“Freedom is measured by the distance between church and state”
As if nothing else could go wrong….
My home computer died. I’m at my daughter’s at the moment, and I’ll be here daily trying to keep everything running until I can buy a new computer.
AAAARRRGGGHHHH…. What else can go wro…. no wait… I don’t wanna know. forget I even asked.
Okay, this is unusual for this blog, but here’s the deal: I’m hurting in a big-time way.
I am an independent art-yarn dyer. Sales have been steadily decreasing for the last 5-6 months. I’m over 3 months behind on the rent, and virtually everything else is overdue as well. It’s becoming harder and harder to hang on. I’m not in a position to go out and get a job (at least not as readily as those with a car or near a bus-line to actually get to a live-able job), so I’m required to make as much money as I can on my own, at least for now. The long-term goal is to increase the yarn sales and/or create additional streams of income. In the meantime, I need to stir up some fast cash, or at least have cash expected to flow with various commissions, paid monthly or quarterly.
Most of what I sell is my own hand-dyed yarn, and most of that is custom-ordered. You can see all the options for that over at Knitivity. (and right now all new hand-dyed socks and lace orders are $3.00 off per skein!)
I’ve also starting selling the first of my designs on T-shirts, totes, and other goods. You can find them at my various online shops:
Cafepress - Knitivity (knitting related)
Cafepress - Way of Ray (general topics)
Cafepress - Snarkable (snarky stuff)
Spreadshirt. (products with “The Will to Live” mandala)
And now, because I really need the money, I am selling some of my fathers vintage jewelry, mostly from the 1960s and before. First come, first served, just email me the names of the items you want, as shown in the titles ABOVE each picture. I will send you a PayPal invoice for each item(s) — please note, each item INCLUDES $2.00 shipping. I will only ship within the U.S. for this particular auction.
Most pictures have a quarter and penny shown for size comparison. Coins are NOT included in the sale! Also, some pictures have multiple images, shown for different angles, but there is only one pair or set per item listing.
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Tiny minature dice, can be removed so you can show your favorite combination or lucky numbers! The dice are yellowed with age, but solid and functional. Gold-tone fittings. $27.50
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A pair of Cloisonne-styled cufflinks, each featuring four Aces. A super set of cuflinks for your favorite Poker player! With today’s new interest in Poker, you can’t go wrong with this unique vintage jewelry set. $27.50
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A pair of hand-crafted cufflinks; Mother bought these for Dad from an artist at the famous Sabado y Domingo Art Show, held each weekend along Cabrillo Boulevard in Santa Barbara during the 1960s. If you know a hiker or nature enthusiast, who sometimes needs to dress up, you can be sure he or she will be happy to take the love of the outdoors into any stodgy boardmeeting! $19.50
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Another vintage dressy set, mostly gold-tone, excellent for period costuming or modern dress-up. $27.50
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A lovely pair of silver-toned wrap-around cufflinks, designed to embrace the edge of the French cuff in subtle elegance. $25.00
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A pair of cufflinks, mostly silver-toned, with a off-center black stone, scrumbled bezel edge and satin concave field. Another great period pair, from the 1950s/60s era. $22.50
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A classy novelty tie bar, the thermometer actualliy does work! This is at least 50 years old, probably older, from my dad’s collection. Mostly goldtone casing, with secure spring clip to hold your tie to your shirt neatly and firmly. $27.50
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Hat-Pin - Pewter Rose SOLD
This is from my own collection, purchased in the mid-1990’s; this is a heavy pewter pin, with 2 press-pins on the back to securely attach this to a leather vest, a hat, or denim jacket. $19.50
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From my own collection, a gold-toned pin, perfect for attaching to a leather hat or vest, or denim jacket. Good for making a solid statement. $17.50
O’course, if you don’t need vintage jewelry, or totes, or T-shirts…. you can always just pitch in with a PayPal gift for an artist trying to make it until the economy improves — just send it through Paypal.com to ray@raywhiting.com and designate it as a personal gift so they don’t take out business transaction fees. Anything that helps me cover the bills and pay down the rent will help enormously. Tacky? Perhaps, but I’m genuinely hurting and would rather sell things than take handouts, and I refuse to sign up for foodstamps or live on the government dole. I have supremely generous landlords and I’ve failed them, so I’ll do whatever I need to do until business picks up again.
Thanks!
Okay, so yesterday I posted the new canvas tote bags with The Will to Live on it. Now it’s available on a T-Shirt from Spreadshirt.
I’m debating whether to leave the title on it, or leave it blank…. thoughts?
There are people dying every day. And if you are active on any of the major social network sites (in my case, Facebook) you end up encountering people dealing up-close-and-personal with death — loved ones dying suddenly, others dwindling and lingering far too long (i.e., the length of their suffering and loss of dignity).
And there are people asking for prayer, declaring a faith in God’s all-might plan, and blah blah blah.
It is not my place to educate these people. They are expressing their grief in their own ways, and I have no need or desire to be cruel in their time of pain. I wish them every avenue of peace and comfort in their time of loss.
