Religion on Marti Abernathey

An excerpt from "Living an Examined Life: Wisdom for the Second Half of the Journey" - James Hollis Ph.D

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 04:34:41 +0100

An excerpt from “Living an Examined Life: Wisdom for the Second Half of the Journey” - James Hollis Ph.D

“We survive in this life by adaptation. We learn from our world — families of origin, popular culture, world events, religious training, and many other sources — who we are, what is acceptable, what is not, and how we have to behave, perform, in order to fit in, gain approval from others, and prosper in this world into which we were thrust.”

“Historically, all cultures haimed that their values, their institutions, their marching orders come from the gods, sacrosanct scriptures, and venerated institutions. These “givens” are laden with presumptive powers and punitive sanctions for transgressions of any kind.”

“A child raised today in the world of virtual reality and video games is just as susceptible to these acculturating and directive images. We become too often a servant of our environment, given our need to fit in, receive the approval of others, stay out of harm’s way.”

“When I was a child in the 1940s, for example, there were pretty clear social definitions of gender, of social and economic class, of racial, ethnic, religious identity, and defined acceptable choices. To deviate from these prescriptive templates was to trigger sanctions of enormous proportion.”

“The most common socializing sentence my contemporaries and I heard was, “What would people think?” A familiar proverb in Japan declares, “It is the protruding nail that gets hammered.” In the face of such sanctioning power, what child does not begin to adopt the prejudices of his family and tribe, fear the alien values of others, and stick close to home in almost every way?”

“Since the 1940s and ’50s, all of those categories, reportedly created by the gods themselves, have been deconstructed. While sex is biologically driven, gender is socially construed, and constricting definitions for men and women then have proved still another of many frangible fictions. Today we know that the range of choices for any of us is infinitely greater.”

“We know that all races are mixed, that genetically we track back to a few progenitors in central Africa. We know that religions are mostly mythosocial constructs that arise out of tribal experiences that are institutionalized to preserve and to transmit and that the ontological claims of one tribe are no better, really, than the mythosocial constructs of other tribes. We know further that social practices, ethical prescriptions, are subjective value percepts and have no authority outside our tribe.”

“The more conscious we become, the more we become aware of unconscious influences working upon our daily choices. Why did you make that choice and not another at a critical juncture in your life? Why hook up with that person? Why repeat those family-of-origin patterns? These are disconcerting questions, but unless we ask them, we remain at the mercy of whatever forces are at work autonomously within us. These confrontations with the ego’s fantasy of sovereignty are truly intimidating, but they remain a summons to greater awareness.”

“I am not in any way suggesting that our cultural values, our religious traditions, our communal practices are wrong; that is not for me to judge. Many of those values link us with community, give us a sense of belonging and guidance in the flood of choices that beset us daily.”

“I am saying, however, that the historic powers of such expectations, admonitions, and prohibitions are to be rendered conscious, considered thoughtfully, and tested by the reality of our life experience and inner prompting. No longer does received authority — no matter how ratified by history, sanctioned by tradition — automatically govern. We are rather called to a discernment process. We are summoned to ask such questions as: Does this align with or make sense of my experience? If not, it may be well intended and right for someone else, but it is not right for me. Does this value, practice, or expectation take me deeper into life, open new possibilities of relationship, and accord with the deepest movements of my own soul? If not, then it is toxic, no matter how benign its claim. Does this value, practice, or expectation open me to the mystery of this journey?”

“Our life begins twice: the day we are born and the day we accept the radical existential fact that our life, for all its delimiting factors, is essentially ours to choose. And the moment when we open to that invitation and step into that accountability, we take on the power of choice.”

The Death of the Open Internet in the Upside Down

Sun, 07 Sep 2025 09:46:48 +0100

I posted yesterday about Bluesky suspending #transgender authors. This type of nonsense will continue as long as people insist on algorithm based, centralized (no, Bluesky isn’t decentralised) social media. I feel like a grumpy old person (mostly because I am), but it’s pretty obvious where things are going. The government is shutting down every avenue of social media that doesn’t toe the line in terms of government policy (under the guise of “saving the children”). Supporting direct action is now illegal, but the state is supporting a genocidal religious ethnostate isn’t. Inciting violence is now called free speech, while advocating for peace is called terrorism.

Time Marches On: Trans Edition

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 10:06:15 +0100

I was alerted to the passing of Jeri Hughes, by my friend Ethan St. Pierre. It comes a day after watching a video of a trans person referring to themselves as a trans elder when they transitioned in 2020. It’s made me reflect on how many of my fellow (actual) trans elders have died and how the community is less, because of it.

When I started the Transadvocate blog back in 2002, it was a response to the pain and loss I felt after coming out as transgender in 2001. I didn’t realise it at the time, but that action changed my life forever. It brought people into my life like Monica Roberts, Ethan St Pierre, Rebecca Juro, Christian Grantham, and many others that would impact the trajectory of my life, and the transgender community.

Many of those people get very little mention today. Every time I see the trans flag, I think of Monica Helms.

But scarcely any a peep is said of Helms these days. So much of the history of the movement, during my time in it, doesn’t see much light.

I didn’t realise it until recently, but Rusty Mae Moore died back in 2022. She and her partner, Chelsea Goodwin, created Transy House.

“Transy House was a transgender collective operated by Rusty Mae Moore and Chelsea Goodwin from 1995 to 2008.”

“It provided shelter for trans, gender variant, and non-binary people in need, served as a center for trans activism, and was the last residence of pioneering LGBT rights activist Sylvia Rivera.”

Any time I see a young trans person living their best life, I think of the work that we did back then to lay the foundation so that they could walk. It’s the best thing we ever did, and so many of them will never know we did it.

Time marches on.

Book Favourite: A Demon Haunted World

Fri, 20 Dec 2024 11:09:07 +0100

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan 📚

This is one of my favourite books. So much of what is wrong with the world is within the pages of this book. Nostradamus would have been proud of Sagan.

