The Gaytheist Agenda

That’s what happened to me, more or less. I posted this ten days ago and personally invited people to reply. Then I prepared myself for a barrage of comments and got only one, from a Satanist no less. So either not that many Christians are reading or none were able to rise to the challenge. Nonetheless, here is Ebon’s reply to the original post:

I’m a person of faith (Satanist, as it happens, but still faith). For all the atheists I’ve met (and I work for Beliefnet so that’s a lot), I’ve only ever met two I would classify as fundamentalist and both of those wanted (or said they wanted) to make religion illegal. That would be my classification of a fundamentalist, the desire to control another’s faith.

That said, i also recognise that those two were very much the lunatic fringe.

A Satanist working for Beliefnet, you certainly are brave. I’ve been a member of Beliefnet off and on and given up out of frustration after fighting with some of the more rabid RRRW types who think they and their religion run the world. They just can’t understand why “The Bible says…” doesn’t make everybody just stop in their tracks and obey. Like most places, Beliefnet is not particularly friendly to anybody not of the “dominant religion”.

 
That being said, I myself don’t care about what religion anybody is so long as they don’t push it on me, don’t harm anybody with it and don’t infringe upon the rights of others with it. It’s also a quirk of mine that I feel a bit of an affinity for people who practice the less-mainstream religions (yours included) simply because they have to put up with so much discrimination and bigotry–mostly RRRW Christians–which is something I certainly know about.

 

Now, technically there is no such thing as a “Fundamentalist Atheist”, at least not in the strict sense of the term. For example, Fundamentalist Christianity generally is typified by belief in the following “five fundamentals”:

* Inerrancy of the Scriptures
* The virgin birth and the deity of Jesus (Isaiah 7:14)
* The doctrine of substitutionary atonement through God’s grace and human faith (Hebrews 9)
* The bodily resurrection of Jesus (Matthew 28)
* The authenticity of Christ’s miracles (or, alternatively, his pre-millennial second coming)

Atheism is, simply put, non-belief in deities (weak/implicit atheism) or belief that deities don’t exist (strong/explicit atheism). There are no scriptures or doctrines, and therefore it’s not possible for atheists to be Fundamentalists in the way that Christians (or even Muslims) are Fundamentalists. (Go here for a more comprehensive explanation.) That doesn’t mean that atheists can’t be dogmatic or intolerant, however, and that’s where your thoughts come in.

 
There are, of course, some atheists who see any form of belief and religion, however moderate, as harmful and potentially dangerous, and therefore something to be eradicated. While I agree that religion has definitely been behind many hideous acts historically and currently, I don’t advocate active attempts to rid the world of it. (I wouldn’t, however, mourn its natural demise should people simply cease practicing it.) A number of the more prominent of these atheists are very vocal, have written best-selling books. From them and their supporters sprang the term “New Atheists”, and it’s also likely where the concept of “Fundamentalist Atheists” developed.

 
Ironically I just stumbled across this comic that depicts a fictional “Atheist Apocalypse”. If you follow any of the high-profile atheist authors you might recognize the Four Horsemen in the comic. While I find it amusing and somewhat intriguing, it’s also rather overreaching (as are most things of its nature). Yes, world without religion–particularly certain forms of religion–would go a long way in eradicating many of the ills of society. But we wouldn’t have the Utopia envisioned in the comic, for atheism is not a panacea. There are no panaceas. (And that, of course, is just my humble opinion.)

 
Of course I’ve rambled all over the place, as I’m sometimes wont to do. And the wine hasn’t even kicked in yet…

 
Life under “Fundamentalist Atheists” (or dogmatic/intolerant Atheists), if they became numerous and powerful enough, could potentially result in religion being outlawed. To me that’s as inappropriate as religion being forced upon people by law or other coercive means. If there’s no opportunity for choice then it’s wrong, plain and simple. There are others (on both sides of the spectrum) who disagree, however. And that is very sad indeed.

 

Edward Current explains why Atheism is a dangerous, intolerant religion that kills!

Just in case anybody was unsure, the preceding video was satire.

