The Gaytheist Agenda

White House officials met with secularist and atheist groups for the first time in history. Of course since religious groups have lost their exclusive access to the WH they must have tantrums over the event.

 

 
The supporters of Proposition 8 realize how poorly their side argued their case in Perry vs. Schwarzenegger. So now, like monkeys, they are pulling yet more poo out of their backsides and flinging it in hopes that something will stick to the wall.

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The potential harms they cited included giving bisexuals a legal basis for pursuing group marriages and unmarried fathers an incentive to abandon their children.
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Bisexual means a person can be romantically and sexually attracted to either gender. It doesn’t mean they’re inclined to fall in love with both at the same time. Of course the bigots like to push the notion that it’s the latter because then they can also pimp their slippery slope fallacy. OMG, if we allow same-sex marriage it might lead to POLYGAMY!!! Yeah, and people might start squeezing the Charmin too. Please people, protect the toilet paper and vote NO on Gay.

As to the claim that same-sex marriage would give unmarried fathers an incentive to abandon their children…that’s pure horsecrap. There are already millions of “deadbeat dads” out there and it has absolutely nothing to do with same-sex marriage. It’s high time that heterosexual people stop blaming gay people and gay unions for the failings of heterosexual relationships.

 

 
A student in a Maryland middle school refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Her teacher mocked her and called her names on the first day, and had the school police escort her to the office on the second day. It’s a good thing the girl wasn’t doodling on her desk….

 

 
Yet another Christian is crying “persecution” and filing a lawsuit because he thinks they shouldn’t have to share public space with others, or be pestered with the opinions of those who think differently. Perhaps a secured commune would be a better place for him.

 

 
Finally, this “Christian” charity will stop providing aid to Haiti if they won’t turn from their evil Voodoo ways and convert to Christianity. This is exactly why I despise most “faith based” charities–they don’t truly want to help but only to push their religion on others. The aid they provide is only a vehicle to gain more bodies for their god. There is nothing moral about what they do.

 

We’re constantly told that religion makes people more altruistic, moral, kind, etc. We’re also told that atheists are untrustworthy, immoral, depraved, and wouldn’t think twice about committing any crime (up to and including murder) because they have no “authority” to answer to. So why is it that millions of religious signs, banners and billboards go up every day without incident, while the atheist sign and billboard campaign has been met with a barrage of vehement protests, refusals by ad companies to post the billboards, vandalism and even theft?

The latest instance involves the billboards put up in Sacramento. The day I read about those billboards going up in the Sacramento area I knew there was going to be trouble and I was right. At least one thus far has been vandalized. I wonder if “god” told someone to do it.

One or more vandals used spray paint to deface part of a billboard on Interstate 80 midway between Sacramento and Davis, California, that reads “Are you good without God? Millions are.” The words “also lost?” were added below the “Millions are.”

The billboard, which was placed by the Sacramento Area Coalition of Reason last Tuesday, is one of ten such roadway ads that have gone up in and around Sacramento. They were paid for by the United Coalition of Reason, headquartered in Washington DC.

“This shows loud and clear just how necessary our message is, because prejudice against people who don’t believe in a god remains very real in America.” said Rachael Harrington, coordinator of Sacramento CoR.
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If you want to have faith or religion that’s fine. More power to you. But if your faith/religion is so weak you lash out and even commit crimes any time it is challenged in the least you have a serious problem. Any religion or faith worth a darn can tolerate opposing opinions and challenges.

Or are you actually saying your god is so effete he needs you to defend him from billboards?

 

Keep in mind that every reputable professional organization states that homosexuality is not a disorder, but is a normal orientation like heterosexuality. They also firmly denounce so-called “reparative therapy” as ineffective and potentially harmful, given that sexual orientation is not changeable. None of that matters to people like Brian Fischer, who rely not on facts but the opinions of ancient sheepherders. These opinions have been deemed “holy”, and are therefore something people like Fischer can use to add a sheen of respectability and authority to their own personal bigotry.

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It might be worth noting that what I actually suggested is that we impose the same sanctions on those who engage in homosexual behavior as we do on those who engage in intravenous drug abuse, since both pose the same kind of risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. I’d be curious to know what you think should be done with IV drug abusers, because whatever it is, I think the same response should be made to those who engage in homosexual behavior.
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Riiiiight. Because HIV/AIDS can’t be contracted through heterosexual “behavior”. According to the CDC, the fastest growing group of new HIV/AIDS diagnoses is among heterosexual women of color. It’s time, for the good of all, to bury the myth that AIDS is a “gay disease”.