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.”

And

“We’ve arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.”

Sadly, Sagan’s children were the ones to experience this, life didn’t need to wait for his grandchildren. The “lowest common denominator programming” is now quite literally “programming”. Algorithms on social media sites promote behaviours to motivate the most base of instincts, all to keep you on the site for as long as possible.

Science, or more precisely, teaching the scientific method, is one of few ways I can see a survival for mankind in the long term.

“One of the reasons for its success is that science has a built-in, error-correcting machinery at its very heart. Some may consider this an overbroad characterization, but to me every time we exercise self-criticism, every time we test our ideas against the outside world, we are doing science. When we are self-indulgent and uncritical, when we confuse hopes and facts, we slide into pseudoscience and superstition.”

Every day, I see more evidence of this kind of backsliding. A mixture of religion and emotive nationalism fuels it. MAGA ideology is based on emotion, rather than data and logical hypothesis.

“I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us - then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls.

The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.”

I know it’s just me getting old, but it’s difficult to believe that Sagan died 28 years ago. The Millennium has long since past. Children born at the time of his death are well into the prime of their lives. But his words just keep getting louder as the years go by. The demons, they are a stirring.

But the book isn’t just a scary vision of the here and now, it’s a call to how to fix many of the world’s ills.

“Deluded or not, supporters of superstition and pseudoscience are human beings with real feelings, who, like the skeptics, are trying to figure out how the world works and what our role in it might be. Their motives are in many cases consonant with science. If their culture has not given them all the tools they need to pursue this great quest, let us temper our criticism with kindness. None of us comes fully equipped.”

Sagan has a critical lens, yes. But that lens is rooted in compassion and hope for his fellow man. I often listen to the audiobook when I’m feeling despair about the state of the world. There is a way forward that doesn’t end in the destruction of the world we’ve created. This book should be near the center of any path forward. It definitely is for me.

Understanding Migrant Sex Workers' Struggles: Reading "Not Your Rescue Project"

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 04:04:38 +0100

I'm reading "Not Your Rescue Project: Migrant Sex Workers Fighting for Justice" There are books that I get a hold of that I have to read more than once, and this is one of those books.

"When most people think about migrant sex workers, they think of them not as humans, but as objects of grave moral concern. Not as powerful and capable community members, but as social problems."

You can insert the homeless, sex workers, transgender people, or any other oppressed minority there, and it still works. The people at the center of any of these issues aren't the main focus of the saviors. They are seen as objects to save. The debates rarely include real voices of the people involved.

Like other working-class people, migrant sex workers suffer poor working conditions under capitalism. When migrant sex workers face exploitation at work, this is labor exploitation.When they face abuse at work, this is labor abuse or violence against workers. When they are forced to sell sex (or to sell sex in ways that they do not want to), this is forced labor. Their problems are worker problems.

The book explains a lot of the history of anti-trafficking laws in the USA, and it's roots in white supremacy:

Chinese migrant women were also some of the first targets of anti-trafficking laws, under which they were subjected to immigration investigations on whether they were being trafficked “for lewd and immoral purposes.” In 1910, the US Congress passed the White Slave Traffic Act to target sex-trafficking rings and to protect white girls from forced prostitution that they were lured into by “foreign immigrant traffickers.”

and

They face racist immigration restrictions and hostility from white supremacist countries that view them as permanent outsiders and expect them to be servile and impoverished, performing the backbreaking jobs that white people don’t want, without a right to citizenship, labor protections, or full participation in democratic governance. White supremacy frames migrant sex workers as a social problem and as a dangerous threat to Western values, families, and border security.

and explains how the anti-trafficking industry is a tool of the state to enact violence upon migrant sex workers:

Criminalization through anti-trafficking policies allows the state to emerge as the great “rescuer,” while leaving migrant sex workers more susceptible to violence and exploitation. Mimicking the “white slave panic” of earlier eras, today’s trafficking discourses are framed in the language of “modern-day slavery.” This white supremacist saviordom is a gross and glaring appropriation of Black liberation struggles to enable the very thing that abolition is opposed to: increased criminalization and violence.

The premise of anti-trafficking laws is that because vulnerable women and girls are “trafficked” against their will, they must be “sent back.” Like the oxymoron of feminist jails, these are supposedly “feminist deportations.” This state violence is gender-based violence. And ironically, this kind of coerced “rescue” seems a lot like actual trafficking. The purpose of anti-trafficking measures, then, is not to support migrant sex workers but to increase policing and to restrict the free movement and labor of migrant women.

That migrant sex workers suffer under capitalism in the same way that all working class people do.

Under conditions of poverty, limited opportunities, and social inequality, workers make choices about their best options. This includes migrant sex workers. Other labor activists do not need to prove that workers are capable of consenting to their labor, even though capitalism forces everyone to work to survive.

It’s not that sex work is necessarily good, it’s that it can often be better than other work. The jobs available to low-income racialized migrants in other sectors are some of the worst jobs in the world. Work in agricultural, manufacturing, construction, warehouse, and domestic labor sectors is notoriously poorly paid, punitive, relentless, exploitative, and dangerous.

When the alternative is deportation, arrest, and poverty, millions of migrants are coerced into brutally exploitative labor contracts. Migrant worker activists including, Harsha Walia, have described these conditions as modern indentureship, and in some cases, “systemic slavery.” The conditions of these work permits are deceptive, coercive, and unfree.

And discuss what a danger that "anti-trafficking" NGOs are to migrant sex workers:

In reality, anti-trafficking nonprofits do not combat human trafficking, violence, exploitation, and coercion in the sex industry; they facilitate, enhance, and expand state violence.

They are aligned not with a social justice movement fighting gender-based violence and “modern slavery,” but with right-wing and carceral feminist movements that are opposed to racial, social, and economic justice.

