Greta Christina's Blog

High School Atheist Ostracized by Town -- Atheist Community Steps Up

This piece was originally published on AlterNet.

When a high school atheist tried to stop prayer at his graduation, he was ostracized, threatened, and kicked out of his house. But the atheist community stepped in.

Whatever you think about atheists -- good, bad, mixed, indifferent -- this story should seriously trouble you.

Damon Fowler, an atheist student at Bastrop High School in Louisiana, was about to graduate. His public school was planning to have a prayer as part of the graduation ceremony: as they traditionally did, as so many public schools around the country do every year. But Fowler -- knowing that government- sponsored prayer in the public schools are unconstitutional and legally forbidden -- contacted the school superintendent to let him know that he opposed the prayer, and would be contacting the ACLU if it happened. The school -- at first, anyway -- agreed, and cancelled the prayer.

Then Fowler's name, and his role in this incident, was leaked. And, as a direct result:

1) Fowler has been hounded, pilloried, and ostracized by his community.

2) One of Fowler's teachers has publicly demeaned him.

3) Fowler has been physically threatened. Students have threatened to "jump him" at graduation practice, and he has received multiple threats of bodily harm, and even death threats.

4) Fowler's parents have cut off his financial support, kicked him out of the house, and thrown his belongings onto the front porch.

Oh, and by the way? They went ahead and had the graduation prayer anyway.


Before we get into the details of all this, let's be very, very clear about the facts and the law here: Nobody -- not Fowler, not the ACLU, nobody -- is telling anybody at Bastrop High School that they can't pray. People can pray at graduations and other school events all they want. The sole issue here is whether a public school can have a prayer at a graduation or other school event as an official, school- sponsored part of the program. Individual prayer? Hunky dory. Off-campus prayers at churches or private events? Knock yourself out. Government promotion of a religious agenda? Not so much. What with the First Amendment and the "establishment of religion" bit and all. And it's a law and a Constitution that protects everybody -- not just atheists. If you wouldn't want to be subjected to a government- sponsored Buddhist prayer, you ought not to be subjecting others to a government- sponsored Christian prayer.

Okay. I hope that's clear.

So here's a little more detail about what exactly happened with Damon Fowler.

1) Fowler has been hounded, pilloried, and ostracized by his community.. He's become the center of what he terms a "shitstorm": he has been harassed, vilified, targeted with insults and name-calling and hateful remarks. He's been told that he's the Devil. He's been told, "Go cry to your mommy... oh, wait. You can't." (A reference to him being disowned by his parents.) He's been told that he's only doing this to get attention. A student's public prayer at a pre-graduation "Class Night" event was turned into an opportunity for the school and community to gang up on Fowler and publicly close ranks against him -- teachers as well as students. (Here's video). And people seen defending him have been targeted as well.

As just a taste, here are a few comments on the Bastrop Enterprise news story about the controversy: "I personally see him as a coward." "I hope they [Christians] put enough pressure on this kid to convert him and save his soul from the fire of hell." "The kid was likely a recluse and apathetic about most everything until now." "If he don't want prayer at graduation he can stay at home and not come to graduation." "Afterall, that's what she or he wants isn't it to be singled out! This just makes me ill." "I hope that the little athiest is offended." "What he is really doing is trying to shove his views down people's throats." "Why does this student only now decide to get engaged in what is happening at the school? Is it nothing more than our own self-destructive human nature to break down anything of which we may not approve?" "That student should just have to have his/her one man graduation ceremony all alone." "Satan continues to prowl and is deceiving many in this world."

2) One of Fowler's teachers has publicly demeaned him. From the story in the Bastrop Enterprise:

Mitzi Quinn has been on the staff at BHS for almost 25 years, much of that time as a senior advisor. In the past, Quinn said there have been students who were atheist, agnostic and other non-Christian religions who "had no problems" with the prayer.

"They respected the majority of their classmates and didn't say anything," Quinn said. "We've never had this come up before. Never."

Throughout her time working with the student, Quinn said they never expressed their personal beliefs or that they had any problems with other students' Christian faiths.

"And what's even more sad is this is a student who really hasn't contributed anything to graduation or to their classmates," Quinn said. (emphasis mine)

In other words: Because the majority of students want an unconstitutional prayer at their graduation, therefore they're in the right. Because nobody's ever had the courage to speak up about this before, therefore the law was not being broken, and everything was okay. (After all, it's not like anything bad happened when Fowler spoke up... right?) And because Fowler hasn't "contributed anything" -- other than, you know, a model of risking safety and security to stand up for a principle he believed in -- therefore his basic legal right to not be targeted with religious proselytization by his public school is irrelevant... and he deserves to be publicly derided by one of his teachers.

3) Fowler has been physically threatened. Students have threatened to "jump him" at graduation practice, and he has received multiple threats of bodily harm, and even death threats.

Enough said.

4) Fowler's parents have cut off his financial support, kicked him out of the house, and thrown his belongings onto the porch.

Let's be very, very clear about this one. At a time when their son was being bullied, threatened, publicly pilloried, and ostracized from his school and his community, his parents joined the party. Their initial response was to hold him in their house against his will, take his cel phone and cut off his contact with the outside world, and even cut him off from contact with his older brother, Jerrett. Their more recent response has been to cut off financial support, kick him out of the house, and throw his belongings onto the porch.

Fortunately, Damon isn't entirely alone. His brother Jerrett is assisting Damon, and will help put him through college; and as of the last report I've seen, Damon is currently living with his sister, also in Texas. And Damon is fortunate enough to have the backing of the atheist community, who are providing encouragement, emotional support, practical assistance, and even a scholarship fund. (UPDATE: The scholarship fund is now closed. Info on where you can make donations is at the end of this piece.)

More on that in a moment.

Since that's a lot of what this story is really about.

There are a lot of hot-button issues in Damon Fowler's story. There's the depressing fact of how common this kind of story is: the fact that, despite the law being unambiguous on the subject, public schools around the country are continuing to sponsor prayers and otherwise promote theocracy, in flagrant violation of the law... apparently in the hopes that nobody will want to make waves and speak out against it. There's the lack of understanding in the United States about fundamental civics: the all-too-common belief that "majority rules" in every situation, and the all-too-common failure to comprehend the principle that the minority has basic civil rights. There's the ugly reality of anti-atheist bigotry and discrimination across the country -- especially in high schools. According to JT Eberhard, high school specialist for the Secular Student Alliance, "In Alabama, Auburn High School is refusing to allow an SSA affiliate. In Cranston, Rhode Island, a public school is facing an ACLU suit for refusing to take down a sectarian prayer [a banner posted in the school gym]. In Texas we had a student who was told he could have a secular club if he called it a philosophy club and didn't affiliate with the SSA. The list of similar situations is a mile long and these are only the ones I've become aware of in my first four and a half months on the job. The Fowler incident is much closer to being the norm than the exception."

There are rants about religion to be had here as well. There's the level of not only hostility, but panicked hostility, when entrenched religion gets its privileged status threatened. There's the way that religion relies on social consensus to perpetuate itself -- and how, when that consensus is threatened, it commonly reacts by smacking down dissent and expelling dissenters. There's the idea that the unverifiability of religion -- the beliefs in invisible, inaudible, intangible gods promising an afterlife nobody can know anything about -- means that the harm done in its name has the unique capacity to spin off into the stratosphere... since there's no reality check. There's the image of religion as a colossal fortress protecting a house of cards: powerful, massive structures and institutions staunchly buttressed and hotly defended to ensure that nobody ever examines the ideas inside and sees how flimsy they are.

And of course -- duh -- there's separation of church and state. There's the principle that a public school should not be sponsoring prayers at graduations. What with that being a government establishment of religion and all, and thus being -- oh, what's that word? -- unconstitutional.

All of that is important.

But there's something else important going on here.

And that's the way the atheist community has stepped up to the plate.

Damon Fowler was ostracized by his school, his town, even his parents. But he has been embraced and welcomed by the atheist community. Atheist writers have been all over this story from the moment it broke: it's been covered on Friendly Atheist, Pharyngula, BlagHag, the Richard Dawkins Foundation, Atheist Revolution, The Thinking Atheist, Atheist Underworld, WWJTD, Rock Beyond Belief... the list goes on. Several atheist organizations are applauding Fowler for his courage. American Atheists said of Fowler, "This kid deserves mad props for letting his principal know on no uncertain terms that ACLU would be contacted if the prayer wasn't cancelled. Good job, Damon, you speak for the freedoms of people who are trapped in the bible-belt!" JT Eberhard, high school specialist for the Secular Student Alliance, said, "Despite the vile threats, bullying, and hatred his community has given him, we recognize Damon for what he is: a brave student speaking up for religious liberty and inclusion." Freedom From Religion Foundation spoke about "his courage in speaking out for his and other students' rights."

And it's not just the atheist thought leaders. It's the on-the-ground community. Fowler has received an outpouring of support from atheists around the country and around the world. The "Support Damon" group on Facebook has over 10,000 members as of this writing. The Reddit post from Damon and his brother Jerrett discussing these events has been loaded with expressions of empathy and outrage. Atheist forums and blog comment threads about Fowler all over the Internet have been extensive and passionate. And many atheists have written letters to the Bastrop High School administration expressing their support for Fowler's position and their opposition to the prayer.

This support isn't only emotional, either. Emotional support is not trivial, of course: it's hugely important, especially when you're being ostracized, targeted with a hateful smear campaign, and driven from your home. But a tremendous amount of practical and financial support is coming from the atheist community as well. Many atheists have offered Fowler transportation, legal advice, meetup groups, places to stay, physical protection, connections with others who could provide additional practical help, and more. The Freedom From Religion Foundation has given Fowler a $1,000 college scholarship. And perhaps most dramatically, Friendly Atheist blogger Hemant Mehta has established a scholarship fund for Fowler, so he can attend college despite being cut off financially by his parents -- and the response has been overwhelming. At the closing of the scholarship fund, the atheist community had donated over $31,000. Essentially filling the role that his parents have abandoned.

Why am I bringing this up?

One of the chunks of mud that's most commonly slung at atheists is that we're selfish. Amoral. That without a belief in God and the afterlife, people would have no moral compass, and would just act to please themselves, without any consideration for others. That without a belief in eternal punishment in the afterlife for bad behavior, eternal reward in the afterlife for good behavior, and a supernatural authority figure refereeing it all, people would have no reason to be good people, and no reason to avoid doing terrible things. That without religion, people would have no compassion, no sense of justice, no empathy, no desire to see society running smoothly... and would just do whatever we wanted to do.

But when Damon Fowler was suffering and in need, the atheist community stepped up. It provided compassion. It demanded justice. It offered emotional support. It offered practical support. It opened its wallets. It made it unassailably clear to Damon Fowler that he was not alone: that although his school, his community, even his parents, had all turned their backs on him, atheists would take care of him, as best they could, until he could take care of himself. It made it clear that, even though he no longer had a home in Bastrop, he had a home in this movement. When Damon Fowler was suffering and in need, the atheist community proved itself to be a real community.

If atheism means we just do whatever we want to do... then apparently, what we want to do is take care of each other. Apparently, what we want to do is help people who have been injured. Apparently, what we want to do is speak out against wrongdoing. Apparently, what we want to do is put a stop to injustice. Apparently, what we want to do is make sacrifices for people in need.

A whole lot more than the Christians in Bastrop, Louisiana.

I'm not saying that atheists are morally superior to religious believers. I don't think that, and I'm not saying it. I'm aware that many religious believers are good, compassionate people with a strong sense of justice. I'm even aware that many religious believers, indeed many Christians, are appalled by what's happening to Damon Fowler, and oppose it with every breath in their bodies. And I'm aware that many atheists are hostile, self-involved schmucks. (Believe me... I'm aware of that.) That's not my point.

My point is this: Human beings don't need God to be good. Human ethics seem to be wired into our brains, through millions of years of evolution as a social species, and every human being who isn't a sociopath has them. Some of us act on them better than others... but we all have them. Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Rastafarian, Wiccan -- and atheist.

And my point is this: The next time someone tells you that atheists are selfish and amoral? Remember Damon Fowler. Remember the religious community that bullied him, harassed him, ostracized him, and drove him out.

And remember the atheist community that took him in.

Damon Fowler's scholarship fund is now closed. If you're inspired by this story to make a donation, Damon has asked donations to go to the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the ACLU, the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, the Secular Student Alliance... "any will do. As long as it's going toward students, secularization, or teaching critical thinking over superstition."

High School Student Stands Up Against Prayer at Public School and Is Ostracized, Demeaned and Threatened

When a high school atheist tried to stop prayer at his graduation, he was harassed and kicked out of his house. But the atheist community stepped in.

Whatever you think about atheists -- good, bad, mixed, indifferent -- this story should seriously trouble you.

Damon Fowler, an atheist student at Bastrop High School in Louisiana, was about to graduate. His public school was planning to have a prayer as part of the graduation ceremony: as they traditionally did, as so many public schools around the country do every year. But Fowler -- knowing that government- sponsored prayer in the public schools are unconstitutional and legally forbidden -- contacted the school superintendent to let him know that he opposed the prayer, and would be contacting the ACLU if it happened. The school -- at first, anyway -- agreed, and cancelled the prayer.

Then Fowler's name, and his role in this incident, was leaked. And, as a direct result:

1) Fowler has been hounded, pilloried, and ostracized by his community.

2) One of Fowler's teachers has publicly demeaned him.

3) Fowler has been physically threatened. Students have threatened to "jump him" at graduation practice, and he has received multiple threats of bodily harm, and even death threats.

4) Fowler's parents have cut off his financial support, kicked him out of the house, and thrown his belongings onto the front porch.

Oh, and by the way? They went ahead and had the graduation prayer anyway.

Before we get into the details of all this, let's be very, very clear about the facts and the law here: Nobody -- not Fowler, not the ACLU, nobody -- is telling anybody at Bastrop High School that they can't pray. People can pray at graduations and other school events all they want. The sole issue here is whether a public school can have a prayer at a graduation or other school event as an official, school- sponsored part of the program. Individual prayer? Hunky dory. Off-campus prayers at churches or private events? Knock yourself out. Government promotion of a religious agenda? Not so much. What with the First Amendment and the "establishment of religion" bit and all.

It's a law and a Constitution that protects everybody, not just atheists. If you wouldn't want to be subjected to a government- sponsored Buddhist prayer, you ought not to be subjecting others to a government- sponsored Christian prayer.

Okay. I hope that's clear.

So here's a little more detail about what exactly happened with Damon Fowler.