If you believe that what drug abusers need is to go into an effective detox program, then we should likewise put active homosexuals through an effective reparative therapy program.

Homosexuality is not a mental illness or an addiction. It does not need “therapy”, particularly not from charlatans pushing pseudo-science and demeaning lies designed not to help but to manipulate and even torture.

Secondly, I’m afraid you’re simply wrong about the Bible’s perspective on the law and homosexuality.
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I don’t give a fig about the Bible’s perspective on homosexuality or the Koran’s perspective or any other “holy” book’s perspective. We do not live in a theocracy and our laws should not be based on anybody’s interpretation of “holy” books or religious doctrine. If they were, well, just look to modern day theocracies to see how life would be.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been told “Christians don’t hate gay people. Christians don’t bear any ill will toward gay people. No Christians in America want to see harm come to gay people.” Blah blah blah. Sorry, I didn’t buy it before and I’m not buying it now. There are far too may people like Brian Fischer proving just how much Christians do hate gay people and want to see them harmed.*

 

* Please don’t attempt the “Not a True Christian” line. He’s one of you. If you don’t like what he’s doing in the name of your religion speak out against him or stew silently, but don’t try to disown him to make yourself look better.

 

Thankfully I never plan to be in Jordan so I don’t have to worry about this effed up new law. I do, however, feel for those who have to suffer under it.

The Jordanian government has ruled that electronic communication like websites will be subject to the country’s Press and Publications Law, prohibiting speech that insults religion, according to reports from the region.
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Critics of the ruling worry that the law will be widely applied to social media, possibly even SMS and to websites that allow reader comments to be posted. Supporters appear to argue that free speech comes with responsibilities along these lines and that the legal framework actually facilitates online communication.
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A blasphemy law in Ireland, the UN resolution against “defamation of religion” and now this? Where are all the RRRWers who rend their garments over “thought crimes laws” when you need them?

 

The FFRF bus ads are coming to San Francisco, as I mentioned earlier. Enter the “atheists are intolerant yadda yadda” complaints. That’s expected. But why is it that so many people who object to atheism and/or atheists obviously don’t understand the concepts?

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This rankles me as much as a crazy email about the Eid stamp. To be an atheist is to be, by definition, closed to the idea of god. That thinking is not free, it’s limited. It’s the opposite of open-mindedness. It doesn’t matter how much evidence you have. What matters is that your mind is made up–closed, not open. The one quality you share with theists is certainty (and what a devil is certainty).
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To be an atheist is to be, by definition, closed to the idea of god. I get so tired of non-atheists, who obviously know nothing about atheism, attempting to define us all. I know there are other atheists who feel the same as I’ve heard their weary and frustrated complaints about this problem. That thinking is not free, it’s limited. It appears McMahon is also mistaken about the definition of “freethinker”.

So here is a basic primer:

There are, according to Dawkins, seven levels of theistic probability. Atheists occupy two levels of that scale; levels six and seven. Most atheists are weak atheists who simply don’t believe in gods. It’s a smaller subset of atheists, the strong atheists, who actively deny the existence of gods.

I’m a weak atheist, level six on the Dawkins scale. I don’t’ believe in gods (any gods, not just “God”). I used to be a devout Christian but I came to realize that the Bible was full of inconsistencies and contradictions, and that there simply wasn’t evidence for the god I’d been taught to believe in. If empirical evidence of one or more gods were to be presented to me I’d analyze it and make a determination. I’m open to the possibility that gods exist; I simply don’t believe because thus far I’ve found no convincing evidence to date (this isn’t an invitation to proselytize, thank you). So how do I, and the millions of others like me, fit into McMahon’s worldview of atheists as closed-minded and limited in thinking?

Likewise, attacking other peoples’ faith is not the same as tolerance:
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Some of these messages are witty, some mocking, some taken out of context, but all, as presented, are intolerant. I’ve spent a lot of time in San Francisco, and I’m sure that many San Franciscans will agree with these signs. That’s not the same as being tolerant of them. Other San Franciscans will not agree with them but will tolerate them because honestly, this campaign isn’t going to shock anyone in San Francisco. That’s a form of tolerance, but it’s not the high form.

