The Gaytheist Agenda

This time they’re attempting to bully Marriott International into removing “sexually explicit” movies from its in-room pay-per-view options. Apparently groups like American Family Association believe that adults shouldn’t have the opportunity to decide for themselves what they will view in the privacy of their own hotel rooms.

Several conservative groups, including the American Family Association, are asking Marriott International Inc. to stop giving hotel guests the option of ordering pay-per-view movies with strong sexual content - gay and straight.

AFA, based in Tupelo, said 47 “pro-family leaders” have signed a letter asking chain’s chief executive, J.W. Marriott Jr., for a meeting to discuss their concerns.

Marriott was told that stopping “porn movies” would be in keeping with the corporation’s position of “promoting the well-being of children and families,” AFA said in a news release.

Marriott’s website says the hotel chain has about 3,000 properties in the U.S. and 67 other countries and territories. AFA said most of these hotels offer in-room movies with pornographic content.

Roger Conner, vice president of communications for Marriott International, said Thursday the company would review the group’s letter and the request for a meeting.

Conner said Marriott and most hotel chains offer in-room entertainment that includes a wide range of films and “just one of those is adult offerings.”

“Every guest can quickly and easily block out just the adult movie offering by either calling the front desk or using their (TV) remote pad in the room,” Conner said. “It does not appear at all if the guest does not want the offering.”

…..

Among those participating in the letter to Marriott, according to AFA, are James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family; Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council; Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission; Bishop Harry Jackson, chairman of High Impact Leadership Council; and Robert Peters, president of Morality in Media.

This is utterly ridiculous. If a guest doesn’t want adult movies shown in their room they simply don’t have to order them. If they want to prevent another individual, such as a minor staying with them, ordering them, they can ask the hotel management to block them from the room. It’s that simple. There is no reason for the RRRW busybodies to make it impossible for everybody who stays at a Marriott hotel to be unable to see a particular form of entertainment simply because they themselves wish not to.

In case they’re not able to understand the implications of their bullying tactics let me propose this. Perhaps atheists and other non-Christians should band together and demand that Bibles be banned from all hotel rooms. After all, if we don’t believe in the Bible and don’t wish to see them then why should something we don’t approve of be so readily available in the nightstand of every single hotel room of the nation? Consider what is in the Bible–infanticide, genocide, incest, prostitution, murder, misogyny and a whole host of other heinous atrocities. Yet it’s readily available in nearly every hotel room within easy access of any child.

Of course I’m not seriously proposing the above, but merely offering it as food for thought. The RRRW wishes to control everything and everyone, yet rends its garments if anybody utter a peep against them (let alone attempt to thwart their megalomania). This nation was built on individual freedoms, and that is exactly what groups like FOF, AFA and others are attempting to destroy under the boot of “Family Values”. It’s time that We the People fight back if we are to keep those precious freedoms.

 

You know people like this ‘worry me’ more so than disturbing or angering me. There’s something else going on in their lives, that they would waste such energy on the invasion of consenting adults personal lives/homes/and bedrooms. There are so many other more urgent and pressing causes they could concern themselves with. World Hunger, The Economy, The War, The Lack of Health Care etc. and they’re worried about sex - I guess that’s what happens when you’re not happy in yours. I dont mean it as a laugh or for a joke.

 
They are the new Puritans, and they seem to think that if only life would return to how it was when Leave it to Beaver ruled the airwaves–the “Good Old Days”–things would be right with the world again. What they don’t understand is that the Good Old Days never existed. What they see on television as a depiction of the 50’s or whatever era they think was idyllic is pure fiction and can never be created or captured. As much as I love utopian fiction I’m wise enough to understand it’s just fiction. I don’t seriously expect to create a utopia of any kind, nor do I anticipate anybody ever could. Sadly some people think that if they just yell loud enough or apply enough force they can get their utopia (of course one person’s utopia is another person’s dystopia).