*

Thus begins my latest piece for AlterNet, High School Student Stands Up Against Prayer at Public School and Is Ostracized, Demeaned and Threatened. To find out more about how exactly the ostracization of Damon Fowler has unfolded -- and how the atheist community has stepped up to the plate -- read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

Live-blogging the Rapture

Well, if the end of the world really is nigh, there ought to be some documentation of it for future generations. Oh, wait. There won't be any future generations. Still. It stand to reason. I mean, if hundreds of years from now, space aliens or something visit the charred remains of our post-Apocalyptic planet and wonder, "What the heck happened here?", perhaps there ought to be a record. It seems like the sensible thing to do.

So JT Eberhard (WWJTD?), Jen McCreight (BlagHag), and I are going to be live-blogging the Rapture.

Because where will be the first place that visiting space aliens will search for a record of the last days of human life on Earth? Snarky atheist blogs, of course!

Supposedly, the Rapture will be happening at 6pm, in each time zone around the globe. Because God cares so very much about the international date line. (As Ingrid said when we were talking about this on Facebook, "It's almost scientific, except for the part where it has no basis in reality.") Okay, yes, it has been pointed out that this lends an unfair advantage to those of us living in the more Westerly time zones -- if we see news reports of people being raptured in Australia and Tokyo, we'll have a chance to repent that they didn't get. (Let's hear it for the argument for locality!) And I don't know what's supposed to happen to the people on the space station. But who are we to question God's wisdom and might? Well, his might, anyway.

So I'll be keeping an eye on world events as they unfold at 6pm in each time zone, from New Zealand to Hawaii. And just to be fair, in case they got the 6pm thing wrong, I'll also keep an eye on world events as they unfold at midnight in each time zone, from New Zealand to Hawaii. I won't be making a point of being awake for each of these time zone changes -- I'm not going to stay up around the clock for this damn dumb thing, especially since I'm giving a talk on Sunday the 22nd -- but I'll take a peek at the New York Times at occasional intervals, and report on how we're doing.

If we make it to midnight of May 22 everywhere around the world, I think we can assume we're in the clear.

***

Okay. We're starting. 5:11 pm in San Francisco; just past midnight in New Zealand. No rapture-type events reported as of this writing. Most recent New Zealand headline on the New York Times: "Air New Zealand Videos Get Tailwind From Social Media." To quote Peter Cook, "Not exactly the conflagration we'd been looking for." But heck -- it's not 6pm yet. It still could happen. And monkeys could fly out of my butt. There is a vanishingly small but non-zero chance of butt monkeys.

***

Damn. It's been pointed out to me that it's actually just past noon in New Zealand, not just past midnight. Boy, do I have egg on my face. How am I supposed to document the beginning of the eradication of humanity if I can't even read my World Clock right? Some Rapture reporter I am.

Anyway. It's now 5/21 in New Zealand, Tokyo, Moscow, and London. Not 6pm yet, though. So we could still be on the hook for this thing. Stay tuned to this station for further developments.

***

It's past 6pm in the first time zone where it could be past 6pm; an island in the Pacific called Kiribati. No earthquakes, apparently. CNN is discussing "Celebrity Apprentice." They are clearly covering up the the real truth.

***

Well past 6pm in New Zealand: 7:54 pm, in fact. Top headline of the New Zealand Herald as of this writing: "Labour proposes dedicated 'Ministry for Children.'" Lacking a bit in that "earthquakes/ conflagrations/ sea of blood" quality, but I suppose it could be a sign of God's wrath in some way. Other headlines from New Zealand: "Hubbard asset freeze to be reviewed," "MasterChef's backer drops support for school breakfasts," and, "MPs love property and petanque." Well, I guess that word "petanque" could be code for something...

A few other updates on the news coverage of this literally earth-shattering event. Top headline of the New York Times as of this writing: "Divisions Are Clear as Obama and Netanyahu Discuss Peace." On TV, Headline News has Donny and Marie on the Joy Behar Show. CNBC has a "get rich now" infomercial. MSNBC has "Lockup: Indiana." CSPAN has the Asia Society & U.S. Institute of Peace on the Future of Pakistan. The NASA channel -- and you'd think if anyone would be covering the global conflagration cascading across the globe time zone by time zone, it'd be the NASA channel -- has still photos of the space station. And CNN is talking to Dick Van Dyke about his new book. I didn't know Dick Van Dyke was still alive. I suppose that could be a supernatural event of some kind...

Oh, and the in the Los Angeles Times? New Zealand region yet to suffer destruction forecast by Oakland-based doomsday predictor. They are reporting no earthquakes in the region. I freaking love that the L.A. Times is live-blogging the Rapture.

***

7:30am California time. Tokyo and Moscow should be dust by now. Hm. Apparently not. CNN has the Doomsday story right now, but it's a jokey, "Gee, some people think the world is ending today" piece -- not a "Tokyo, Moscow collapse into the earth, repent now before it's too late" story. Google search for "Moscow news" gets "IDF attaché sought intel. on Russia-Arab arms trade," and "Tokyo news" gets "Wen, Lee Show Support for Japan Recovery Effort." No, no, no! Recovery effort? That's not apocalyptic at all! That's, like, the opposite of apocalyptic! Harumph.

***

9:15 am California time. Family Radio (Harold Camping's station) was on in the car ride over to the conference. Strangely non-apocalyptic. Music, light chatter, and some kid's story about inviting people to meet Jesus. You'd think it'd be a little late for that now.

***

BTW, if you want to track earthquake activity for the day, you can do it on the U.S. Geological Survey website.

(checking)

Sheesh, dude. Is that all you got?

***

Just past 6pm in London. Main headline in the London Times as of this writing: "Twitter fury as footballer takes legal action." Well, Twitter fury is sort of like the wrath of God... right?

***

Update in London: Guardian U.K. DOES have a story about the Rapture!

Oh, wait. It's about how the Rapture isn't happening. Never mind.

You know, I really do love how many news outlets are covering the "Rapture Not Happening" story. It's as if the worldwide news media was covering the story, "Suspension Bridges Around the World Not Turning Into Fish."

***

Well, Jesus did make an appearance in Oakland.



A little ahead of schedule, but mysterious ways, who are we to question, yada yada yada. Here at the atheist convention, oddly enough. Told a few jokes, took a few questions. Nice guy. Has some sort of beef with Ed Hardy, but pretty easy-going overall. Didn't say anything about the world ending today, though. Hm. Wonder if they got that wrong. Naaaaah.

(Photo by Jen McCreight at BlagHag, shamelessly swiped from her own live-blogging of the Rapture.)

***

Okay. It should be hitting New York right about now.

***

OOO! Is that it? The New York Times is doing live updates!

***

Nope. False alarm. The New York Times is doing live updates of the Preakness Stakes.

***

Hm. 6:10 pm in New York City. Headlines on the New York Times website as of this reading: "Promise of Arab Uprisings Is Threatened by Divisions." Okay: uprisings, divisions.. that's sort of apocalyptic, right? How about, "In the Golan Heights, Anxious Eyes Look East to Syria." Okay, anxious eyes on Syria... because of the people being raptured there, right? No? Okay, how about, "Guard Dog to the Stars (Legally Speaking)."

Oh, piffle. This is just sad.

***

Just talked to my brother in Chicago. All seems to be normal there. Or normal for Chicago. Rapture-free, at any rate. No earthquakes, no brimstone, no flocks of the faithful ascending through the skies. He says the weather was grey and drizzly earlier in the morning, but the sun came out later in the day, which may be a sign of some sort.

***

6pm in Oakland!

***

Aaaaaaaaaand...

***

Well, my soul might have been raptured up to Heaven. But Greta without a soul is indistinguishable from Greta with a soul. So I'm not sure how anybody would know.

***

Ingrid says Hi, by the way. And she says, "Cheer up. It's not the end of the world."

***

Oh, wait. Something's happening...

***

***

This is me, Mr. Deity, Jen McCreight, Matt Dillahunty, Ashley Paramore, and several other atheists being raptured. We bounced off the ceiling, though, and came back. Damn acoustic tile.

***

Apparently there was just a little earthquake in Oakland. I didn't feel it, but other people at the atheist conference did. Ripple of derisive, slightly nervous laughter. The world seems to be continuing on, though. Maybe the apocalypse is waiting until Mr. Deity finishes his talk.

***

Earthquake was a 3.6. Yeah, that's Armageddon all right. [facepalm]

***

Well, fine. It's past 6pm on May 21, everywhere in the world. According to Reuters, Harold Camping has gone entirely silent; the shades are drawn on his house, nobody is answering the door, and he has yet to issue any sort of comment on the complete lack of anything interesting or unusual happening today. (Well... anything other than Rapture parties, anyway...)

Headlines on the New York Times: Many of the same ones as my last update, but a few new ones. "Ivory Coast’s New President Urges Unity." "Daniels Decides Against G.O.P. Presidential Bid." "Blogger With 'Man Crush' Wins Putin Scoop." Oh, for goodness' sake. It's like they're trying to make the news as bland and non-apocalyptic as possible. (I especially love that last one.)

I'm going to give this way more of the benefit of the doubt than it deserves, and wait 'til it's May 22 everywhere in the world before I absolutely officially call it. But I wouldn't hold my breath. Sleep tight, everybody!

***

That's it. It's today, everywhere in the world, except in the places where it's tomorrow. May 21, 2011 has 100% come and gone, and no Rapture. The world continues to turn, more or less as usual.

And now, a quick, slightly serious word.

Lots of us have been making fun of the Rapture in recent days and weeks. And we should: it was a ridiculous idea, and ridiculous ideas should be ridiculed. But real harm was done during this hysteria. People depleted their life's savings, their childrens' college funds, ran up their credit cards, to fund this stupid billboard campaign -- which whipped up more people into more hysteria so they could deplete their life's savings. Religion does real harm in the world. I am entirely in favor of making fun of it... partly because it's fun to do so, but mostly because religion does real harm, and making fun of it is one of the most effective tools we have for dismantling it. Religion depends on social consent to survive and perpetuate itself. We have to deny that consent. We have to keep pointing out, at every available opportunity, that the Emperor has no clothes.

And we have to keep pointing out, at every available opportunity, that this world -- this beautiful, terrible, ordinary, spectacular, fascinating, sad, hard, funny, and entirely small-R rapturous world -- is enough.

Thank you for your patience. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Rapture Fear: What If The End Really Is Nigh?

So I have something embarrassing to admit.

With all the talk about the Rapture that's supposedly coming on May 21? With all the Rapture parties, the snarky jokes, the atheist conferences around the country specifically scheduled on Rapture Weekend for the purpose of making fun of it?

There is a tiny, tiny part of me that's scared.

There is a tiny, tiny part of me that's been wondering, for occasional intermittent nanoseconds, "What if they're right?"

And I'm wondering if that's happening with anyone else.

Now, let me make this very clear, very quickly: There is no part of me that seriously thinks this Rapture thing is going to happen. It's beyond absurd. The number of times that people have predicted the exact date of the Rapture, or some other supernatural end of the world, is off the charts. Even if the hypothesis of any sort of God or supernatural world were plausible -- which I don't think it is -- this particular hypothesis? The hypothesis that if you take a demonstrably inaccurate book written by Bronze Age goatherders and crunch the numbers in it in a special way like it was the Da Vinci Code or something, you'll know the exact date and hour that God is coming to pour suckitude on his beloved creation while he carries a handful of his bestest friends to a permanent party in the sky? It's laughable on the face of it. It's the equivalent of a hand-scrawled sign held up by a raving street-corner preacher saying, "The End Is Nigh"... except it's a really big sign, being held up on street corners around the country, by a preacher who happens to have a radio show and a budget instead of a soapbox on the corner. I am appalled at how many people are taking this thing so seriously, to the point where they're quitting their jobs and spending their life savings on this stupid ad campaign. And I'm tickled pink at the degree to which the defiant, mocking, festively scornful response to it has caught on... not just among atheist activists, but in the public at large.

And yet, when I see the Rapture billboards or hear the news stories about them, there is this tiny part of me that -- just for a nanosecond -- gets scared. There's a tiny part of me that wonders, just for a nanosecond, "Could this Rapture thing really happen?"

It's embarrassing to admit this. I feel like it makes me a failure as an atheist, a failure as a skeptic. I haven't wanted to say anything about it... even to myself. I had to screw up my courage even to mention it to Ingrid. Acknowledging it in public feels seriously uncomfortable.

But I've built my career on saying things that people don't want to talk about; things that people are embarrassed and uncomfortable about; things that people keep secret. And almost every time I have, I've been glad. I've felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. And almost always every time, I've gotten a grateful and relieved response from other people saying, "Oh, thank goodness you said something -- I thought I was the only one!"

I'm not going to stop now.

I want to talk about this -- and I want to look at what's going on.

*

Here's what I think is going on. Part of my mammalian hindbrain reflexively assumes that, if a whole lot of other people believe something, it's probably true. Or at least, that it's plausible. Or at the very least, that it can't be completely ruled out, and isn't just flatly stupid on the face of it, and ought to be given a moment of serious consideration. There is a part of my mammalian hindbrain that, when it sees a whole bunch of people freaking out over what they see as an imminent terrible danger, gets a little jolt of alarmed adrenaline.

And it's not just my own mammalian hindbrain. It's all our mammalian hindbrains. (Even if you're not scared about the Rapture.) The human brain is wired with a number of cognitive biases and errors in thinking: biases and errors that have good evolutionary reasons to be there, that have helped our ancestors survive and reproduce, but that do get in the way when we're trying to carefully figure out what is and isn't true in the world. And of all these biases, one of the trickiest is communal reinforcement -- otherwise known as the argument from popularity. "If lots of other people think this," our mammalian hindbrain tells us, "it must be true!"

It's a bias that does have real evolutionary value. If everyone in your tribe is screaming "Tiger!", and you don't see one, it still makes sense to run. And I would argue that this bias has some genuine philosophical value as well. Other people can, in fact, be a useful reality check. After all, it's not like I'm always right about everything. If everyone I know is telling me I'm wrong about something... well, that's not automatically a reason to change my mind, but it is a reason to stop and think for a moment about whether I might want to.

So the more I thought about this, the more I realized that these fleeting moments of Rapture fear don't actually make me a bad skeptic. In a sense, they make me a good skeptic. They show that I recognize my own limitations, and that I'm willing to consider the possibility that I might be mistaken.

And more to the point: They just make me human.