Why are we always expected to treat peoples’ faith with kid gloves? Religious groups constantly put up signs others would find offensive and intolerant, yet I don’t see dozens of newspaper articles and LTTEs each time a church billboard goes up. Advertisers can insinuate we smell bad, are too fat, dress poorly and have no friends. Political signs can hint that we’re going to harm children or destroy the nation if we don’t vote a certain way. How is it that atheists are “intolerant” or “attacking” the faith of others because they merely express the fact that they don’t believe in gods?

Religious believers routinely express their beliefs in public. They tell others, “Your god is false”, “Gays are perverts”, “Atheists are fools”, “You’re a sinner”, “You’re going to burn in hell”, “You should follow my god because….”. Why do they think they should be protected from others expressing their opinions? We must not allow religion and “faith” to be shielded from discussion and even criticism. To do so would be imprudent and potentially dangerous.

 

Do I have high hopes for this? No, I don’t. Nonetheless I’m pleased it’s being proposed.

When Mark McNealy was laid off from his job in April, he lost his employer-provided health insurance. He could still pay a reduced rate for insurance through COBRA for 18 months, but his partner, Robert Meredith, a cancer survivor, could not. Because the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act” (”DOMA”) discriminates against same-sex couples by denying them federal respect for their lawful marriages, federal programs such as COBRA don’t cover same-sex spouses. Meredith’s own job doesn’t provide coverage, so right now he has no health insurance. If his cancer returns, Meredith and McNealy could face a catastrophe.

Yesterday, with impressive support from more than 90 initial co-sponsors, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) introduced a bill in the House of Representatives that would end such government acts of discrimination by repealing “DOMA.” Congress’s passage of the new bill, appropriately named the Respect for Marriage Act, and a signature by a president who has repeatedly pledged support for full repeal of “DOMA,” will get the federal government back to treating marriages with respect, rather than destabilizing them. We can give our country the chance to remove the unfair and immoral “gay exception” from federal law.

The Respect for Marriage Act repeals “DOMA” in its entirety. It doesn’t tell states what marriages they must celebrate or how to treat marriages, but provides that the federal responsibilities and protections accorded marriages will remain stable and predictable no matter where a couple lives, works, or travels, and no matter whether that couple is gay or non-gay. The Respect for Marriage Act doesn’t require any person, religious organization, locality, or state to celebrate or license the marriage of a same-sex couple. The First Amendment protects the right of churches and religious bodies to determine the qualifications for religious marriage, and the Respect for Marriage Act cannot and will not upset that longstanding protection.

The Respect for Marriage Act would fix a grievous wrong that plays out every day in concrete injuries. Because of “DOMA,” a person married to someone of the same sex can’t receive the same spousal health benefits that employers routinely provide to heterosexual spouses without paying additional taxes that different-sex spouses don’t have to pay. Nor can a same-sex spouse take unpaid leave to care for a sick or injured husband or wife; receive spousal benefits under Social Security even after a lifetime of paying into the program; or use the safe harbor provisions in bankruptcy law, Medicaid rules and other federal statutes that protect families from financial ruin. These are just a few of the more than 1,000 responsibilities and rights the federal government denies to same-sex couples and their children. Government has no business putting obstacles in the path of people seeking to care for their loved ones, especially in times of economic uncertainty and challenge. The Respect for Marriage Act will get the federal government back on the right track.
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We’ll make a trip to the city just to see them! From the Freedom From Religion Foundation:

If you’re looking for “a sign,” you won’t find one from above on more than 75 buses in San Francisco over the next month.

Plenty of irreverent and thought-provoking messages, compliments of the national Freedom From Religion Foundation, are being unrolled this week.

The Madison, Wis.-based association, representing nearly 14,000 nonbelievers nationwide and more than 2,000 in California, is unveiling 75 “king” exterior signs with the messages: “Imagine No Religion” and Mark Twain’s “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.” Both messages are printed against a colorful stained-glass backdrop.

Additionally, 200 interior bus signs are going up, featuring six provocative quotations by five famous skeptics of history, plus a quote from a the very contemporary Richard Dawkins, author of the blockbuster bestseller, The God Delusion.