The reality is that everyone will eventually die. Jesus isn’t coming to rescue anyone out of here. Jesus doesn’t even exist, and probably never did. There is no known “afterlife” to which we will ascent or transform into. All our consciousness and awareness is a function of the chemicals and electrical activity in the physical brain. When the brain is physically dead, there is nothing left. There is no evidence of a soul that continues to be conscious in some other realm.
This is the only life we are sure of. It really bothers me that so many expect some great reward or blessing after this life is over. They waste their entire lives looking forward to a time or place for which we have no viable evidence. There is no rational reason to expect to find some sort of “afterlife”.
Nobody is waiting for you on the “other side”. There is no “other side” to go to. When your body dies, you are dead. Completely. You do not “live on”. The only sense in which you might live on would be in the memories of those you touched while in this lifetime. They will remember you for whatever good or bad you’ve done.
When you die there is no ultimate judgment for your life here. It’s over. The ONLY rewards or punishments available are the ones you get while you are here.
And, if you think about it, that’s not such a bad thing. I lets us realize that we are responsible for whatever we do here. It is up to us, here and now, to live a life that will be well-remembered. it is up to us to do those things that make life better for others even after we have died.
Being dead is no big deal, although the process of dying isn’t always comfortable. Ultimately, the body systems shut down, your sensory receptors stop functioning, and your consciousness stops. I assume it is very similar to what happens when you go into surgery and they put you to sleep. You wake up after a while and it’s all over, but you generally have no consciousness of what happens while you were ‘out’. Except when you die you don’t regain consciousness. Ever. It’s over.
You won’t be coming back here, and you won’t be going someplace else. it does not matter what this or that holy book might promise. All the holy books of all the world are just make-believe wishes. They aren’t real true accounts of reality. They are fiction.
So, if you are thinking about the inevitable process of death and dying, and you are looking forward to something better on the other side … get over it. Wake up, and enjoy THIS life for all you can, because this is all there is.
Okay, this is a blatant plug for my artwork — printed on canvas totes, which everyone needs. You have stuff, you carry stuff… so you need a totebag in which to conveniently put all your stuff, right?
This is my own artwork. If you’d like to have this image on a tote bag, go visit my CafePress shop: More importantly, if you have an idea for a design that would do well on a tote bag or t-shirt or something, let me know and I’ll see if I can create something for next month’s image.
Seriously, times are hard, and not everyone wants or needs my yarns but you already make more money than I do, and buying a tote would help me significant to stay in my house and continue working on my own. In another couple months, utility bills will go back down and yarn sales will pick up as people starting their holiday gift-making season. In the meantime, I need some money. O’course if you don’t need a tote or t-shirt, you can always just drop $5 or $10 into my PayPal account. :-) (yeah… blatant begging is so very unbecoming! But’s it’s still better than living under the bridge or turning tricks … I mean, at my age, can you imagine???) hahahahaha
Thanks!
it is virtually impossible for me to add once ounce of clarity to this. It is brilliant, rational, and applicable to everyday life.
best quote of the day:
In all of history, no word has cause more death and destruction than the word of God.
Indeed.
I am proud to be an American, but some of my fellow citizens really make it difficult.
One of our local news stations is on Facebook and posted yet another thread about the “Ground Zero Mosque” — this is the fault of idiot media continuing to call the Park 51 Islamic Community Center the “Ground Zero Mosque”. Seriously, it is NOT a mosque and it isn’t at Ground Zero.
But there’s no convincing America’s idiots. One person kept trying to say that building the ‘mosque’ is ‘morally wrong’, but I pressed him 3 times to explain HOW it is morally wrong. Finally he pointed me to an interview with Rudy Gulliani who made the same mistake everyone else is making: the families directly affected by the 9/11 attacks are hurting and therefore everyone needs to “respect their feelings”.
BULLSHIT. American Muslims did NOT perpetrate the 9/11 attack. American Muslims did not kill 3,000 people. American Muslims did not fly jetliners into the Twin Towers.
YES, families continue to hurt. Their loved ones were killed. But they were not killed by American Muslims. They were not even killed by the majority of Muslims, most of whom just want to live their lives in peace and they really don’t give a fiddler’s flying fuck what other people do… as long as they are left alone. Blocking the community center under the guise of “respecting the feelings of the families” is NOT rational, because their pain was not cause by American Muslims.
I’ve used this analogy in several FB threads:
If my family were all killed in a car crash by a drunken idiot driving a Jeep, I would not starting hating on all Jeep drivers. That would be irrational and insane. Taking action to stop drunk driving is a rational response and that makes sense. Religious extremists, of any flavor, do not represent all the people of a religion. They are simply using this or that religion as a vehicle to propel their hatred. Don’t blame the vehicle; blame the driver. Duhhhh!!!!