 
I don’t see them applying their time, money and energy to serious problems like poverty, health care, world hunger or global warming any time soon. That takes genuine concern with the needs of others, and I don’t get the impression that they have that despite their constant calls to “please think of the children”. They could prove me wrong at some point in the future, however…

 

For everyone who says there’s no harm presented by those who hold religious beliefs I present this story.

WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) — The frantic 911 call to the Marathon County Sheriff’s Department from the home of an 11-year-old Weston girl who died from untreated diabetes was made by friends of the girl’s parents, authorities said Thursday.

…..

Randall and Althea Wormgoor each spoke to a dispatcher as chaos and cries could be heard in the background at Dale and Leilani Neumann’s home in rural Weston on Sunday afternoon, said Capt. Scott Sleeter of the Everest Metro Police Department in Weston.

Madeline Neumann died Sunday from an undiagnosed but treatable form of diabetes as her parents prayed for her to get better. Her mother, Leilani Neumann, said she never expected her daughter, whom she called Kara, to die.

The family believes in the Bible, which says healing comes from God, Leilani Neumann said.

The sheriff’s department released tape recordings Thursday of two calls related to the girl’s medical condition.

One was from an aunt in California on the department’s non-emergency line, Lt. Jason Plaza said. She reported the girl was in a coma and needed medical help because the family “believes in faith instead of doctors.”

…..

In other words, the parents simply sat around doing nothing but making wishes to a spirit they have no proof exists while their daughter got sicker and sicker, then died of a treatable disorder. That’s depraved neglect if I ever heard it, at the very least. But wait–it gets worse.

Janine Geske, a Marquette University law professor who was a state Supreme Court justice from 1993-98, said a possible criminal charge in the case could be second-degree reckless homicide, which requires proof of “recklessly causing the death of another human being.” It carries up to 25 years in prison.

But Wisconsin has laws on the books that say a parent cannot be accused of abuse or neglect of a child if in good faith they selected prayer as a basis of treatment for a disease, Geske said.

So apparently the parents are going to get off scott-free for their behavior. How perfectly vile.

Addendum. A comment has arrived. OJ said:

This is the article that enraged and upset me enough to start my own atheist blog. I seriously could not believe my eyes when I read about it. And then, two days later, it happened again to a 15-month old girl with a bacterial infection. Two deaths in one week as a direct result of people who were too stupid to take their daughter to someone who knew anything at all about human health. Disgusting.

 
Indeed. Of course we’re not supposed to say anything (and they can’t be prosecuted) because it’s their right to let their child die in the name of their “deeply held religious beliefs”. People like them are also allowed to keep people like us from having equal rights because of their “deeply held religious beliefs”. Am I the only one who thinks things are really messed up here?

Does this creep you out as much as it does me?

 
There are two likely possibilities. These children may grow up to be RRRW whackjob fundamentalists just as their parents have trained them to be. Alternatively they’ll rebel against the repressive, noxious upbringing and ditch religion altogether. I hope the latter is the case for the good of the children and the world.

I realize that not everybody reads classic literature. Nonetheless I would think someone between the manufacturer and the store might have realized that the Lolita Bed for six-year-old girls was a bad idea. But it wasn’t until irate parents began flooding the store with complaints that action was taken

In “Lolita”, a 1955 novel by Vladimir Nabokov, the narrator becomes sexually involved with his 12-year-old stepdaughter — but Woolworths staff had not heard of the classic novel or two subsequent films based on it.

Hence they saw nothing wrong with advertising the Lolita Midsleeper Combi, a whitewashed wooden bed with pull-out desk and cupboard intended for girls aged about six until a concerned mother raised the alarm on a parenting Web site.

…..

Woolworths said the product had now been dropped.

“Now this has been brought to our attention, the product has been removed from sale with immediate effect,” the chain said.

“We will be talking to the supplier with regard to how the branding came about.”