Being a good skeptic doesn't mean that I don't have cognitive biases. Skeptics still have human brains. Skeptics are still subject to confirmation bias, rationalization, wishful thinking, the perception of pattern where there is none, the perception of intention where there is none, yada yada yada... and yes, the argument from popularity.

Being good skeptics doesn't mean we don't have these cognitive biases. It means we're aware of them. It means we can say, "My computer sure has been crashing a lot lately... but that could just be a pseudo-pattern." It means we can say, "It seems like I've been getting sick less often since I started taking Vitamin C... but that could just be selective memory." It means we can say, "I think cardamom is becoming the newest food trend... but that could be confirmation bias, and I'm just seeing the stuff everywhere because I'm looking for it." Being good skeptics means we can see these cognitive biases, in ourselves as well as others. And that means we can compensate for them. It means that, when we're trying to figure out what's true in the world, we can set up systems specifically designed to filter them out, as much as we humanly can. It means we don't have to let our lives be controlled by them.

So yes. When I see the Rapture billboards, for a flashing nanosecond, I get scared. I hear a bunch of other people in the tribe screaming, "Tiger!", and I flinch and glance around reflexively for a nanosecond... before I remember that these are the same people who have been screaming "Tiger!" for years and decades and generations, and they have never once been right about the tiger or anything else, and it is entirely reasonable and safe to ignore them.

And then I come back to my senses, and rejoin the party.

*



P.S. Speaking of Rapture parties, just a quick reminder: I'm going to be speaking at one! The Regional Atheists Meeting in Oakland, hosted by American Atheists, is happening on Rapture weekend, May 21-22, at at the Oakland Masonic Center at 3903 Broadway. Other speakers will include Mr. Deity, Jen McCreight (Blag Hag), Matt Dillahunty (The Atheist Experience), Rebecca Watson (Skepchick), and many more. There'll be stand-up comedy from Troy Conrad and Keith Lowell Jensen, as well as the fun, inspiring talks and an after- conference party. Advance tickets are no longer available, alas; tickets at the door are $59 for the whole weekend. The conference per se starts at 9:00 each morning, but registration takes some time, so they're recommending that people arrive at 8:15.

My topic for the conference: "Why Are Atheists So Angry?" Summary: The atheist movement is often accused of being driven by anger. What are so many atheists so angry about? Is this anger legitimate? And can anger be an effective force behind a movement for social change? My talk is on Sunday, May 22. Assuming we're not drowning in a sea of blood by then.

There's also a special, pre-conference fundraising breakfast for Camp Quest West on Sunday 5/22 at 7:30 am. You'll get to eat and schmooze with many of the featured speakers: me, Jen McCreight, Matt Dillahunty, Brian Dalton (Mr. Deity), Rebecca Watson, David Byars, Mark Calladus and Lewis Marshall. Menu options include blood pudding, steak a la brimstone (a Bay Area specialty!), honey-roasted locusts, and lamb. (Kidding. I wish. It's been way too long since I've had a good locust.) Tickets are $50 each. Come join us! I'll be as chatty and sparkly as I can be at 7:30 in the morning after a bath of sulfur and frogs.

Why Do Atheists Have to Advertise?

This piece was originally published on AlterNet.

"Are you good without God? Millions are."

"Imagine no religion."

"There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

Atheist ad campaigns are everywhere. Around the U.S. and around the world, atheist organizations have been buying space on billboards, buses, TV and more, with messages ranging from the mild-mannered "Don't believe in God? You are not alone" to the in-your-face "You know it's a myth." The current "Living Without Religion" campaign from the Center for Inquiry, letting the world know that "You don't need God -- to hope, to care, to love, to live" -- is only the latest in a series of advertising blitzes: from American Atheists, the Coalition of Reason, the American Humanist Association, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and many other organizations. Even local student atheist groups have been getting into the act, using buses in their college towns to spread the good news about atheism.

And whenever they do, they are almost guaranteed to garner resistance. Conservative religionists often object vehemently to the very concept of atheist advertising: in many cases trying to get the ad campaigns stopped altogether, and frequently even vandalizing the billboards. (In what has to be the irony of the year, some bus companies have stopped accepting all religious-themed ads, simply so they don't have to accept ads from atheists.) And while moderate and progressive believers have never (to my knowledge) tried to stop these atheist ad campaigns from moving forward, many are still baffled and even offended by the ads. They see them as proselytizing, evangelical... and they don't understand why people who are opposed to religion would be proselytizing and evangelical.

So why do atheists do this?

Why do atheists spend substantial amounts of money and resources to let the world know we exist, and to get our ideas across?

Which Atheists?

The first thing you have to remember is this: Not all atheist ads campaigns are created equal. Different atheist organizations create different ad campaigns, with different goals, and different strategies for achieving those goals. So when you ask, "Why do atheists have to advertise?", the first question you have to answer is, "Which atheists?"

Some atheist ad campaigns, for instance, are purely about visibility. The sole message behind them: "Atheists exist." The folks behind these campaigns know that visibility is key to acceptance of atheists -- just like it's key to acceptance of LGBT people. Simply getting people familiar with atheists, and getting them comfortable with the concept of atheism, goes a long way to countering anti-atheist prejudice and hostility. What's more, the folks behind these campaigns know that plenty of non-believers feel isolated -- cut off from family and friends if they're open about their atheism, hiding in secrecy and silence if they're not -- and they want these people know that they aren't alone. It's like the annual Coming Out Day campaign for LGBT people.

Other of these ad campaigns are about information. They're there to counter myths about atheists. They're not just telling you, "Atheists exist" -- they're telling you, "Atheists exist, and are good, happy people." Misinformation and bigotry against atheists abound, and many atheist ad campaigns -- including the current "Living Without Religion" one from the Center for Inquiry -- are aimed at countering this misinformation. They're aimed at letting the world know that, contrary to popular opinion, atheists have morality, meaning, joy, and hope in our lives... just as much as religious believers. It's like a public service information campaign, letting you know that, contrary to popular opinion, HIV is a treatable illness/ Arab Americans are your peaceful hard-working neighbors/ the library is open late on Thursdays.

Still other campaigns are trying to gain new members for their atheist groups. They aren't necessarily trying to persuade anyone out of religion... but they know that there are non-believers in their communities, people who feel isolated, people who may even think they're the only ones who think they way they do. And they want those folks to know that atheist organizations are available: to provide community, to provide support, to provide education and entertainment, to simply provide reinforcement for the idea that they aren't crazy or immoral for thinking the way they do. Like a softball team flyering for new players... or the AARP advertising for new members, and letting you know about the wonderful programs they have available for people over 50.

And still others are, in fact, actively trying to change people's minds about religion. They're trying to persuade people that atheism is, you know, correct: that there is no God, and people should stop believing... or, at the very least, consider the possibility that their beliefs might be mistaken. Or they're trying to persuade people to respect the separation of church and state, even if they believe in God. Like Pepsi trying to persuade you to buy their products instead of Coke's... or Marriage Equality trying to get you to vote against Prop 8.

Of course, while these ad campaigns do have different goals, many of those goals dovetail and overlap. The "atheist visibility" folks may not be deliberately trying to persuade people out of religion, for instance... but since religion relies on social agreement to perpetuate itself, the mere act of saying "Atheists exist, not everyone believes in God" lays a small but powerful piece of dynamite under its foundations. The "deconversion" folks may be trying to get people to question their faith... but they're also getting atheism on a lot more people's radar. And while the "countering misinformation" campaigns aren't necessarily designed to increase group membership, that's often the effect.

And I would argue that every single one of these goals is valid.

After all -- they're valid for every other human endeavor.

When it comes to every other human idea/ affiliation/ activity/ organization, we think it's perfectly reasonable for people to make themselves visible. To make information available. To let others who might be interested know that a group exists. To persuade others who don't agree to change their minds. When it comes to politics, science, art, medicine, hobbies, philosophy, food, etc., we consider it not only acceptable, but positive and worthwhile, to share our ideas, and to get our points of view into the world, and to make our case when we really think we're right.

Why should atheism be the exception?

If it's okay for Democrats to run ads saying, "Vote Democratic"? If it's okay for the Boston Red Sox to run ads saying, "Go Sox"? If it's okay for the Red Hot Organization to run ads saying, "Safe sex is hot sex"? If it's okay for Greenpeace to run ads saying (seriously) "There's probably no cod, now let's stop overfishing & think of the future"? Then why on Earth is it not okay for the Center for Inquiry to run ads saying, "You don't need God -- to hope, to care, to love, to live"? Or even for American Atheists to run ads saying, "You know it's a myth"?

Why should religion, alone among all other ideas, be entitled to a free ride... free from criticism and questioning and the uncomfortable reminder that not everyone in the world agrees with it?

And in fact, when you look at the ugly responses that atheist ad campaigns typically get, the need for them becomes even more obvious. Religious believers have called the ad campaigns "aggressive," "hateful," "offensive," "a disgrace," "political correctness gone amok," "terrible," "disturbing," and "dangerous." They've said that they "have had their sensibilities assaulted" by the ads, that their beliefs were being "attacked" and "vandalized" by them. They've suggested that someone "accidentally burn" the billboards. They've equated atheist advertisers with Fred Phelps. And these responses are hardly isolated: they're very much in line with general American sentiments about atheists, which view us as the most disliked and distrusted minority in America.

Of course atheists need visibility -- lots of people are bigoted about us. Of course we need to spread information about who we are -- lots of people are ignorant about us. Of course we need to let other atheists know that support networks are available -- lots of people are hateful about us. Of course we need to advocate for separation of church and state -- lots of people want to make it actually illegal for us to advertise. The very hostility that the atheist ad campaigns generate proves why we need them so badly.

Sauce for the Goose?

Now, some people may think I'm being a hypocrite here. Some people think that religious evangelism sucks, whether it's atheists or believers doing the "evangelizing" -- and they think it's hypocritical for atheists to cut slack for the atheist ad campaigns. "Sure, she doesn't like religious proselytizing," these folks are probably saying, "but she thinks it's totally okay for atheists to try to swell their ranks and change people's minds! How is that fair?"

But these people would be mistaken.

Because I don't, in fact, have any objection to religious evangelists trying to change people's minds.

Don't get me wrong. I have serious objections to many of the religious evangelists' methods. I object to their use of fear-mongering as a form of persuasion; to their offering of false hope; to the way they present unsubstantiated opinion as authoritative fact. I object to their arrogant use of personal experience as the keystone of their case, with little or no understanding of the fallibility of the human mind. I object to their dismissal and even contempt of the most fundamental notions of evidence and reason. I object to their use of social pressure and even shunning to enforce complicity and silence dissent within their ranks. I object to their knocking on people's doors at eight in the morning on a Saturday.

But I do not have any objection whatsoever to the basic idea of religious believers trying to persuade people that they're right. None. If they think they're right, then that's exactly what they ought to do. That's how the marketplace of ideas works: people share their ideas, they make the case for their ideas, and (in theory, anyway) in the long run the best idea wins. In fact, if these believers were right, and our eternal afterlives in bliss or torment really were contingent on believing the right religion? Then not trying to persuade others to share the faith would be objectionable. Immoral, even. Callous to the point of being monstrous. I disagree passionately with their case, I disagree with how they typically make that case... but I have not even the slightest objection to the idea of them making it.

And I'm not afraid of them. I think the case for atheism is better than the case for religion... by several orders of magnitude. I think that, when stripped of the fear-mongering and social pressure and unsubstantiated opinion and so on, religion falls apart almost laughably fast. I think that religion is a house of cards built inside a fortress, and when the fortress of excuses and diversions and non-arguments gets breached, the actual case for religion is so flimsy it's almost pathetic. I think atheism is correct; I think the case for atheism is winning, and will continue to win... and I'm not afraid of religious believers making their case.

And the fact that so many believers are afraid of atheists making our case?

That just makes my point for me.

Atheists aren't the ones trying to shut up religious believers. When religious ads go up on buses and billboards and TV, we roll our eyes and go about our business. We don't agree with the advertisers... but we don't try to stop them from advertising. Sure, we're trying to get religious messages out of government -- no Ten Commandments in City Halls, no creationism in public schools, no prayers to start city council meetings, etc. -- but that's a separation of church and state issue. (One that works for religious believers just as much as it does for atheists, I might point out.) When it comes to religious groups hawking their message on their own private property -- or on other people's private property they've rented with their own money -- we may think it's obnoxious or silly, but we totally respect their right to do it.

And the fact that so many believers don't respect atheists' right to hawk our message? It just shows how weak their message is -- and how afraid they are of having it contradicted. As my wife Ingrid points out, "If you're got God on your side, why are you so afraid of a billboard?"

If religionists thought their case for God was strong, they wouldn't be trying to silence atheists.

And the fact that they are trying to silence atheists, all by itself, is Exhibit A for exactly why we need to keep advertising.

"Spreading the Good News About Atheism": Why We Need Atheist Ad Campaigns

"Are you good without God? Millions are."

"Imagine no religion."

"There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

Atheist ad campaigns are everywhere. Around the U.S. and around the world, atheist organizations have been buying space on billboards, buses, TV and more, with messages ranging from the mild-mannered "Don't believe in God? You are not alone" to the in-your-face "You know it's a myth." The current "Living Without Religion" campaign from the Center for Inquiry, letting the world know that "You don't need God -- to hope, to care, to love, to live" -- is only the latest in a series of advertising blitzes: from American Atheists, the Coalition of Reason, the American Humanist Association, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and many other organizations. Even local student atheist groups have been getting into the act, using buses in their college towns to spread the good news about atheism.

And whenever they do, they are almost guaranteed to garner resistance. Conservative religionists often object vehemently to the very concept of atheist advertising: in many cases trying to get the ad campaigns stopped altogether, and frequently even vandalizing the billboards. (In what has to be the irony of the year, some bus companies have stopped accepting all religious-themed ads, simply so they don't have to accept ads from atheists.) And while moderate and progressive believers have never (to my knowledge) tried to stop these atheist ad campaigns from moving forward, many are still baffled and even offended by the ads. They see them as proselytizing, evangelical... and they don't understand why people who are opposed to religion would be proselytizing and evangelical.

So why do atheists do this?

Why do atheists spend substantial amounts of money and resources to let the world know we exist, and to get our ideas across?

*

Thus begins my latest piece for AlterNet, "Spreading the Good News About Atheism": Why We Need Atheist Ad Campaigns. To find out why atheist ad campaigns are both valid and necessary -- and what the hostile reactions to them says about religion -- read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

Fred Phelps, and Why We Shouldn't Look for Loopholes in the First Amendment

This piece was originally published on AlterNet.

