed for thousands of years, one that has tremendous resonance in our culture, in a way that civil unions simply don't. Separate but equal is not equal. It never has been, and it never will be.

And I am touched beyond words that this Catholic state senator from New Jersey gets it.

Right Wing Hypocrisy Part Two: The Scary Black Men Made Me Do It! The Blowfish Blog

So the latest right-wing hypocritical sex scandal has gone from predictably boilerplate to ridiculous verging on surreal. You may have heard about it: Bob Allen, the Florida state representative/ McCain presidential campaign co-chair who got busted for offering a male cop $20 to blow him in a public bathroom, is now claiming that he did what he did because he was intimidated by the big scary black man.

I have a piece about it over at the Blowfish Blog: a follow-up to last week's thoughtful spew on right-wing sexual hypocrisy, this one titled Right Wing Hypocrisy Part Two: The Scary Black Men Made Me Do It! Here's an excerpt:

Right. Every guy I know, when he’s in a public place in a situation where he feels threatened, tries to get out of it by offering the purported threatener $20 to suck his cock. I mean, that's just self-preservation. It's not like he actually wanted to suck the guy’s cock. He was simply trying to defuse a potentially dangerous situation.

Really. You’ve done that, guys... right? You’re in an alley or a deserted park at night, you see a guy you think might be a mugger... you offer him $20 to give him a blowjob. It’s in all the police brochures on urban safety. It’s just plain common sense.

I said it about Ted Haggard, and I’ll say it again now:

Just how stupid does he think we are?

So here’s what I think is really going on.

To find out what I think is really going on, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

"Someone's looking out for me": God and the Minneapolis Bridge Collapse

From USA Today, August 2 2007:

"Jim Koralesky, 63, who also attended the Mass [a prayer service held Thursday in honor of the bridge collapse victims], took the Interstate 35W bridge six times Wednesday before it collapsed. He was about to take it again a few minutes before 6 p.m. to go to Home Depot. But he said he ran into a friend in his parking lot and got involved in a conversation. After 15 minutes of chatting, he scuttled plans for his errand.

"'It would have put me on that bridge around that time,' he said. 'Someone's looking out for me.'"

You hear this a lot in the aftermath of disasters. People who "should have" been on the plane that crashed; people who "should have" been on the freeway that collapsed... they say it a lot. Survivors of the Columbine shooting said it: people who were at the school that day but didn't get shot. It's a strikingly common reaction to a near-miss of a huge disaster:

"Someone up there was looking out for me."

"I guess my guardian angel was with me that day."

And my reaction is always the same:

Rage.

Trembling, teeth-grinding, physically- sick- to- my- stomach rage.

I think this is one of the most insulting, insensitive things a person could possibly say in the aftermath of a deadly disaster.

And it's one of the things that makes me most angry about religion.

Think about it. So what are the people who actually did die -- chopped liver? Where was their guardian angel? The people who did die on the collapsed bridge, the people who did get shot at Columbine -- God thought they deserved it? Or maybe God just didn't care enough about them to save them? Was their guardian angel on a coffee break -- or did their angel decide, "Eh, never mind, you can be on the bridge when it collapses"?

Obviously, not all religious people are insensitive enough to actually say this stuff out loud. (Especially at a service in honor of the people who did die, for fuck's sake.) But I think it's inherently implied; not in all religion, but in any religion that believes in an interventionist god or spirit that has the power to either cause or prevent the earthquake, the school shooting, the bridge collapse.

When you say that your life is blessed by God -- that you have your good job, your nice home, your happy family, your health and prosperity generally, all by the grace of God -- the logical implication is that people who don't have those things are cursed by God. The children born into starvation and war; the people whose homes are destroyed by tsunamis; the people who get slaughtered by crazy mass murderers; the children with birth defects or genetic diseases; the people who plunge to their death when a bridge collapses... either God doesn't like them, or God doesn't care about them.

It's the problem of suffering all over again. Except instead of the problem being, "Why does God cause/ allow suffering?" the problem now becomes, "Why do people think that God is personally protecting them from suffering when he seems perfectly happy to throw millions of others to the wolves?"