No doubt they will. I suspect they’ll be watching the movie as well. For research purposes, of course.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation based in Madison is after another Nativity scene, this time in Arkansas.

Their Web page has this statement, “The founders who wrote the U.S. Constitution wanted citizens to be free to support the church of their choice or no religion at all.” They claim to educate the public concerning the separation of the church and state.
To educate means to provide unbiased information. The First Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Nowhere does it state or insinuate, “or no religion at all.”

On the contrary. People who don’t practice any religion are just as protected under the First Amendment as are those who practice religion. (Those who practice minority and “unpopular” are also protected.) The intolerance of religious bigots doesn’t change that.

The reason that the Congress added “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” was because of organizations and zealots who would eliminate our freedom to worship were there no laws to stop them.

It was also added because of zealots who would try to impose their religion on others who do not worship the dominant religion or do not worship at all. Sadly revisionists keep trying to misconstrue it as something it’s not. It doesn’t mean that RRRW Christians can run roughshod over America and rule it with an iron Bible.

The First Amendment is there to protect religion from the government, not to protect the government from religion. I quote from their Web page, “Our Constitution was very purposely written to be a godless document.” They never reference the Declaration of Independence, which says that we “are endowed by (our) Creator with certain unalienable rights.”

And by the way, the “godless” Constitution refers to the “Godly” Declaration of Independence in Article VII.

David Haile,

Wausau

The “Creator” loosely referenced in the DoE is not the meddle-in-everything God of the Christian Bible, particularly the RRW Dominionist style Christianity. It was the Deist God, and many of the Founding Fathers were in fact Deists rather than Christians.

The deist outlook also gained a foothold in the American colonies, where it became popular among the rich and well-born about the time of the Revolution. Of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence, the theological leanings of some twenty have been identified. Three have been characterized as deists: Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, and Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island. Two others, John Adams of Massachusetts and George Wythe of Virginia, are described as liberal Christians strongly influenced by deism. Four, including Jefferson’s friend Benjamin Rush, were liberals not inclined toward deism. About eleven were definitely orthodox believers. Samuel Huntington, Philip Livingston, and John Witherspoon, president of Princeton University, were prominent in this last group.

…..

None of the Founding Fathers meditated more assiduously on religion than Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826). He was brought up in the rituals and traditions of the Anglican Church, as it existed in Virginia at the time. In his college years at William and Mary he came to admire Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, and John Locke as three great paragons of wisdom. Under the influence of several professors he converted to the deist philosophy. He made a careful study of the philosophical writings of Viscount Henry Bolingbroke, a strict deist whose God was remote and unconcerned with human affairs.

In his public pronouncements as a statesman and legislator, Jefferson expressed what he considered to belong to the common and public core of religion. He kept his more personal opinions to himself, refraining from putting them in any writing that might find its way into print, but he occasionally penned confidential memoranda for himself and a few friends.

Jefferson’s public religion appears in the Declaration of Independence, which refers to “the laws of Nature and Nature’s God,” to “inalienable” rights conferred upon all human beings by their Creator, and to “the protection of divine Providence.” In his first inaugural address, in 1801, Jefferson spoke of how the American people were “enlightened by a benign religion, professed indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and love of man, acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence.” In his second inaugural, four years later, he emphasized the nation’s need for the favor and enlightenment of Providence and asked his hearers to unite with him in supplication to “that Being in whose hands we are.”

Indeed. Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, was a Deist. The “creator” he referred to in that document was the Deist God, a rational God. There were numerous differences between Deists and Christians, the most striking being that Deists rejected these particular core doctrine of Orthodox Christianity:

•The doctrine of the Trinity is false because there is no Scriptural evidence for it.
•Jesus was human, though an exceptional human, not God in any manner.
•Jesus’ death was not an atonement for our sins nor did God demand that someone suffer for our sins.
•The following doctrines are false: original sin, predestination of the elect, the inherent depravity of human beings, and eternal damnation.
•The “faith alone” doctrine of Protestants.

