This past Wednesday was National Ask An Atheist Day, a campaign by the Secular Student Alliance to encourage young nonbelievers to help their peers dispel mysteries about atheists.

Though I am no longer at an educational institution, I welcomed questions and answered them on Twitter. Most of the questions I got were from friends, some of whom were complaining I wasn’t answering the questions on Facebook where they were asking them. Here are all the answers I offered. Remember, anyone’s free to ask me an atheist-related question anytime! Enjoy!

Q: What’s your back up, man, in case of the Rapture?
A: I’ll finally be able to get some reading done.

Q: Do you believe in the possibility of intelligent energy forces that cannot be seen or detected?
A: No. If they’re so intelligent, they should learn how to communicate.

Q: Why ask #askanatheist questions when the bible has all the answers? I’m just sayin’
A: Someone who thinks the bible has all the answers would have capitalized the b.

Q: WHY DO YOU HAVE NO MORALS?!?!!?
A: Because I’m motivated by Satan, who I definitely believe in, and worship.

Q: If God doesn’t exist, in fact if a loving God doesn’t exist, then why did she invent beer?
A: I believe your pronouns are wrong, John. The Flying Spaghetti Monster’s heave has active beer volcanoes all over.

Q: Were you stung by the scorpion of atheism before or after you were bitten by the serpent of homosexuality?
A: I was the frog who carried the scorpion across the river, the serpent ate my remains, and I was reincarnated as Zack.

Q: When choosing a virgin for your ritual human sacrifices to Satan, does having had oral sex rule that person out?
A: Satan uses the strictest definition of virginity to encourage people to sin more. Oral is totally fair game.

Q: Do you think we’ll ever get to a place where superstition and big brother in the sky don’t rule the populace?
A: Sure, just go to Europe. Their governments even have institutionalized religion and they don’t care. #Paradise

Q: Why do you want to force working class people to labor on Xmas, probably making those little Darwinfish bumperstickers too?
A: All our bumperstickers are homemade, and unless Christmas is on the Sabbath, there’s no excuse not to be working.

Q: Do atheists celebrate Easter?
A: Yes! On Easter Sunday, we sing prettier songs in the shower than we normally sing.

Q: Do you hate Peeps and chocolate bunnies?
A: I’m not particularly fond of peeps, but I like my bunnies dark and hollow, just like most religious dogma.

Q: So are you telling me (the Christian) to stop asking questions?
A: Umm… nope!

Q: Why do atheists always want to shut down debate?!
A: I’ll confess, our use of critical thinking, reasoning, logic, and facts does seem to inhibit further debate.

Q: If I follow you around the internet like this, do I get a coupon for a $500 Walmart gift certificate?
A: I don’t believe in Walmart.

Imposing an every-22-episodes tradition, Zack and Peterson are back this week to continue the open conversation about religion that began in Ep. 22, Reeking of Faith. This week, the conversation revolves around the idea of truth and knowledge and the motivations for good deeds. The goal of these episodes is to generate discussion, so please leave your thoughts and ideas in the comments or on our Facebook page. We were able to play nice this week, so you all should too. Enjoy!

Here’s some more information about what we talked about this week:

» Go back and listen to Episode 22 – Reeking of Faith

» This week’s possibly-erotic poem: “I Am and I Am Not” by Rumi.

» Sign the petition against the ex-gay therapy iPhone app.

» Read Peterson’s post on “Straight Supremacy.”

» Huffington Post: Congress Considers “In God We Trust”… But Who Is This God?

Okay, I confess.

I’m the one who caused the earthquake in Japan. All the radiation from the nuclear power plant explosions and possible meltdowns? That’ll be my fault too.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP-sSeqPywI

I’m very, very evil. All we atheists are. I’m going to go be evil right now… by taking a shower. That’s right: an atheist cleansing in water. And that water is going to go back out into the world, and anyone who comes in contact with it is going to absorb my atheism and be tainted by my evil. (And thanks to homeopathy, the more my atheist cooties get diluted, the more potent they’ll become.)

You know what, tamtampamela? Keep on praying. In fact, spend every waking hour just cloistered away in prayer. I think the more time you spend praying and not communicating with any real people or having any real interaction the world, the better off we’ll all be. And you just keep on being joyful about people dying by God’s wrath like a good Christian should be.

I still feel that my post, “I Don’t Want You To Pray For Me,” is one of the most important posts I’ve written. I refer people back to it often and often reread it myself. Folks regularly criticize prayer’s ineffectiveness, but I take the argument a step further and call it selfish (i.e. its first priority is self-reinforcement of beliefs). This argument is compelling because it’s much harder to debate and is actually proven further true by any attempt to argue the effectiveness of prayer. In a comment left today, “Sister Denise” demonstrates this perfectly.

By the way, why don’t these evangelical commenters ever know how to use multiple paragraphs?

Wow…this is an OLD interesting talk, but I just wanted to say…PRAYER does work, but for only those that TRULY walk righteously. It is VERY FEW, but it is done. When you are in RIGHT standing, meaning, a sin free (unwicked) life you will have POWER to pray and see someone healed, lame walk and blind see. But the weakness and wickedness of human beings destroys their own ability to live as God intended. God the creater and Jesus is ONE, and Jesus say if you except Him and keep HIS doing/saying/commandment like He did God the Father/Creator…the SAME power and MORE you could have. Humans and their doubts and DISOBEDIENCE keep that POWER from working in them so the world don’t see nor comprehend the TRUE POWER OF GOD. My brother, whether you want me to or not….God COMMANDED me to pray for you as I pray for myself….I WILL OBEY, because I know the POWER.

In Love, Sister Denise

That’s a whole lot of caps lock. I wondered at first if it was a secret code.

What’s obviously most annoying about comments like these is that the comment does not actually address any of the arguments I make in my post. Denise’s goal was not a dialogue, but a soliloquy. This, alone, confirms my argument about selfishness, in that she is writing only to reinforce her own beliefs (and, I’m assuming, to perpetuate them).

Let’s see how it plays out.

PRAYER does work, but for only those that TRULY walk righteously. It is VERY FEW, but it is done. When you are in RIGHT standing, meaning, a sin free (unwicked) life you will have POWER to pray and see someone healed, lame walk and blind see. But the weakness and wickedness of human beings destroys their own ability to live as God intended.

This first chunk is committed to disparaging. She’s calling prayer-deniers naive. She’s calling the life I live wicked. And, like most evangelism, there’s some fear-mongering too.

Frankly, if God’s omnipotent, he should be able to make me live however he intends. And if I’m to be punished for exercising the free choice he gave me, then he’s selfish and cruel. Why would I want to ask him for anything? If what Sister Denise says here (“in love”) is true, then God’s an asshole.

God the creater and Jesus is ONE, and Jesus say if you except Him and keep HIS doing/saying/commandment like He did God the Father/Creator…the SAME power and MORE you could have. Humans and their doubts and DISOBEDIENCE keep that POWER from working in them so the world don’t see nor comprehend the TRUE POWER OF GOD.

Except him? No. I make no exceptions in my nonbelief.

Grammar and spelling errors aside, this still makes no sense. It sounds like she’s tempting me with power. That doesn’t sound very virtuous. It sounds like she wants the power too. Maybe she thinks she already has it? I would not sacrifice my basic language skills for this supposed power—I wonder if that’s the deal she made.

My brother, whether you want me to or not….God COMMANDED me to pray for you as I pray for myself….I WILL OBEY, because I know the POWER.

In Love, Sister Denise

So yeah, she cares more about her own belief in God than my personal wishes. She knows the POWER.

Great.

Now, there’s some woman out there who’s going to waste a couple minutes a day to use me as the target for reinforcing her own belief in the power of prayer.

I feel so affirmed.

Thanks for actually reading my post and thinking about what I had to say, Denise. I hope you’re pleased I returned the favor.

athiest can go to hell

Matthew Laws, whose email address includes the word “skinhead,” offered these five words of brilliance, and I’m going to leave the comment up, but offer this reply.

I am amazed that in just five words, Matthew Laws was able to communicate a spelling error, a grammatical error, and a message that is factually inaccurate.

First of all, it’s atheist, not athiest. The “EE” comes before the “ist.”

Second of all, it ought to be plural; otherwise, specify which one atheist you think can go to hell.

Lastly, it wouldn’t matter which atheist, because atheists can’t go to hell. We just can’t. You have to believe in hell to get there.

I will not go to hell. You can’t make me go to hell. You can’t convince me I’ll go to hell. You can never prove to others that I went to hell.

There is no hell. (And boy is my life a whole lot more pleasant with that knowledge.)

So, this comment seems a grand way to demonstrate how little people know about atheists. Thanks, Matthew Laws. You’re a testament to skinheads everywhere.

The opening plenary of Creating Change 2011 bridged the main conference with its subconference, Practice Spirit, Do Justice. Entitled “Hard work for our common good,” the panel featured four religious leaders with prepared statements: Bishop Yvette Flunder (City of Refuge/UCC), Rev. Elder Nancy Wilson (MCC), Rabbi Joshua Lesser, and Faisal Alam, a Muslim leader.

And while I was prepared for many faith-centric messages, I was not prepared for how erased and marginalized I would feel on the very first day of the conference. Most of the 25 who joined the atheist caucus the following evening expressed similar concerns, as did many CC veterans who could not attend but followed along on Twitter.

As an obvious start, the opening panel did not feature a Humanist, Unitarian, or nonbeliever who could speak for the experiences of those who do not identify with faith. Arguably, plenty of other worldviews also went unrepresented as well. But the language that was used, particularly by Rev. Wilson and Bishop Flunder, not so subtly erased nonbelievers from the LGBT community and movement. And while atheists and agnostics were acknowledged a time or two, we were not represented nor affirmed by the supposedly interfaith panel.

Rev. Rebecca Voelkel opened the session by declaring, “This is where we are as a movement,” celebrating that a panel of faith leaders were opening the conference. Both Rev. Wilson and Rabbi Lesser spoke to the way the LGBT movement has excluded or dismissed faith communities in the past. And then Bishop Flunder pronounced the following:

I’d like to lift up tonight the presence of faith and deep spirituality as the underpinning if most, if not all real, authentic civil rights movements. I believe that the power to endure and be courageous amid continual physical, emotional, and spiritual attack must come from a deep well that is continually filled by the divine of our understanding.

She later invoked the prophet Paul, reminding us, “If God be for us, who would dare be against us,” and then declared “We will get our God back!”

Rev. Wilson added in her follow-up remarks that “Activism, to be sustained, requires faith of some kind, maybe not religious or spiritual, but some kind of sustaining faith.” This was her introduction to her hopes for the nonreligious and religious to work together.

These are just a few of the examples of language that left me incredibly triggered, excluded from the movement and the community. I left the session taking not much else with me. I’m glad the entire video is online, because upon relistening, I found a lot of important and powerful ideas that I could respect and appreciate. I implore you: take 45 minutes and listen for yourself. And yet, the panel still makes me feel incredibly invisible, like I am not welcome to be a part of this movement—that because I do not identify with faith of any kind, I have nothing to contribute towards our queer liberation.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXXfcwJm2zo

The atheist/nonbeliever caucus was a remarkable experience. Not everyone there identified with the a-word. There were Humanists, agnostics, and even some folks of varying degrees of spirituality. But we weren’t there to argue over vocabulary semantics; we were there to affirm each other. And one of the qualities that united most of the 25 individuals in the room was that it was the first time in their lives that they were in a room with that many other nonbelievers and the first time in their lives that they felt affirmed to come out and commune with their fellow nonbelievers.

I had proposed the caucus because I knew there was a need. I had no idea the need was so great.