A brilliant comment I read along the way: “If you hate Muslims because Muslim Terrorists attacked America, of that you are focusing on the wrong word.”
i found this image on Facebook (I think it belongs to Mark A. Schmidt): (click to embiggen so you can read it)
There is NO rational reason to block building the community center. NONE. Like the picture says, if you hate the people outside the little red circle, YOU ARE NOT PAYING ATTENTION. And note: there are less than 10,000 Al Qaeda, but about 1.37 billion Muslims around the world. Muslim extremists and Al Qaeda terrorists do not represent all of Islam. They don’t even represent 0.1% of Muslims.
Someone kept saying 69% of Americans oppose it. SO FUCKING WHAT? 80% of Americans probably oppose strip joints or public nudity or whatever. But constitutional rights that are not up for a popular vote.
And then somene, after all the rest of the discussion, piped up with a comment so insane I had to do a screen capture to prove it was actually there, and I didn’t make it up:
The poster above me there is from the bustling metropolis of Clute, TX. What an idiot! I guess in Clute, TX they don’t have Jews or Muslims or Blacks or Buddhists or Gays or Atheists or … <*gasp*> Catholics.
We have come so far in so many ways in America, but if the media and the politicians continue to promote the current anti-Islamic sentiment, or even the “non-Christian is unAmerican” nonsense, I fear for the future of this country. I continue to be embarrassed that so many people do not understand that Muslims worship the exact same god as Christians and Jews. They all worship the God of Abraham. And in Indonesia and other predominately Muslim areas, Christians use the name Allah to refer to their God — even their Bibles are printed with the word Allah instead of God.
Americans continue to prove how ill-educated and ignorant they are. And it embarrasses me to hear them spout their bullshit.
People continue their anti-islamic bullshit, fear-mongering and just plain stupidity.
I’m not pro-Islamic, just anti-bigotry. In fact, I’m generally anti-religion, and ONE of the reasons for that is because the greatest function of religion seems to be hating on all the other religions, and this is no more greatly exemplified than the current hoo-haw over the renovation of the old Burlington Coat Factory into the “Park 51″ Muslim community center.
There’s simply no rational reason for it to be denied, but people continue to talk about how the area is “hallowed ground” and it needs to be preserved and held sacred. Puh-leeeze!
Daryl Lang went to explore that area and took some pictures. (Note: ALL photos are the property of Daryl Lang and linked from that Website, shown here in miniature for examples only). Here’s a couple activities on this “hallowed ground”:
or how about this one:
Yeah…. ummm… not real “hallowed” after all, huh?
Follow the link above to see the rest of his pictures of the area.
Or go to the subsequent post to get a map of where these pictures were taken, and just how far from Ground Zero the community center actually is, as well as read some feedback from his photos.
Here’s the map itself:
You’ll notice that from the proposed Park 51 site, there are two city blocks blocking the view of the World Trade Center/Ground Zero site.
As shown by Keith Olberbmann, there’s just no way this facility will have any impact on people visiting Ground Zero.
Muslim Americans living and working in Lower Manhattan have every right to build their center wherever they want. They were planning it before 9/11 happened, and ended up selecting a destroyed building to buy that NOBODY ELSE HAS BOTHERED WITH FOR NINE FRIGGIN’ YEARS. They want to demolish it and build a new structure, bringing new life to the area.
There is no rational reason to block this project. Someone posted on FB, “Even if they CAN build it, doesn’t mean they should.” But nobody has said why they shouldn’t! It’s just a lot of ignorant fools wrapping themselves in the American Flag and pretending only Christians have a right to function under the full scope of the Constitution. After all, we’re talking about AMERICAN-Muslims wanting to do for themselves EXACTLY what other Americans are doing all across the country — building a facility to enhance their community and culture. But because they are Muslims, people are all superstitious and fearful about it. What nonsense.
It is impossible to take seriously anyone’s claim to “divine protection”. I hear it over and over, mostly from well-meaning people, “God is in control”, “God will take care of you”, “God performed a miracle”. They don’t intend to lie. In fact, they usually seem to believe it quite deeply.
The reality, of course, is that there has never EVER been a genuine miracle occur in the entire course of human history. Virtually EVERY natural phenomenon has a perfectly natural explanation. No gods are necessary for understanding this world.
I do not understand everything. I don’t need to. I have access to some of the most brilliant scientific minds who DO understand a lot more than I, and piece by piece they can explain things to me in language I understand. (There’s a marvelous invention called “The Internet” where rational scientific explanations can be found for practically everything in the natural world! Try it sometime!) I don’t need to invent supernatural explanations, or borrow other people’s superstitions.
If people feel better with the idea that there’s some supernatural being looking out for them, if it helps them cope with the real world better, well that’s their own choice. But in order for anyone else to take a superstition seriously, it must have evidence to back it up.
This interesting video puts it into a different light. If you believe in divine protection, please view this short clip, and then ask yourself if you REALLY believe in divine protection… or maybe you just wish you could.
I am really tired of hearing all this hoo-haw about the proposed Muslim community center just a couple blocks from Ground Zero.
I’ve been reading other people’s opinions and hearing the various news reports.