Dawkins’ smiling face is juxtaposed by one of his famous lines from The God Delusion: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction.”

A four-line poem by Emily Dickinson is turned into an interior bus card featuring her image:

“Faith” is a fine invention
When gentlemen can see–
But microscopes are prudent
In an emergency!”

Agnostic “attorney for the damned” Clarence Darrow is depicted and quoted saying: “I don‘t believe in God, because I don’t believe in Mother Goose.”

Actress Butterfly McQueen, famous for her typecast role as “Prissy” in the movie, “Gone with the Wind,” is quoted saying: “As my ancestors are free from slavery, I am free from the slavery of religion.” McQueen was a nearly lifelong atheist and a Lifetime Member of the Foundation.

Actress Katharine Hepburn is memorialized: “I’m an atheist, and that’s it. I believe that there’s nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other and do what we can for other people” (Ladies Home Journal, Oct. 1991).

The Foundation launched a national billboard campaign in late 2007, which has now visited more than 20 states and 30 cities (including San Francisco last December). Billboard messages include the Lennonesque “Imagine No Religion,” “Beware of Dogma,” “Keep Religion OUT of Government,” and “Praise Darwin: Evolve Beyond Belief.”

“We’re delighted to take our important message that we can be free of superstition to the public in San Francisco. We think advertising on public transportation is ‘patriotic,’ and supports passengers who are choosing public transportation,” noted Foundation co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor.

“These bus signs are a ‘sign of the times,’ ” says Dan Barker, Foundation co-president. “Those of us who are nonreligious– freethinkers, atheists, and agnostics–are a growing force in America.” San Francisco has been identified in surveys as one of the cities with the fewest believers and the fewest churchgoers.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis., is a national association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics) that has been working since 1978 to keep church and state separate.

This is why we simply must ban marriage, adoption and all other forms of rights for those evil gay people. They’re predators who use their positions of power to indoctrinate children!

The head football coach at Breckinridge County High School took about 20 players on a school bus late last month to his church, where nearly half of them were baptized, school officials say.

The mother of one player said her 16-year-old son was baptized without her knowledge and consent, and she is upset that a public school bus was used to take players to a church service — and that the school district’s superintendent was there and did not object.

“Nobody should push their faith on anybody else,” said Michelle Ammons, whose son, Robert Coffey, said Coach Scott Mooney told him and other players that the Aug. 26 outing would include only a motivational speaker and a free steak dinner.
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Two other parents, however, said in interviews that their sons told them that Mooney had said the voluntary outing to Franklin Crossroads Baptist Church in Hardin County would include a revival.
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David Friedman, general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, said in an interview that the trip would appear to violate Supreme Court edicts on the separation of church and state — even if it was voluntary and the school district didn’t pay for the fuel.

“If players want to attend the coach’s church and get baptized, that’s great,” Friedman said. But a coach cannot solicit player attendance at school, he said, noting, “Coaches have great power and persuasion by virtue of their position, and they have to stay neutral.”

My error. It wasn’t a gay coach “pushing his homosexuality” on the students. It was yet another case of children having religion pushed on them without their parents knowledge or consent. Sort of like the Gideons do every year across the nation.

 
Won’t somebody please think of the children? And where is the “Parental Rights” crowd when they’re actually needed? Oh, that’s right. “Parents’ rights” mean nothing when it comes to turning someone else’s children into little Godbots.

 

Jack Waldvogel is treasurer for the Petoskey Board of Education and owner of Waldvogel Insurance Agency. He decided he was tired of this PC crap whereby the school recognizes that while children are away from school for a week or so at the end of December they might celebrate a variety of holidays, if they celebrate any at all. He wanted the school to officially recognize his holiday and to heck with everyone else! So he sent an e-mail in which he threw a tantrum and made threats in order to get his way. (Waldvogel claims the e-mail was meant to be tongue in cheek but read that last sentence–emphasis mine–he meant it.)

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Frankly, I’m personally offended by this, and feel incredible regret for whomever comes up with this stuff. I think political correctness is just so much crap, and we have gone way overboard. We are, in spite of what the Obamessiah proclaims, STILL a Christian nation, founded on Judeo Christian principles. God is included in every State Constitution, and His name is embedded on every Federal Building in Washington, DC.