Historically, there had been visibility for atheists in conferences past, but it has been many years since that was the case. If this year’s atheist caucus was any indication, we are overdue to reverse the trend of that invisibility.

The room was alive and abuzz! We committed most of the hour to creating space for each individual to speak and be affirmed. We could have easily communed and discussed issues for four or more.

In the course of the discussion, we agreed that Practice Spirit, Do Justice was not particularly welcoming or affirming for us. We also acknowledged that the intensity of faith at this year’s conference was likely unique, as Minneapolis is where The Task Force’s faith arm, The Institute for Welcome Resources, operates. Most importantly, everyone was energized to create additional inclusive spaces for atheists in future conferences.

And while I’m committed to that, I also put forth a challenge here and now to the organizers of the conference at large to create a more inclusive space for nonbelievers. Creating Change has been very proactive about offering suggestions for language use regarding other dimensions of identity, including race, gender identity, and ability. It’s time that these efforts be updated to create a truly interfaith space that does not exclude and erase nonbelievers.

In his book, Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe, Greg Epstein offers the following suggestions for fully including Humanists and Atheists in interfaith spaces:

Don’t ask, “Can you be good without God?”

Do ask why we are motivated to be good, or to work with you.

Don’t proselytize to atheists in an interfaith context.

I hope readers can see how some of the assertions made during the plenary about the role of faith in the movement left out the motivations and experiences of those who do not identify with faith.

Do reach out specifically to atheist, secular, and Humanist groups and solicit their participation.

This has not been standard practice for Creating Change. Had I not proactively proposed the atheist caucus, there would have been no actual affirmation of nonbelievers’ contributions to the conference aside from lip service.

Don’t advertise interfaith events as for the religious only or as a way for everyone to unite, despite theological differences, around belief in God.

Practice Spirit, Do Justice and its overwhelming intersections with the conference at large clearly ran into this problem.

Do advertise as religiously pluralistic, including all religions as well as atheists, agnostics, Humanists, and the nonreligious.

To its credit, Creating Change does acknowledge nonbelievers as part of its community.

Use inclusive language: In addition to including us on your usual flyers, posters, or recruiting emails as above, try a special poster or e-mail emphasizing that interfaith includes the nonreligious too.

Include us in programs.

Learn and teach about us.

I was encouraged privately to propose atheist-centered workshops (such as an “Atheist 101″ workshop) as part of the Practice Spirit, Do Justice track, but I will confess that I did not truly feel welcome to do so. This may very well have been a failing on my part, and an opportunity I regret not seizing.

It is an interesting sort of personal irony I recognize.  I wish to counteract the lack of affirmation for nonbelievers, but it’s the very lack of affirmation that inhibits me from taking too bold a step.

Still, there were individuals at our caucus who told me that I was a trailblazer, a compliment I don’t think I earned by simply creating one space. Clearly the work needs to be done, and I do feel affirmed to step up and be a leader for this community of overlapping identities.

Rev. Wilson said, “You need us to beat their agenda.” Bishop Flunder repeated several times that negative religious messages need to be met with positive religious messages. I don’t disagree with either sentiment. Still, our commitment to reclaiming faith for LGBT people should not abandon those who seek not to reclaim faith and who are perhaps quite eager to challenge it. There is a boisterous atheist community chock full of LGBT allies who are just waiting to be invited to the table.

I hope Creating Change 2012 is where we can finally make that invitation and create a balanced space that celebrates all worldviews and lifestances, from the most spiritual to the least. It is certainly my commitment to step up and make it so.

[The Friday Fundamentalist Farce File is a week's worth of "news" clippings from conservative hubs like WorldNetDaily and the American Family Association's OneNewsNow. Millions of Americans absorb these messages as gospel truth—literally—on a daily basis.]

In case the comments of Indiana’s Ryan McCann were not grating enough, here is a week’s worth of birthers, CPAC, racism, anti-atheism, and complaints about the gays destroying society. Enjoy!

2/12/11 -- California wants lesbians as mandatory ‘role’ models

Don’t worry, those dirty homosexuals are still the scariest thing around. As fun as it is to have that kind of intimidating power, I’d trade it in an instant to be treated as a respectable human being.

California Sen. Mark Leno wants LGBT history included “accurately and fairly” in California’s text books. Here’s how he sees it:

Our collective silence on this issue perpetuates negative stereotypes of LGBT people and leads to increased bullying of young people. We can’t simultaneously tell youth that it’s OK to be yourself and live an honest, open life when we aren’t even teaching students about historical LGBT figures or the LGBT equal rights movement.

WorldNetDaily, on the other hand, thinks this is about role models, words they introduced to the discussion themselves. Amazingly, you can barely distinguish their response to this from the Briggs Initiative 30 years ago.

The Democrat state legislators pushing this radical bill want to recruit boys and girls to support the homosexual-bisexual-transsexual agenda, personally and publicly. They want them to become ‘LGBTIQ’ activists [and] help trample religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, business-owner rights, private property rights, the Boy Scouts, and everything else you hold dear.

Yep, recruit.

Children will be enticed into political activism in support of everything pushed by ‘lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and questioning’ political groups, as the bill requires ‘particular emphasis on portraying the role of these groups in contemporary society.

See what they did there? They took “role in society” and made it “role models.” Those sneaky little devils.

By the way… are there questioning political groups? As soon as they figured anything out they’d have to disband.

2/13/11 -- Despite egging on by NBC, Boehner won’t slam birthers

These birthers are pretty insecure. Even though House Speaker Boehner is not a birther, WorldNetDaily is still proud of the fact he didn’t condemn them. He’s so sweet. Said Boehner:

It’s not my job to tell the American people what to think. Our job in Washington is to listen to the American people. Having said that, the state of Hawaii has said that he was born there. That’s good enough for me. The president says he’s a Christian. I accept him at his word.

Also, Majority Leader Eric Cantor said last month that it’s not nice to call birthers “crazy.” Isn’t he a peach?

Honestly, I don’t know if I have a long-form birth certificate, either. I’ll worry about that ten years from now when I’m eligible to run for President.

2/14/11 -- ‘Gay conservative’ is oxymoron

You might think, at first glance, I’m going to agree with Star Parker. But actually, when I wrote about GOProud last September, I said it’s not hypocritical.

Star normally goes to CPAC, but this year she joined the boycott because GOProud was there. After spouting a predictable narrative about her conversion to the Right, she decides that “‘Gay’ is everything that ‘conservative’ is not.”

Basically, she wastes 637 words to say that being gay is a sin, without actually using the words, “Christian,” “sin,” or “abomination.”

I included it just in case you wanted to follow the whole CPAC/GOProud nonsense. I have nothing else to say about it.

2/15/11 -- Bryan Fischer: Pocahontas shows what could have been

Good old Bryan Fischer. Just in case you think he says all the vile nonsense he says just for media attention, he made it quite clear this week that he means every word he says. That’s what makes this Pocahontas blog post of his even more hilarious.

In this post (which is a hilarious read if you forget for a minute that he’s serious), Fischer tells his own account of the Pocahontas story, celebrating her support of the colonists and baptism to Christianity.

Basically, he thinks things would have gone a whole lot better if more Native Americans had just followed in her example! You just have to read this.

It’s arresting to think of how different the history of the American settlement and expansion could have been if the other indigenous peoples had followed Pocahontas’s example. She not only recognized the superiority of the God whom the colonists worshipped over the gods of her native people, she recognized the superiority (not the perfection) of their culture and adopted its patterns and language as her own.

In other words, she both converted and assimilated. She became both a Christian and an American (technically, of course, an Englishman). She melded into European and Christian civilization and made her identity as a Christian and an Englishman her primary identity. She was the first manifestation of what became our national slogan, “E Pluribus Unum,” “Out of many, one.”

Had the other indigenous people followed her example, their assimilation into what became America could have been seamless and bloodless. Sadly, it was not to be.

You know, if they just hadn’t tried to hold on to their own culture, we wouldn’t have had to slaughter them all!

I also love the part how she wasn’t an American until she became an Englishman.

Just a reminder: Bryan Fischer is the Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association. I know nothing says family values to me like assimilation. Just ask the Borg!

2/16/11 -- Atheists blinded to ‘big picture’

Since OneNewsNow refused to link to the video the whole article is about, I will open with it:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM5n8jESUEk

There’s not much substance to this article, but it’s delightfully ironic.

First, Phil Burress doesn’t seem to understand why a group of people would try to convince others about what they believe.

But then, Burress admits to being Suzie!

Burress explains that suffering and God’s role in it are often misunderstood. God, he argues, cannot be held responsible for the choices and actions of humanity.

“[Those who don't believe in God] can see the harm and they can see the hurt, but they can’t see the big picture,” says Burress.

Pssst… I think you missed the point, Phil.

2/17/11 -- School yanks religious discrimination definition

This is a story about Christians not understanding Christian privilege. It seems that UC Davis has offered to revise its policy, but I’m kind of disappointed they caved.

Their language was about how “religious/spiritual discrimination” is “the loss of power and privilege to those who do not practice the dominant culture’s religion.” That’s actually true. But it would be true in any space, so it would seem to me it would protect everyone at all times.

But no, Christians are the victims, of course. And the hypothetical examples they use are bogus, of course. Being kicked out of class by an atheist professor who doesn’t like you? I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be relying on a community principle to fight that.

Given that, as far as I can tell, these principles of community had no enforcement on campus, I think it’s preposterous that the Alliance Defense Fund had to get involved. They will pick any fight. Here’s a laugh line, though:

French goes on to note that evangelical Christians are usually the ones who face discrimination, as his group deals with a number of those cases on a regular basis.

Umm.. the ADF is an evangelical Christian legal fund; I’m pretty sure all of their cases are evangelical Christians. I think David French’s perspective is just a bit skewed.

Oh! And we could not leave out this insightful survey:

2/18/11 -- Stunner! Supremes to give eligibility case another look / Americans’ questions about Obama eligibility surge / Karl Rove: Birther rumors discredit GOP / Palin distances herself from ‘birthers’ / Rep. Jeff Flake: ‘Obama born in the U.S.’

Every single headline on WorldNetDaily is a story about whether our President is an American citizen. They even link to the stories of people who disagree, just because they’re glad it’s being talked about.

…just in case you weren’t sure conservatives are attention whores.

Like the whole GOProud at CPAC thing. The LGBT movement really isn’t too keen on GOProud, gay as they may be. (Here are my reasons.) And the arch-conservatives and tea partiers at CPAC don’t want ANYTHING remotely pro-LGBT at their event. And so, for me personally at least, even though I don’t have much respect for GOProud’s platform, I find myself cheering on the trouble they’re causing in conservative circles. I don’t have to respect GOProud to appreciate differences they might make by subverting the way conservatives dismiss all LGBT issues.

But over the past week, I’ve had my own topsy-turvy experience. I’ve been having a civil and even respectful dialogue (if you ignore the occasional mocking quotes) with Peter LaBarbera on Twitter.

Readers know I use this blog to challenge religious right rhetoric, and I won’t pretend that I didn’t start engaging with Peter LaBarbera with the same motive. But, I’m going to give him a little credit: it’s actually been a constructive and meaningful exchange, as much as one between the two of us possibly could be. I mean, it’s no secret to him that I’m an openly gay atheist, and it’s no secret to me that he orchestrates Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, which promotes a lot of dangerous untruths about LGBT identities.