The main piece of property already belongs to that Muslim community. It is theirs to do with as they wish. Some of their proposed community center require purchasing the adjacent property, but that is still a private sale.
There is no rational reason to block the building of this proposed community center.
I read a comment yesterday where someone wrote: “If it had been orchestrated by any other group (like the KKK or White Supremacist’s) a protest would ensue if they petitioned to put a meeting place there as well.” This grouped a regular Muslim community in with known hate groups, and I find that comparison offensive. Not all Muslims are terrorists, but it seems to be repeated over and over that “because the terrorists were Muslims, we can’t allow a Muslim building near Ground Zero.” And that’s just stupid.
I’m no particular fan of islam, and really don’t care one way or the other about them. But i’ve known Muslims, and I know they are pretty much as normal as any Christians and Jews and Buddhists I’ve met. They have their quirks as individual people, and I might like some and not like others.
But the vocal anti-Muslim sentiment makes no sense. America has freedom of religion. It’s in the Constitution, and it applies equally to all citizens. Why is there so much hate against all of Islam, when it was extremists who committed the attacks on September 11, 2001?
Christians take offense when they are all lumped under the banner with fundagelical idiots like Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, and Fred Phelps, yet those same Christians are just as guilty when they lump all Muslims together.
Several people have commented over on Facebook that they aren’t “respecting” the will of the people who find the idea offensive. There are some people, eaten up with bigotry and irrational hatred for all things Islamic, who seem to view themselves as victims of the World Trade Center attacks, and that somehow this adds weight to their feelings. It doesn’t. All of America was victimized by the attacks, and it is up to all of American to take the high road and recognize that not all Muslims are individually guilty of the 9-11 attack.
Certainly the people living and working in Lower Manhattan have a first-hand perspective, and many probably continue to deal with PTSD and other genuine issues. But that still doesn’t give them the right to try and dictate what other people or groups can do with their own private property. It’s not about “respecting their feelings”. Their feelings don’t matter in this instance, because it isn’t about them individually.
We have all faced terrible shit in our lives, and it affects our personal views. I was molested by a large black man when I was 13; that doesn’t justify me hating or fearing all black men twice my size. That would be stupid, because most black men are like most white men, Hispanic men, and Asian men — they’re just men, no threat to me whatsoever.
And most Muslims are no threat to anyone, either.
Let them have their community center. And let those who fear it seek out a counselor who can explain to them what they are actually fearing and why it makes no sense to fear a whole group of people for what a few of them did.
Most of my knitting and facebook people already know, but my son-in-law was diagnosed this week with acute myelofibrosis leukemia. It is a chronic, progressive disease, nearly always fatal eventually, although length of survival depends on far too many variables to list. You can look it up if you like — the reports are too depressing to make links for the articles here.
He is working with an excellent medical team at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, so I know he’s in the best possible place he could be right now. And, he is essentially a strong and otherwise healthy person, with a very large circle of friends and even larger network of family. He is surrounded by positive, encouraging, helpful people who love and care for him, and for my daughter and their two small children. These are all things that will definitely work in his favor along the way.
Many of their support network spout religious sentiment. I”m not a religious person, but I’m not about to get in the middle of someone else’s faith chatter. if it makes them feel good, so be it. It’s not my place to piss on someone else’s parade.
BUT, the reality is that my son-in-law will eventually die from this disease, and my daughter will be a widow. It is hard to write that because this is the last thing I could want for any of my children (or anyone else). I love my children, and it hurts me to know they are experiencing such pain right now, physically, emotionally, and mentally. The worst part is there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.
The one thing I will not do is make up pretty words and lie about it. I will do all that i can to help make sure his life is positive and fun, and will do what I can to support his treatment plan and help out with the family in whatever ways are available to me.
Common sense tells me I have to reject the silly notion that “God will take care of him” — bullshit. If there were a God (there isn’t) paying any sort of attention, he would not have gotten sick in the first place. “God has a plan…” again, bullshit. What sort of ‘loving God’ includes torturing people as part of some grand plan? And if torturing people and making them sick is part of some grand plan, does that mean my son-in-law’s disease is merely inconsequential collateral damage for some “greater good” later on? If my son-in-law is just some pawn in the game of some wicked deity, why the fuck would ANYbody who knows him worship or even believe in the sort of God that would do this to him?
My son in law is a good man. He treats my daughter and my grandchildren well. He has a good heart and will help any who are in need. He’s done well by me when I needed help. To the best of my knowledge, he has done absolutely NOTHING to ‘deserve’ being sick like this. My daughter does not deserve to face the prospect of raising their children without him. My grandchildren do not deserve to lose their father to some awful disease so rare they haven’t figured out a cure for it yet. (YET!)
I place my trust, hope, and confidence in the medical community to use every available means to alleviate his suffering and to work toward removing the cause of this disease. I can walk into that hospital and research center almost any hour of the day or night and I can physically observe human people doing real things to learn about the disease and find ways to cure it. I can pull up academic research articles and see how much they have already learned, and read about the questions they still need answers for. I don’t have to understand *what* they are doing, in all that “science-y” stuff, but I know they are working on it. That’s where my faith (trust, hope, and confidence) lies — in the power of human intelligent to explore and discover and learn, and then use what they’ve learned to actually help people who need help.