I get it that it's hard to believe in dumb luck. It's hard to believe that your life could be radically changed -- or ended -- by tiny incidents of pure random chance. It can make you feel very small, and make your life feel very much out of control. (And feeling that your life could be changed or ended by government mismanagement and a reflexive, unthinking, "low taxes always good" approach to fiscal policy... that can really make you feel small and out of control.)

But if the alternative is a belief in a God who kept you chatting with your friend so you wouldn't be on the bridge when it collapsed -- but didn't do the same for several other perfectly wonderful people -- then I'll take dumb luck any day. When terrible things happen for completely random reasons, there's something comforting about not believing that there's someone out to get you.

And I get that people who have been fortunate in life -- either in a general "health and prosperity" way or in a more specific "I could easily have been on that bridge when it collapsed" way -- often feel a sense of humility and gratitude, and want to express that somehow. While I do think the "Somebody up there likes me" trope is arrogant and insulting, I think most people who use it don't mean it that way. Not consciously, anyway. As a friend recently told me, one of the hardest parts of letting go of a belief in a conscious guiding spirit is letting go of the impulse to say "Thank you" for the good things in your life. And it's an impulse I both understand and respect.

But there has to be a better way to express that feeling than with the insulting, self-centered assertion that "Someone's looking out for me." Especially when you're at the memorial service of the people nobody was looking out for.

(Via Ingrid, who saw the USA Today article at her hotel.)

Right Wing Hypocrisy: The Blowfish Blog

I have a somewhat unusual take on the recent slew of right-wing politico sex scandals -- David Vitter, Bob Allen, Mark Foley, Ted Haggard, etc. etc. etc. -- over at the Blowfish Blog. The piece is called Right Wing Hypocrisy, or Why Sex Guilt Fucks Things Up For Everyone, and instead of just ranting about these folks' hypocrisy (although I do a certain amount of that as well), I ask the question:

Why are the the specific taboo sex acts they engage in so often the exact same ones they publicly campaign against?

Here's a teaser:

Admittedly, a big part of this pattern comes from the media focus. Hypocrisy in powerful public figures is big news, and I’m sure there's some cherry-picking in the coverage. After all, "Married Congressman caught with hookers -- and he campaigned on the sanctity of marriage!" makes great headlines. "Married Congressman caught with hookers -- and he voted to renew the Farm Bill!" isn't going to make headlines anywhere but the Surrealist Times.

But even given that, there's a precision to the match-ups between the public condemnation and the private behavior that seems like more than coincidence and media focus.

To find out what I think is behind this "preach in public against the exact things you're doing in private" pattern -- and why I find myself having a smidgen of compassion for these assholes -- check out the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

Carnivals: Of Feminists #42 and Of the Liberals #44

It's blog carnival time again! Carnival of the Liberals #44 is up at The Richmond Democrat, with its usual excellent collection of fine lefty pinko blogging. This is actually a selective carnival -- unlike many blog carnivals, they only select the ten best blog postings from the previous fortnight -- so I'm pleased and honored to have been selected again, with my piece on why civil unions aren't equal to marriage either theoretically or practically: One In Seven: Why Civil Unions Aren't Enough.

And Carnival of Feminists #42 is also up at Uncool (wicked cool blog name, btw), with tons of nifty feminist blogging. They also included my One In Seven: Why Civil Unions Aren't Enough piece, so I'm excited. Enjoy the blogging!

One In Seven: Why Civil Unions Aren't Enough

There are plenty of reasons why civil unions really aren't equal to marriage -- even if the rights and responsibilities spelled out in a state's civil union law are identical to marriage in every way.

There are legal reasons why they're not equal -- marriage is recognized in every state and indeed every country, while civil unions aren't; so the rights and responsibilities don't necessarily travel with you when you leave the state that granted them. There are emotional reasons -- marriage is an institution/ ritual/ relationship that has existed for thousands of years, one that has tremendous resonance in our culture in a way that civil unions simply don't. And there are moral reasons -- as history has born out, separate but equal is pretty much by definition not equal.