In fact, Peter LaBarbera has pretty well earned himself the ire of the LGBT community. (I’m still working on a similar reputation among conservatives.) He says a lot of things that are incredibly offensive to us (he tweeted today using the hashtag #trannycare—oy). Over at Pam’s House Blend, he is regularly referred to as “Porno Pete” for the way he always looks for ways to use queer sexuality as a weapon against our community. But in the scheme of things, it works for him, regardless of how much we make fun of him for it. As I just wrote, sexual liberation really freaks out our opponents, and whether or not he has a different motive for pursuing queer sexuality is really just a cheap joke on our parts.

And yet, I’ve found that he can actually engage in civil discourse, a quality that doesn’t apply to many of his anti-LGBT peers. We’ve actually found things we can agree on and jokes we can both laugh at (including GOProud’s Chris Barron’s regular Twitter updates about his workout routines). Today, Peter actually did me a favor. He noticed that I was debating “NGblog” about the merits of Creating Change and pointed out that it’s Nelson Garcia, a fake gay activist with a history of boyloving and pedophilia charges. In fact, Peter went out of his way to call out Garcia’s past on the #cc11 hashtag for all to see. He didn’t have to do that.

None of this changes the fact that Peter LaBarbera and I fundamentally disagree on a lot. I’m eagerly waiting to see what his AFTAH undercover reporters “uncovered” at Creating Change. (Unlike AFTAH’s conference this summer, Creating Change doesn’t limit who can attend, so I don’t know why they had to go undercover to begin with.) [Upon reading this post, Peter informed me he has been escorted out before. I personally expect that protecting the experience of attendees who support LGBT equality is paramount, though I wonder if perhaps a silent observer might be tolerated. There is certainly nothing to hide at CC.] But despite the way that he can trigger me, I feel like there is something profoundly  meaningful about the kind of dialogue we’ve managed to have on Twitter.

I actually asked his permission to preserve our exchange here on the blog, and it seems we’re both interested in continuing the exchange. Below is most of it so far up until today, but it’s still very much underway. I want you all to take a deep breath as you read it because there are certainly a lot of reasons to be frustrated by it, but I am committed to continuing to keep it constructive. I ask that no one disrupt that by resorting to name-calling or mocking (here or on Twitter), as hurt as any of us might be by things he says. Just lift your fingers off the keyboard and let the dialogue continue.

Twitter exchanges are tough to follow, but here is how our conversation has panned out so far. There have been a couple of previous short exchanges between us that I’ve omitted, and there are some loose threads included below as well, but here’s how things have proceeded. (Note: I’ve combined consecutive tweets and sorted some out for ease of reading. Twitter actually does not make this very easy to do!)

February 1, 2011

ZF: If you say gay people should be executed and then gays are executed, how is that not a connection?

PL: sorry lying dude but youve confused Christians (+ me) w/ rad Muslims who say we should push homols off tall bldgs #lgbtliars #tcot

ZF: So it’s more compassionate to just put them in jail for life? You’re the good guys because at least you don’t want death?

…

PL: On radio Gary Glenn listed #christian victims of #lgbt laws: what kind of “civil rights” mvt TAKES AWAY others’ rel + 1st Am rights? #tcot

ZF: Help me understand, dude. What 1st amendment rights do #LGBT laws strip you of?

PL: #LGBT Freedom of association, for starters. Freedom to live out ur rel/moral creed – the Boy Scouts of America almost lost theirs

ZF: Help me understand. I don’t recall any clauses in the laws that prohibit free association. Is discriminating a freedom?

PL: One man’s “discrimination” is another man’s fidelity to his conscience + moral/rel. code. That’s the essence of this battle. #tcot

ZF: I recognize the right of your conscience, but how does that amount to a right to exclude others’ same freedom of conscience?

PL: + btw, Zack, until you apologize for lying that I called for the “execution of gays,” there will be no exchange b/t us. #tcot

ZF: So, @PeterLaBarbera answer me concisely “No” and I will apologize: Do you support the execution, incarceration, or persecution of LGBTs? Honestly, I would love to be able to apologize for that being a mistake. Would love to call you an ally for human rights!

February 2, 2011

ZF: Peter, I’m hoping you can still answer my question so I can offer you the apology you seek.

February 6, 2011

ZF: BTW, I’m still hoping to apologize. Just answer “No”: Do you support the execution, incarceration, or persecution of LGBTs?

PL: Love how u expanded ur ? after ur erroneous claim that I supp the “execution” of #lgbt ppl. We wuld differ on def of “persecution” … Eg, would u consider denial of SSM or laws ag homo’l adoption “persecution”?

ZF: Well, supporting persecution is an invitation for violence. I’d love to hear what kinds of persecution you don’t support. What is your rationale for denying marriage or adoption to same-sex couples?

PL: see what I mean. We cant agree on terms. I bet u also see laws restricting #abortion as “persecution” of women. Hope I’m wrong…

ZF: The only different term I used was “same-sex couple,” which is accurate: not all people in such couples are homosexuals. I would be happy to engage in a debate on abortion at a different time. May we stick to the topic at hand?

PL: don’t twist my words, Zack. I’m not one of ur students. LOL. Denial of SSM is not persec. We have no agreement on terms.

ZF: I didn’t say it was. I asked your rationale so I could offer my perspective in response. I’m trying for legit dialogue here.

February 7, 2011

ZF: If you say, for example, that SSC’s are less effective at raising a child, that’s not factually true, so I’d call that pers. Also, if you say that two people WANTING to commit to marriage somehow hurts marriage, that’s also a demonizing smear.

PL: Ex of “persecution”: govt forcing private bus. owners to subsidize employee “dom partnrships” desp their bel tht homo’y is sinful

ZF: So what I’m understanding is that a religious belief in sin takes precedent over a gov’t definition of discrimination? So, it’s persecution to force someone to be INCLUSIVE, but it’s not persecution to enable someone to be EXCLUSIVE.

PL: my pt is 1 mans “rights” is another man’s “persecution.” U obv’sly define “persecution” acc to ur ideology. Dont assume its true

ZF: Well, my concern is that the 1st Amd says NOT to use laws to protect religion, while the 14th says equal rights for all… But what I hear is that you feel that preserving the religious belief is more important than protecting all people… If you’re not allowed to discriminate based on belief, is that really an infringement of the right to that belief?

PL: First Freedom, Zack. Our nation was founded by ppl fleeing rel persecution. Thank God we have a 1st Amendment. #tcot #christian

ZF: a 1st amendment that ensures our lawmakers cater to all citizens, NOT specific religious beliefs. :-) #tcot #atheist

PL: Youre talking about Govt coming in and forcing citizens to comply w/ ideas that are alien to US’s Jud-Chn heritage, wch = tyranny

ZF: haha, Jud-Chn heritage isn’t part of our Constitution. Equality for all and freedom FROM religion is our heritage!

PL: ur distorting history thru ur atheist glasses. The irony is atheist or ANTI-Ch’n regimes are the most oppressive + murderous #tcot

ZF: No, now you’re just attacking me for being an atheist. Read the Treaty of Tripoli, my friend! Christian-free US govt!

PL: Freedom FROM religion? They sure did a bad job w/ all those g’t prayer proclamations, mentions of God, Moses on Sup Ct walls etc!

ZF: Haha, agreed! If only we just didn’t use fear of communists to enshrine religion in our culture like we did in the 50s!

PL: # 1: Communism should b feared + stalwartly fought b/c its a murderous, anti-liberty system (Stalin, Mao, etc) # 2 follows. #tcot

ZF: Given that atheism in 2011 has NOTHING to do with Communism, I agree entirely with point #1!

PL: # 2: our Christ’y-infused + -informed govt system is our roots + is not a result of 1950s “fear of Communism” #tcot #reagan #gop

ZF: That’s a fair point too. Though it was certainly cemented then. Christianity does not inform our gov’t structure though. Christian principles have often overlapped, but our founding document prohibits infusing them into gov’t. Do you agree?

PL: Founders were more concerned w/ pot. abuses of a State Church – which is in a way what libs like u could win w/ statist secularism

ZF: And you don’t think enshrining discrimination in law is abuse of government by a group of religious believers? (What is “statist” secularism? Did you mean stalinist? Surely you don’t think that’s what any secularist actually wants.)

PL: There’s far deeper + longer history beh Jud-Christ’n (biblical) understand’g of rights than newfangled homo’y-based “rights” #tcot

ZF: That’s true! But don’t we have the potential to learn and grow? Can’t we learn new things, incorporate new understandings? Honestly, Jesus brought many new ideas that were contrary to the Old Testament past. Was that a bad thing too?

PL: Whch is to say “gay rights” are not truly “Western” (civilized) but insted really a corruption of a hist’l understan’g of “rights”

ZF: But isn’t it in civilized countries where gay rights are thriving? What distinguishes your “corruption” from my “progress?”

PL: …This explains why today we see #lgbt “rights” advancing (or being imposed judicially) at the expense of rel liberty #tcot #ocra

ZF: How exactly do #lgbt rights impose on religious liberty? I haven’t seen laws that prevent holding specific beliefs.

PL: Banning the outworking of faith (eg New Mex Ch’n photog sued by lesbians 4 not taking photos at their “commitmnt cerem’ny”) (cont) …IS the imposition of “gay rights” against individ’s “rel liberty,” no? What would u call it? #lgbt #christian #tcot #hhrs #tlot

ZF: Well, it sounds like you see the “right to believe” and the “right to discriminate based on belief” as the same thing, yes?

PL: What if I told u that u could (foolkishly) BELIEVE there’s no Creator but cannot ACT on that belief? #tcot #christian

ZF: I guess I’d be bothered by being called “foolish,” but I guess I’m not sure what that would prevent me from doing? Go on. Btw, I really do find this to be a worthwhile and meaningful exchange and hope it continues. Mind if I blog our thread? Also, I’m looking forward to seeing how your AFTAH undercover reporters’ #cc11 experiences compare to my own! Anyways, tell me more about what it would be like if I could not act on my atheism. What would it prevent me from doing? [He gave his blogging okay via DM.]

PL: so lets say u as a very committed atheist artist r approachd by a Ch’n to paint a giant mural message, “Atheism is evil” (Cont) …Should u be compelled (by the gov’t) to work on that mural – even tho ur an atheist – under, say, a “Christian Rights” law?

ZF: Well, I see where you’re going, but is it the best example? Art is about expression, not belief; artists can’t be compelled. I don’t think an artist of any identity should be compelled to paint a certain view; otherwise it’s no longer art.

PL: Elaine H, #christian photog is an artist w/ a busin. Was it persecut’n 4 her to b forced by NM law to shoot a lesb ceremony? #tcot

ZF: She offered a public service, a business like you said. Her photos are skilled, but do not represent expression. It’s no different than a Christian landlord refusing to rent an apartment to someone openly gay. It’s just discrimination.

PL: Says who? Says Big Brother (or Big Gay Brother) gov’t? #tcot #ocra #christian

ZF: It’s blatantly refusing access because of identity. How is that not discrimination? (See “lunch counters circa 1960.”)

PL: Wait a min: Do I have a “right” 2 rent an apt fr a gay landlord? Or a “right” to b a membr or even a leader at an #lgbt org? #tcot

ZF: I have a right to rent an apartment. It doesn’t matter the landlord’s SO. Everyone is welcome as members of #lgbt orgs. You have a right, just as I do, to NOT be discriminated against for your sexual orientation. Unfortunately, I actually do NOT have that right in many states. I can be fired or refused housing just for being gay.

PL: + I can be hired or not hired for being (too) straight, right? (+ lets face it: there’s no rash of “gay” firings these these days! Sorry, typo: that was supp to be “Fired or not hired [by an #lgbt employer] for being (too) straight”…

ZF: I suppose you could be fired for being straight if the laws aren’t there. Does that mean you’d support SO protections? But gay firing still happen all the time, and are still legal in 34 states.