I have no faith in the supernatural hoo-haw that ignorant religion promises. I have no faith in some god or gods having some “plan” or “taking care of things”. I have no faith in superstitious nonsense. Prayer might make a person feel good inside, but it does nothing to help the person in need. Nobody is “out there” listening to your prayers. There is no god waiting to answer prayer. PEOPLE answer prayer, as best they can.
In all of human history there has never been a single recorded, verified miracle. Every so-called miracle has a natural foundation, nothing supernatural about it. There are things we don’t know, but that lack of knowledge is no reason to invent a god or gods to explain things. The more we explore, the fewer mysteries there are. I am not content to close my eyes and pretend things will be okay, because I know it will not be okay unless humans do something about it.
I have no faith in a god or gods because there are no god or gods to have faith in. It’s all just a figment of the imagination, believed by gullible people NOT because they have evidence that a god exists, but because they believed someone else was telling the truth about the existence of a god or gods — parents, teachers, preachers, etc. Why would parents or teachers lie to children and make them believe in a god? Because they were lied to previously and they haven’t bothered to question reality and discover they were lied to by still other people who also believed the lie.
Am I without hope? Not at all. I have a rational hope because I know the medical community is doing the best they can. I have a rational hope in my son-in-law’s support network surrounding him with love and a positive environment to sustain him to ensure he has a good quality of life along the way. I have a rational hope in his own physical strength and stamina.
My lack of superstition does not mean I have no compassion or hope, or that I don’t value life. I do value life, and probably more than most religious people because I’m not willing to relinquish the power of life into the hands of a supreme being that does not exist. THIS is the only life we will ever know, and because of that I believe strongly in preserving life as much as possible and treasuring it.
A ridiculous ignorant fundagelical pastor had been picketing a nightclub every week for FOUR YEARS, for absolutely no rational reason whatsoever other than because he wants to be an asshole-for-Jesus. These religious idiots go and stand in the right-of-way so people have a hard time going into the nightclub, interfering with the nightclub’s business.
Tom George is the nightclub owner. Dunfee is the asshole preacher.
“Tom George is a parasite, a man without judgment,” Dunfee said. “The word of Jesus Christ says you cannot share territory with the devil.”
What? “Share territory”??? The church is SEVEN MILES AWAY FROM THE NIGHTCLUB! There are NO REASON for Dunfee to go OUT OF HIS WAY to deliberately try to disrupt someone else’s business. It’s not like there’s a nightclub right next door to the church. In most places there are still unconstitutional laws restricting certain types of businesses within certain distances of churches, but there’s really no reason for that sort of privileging. Churches don’t need to be chasing away other types of businesses, anyway, but in this case, the nightclub is SEVEN MILES AWAY.
So, fed up with religious insanity, George and his girls went had started protesting on Sunday mornings during church services!
BRAVO!
Now, the dancers have turned the tables, so to speak. Fed up with the tactics of Dunfee and his flock, they say they have finally accepted his constant invitation to come to church.
It’s just that they’ve come wearing see-through shorts and toting Super Soakers.
They bring lawn chairs and - yesterday, anyway - grilled hamburgers, Monster energy drinks and corn on the cob.
They sat in front of the church and waved at passing cars but largely ignored the congregation behind them.
Perfect. That’s the way to do it.
Gina Hughes spent the morning soaking up the sun in her striped bikini, mostly oblivious to the fire and brimstone being preached in the tidy church building.
The 30-year-old married mother of six said she has danced at the Foxhole for a decade and holds the title of “house mom.” That means that even though she still dances, she also watches out for the six other women who work there.
She said she makes $2,000 a week.
“These church people say horrible things about us,” Hughes said. “They say we’re homewreckers and whores. The fact of the matter is, we’re working to keep our own homes together, to give our kids what they need.”
Dunfee said it’s not that simple. He said he consistently offers the women help, a chance at redemption.
“I tell them, ‘I will put a roof over your heads, and your bills will be paid, and your children’s bellies will be full,’” he said. Yet they don’t come inside.
Nobody in their right mind would accept such an offer, because it always comes with strings attached. Why would anybody want someone as deliberately evil and manipulative as Dunfee paying their bills? Makes no sense. There’s no way he has any intention of fully replacing the $2,000 a week she’s already making. He calls it redemption, but it is actually a form of bondage. Christianity is bondage, and leads only to death and destruction of the human psyche.
I don’t know a single Christian who would wouldn’t be happier and more fulfilled in this lifetime if they could just break the shackles of religious bondage and manipulation by fear about some other existence that doesn’t even exist.
As would be expected, Maggie Gallagher is absolutely livid!
Puh-leeeeeeze! The poor woman starts off badly, and then it goes downhill from there:
Despite the media hoopla, this is not the first case in which a federal judge has imagined and ruled that our Constitution requires same-sex marriage. A federal judge in Nebraska ruled for gay marriage in 2005 and was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in 2006.