The anti-trafficking industry must be delegitimized, defunded, and abolished. It is designed for social control, and because it is founded on white supremacy, sexism, and state violence, it cannot be reformed.

and how SWERF/TERF feminism is and has always been a right of center operation that has held hands with conservative evangelicals.

Feminist anti-trafficking organizations work with these extremist anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ groups and with anti-trans feminists. One of the larger feminist, anti-trafficking and anti–sex work organizations in the US is World Without Exploitation (WWE), which leads campaigns against the decriminalization of sex work across the country and works in coalition with far-right Christian organizations, including NCOSE and Exodus Cry (whose founder describes Planned Parenthood as “Planned Assassination”).7 WWE is a US-based project of the Coalition Against the Trafficking of Women, the first anti-trafficking NGO of the modern era, which was shaped and formerly led by Janice Raymond, one of the leading architects of both trans-exclusive feminism and sex work–exclusive feminism.

Anti–sex work feminists are not “abolitionists.” They are prohibitionists who advocate for a type of criminalization and law enforcement that they claim is feminist.

Anti–sex work feminists do not join migrant sex workers in their campaigns for fair working conditions or safe migration, but instead organize against those campaigns.

They call for more rights for sex workers

Migrant sex workers must have control over their movement—and that means the power, resources, and information they need to reduce the risks and vulnerability that accompany different stages of migration.

No migrant workers, including sex workers, should be forced into exploitative temporary work visas, nor should they have their mobility tied to any employer.

and call the trafficking non-profit industry for what it is... an arm of the state who perpetuate harm of migrant sex workers, not rescue them.

In a time of escalating fascism, this book urges us to refuse right-wing, fear-mongering moral panics. Lam and Gallant drive home that the issue we should be concerned with is not trafficking or victim narratives (what they say function as “a concealed form of state violence”) but, rather, the control of migration, the criminalization of sex work, the exploitation of labor relations within capitalism, and the circuits of empire that manufacture vulnerability.

It was an eye-opening read from people organizing on the ground, helping, collaborating, and listening to migrant sex workers.

Drag isn't a Gender Identity, it's a Performance

Thu, 28 Jul 2022 09:08:19 +0100

When I was a small child, the local morning television children's shows often had events where they would read children's stories or sign autographs.

In 2019 when I started writing this post (it's pretty much sat in my drafts since then), there was a problem with performers reading to children. Well, it was only a problem if they're drag queens. Now it's gotten to the point where people are calling parents that take kids to these events "groomers" and that drag is inherently sexual.

What kind of 80's Footloose fever dream is this?

It's like saying that musicals are sexual

"because Chicago." Art is sexual when its content is of a sexual nature. There's nothing inherent to drag that makes it sexual. It's just a type of performance art.

Proud Boys think they're some sort of cultural heroes by attacking Drag Queen Story Hour. But in reality, they're just the Reverend Shaw Moore (the fanatical pastor who gets dancing banned in the movie "Footloose").

Examining 'Twilight of Democracy': A Critical Review

Thu, 16 Jun 2022 18:42:23 +0100

Twilight of Democracy: The Failure of Politics and the Parting of Friends by Anne Applebaum

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I can appreciate this Applebaum's perspective, but a few things bother me. She centres herself as the unchangeable middle who is free from movement, ideological grift, or opportunism. I want to break down some of what she said here.

Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism: "Authoritarianism appeals, simply, to those who cannot tolerate complexity: There is nothing inherently "left-wing" or "right-wing" about this instinct at all. It is anti-pluralist. It is suspicious of people with different ideas. It is allergic to fierce debates."

But that's precisely what she does:

Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism: "This, of course, is the argument that anti-American extremists, the groups on the far-right and far-left fringes of society, have always made. American ideals are false, American institutions are fraudulent, American behavior abroad is evil, and the language of the American project—equality, opportunity, justice—is nothing but empty slogans. The real reality, in this conspiratorial view, is that of secretive businessmen, or perhaps 'deep state' bureaucrats, who manipulate the voters into going along with their plans, using the cheesy language of Thomas Jefferson as a cover story."

She asks for complexity but can't find it within herself to look for it herself. She can't frame her argument without flowering it with words like "anti-American extremists" or groups as "fringes" or contaminating her statement by saying that the view is "conspiratorial."

Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism: "Whatever it takes to overthrow these evil schemers is justified. In Prairie Fire, the Weather Underground inveighed against 'the Justice Department and White House–CIA types.'"

Um, FRED HAMPTON? The FBI murdered him. This isn't a conspiracy; you can find it on something as tame as the History Channel. Herbert Hoover targeted civil rights leaders, American involvement since WW2 in overthrowing Central and South American governments isn't a conspiracy, it's documented historical fact.

Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism: "This form of moral equivalence—the belief that democracy is no different, at base, from autocracy—is a familiar argument, and one long used by authoritarians. Back in 1986, Jeane Kirkpatrick, a scholar, intellectual, and Reagan's UN ambassador, wrote of the danger both to the United States and to its allies from the rhetoric of moral equivalence that was coming, at that time, from the Soviet Union."

Again, she can't just quote Kirkpatrick; she uses the flowering of the language to influence the reader. It suggests that Kirkpatrick is put out as an expert that can be relied on and centres Kirkpatrick much as she does herself. This is the same Kirkpatrick that downplayed the rape and murder of four nuns in El Salvador (saying "the nuns were not just nuns, they were political activists") and supported murderous dictators in Central and South America. Kirkpatrick popularised the term "moral equivalence" to not look at the USA's history because if you do, it's a trail of genocide, slavery, and imperialism and that continues to engage in it to this day.

Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism: "Guns, weapons, even nuclear warheads were dangerous to democracies, but not nearly as dangerous as this particular form of cynicism: 'To destroy a society,' she wrote, 'it is first necessary to delegitimize its basic institutions.' If you believe that America institutions are no different from their opposite, then there is no reason to defend them. The same is true of transatlantic institutions."