…

ZF: Let’s face it, discrimination based on race, gender, and religion, and we have protections for those (which I also support). For the record, I would not support an atheist or gay person discriminating against a Christian. The actual numbers: 37% of GL people reported workplace harassment, 12% losing job for SO (2008). http://bit.ly/h8TIAp Also, elderly lesbian couples are TWICE as likely to be living in poverty as elderly op-sex couples. http://bit.ly/ebKKGW

[msvavirgo: I was one of both the 37% and the 12% in case you need to put a face to the statistic]

PL: So wld u supp a Chn taking a lead’p role at your campus atheist club – like #lgbt cases try’g 2 sue way into #christian clubs? … Note: the #lgbt students are “suing” using campus “sexual orientation” nondisc codes… #lgbt #christian

ZF: There is no reported case of infiltration. I agree that all people should be eligible to be members and run for offices. If a group is foolish enough to vote someone into position who doesn’t support the group’s mission, it’s their prob. But a Christian who is committed to the work of an atheist group would be great, just like straight allies in an LGBT group!

PL: No I dont demnd right to b hired by @GOPROUD altho then I could get live daily workout updates fr narcissist @ChrisRBarron :) #gop

ZF: As for the workout updates, there’s another point upon which we very much agree. :-)

…

So that’s where things stand today. Peter informed me that he would be unavailable to tweet much today, but that he is interested in pursuing the conversation. He has also expressed interest in hearing about my coming out experiences (I shared my posts about arriving at “gay” and “atheist” with him and invited questions), as well as having a discussion about what we each consider to be “adult,” i.e. inappropriate for young people to discuss. Certainly, I will have some critical things to say as he starts reporting on Creating Change from the AFTAH perspective, but something about this exchange still seems somehow fruitful.

As the Zeitgeist dwells on the concept of “civility,” I’m kind of proud that Peter and I can demonstrate a civil exchange, despite how profoundly we disagree.

And I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes.

With the Creating Change conference as our case study, it seems that the pendulum has not reached its highest point; in fact, this year’s conference unabashedly embraces faith with a whole subconference called Practice Spirit, Do Justice.

The conference’s Spiritual Needs Subcommittee offers a Spiritual Diversity Ethics Statement (p. 20 of the Program Book), suggesting the following principles:

What we can affirm and agree on is:

» The inherent worth of every person; that every person is worthy of respect, support, caring, and invitation.

» The intention to work towards a culture free of discrimination and oppression based on any identity.

» The ethic that everyone is welcome to participate in this conference without the need to become like us in order to be acceptable.

» That the way we behave towards one another is the truest expression of [what] we believe.

I agree with all these principles. Still, the preponderance of religion-focused and faith-centric sessions seems to communicate an expectation that communing with faith is an essential part of LGBT work, which I inherently disagree with. I expect that there will be several occasions this year, as with last, when I will be in a situation when a religious practice is taking place around me.

And while I certainly understand that dealing with religion is an important part of LGBT work, this integration of being religious continues to trouble me. Here’s a look at all of the different sessions related to faith. (See the Program Book in my previous post to see full descriptions.)

First, there are a number of spiritual gatherings (p.25), which I actually appreciate as part of an inclusive conference, including Muslim Friday Prayer, Shabbat Celebration, and a Sunday morning interfaith gathering. The Calling of the Names continues to be part of a plenary session, but as long as it is not dominated by rhetoric like “lifting them up,” I think a group remembrance can be very meaningful for people of any worldview.

Faith in America is holding a reception Friday evening to discuss the way people justify stigma and hostility against the LGBT community (p. 37). I continue to be nonplussed by FIA, an organization that defends and challenges faith at the same time. Members of the Episcopalian, Unitarian, and Metropolitan Community Churches are having receptions as well (p. 38).

The Practice Spirit, Do Justice subconference has its own day-long institute on Thursday to address intersectional movement building for both veterans and newbies of faith organizing and movement building (p. 43). There also several PSDJ sessions as part of the Task Force Academy for Leadership and Action (p. 51).

Here are some of the other workshops that relate to faith or that are part of the Practice Spirit, Do Justice track:

Beyond Transgender Inclusion to Transformation (p. 71)

Faith Based Models that futher Self-determination, Sovereignty and the Preservation of Sacred Sites (p. 72)

Hidden Voices: The Lives of LGBT Muslims (p. 72)

Making the Christian Case for LGBT Equality: Message Training (p. 73)

Join the Movement, Keep the Faith (p. 76)

Messology of the Black Church (p. 77)

The Pulpit of the Press: Making the Religious Case for LGBT Equality (p. 77)

(LGBTQ) Justice, (LGBTQ) Justice Shall You Pursue (p. 78)

Changing Minds of Conservative/Evangelical Christians (p. 79)

Media Savvy for Media Strategies (p. 81)

“God Hates Fags” (p. 82)

Race and Power: An Examination of Intersectionality (p. 84)

Working with Asian & Pacific Islander (A&PI) Congregations to Become Welcoming (p. 85)

API Caucus @ Practice Spirit, Do Justice (p. 86)

Atheist, Free Thinker, Non-Believer Caucus (p. 86)

Homo-Interior: Religious Design for Your Queer Soul (p. 88)

Telling Our Stories (p. 89)

Transgender: A Question of Faith (p. 89)

Lifting As We Climb: An Exercise (therefore you might sweat) In Rethinking How We Do What We Do So We Can Do It Better (p. 89)

Case Studies For Denominational Engagement (p. 89)

Mobilizing Pro-Equality Catholics on LGBT Issues (p. 91)

Of Faith and On-Line: Tools to Get Going (p. 91)

It’s All About The Frame (p. 94)

LGBT Synagogues and Organizations: Surfacing Our Diversity and Fitting the Mosaic Together (p. 94)

Spirit and Desire: Framing a Discussion About Our Spiritual and Erotic Lives (p. 95)

Building the Response to HIV and AIDS Across Communities (p. 97)

Humor, Hospitality, and Heliotropes as Tools for Social Change (p. 97)

Majority Minority – Case Studies in Advancing Equality among People of Color and People of Faith (p. 98)

Strategic Storytelling (p. 99)

Uganda-the Armageddon of the Culture Wars (p. 99)

Building a Statewide Interfaith Network for Equality (p. 101)

Fighting Islamophobia and Homophobia: Building Solidarity in Oppressed Communities (p. 101)

The Possibilities of Faith Work In An Aging LGBTQ Community (p. 103)

Building Bridges to Wholeness – Next Strategies for LGBT Jewish Movement Building (p. 104)

It’s All About Me: Queer Spirituality (p. 105)

Pagan and Queer (p. 106)

Queer Muslim Caucus (p. 106)

Strength for the Journey: A Reflective Workshop (p. 107)

That’s a whole lot of faith.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with any of these workshops. I’ll probably go to some of them. Still, it’s a healthy chunk of the conference dedicated to discussing (and often reinforcing) faith and spirituality. What’s important to note is that such a focus isn’t just unwelcoming of nonbelievers, it can also be contrary to the perspectives many bring to this work.

Certainly, many of these workshops are about working with people of faith or responding to people of faith, which doesn’t necessarily require being one. However, there is only one session at the whole conference that recognizes the existence of nonbelievers or those who might not have the same interest in promoting or reinforcing faith and spirituality.

And guess who’s hosting that atheist caucus Friday night?

Me.

I think this pendulum swing of our movement’s approach to religion is something worth discussing. I hope folks will come to the caucus to have that conversation, because I honestly don’t know how welcome it will be in the sessions I just listed above.

Is religion a good thing?
How do critical dialogues on religion impact efforts for LGBT equality?
What challenges do we face when we come out as atheists?
How can we best utilize the support of LGBT allies who are nonbelievers?
What responsibility does the LGBT community have to be allies to the atheist community?

These are some of the important questions I’m hoping to address this week. Perhaps I should be optimistic that so many other folks are as enthusiastic to discuss religion as I am.

For those attending, take note that I will be hosting a caucus for nonbelievers on Friday evening at 6:30.

Look through the program. There are a LOT of interesting workshops! Then leave a comment letting me know which ones you would want to attend if you could be at the conference!

Also, if you’ve never seen the Creating Change program book before, it’s worth reading through the diversity etiquette sections at the top. I can’t think of any conference that goes to such lengths to make it an inclusive experience for all in attendance.

Creating Change 2011 Program

Z: Ummm…. hi?

P: Yes, it’s me, Pope Benedict.

Z: I can see that. Don’t you ever get to wear jeans or sweats? That must suck. Anyways, hello. What can I do for you?

P: Well, I’m still kind of waiting for you to kneel and kiss my ring. You are Catholic right?

Z: Oh, yeah, not so much. I know I’m still on your records and all, but those are probably about 25 years out of date.

P: I know you call yourself an atheist, but I’m still the Pope, and you’re still Catholic, so down you go.

Z: Not likely.

P: Well that’s not a very good way to get things started.

Z: What are you even talking about?

P: We wise sages of The Vatican have initiated a new dialogue with you so-called nonbelievers!

Z: That’s interesting. So you’re paying for me to come to The Vatican to tell you what’s up?

P: Actually, it will be in Paris.

Z: Oh, that’s nice. I guess it wouldn’t be the most welcoming setting to invite atheists into the heart of all the Church’s opulent wealth.

P: Yeah, we thought universities would be better settings. And the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

Z: *sigh* Ah, of course.

P: And we’re not paying. In fact, we’re not even inviting. We like the idea of talking to atheists, and we like people knowing that we like the idea of talking to atheists, but we actually haven’t found anyone we want to have this dialogue with.

Z: Umm… well, I’ll pretend I believe you at this point and that it’s actually going to happen and be meaningful. Tell me more.

P: It’s going to be a series of seminars on the theme of “Religion, Light, and Common Reason.”

Z: Oh neat! The only thing I love more than physics lessons is discussions about how everything we’ve learned about our universe—much of which has become common knowledge—it all points to how unnecessary religion is. Sounds interesting!

P: Actually, we are thinking of it more as a “‘courtyard of the gentiles’ where men can in some way hook on to God, without knowing Him and before having gained access to His mystery.”

Z: Wait, so my lady friends aren’t event invited? I know the atheist community hasn’t been the best at creating visibility for our female members, but I still know plenty who would be just as eager to dialogue as these men you’re referring to.

P: They can come, I suppose, but we never have any real expectations about women’s ability to connect with God, which is why we just disregard them most of the time.

Z: Yeah, about this connect with God thing. That’s what you expect from this charade?

P: Of course. You atheists are lost in the dark. You cannot truly know God because you’ve stopped looking for Him. We just want you (at least the men) to have at least a little bit of God’s influence in your life. It’s because we care.

Z: So where does the dialogue come in?

P: What do you mean? We’re having all of these seminars just for you.

Z: Are you going to listen to us at all?

P: And at the end of it all, there will be a big party for youth, and then we’ll pray and meditate inside the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

Z: That’s a no.

P: We’ve got to turn back the tide of Western secularism!

Z: This is like inviting vegetarians to a slaughterhouse.

P: Aren’t you excited? You should feel so honored that we’re sinking so low as to reach out to you!

Z: Yeah. I’m thrilled. What are your actual goals? How will you know if this is a success?

P: Well, obviously, we’ll convince you you’re wrong. At the very least you’ll shut up, and at the best you’ll join our new evangelical efforts!

Z: So let me get this all straight. You want to hold a dialogue with atheists, but you don’t really want to hear from the atheists. You want to bring us to Church locations, teach us Church teachings, and have us pray with you. It’s on your terms, it uses your rhetoric, and you have made no suggestion that the Church is open to growing or cooperating more with secularism.