NOOOO, Maggie. NObody has EVER said the Constitution REQUIRES same sex marriage. You will not be forced into a same-sex marriage, for example. Rather the Constitution has always required equal treatment for all citizens equally situated; that is, all other things being equal, you can’t treat one group differently from how you treat another group. Throughout American history, the Constitution has been interpreted so that as society advances it discovers this or that group has gotten short-shrift and efforts have been made to correct imbalance and inequality. This was true of interracial marriage, votes for woman, ending slavery, and on and on — when it has come to light that any group is being treated unfairly, the Constitution has been invoked to restore equality.
The Proposition 8 case on which the Ninth Circuit’s Judge Vaughn Walker ruled Wednesday was pushed by two straight guys with a hunger for media attention, lawyers with huge egos who overrode the considered judgment of major figures in the gay legal establishment, thinkers who feared exactly what we anticipate: the Supreme Court will uphold Prop. 8 and the core civil rights of Californians and all Americans to vote for marriage as one man and one woman.
Again, NO! Neither Californians nor any other Americans has a right to vote away the civil rights of any one else. Ever.
Judge Walker has added insult to injury by suggesting that support for marriage is somehow irrational bigotry, akin to racial animus. The majority of Americans are not bigots or haters for supporting the commonsense view that marriage is the union of husband and wife, because children need moms and dads.
It would appear that Ms. Maggie hasn’t actually read the Judge’s ruling. (I did, and you can read it by going here 
Judge Walker itemizes through his Findings of Fact that the Prop 8 proponents and their campaign was build on stereotypes and bigotry. Specifically he notes that the Prop8 campaign rests on the idea that same sex relationships are inferior to opposite sex relationships! He also points out that the issue of children needing moms and dads was a non-issue, and that the “expert” failed to prove this point because the “expert” didn’t even address same-sex couples having children.
Judge Walker’s view is truly a radical rejection of Americans’ rights, our history and our institutions that will only fuel a popular rebellion now taking place against elites who are more interested in remaking American institutions than respecting them.
If this ruling is upheld, millions of Americans will face for the first time a legal system that is committed to the view that our deeply held moral views on sex and marriage are unacceptable in the public square, the fruit of bigotry that should be discredited, stigmatized and repressed. Parents will find that, almost Soviet-style, their own children will be re-educated using their own tax dollars to disrespect their parents’ views and values.
Don’t embarrass yourself further, Ms. Maggie. it is your own “Soviet-style” approach that would expect your own views, and ONLY your own views to be presented in the public square. Nobody has said your views aren’t acceptable for you - you can expressed your bigotry any way you want. But you cannot legislate your religious bigotry into civil law that applies to others. You can be as bigoted as you want; but the Constitution protects all of us from the kind of discrimination you would like to impose.
Those in power will call it tolerance, they will call it pluralism, but in truth same-sex marriage is a government takeover of an institution the government did not make, cannot in justice redefine, and ought to respect and protect as essential to the common good.
Ummm… Maggie… please, sit down and catch your breath; lack of oxygen is apparently distorting your view even more than normal. Marriage in the United States is a legal, binding contract according to the law. That’s all that matters in this discussion. The United States did not invent marriage, but there is a benefit to the country in recognizing the economic, emotional, and physical stability in respecting self-selected couples wishing to commit together. But in order to encourage that self-selected coupling, ALL people have to be able to marry the person of their own choosing.
And, for the record, throughout history marriage has been defined and redefined over and over and over again, and only in the relatively recent past did it have anything to do with love.
Judge Walker is off-base: same-sex marriage is not a civil right, it is a civil wrong. The Supreme Court and Congress will reject his biased view.
Really? Interesting. Do you have a crystal ball to figure that out? And what does Congress have to do with it? It is going up through the Supreme Court where prohibiting same-sex marriage will ultimately be determined to be unconstitutional, just like prohibiting interracial marriage, segregation, women’s votes, etc.. That is the Supreme Court’s job — to ensure equal protection under the law. One step at a time.
The passage of Prop 8 was the FIRST TIME already established rights were taken away by vote of the people. It was absolutely wrong to put basic civil rights up to a vote in the first place, and striking it down was the right thing to do.
I cannot begin to express my joy at hearing Judge Walker has declared Prop 8 is unconstitutional!
CONCLUSION
Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis,the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.
This is WONderful news, indeed. “California has NO INTEREST in discriminating against gay men and lesbians…”
We know that this decision will be appealed to the 9th Circuit Court, and then pass up to the Supreme Court. And the judge has correctly (in my opinion) rightly stayed implementation of his order overturning Prop 8 until the appeals process is completed. Allowing same sex couples to marry again starting tomorrow would run the risk of putting them into another legal limbo and impose all sorts of confusions until it is finally decided. This process may take a few years.