But if none of those convince you, here's a really good practical one.

As of right now, five months after New Jersey's Civil Union Law took effect, at least 1 out of every 7 civil-union couples in New Jersey are not getting their civil unions recognized by their employers.

1 out of 7. 14 percent.

If 14 percent of married couples in New Jersey were being denied full, legally-guaranteed marriage benefits by their employers, there'd be outraged stories on every news source in the region, and quite possibly rioting in the streets.

And actually, it's probably more than 1 out of 7. The 1 out of 7 figure comes from 191 complaints reported to Garden State Equality (out of 1,359 civil-union couples) -- and chances are excellent that not everyone who's having problems is reporting it. And before you ask -- no it's not just one big bad company that's skewing the results. According to Garden State Equality, the 191 cases involve close to 191 companies.

So civil unions aren't just legally unequal to marriage; they're not just emotionally unequal; they're not even just morally unequal. They're unequal in the most literal, practical sense of the word. Even in the state where the civil union is the law, people in civil unions are not being treated the same by their employers as people who are married.

I get that civil unions are a big step forward. There are times when I'm astonished by the fact that "well, same-sex marriage is out, but civil unions would be okay" has become the moderate position on the issue, maybe even the moderate- to- conservative position. I get that they're better than nothing -- heck, 6 out of 7 civil-union couples in New Jersey are getting their benefits, and that's not trivial. And I get that, the Supreme Court being what it is right now, it may not be the best strategy to put same-sex marriage to a test on the national level until we get some new faces on the bench.

I'm just saying: It's not the same. It's not enough. And I am disinclined to pretend that it is. This fight will not be over in this country until same-sex marriage is legal and fully- recognized in all 50 states. You can put nice cushions in the back of the bus -- but it's still the back of the bus.

(Thanks to Good As You for putting the press release on their site.)

How Can He Just Keeping Saying That?

He's saying it again.

How can he keep saying it again?

Via Pandagon:

President Bush, defending his troop surge in Iraq, insisted Thursday that the insurgents attacking US troops in Iraq “are the same ones who attacked us on Sept. 11.”

Bush was speaking at a White House press conference on the same day an interim progress report on his troop surge in Iraq was released. Asked for proof of the connection between insurgents in Iraq and the 9/11 hijackers, Bush said both had pledged their allegiance to Osama bin Laden.

“The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq are the ones who attacked us on Sept. 11,” Bush said.

Oceania is at war with Eastasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

How can he keep saying this? Didn't he already have to admit that this wasn't true, that Iraq had nothing at all to do with 9/11? Isn't that one of the basic rules of debate and public discourse -- that once you admit you're wrong about something, you don't get to keep saying it over and over as if it were plain fact?

I mean, this is just laughably pathetic. Or it would be if it weren't so appalling.

I hereby propose a new law, possibly even a Constitutional amendment: The President of the United States is not allowed to say, in public, things that he freakin' knows for a fact are not true.

Harry Potter Prediction Contest: A Reminder

Just a reminder, folks: The deadline for your predictions in the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Prediction Pool is coming up (12:01 am Pacific time on July 20.) So if you're planning to play, get your predictions in soon! The full rules are here in the original prediction pool post. Remember: five predictions, plus a optional tie-breaker question -- which two major characters will die in Book Seven? (And if you made predictions already but didn't answer the tie-breaker, please feel free to do that now.) Let's play!

Attack of the Giant Prehistoric Chicken!

"We have a gigantic chicken!"

This is about the funnest thing I've seen all week.

We all know that birds evolved from dinosaurs, right? But until now, the fossil record that we had showed that the creatures got smaller and smaller as they evolved away from being dinosaurs and into being birds.

Not this baby. This baby is more than 26 feet long and 16-1/2 feet tall, and is estimated to have weighed at least a ton and half. And it was a young adult -- so it wasn't even the biggest one of its species.

And it's a bird.

(Well, okay, a "bird-like species.")