P: You’ve got it exactly! Doesn’t it sound great?

Z: You going to apologize for anything while we’re there?

P: Like what?

Z: Well, I’ve got a pretty long list, but since this is about dialogue with atheists… how about taking back what you said in September about us atheists being Nazis who exclude virtue from public life?

P: Nazism was not very Christian behavior—

Z: You were a member of the Hitler youth.

P: Don’t interrupt me! I’m still the Pope, you know.

Z: And I’m still unimpressed. So that’s a no to the apology then?

P: I can’t apologize. I’m infallible, and the truth is the truth.

Z: The truth is the truth, eh? Then what you’re saying is you’re holding a public dialogue with Nazis. And you’re inviting me to these seminars because I’m one of the Nazis?

P: No… no… that’s not… we want atheists to like us.

Z: Do you like atheists?

P: Not really.

Z: Are you even willing to say that you’d be willing to hear what atheists have to say?

P: It’s a pretty big step for us to say we’re even willing to talk to you.

Z: I’m flattered.

P: So you’ll come? You’ll give us a chance to convince the world we’re not archaically stodgy?

Z: You paying?

P: Sorry, times are tight.

Z: Yeah, wouldn’t want the Vatican going broke on atheists. Good luck with that.

P: Awwww, please! I promise I won’t call you a Nazi again!

Z: Too late.

THE END.

(Look, everybody! I made fun of the Pope without referring to his complicity in covering up all the Church’s pedophilia!)

(Whoops.)

[The Friday Fundamentalist Farce File is a week's worth of "news" clippings from conservative hubs like WorldNetDaily and the American Family Association's OneNewsNow. Millions of Americans absorb these messages as gospel truth—literally—on a daily basis.]

1/22/11 – Kids put on ‘hate crimes’ list for schoolyard taunts

Great Britain decided it was a good idea to keep track of racist and homophobic incidents that occur at schools. Doing so gives the government a sense of how prevalent such incidents are and to make sure that schools are actually addressing bullying as they are expected to. Of course, WND thinks this is a problem.

Following last year’s publicized case of 10-year-old Peter Drury – who was added to his school’s hate register for calling his friend “gay boy” – Dr. Michele Elliott of the charity Kidscape told the Mail, “Children are being criminalized and singled out here from a very early age when they don’t know what they’re doing.”

“It must be explained that [this behavior] is wrong,” added Margaret Morrissey, founder of the campaign group Parents Outloud. “But to keep a register that will haunt them for years to come is going far too far and is against all rights.”

Drury’s mother told the paper of her son, “He doesn’t even understand about the birds and the bees, so how can he be homophobic?”

Oh, Mrs. Drury, let me count the ways.

Here’s a quick lesson how to be productive: Identify a problem. Address the problem. Assess whether the solution has successfully addressed the problem. Continue developing solutions to address the problem. If you don’t continue to identity and assess the problem, the problem will surely persist.

Of course, the real issue here is not that anybody thinks the actual reporting is a problem. They don’t think that there’s really anything wrong at all, and they don’t like it being called out:

Adrian Hart, the report’s author, told the Mail, “I feel that childhood itself is under attack. It’s absolutely the case that these policies misunderstand children quite profoundly.

“Racist incident reporting generates the illusion of a problem with racism in Britain’s schools by trawling the everyday world of playground banter, teasing, childish insults – the sort of things that every teacher knows happens out there in the playground,” Hart said.

Get it? Saying racist stuff to people isn’t really racism, because children just don’t understand what they’re saying! Just let it go.

Or how about no.

1/23/11 – Genetically selecting ‘gay’ embryos?

Feel like your strategies for demonizing those dirty gays are running stale? Reboot them by making up the most absurd shit you can think of and demonize them for things they haven’t even done yet!

This article is all about how same-sex couples in the future will use “procreative liberty” to abort any babies that aren’t genetically proven to be gay like they are.

What’s great about this article is that it concedes all the legal turf conservative groups usually hold. The couple will be married and have a kid. It’s inevitable. But apparently, gays are eager to abort heterosexual babies.

I’m not going to lie, I’m a whole lot more worried about heterosexual couples trying to prevent a gay child from being born than the other way around.

1/24/11 – Gov. ran ‘head-on into political correctness’

I wrote last week about how Alabama’s new governor made it quite clear that he wasn’t interested in representing non-Christians. How did OneNewsNow spin the story to make him look like the victim?

Dr. Al Mohler, Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, says that the governor didn’t say anything wrong. Any evangelical would understand it! Duh!

Bentley was “attempting to build bridges,” explains the seminary president. “His first statement was a very comprehensive statement of the unity of all believers in Christ — it is in Christ, due to the adoption that is ours in Christ, that we are brothers and sisters together.”

You see, the problem isn’t anything Gov. Bentley said. The problem is just that damn political correctness got in the way. If only people stopped getting so offended, it wouldn’t be a problem.

“[His remark] ran into a head-on collision with political correctness and with a secular culture that doesn’t even understand the terms in which the governor was speaking,” he says. “The governor is an experienced Sunday school teacher; he knows how to speak as a Christian to Christians — and I’m sure this was a rather bitter lesson in learning that the secular world doesn’t always hear things the same way.”

The only reason non-Christians thought his remarks were inappropriate is because they’re not Christian. It makes perfect sense!

1/25/11 – Hoping Christian politicians ‘will be found faithful’

This Al Mohler fellow really has nothing better to do than offer talking points to OneNewsNow (or maybe article writer Russ Jones just doesn’t know anyone else to call).

On Tuesday, he was going on about the twelve new Southern Baptists in Congress and how he prays they’ll be “faithful,” whatever that means. The language isn’t very subtle that he wants them to “bring the full wealth of conviction… the full resources of the Christian worldview” to the job of governing.

The article points out that 304 members of Congress (57%) hold Protestant beliefs. It also inaccurately points out that “no member of Congress… declares himself an atheist, agnostic, or ‘nothing in particular.” Apparently they’ve never heard of Representative Pete Stark.

1/26/11 – Planned Parenthood’s troubling ‘philosophy’

This isn’t a news story. It’s just a mom in Tennessee complaining that Planned Parenthood is actually teaching her kid about sex.

How do you teach sex without teaching how to have sex? And encouraging sex? What does that even mean?

Anything to keep people afraid of Planned Parenthood; they’re turning all of our young people into whores.

1/27/11 – Students vouch for Bible course’s benefits

It’s okay to teach the Bible in a public school if all the students say it’s great!

I actually have mixed feelings about this. I think studying the Bible as literature is worthwhile, particularly if you read all of the really dark stories that don’t come up often in Church, and not just the pretty ones. Studying literature means being critical and considering all the parts, after all.

But what the Chino Valley Unified School District is doing seems inappropriate. Using the literature course as a cover, they seem to be using the course to teach Christianity as well. The Board president is not so subtle about it.

Board president James Na, who envisioned the course, says that he was “highly impressed” by students and board members who voiced their support of the Bible course in the community’s classrooms. He is convinced that young people need the Word of God to direct their lives.

“And these young people should be not only taught but nurtured to be our future face of this nation, with understanding of our foundation as a Christian nation,” he comments.

Na also mentioned how the class discusses how the Bible relates to American historical heritage. Sounds more like a Texas State Board of Education “history” class than a literature class.  We should be highly dubious.

1/28/11 – Debt-limit vote ‘opportunity’ for House Repubs

Just when you thought they couldn’t get any crazier (we are talking about birther central here), WorldNetDaily showed today just how off the deep end they really are.

They are organizing a campaign to urge Republicans to oppose raising the debt ceiling. By threatening to vote “no,” they can force the Democrats to cut the budget in an historic way.

What Joseph Farah doesn’t point out is that if the debt ceiling is not raised by that particular deadline, the entire U.S. government will shut down (i.e. no salaries for federal employees until the problem is fixed), which could also spark financial disaster the world over.

But hey, destroying the world economy is a good plan if it means the Republicans get a little more power over the government, right? Priorities, priorities.

I think any plan that involves these names should be particularly avoided:

Sens. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., are already on record as opposing an increase in the debt limit. Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., has also advocated the plan.

Oh, Farah also said that Obama and the Democrats “keep bailing out the wealthy.” I’m sure all the blue-collar workers whose jobs and pensions were saved by the bailouts feel exactly the same way.

Feel free to go and sign the petition. It’s not Faustian at all.

The featured editorial in yesterday’s The Chronicle of Higher Education doesn’t offer much to be optimistic about. The author, Stephen T. Asma, is a philosophy professor at Columbia College Chicago, and you know his article is going to be a farce just from its title: “The New Athe­ists’ Nar­row Worldview.” I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn’t write the title, but he should complain; an ad hominem attack like “narrow” (an intellectual’s synonym for “stupid”) doesn’t do much to set up the credibility of an argument.

Sure enough, Asma’s argument doesn’t have much credibility to preserve and his title is only the beginning of his ad hominem. In fact, his piece covers all the memetic bases when it comes to baseless critiques of atheism. He smears atheists with Marx’s endorsement, then hammers home the stereotype of amorality with Khmer Rouge and Red Guard, stopping just short of Nazism, but not before the damage is done. Ironically, his trite attempt to paint atheism as amoral is supposed to be a critique of Sam Harris’ The Moral Landscape, a book about how we can be moral without religion.

Asma’s campaign is as ill-supported as the attack ads he opens with, suggesting that the animism of the Eastern religions keeps the poor, starving people of third-world nations happy, so it’s not a bad thing. Talk about putting the chicken before the egg. Just because animism is lacking in the orthodoxy department, that doesn’t mean it’s any less effective at pacifying the oppressed. And while many of Buddhism’s teachings certainly can be understood and appreciated without any supernatural presuppositions, serving whiskey to the phii/neak ta spirits isn’t helping anybody. As one commenter pointed out, it’s Santa Claus’s cookies for adults.

What is most disappointing is his glib suggestion that as long as someone can derive something good from religion, then all religion should be “cherished and preserved.” In other words, don’t invite Stephen Asma to your next AA or NA meeting:

But I’d advance a much more rad­i­cal ar­gu­ment as well. Not only should the more rational and therapeutic elements be distilled from the opi­ate of re­li­gion. But the wacky, su­per­sti­tious, cloud-cuck­oo-land forms of re­li­gion, too, should be cherished and preserved, for those forms of religion some­times do great good for our emo­tion­al lives, even when they com­pro­mise our more-rational lives.

In case you weren’t sure whether Asma was really suggesting that opiates—constructed delusions—are a good thing, he makes it quite clear later in the piece: he is.

Is an­i­mism a mere “opi­ate,” as the athe­ists ar­gue? Well, yes, but don’t underestimate opi­ates. They can be high­ly in­spi­ra­tion­al and con­sol­ing. Af­ter all, a drunk­en man is usu­al­ly a lit­tle hap­pi­er than a so­ber one. In fact, to con­tin­ue the met­a­phor, op­pos­ing re­li­gion is a lot like pro­hi­bi­tion­ists’ oppos­ing drink­—a rath­er cru­el pro­ject in my view. I’d glad­ly give my copies of Mao’s Little Red Book, and Daw­kins’s The God De­lu­sion for a six-pack of Grolsch. But if all that is too of­fen­sive, we might re­place the word “opi­ate” with “an­al­ge­sic,” and my point may be more a­gree­a­ble.