If you’re anything like me, the prospect of new books is an exciting one. So here is something to whet your appetite; forthcoming titles in a variety of intriguing genres. Enjoy!

This Letter to the Editor by Sharon Underwood was originally printed in the Valley News (White River Junction, VT/Hanover, NH) in 2000. While the letter is nearly eight years old it’s impact has not lessened over time. It is so powerful on it’s own merits that I cannot add anything to it by way of commentary, so I will simply present it to you now.

Vermont debate brings out the haters
Sunday, April 30, 2000
By SHARON UNDERWOOD
For the Valley News

As the mother of a gay son, I’ve seen firsthand how cruel and misguided people can be.

Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I’ve taken enough from you good people.

I’m tired of your foolish rhetoric about the “homosexual agenda” and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny.

My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay.

He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called “fag” incessantly, starting when he was 6.

In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn’t bear to continue living any longer, that he didn’t want to be gay and that he couldn’t face a life with no dignity.

You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don’t know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn’t put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you brains so that you could think, and it’s about time you started doing that.

No choice
At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you won’t get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a critical time of fetal development, I don’t know. I can only tell you with an absolute certainty that it is inborn.

If you want to tout your own morality, you’d best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it.

For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I’m puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will?

If that’s not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can?

A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I’ll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for “true Vermonters.”

Principles?
You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn’t give their lives so that the “homosexual agenda” could tear down the principles they died defending.

My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart. He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn’t the measure of the man.

You religious folk just can’t bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure of happiness. It offends your sensibilities that he should request the right to visit that companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax laws governing inheritance.

How dare he? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage.

You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious people who find your attitudes repugnant. God is not for the privileged majority, and God knows my son has committed no sin.

The deep-thinking author of a letter to the April 12 Valley News who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about “those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religious upbringing” asks: “What ever happened to the idea of striving . . . to be better human beings than we are?”

Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that?

(Sharon Underwood lives in White River Junction, Vt.)

Dutch Post-impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853. In addition to enriching the world with his many exquisite works of art he worked briefly as a teacher and as a missionary worker. Despite some quotes attributed to him, van Gogh likely wasn’t an atheist or even an agnostic as some believe though he may have experienced some doubts as many do. Nonetheless the world is a much more beautiful place for his having been here. So here is to Vincent van Gogh.

I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create.

That God of the clergymen, He is for me as dead as a doornail. But am I an atheist for all that? The clergymen consider me as such— be it so; but I love, and how could I feel love if I did not live, and if others did not live, and then, if we live, there is something mysterious in that. Now call that God, or human nature or whatever you like, but there is something which I cannot define systematically, though it is very much alive and very real, and see, that is God, or as good as God. To believe in God for me is to feel that there is a God, not a dead one, or a stuffed one, but a living one, who with irresistible force urges us toward aimer encore; that is my opinion.

This evening, March 29th at 8pm (your local time) join the celebration of Earth Hour. Make a statement about Global Warming by turning off your lights for one hour. Just think of the impact you can make!

Sadly you would be incorrect, because to a very real extent it is still going on today. True, people are not being shackled sold and kept as legal property. However what is being done is very close to that, particularly with the amount of manipulation and intimidation utilized against these individuals.

Years ago when I first heard George W. Bush use the words “Guest Worker Program” I had a bad feeling. Knowing his type (Republicans who refuse to raise the minimum wage because poor people don’t count) as I do I could only envision desperate people coming from destitute nations, being put to work in our nation’s most dangerous and dirty jobs for rock bottom wages, then tossed out when their Guest Worker visas had expired. Then they’d be replaced with a fresh batch of desperate people willing to do the “jobs Americans won’t” (because we won’t do those horrible, dangerous jobs for peanuts). Now my dark visions are coming true, with an insidious twist.

 

March 10, 2008 – Hundreds of guestworkers from India, lured by false promises of permanent U.S. residency, paid tens of thousands of dollars each to obtain temporary jobs at Gulf Coast shipyards only to find themselves forced into involuntary servitude and living in overcrowded, guarded labor camps, according to a class action lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

…..

Several of the workers were illegally detained by company security guards during a pre-dawn raid of their quarters after they began organizing other workers to complain about abuses they faced.