Let's start with something I hope we all agree on. What Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church do? It's repulsive. Picketing people's funerals? Specifically, picketing the funerals of gay-bashing victims and U.S. soldiers? Going to people's funerals and essentially celebrating? Wielding big colorful signs saying, "God Hates Fags," "Thank God for Dead Soldiers," "Thank God for 9/11," "God Hates You," and so on? Saying that dead soldiers -- gay, straight, whatever, doesn't matter -- are God's punishment to America for tolerating homosexuality?

Repulsive. Horrifying. The dictionary definition of evil. I get that. No argument.

The question is: What should we do about it?

As you've probably heard, the Supreme Court just ruled that the Westboro Baptist Church does have the right, within some reasonable limits, to picket at funerals. Background, in case you're not familiar with the case: The Westboro Baptist Church was sued by Albert Snyder, father of fallen Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder, for picketing at his son's funeral with their vile and hateful message. The court ruled that, since the protests happened peacefully and in a public space at a non-disruptive distance from the funeral -- and since, quote, "speech on public issues occupies the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values and is entitled to special protection" -- the original judgment against them could not stand.

Many progressives have expressed outrage at this ruling. And from an emotional point of view, that outrage is totally understandable. The Westboro Baptist Church is very, very good at hitting our most raw nerves. They hurt people for the sake of hurting them, and apparently take glee in doing so. They violate fundamental principles of human decency. They are loathsome. Outrage against them is entirely reasonable.

But here's the problem.

Many of the progressive arguments against the Supreme Court ruling? They're very contorted. They don't look like clear thinking based on clear principles of Constitutional law. They look like rationalizations for why the Constitution doesn't really have to apply in this case. They look like the reactions of people who are deeply upset about what the Westboro Baptist Church does -- as indeed they should be -- and are looking for legal loopholes to try to stop them.

And we should not be looking for loopholes in the First Amendment.

I want to get into some specific arguments progressives are making against this decision... and why, specifically, they don't hold up. But before I go there, I need to make this core principle very, very clear:

We should not. Be looking. For loopholes. In the freaking First Amendment.

The First Amendment, and the right to the free expression of political ideas, is one of most crucial cornerstones of our democracy. Without it, democracy collapses. Without the freedom to express political opinions, we can't participate fully in the political process. Without the freedom to hear political opinions, we can't make informed decisions about what we think. And without the freedom to hear and express opinions that dissent from the mainstream, there is no way that mainstream opinion can change. The right to free speech is an essential part of democracy. And it is, in and of itself, a basic human right, a value that is worth treasuring and protecting for its own sake.

So our default assumption should always, always, always be that speech should be free, unless there is a tremendously compelling reason to limit it.

And this principle especially applies to political speech: expression of opinion on matters of public concern, in a public place, that doesn't disrupt any private activities.

Which is exactly what the Westboro Baptist Church was up to. They were in a public place. They were not violent; they were not disruptive; they were not invasive. Yes, they picketed a funeral. They picketed a funeral from 1,000 feet away -- so far away that the plaintiff didn't even know they were there until he heard about it on the news the next day. As repugnant as it was, what the Westboro Baptist Church did in this case was political speech. The only thing that made it different from any other political speech was the hateful, vile, abhorrent content.

And when we're considering questions of free speech and the First Amendment, the content of the speech, and whether or not we find it hateful and vile and abhorrent, is entirely irrelevant.

Are there some reasonable limitations on speech? Of course. Some classic examples: laws against libel, fraud, false advertising, copyright violation, revealing state secrets. I'm sure we can all come up with some more.

But if we care about freedom and democracy as much as we claim to, then our default assumption should be that speech is permitted. We should not be looking for excuses to ban speech we don't like. We should not start with the conclusion that the ghoulish expression of disgusting political opinions should be banned, and then go hunting for legal loopholes that will let us accomplish that. We should start with the assumption that the expression of political opinions should of course be permitted... and treat any attempt to limit it with extreme suspicion, and the expectation that it better have a damn good reason behind it.

We should not be looking for loopholes in the First Amendment.

And that's exactly what progressive objections to the SCOTUS decision look like. They don't look like sound reasoning based on solid legal and ethical principles. They look like rationalizations for an emotional reaction. They look like contorted excuses for why, in this particular case, we don't really need to care about the First Amendment.

Here are a few examples of what I mean.

"Funerals are private affairs -- and people have a right to not have their private affairs disrupted and invaded."

Right. That's a reasonable argument. Or it would be... if the WBC had been disruptive and invasive of the funeral in question.

But they weren't. Like I said before -- like I keep saying again and again when I discuss this case, since so many people seem to be doggedly ignoring it -- in the particular case considered by the Supreme Court, the WBC was so non-disruptive and non-invasive of the funeral that the plaintiff didn't even know they were there until the next day. The emotional upset wasn't brought on by the funeral being protested. It was brought on simply by hearing about it on the news the next day, and knowing that the protests had happened at all. If the protests had happened in the next street, or the next town, or the next state, the effect would have been the same.

So how would you propose to write a law banning this? Should we write a law saying that nobody is ever allowed to express political protest on the occasion of someone's death?

When Nelson Rockefeller died, the lefty radio station in New York played "Ding, Dong, The Witch Is Dead." When Spiro Agnew died, I saw op ed pieces in newspapers basically saying, "Good riddance to bad rubbish." When Richard Nixon died, Hunter S. Thompson wrote a piece excoriating him, calling him (among other things) "scum," an "evil bastard," " a cheap crook and a merciless war criminal," and "a political monster straight out of Grendel," and expressing the wish that his body be burned in a trash bin or launched into an open- sewage canal. Tasteless? Yes. I, personally, would not do that (although I do have a sneaking admiration for the uniquely articulate vitriol of the Thompson piece). But were these legitimate forms of political speech on matters of public concern? Absolutely.

And as long as the pickets didn't actually disrupt the funeral while it was in progress, I don't see how the WBC protests are any different.

Except for the content of the speech.

Which is exactly what we can't write laws limiting.

And this argument looks exactly like an attempt to write laws limiting speech, simply because we don't like the content -- and to rationalize after the fact why that would be okay.

"Yes, free speech is important -- but there are limits. You can't yell fire in a crowded theater. Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. Etc."

Right. There are limits to free speech.

Why should this be one of them?

Again -- free speech is one of the most basic and crucial cornerstones of democracy and freedom. Free political speech especially. We should not be thinking, "Why does this form of speech deserve protection?" We should be thinking, "Why is this form of speech under attack?" Our default should be that speech should always be permitted -- unless there's a powerfully compelling reason to restrict it.

And "We find the content of this speech revolting" does not qualify.

In fact, the exact opposite is true. The whole freaking point of the First Amendment is the protection of unpopular speech. It wasn't written to protect our right to say that puppies are cute and apple pie is delicious. It was written to protect our right to say things that make people flee in horror... from "God Hates Fags" to "Gay Is Good," from "Stop the War" to "Bomb Them Into The Stone Age," from "God Wants Our Soldiers To Die" to "God Does Not Exist."

It's true that our rights are limited when our actions impinge on others; that our right to swing our fist ends where someone else's nose begins. But when it comes to free speech, we have to ask, "What constitutes a broken nose"? In the case of laws against fraud, libel, copyright violation, etc., the damage from the speech is clear, and it's material. But in the case of this funeral protest? The damage was, "Hearing opinions that were profoundly upsetting."

And that is exactly what we don't have the right to be protected from. We don't have the right to be protected from hearing ideas we find upsetting. The expression of opinions we find upsetting -- opinions on public matters, expressed in a public place, in a manner that does not invade private space -- is exactly what the First Amendment was written to defend.

You can't just say, "There are some reasonable limits on free speech -- therefore, this particular limit on free speech should be considered reasonable." Again, the burden of proof should be on the people trying to ban the speech -- not on the people speaking it. Our default assumption should not be that limiting speech is reasonable. Our default assumption should be that limiting speech is a bad, bad idea, and should only be done in rare cases, where material harm is being done, as an absolute last resort.

So if you're going to argue that a particular form of speech should be limited, you have to make a compelling, positive argument as to why this form of speech does material harm. And it can't have anything to do with whether the content of the speech is objectionable, or upsetting, or utterly reprehensible.

And this argument looks exactly like an attempt to write laws limiting speech, simply because we don't like the content -- and to rationalize after the fact why that would be okay.

"This violates fundamental rules of human decency."

Yup. It sure does.

So what?

"Pink Flamingos" violates fundamental rules of human decency. "I Spit On Your Grave" violates fundamental rules of human decency. Anti-abortion marches with signs showing aborted fetuses violate fundamental rules of human decency. Cartoons comparing Barack Obama to a monkey violate fundamental rules of human decency. "Robot Chicken" violates fundamental rules of human decency. "South Park" violates fundamental rules of human decency. Hell, Celine Dion violates fundamental rules of human decency.

So what? It's still protected speech.

Basically, what people are saying here is, "They're rude." Okay, granted, that's trivializing the matter. What people are saying is, "They're really, really rude. They are truly, horribly, appallingly rude. They are offensive beyond our powers to describe."

Yup. They sure are.

And we don't write bad manners into law.

When people exhibit bad manners, we scowl at them. We turn our noses up at them. We tell them they're being rude. We speak out against them. In extreme cases, we shun them from polite society, or organize protests against them, or try to get them fired from their jobs.

But trying to write bad manners into law? That's a textbook definition of an attempt to write laws limiting speech, simply because we don't like the content -- and to rationalize after the fact why that would be okay.

"This isn't protected speech. This is harassment/ bullying/ incitement to violence/a violation of privacy/ a hate crime."

Uh... no.

Once again, if you're making any of these arguments, you really need to look at the facts of this case. (The New York Times has a decent summary and a link to a PDF with the full SCOTUS ruling.)

The WBC did not follow people down the street screaming threats. They didn't stand around a fistfight shouting, "Kill him!" They didn't beat someone with a crowbar yelling, "Die, faggot!" They didn't even scream in the mourners' faces. Again -- for what seems like the bezillionth time in all the conversations I've had on this topic -- the funeral protests in this case were quiet, non-violent, compliant with local laws and police instructions, restricted to public property, and so non-invasive that the plaintiff didn't even know they were there until he heard about it on the news the next day. If the funeral was not disrupted, it's not an invasion of privacy. If no crime was committed apart from the disputed speech itself, it's not a hate crime. If imminent lawless acts weren't specifically being encouraged, it's not incitement to violence. And it is bloody well not harassment or bullying if you have to hear about the horrible things someone said about you on the news the next day.

I'm sorry if I seem harsh. I get that this case is upsetting, and I really am trying to be sympathetic. But these arguments disturb me. These arguments show a serious lack of familiarity with even the most basic facts of this case: an unfamiliarity that reveals an unsettling lack of concern about the case, and the genuinely important legal and ethical issues connected with it. These arguments look like attempts to ignore the facts, or even distort them, because they contradict the desired conclusion -- the conclusion that the WBC shouldn't be allowed to do what they do. They look exactly like attempts to write laws limiting speech, simply because we don't like the content -- and to rationalize after the fact why that would be okay.

Why on Earth do progressives want to do that?

*

Look. I, myself, am queer. I'm one of the people the WBC is specifically targeting with their venom. I'm one of the people they specifically think God hates; one of the people they think is on the straight track to hell, cheerfully dragging the rest of the country down with me. And I am every bit as revolted by Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church as anyone. What they do is monstrous, and I stand against them with every fiber of my being.

And there are many, many things we can do to stand against them. We can organize counter-protests. Organize same-sex kiss-ins at their protests. Support gay-positive education and the spreading of gay-positive ideas in the culture. Work against the bullying of gay kids in schools. Wear T-shirts that say, "Fags Hate God." Keep a vigilant eye on them, and if they do break any laws, smack them down like dogs. Make fun of them. Ignore them, on the theory that they thrive on attention and we ought not to give it to them. Speak out against homophobia whenever and wherever we see it. Make sure they not only lose the battle of history, but look like villains and fools doing it.

There are many things we can do to stand against them. But banning their speech is not one of them.

As a purely practical matter, this Supreme Court decision is one that progressives should be embracing. There is no way to make the WBC's speech illegal without making all unpopular speech illegal. And that includes unpopular progressive speech. There is no way to ban the WBC's non-invasive picketing of dead soldier's funerals without also banning feminists burning bras, or anti-war protesters re-enacting Abu Ghraib, or AIDS activists lying on the sidewalks spattered in fake blood.

And of course, many opinions that were once considered horrifying on the face of it are now considered mainstream, or at least a reasonable perspective in the public discourse. Among those opinions: Birth control should be legal. Religion should not be taught in public schools. Gay sex is okay, and gay people have rights. Black people are fully human, and ought not to be treated as property. Black people are fully human, and have the right to marry white people. Oral sex is not sick. Workers have the right to organize and collectively bargain for contracts. Poets have the right to say the word "Fuck." Women have the right to have orgasms. Women have the right to not be raped by their husbands. Women have the right to vote. All these opinions were once considered morally repugnant... and as a society, we couldn't have come to accept them if we hadn't had the right to say them out loud.

I'm not saying that the WBC's opinions are becoming mainstream, or that they should. Their opinions are vile: they are on the fringe of the fringe of the fringe, and they should stay that way. I'm saying that, as a society, we can't move forward and accept new ideas if we don't let people express ideas that we find shocking and upsetting. And I'm saying that, as a purely practical matter, if we want the right to express our opinions when most people find them revolting, we need to protect other peoples right to express their own revolting opinions.

But that's almost beside the point. We shouldn't embrace the SCOTUS decision because it works to our benefit and lets us persuade people that we're right. We should embrace the SCOTUS decision because we care about free speech. Period. Even when we don't agree with what people say, we should care passionately about their right to say it. Not so we can have our turn to say what we want. Because we give a damn about the principle that people have the right to say what they want. And that means everyone. Regardless of what they're saying.

If we truly care about freedom and democracy, we shouldn't treat the First Amendment like a local zoning law or some arcane bit of tax code. The First Amendment is one of the greatest leaps forward in human history and the evolution of human ethics. We shouldn't be looking for clever, sneaky ways to get around it.

There are many things we can do, and should do, to stand against Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church.

Looking for loopholes in the First Amendment is not one of them.

The Fred Phelps Supreme Court Decision and Why We Shouldn't Look for Loopholes in the First Amendment

When it comes to free speech and the First Amendment, the content of the speech, and whether or not we find it hateful, vile and abhorrent, is irrelevant.