Ultimately, of course, same sex couples will be allowed to legally marry in all 50 states, simply because this is the right thing to do. There are simply no acceptable arguments to prevent same sex couples from marrying. But because there are a few left who insist on being dragged into the 21st Century kicking and screaming, we will just bide our time until they are educated in basic civil rights and the process of equality in America.
On a related note, I took a peek over at NOM’s Web site to see if they’ve stepped up the screaming yet. I noticed this bizarre headline:
NOM to LGBT Leaders: Stop Scaring Your Supporters with Lies!
Seriously? NOM has been spreading fear and lies from the very start– spending millions of dollars to convince people that same sex marriage would destroy “traditional” marriage; that gays are out to destroy “traditional” families, that there is an economic interest in preventing gay couples from marriage; that permitting same sex marriage will somehow violate other people’s religious freedom… and on and on. NOM’s entire campaign is built on LIES, yet they have the audacity to charge LGBT leaders with using NOM’s tactics? puh-leeeeeeze!
Tamara Scott is the state director for Concerned Women for America and needs a better education. In a recent speech she said being gay was as dangerous as using products that have been recalled.
This is not about hate. Let me ask you this. Recently, there was a series of cars that were recalled by a manufacturer because gas pedals would supposedly take off, and people were injured. Would it be hateful to tell someone they may have a car that was recalled even though they might be embarrassed? But your car is cool. They were hip. They were doing the ‘in’ thing. Or is it more loving to tell them, ‘Man, I hate to tell you bad news, but you might want to have that checked. You’re in danger.’ Seems more loving to me.
We recalled peanut butter because it’s dangerous. If you were sitting across the table from someone and you knew they were eating contaminated food that would do them bodily harm, would it be more loving to keep your mouth shut or to speak up? You know the truth, and so do I. What we’re talking about today is not hateful. Stopping someone from hurting themselves and hurting society is not hateful.
If you are going to yell “Fire!”, there has to be a real fire. Ms. Scott, however, is just fiddling with smoke-and-mirrors, continuing to lie about things she knows very little about.
She says, “Stopping someone from hurting themselves and hurting society is not hateful.” But you have to be able to prove potential harm or damage. You can’t just make up shit and pretend it’s real and then try to manipulate other people based on your own personal fantasies. Denying equality without rational reason IS, in fact, hateful. Religious myth is not rational reason. Religious myths only apply to those who choose to believe them instead of evidence-based scientific research.
GLBT people are NOT like recalled automobiles — we aren’t defective or dangerous. We are not like tainted foods, either. We are humans, with every right to equality on all counts. To pretend otherwise, based on disproven “research” and religious myths, is simply stupid.
Being ignorant and stupid, blindly following religious myth IS a choice. Being gay or lesbian or transgender is not. It’s a fact of life.
There is no inherent danger or threat involved in being gay or lesbian. There IS potential danger from promiscuity, prostitution, casual/anonymous sex, and so forth. But these behaviors are common among ALL people, not just gays and lesbians. And stopping promiscuity does not mean stop having sex or give up finding a long-term loving monogamous relationship. It also doesn’t mean denying same-sex relationships or making them less than equal in the eyes of the law. The law of the United States is secular and has no concern for individual religious beliefs about it.
The law of the United States cannot take away the rights of individuals to believe religious nonsense, but their belief can only restrict their own behavior and choices. And that’s fine. if someone believes being gay is wrong, they shouldn’t do it. They cannot use their religion as a reason to change legislation to force others to live under their rules.
Being compared to recalled autos and tainted food is not only hateful, but insulting, demeaning, and thoroughly ignorant.
Y’all have probably heard about the insanity (”bat-shit crazy” is too mild a term) brewing at Dove World Outreach Center in Florida. Those are the idiots planning to commemorate the 9/11 attacks by having a “Burn a Koran Day”. You’ll have to Google it — I’m not going to provide links to a Web site of such a vile and obscene organization.
Over the years fundagelical Christians have done a LOT of stupid shit and deliberately gone out of their way to hurt a lot of people (including me, and probably you), and we have asked why relatively rational voices among their own numbers don’t speak up against the idiocy.
Well, finally, the National Association of Evangelicals has condemned the folks at Dove World Outreach Center:
The National Association of Evangelicals has condemned plans by a Florida church to burn copies of the Quran on the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“The proposed burning of Qurans would be profoundly offensive to Muslims worldwide, just as Christians would be insulted by the burning of Bibles,” the NAE said in a Thursday (July 29) statement.
“Such an act would escalate tensions between members of the two faiths in the United States and around the world.”
Yeah, no shit — it would absolutely escalate tensions between Christians and Muslims. it is likely that the folks at DWOC haven’t even read the Koran. But then most Christians haven’t actually read their own Bible either, so I would not be surprised.
We know for an historical fact that Christianity is no less violent than Islam. Both religions are extremely violent and oppressive and they always have been. But there are individual adherents of both religions who want to live in peace, to be left alone, and to leave other people alone. Both religions have peaceful, moderate, liberal, and gentle adherents.