“We were like pigs in a cage,” said Sabulal Vijayan, a worker who tried to commit suicide when company guards attempted to detain him.

Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, the complaint claims defendants engaged in forced labor, human trafficking, fraud, racketeering and civil rights violations. Signal is a marine and fabrication company with shipyards in Mississippi and Texas. It is a subcontractor for global defense company Northrop Grumman Corp.

After Hurricane Katrina scattered its workforce, Signal used the federal H-2B guestworker program to import employees to work as welders, pipefitters, shipfitters and in other positions. Hundreds of Indian men mortgaged their futures in late 2006 to pay recruiters as much as $20,000 for travel, visa and other fees after they were told it would lead to good jobs, green cards and permanent U.S. residency.

Many of the workers gave up other jobs and sold their houses, family farms, jewelry and other valuables to come up with the money. Some took out high-interest loans. Many were also told that for an extra $1,500-per person fee, they could bring their families to live in the United States.

When the men arrived in early 2007, they discovered they wouldn’t receive the green cards as promised but only 10-month, H-2B guestworker visas. They were forced to pay $1,050 a month to live in crowded company housing in isolated, fenced labor camps where as many as 24 men shared a trailer with only two toilets. When they tried to find their own housing, Signal officials told them they would still have the rent deducted from their paychecks.

The camps were miles from the nearest shopping areas, places of worship and residential neighborhoods. With the exception of rare occasions, such as Christmas, visitors were not allowed into the camps, which were enclosed by fences. Company employees regularly searched the workers’ belongings.

“This company and its recruiters exploited foreign workers who legally entered the country under the belief that they were going to be able to live the American dream,” said Mary Bauer, director of the SPLC’s Immigrant Justice Project. “Instead, they found themselves chained to an abusive employer, forced to live in a substandard labor camp and threatened with ruin if they tried to stand up for their rights. This case illustrates everything that’s wrong with our guestworker program.”

Workers who complained about the conditions they faced were threatened with deportation.

…..

By March 9, 2007, the workers had started organizing. Signal responded with an early-morning raid by armed guards on the labor camp in Pascagoula, Miss. Three of the organizers were locked in a room for hours. They were told they would be fired and deported.

Vijayan, who sold his wife’s jewelry and borrowed from friends to build a better life in America, slit his wrist in desperation. He recovered after being hospitalized.

…..

Last year, the SPLC released Close to Slavery, a report that documented the widespread, systematic abuse of guestworkers by U.S. employers. It found that guestworkers are routinely cheated out of wages, forced to pay thousands of dollars in fees to obtain low-wage temporary jobs and held virtually captive by employers or labor brokers who seize their documents. It also found that these workers are often forced to live in squalid conditions and denied medical benefits for on-the-job injuries.

The SPLC has worked in the courts and Congress to reform this system fraught with abuse and exploitation. “We are taking action to protect these workers because the Bush administration is refusing to enforce their rights,” Bauer said. “We need Congress to reform this shameful system.”

Delmonte Corporation is also under fire for serious abuse of individuals under the Guest Worker Program. Doubtless they’re one of hundreds, if not thousands of offenders.

I am utterly revolted by these practices. These people are human beings, not personal property to play around with. I just can’t fathom how people can live with themselves when they use and abuse other people like this, but then again I have a conscience. Maybe those people don’t.

The Guest Worker Program is resulting in widespread abuses of human rights and is tantamount to indentured servitude at best, and slavery at worst. The program as it is now needs to undergo a massive overhaul or be completely disbanded. Otherwise things will go on as they have been, and that is simply unacceptable.

Warning. The following video is graphic and depicts images of animal cruelty. It is not recommended for very sensitive or young viewers.

According to The Humane Society, more than 275,000 seals will be slaughtered this year for their fur. You can help stop the cruelty.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is asking you to put yourself on the map as taking a stand against hate. There are currently 888 recognized hate groups in the US, an increase of 48% since 2000. The more we speak out, the greater our chances of putting a stop to them. I’m on the map. Will you join me?

Calpernia Addams explains it all to you, with a hefty dose of humor.