How primal. He ignores the pivotal argument of the very “new atheists” he’s critiquing that you don’t need religion to have comfort or emotional solace or meaning in life. But if religion is the drug, then the new atheism (if something 100+ years strong can be called “new”) isn’t “prohibition”; it’s MADD.

Asma’s essentialism is regressive: if it feels good, do it. After all, if you live in the third world, the delusion of other-worldly comforts might be the only good thing you have in your life. But with this condescending argument, he is treating the very symptoms of an unegalitarian world with more of the very systems of control that keep our lives so disparate. Just because we may have evolved a tendency toward belief doesn’t mean that believing is good for us, let alone that we should encourage it.

If the brunt of the piece isn’t convincing enough (it shouldn’t be), Asma mixes in some condescending pathos by trying to confirm that there really are no atheists in foxholes. After all, he’s agnostic, but he sure prayed when his son was in the emergency room. How convincing. Even though he knew it wouldn’t help heal his son, he just couldn’t help but grovel and negotiate with something or someone he’s not sure he believes in (or whatever agnostic means to him). This is the model of rationalism we’re supposed to respect?

Apparently, Mr. Asma has confused the definitions of “rational” and “virtuous.”

Re­li­gious ideas that en­cour­age de­hu­man­iza­tion, vi­o­lence, and fac­tion­al­ism should be re­formed or di­min­ished, while those that hu­man­ize, con­sole, and in­spire should be fos­tered.

What does he think the “new atheists” are trying to do? The whole point of Harris’ book is to “determine human values.” It’s in the subtitle. Asma seems to think that if a good idea is couched in religion, it’s a credit to the religion as opposed to just a credit to the idea itself.

Wheth­er it is Ca­thol­i­cism, Protestantism, Is­lam, Bud­dhism, or animism, the vir­tues can be re­tained while the vices are mod­er­at­ed. In short, the re­duc­tion of human suf­fer­ing should be the stand­ard by which we meas­ure ev­ery re­li­gion.

Irrationality is a wildcard. You can’t distinguish between the legitimacy of different ideas that are all irrational. Why are dipsomaniacal evil spirits worth any more consideration than an all-seeing god? Are unicorns worth more or less consideration than leprechauns? There is no criteria for differentiating between them, because such analysis requires conformity to the rules of the natural universe in which we live.

If the only way you’ve been taught to have meaning in life is to find it through a higher power and you haven’t fully shaken that construct, it’s what you’ll revert to in times of crisis. I don’t know what Asma has to say in his book, “Why I Am a Buddhist,” but clearly his claim to agnosticism is merely symbolic, perhaps to suggest that he’s got some expertise as a nonbeliever. (He’s no ally of mine.) If he’s praying (and then playing apologetics for it, as this entire piece seems to be), he hasn’t sufficiently dismantled the only context he’s known. He still finds meaning in life through fear of a great or tiny tyrant, and he’s attacking atheism because he cannot overcome that fear through rationality.

But Sam Har­ris’s new book may be a sub­tle turn­ing point toward a more nor­ma­tive so­cial agenda. If pub­lic pol­i­cy is even­tu­al­ly ex­pect­ed to flow from athe­ism, then its pro­po­nents need to have a more nu­anced and glob­al un­der­stand­ing of re­li­gion.

“Social agenda” isn’t a very covert form of fear-mongering, especially for atheists, the least-trusted minority in our society. And while there might be much I still don’t know about religion, I’m feeling pretty good that I have a better understanding of it than a nationally-published philosophy professor. I wish I could give higher education the credit.

…

Even though I was triggered by Asma’s piece to write my own response, please also read through all the comments he’s received. Plenty of folks have written some very thoughtful retorts to many of Asma’s points and deserve credit for it. If these anonymous screennames are reading The Chronicle, they hopefully are in higher education themselves, an assumption which does give me hope after the miserable experience of  reading Asma’s hackneyed piece. I’d love to know who those people are; they should be the ones featured in The Chronicle.

The day before taking office, Bentley, a deacon at First Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa, spoke at Dexter Street King Memorial Baptist Church, once led by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. An occasion meant to honor Dr. King on his holiday seemed to have quite the opposite effect. Said Bentley:

But if you have been adopted in God’s family like I have, and like you have, if you’re a Christian and if you’re saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives with me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother and sister.

Now I will have to say that, if we don’t have the same daddy, we’re not brothers and sisters. So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother.

Maybe he was just getting it all out of his system while he could.

What’s worse, if you read the news article, you’ll see plenty of people (the Anti-Defamation League notably excepted) are open to defending him or at least equivocating about his intentions. It must be really bad for non-Christians in Alabama if they’re afraid to even say, “Yeah, I was pretty damn offended” on the record.

This is ridiculously offensive. We’re a nation with a history of denying groups of people a role in their government, and here’s a newly elected official who seems eager to govern in just that way.

And who says “daddy”?

I don’t think folks realize how fragile the separation of church and state is. They’re not non-overlapping magisteria; they both deal with serving the people, so we have to try our hardest to maintain the boundaries we can. Electing religious leaders to government positions does the exact opposite, and Bentley is a shining example.

If you pause and consider the phenomenon of the religious right, you realize how bizarre it is that a political point of view so concerned with the constitution is the most concerned with violating the intentions behind it. Of course, snap back to reality and remember that integrity has nothing to do with it; it’s all about power. Try to make rhyme or reason out of it and you’ll get nowhere (If it weren’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college).

We’re not a Christian nation. That meme is just the largest-scale example of the George W. Bush approach to truth. Say it enough and act like it enough and people will buy into it.

Alabama, you have my sympathies. Maybe all you Jews, nonbelievers, and other non-Christians can be at least counted as 3/5 of a brother or sister.

You know what would be great? To hear some Christian groups condemn him, to stand up and say, “This was not Christian behavior and we disapprove of infusing such evangelism into state government.”

I guess they’re all too busy filing their amicus briefs to help the Department of Justice defend DOMA.

I remember there was this one day in high school that was really busy and really stressful. I had a lot going on, with situations to address that were both personal and professional. At the end of the day, I noticed my good ol’ Virgo horoscope on my browser homepage. The day was over, but that little paragraph described what had happened exactly. I was in awe.

I remember another day in high school when we were on a field trip and someone on the bus had a big book about astrology. It could describe your personality based on your sign. They read Virgo for me, and so much of it was dead on. I was anal and particular and all kinds of other things that everyone born between late August and late September were supposed to be.

Guess what, folks. Astrology is complete bullshit.

There is no wiggle room on this. It’s not even a little accurate. There isn’t an ounce of truth or reliability to it. It is utter nonsense—bogus superstition (which is redundant, but worth saying to drive home the point).

1) Do you really think there are only 12 13 kinds of people? 2) Do you really think that everybody born in the same month is the same? (Let’s not even get started on those Chinese animals—trust me, there are plenty of other ’85ers who are nothing like this ox.)

Yesterday’s announcement that the signs are changing only had one impact on me. It made me feel bad for the writers of the Battlestar Galactica series, because their 12 colonies should have been 13 to include “Ophiuchon,” but that’s about it. (Maybe they can work it into the next spinoff since poor Caprica was canceled.)

I was so disappointed to see so many of my friends on Facebook upset by this matter. Really? Are folks that insecure or naïve that they are living their lives according to the stars someone who’s good at writing self-satisfying ambiguity for their favorite newspaper, magazine, or website?

Apparently, I was never a Virgo. I was a Leo. Who the frak cares? If I had been told I was a Leo when I was a kid, I would have been able to have the same kind of mystifying experiences I described above. It just would have happened on different days.

If you want some reliable feedback about your personality, take the MBTI. It’s a reliable measure based on actual social science. When I say I’m an ENTJ, it’s because I know that the identity reflects who I am, not because I am a product of the imposed identity.

Now, assuming you’ve even read this far, a lot of you are probably thinking, why is Zack so bothered by this stupid little thing? The problem is that the same mental error people make about the validity of astrology is the same mental error people make about lots of superstitions, including luck, sin, and the probability of winning the lottery. Astrology, itself, may not be harmful, but the susceptibility to it very much is.

It’s primitive thinking. And it’s dangerous. There are a lot of stupid decisions made by people who are not stupid because of this kind of thinking.

If you get meaning and purpose from star signs, I feel bad for you. I hope you take some time to reflect on how senseless this is. If you want to have a conversation about it, let me know.

Seeing how many people were upset about the big astrology announcement might have made just a little bit more cynical. At the very least, I now have a sore forehead.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ95VE8prs8

Rather than regurgitate my reconciliation of my atheism with a not-so-secular holiday, I thought I’d share a simple thought today (Christmas Eve for many).

Lots of billboards debate the reason for the season. Some atheist groups like to point out that Jesus is a myth, which is a reasonable point. Some Christian groups like to hammer home that Jesus is the reason. I never understood what makes the birth of a baby in a stable a compelling story unless you 100% accept the virgin birth, which I think is a stretch for most believers. (That’s besides the fact that if Jesus was born, he most definitely was not born in December.) Jews, meanwhile, already celebrated that there was enough oil to burn for eight days instead of one—not as miraculous as the virgin birth of a god, but at least a bit more original (or did Osiris have long-burning candles, too?).

None of those stories really matter, though. See, way back in 46 BCE, Caesar figured out that December 25 was the Winter Solstice, the day when the Earth’s tilt is farthest way from the sun and thus it is the shortest day and longest night of the year. The calendar was off though, and the date started shifting to earlier in the year. Pope Gregory XIII standardized it in 1582, but screwed up and restored the date to December 22. (Maybe he didn’t want all his loyal followers in the Holy Roman Empire to be suspicious about Jesus just happening to be born on a day already celebrated by many Pagans.)

But that’s why we have holidays around this time. It’s dark.

So we need to light it up and warm it up (though admittedly, the wintry association with this time of year is biased to the Northern Hemisphere).

We need pretty lights and warm food and stirring music and good company. We need to make each other smile and show each other how much we love each other and exchange presents as tokens of that love.

And that’s it. That’s all it’s about. That’s all that’s important.

No myths or legends necessary! Just the intention to warm the hearts of your loved ones. We all owe ourselves and each other to do so at least once a year, and what better night than (almost) the longest of the year?

So whatever you do this holiday season, enjoy it. Do what it takes to make it really feel like the holiday season and not just the dark one. Celebrate that which makes us all human: love.

Season’s Greetings from ZackFord Blogs!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCNvZqpa-7Q

Zack and Peterson gather by the fireside to follow up on DADT repeal, Barack Obama, and the United Nations, and lots of other interesting things happen too. Happy Holidays from the Queer and Queerer Podcast!

Consider the belief in an afterlife. This single, simple, commonplace belief can easily define the context for a person’s entire life. Juxtapose 80 years with eternity and priority number one becomes getting into that afterlife, according to the prescriptive guidelines. Priority two might be a compassionate attempt to get others to abide by the same guidelines so they can get there too. And once all the ducks are in a row for the afterlife, all that’s left to do is sit back and tolerate life.

Yes, yes, this is a simplistic generalization that doesn’t recognize the nuance of belief—I hear ya. But at a basic level, it is still fair to say that believing in an afterlife can impact every single decision a person makes as the very motivation that leads them through life. This dubiously simple factor provides an important context for understanding the concept of “conservative,” particularly in the malicious way it is being employed by Congressional Republicans during this lame-duck session.

Fundamentally, there is a “me” factor: I want to go to Heaven, I want you to go to Heaven the same way, and I want God to be pleased with what we did in the meantime. Social conservatism is wanting society to abide by God’s laws… or at least not stray from them any further. (Just ignore that shifting Zeitgeist.) Fiscal conservatism is just a way to make that happen. It’s the same philosophy of unchange; let the people with money keep it. And while Jesus may have said to let go of all your possessions, having money in a capitalist society is great leverage for enforcing a social agenda. It also makes the ride incredibly more comfortable until that Rapture comes along.