I told my partner I was writing this, and she said, "the scientific method also applies to humanities; history, sociology and political science." In Kirkpatrick/Applebaum's view, you have to accept that American institutions are different without any analysis.

She also wrote: Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism "Buchanan's pessimism derives partially from his sense of white decline but also, like some of those diametrically opposed to him on the left, from his dislike of American foreign policy. Over the years he has evolved away from ordinary isolationism and toward what seems to be a belief that America's role in the world is pernicious, if not evil."

and

Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism AA: "In 2002, he told a television audience, using language that could have equally come from Noam Chomsky or a similar left-wing critic of America, that '9/11 was a direct consequence of the United States meddling in an area of the world where we do not belong and where we are not wanted."

She quotes this but does not engage with the criticisms of Buchanan or Chomsky in any meaningful way, and she dismisses them without any counter-argument. Chomsky/Buchanan is absolutely spot on in their analysis of why 9/11 happened. Bin Laden himself: "There is America, full of fear from its north to its south, from its west to its east. Thank God for that. What America is tasting now is something insignificant compared to what we have tasted for scores of years. Our nation [the Islamic world] has been tasting this humiliation and this degradation for more than 80 years. Its sons are killed, its blood is shed, its sanctuaries are attacked, and no one hears and no one heeds."

Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism: "And this is what Trump has proven: beneath the surface of the American consensus, the belief in our founding fathers and the faith in our ideals, there lies another America—Buchanan's America, Trump's America—one that sees no important distinction between democracy and dictatorship. This America feels no attachment to other democracies; this America is not 'exceptional.'"

"This America has no special democratic spirit of the kind Jefferson described. The unity of this America is created by white skin, a certain idea of Christianity, and an attachment to land that will be surrounded and defended by a wall. This America's ethnic nationalism resembles the old-fashioned ethnic nationalism of older European nations. This America's cultural despair resembles their cultural despair."

America has been at war in some form or fashion since its founding, minus about 30 odd years. The "Founding Fathers" were slave-owning misogynists. The "spirit of Jefferson" isn't democratic at all (he was a rapist, after all). The "spirit" she's talking about is almost a religion, and it's on what MAGA is built. That's just it, she can point to Trump and say why he's terrible, but she can't or won't do the deep dive into the important questions "why" questions like why he exists, why he's popular, why people follow him and his horrible ideas.

The reality is that people have been suffering in some form or fashion because of the neoliberal politics that's been dominating since the 1970s. Wages have been stagnant while income inequality rises. The stagnation results from those policies, and Trump is built on top of Ronald Reagan's legacy.

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Bayard Rustin's Vision is Why Bigots Use Dog Whistles

Sat, 04 Dec 2021 17:45:00 +0100

Bayard Rustin was an American civil rights icon. He was the main organiser of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. He also influenced Dr. Martin Luther King Jr to use non-violence as a tactic in the fight for civil rights. He said:

" Our job is not to get those people who dislike us to love us. Nor was our aim in the civil rights movement to get prejudiced white people to love us. Our aim was to try to create the kind of America, legislatively, morally, and psychologically, such that even though some whites continued to hate us, they could not openly manifest that hate."

Bayard Rustin; From Montgomery to Stonewall (1986)

This has come to pass, people can't openly manifest their hatred in public. That doesn't mean that hatred and bigotry go away. Bigots have found other means to inject their bigotry into society. Social conservatives do this frequently. They will talk about the "traditional family" being under attack, or that the transgender agenda is destroying society.

[www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scyXvdedz5c)

When Seth Andrews tries making the point that Nazis don't exist (because the National Socialist German Workers' Party/Hitler was defeated in 1945), Thomas Smith tries to claim that New Atheists haven't merged with right-wing conservatives, or Sam Harris claims that white supremacists have no cultural influence/that they're the fringe of the fringe, they are being destructively pedantic.

Understanding Privilege in Atheist Spaces

Thu, 12 Jan 2017 14:37:07 +0100

The genesis of this post is from a comment I left on The Thinking Atheist Podcast page. The host, Seth Andrews, invited various people on his podcast to talk about "Trigger Warnings and Safe Spaces." One of the guests was Bill Ligertwood, a conference organizer with the Imagine No Religion conference

So here's where I come from. I'm a white trans woman. I'm middle class. I went to college before transition and have a decent life making decent money. I don't worry for much in terms of material things. I lived and grew up in mainly white culture (my grandfather was a Klansman). I never met another transgender person (the opposite of transgender is cisgender) until after I transitioned. Being a trans woman, I was male-identified at birth. Up to the point of transition, I'd been enmeshed in men's culture. Positionally in terms of socialisation, I was seen as a member of "white cis bro culture."

Living in Indiana, I was one of those "libertarian" Republicans that believed life was a level playing field and that if you just applied yourself, you'd succeed. This wasn't a belief I had tested or reasoned; it was just a feeling I had. Back then, talk of privilege wasn't commonplace in my circle of friends. I certainly didn't spend any of my time thinking about it. When I transitioned, I lost cisgender, heterosexual and male privilege and had to actually confront the loss of something I didn't think existed.

So when I'm talking about "white cis bro culture", it's essentially a discussion about white, cisgender, heterosexual, male privilege. It's not just displayed at atheist conferences but in the atheist community as a whole.

The last atheist conference I attended was the Secular Women's conference, but I stay way away from conferences for the most part because they are rife with white cis-het bro culture.

I don't go to conferences that invite Michael Shermer, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, or Lawrence Krauss as guests. Not because I have a problem with their scepticism, but a problem with their displays (Shermer, Dawkins, Krauss, Harris) of sexism/misogyny/islamophobia.

From the interview:

Andrews: "You wanted to weigh in on this because you have an opinion, a perspective. You approached me and said 'I want to talk about the challenges that I'm facing in this culture when it comes to conference organisation.' You're finding it harder to do what you do, in what you might call an 'offence culture." A 'taking offence' culture. You want to flesh that out for me?"