Let's start with something I hope we all agree on. What Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church do? It's repulsive. Picketing people's funerals? Specifically, picketing the funerals of gay-bashing victims and U.S. soldiers? Going to people's funerals and essentially celebrating? Wielding big colorful signs saying, "God Hates Fags," "Thank God for Dead Soldiers," "Thank God for 9/11," "God Hates You," and so on? Saying that dead soldiers -- gay, straight, whatever, doesn't matter -- are God's punishment to America for tolerating homosexuality?

Repulsive. Horrifying. The dictionary definition of evil. I get that. No argument.

The question is: What should we do about it?

As you've probably heard, the Supreme Court just ruled that the Westboro Baptist Church does have the right, within some reasonable limits, to picket at funerals. Background, in case you're not familiar with the case: The Westboro Baptist Church was sued by Albert Snyder, father of fallen Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder, for picketing at his son's funeral with their vile and hateful message. The court ruled that, since the protests happened peacefully and in a public space at a non-disruptive distance from the funeral -- and since, quote, "speech on public issues occupies the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values and is entitled to special protection" -- the original judgment against them could not stand.

Many progressives have expressed outrage at this ruling. And from an emotional point of view, that outrage is totally understandable. The Westboro Baptist Church is very, very good at hitting our most raw nerves. They hurt people for the sake of hurting them, and apparently take glee in doing so. They violate fundamental principles of human decency. They are loathsome. Outrage against them is entirely reasonable.

But here's the problem.

Many of the progressive arguments against the Supreme Court ruling? They're very contorted. They don't look like clear thinking based on clear principles of Constitutional law. They look like rationalizations for why the Constitution doesn't really have to apply in this case. They look like the reactions of people who are deeply upset about what the Westboro Baptist Church does -- as indeed they should be -- and are looking for legal loopholes to try to stop them.

And we should not be looking for loopholes in the First Amendment.

*

Thus begins my latest piece for AlterNet, The Fred Phelps Supreme Court Decision and Why We Shouldn't Look for Loopholes in the First Amendment. (This actually went up a few days ago, btw, but I somehow missed it when I was on my speaking tour.) To read more, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

High School Atheists Courageously Battle for Their Rights... With Awesome Organization Behind Them

So when I was writing my recent news piece for AlterNet about the Secular Student Alliance and their new dedicated program for high school atheist groups, I kept finding myself being entertained by how hard it was to write. I am so not a news writer: I am an opinion writer, to the nucleus of the cells of the marrow of my bones, and while I'm perfectly happy to reach out of my comfort zone and write more standard news pieces, I could tell that, despite my best efforts to keep it newsy, my personal opinion was leaking out around the edges.

So for those of you who thought that the article was a bit of a puff piece, I thought you'd be entertained by the stuff I left out of the final draft. (If you haven't already, be sure to read the original piece first, so you get the context.)

P.S. This is funnier if you know that all the interviews quoted here were, in fact, conducted via email.

*

The Secular Student Alliance, an umbrella organization supporting non-theistic student groups, whose dynamic vision for the future is backed with fierce organizational skills, passed 250 affiliates this month -- a number that has doubled in just two years. (Conflict of interest alert: I'm on the speaker's bureau for the Secular Student Alliance; I'm colleagues/ friends with several people in the organization; and I consider it an honor and a privilege to have shared their company and labored at their side.)

*

According to JT Eberhard, human dynamo and Campus Organizer and High School Specialist for the SSA, "Most of them seem to elect to try and drag their feet until the interested students either lose interest or graduate." *

"A predictable pattern has actually emerged," Eberhard continues, a quiver in his voice, his expressive brown eyes snapping with righteous indignation at the injustice.

*

With the help of a grant from the Stiefel Freethought Foundation, they hired organizational superstar Eberhard, co-founder of the nationally- renowned, hard-rocking, fanatically beloved atheist conference Skepticon (and of the Missouri State University Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, an inspiration for atheist student groups everywhere and Skepticon's official host), as their dedicated high school campus organizer. In an organization already recognized as a trailblazer in the movement, it was a daring move that many consider to be among their most brilliant.

*

According to SSA Director of Campus Organizing Lyz Liddell, a deceptive twinkle in her eye that could transform in a second to a flashing glint of hard steel, "We've had around 4-6 HS groups for most of the time we've been around, but there's been no consistency or sustainability until recently." *

As SSA's Executive Director August Brunsman said, compassion and humanity blazing out from behind his cherubic face, "While the law is certainly on our side, we would rather have social understanding than legal victory." August spoke to me from the expansive, tasteful, yet warm and welcoming home he shares with his charming and vibrant wife, Camp Quest executive director Amanda K. Metskas, and their two gregarious cats, Shiva and Vishnu. *

Says Eberhard, whose imagination and mischievous humor is matched only by his bulldog determination and his ferocious passion for justice and truth, "Some view the conclusions of religion to be maladaptive and seek to generate public dialogue about the failings of faith."

*

As Liddell pointed out, a gleam of raw intellect glittering behind her fashionable spectacles, "For an awful lot of people, high school is the last educational system they're in." Liddell ran her fingers through her short, stylishly- coiffed blond hair, and continued, "If all our groups are in colleges, then only college students will be exposed to freethought as a 'normal' worldview."

*

For other groups, who won't be able to count on national media attention to aid their cause, the battle for their legal right to organize without intimidation may be more uphill.

But they won't be fighting it alone. With the sword and shield of the Secular Student Alliance at their side, the youth of America have a powerful ally. The battle for righteousness carries on valiantly, and the torch of human reason shall not flicker and die.

For more information on the desperately needed Secular Student Alliance high school program, or to lend support to their eminently worthy cause, visit the Secular Student Alliance website.

High School Atheists Are Organizing -- Why Are Schools Pushing Back?

This piece was originally published on AlterNet.

High school non-theist groups are finally getting dedicated support from a national organization. Why are high schools resisting -- and what does this mean for the future of atheism?

High school student Brian Lisco just wanted to form a student club. A senior at Stephen Austin High School in the Houston suburbs, Lisco wanted to meet with like-minded students; students who shared common interests, who could talk about ideas they found interesting, who could give one another support.

But his efforts were consistently thwarted by the administration at his high school. His requests to form a club were stalled for months, and obstacle after obstacle was put in his path.

Why?

Because the group he wanted to start was an atheist group.

And his story is being repeated, with variations, around the country.

Atheist student groups have been organizing in colleges and universities for years, and their numbers are climbing at an astonishing rate. The Secular Student Alliance, an umbrella organization supporting non-theistic student groups, passed 250 affiliates this month -- a number that has doubled in just two years. (Conflict of interest alert: I'm on the speaker's bureau for the Secular Student Alliance, and am colleagues/ friends with several people in the organization.) And for the most part, atheist groups at colleges and universities meet with little resistance, and in many cases get a fair degree of support, from school administrations -- who are familiar with the laws in such matters, and often have clear diversity policies in place.

But in high schools, it's a different story. Resistance to atheist groups from high school administrators, while not universal, is depressingly common. According to JT Eberhard, Campus Organizer and High School Specialist for the SSA, "Most of them seem to elect to try and drag their feet until the interested students either lose interest or graduate. The 'objections' are varied. I've heard 'it would be too controversial', 'all clubs are secular', 'other groups already do the same thing', and a whole host of other lame reasons." Eberhard adds that a common tactic is to tell students they need a faculty adviser to form a group -- a requirement that is, in fact, flatly illegal -- "and then to make sure the group cannot find a willing one." (The legal principle that high schools must give all students equal access to forming extracurricular clubs, with or without a faculty advisor and regardless of the purpose of the club, has been well- established... and it's a principle that has been applied to religious groups, and was in fact strongly lobbied for by them.)

"A predictable pattern has actually emerged," he continues. "1. Interested student gets everything in order, finds a faculty sponsor, and applies for their group. 2. Administration stonewalls them. 3. Students push harder. 4. Administration crumbles, but faculty sponsor withdraws. I've seen this exact same scenario play out almost double-digit times in the six weeks I've been here." In a particularly vivid example of these tactics, an Oklahoma high school student who tried to form an atheist group was accused of trying to form a "hate group"... and when it became clear that the student knew their rights and was not going to back down, the faculty sponsor they had lined up withdrew under pressure, saying she had been told that sponsoring this group would be "a bad career move."

But at the beginning of 2011, the Secular Student Alliance began a program specifically devoted to supporting high school atheist groups. With the help of a grant from the Stiefel Freethought Foundation, they hired Eberhard, co-founder of the nationally- renowned atheist conference Skepticon (and of the Missouri State University Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Skepticon's official host), as their dedicated high school campus organizer.

The efforts have been paying off. It took four years for the SSA to get just twelve high school groups affiliated with their organization. According to SSA Director of Campus Organizing Lyz Liddell, "We've had around 4-6 HS groups for most of the time we've been around, but there's been no consistency or sustainability until recently." But in just the first month since their dedicated high school program began, they have gained five new high school affiliates.

And while the SSA primarily supports its college and university groups through financial assistance, organizational advice and materials, access to a speaker's bureau, and so on, it's becoming increasingly clear that support for high school groups will need to be more aggressive. Gentle reminders about the law. Repeated gentle reminders about the law. Somewhat less gentle reminders about the law. Mediation. Media attention when the law is being defied. Possibly even legal action. It hasn't yet come to this last option, and the SSA hopes it won't have to. As SSA's Executive Director August Brunsman said, "While the law is certainly on our side, we would rather have social understanding than legal victory." But if legal action becomes necessary, the SSA is prepared to support atheist students, and their legal right to form clubs in high schools.

So why are students forming these groups, anyway?

The need for high school atheist groups -- or indeed, for atheist groups of any kind -- is baffling to many people. When USA Today ran an article about Brian Lisco and the SSA's new high school program, it was met with a barrage of hostile comments... partly in the hysterical "Satan is trolling for the souls of our youth!" vein, but largely with puzzlement and snark, along the lines of, "Why would anyone need a club to talk about what they don't believe in?"

But the powerful resistance these groups have encountered makes the need for them all too clear. The reality is that atheists are the most distrusted and disliked of all minority groups -- more than Blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Muslims, immigrants, and gays and lesbians -- and polls show that Americans are less likely to vote for an atheist than they are for a person in any other minority or marginalized category. And this hostility can have serious consequences, in the form of harassment, bullying, ostracism, vandalism, alienation from family, loss of jobs, and more -- especially in more religiously conservative parts of the country. Says Eberhard, "I can tell you that when I started here we had two leaders out of twelve that had to lead in secret. For instance, we have to send them blank packages and sometimes to other locations. Since then I've had a group-starting-packet request from another such student. I also have another group considering forming, but there is concern for safety." As an example, he quotes an anonymous contact who's interested in starting a group, but is fearful of the fallout:

We have a few families with high school students in our [atheist] group, but none of these students are "out" at school. I also have several High School teachers in the [city name redacted] Freethinkers, but almost every single one of them is afraid of anyone finding out they attend our [group] lest they lose their jobs; I'm having trouble imagining we could find a faculty adviser for students here.

And:

I do want to make sure that SSA would be prepared to support kids who might face some serious consequences should they be willing to bravely take on leadership. I am fully confident SSA will do its homework on the legal side of things, but I'm more concerned about things like anonymous vandalism or family conflict and the kind of toll that might take on kids in a pretty isolated, rural environment. I deal with this all the time with local LGBT teens, but there aren't exactly 24-hour crisis hotlines for teenage atheists who get thrown out of their homes, etc. Since forming the Freethinkers, we've had several incidents of vandalism; I get hate emails all the time.

Countering anti-atheist myths is important even when the bigotry isn't overtly threatening or grotesque. Myths about atheists are widespread, even among more moderate and progressive believers. Countering those myths requires visibility -- and visibility is more effective with organization. Groups can provide emotional support to people who are coming out when they face opposition and hatred... and groups can make visibility easier to accomplish. As Eberhard points out, "One of the best ways gay students have acquired a greater level of acceptance is by 'coming out', so that many people are now realizing that they not only know gay people but that they like gay people. So it must be with atheists. We need to encourage non-believing students to be proud of who they are if the social stigma is to ever be dissolved."

And even in the absence of overt anti-atheist hostility, and the need to band together for sanctuary and support in the face of it, there are plenty of reasons why atheists want to congregate -- in high schools, or anywhere else. For many atheists, atheism is more than simply not believing in God: it's a positive humanist philosophy, valuing reason, compassion, evidence, ethics, and social justice in this world. These atheists want to congregate with others who share their values: for social support, to do charity and social justice work, or just to eat pizza and hang out. What's more, many atheists are actively engaged in countering religion and trying to persuade people out of it. As Eberhard, says, "Some view the conclusions of religion to be maladaptive and seek to generate public dialogue about the failings of faith." They want to change the way people think -- and organizing makes that more effective.

In other words: Atheists -- including high school atheists -- form groups for the same reasons anyone does. Support in the face of hostility. The pleasure of spending time with people who share your ideas and values, and who like to do the same things you do. Greater visibility in the face of myths and bigotry. A more effective platform for getting your ideas into the world. A more effective platform for doing good work. Just plain fun. Humans are social animals. We like to hang out with other animals we have things in common with. Especially when other animals are being mean to us.

So why are so many high school administrators opposed to it?

"Fear of their communities is probably one thing," says Eberhard. "In many areas the superintendent is elected, and allowing an atheist group that is bound to get local attention is something that's bound to worry them. However, in most situations it seems like it's just their own personal aversion." Unsurprisingly, high school administrators have their own religious beliefs, and their own fears and misunderstandings about atheists. When coupled with fear of controversy, these beliefs and fears can generate resistance, stonewalling, delay tactics, outright intimidation, and the hope that if the problem is ignored for long enough, it will just go away.

But it's hard to escape the notion that, at least in part, high school atheist groups are meeting such strong resistance because -- when it comes to atheism gaining ground in society -- they could change the game.

For one thing, as high school atheist groups become more common, the atheist presence in colleges and universities is likely to become stronger. As Liddell says, "Having high school groups will train leaders who will be able to step up and grow as leaders at the college level, adding awesomeness and sustainability for our college groups. I also think that it will further the growing expectation that there will be a secular group for them in college (after all, if they had one in high school, why wouldn't there be one in college?), and in the cases where there isn't yet, it will encourage them to start one (after all, it would sure have to be easier than it was in high school!)."