Two choices here for our school district….either agree to change the “December vacation” back to “Christmas Break”, in ALL future publications (including the school calendar) voluntarily, or I will make a motion to change it at the NEXT Board meeting, and raise such a stink, and bring out every redneck Christian Conservative north of Clare, to compel the District to do so. The press will love this one….. TV, Radio, and the print media. We may go Statewide with this one. I’m not in the least interested what our school lawyers might think of this, they can celebrate or fail to celebrate however they wish.

Our children need to know that we are a Christian nation and taking all reference to a higher being out of our educational vocabulary is wrong. Let the Ramadamians and the Kwanzanians bring their celebrations to school too….to share with our Christian children, but don’t cut God out of the school completely. Madalyn Murray O’Hare, the heretic, has been dead for years.

Commit this one to memory; Neutrality to religion is not hostility to religion. By not mentioning religion or religious holidays by name schools are not “cutting God out of school”, they are merely refraining from pushing religion on the children. (I’m sure Jack Waldvogel and others of his ilk wouldn’t like it if Winter Break were suddenly re-named Kwanzaa Break or Yule Break.) By not endorsing a particular religion schools are fulfilling their Constitutional obligations. They are in no way forbidding religion. Students are always free to believe and worship as they choose.

Don’t assume this is a joke…… I’m being as serious as I possibly can here.

Jack Waldvogel

The school board kowtowed to his outrageous demands and changed the name of their “Winter Break” to “Christmas break”. Apparently all you need to do to get whatever you want there is tantrum and threaten to bring your screaming redneck friends.

Thankfully the Freedom From Religion Foundation stepped in to put an end to this patently illegal situation. The school board since decided it would not change the name of the Winter Break.

After the Freedom of Religion Foundation sent a letter of complaint Aug. 25 on behalf of a school district patron and the Foundation’s Michigan members, the Petoskey Board of Education reversed its decision to use the term “Christmas break” on the school calendar.

On Aug. 18 during a closed session, the school board voted unanimously to change the wording of the school calendar from “Winter holiday break” to “Christmas break.” That was eight days after the board treasurer, Jack Waldvogel, sent an inflammatory e-mail to district staff and board members. Either make the change voluntarily, Waldvogel said, “or I will make a motion to change it at the NEXT Board meeting, and raise such a stink, and bring out every redneck Christian Conservative north of Clare, to compel the District to do so.”
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The statement continued: “The ability or right to change the wording is not at issue. It is well-settled that schools have the right to refer to the break as Christmas. Christmas is a federal holiday and the vacation period can be named as such, as has been traditionally accepted. However, it is also well-established that government actions (including public school boards) must have a secular purpose for their actions (based on a finding in the federal court case Lemon v. Kurtzman). The change to ‘Christmas break’ cannot be initiated or driven based on a religious agenda. This board does not wish to expend the district’s limited resources on legal issues which in all likelihood would not be successful.”
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Jack Waldvogel has every right to believe and worship as he chooses. What he doesn’t have the right to do is force his beliefs on every school child in the Petoskey school system. It’s a pity he can’t understand the difference.

 

As promised, Dr. Michael Brown and his gang of Christianist crusaders descended upon Charlotte Pride today to express their great “love” of gay people everywhere. Do watch the video at the link (unfortunately it can’t be embedded) to see these “loving” people in action.

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“We’re praying to make them know that god, he loves them, that they’re not cast out, rejected and hated, and that there is a better way than gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender, and that’s found in Jesus,” Brown said.
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Translation: You’re not rejected or despised so long as you pretend to be straight and kowtow to our chosen religious dogma. Otherwise we’ll harass “love” you to the ends of the Earth whether you like it or not.

Sorry, but conditional “love” isn’t love at all. It’s blackmail.

They also wanted to send a message in hopes of stopping what they’re calling an activist agenda.

“By activist agenda, we mean those who came out of the closet 40 years ago and are trying to put conservative Christians in the closet,” Brown said.

Nobody wants to put Christians of any persuasion in the closet–we know what a vile a place the closet is. We just want them to stop harassing us and let us live in peace. We want to have the same rights everyone else takes for granted and to be treated like human beings. Unfortunately conservative Christians have chosen to wage war on us, so we have no choice but to fight back.

In closing I invite you to again read Hemant Mehta’s beautiful post, You Say We’re Redefining Marriage? You’re Redefining Love.