So consider this “hostage situation” regarding tax cuts for the rich. Hoarding money is clearly not Christian (a memo many Christian leaders have missed), and Reaganomics (or as Rachel Maddow calls them, “Riganomics”) clearly fail. So why are they “all in”? It could be greed, which itself could be reflective of subservience to the afterlife. But it could also be for leverage. Leverage against the DREAM act. Leverage against Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal. Leverage against support for 9/11 first-responders. Remember, the one budget Republicans will never cut is defense; we are, after all, engaged in two wars on behalf of Christianity.

The will to impose the proper afterlife on others is not benign. Just today, a story on good old OneNewsNow complains that Liam Neeson suggested that Aslan from The Chronicles of Narnia (whom he voices) represents non-Christian spiritual leaders. Because, damn it, Aslan is Christ and that’s what C. S. Lewis intended! Don’t worry, “Dr.” Marc T. Newman (whoever he is) comes to the rescue with ideas for how Narnia can be an effective evangelism tool.

And while critics of my post will argue that believing in the afterlife is not a reasonable reduction of Republican motives, I think it’s hard to find a better one. Sure, there is an obsession with power (and ascension thereof) as well as the gluttony of being lobbied, but while there might be incredible focus on their own lives, I’m not sure that conservatives are motivated by the lives, per say, of anybody else. Who cares if people have money, or food, or a job, or a house, or healthcare, or citizenship, or integrity? As long as everyone is abiding by the Bible, they’re going to Heaven, and they should be thankful for that.

It’s not a surprise that the Christian myth of an afterlife (social conservatism) and the myth of the American dream (fiscal “bootstraps” conservatism) have become so intertwined. They both are founded on self-determination. They both assume that the individual is responsible and that no other context plays a role in an individual’s success. And both ultimately help a very small group prosper while creating false hope for all the rest.

The opposite of all this, after all, would be true for progressives. Not believing in an afterlife (or at least not abiding so stringently by such a belief) makes it much easier to recognize the needs of others now, in life. Rather than a focus on “me” until everybody goes to Heaven, it’s a focus on everybody because right now is all we have. Being a social progressive means recognizing that the human species is capable of learning more about its own nature and adapting to accommodate that new information. Being a fiscal progressive means trying to help the most number of people, even if it means asking those who have to make sacrifice for those who have not, because it’s life that matters. Life is all that we have control over while we’re living.

Imagine, though, a completely different universe, altered in just the way that no one believed in an afterlife. Would these political hijinks be par for the course? Maybe. But at the very least, they wouldn’t be based on complete irrationality.

Here are a few highlights:

Second, your “religion” is a myth. It’s bogus. Jesus did not die and rise from the tomb and ascend into heaven. Okay? That. Did. Not. Happen. God did not take the form of a little bird and fly down and impregnate an unwed teenage virgin girl so that she could give birth to a half-human half-divine man-god. Immaculate conception, virgin birth, raising people from the dead, walking on water, loaves and fishes — great stories, but correctly filed under “fiction.” The sad fact is, what you call “faith” is a form of mental illness. It’s amazing enough that so many of you are running around in your mental case dream world. But it’s simply unacceptable when you start trying to impose your delusions upon the rest of us. Cynical politicians may feel the need to humor you and kowtow to your demands. I, however, do not.

It’s wonderful the things you can get away with using satire…

Oh, and here’s one that you even put on your own Manhattan Declaration document, which is ironic because you don’t seem to understand what it means and in fact what you’re doing is the exact opposite of what this statement intended: Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s. In other words, do not become entwined with the state. Focus on the next world, not on this one. Or, to be more blunt: Stay the hell out of politics, you boneheads. If a state or federal government wants to marry gay people, that’s their decision. Leave it alone. Go say some prayers.

Yet somehow you’ve twisted this around and interpret it to mean that you should impose your will onto others by passing laws that would force other people who do not share your beliefs to be bound by the rules of your Bible, even though (a) your Bible is fiction and (b) you’re not even interpreting the fiction correctly.

It’s bad enough that you’re hateful bigots. But to dress up your hate and bigotry as an expression of Christianity? That, my friends, is pure evil. If you want to go around hating people, fine. Go for it. It’s stupid, and pointless, but whatever. Go hate people. Just don’t go around saying Jesus told you to do it.

So, listen up. You can’t put your bullshit in my app store. I’m sorry. But I won’t let you use my store to spread your hate. I don’t want any part in the spreading of your phony religion, either. There is no God. There is no heaven. There also is no hell, which is too bad, because if hell did exist, you would surely be spending eternity there, with red-hot pokers up your butts. And nothing would make me happier.

Go read the whole thing.

I’ve created a playlist for all the clips below. It’s pretty good, and Hitchens is still right on his game, despite his health. I particularly appreciated Hitchens’ argument that the way to end poverty is to empower women. It’s worth a listen.

Tony Blair continued making two arguments throughout the debate that I just do not understand. I mean, I don’t think either of them actually help support his point that religion is a good thing to have.

The first was the idea that faith is good because lots of people already have faith. Since we can’t convince everyone to suddenly not have faith, we should encourage people who have faith to apply that faith in good ways.

Is this really an argument for anything? This is the same argument people make to support smoking. They say, Oh, well lots of people are smokers (i.e. addicted to smoking), so we should just let them keep smoking. Umm, no! Sorry smokers. Your habit is gross and makes me sneeze. Go outside, keep your tar clouds away, and yes, keep trying to quit!

Just because people have faith doesn’t mean faith is good! Like Tim Minchin says in his song White Wine in the Sun, “I don’t believe just because ideas are tenacious that they’re worthy.” This argument is really a concession. It doesn’t demonstrate anything at all about the difference faith makes, just that we’re stuck with it, so we ought to try to make the most of it. If anything, it sounds more like a strategy for coping with the persistence of faith.

The other argument he made a lot is that though some people use religion for bad things, some people also use religion for good things. This is not a good argument in favor of religion. It actually demonstrates how pointless religion is. If it can be used for both good and bad, then it doesn’t make a difference at all! It just is.

My argument has long been that there are no unique benefits to religion/faith. None of Mr. Blair’s arguments challenge that claim at all. Sure, some people do good things inspired by their faith, but so what? Plenty of people do good things without faith, and honestly, they’re often better things in the absence of proselytization.

If you are supporting the claim that religion is a force for good, you have to be able to demonstrate that there is something we get from faith that we could not get without it. Given that there are plenty of bad things that are unique to religion—the very suspension of critical thinking that faith requires is itself a detractor—I really don’t think Mr. Blair had much to offer. Admittedly, my expectations were not high given that his opening statement included mention of Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot, hackneyed jabs at atheism that don’t hold up (and which Hitchens didn’t even bother addressing). It’s not surprising that Mr. Hitchens successfully swayed a much larger percentage of the audience than did Mr. Blair.

The debate is not short, but throw the playlist on and listen while you’re at work. Share your own thoughts about these arguments or other things that are said in the discussion.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=45A081C92957109B

Just in time to download into your MP3 player before hitting the road, Peterson and Zack are back to keep things light and just talk a bit about Thanksgiving. After delving into some of the religious connotations behind the holiday (and Zack’s interpretation that it should be “Thankshaving”), we have to take some time to discuss some frightful messages coming from the ex-gay movement. Still, after several heavy episodes, the humorous banter that is Queer and Queerer is back and we wish you a very happy Thanksgiving holiday!

Here’s some more information about what we talked about this week:

» Zack’s post about Thanksgiving (including a very funny video).

» NARTH’s Thanksgiving Letter (as read on the podcast).

» Truth Wins Out responds to the Exodus International letter.

» Join the Heterosexual Questionnaire conversation on our Facebook page (and Like us while you’re there!).

But I got a piece of it today, and it’s the kind I sort of expected I’d get a LOT more of. I thought I’d share it.

From: codbar
Subject: Atheism

You are an ignorant, flaming asshole

That was it! And yes, it was weirdly right-juxtaposed like that.

Here was my reply.

From: Zack Ford
Subject: Re: Atheism

Ok!

Seriously readers, if you’re going to send me stupid crap, put a little thought into it. Only about a third of codbar’s email was even true, and there were no supporting arguments for the claims made. I expect better. I can’t offer long funny responses if you don’t put any thought into this stuff.

Of course, I realize by asking you to put thought into this stuff that I am definitely barking up the wrong tree.

But as you might recall, when I last wrote about Catholicism two weeks ago, I pointed out that people complain I “bash” Catholicism too much. So rather than just add one to the pile, I thought I’d compile the posts I’d written here about Catholicism. I want to really put it to all my Catholic readers out there… is there ever enough evidence of Church shenanigans that will make you question your loyalty? And more importantly, do you recognize that by putting money in the offering at Mass, you are endorsing all of the following behavior?

Take a look and just the few examples I’ve written about, a list that is hardly exhaustive.

November 1 – Cardinal-Designate Raymond L. Burke said that discrimination against gays is okay, because they “suffer” and are “wrong.”

October 28 – Materials I was handed at a summer street fair show that Catholics guilt teenage girls out of abortion with twisted facts, gender police dating rituals, and condemn homosexuals as “disordered” using bunk Paul Cameron research.

September 17 – The Pope told the Queen of England that “atheist extremism” was responsible for the holocaust, ignoring the fact Hitler had been Catholic.

August 24 – The group Catholics for Equality creates an opportunity for LGBT advocates to defend their Church at the same time (thus maintaining the very cognitive dissonance this post is meant to challenge).

July 13 – Chicago’s Reverend Robert Barron used atheist Christopher Hitchens’ terminal illness as a petty opportunity to promote prayer.

June 7 – The New York Times celebrated “A Gay Catholic Voice Against Same-Sex Marriage,” a profile of Eve Tushnet, who promotes harmful ex-gay therapies or condemns gay people to chastity.

April 12 – The Pope’s #2, Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, promoted the (completely wrong) idea that homosexuality and pedophilia are related.

April 3 – A senior Vatican priest speaking before the Pope compared the backlash against the Church for sexual abuse scandals to the persecution of the Jews.

March 16 – A lesbian couple cared enough about their children being Catholic that they didn’t care if their kids learned that they were actually going to Hell for their relationship.

March 12 – Bill O’Reilly actually defended the aforementioned lesbian couple when their kids were kicked out of their Catholic preschool; Father Jonathan Morris, not so much.

March 5 – A number of highlights! The DC Archdiocese ended their foster care program and all spousal benefits rather than subscribe to marriage equality. An Italian cardinal made it clear that if you support same-sex marriage, you can’t be Catholic. Distributing condoms to help fight AIDS in the Philippines is also anti-Catholic, according to bishops there. That was also the week we heard about the gay prostitution scandal inside the Vatican.

November 20 – Many Catholic leaders signed the very anti-gay Manhattan Declaration, just a week after threatening to pull out of DC charity serves should marriage pass there (as we saw above the ended up doing).

..

So there are my posts about Catholicism from the past year (aside from reminders here or there about Catholic positions on LGBT issues). That completely ignores the huge sums of money they gave both in 2009 (Maine) and 2008 (California and elsewhere) to fight marriage equality, as well as all scandals of sexual abuse, which continue to come to light.

So… you all okay with all of that? How many cracks will it take to break your diplomacy dike and cause you to raise some concern about your Church? If you disagree with the above actions and statements, why do you still support them both financially and in name? And if all of these things are so wrong, how is it that your beliefs are still so right?