But the power of high school atheist groups to change the game goes beyond colleges and universities. As Liddell points out, "For an awful lot of people, high school is the last educational system they're in. If all our groups are in colleges, then only college students will be exposed to freethought as a 'normal' worldview. Having these groups in high schools will go a long way toward raising awareness of our worldview, both among the students who go to school where these groups are and in the communities in which they are located."

It isn't surprising that people who are fearful about atheism in general would be fearful about atheist high school groups in particular. And since high school groups are so vulnerable, it isn't surprising that they would meet with stubborn opposition.

But what does this mean for Brian Lisco -- and other high school atheists trying to organize?

For Lisco and his group, the news has been good. After eight months of stalling and delay tactics, his school abruptly gave him the SSA club... shortly after USA Today contacted them for comment on the matter. For other groups, who won't be able to count on national media attention to aid their cause, the battle for their legal right to organize without intimidation may be more uphill.

But they won't be fighting it alone.

For more information on the Secular Student Alliance high school program, visit the Secular Student Alliance website, look at their educator's guide for high school non-theist groups, or contact JT Eberhard, [email protected].

High School Atheists Are Organizing -- Why Are Schools Pushing Back?

High school non-theist groups are getting dedicated support from a national organization but their schools are flipping out. What does this mean for the future of atheism?

High school student Brian Lisco just wanted to form a student club. A senior at Stephen Austin High School in the Houston suburbs, Lisco wanted to meet with like-minded students; students who shared common interests, who could talk about ideas they found interesting, who could give one another support.

But his efforts were consistently thwarted by the administration at his high school. His requests to form a club were stalled for months, and obstacle after obstacle was put in his path.

Why?

Because the group he wanted to start was an atheist group.

His story is being repeated, with variations, around the country.

*

Thus begins my latest piece for AlterNet, High School Atheists Are Organizing -- Why Are Schools Pushing Back? To find out more about the Secular Student Alliance's new dedicated program to support high school atheist groups -- and about the resistance these groups are meeting from high school administrators -- read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

Why Are Believers So Hostile Toward Atheists?

Atheists get labeled as offensive and bitter... when we express anger, and when we express hope and morality and meaning. Why is it important for believers to frame atheism as inherently joyless and hostile?

Is there anything atheists can say about our atheism -- or even just about our lives -- that won't make people look at us with revulsion?

Two recent stories in the news/ blogs/ opinionosphere have made me vividly aware -- not for the first time -- of the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" position of non-believers in our culture. In one piece, atheists were called out for being negative and confrontational, and readers were informed that we're angry and bitter all the time because we have no hope of life after death. In the other piece, non-believers were called out for sharing the positive, joyful aspects of our lives and the ways we find meaning and hope even in the face of death... and for failing to mention God when we do.

I know. It makes my head spin, too.

*

Thus begins my latest piece for AlterNet, Why Are Believers So Hostile Toward Atheists? To find out how atheists get accused of being hopeless, bitter nihilists, regardless of whether we're expressing anger or joy -- and why it's so important for so many believers to frame atheism as inherently joyless and hostile -- read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

How Dare You Atheists Exist?

This piece was originally published on AlterNet.

Religious believers commonly attack atheists simply for existing. Do out- of- the- closet atheists -- even polite ones -- challenge attempts at theocracy?

What, exactly, do religious believers want from atheists?

If you follow the atheism debates in op-ed pieces and whatnot, you'll see that critiques of the so-called New Atheist movement are often aimed at our tone. Among the pundits and opinion-makers, atheist writers and activists are typically called out for being offensive, intolerant, disrespectful, extremist, hostile, confrontational, and just generally asshats. The question of whether atheists are, you know, right, typically gets sidestepped in favor of what is apparently the much more compelling question of whether atheists are jerks. And if these op-ed pieces and whatnot were all you knew about the atheist movement and the critiques of it, you might think that atheists were simply being asked to be reasonable, civil, and polite.

But if you follow atheism in the news, you begin to see a very different story.

You begin to see that atheists are regularly criticized -- vilified, even -- simply for existing.

Or, to be more accurate, for existing in the open. For declining to hide our atheism. For coming out.

Case in point: In Bryan/ College Station, Texas, the Brazos Valley Vuvuzela Atheist Marching Band recently marched in the annual Christmas parade. Now, let's be very clear about this: The 18-person marching band didn't march with signs saying "Fuck Your Religion," or "You Know It's A Myth," or even "There's Probably No God -- Now Stop Worrying and Enjoy Your Life." They wished people a merry Christmas, and a happy Hanukkah, and a merry Kwanzaa. They played "Jingle Bells" on vuvuzelas. And they carried a banner saying that they were atheists.

Which was enough, apparently, to send many Christians into fits. The atheist presence in the Christmas parade created a substantial controversy in the area. One resident interviewed by the local news, Tina Corgey, said, quote, "I spent many years teaching my children to love and respect other people and to love the fact that they were children of God and I don't feel that they should be influenced in any other way especially not at a Christmas parade." She added, "If you have younger children they weren't going to understand but I have older children, a teenager, 8-year-old and they were curious and they asked questions and it was hard for them to believe and understand that there are actually people out there that don't believe in God."

And she was hardly alone. Her sentiments were echoed in many comments on the local news story. Including:

"There was one entry that should not have been in the parade. It was against Christmas."

"We let people make a mockery out of us!!!!! My family and I have participated or watched the parade for the last 25 years, however, this was our last and hopefully other people feel the same way. Why on Earth would we allow Atheist to be in the Parade????"

"You have no idea what this holiday means for those of use who believe in a greater being. You offend me and everyone else."

"They were there to be provocative, plain and simple. No different from a white supremacist group marching in a Juneteenth parade. This group had no business marching at that event. They are a hate group and they should be ashamed."

"It is like the KKK going to a black church saying they are there to bring peace."

"Last I checked, the event was called a CHRISTmas parade. Not a Happy Holidays, not a Merry Hanukkah, or a Jolly Kwanza. If you want a parade to celebrate non-Christian religious beliefs then lobby B/CS for your OWN parade."

"If atheist are allowed to march in the parade, then maybe next year we can add some strippers advertising the silk stocking or how about some petafiles advertising their love for the kiddos! Those wouldn't be wrong, since we are wanting to be welcoming of everyone!"

"A CHRISTMAS Parade is NOT the place for the Athiest band and they know it. They did not belong in the parade. They shouted howdy to our area of the parade and not Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays as indicated in the written article. They were mocking all the other bands and drill teams in the parade. They have a right to their beliefs or non-beliefs but flaunting it in a CHRISTMAS parade, I think not."

"By quoting the first ammendment you just proved you were there to start trouble."

Just to name a few.

To be fair, these sentiments weren't the only ones being expressed. Many people clearly stated their appreciation for the atheist marching band; others said they didn't like them but respected their right to be there; still others said Christians should embrace the atheists, and hopefully turn them to Jesus.

But this "no atheists in the Christmas parade" sentiment was widely expressed. And more to the point: Many people weren't content to simply say, "I don't like this." They were saying that it should not have been allowed. They were saying that atheists, quite literally, should not have been permitted to march.

Just a reminder before we go on: We're talking about playing "Jingle Bells" in a Christmas parade. You can't get any less controversial than this. It's like a freaking Norman Rockwell painting. How much more sweet and agreeable could you be? Okay, yes, they were playing "Jingle Bells" on vuvuzelas. But that doesn't seem to be the point. The point seems to be that atheists, simply by existing, and being public about our existence, are offensive, mocking, provocative, hateful troublemakers.

So the next time you hear atheists called offensive, mocking, provocative, hateful troublemakers, remember this: We get called that for playing "Jingle Bells" in a marching band. We get called these things simply for being open about who we are.

If you think this is an isolated incident -- think again. Look at the atheist billboard and bus ad campaigns -- and the reactions to them. All over the country and all over the world, atheist organizations have been putting up bus ads and billboards: sometimes with content that deliberately challenges religious beliefs, but usually not. Usually, the atheist bus ads and billboards say things like, "Millions are good without God." Or, "In Good We Trust." Or, "Don't believe in God? You are not alone."

And when they do, there's almost always an angry, intensely offended reaction from religious believers. There are protests, boycotts, demands that the ads be taken down, even vandalism. Sometimes the ads actually do get stopped: transit companies will sometimes stop accepting religious or controversial ads entirely, rather than let those vile atheists defile their sacred buses and trains. With our message about, you know, existing.

In other words: When all atheists do is say, "Atheists exist," it gets treated as an assault.

It's hard not to see this as theocracy being threatened.

How else are we supposed to interpret it? When people say that atheists have no right to march in a public parade, and ought to be prevented from doing so? When people are deeply troubled by their curious children asking questions about different religious views, and think these children ought not to be influenced by any view other than Christianity? What is that but attempting to promote your religious views by silencing all the others?

But there's another, more insidious way that taking offense at atheists' existence is an attempt to establish theocracy, and to perpetuate the degree of theocracy that we already have.

Look at it this way. Christian fundamentalists in the U.S. clearly want to have their cake and eat it, too. They want everyone in the country to celebrate their holy days. Witness the annual freak-out over the supposed War on Christmas, in which Bill O'Reilly and company get their collective panties in a twist about stores saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "merry Christmas."

But they don't just want everyone to celebrate Christmas. They want everyone to celebrate it religiously. They don't want non-Christians to adapt this holy day to their own uses. Loki forbid the atheists should march in the Christmas parade, or put up billboards in December with atheists in Santa hats saying "Don't believe in God? Just be good for goodness' sake."

They still want Christmas to be a religious holiday, special to the Christian faith. Yet at the same time, they want it to be a government- recognized Federal holiday that everyone has to observe.

In other words: They want theocracy.

See, you don't get have it both ways. You don't get to have Christmas be a secular holiday, universal to the culture, recognized by government agencies and celebrated by people of all faiths and of no faith at all... and still have it be a religious holiday of the Christian faith. Not if you respect people's basic right to worship, or not, in their own way. Pick one. If Christmas is a universal secular holiday, quit whining about it being secularized. If it's a distinct religious holiday, quit trying to ram it down everyone else's throats.

Now, if the Christian Right wants to argue that everyone should be Christian, they absolutely have the right to do that. Heck, I argue that everyone should be atheist. I think that atheism is correct and religious belief is mistaken, and I'm working hard trying to persuade people of that. If the Christian Right thinks Christianity is correct and all other positions on religion are mistaken, by all means, they should make that case.

But there's a huge difference between making a case for why your religious views are correct... and getting offended, insulted, and martyred over the mere fact that some people disagree with you. Making a case for your position is one thing. Trying to stop other people from making their case is quite another.

The former is simply the marketplace of ideas: bumpy, fractious, sometimes obnoxious, even at times grotesque, but a cornerstone of a free society. The latter is entitlement. The latter is hegemony: systems by which those in power perpetuate and expand their power. And, when it gets enshrined into government policy -- like teaching religious beliefs in public school science classes, or funding religious organizations with tax money, or opening government meetings with prayers, or displaying the Ten Commandments on government property, or promoting one religion over another in a public school -- the latter is theocracy.

And when the Christian right demands that atheists not be allowed to march in a public Christmas parade, or to advertise on public buses and trains... that's exactly what they're demanding.

Why Religious People Are Scared of Atheists

Religious believers commonly attack atheists simply for existing. Do out- of- the- closet atheists -- even polite ones -- challenge attempts at theocracy?

What, exactly, do religious believers want from atheists?

If you follow the atheism debates in op-ed pieces and whatnot, you'll see that critiques of the so-called New Atheist movement are often aimed at our tone. Among the pundits and opinion-makers, atheist writers and activists are typically called out for being offensive, intolerant, disrespectful, extremist, hostile, confrontational, and just generally asshats. The question of whether atheists are, you know, right, typically gets sidestepped in favor of what is apparently the much more compelling question of whether atheists are jerks. And if these op-ed pieces and whatnot were all you knew about the atheist movement and the critiques of it, you might think that atheists were simply being asked to be reasonable, civil, and polite.

But if you follow atheism in the news, you begin to see a very different story.

You begin to see that atheists are regularly criticized -- vilified, even -- simply for existing.

Or, to be more accurate, for existing in the open. For declining to hide our atheism. For coming out.

*

Thus begins my new piece on AlterNet, Why Religious People Are Scared of Atheists. To read more about how atheists get attacked simply for existing -- and how these attacks are an attempt to enforce theocracy -- read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

Why Are You Still Catholic?

This is an expanded version of a piece that was first published on AlterNet.

If your softball league or your children's school did what the Catholic Church is doing, you'd quit in outrage. So why are you still Catholic?

For any Catholics who might be reading this, I have a question for you:

Why are you still Catholic?

Presumably, I don't have to tell you about the rash of child-rape scandals in the Catholic Church. I don't have to tell you about the cover-ups, the shielding of child rapists in the priesthood from law enforcement, the deliberate shuttling of child-raping priests from town to town to protect them from exposure -- thus enabling them to continue raping children. I don't have to tell you about the Church using remote, impoverished villages as a dumping ground for priests who raped children. I don't have to tell you that this wasn't a few isolated incidents: it was a widespread, institutional practice, authorized by high-level Church officials. Including Cardinal Ratzinger -- now Pope Benedict XVI -- who, among other actions taken to protect child raping priests, delayed the dismissal of a child rapist in the priesthood... for the "good of the universal Church."

And presumably, I don't have to tell you about the Church's response as this scandal has been exposed. I don't have to tell you that, overwhelmingly, they have stonewalled, rationalized, deflected blame. I don't have to tell you about the Church's "Come on, the kids weren't that young, most of them were over 11" defense, or their "Hey, everyone else is doing it" defense. I don't have to tell you how they've equated the accusations against the Church with anti-Semitism. I don't have to tell you how they've blamed the child-rape scandal on gays, the media, the Devil , even the rape survivors themselves. (No, really. From the Bishop of Tenerife: "There are 13 year old adolescents who are under age and who are perfectly in agreement with, and what's more wanting it, and if you are careless they will even provoke you.") I don't have to tell you that the Church is opposing a measure extending the statute of limitations on child rape. I don't have to tell you about the Pope's dismissal of the child-rapist-protection accusations as, quote, "petty gossip."

And I'm just focusing on the child rape scandal. I'm not even talking today about the other recent scandals in the Church: the gay prostitution ring, the Church banning the use of condoms in Africa to prevent the spread of AIDS, the rape of nuns by priests and the ignoring/ concealment thereof.

You know about all of it.

So here's what I want to ask you:

Why are you still Catholic?