Again, the Founding Fathers were not all Christians as the revisionists would like us to believe they were. America is not and never has been “A Christian Nation”.

One of Jefferson’s firmest principles, as we know, was that of religious freedom. In 1777, as a legislator, he composed what later became the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom, which embodies his personal conviction that the government should exercise no coercion in religious matters. In his famous letter of 1802 to the Danbury Baptist Association he referred to the “wall of separation between Church and State”—a term that had previously been used by the Baptist Roger Williams.

The principles of religious freedom established through the efforts of Thomas Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers were not for the sole benefit of Christians . They were for everybody.

Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists, noted above, established the Wall of Separation between Church and State that is so crucial in our nation. Many of Mr. Haile’s ilk are wont to point out that the Wall of Separation is not mentioned in the Constitution, and it is not. However that doesn’t mean that it is nonexistent or not important–for the state, for the religious and for the non-religious alike.

Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802 to answer a letter from them written in October 1801. A copy of the Danbury letter is available here. The Danbury Baptists were a religious minority in Connecticut, and they complained that in their state, the religious liberties they enjoyed were not seen as immutable rights, but as privileges granted by the legislature - as “favors granted.” Jefferson’s reply did not address their concerns about problems with state establishment of religion - only of establishment on the national level. The letter contains the phrase “wall of separation between church and state,” which led to the short-hand for the Establishment Clause that we use today: “Separation of church and state.”

The letter was the subject of intense scrutiny by Jefferson, and he consulted a couple of New England politicians to assure that his words would not offend while still conveying his message: it was not the place of the Congress or the Executive to do anything that might be misconstrued as the establishment of religion.

It is important to remember that Christianity was not the only religion practiced in the colonies. In fact a number of the founding fathers expressed some rather strong opinions about it.

“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.” James Madison

 

“The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.” Thomas Jefferson

 

“This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!” John Adams

 

America was never a “Christian Nation”. We have never been what the RRRW fundamentalists claim. The notion that the Founding Fathers were Bible-thumping RW Fundamentalists a-la Pat Robertson is a revisionist fantasy of theirs.

And while we’re at it let’s refer to the Treaty of Tripoli, which states: “The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”

The treaty was written during the Washington administration, and sent to the Senate during the Adams administration. It was read aloud to the Senate, and each Senator received a printed copy. This was the 339th time that a recorded vote was required by the Senate, but only the third time a vote was unanimous (the next time was to honor George Washington). There is no record of any debate or dissension on the treaty. It was reprinted in full in three newspapers - two in Philadelphia, one in New York City. There is no record of public outcry or complaint in subsequent editions of the papers.

So anybody who tries to claim that the United States is a Christian Nation, and that its government is based on Christian principles or the Christian religion, is either mistaken or lying.

Mr. Haile claimed that “To educate means to provide unbiased information” but he failed to do that. The information he provided in his LTTE was not only very biased but bigoted. It’s possible he’s just ignorant of American history, particularly with regard to the Founding Fathers, which is very common. I’m always glad to provide the truth, however.

I wonder how many of these have been sold.

Get yours now for the low, low price of $19.95 plus $5.00 for shipping (available in silver for just $39.95 + $5.00s/h).

Don’t you want to boost the power of your prayers?

A proposal in St. Charles MO would ban swearing, table-dancing, profane music and drinking contests in bars.

Buy Print Here

City officials contend the bill is needed to keep rowdy crowds under control because the historic downtown area gets a little too lively on some nights.

City Councilman Richard Veit said he was prompted to propose the bill after complaints about bad bar behavior. He says it will give police some rules to enforce when things get too rowdy.

…..

A meeting to discuss the proposal is set for Jan. 14.

Hey, I’ve got a better idea. Why not close down the bars altogether and send everybody to church instead? There won’t be any worry about things getting “too lively” then.

Aye caramba.