Ligertwood: "Yea, sure. Well, we're talking about safe spaces, and what we're trying to do, obviously, at a conference is create one. We're trying to create a safe space for people of our persuasion. In other words, unbelievers, atheists, what have you, a place where they can come and not be worried about someone finding out, ot worried about someone that's going to take a strip off them because they're not believers. So that's, first of all that's what I think we're trying to do. What makes that really difficult now is that it doesn't seem to take much to make it is that actually quite safe, unsafe just because somebody takes offence to something that one of the speakers said once in a tweet or whatever, years ago, months ago, days ago, hours ago, it doesn't really matter. It just seems like people take offence to almost anything these days and it seems like once you go off the path, once you go stray from the dogma, which is what I thought we were all interested in doing, is straying from the dogma. But once you stray from this new dogma, you're in the out group. People will boycott our event. People will boycott anything you're at are because you said something or someone said something about you and it's instantly, yeah, the safe spaces isn't safe anymore, so people won't come."

Taking that apart, I read that as:

"Just because Dawkins made sexist comments with 'Muslima,' people shouldn't boycott our conference if we invite him."

First off, a boycott is a form of free speech. Secondly, dogma is misused here by Ligertwood. According to Merriam-Webster, dogma is:

1. a : something held as an established opinion; especially : a definite authoritative tenet b : a code of such tenets c : a point of view or tenet put forth as authoritative without adequate grounds
2. a doctrine or body of doctrines concerning faith or morals formally stated and authoritatively proclaimed by a church

It seems like Ligertwood is using 1a and c in reference to his point. Fleshing that out in the context of Dawkin's Muslima comments makes no sense. What is the dogma here? Is it the "new dogma" to acknowledge sexist tweets of thought leaders in the atheist/sceptic movement?

There's an underlying message that Dawkins is a magic man with knowledge so unique, it can only be gained by listening to him. That may have been true in 1975, but it isn't now. I've stated before that there seems to be a Jekyll and Hyde side to Dawkins. Attendance at a conference (or buying of a book of his, for that matter) supports both his Jekyll and his Hyde. There's the brilliant evolutionary biologist who wrote "The Selfish Gene." But then there's the crotchety old grandpa who will tell you that sexism isn't that bad because Muslim women in Saudi Arabia can't drive or that "mild paedophilia" isn't harmful.

I don't buy cakes from bakers who won't make wedding cakes for gay men for the same reason (no matter how delicious they are). That isn't a rejection of the baker's confectionary skill, but their bigotry. There are plenty of other "bakers" in the atheist community that are not sexist that I can (and do) give my time/audience with/money to.

Ligertwood seems to be angry that people will "boycott" his conference because of "tweets." He seems angry that another person's free speech (boycott) will make his job of conference organizing harder. Given that conferences generally cost to attend and are not mandatory, I'm not sure where his beef is with me exercising my own free will over my own pocketbook. Yes, I'm an atheist, but I value my own time, talent, and treasure enough to take it to places and spaces that value me. Mr Ligertwood won't have to worry about catering to me for his conference. I'll stick with listening to my favourite atheist podcasts (The Thinking Atheist, The Atheist Experience), reading Greta Christina, and supporting people involved with Secular Women. That's as far as I'll dip my toes in the atheist community because I don't have to do any more than that. Support isn't something atheist communities or conferences are owed.

Atheists are a marginalised community, even though it's hard for many cis white men to comprehend. The only thing I can work out with Ligertwood is that his frustration might stem from his own privilege. There is such a thing as "Christian privilege", and those things impact atheist's lives. The truth is hard for white cisgender men who have never had to face up and acknowledge their own privilege in other areas. Would Ligertwood be against atheists who refuse to shop at Hobby Lobby or eat Chick-fil-A? Boycotts are a powerful change agent. But Ligertwood's words seem to express that old saying that "when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."

Suicide, Leelah Alcorn, and Living Openly Trans*

Fri, 02 Jan 2015 12:37:57 +0100

I’ve kept quiet much for the last few months because I’ve been mourning a loss, the equal I can only compare losing my father at age 11. I’m not going to share the particulars of this loss because it doesn’t really matter in the context of this post, and secondly because it’s extremely personal. But emotionally I’ve been hampered a bit in just getting by day to day. I’m just trying to work out a plan for my future and try to do all the things people do when they’re mourning a huge loss. Trying to move on when you don’t really want to.

The holidays haven’t made it any easier. My circle of friends in Madison, Wisconsin is small. This is the first Christmas without my partner. I’ve just been putting my head down, going to work, and trying to make it through.

And then I read the suicide note of a trans teen, Leelah Acorn. Her parents tried Jesusing the the trans out of her to the point she killed herself. Some cis-gender (not trans*) people (especially those people that can’t bring themselves to call trans women, women but feel the need to call them “penised individuals") have suggested that it’s irresponsible to post Leelah’s suicide note.

This is thorny territory for me personally. When I read it, it did trigger me. I’ve been pretty much staying away from social media the last few days because of her suicide. In her suicide note she said:

"I have decided I’ve had enough. I’m never going to transition successfully, even when I move out. I’m never going to be happy with the way I look or sound. I’m never going to have enough friends to satisfy me. I’m never going to have enough love to satisfy me. I’m never going to find a man who loves me. I’m never going to be happy. Either I live the rest of my life as a lonely man who wishes he were a woman or I live my life as a lonelier woman who hates herself. There’s no winning. There’s no way out. I’m sad enough already, I don’t need my life to get any worse. People say “it gets better” but that isn’t true in my case. It gets worse. Each day I get worse."