Are you still proud to be Catholic? How did Catholicism get to be so important in your life? Can the values Catholicism represents for you ever be separated out from support of the Church?

Let me hear from you all.

…

At the Soulforce Symposium, I asked the panel about what I feel to be conflicting identities, being both gay and atheist. My friend, Cathy Renna, offered that she’s long witnessed a disenchantment with religion in the LGBT community, to the extent that it was once taboo to admit attending services on a Sunday morning. And she’s surely right, and it might only be in recent years that the LGBT community has placed a much greater focus on embracing and reconciling with religion. It could just be a pendulum swinging back towards a pro-religion point of view, but it would only have had to be as recent as the past six years for it to define my whole experience.

Now, let’s face it, it’s no surprise that LGBT folks would feel alienated from religion. After all, arguably all anti-gay and anti-trans sentiments are securely rooted in religious teachings and the willful ignorance that is religious thinking.

But not wanting to practice a religion and being an atheist are two very different things. Just because members of the LGBT community no longer want to be a part of religion doesn’t mean they’ve stopped believing, or stopped being “religious,” at least as I defined it above. It doesn’t make them atheists, and it definitely does not automatically make them welcoming or inclusive of atheists.

The virus of religious thinking does not let go so easily, and the human brain is incredibly adept at functioning under the conditions of cognitive dissonance. A person who believed that homosexuality is a sin that then decided that the Bible was wrong about that could easily never question that the whole rest of the Bible is just as fallible. That person might trust religion less, but never bother to think critically about any of the rest of it, and certainly not abandon it.

But being an atheist? That’s a whole different ballgame.

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First, you should know that there’s a whole atheist community. It’s true. In fact, just like the LGBTQQIAA community has diversity, we have atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, nonbelievers, skeptics, brights, humanists, and more. There’s a lot of overlap—I identify with at least five of those labels—so we don’t use a a long acronym, just a single scarlet A. We have a coming out process and it can often be as difficult or worse than coming out as gay (and unlike the coming out process for homosexuality, it hasn’t been studied at all). We suffer incredible oppression in the United States; in fact, we are the least trusted minority and our vision of America is the least popular, even compared to Muslims and homosexuals [sic]. We’re also the only minority group for which tolerance has not grown over the past 30 years.

And yet, here we are. We vigilantly disclose our identities specifically so we can create change. We challenge people’s core beliefs and welcome heated debate. And we are a community. We make an active choice to identify openly and we seek each other out. We need each other’s support.

This community is a very different picture than the group of folks who just don’t participate in religion anymore. It’s a whole different identity, a whole different community, and a whole different set of challenges.

And you know what’s great about the atheist community? Even though it is predominantly heterosexual (like the rest of society), it is overwhelmingly supportive and inclusive of LGBT issues. I would go so far as to say that the atheist community understands that anti-gay attitudes are among the most dangerous and unscientific views still held by most of modern society, and they speak out in defense of the LGBT community all the time. The atheist community is by far one of the strongest LGBT allies of any other minority community.

But then I come back over to the gay community and the reverse is not true for me as an atheist. HRC’s putting out a “Clergy Call 2011 for Justice and Equality.” The Task Force has a whole “multi-faith” mini-conference as part of Creating Change this year, as if CC weren’t faith-centric enough. There’s the MCC and UU, Catholics for Equality and Soulforce, and a slew of other pro-religion organizations that work on behalf of LGBT equality. Now, don’t get me wrong, as a gay man, I appreciate those efforts greatly. But as an atheist, they totally alienate me. They make me feel unwelcome because they are antithetical to my point of view. And I seldom see partnerships with the atheist groups eager to help!

As an atheist, I want to dismantle the power that religion has, not reinforce it. I don’t want people to reconcile their homosexuality with their faith; I want them to see that homosexuality is a brilliant example for how flawed and unnecessary faith is. I hate the idea that religions or religious beliefs are something deserving of respect, and I have no intention of respecting them or catering to them in order to achieve legal equality as a gay man. I want to work with other LGBT activists, but I don’t want to have to sit through prayers or endure a faith hegemony to make my difference in the movement. And yet, that is increasingly the environment with which I am faced in the LGBT movement.

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If you buy into the ex-gay movement even just a little, you are faced with two choices. You can try to change your sexual orientation or you can fail to change your sexual orientation. If you fail, they have nothing left for you, and certainly no validation for embracing an identity other than heterosexuality.

While it’s not as overt, I feel like the LGBT movement similarly offers a kind of non-choice for atheists. I can work with faith and I can work without faith, but there is very little room for me to work against faith. While there may be some who aren’t thrilled with religion, they like holding on to their own faith, nonetheless. Frankly, there is a certain baseline of anti-atheist prejudice (I call it “faithism”) and religious privilege that is just as prevalent in the LGBT community as the rest of society.

Many atheists within the LGBT community struggle to be out (or even come out), recognizing the challenges of openly identifying as atheist within the LGBT community, and particularly of identifying as both atheist and LGBT in greater society. Surely for most, LGBT issues are more salient to them, impacting their relationships, families, housing, and employment. It’s all too easy to subscribe to the silence and invisibility for nonbelievers that is already in place.

Gaytheism is a borderland that is not always fun to live in. On one side of the Venn diagram are the LGBT issues that are so salient and important to me that I am passionately dedicated to addressing, but which is a community that still ostracizes me for my way of thinking. On the other side is the atheist community, a group that completely appreciates who I am and supports my point of view, but who are less organized, less committed to the issues most important to me, and likely not the place I’ll find a life partner or a job in activism or education. And I can’t have it both ways and still maintain my own integrity, because I can’t both disavow faith and simultaneously reinforce it and feel like I’m making any meaning out of my own life.

Given that I am a man of integrity, what choice do I have but to push? Push the LGBT movement to open its eyes not just to the unreligious, but to its atheist subcommunity en masse. I have to encourage other LGBT nonbelievers to come out. I have to try to help organizations understand how their religious messages or strategies can be very exclusive. I have to convince the LGBT movement to accept and welcome the support of the many atheist and humanist organizations eager to be involved with the effort for LGBT equality. Maybe I even have to create one that represents LGBT issues specifically on behalf of nonbelievers.

So, I’m just putting it all out there for you, LGBT movement. I’m going to be a little thorn in your side. I’m going to call you out on your religious privilege. I’m going to cause some consternation for your believers. I’m going to say things that aren’t popular and that aren’t even always welcome. It is very much my intent to push and to change as much it is my intent to support and cooperate. We’re stuck with each other, so we’d best make the most of it.

But if nothing else, remember this: I’m not the only one. I know when prayers and Amens are making me feel uncomfortable and unwelcome; I can identify those triggers, respond to them appropriately, and continue on. But there are a lot of members of our community who aren’t where I am, who feel silenced and alienated by all the attention you pay to religion. I want to create a movement that understands and appreciates their point of view as much as any other, and I want to work together to make that happen.

I hope you do too.

Well, I just got home from Philadelphia, where I participated in both the “Lift Your Luggage” protest as well as some of the Soulforce Symposium. Click on the image at left to open my photo gallery from the protest, then tune in to tomorrow’s Queer and Queerer (Ep. 30) to hear two wonderful interviews from the symposium.

I feel good about the protest, where we had about 40 people with a number of great speakers. I was also glad to see Equality Pennsylvania and my fellow bloggers Joe Jervis and Jeremy Hooper there. As I’ve written before, I think it’s important to create visible responses to groups who actively work against equality and that perpetuate harm against our community. I think this is especially true of groups like NARTH who are not always visible nationally, but whose work has not diminished and who continue to rope young people into their narrow fold.

You may recall that over the past year, there were two separate court cases regarding graduate psychology students who refused to serve LGBT clients (I wrote about them back in July here and here). In both cases they were not able to complete their degrees, and both sued and lost. They may sound like exceptions, but the contingent of anti-gay “professional” psychologists continue to recruit. In fact, this NARTH conference had a whole contingent of graduate students (with workshops specifically targeting recruiting them). There were also a number of young people at the NARTH conference who are undergoing therapy and wanted to learn more and touch base with others.

I hope that those young people saw us out there. I hope they haven’t become so enmeshed in the dogma of anti-gay junk science that they can still think—can still question. I hope they don’t waste decades of their life like some NARTHers have, reinforcing ideas that are condemned and denounced by the scientific community at large. I hope that through their weekend of lectures about shame and suppressing psychoanalysis, with plenary pseudo-science sessions led by religion leaders, that they doubt, at least a little bit. Once they stop doubting, they could be lost for good.

I don’t have as much to say about the Soulforce Symposium, as I was only able to attend a couple of sessions. (Check out Soulforce’s YouTube channel to see a lot of great footage from the symposium.) The leaders of Soulforce informed me that they are making efforts to be less religious (particularly in the wake of Foundation Beyond Belief’s decision not to support them), but from my afternoon and evening there, it was evident that there is still an extremely strong Christian influence and undercurrent. I knew that going in; I knew that it was not a space where I would feel totally included. One religious leader on a panel kept speaking of things we must “lift up,” while others spoke out “Amen,” in agreement of various points made.

For better or worse, that is the culture of that group. People seek it out to reconcile their faith, and still see it as a safe place to exercise that faith. I struggle with this, because I am very much about discouraging faith. I see not having faith as a good thing, so I am very triggered by messages of reinforcement. Perhaps to vent a bit of it, I once heard myself snarkily say, “So say we all” after a comment I heard others Amen-ing. I understand that a conference to support ex-gay survivors has to be welcoming of religion, as many of those folks have/had dedicated themselves quite deeply to their faith and still might be figuring out how they make meaning. Still, I struggle when the alternative is not equally promoted—when no one is willing to reach out and say that being an atheist can also be a good thing (a topic I plan to explore a bit in a supplemental post).

What I think concerns me most is how little the rest of the LGBT movement is concerned with the ex-gay movement. There seems to be a sense that only those who seek out ex-gay therapy are the ones hurt and thus the impact of the ex-gay movement is minimal. This couldn’t be further from the truth, as it is groups like NARTH, Exodus International, and Focus on the Family, who not only are quite vocal against all queer equality efforts, but who also provide the most ammunition to our other opponents through their lies and myths. (Comments made this weekend by Marine General James Amos against DADT repeal reek of the age-old myth that homosexuality is contagious.) In addition, the sense that their ministries are shrinking is oblivious to the fact that they are growing immensely on an international scale, and are almost solely responsible for Uganda’s proposed bill to implement the death penalty for homosexuality (as just one example of the threat they pose).

Until the day the greater equality movement acknowledges that these groups truly are our arch-nemeses and takes a more universal approach to debunking them, they will continue to be a scourge on our families and communities. I hope you’ll listen to my interview with Christine Robinson on this week’s Queer and Queerer (Ep. 30) where we discuss this further.

More than anything, I applaud those ex-gay survivors who exercise the courage to speak out on a regular basis and make their story heard. This weekend, a young man stepped out named Chaim Levin, and his story will soon be heard on Nightline. He joins the ranks of folks like Peterson Toscano, Christine Bakke, Jallen Rix, Jacob Wilson, Jason Conner, Daniel Gonzalez, and the many others who have committed their lives to supporting those who survive these wicked “therapies.”

Many might think that one or the other of these events wasn’t important, and certainly the overlap of the two was minimal. I think both are. There need to be folks who protest, who speak out, who are aggressive, and who challenge those who persecute us. There also need to be folks who educate, who create structures of support for those hurt by these causes. While some might only feel they belong at one or the other, I applaud all those who support either and see the need to resist lies and fallacies that continue to destroys lives and families. Kudos to all who made this weekend possible.