If these scandals had taken place in any organization other than a religious one -- would you still be part of it?

If it were your political party, your softball league, your university, your children's school, your employer? If any of those organizations were involved in a massive, global conspiracy to protect and conceal child rapists? If they responded when the scandal came to light by entrenching and rationalizing, blaming the victims and making counter-accusations? Not in a few isolated incidents, but as a massive, institution-wide culture, a matter of official policy even, that extended throughout the organization and reached all the way to the top?

Would you still be part of it? Would you still pay your league dues and show up for softball night? Would you still pay your tuition and send your kids off to the school every day?

Or would you be walking out in moral outrage? Would you be writing enraged letters to the organization's leadership -- and sending copies of those letters to your local newspaper -- explaining exactly why you can no longer be part of an organization that behaves so reprehensibly? Would you be picketing, exhorting other members to leave along with you, calling law enforcement to demand a response?

And if the latter -- then why on earth aren't you doing that with the Catholic Church?

I mean -- how bad does it have to get? Let's say I was making up a story about grotesque, nauseating, inexcusable- on- the- face- of- it evil; evil that would make all non-sociopathic people turn away in revolted horror at the very mention of it. And let's say that, to illustrate that evil, I made up an example of a powerful, global institution that concealed and protected child rapists, shuttled them from town to town, failed to inform law enforcement officers and in many cases actually stonewalled them, deliberately dumped the child rapists in remote, impoverished villages... and then, when the horror finally came to light, responded with defensive entrenchment and equated the accusations with either anti-Semitic bigotry or petty gossip.

If I wrote that story, people would think it was over the top. "That's ridiculous," they'd say. "You have to make your evil more believable, more human. Nobody really does that."

Well, people really do that.

The Church you belong to really does that.

Why on Earth are you still a part of it?

Maybe you stay because of your sincere religious faith. Maybe you sincerely believe that the Catholic Church is the only way to spiritual salvation, and that if you abandon it, you'll abandon your hope of paradise in the Afterlife.

If that's true, then my first question to you would be: Do you really believe that? If you disagree with the Church (as many Catholics do) on a huge number of substantial issues -- birth control, gay rights, women's rights, condom use for people with AIDS, etc., not to mention the institutional protection and cover-up of priests who rape children -- then what does it mean to say that you believe in the Church?

But let's say you're a more traditional Catholic. Let's say you do agree with the Church on most of these positions. All of them, even, except the one about protecting child rapists and thus perpetuating child rape. Or let's say you are a more moderate Catholic... but that your disagreement with the Church on major theological issues still doesn't interfere with your basic belief that the rites of the Church are necessary for your spiritual redemption.

I'd like to ask you to take a step back from your beliefs for a moment, and view them the way an outsider would. If someone else belonged to a religion that, say, protected men who torture and murder their wives; or a religion that practiced widespread fraud and theft from the desperately poor; or a religion that encouraged people to blow up buildings... would you nod sagely and say, "The sincerity of your faith is a good enough reason to stay in that religion"?

Or would you recoil in horror at how profoundly their fear of eternal punishment, and their desire for eternal reward, had bent their moral compass?

And if the latter -- then why should you treat your own religion any differently? Your Church protects child rapists, thus perpetuating more child rape. Why are you still a part of it?

Or maybe the religious part isn't so important to you. Maybe you don't have strong beliefs about Catholic theology being the only true theology. But you still defend the Church, and still participate in it, because they do charitable work that you support and want to be a part of. (An argument many people made when this piece was first published on AlterNet.)

In which case, I have to ask you:

Are you freaking kidding me?

There are thousands upon thousands of excellent charitable organizations in the world. Charitable organizations that don't protect child rapists, in a consistent, cold-blooded, institution-wide system of covering their asses. I'll ask you the same question I asked about your job or your softball league or your kids' school: If any other charitable organization behaved the way the Catholic Church did -- if the Red Cross or the American Cancer Society shielded child rapists from exposure and law enforcement, shuttled them from town to town so they could keep raping children, and then stonewalled and rationalized and deflected blame when they got caught -- would you respond by saying, "Well, yes, sure they helped get a bunch of children raped... but look at all the good work they do! Doesn't that count for something? Why throw the baby out with the bathwater?"

Or instead, would you abandon that organization in revulsion, demand the arrest and prosecution of everyone involved, and immediately take your money and your time to a charity that didn't, you know, help rape children?

And maybe, again, the religious part isn't so important to you -- but you find the ritual of the Church comforting. It's been part of your life since you were a child, your family and friends all belong, you find the music and the stained glass and the reliability of the weekly ceremony to be profoundly soothing.

If so, then I have to take a deep breath and ask you: Are you really prioritizing your own comfort over the rape of children?

Are those really and truly your priorities? Is it more important to you that you be soothed and comforted than it is to not participate in an institution that protects and conceals child rapists and actively enables them to keep doing it indefinitely? When you put the horror and the suffering and the ruined lives caused by child rape on one side of the balance -- and the fact that you're comforted by soothing rituals and pretty music on the other -- do you honestly weigh those two considerations, and decide that your comfort comes out as the greater need?

And if not -- if you think, as I hope you would, as I hope anyone with a shred of morality would, that your personal comfort is worth sacrificing if it means not participating in an institution that perpetuates the widespread rape of children -- then why are you still part of this Church?

I don't care whether you believe in God or not. Well, okay, that's not true. I do care: I think religion is a mistaken idea about the world, I think that on the whole it does significantly more harm than good, and I'd love to see humanity let go of it. But if people's religious beliefs and practices don't hurt anyone else, then it's their business, and I don't really care all that much about them.

But see -- that's exactly the thing.

Belonging to the Catholic Church does hurt people.

Belonging to the Catholic Church gives your support to an organization that conceals and protects child rapists. Again, not as a few isolated incidents, but as a massive, institution-wide culture, a matter of policy even, that extends throughout the organization and reaches all the way to the top. Belonging to the Catholic Church -- giving them money, letting them count you in their rolls, sending your children to their schools -- gives this behavior your personal thumbs-up, and actively enables it to continue.

As long as Catholics stay Catholics, no matter how repulsively evil the Church's behavior becomes, no matter how many children get raped as a result of its institutional practices, then the Church is not going to change. It will have no reason to change. As long as Catholics continue to attend church, to donate money, to be counted in Church rolls, to send their children -- their children! -- to church and Catholic school for religious education and the perpetuation of Catholicism, then the Church will assume that it can do anything at all, with impunity. It will assume that it can... you know, I'm trying to think of an example of evil more grotesque and over-the-top than "protecting and concealing child rapists so they can go on raping children, just to protect the organization's public image," but I'm coming up short. It will assume that it can squander hospice donations on cocaine and hookers? Dump the Vatican's sewage into the Rome subway system? Torture kittens in St. Peter's Square? No. None of that is more grotesquely, over-the-top evil than protecting and concealing child rapists so they can go on raping children, just to protect the organization's public image.

If you stay in the Catholic Church, even after this scandal, you are essentially telling them, "Go ahead and protect child rapists. I don't care. As long as I personally get to keep taking Communion and go to Heaven when I die, whatever you do is hunky-dory with me. Your spiritual extortion -- your indoctrination of the idea that I will be tortured with burning and fire for all eternity if I don't drink your wine and eat your cracker -- has worked. You can do anything at all that you like. You won't hear a peep out of me."

Is that really what you want to be saying?

The only way -- and I mean the only way -- that the Catholic Church is going to change its stance on this issue, or indeed on any issue, is if Catholics vote with their feet, and get the hell out of there.

When are you going to do that?

To leave the Catholic Church, visit the Count Me Out website, which walks you through the process.

Why I'm Drawing Mohammad

This is my drawing of Mohammad.


I wish I were a better artist, and could draw something other than a stick figure. But I actually kind of like its purity. If a simple, entirely undistinguished, smiling stick figure with the word "Mohammad" above it can be so offensive as to earn me a possible death sentence... that makes the whole silly idea seem even sillier. And I like the fact that it's a photo of my hand actually making the drawing. Gives it a certain punch, I think.

Today is Everybody Draw Mohammad Day: an event in which people around the world... well, draw Mohammad. We're deliberately violating the Muslim law against creating images of the prophet Mohammad -- a law that some radical Muslim extremists are attempting to enforce with violence and death threats. On everyone. Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Actually, strike that. It is a law that some radical Muslim extremists are successfully enforcing with violence and death threats. Everybody Draw Mohammad Day was instigated by Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris, after Comedy Central cut a portion of a South Park episode following a death threat from a radical Muslim group. And this is hardly an isolated incident: when the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten ran the cartoons of Mohammad that sparked violent protests around the world, many news publications declined to publish the cartoons in question, despite their obvious newsworthiness. Many newspapers still won't publish them. And when this self-censorship happens, the Muslim law against drawing Mohammad has successfully been enforced.

Today, along with hundreds of people (hopefully more), I'm drawing Mohammad.

I want to explain why.

*

I don't normally go out of my way to offend people's religious sensibilities. I'm perfectly willing to do so, obviously: most of what I write here offends somebody's religious sensibilities, and of course I know that most of my atheist writing is deeply offensive to many religious believers, simply because it is atheist. But offending people's religious sensibilities, while it's something I'm willing to do, is secondary. It's a side effect of the fact that I'm making some point. It's rarely the point itself. I rarely offend people's religious sensibilities just for the sake of it, simply because people find it offensive.

That's more or less what I'm doing today. I realize that.

I'm doing it because, in some cases, offending people's sensibilities is, in and of itself, a valid point. And this is one of those instances.

The idea that the rules of a religion ought to apply to people who don't follow that religion? It's flatly absurd. As Hemant Mehta of Friendly Atheist so brilliantly pointed out, "You never hear about Hindus walking into McDonald's and telling the manager they're not allowed to use beef products anymore. If they did, we would laugh it off. We'd say that's absurd because non-Hindus don't have to follow their rules."

But that's exactly what these radical Muslim extremists are doing. Despite the fact that they will happily violate the Hindu rule against eating beef, or the Orthodox Jewish rule against interfaith marriage, or the Yazidi rule against wearing the color blue, they nevertheless feel that it is their right, and indeed their duty, to enforce the Muslim rule against drawing Mohammad -- even on people who aren't Muslim. Using violence, and threats of death.

And it is not possible to effectively protest this by simply saying, "This is wrong." The only way to effectively protest this is by violating the damn rule. If we all wring our hands and say, "Oh, yes, this is terrible, how dare these terrorists use violence and death threats to enforce their religious rules on people who don't share them" -- and still nobody will break the damn rule because we're afraid they'll hurt or kill us -- then their terror tactics will have worked.

I'm drawing Mohammad to send a message to Muslim extremists -- and other religious extremists -- that their terror tactics will not work.

I'm drawing Mohammad to reject out of hand the attempt to make criticism of Islam -- or of any other religion, for that matter -- off-limits, simply out of fear of violence.

I'm drawing Mohammad because many people feel comfortable critiquing, or poking fun of, or indeed commenting on, any other religion... but avoid doing any of this with Islam, for fear of violent retribution. And I refuse to allow myself to be extorted in that way.

And, perhaps most importantly of all, I'm drawing Mohammad to spread the target around... so there are so many people drawing Mohammad, the terrorists can't possibly go after all of us.

This is a point made by Ayaan Hirsi-Ali -- former Muslim, current atheist, target of a fatwa for her outspoken blasphemous criticism and defiance of Islam. In a piece she wrote about the South Park/ Comedy Central incident -- and about the seriousness of the death threats against the show's creators -- she asked, "So what can be done to help Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone?" And she answered, in part, "Do stories of Muhammad where his image is shown as much as possible. These stories do not have to be negative or insulting, they just need to spread the risk. The aim is to confront hypersensitive Muslims with more targets than they can possibly contend with."

That's the point.

And there is no way to make that point without actually violating this rule.

Perhaps you think that going out of your way to offend a cherished tenet of people's religious beliefs is... well, offensive. Hurtful. Perhaps you think that secular groups and others organizing "Draw Mohammad" protests are engaging in anti-Muslim or anti-Arab marginalization. Perhaps you think that deliberately breaking another religion's sacred rule, with the sole and stated purpose of breaking that rule, is a form of religious bigotry. Or even just childish jerkitude. A lot of people think that: moderate Muslims, and others.

To them, I say... well, Claudia commenting at Friendly Atheist said it way better than I could, and I'm just going to quote her: "The day drawing a bloody stick figure isn't something you have to do while looking over your shoulder. The day cartoonists don't have to build panic rooms in their homes (!!) for a rough picture of a dog with a mans head. The day dozens of people don't die (again !!) because of some cartoons. On that day, I will agree that the secular group is just being immature and hurtful."

Is it hurtful to deliberately poke people's sore spots with a stick, just for the sake of doing it? Yes. I don't think it's a very nice thing to do, and I don't generally do it.

But is it far, far more hurtful -- not only to certain individuals, but to every individual in the world, and to society as a whole -- to use violence and death threats to frighten people away from criticizing your religion, and to force obedience to your religious views on the entire human race?

By a thousand orders of magnitude, yes.

And in this case, the only way to oppose the latter is to engage in the former.

There's something I want to say here: words that keep brimming up in my head and won't shut up. I'm reluctant to write them down; I cringe a bit at the thought of posting them; they've become such a cliche that it's embarrassing to even think them. I never imagined that I'd say these words as anything other than a joke. I never imagined I would say them with any sort of sincerity or passion.

But if we don't draw Mohammad, the terrorists win.

Why Is Anyone Still Catholic?

If your softball league or your children's school did what the Catholic Church is doing, you'd quit in outrage. So why haven't you?

For any Catholics who might be reading this, I have a question for you:

Why are you still Catholic?

Presumably, I don't have to tell you about the rash of child-rape scandals in the Catholic Church. I don't have to tell you about the cover-ups, the shielding of child rapists in the priesthood from law enforcement, the deliberate shuttling of child-raping priests from town to town to protect them from exposure -- thus enabling them to continue raping children. I don't have to tell you about the Church using remote, impoverished villages as a dumping ground for priests who raped children. I don't have to tell you that this wasn't a few isolated incidents: it was a widespread, institutional practice, authorized by high-level Church officials. Including Cardinal Ratzinger -- now Pope Benedict XVI -- who, among other actions taken to protect child raping priests, delayed the dismissal of a child rapist in the priesthood... for the "good of the universal Church."