That part of her note pierced through me like a knife. I understand her pain, because I feel like I am the embodiment of the comments of her future. I'm a visibly trans woman that struggles every day. As I said to a friend after this story broke:

"I'm not clinically depressed or having suicidal ideation. I'm currently mourning a loss and been having dysphoria related issues lately. Basically I'm the person she said she didn't want to live to be. That was a huge punch to the gut."

and

"I'm not saying it for hugs or attention (but thanks for the love), but that it's just hard. Especially what she said about it not getting better. If you don't have cis-privilege, life is fucking hard being openly trans."

But I don't think it's irresponsible to publish her note. I think it's wise and compassionate to warn people with "trigger warnings". But for someone that routinely fights for the right to exclude trans women from "female only" spaces without one shred of evidence that trans women are a threat (regardless of their genital status), I find Ditum's words to be both disingenuous and oppressive.

Irresponsible? That would be the Philadelphia Gay News publishing a story about an underage child’s genitals. Irresponsible would be the Statesman asking a TERF who openly mocks trans women to write a piece on a trans child’s suicide.

The answer to transphobia that leads to suicide isn’t more transphobia. The answer to transphobia isn’t silence. Not talking about it isn’t going to make it go away. Trans reparative therapy isn’t going to suddenly go away on its own. It needs to be talked about and people need to know how awful and destructive it is.

She says:

“Trans lives matter. We know that transgender people are at particular risk of suicidal thoughts. So why are people endorsing and sharing material that, if it has any effect at all, is likely to be the catalyst for a trans youth to attempt suicide?”

Ditum’s pity feels a lot like the pity trans people get from Focus on the Family. She knows that trans people are at particularly at risk for suicidal thoughts, but never seems to ask why. I’m suffering every day as a visibly trans person, and it’s not because I’m mentally ill or because I’m diagnosed with any sort of depression. It’s because being visibly trans in this world IS A HARD LIFE. It’s because there are people that other us, disrespect us, and objectify us on a daily (and sometimes hourly) basis.

The answer isn’t silence, it’s education. The answer isn’t fear mongering, mis-gendering, or “gender nerd snark”, it’s treating trans people with respect and human dignity. It boils down to just letting trans people live their lives authentically without being attacked for who they are. Ditum and folks like her aren’t part of the answer, they’re part of the problem.

Renee Zellweger, Abortion, and Trans Bodies

Wed, 22 Oct 2014 11:49:28 +0100

Wading through all the comments on Facebook about Renee Zellweger’s “new look” have made me think a lot about a common thread between abortion rights, trans bodies, and body modification through surgery. The common issue is between them all is bodily autonomy, the right to make choices about what happens to you your own body.

"But she looked good/better/different before the surgery!"
“She looks ok, but I think she was more attractive as a guy!"

According to who? I’m kind of dumbfounded when someone agrees a woman should have the right to choose what do concerning an unplanned pregnancy, but will comment on a person’s choice for elective body modifications. Why is that ok? It seems to me that it’s Feminism 101 to say that women should have the right of bodily autonomy.

I find celebrity culture to be a tad bit creepy. People will comment freely about a woman’s body as if it’s something of theirs to critique? It’s objectification at its highest level. They probably wouldn’t appreciate the same level of critique of their mother, sister, or partner’s bodies, but they seem to feel they have a right to comment on the body of someone they’ve never met and don’t know? How far is this from the religious fundamentalist (or TERF) who will say:

"The writers of Scripture viewed any attempts at overriding one's birth-sex as abhorrent, a sacrilege against the structures of maleness or femaleness created by God, and ultimately a rebellion against the Creator who made our bodies,"

The underlying theme is the same, regardless of who it's coming from. It's an assertion of ownership, outside of one's own body. It's an assertion that bodily autonomy is harmful, and that any change to the "natural body" is mutilation:

"Now one of the things I find puzzling about it is that, when I look at the House of Lords debate on this legislation, those I agree with most are the radical right. Particularly the person I find that I agree with most, in here, and I’m not sure he will be pleased to find this, is Norman Tebbitt… Tebbitt also says that the savage mutilation of transgenderism, we would say if it was taking place in other cultures apart from the culture of Britain, was a harmful cultural practice, and how come we’re not recognising that in the British Isles. So he makes all of these arguments from the radical right, which is quite embarrassing to me, but I have to say, so called progressive and left people are not recognising the human rights violations of transgenderism or how crazy the legislation is. – Sheila Jeffreys

My belief (regardless of if we're talking about trans people, sex workers, Renee Zellweger, or someone who is pregnant) that it is "my body, my choice." The right to make choices about your body is a basic, fundamental human right.

Thoughts on Suicide, Living, and Dying

Thu, 09 Oct 2014 08:43:55 +0100

My mind has been in a million different places today. I read this thoughtful post by a doctor about a patient that committed suicide. I saw this today on dying with dignity:

[www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPfe3rCcUeQ)

I come at this from the perspective of a medical professional that has seen death and dying up close and personal for almost thirty years. I come at this from the place of a person with a history of persona trauma and loss. I come at this from the perspective of an atheist. I come at this from the perspective of someone that researches the deaths of trans people across the world for the Remembering our Dead/Transgender Day of Remembrance project. I come at this from having partners who struggle with mental illness. From each one of these perspectives, I see life and death up close. I often see conflicting messages when seeing the suffering, the pain, and the joy of living.

When I saw Brittney's story and I read the doctor's words about the suicide of a 50-year-old man with a history of depression, I saw a similar story. I saw a story of two people dealing with a life-threatening illness. I saw a story of two people taking control of their life, destiny, and pain.

I think about every person I've ever treated as a medical professional that was at their life's end. So many times, what I end up seeing is suffering. Needless suffering. Terminally ill patients with families that just can't let go of their loved ones. I've had to perform scans on those patients. Patients who cried during the procedures cried out that they just wanted to die. They are the patients who have feeding tubes. The patients who have lived years, sometimes a quarter of a century, living in a bed. I've gone home, just put my face in my hands, and cried because of those patients. From that perspective, I'm like close to 80% of doctors that would avoid chemotherapy for aggressive forms of cancer that have little hope of a cure. I understand the rational choice not to suffer needlessly and have control over your life up until the end of it. I'm an atheist, but the needless suffering I've seen has made me see it as a kind of "hell on earth." I don't want that for myself.