My favorite quote is from the paleontologist who discovered it, Xu Xing: "When I went back to my geologist colleague Lin Tan's lab to check the skeleton, I was shocked. I said to Tan, 'It is not a sauropod, it is not a tyrannosaurus, it is a tyrannosaurus-sized oviraptor. We have a gigantic chicken!'"

This makes me happier than I can put into words.

(Via SFGate and Pharyngula. SFGate has a couple more pictures. The one above is the most scientific, but I personally like this artist's conception the best. It somehow manages to make the thing look both ferocious and campy.)

No Sex Please, We’re Democrats: The Blowfish Blog

So a a House subcommittee recently voted, not only to continue funding abstinence-only sex education, but to increase funding for it by $27.8 million.

To see me rant about this -- er, analyze it and put it in context -- come visit the Blowfish Blog. Here's a taste:

Very few people -- and even fewer politicians -- are willing to look at teenage sex and say in public, "It turns out this really isn't a big problem." Very few politicians are willing to say, "We have bigger issues to worry about than 16-year-olds having sex." Very, very, very few politicians are willing to say, "You know, I had sex when I was 16, and it didn't do me any harm."

Check it out. And then write your Congressperson.

Get Out of Jail Free: Paris Hilton and the Justice System

Congratulations, universe.

You win.

You made me care about Paris Hilton.

Not sure if y'all have heard, but Paris Hilton was released from jail after serving three days of her sentence (probation violation in a reckless driving case), and is being allowed to serve the rest of her sentence under house arrest. The reason? An "unspecified medical problem."

And I care.

I'm furious.

Because if you, or I, or anyone we know, were sentenced to 45 days in jail for violating probation on a reckless driving charge, you can be damn sure we'd be serving every day of our time. No goddamn medical condition would be getting us out. I'm sure new prisoners develop medical conditions all the damn time -- jail is horrible and profoundly stressful -- and they don't get out in three days because they're not feeling well. Nobody but Paris Hilton gets to call in sick from jail. There is a compassionate release program for terminally ill prisoners -- but it's unbelievably harsh. You have to be pretty much right at death's door to qualify for it.

And people wonder why folks are cynical and mistrustful about the legal system; why some young people are taking on "stop snitching" as an ethical standard. If anyone has any doubts at all about how broken and corrupt our justice system is, how completely 100% opposite it is to what a justice system should be, this should blast those doubts into shrapnel.

(P.S. The picture of the Eiffel Tower is there because I couldn't stomach the thought of having that vacant rat-faced smirk on my blog.)

--------------------

Addendum: She's back on her way to jail.

Good.

I'm tempted to say "okay, maybe sometimes the system works." Except... how many other rich influential folks are getting special treatment by the justice system in cases that aren't as well publicized and don't raise as much of a shitstorm? And I'm not even talking about the day-to-day injustices: the "driving/ walking/ breathing while black" arrests, the greater penalties for crack cocaine than powder, yada yada.

The fact that it took a huge public outcry to get justice served for the spoiled princess isn't a sign that the system works. It's a further sign of just how broken it is.

That's Not What We Meant: Hate Crime Laws, Round 2

I think that those of us who support hate crime laws -- and I do -- have a moral obligation to speak out when they're mis-applied. If we're going to argue -- as I do -- that they're substantially different from hate speech laws or rules and don't constitute a violation of the First Amendment right to free speech, I think we need to speak out when they get applied in a way that is unconstitutional and does restrict free speech.

And it seems like that's what's happened in a case in which teenage girls who distributed anti-homosexual fliers at their high school were charged with a hate crime. (The original news article about it has expired off the web, alas, but you can get details here and here.)

So I think it's important to say: No. That's not what we meant. Hate crime laws mean that when you kill someone or beat them to a pulp because they're gay or black or Muslim (or for that matter, straight or white or Christian), it's a more serious crime than killing someone or beating them to a pulp because they dented your car or slept with your girlfriend, and it deserves a harsher penalty.

They don't mean that you get hit with a hate crime charge for distributing flyers. No matter how hateful they are.