And presumably, I don't have to tell you about the Church's response as this scandal has been exposed. I don't have to tell you that, overwhelmingly, they have stonewalled, rationalized, deflected blame. I don't have to tell you about the Church's "Come on, the kids weren't that young, most of them were over 11" defense, or their "Hey, everyone else is doing it" defense. I don't have to tell you how they've equated the accusations against the Church with anti-Semitism. I don't have to tell you how they've blamed the child-rape scandal on gays, the media, the Devil , even the rape survivors themselves. (No, really. From the Bishop of Tenerife: "There are 13 year old adolescents who are under age and who are perfectly in agreement with, and what's more wanting it, and if you are careless they will even provoke you.") I don't have to tell you that the Church is opposing a measure extending the statute of limitations on child rape. I don't have to tell you about the Pope's dismissal of the child-rapist-protection accusations as, quote, "petty gossip."

And I'm just focusing on the child rape scandal. I'm not even talking today about the other recent scandals in the Church: the gay prostitution ring, the Church banning the use of condoms in Africa to prevent the spread of AIDS, the rape of nuns by priests and the ignoring/ concealment thereof.

You know about all of it.

So here's what I want to ask you:

Why are you still Catholic?

If these scandals had taken place in any organization other than a religious one -- would you still be part of it?

*

Thus begins my latest piece on AlterNet, Why Is Anyone Still Catholic? To find out why I'm exhorting Catholics who are horrified over the child rape scandal to leave the Catholic Church -- and why I'm so baffled that more of them aren't doing that -- read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

He's A Super Freak: Tiger Woods and Sexual Compassion

Okay. Maybe I'm a freak of nature. But does anybody else like Tiger Woods better after reading the freaky text messages?

Or, maybe more accurately: Does anyone else have more sympathy and compassion for Tiger Woods after reading the freaky text messages?

Until recently, I had almost zero interest in the Tiger Woods sex scandal. Rich, famous, powerful man; maintained a squeaky-clean public image for years; turned out to be sneaking around on his wife with multiple mistresses and sex workers. Ho freaking hum. Wake me when something remotely unusual happens.

But then -- pretty much by accident, since I'd been ignoring this story to an almost aggressive degree -- I read about the text messages he sent to one of his sex partners, Joslyn James, which she saved and released to the media.

Including:

I want to treat you rough. Throw you around, spank and slap you

Slap your face. Treat you like a dirty little whore. Put my cock in your ass and then shove it down your throat

Hold you down while i choke you and Fuck that ass that i own

Then im going to tell you to shut the Fuck up while i slap your face and pull your hair for making noise

Where do you want to be bitten

I really do want to be rough with you. Slap you around

For years. And punish you for not seeing me more

I want you to beg for my cock. Kiss you all over to convince me to let you have it in your mouth

Next time i see you, you better beg and if you don't do it right i will slap, spank, bite and fuck you till mercy

I read these texts. And my whole perspective changed.

All of a sudden, my perspective on Tiger Woods was no longer, "Powerful man with a sense of sexual entitlement, who cheats on his wife with impunity and doesn't think sexual ethics apply to him."

All of a sudden, my perspective was, "Oh. He's kinky."

And that's a radically different perspective.

*

Thus begins my new piece on the Blowfish Blog, He's A Super Freak: Tiger Woods and Sexual Compassion. To find out more about how the kinkiness of these text messages are giving me a new, more compassionate perspective on the Tiger Woods sex scandal -- and about where that compassion ends -- read the rest of the piece. (And if you feel inspired to comment here, please consider cross-posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog -- they like comments there, too.) Enjoy!

"But Everyone Else Does It!" Andrew Brown and the Defense of the Catholic Church Child Rape Scandal

If everyone else jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you do it too?

And if everyone else raped children, would you defend it?

The child rape scandal in the Catholic Church (like Stephen Fry, I am no longer willing to call it pedophilia or molestation or child abuse) has been heating up lately, with new stories about the widespread rape of children by priests in Germany, an admission from the senior cleric in Ireland that he was present at meetings where two abused teenagers were made to sign vows of silence, questions about Pope Benedict's handling of an abuse case when he was an archbishop, and more.

So via Pharyngula, we have the story of one Andrew Brown of the Guardian, who has written a defense of the Catholic Church child rape scandal and an excoriation of those who are condemning it... on the grounds that everyone else does it, too.

No, really.

From this it emerges that the frequency of child abuse among Catholic priests is not remarkable...

and:

This is vile, but whether it is more vile than the record of any other profession is not obvious.

and:

There are, however, some fragments of figures from the outside world suggesting that not many professions do better.

Etc.

Shudder.

Where to begin?

First of all, as many commenters in the Pharyngula thread have pointed out: Brown's analysis of the child rape statistics are appallingly ignorant, both of statistics in general and of these statistics in particular. There is every reason to think that child rape among Catholic priests occurred -- and for all we know, is still occurring -- at a much higher rate than in any other field where adults have access to children and authority over them.

But as far as I'm concerned, that question is only tangentially relevant. And for Brown to focus on it so fixatedly shows that he is completely missing the point.

What makes the Catholic Church child rape scandal so morally repugnant, and what is making it have the effect of turning people away from the Catholic Church, is not the rapes themselves. Of course the rapes themselves are morally repugnant. And of course we need to be looking at whether there is some institutional force that makes Catholic priests more likely to rape children than other people in positions of trust and authority: such as the celibacy requirement for the priesthood, or the Church's fear and loathing of sexuality as a central part of their theology, or the special power that priests have because they purport to have a special line to God, or religion's veneration and armor against criticism which makes people less comfortable making accusations against it. (Indeed, it's fair to look at whether it's even true that Catholic priests rape children at a higher rate than other trusted authority figures.) But it is certainly the case that child rape does occur in other fields where adults are in positions of trust and authority with children: teachers, coaches, etc. Brown's not wrong about that.

That is not where the depth of the scandal lies. What makes the Catholic child rape scandal so morally repugnant, and what is giving it the effect of turning people away from the Catholic Church in horror, is the way the Church handled it.

The Church knew about widespread reports of priests repeatedly molesting children... and instead of acting to protect the children, they acted to protect the priests, and themselves. Thus deliberately and knowingly putting more children in the way of known child rapists, solely for their pure self-interest.

Repeatedly. Time and time again. In every part of the world. As a cold-blooded matter of Church policy.

That is the scandal.

The fact that some adults in positions of trust and authority over children violated that trust by raping them? That is a tragedy. The fact that the Catholic Church knew about it -- and instead of reporting the child rapists to the police, they deliberately shielded them from detection and criminal investigation? The fact that the Church moved child rapists from parish to parish, thus exposing even more children to them? The fact that they lied to law enforcement, concealed evidence, even paid off witnesses... purely to protect their organization from looking bad?

That, Mr. Brown, is the scandal.

You fucking moral imbecile.

We don't know what makes people into child rapists. It is a serious mental illness as well as a profound moral failing. But the Church hierarchy who shuffled around known child rapists from diocese to diocese -- not out of uncontrollable impulse, but consciously, thoughtfully, with a cool evaluation of the pros and cons, in a calculated attempt to prevent a PR disaster and protect their own self-interest? We know what makes people do that. What makes people do that is utterly craven moral bankruptcy. They don't even have the excuse of mental illness.

And for Andrew Brown to defend this moral bankruptcy? For him to use the "Everyone else does it, too" defense -- a defense that doesn't even stand up at third grade recess, and that absolutely has no validity in a serious adult discussion of morality? For him to insist that the Church is being picked on, unfairly singled out among all the teachers and coaches and babysitters and so on who have raped children?

That suggests a moral tone-deafness that makes me physically ill. Brown is essentially doing exactly what the Church has consistently done in the face of this scandal. He is placing a higher value on the well-being of the Catholic Church than he is on the people, the children, who trust in it.

Shame on him.

Sexual Harassment or Religious Freedom?

Does the First Amendment right to religious freedom include the right of religious organizations to fire people for refusing the sexual advances of their employers, and for reporting those advances to the authorities?

You would think that the obvious answer to this would be No. You would think this would be the textbook definition of a no-brainer. You would think that nobody on this earth would even have to think about the answer to this question.

But apparently, the answer to this question is less obvious than you'd think.

Friendly Atheist has the story of Mary Linklater, former choir director at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, who was sexually harassed by her pastor and another prominent church member; complained; was cruelly retaliated against and eventually fired; sued; and won. The church is now appealing the judgment...

...on the basis of the "Ministerial Exception" -- the legal principle that, because of the First Amendment right to freedom of religion, religious employers have more leeway in hiring and firing than secular employers do, and can hire and fire based on religious criteria.

I'll say that again.

The Prince of Peace Lutheran Church is claiming, in court, that resisting the unwanted sexual overtures of your pastor and boss is a "religious criteria." They are arguing that screwing the pastor when he asks you to is part of the religious doctrine they adhere to, and that they have the right to fire someone who doesn't adhere to it.

That's sure what it looks like to me, anyway.

What gets to me isn't just the grotesque immorality of this position. I mean, of course, yes, that does get to me. But by now the idea that some religious leaders are repulsively unethical hypocrites, claiming a superior morality from their supposed special relationship with God while behaving in ways that a psychopathic chimp would find ethically revolting... this is so common that it barely registers on my radar anymore.

What gets to me is that this is their public, legal defense. This isn't just how they rationalize their behavior to themselves, in the privacy of their brains, in the dark night of their purported souls. This is what they're saying in public, the position they're officially and openly painting themselves with. They apparently have no idea what a massive P.R. disaster this defense could be. Their rationalization is so deeply rooted, they seem to have no idea what it might look like to other people -- parishioners, other church employees, the public at large -- to insist that the right to sexually harass their staff and retaliate when they complain is a religious freedom, a doctrine of their faith that they have the right to expect their employees to comply with, guaranteed them by the First Amendment.

It reminds me all too well of the Catholic Church, arguing in court that they have a First Amendment/ freedom of religion right to discipline their priests as they see fit, and to assign and re-assign priests as they see fit... including shuffling child-molesting priests around the country to shield them from arrest and prosecution.

I mean, think about it. Is that really the position you want to be arguing? That shielding religious leaders who commit crimes -- especially sexual abuse crimes -- is part of your religious expression, a tenet of your faith that you have every right to practice? Even if by some freakish twist you win the court case... is that really what you want to be telling the world about your faith?

Or perhaps, would you rather tell the world, "We are so sorry this happened, this is not who we are or what we stand for, we ask your forgiveness and will do whatever we can to make up for it?"

I'm just sayin, is all.

Haiti and the Secular Humanist Aid and Relief Effort

I'm finding it hard to say anything about Haiti that hasn't already been said. I'm even finding it hard to say anything about Pat Robertson's comments about Haiti that hasn't already been said. I may have something to say about it all in a few days. But for now, I just want to say this:

Atheists/ humanists/ other godless people who want to donate to Haiti earthquake relief through a secular humanist organization: SHARE, the Secular Humanist Aid and Relief Effort, is now accepting donations directed to the Haiti relief effort. The money gets sent to Doctors Without Borders, who you can also donate to directly if you prefer. And Partners In Health is an amazing organization that already has a good, up-and-running infrastructure in place in Haiti to help people who need help.

I don't need to tell you what the people in Haiti are going through. Please do whatever you can to help.

Spiritual Piracy and Lousy Jewish Christmas Songs: Garrison Keillor and Christmas Bigotry

This is either really ineptly done satire... or some of the ugliest bigotry I've seen from a beloved icon of liberal culture.

Or else it's the latter, thinly disgused as the former.

I'm talking about Garrison Keillor's recent screed in the Chicago Tribune against atheists, Jews, pagans, and others who would dare to besmirch the right and true practice of the Christmas holiday. In which he says, among other things:

Unitarians listen to the Inner Voice and so they have no creed that they all stand up and recite in unison, and that's their perfect right, but it is wrong, wrong, wrong to rewrite "Silent Night." If you don't believe Jesus was God, OK, go write your own damn "Silent Night" and leave ours alone. This is spiritual piracy and cultural elitism and we Christians have stood for it long enough. And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck. Did one of our guys write "Grab your loafers, come along if you wanna, and we'll blow that shofar for Rosh Hashanah"? No, we didn't.

Christmas is a Christian holiday -- if you're not in the club, then buzz off.

As Donnie B. pointed out in the Pharyngula comments (of course I got this from Pharyngula): "I think I can detect Keeler's mascara running: "Leave Christmas alone!!'"

I usually like to cut people slack and think the best of them until proven otherwise, and I'd love to think that this was just horribly misfired satire on the very attitudes he's apparently expressing. But this isn't the first time Keillor's expressed religious and other bigotry, and unless he comes out with a sincere, grovelling apology, I'm afraid no slack is forthcoming.

So here's what I posted in the comments at the Tribune:

*

This is truly ugly.

Mr. Keillor, on what authority are you deciding for other people how they should celebrate Christmas? Who died and made you the Christmas police? And what has made you so ugly and hateful about it?

As others here [in the Tribune comments] have pointed out: traditions change, and many supposed Christmas traditions have actually been adopted from other sources. Which is as it should be: traditions should change to meet the needs of the people practicing it. And you don't get to decide who those people are. The reality is that Christmas is a cultural holiday as well as a religious one. It's a U.S. Federal holiday, for goodness' sake. And as a non-believer, if I have to get Christmas shoved down my throat every year, I see no reason why I and my friends and family shouldn't adopt its traditions to make them work for us. (If "Greensleeves" can be rewritten as the Christmas song "What Child Is This," why can't Silent Night be rewritten to make it more Unitarian?)

As for "spiritual piracy": Christianity is overwhelmingly the dominant religion in Western culture. I am heartily sick of Christians acting like they're being thrown to the lions every time they don't get their way in everything.

And the crack about "lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year" is deeply ugly. Did you stop and think about what that would sound like before you wrote it?

*

I would have gone on for longer. Especially about cultural hegemony and Christianity being the dominant religious culture, and how being the dominant culture means you have to suck it up when other cultures adapt your traditions and put their own spin on it. And double especially about Christmas being a Federal holiday, and if he doesn't want it secularized he shouldn't expect it to get government recognition. And triple especially about the entitled ignorance of decrying other people "pirating" Christmas traditions when most Christmas traditions have been pirated from other cultures.

And a hundred times especially about the grotesquely ugly "lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys" crack. Which, frankly, I didn't even know how to reply to, as it just left my mouth gaping in "Did he really say that?" aghastness.

But the Tribune comments limit people to 1400 characters. So I had to keep it concise. Merry Christmas, spiritual pirates!

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
[email protected]

"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 [email protected], 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!