I, for one, am very very happy that this time the NAE has spoken up and publicly condemned the idiocy in their own ranks.
And it isn’t just the Christians, either:
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization, joined the NAE in condemning the plans.
“The burning of the book holy to the world’s Muslims is morally repugnant,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the center’s associate dean, and Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, the center’s interfaith director, in a statement. “We urge leaders of this church to cancel this despicable act, which will certainly spawn a wave of new recruits for Islamist extremism and terrorism.”
Separately, leaders of the Baptist World Alliance warned against stereotyping Islam at their global assembly in Honolulu, Associated Baptist Press reported.
Will the folks at Dove pay attention and withdraw their ridiculous plans to born a Koran on 9/11? I doubt it. I would be genuinely surprised if they chicken out at the last minute (or any time before). There is no genuine point to burning someone else’s holy book, except to incite them to anger and probably violence.
But I’m still glad others in their own ranks are speaking out and condemning such behavior.
Almost daily I find stories of idiots trying to thwart the science education of young students. Fortunately, here in the United States, the teaching of Creationism has been struck down repeatedly by law. In other countries, however, religious idiots continue to push into the public schools to indoctrinate students to their own brand of foolishness.
In particular, down in Queensland, where students have a half hour of Religious Instruction each week, Creationists are filling the kids with outright lies.
Students have been told Noah collected dinosaur eggs to bring on the Ark, and Adam and Eve were not eaten by dinosaurs because they were under a protective spell.
and
Set Free Christian Church’s Tim McKenzie said when students questioned him why dinosaur fossils carbon dated as earlier than man, he replied that the great flood must have skewed the data.
wow, huh?
And this one:
A parent of a Year 5 student on the Sunshine Coast said his daughter was ostracised to the library after arguing with her scripture teacher about DNA.
“The scripture teacher told the class that all people were descended from Adam and Eve,” he said.
“My daughter rightly pointed out, as I had been teaching her about DNA and science, that ‘wouldn’t they all be inbred’?
“But the teacher replied that DNA wasn’t invented then.”
After the parent complained, the girl spent the rest of the year’s classes in the library.
See? What kind of “teacher” would say such a thing as “DNA wasn’t invented then”??
DNA was not invented. It was discovered by scientific exploration and study, but it was there all the time. Every living organism has DNA. For a school teacher, of any subject, to make such a ridiculous claim should be cause for concern and investigation into that teacher’s credentials.
Creation Stories are fun to read and compare across the world’s religions and philosophies. Learning the stories by which civilizations live helps us understand how civilizations have developed and functioned. Before science made better information available, people made up stories to explain where we came from and why things happen in the natural world.
But rational minds know that ALL of these Creation Stories are MYTHS, unproven (and often DISproven) by science. And if you are going to teach the Bible’s version, they have to also teach some of the other versions as well. And they have to be covered in the philosophy curriculum as “social studies”. No creation story can be taught as science.
As has been reported recently, the school board over in Livingston Parish, in Louisiana, is again discussing whether to teach Creationism in the Science curriculum.
Creationism is to science what anointing oil is to medicine. You cannot teach superstition and myth as reality.
We are virtually certain there is probably no God.
We know for a fact that the world was not created 6000 years ago, but was formed about 4.5 billion years ago as part of the natural process of the Universe following the Big Bang about 13.5 billion years ago. Duuhh.
We know that dinosaurs were extinct about 65 million years BEFORE the first known humans were evolving.
Before science discovered rational explanations for our physical world, it might have been helpful to pass along the myths and legends to explain things. But in the 21st Century there is NO EXCUSE for teaching myth as reality.
We’re about as far away from the Winter Holidays as you can get, so let’s throw this out into the air….
Never mind the silly “Keep Christ in Christmas” campaign. How about “Keep Christ in Christianity”?
Most of Christianity apparently has no clue about their Christ. Granted, he is a fictional character in borrowed myths, but even so, if they claim to follow Christ, perhaps people would invest a little time to read their Bibles and see what their Christ was about.
Just sayin’…
Why are people SOOOOO insanely STUPID? And why are so many of the stupid people fundagelical and committed to deliberate dumbness?
I was trolling through Fundies Say The Darndest Things and found this gem:
Quote# 74649
[Q - If we're made in God's image, why aren't we invisible?]
A- who says he is invisible.. Maybe we just cannot see him.. God created our ability to see, but we see onlya limited level of light rays.. Dogs and animals can see on higher color spectrums than we humans.. Maybe we just dont see whats out there, but its there nontheless..
the original question and response are here, along with a bunch of other equally asinine responses.
This whole silly notion of seeing God is ridiculous, as are most of the answer available there. Some try to weasel out by saying we are “like” God in our attributes.
The truth of the matter, of course, is that it is logically impossible to say we are “made in the image of God,” since the Bible itself declares “no man hath seen God at any time”.
Further, because God has never been found by any method, it is most likely that no God exists, contrary to the gullible masses. The above answer about animals seeing broader spectrums is a smoke-screen — we have the technology and equipment to view all the light spectrums.