From my trauma, I can understand losing hope. 12 years ago, I lost the ability to see my daughter and be a part of her life because of who I am. For almost 6 years, I suffered from situational depression because of this. Most recently, I'm about 6 months out from ending a relationship. I mourn that.

Being visibly trans isn't the easiest path in life, either. At times it weighs on my life like a heavy anchor. It limits my job choices, income, and many other aspects of my life. Parts of my trans life history have been so damaging, so brutal, and honestly... so unnecessary. When news broke of Kate von Roeder's very public suicide, I commented at the time that I think anyone that's visibly trans can understand why she took her own life. I looked at her letter and can honestly say that I understand why she did it. Some may say that makes me unstable or depressed, but I think of the words of comedian Marc Maron:

"If somebody comes up to you and says 'you might be clinically depressed', you should probably say 'thank you! That means I'm awake.' Is there any indication I shouldn't be depressed? Are you living on the same planet as I am? Do you ever think that depression might be the reasonable human response to the crap we're going through as a species?"

I'm not saying I want to kill myself. I've thought about it, and every time I do it comes back to the same question:

"Do I want to relieve myself of pain, more than I want to live?"

The answer to that question has been a consistent no. As complex as life is right now and unsure of my future, I still find joy and wonder in life. I still want more. I still want to be here and see how this all plays out. Doing the TDoR list, I see (sometimes graphically so) trans women losing their life because they are trans. The pain I feel from my life experience is tempered with the knowledge that my privilege (class, race, geography) allows me not to feel as much pain as many others do.

I'm glad I'm here, and I'm glad I'm alive right now. Though my pain may last, I acknowledge that it will lessen over time. That there will be a day sometime in the future when I'll yearn for today, for more time, for one more chance at living, but tomorrow won't come. I'm hopeful I'll have a choice of when and if enough is enough when the answer to the question above is that the pain is too much. Personal autonomy/agency is a gift that many people don't receive.

Climate Change and the Search for Truth

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:18:40 +0100

(Recently on a progressive e-list I’m on a person pointed to the work done by Science and Public Policy Institute and suggested that we “learn the truth” about climate change. The following is my response to him)

When someone claims to hold the truth to a question I tend to want to believe them. In my own life I want truth more than anything, so I my nature is to want to believe what people say. In third grade Ricky Crawford told me that his father worked for NASA and that his father had told him secretly that aliens from Pluto were attacking and would be here in three days. For three days I cried a lot, hid a lot, and waited for news to break that the aliens were attacking. When I realized that I’d been tricked, I trusted other people a lot less.

I’ve found consistently through my life that though I want to believe what people say, I have to dig down and see if there is a more sinister or politically motivated reason underneath. Many people (Christian creationists, for example) start with a belief and amass data to support their belief while dismissing anything that doesn’t support their beliefs.

The Science and Public Policy Institute sounds as credible in the same way that President Bush’s Clear Skies Initiative. But according to SourceWatch wiki:

"The Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) is a global warming skeptics group which appears to primarily be the work of Robert Ferguson, its President"
“Prior to founding SPPI in approximately mid-2007, Ferguson was the Executive Director of the Center for Science and Public Policy (CSPP), a project of the corporate-funded group, the Frontiers of Freedom Institute."

The Frontiers of Freedom Institute:

"Since our founding, Frontiers has grown from a start-up organization with big ideas to a preeminent think tank that is making a real and tangible difference advancing common sense ideas for government. One of our greatest sources of pride has been our position on the front lines in the battle to make a national missile defense system a reality. Our efforts earned us a seat across the table, literally, from President Bush on the day he announced our withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. In addition, we have both provided and received briefings from Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and his Deputy Paul Dundes Wolfowitz. We are proud to be considered an asset to the national security community during these times of serious global insecurity."
FoF groups its work under the banner of six “policy centers”:

Center for Constitutional Government

Center for Economic Liberty and Property Rights

Center for National Security and Defense

Center for Free Market Environmentalism and Conservation

Center for Civic, Family, and Societal Progress

Center for Science and Public Policy

and receive funding by:

Philip Morris Cos, ExxonMobil and RJ Reynolds Tobacco.

Even if you look past the the dubious past of the founder, the “science” relies heavily on the work of Christopher Monckton who:

"is the third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley and a former policy advisor to Margaret Thatcher during her years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom."

who is a media darling of the right wing.

A post about one of his published works at the Guardian makes the point better than I can:

"Published in two parts on consecutive Sundays, it runs to a total of 52 pages, containing graphs, tables and references. To my correspondents, to a good many journalists and to thousands of delighted bloggers, this paper clinches it: climate change is a hoax perpetrated by a leftwing conspiracy coordinated by the United Nations.
So which was the august journal that published it? Science? Nature? Geophysical Research Letters? Not quite. It was the Sunday Telegraph. In keeping with most of the articles about climate change in that publication, it is a mixture of cherry-picking, downright misrepresentation and pseudo-scientific gibberish. But it has the virtue of being incomprehensible to anyone who is not an atmospheric physicist.

The author of this “research article” is Christopher Monckton, otherwise known as Viscount Monckton of Brenchley. He has a degree in classics and a diploma in journalism and, as far as I can tell, no further qualifications. But he is confident enough to maintain that - by contrast to all those charlatans and amateurs who wrote the reports produced by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - he is publishing ‘the truth’ “

and

"A scientific paper is one published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. This means it has been subject to scrutiny by other experts in the field. This doesn't suggest that it's the last word on the subject, but it does mean it is worth discussing. For newspapers such as the Sunday Telegraph the test seems to be much simpler. If they don't understand it, it must be science."