Now, I don't think a single misapplied arrest proves that hate crime laws are bad laws. I mean, laws against murder and rape and assault get misapplied all the time, and I don't see anyone screaming for those laws to be overturned.

And I understand that this case may not be as simple as it seems on the surface. If one or both of these girls committed some other serious crime, and the prosecutors think it was motivated by anti-gay hatred, then I could see the flyers being admissible as evidence of a hateful motivation in that other crime.

But the distribution of the flyers itself?

No.

That should not be a crime.

That is most emphatically not what we meant.

Even If It's Wrong: Barack Obama, Religious Faith, and Same-Sex Marriage

There was this piece about Barack Obama in the New Yorker a couple of weeks ago. And it had a comment in it -- about both same-sex marriage and religious faith -- that chilled me to the bone.

“If there’s a deep moral conviction that gay marriage is wrong, if a majority of Americans believe on principle that marriage is an institution for men and women, I'm not at all sure he shares that view, but he's not an in-your-face type,” Cass Sunstein, a colleague of Obama's at the University of Chicago, says. “To go in the face of people with religious convictions -- that's something he'd be very reluctant to do.” This is not, Sunstein believes, due only to pragmatism; it also stems from a sense --

and here comes the kicker, people --

that there is something worthy of respect in a strong and widespread moral feeling, even if it's wrong."

I'm trying to think of the best way to put this:

No, there isn't.

No, no, no, no, no.

A wrong moral feeling is not -- repeat, NOT -- made worthy of respect by being either strong or widespread.

I don't just think this idea is wrong. I think it's dangerously wrong. I think this idea -- that even if a belief is wrong, if a lot of people share it and hold it passionately then it has somehow earned gravitas and respect -- this is among the most destructive ideas that human beings have come up with.

Why? Because it is essentially a self-perpetuation machine for bad ideas.

Do I even need to explain this? Think of all the evil, harmful things in human history that have been supported by a strong and widespread moral feeling. Slavery. Clitoridectomy. Imperialist wars. Religious wars. The disenfranchisement of women. The censoring of information, and active disinformation campaigns, about birth control and sexual health. The Salem witch trials. The Inquisition. Genocides ranging from the Trail of Tears to the Holocaust. Lynchings. Putting queers in jails and mental institutions. Do I need to go on?

And every one of these events and institutions was made stronger and more durable by this "worthy of respect" idea -- everyone else thinks it's okay, so how bad could it really be?

The idea that a strong and widespread moral feeling deserves respect, even if it's wrong... it's morality by mob rule, by popularity contest. It's an idea that enables people to not think about what's right and wrong in the world, but instead to let everyone else think for them. It's an idea that makes it possible to not question received wisdom, even if that wisdom is blatantly contradicted by the reality around you. It's an idea that makes people vulnerable to skillful demagogues who are experts at manipulating strong feelings and fears -- especially the fear of being left out, of not being part of the group.

And it's one of the more troubling aspects of religious faith -- the idea that holding strong, passionate religious beliefs is by itself a good thing, regardless of what those beliefs are, regardless of whether they're demonstrably untrue or demonstrably harmful. The idea that being a "person of faith" is an admirable trait, one you have to give at least grudging respect to... even if you find that person's actual faith itself to be bigoted, evil, stupid, and/or insane. The idea that a lot of people believing the same thing together at the same time is a beautiful thing -- regardless of whether the thing they believe is in any way based in reality. (BTW, before everyone writes in -- yes, I understand that this isn't the only way to be religious. But it's a depressingly common one. And I think the "faith ultimately trumps evidence" nature of religion makes it unusually susceptible to this way of thinking.)

And I don't want a President who thinks that. That's what we had with Bill Clinton -- a weathervane President who was unable to take an unpopular moral stand, on same-sex marriage and about a billion other issues. And as much as I would give ten years off my life to have Bill Clinton be President again right now (how depressing is that?), as much as he's pretty much been the best President of my conscious lifetime (and how depressing is THAT?), I sure as heck wouldn't vote for him in a primary, and I don't want another President like him.

Because the upshot is this: Ingrid and I want to get married. Legally. But a whole lot of people have a strong feeling that it's wrong -- and that feeling is supposedly deserving of respect. Even though that feeling is based on ignorance. Even though that feeling is based on hatred and fear. Even though that feeling is being manipulated and taken advantage of by corrupt, power-hungry frauds. Even though that feeling completely disrespects us. We're still supposed to respect it.

And I say yet again: No.

No, no, no, no, no.

Fuck that. We have to do nothing of the kind.

(P.S. Yes, I'm aware of the fact that these are not Obama's own words -- they're the words of a colleague describing her his understanding of his ideas. But it's a colleague who seems to understand him very well. And given the positions he's publicly taken on same-sex marriage (he supports same-sex civil unions, but opposes same-sex marriage because "marriage is a religious bond"), it seems pretty damn plausible that "worthy of respect even if it's wrong" is an accurate representation of his position on religious homophobia.)

The Sins of the Mother: Dr. Laura and Son

You might think I'd be joining in the "Ha ha" brigade.

As you may have heard, Deryk Schlessinger -- son of notorious homophobe/ sex-phobe/ right-wing relationship and sex advisor Dr. Laura Schlessinger -- is under investigation by the Army (he's a soldier in Afghanistan) for creating a MySpace page with some unbelievably disturbing and fucked-up shit on it. Among other things, the page (now removed) included cartoon depictions of rape, murder, torture and child molestation; a photograph of a bound and blindfolded detainee captioned "My Sweet Little Habib"; racial epithets; and a comment that "godless crazy people like me" have become "a generation of apathetic killers."

(Read the whole story. It really is quite unsettling -- this guy is clearly profoundly disturbed. The scariest part for me: "I LOVE MY JOB, it takes everything reckless and deviant and heathenistic and just overall bad about me and hyper focuses these traits into my job of running around this horrid place doing nasty things to people that deserve it... and some that don't.")

And much of the blogging that I've seen about this has been pretty gleeful, along the lines of "poetic justice" and "the bitch got what she deserved." I've seen comments like, "What goes around, comes around"; "Good job, Mama Laura!"; "Karma has a hilarious tendency to bite us all in the ass"; and "Can’t wait for the next revelation."

Now, usually I'm up for a good round of Schadenfreude. I'm perfectly happy to cackle with glee over the downfall or public humiliation of right-wing, homophobic, sex-phobic hypocrites. Especially with folks like Mark Foley and Ted Haggard, where the punishment so perfectly fit the crime.

But not this time.

This time, I'm just sick and sad.

Here's why.

First: When hateful fucked-up parents raise deeply disturbed children -- that's not poetic justice. That's tragedy. Even when the fucked-up parent has made a career out of self-righteously scolding other parents and giving them appalling advice on how to raise their kids. I can see why it's tempting... but really, what kind of karma or comeuppance is it to have parents "punished" with disturbed, sociopathic children? Do we on the left really want to be engaging in that kind of Old Testament, "sins of the fathers" thinking? Do we really want to be looking at messed-up kids as the just deserts that evil hateful parents deserve?

When bad things happen with the hateful hypocrites themselves, I'll happily have a laff riot. (The Dr. Laura nude photos, I was perfectly willing to cackle over.) When bad things happen with their kids... not so much. It may be reasonable to point out the hypocrisy of smugly preaching about family values when your own family is so completely fucked up. But the gleeful tone of some of these blogs is, in my opinion, wildly inappropriate.

Second, and maybe even more importantly:

It's not as if liberal families don't ever have disturbed kids.

Liberal, gay-positive parents can be distant, controlling, abusive, alcoholic, generally crazy, and any number of other things that can seriously fuck up their kids. And for that matter, totally healthy families can end up with disturbed kids. (It's not nearly as likely, but it does happen.)

I agree with the T-shirts and picket signs that hate is not a family value. But neither is directing your contempt for hateful homophobes in the direction of their fucked-up children. Let's please not act as if violently disturbed kids are somehow the natural result of right-wing parents... and please, please, let's not be so joyful about it.