I'm always dubious of anyone that claims to have "the truth". IMO, the truth is something to be eternally searched for but never found in total. At the very core of any honest search for truth is a commitment to follow the facts wherever they lead, even if it's to a place you don't think it should or would.

Or we could listen to the Ricky Crawfords of the world…..

Dokken: Chicken Fucking Heavy Metal Rock Gods

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:48:16 +0100

I recently was watching the new Dokken/Norton Antivirus commercial (DENY version):

[www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO0FnDqqb1Y)

I think they're funny as hell, but they led me to watch this old video:

[www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvyBiHGr2b8)

Is it just me, or is this video full of homoerotic imagery?

Lastly, I'd ask about this commercial:

[www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMXeE1EXJPM)

Um, does this mean Dokken is a band of Chicken fucking, hair metal gods?

Mark Twain, Ya Ain't So Bad

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:25:39 +0100

Today my son was complaining about how he hates being forced to read books, that it took all the pleasure out of them. Finally I had found a way to pounce on him and tell him about my love for Mark Twain! I too had the same sanitized version of Twain drilled in to me (in the very high school that my son attends). It wasn’t till I read “Letters From The Earth” that my view of Twain changed radically. From “Letters”:

In the voice of Satan

Very well, God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden, and eventually assassinated them. All for disobeying a command which he had no right to utter. But he did not stop there, as you will see. He has one code of morals for himself, and quite another for his children. He requires his children to deal justly -- and gently -- with offenders, and forgive them seventy-and-seven times; whereas he deals neither justly nor gently with anyone, and he did not forgive the ignorant and thoughtless first pair of juveniles even their first small offense and say, "You may go free this time, and I will give you another chance."
On the contrary! He elected to punish their children, all through the ages to the end of time, for a trifling offense committed by others before they were born. He is punishing them yet. In mild ways? No, in atrocious ones.

You would not suppose that this kind of Being gets many compliments. Undeceive yourself: the world calls him the All-Just, the All-Righteous, the All-Good, the All-Merciful, the All-Forgiving, the All-Truthful, the All-Loving, the Source of All Morality. These sarcasms are uttered daily, all over the world. But not as conscious sarcasms. No, they are meant seriously: they are uttered without a smile.

Twain’s daughter, Clara, released them in 1962 stating that “Mark Twain belonged to the world.” The back story is that Clara was a devout Christian Scientist who repeatedly tried to smooth over Twain’s growing disdain for Christianity near the end of his life. It’s been documented that Clara was the creator of the image we have of Mark Twain today. That image was crafted through her own religious dogma, guilt, and as a response to those in Communist Russia that claimed Twain was being censored.

Twain was far ahead of his time. He gave a speech at the Stomach Club ( a society of American writers and artists) in 1879 titled “Some Thoughts on the Science of Onanism "

Onanism,is defined as: Onan (אוֹנָן “Strong”, Standard Hebrew Onan, Tiberian Hebrew ʾÔnān) is a person described in the book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. The word onanism, an older term for masturbation or “spilling of seed”, which is derived from his name because of one interpretation of his actions in the Bible.

In the speech he said:

My gifted predecessor has warned you against the social evil --- adultery." In his able paper he exhausted that subject; he left absolutely nothing more to be said on it. But I will continue his good work in the cause of morality by cautioning you against that species of recreation called self-abuse to which I perceive you are much addicted. All great writers on health and morals, both ancient and modern, have struggled with this stately subject; this shows its dignity and importance. Some of these writers have taken one side, some the other.
Homer, in the second book of the Iliad says with fine enthusiasm, “Give me masturbation or give me death.” Caesar, in his Commentaries, says, “To the lonely it is company; to the forsaken it is a friend; to the aged and to the impotent it is a benefactor. They that are penniless are yet rich, in that they still have this majestic diversion.” In another place this experienced observer has said, “There are times when I prefer it to sodomy.”

Robinson Crusoe says, “I cannot describe what I owe to this gentle art.” Queen Elizabeth said, “It is the bulwark of virginity.” Cetewayo, the Zulu hero, remarked, “A jerk in the hand is worth two in the bush.” The immortal Franklin has said, “Masturbation is the best policy.”

Michelangelo and all of the other old masters–“old masters,” I will remark, is an abbreviation, a contraction — have used similar language. Michelangelo said to Pope Julius II, “Self-negation is noble, self-culture beneficent, self-possession is manly, but to the truly great and inspiring soul they are poor and tame compared with self-abuse.” Mr. Brown, here, in one of his latest and most graceful poems, refers to it in an eloquent line which is destined to live to the end of time–“None knows it but to love it; none name it but to praise.”

Such are the utterances of the most illustrious of the masters of this renowned science, and apologists for it. The name of those who decry it and oppose it is legion; they have made strong arguments and uttered bitter speeches against it — but there is not room to repeat them here in much detail. Brigham Young, an expert of incontestable authority, said, “As compared with the other thing, it is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” Solomon said, “There is nothing to recommend it but its cheapness.” Galen said, “It is shameful to degrade to such bestial uses that grand limb, that formidable member, which we votaries of Science dub the Major Maxillary — when they dub it at all — which is seldom, It would be better to amputate the os frontis than to put it to such use.”

The great statistician Smith, in his report to Parliament, says, “In my opinion, more children have been wasted in this way than any other.” It cannot be denied that the high antiquity of this art entitles it to our respect; but at the same time, I think its harmfulness demands our condemnation. Mr. Darwin was grieved to feel obliged to give up his theory that the monkey was the connecting link between man and the lower animals. I think he was too hasty. The monkey is the only animal, except man, that practices this science; hence, he is our brother; there is a bond of sympathy and relationship between us. Give this ingenuous animal an audience of the proper kind and he will straightway put aside his other affairs and take a whet; and you will see by his contortions and his ecstatic expression that he takes an intelligent and human interest in his performance.

The signs of excessive indulgence in this destructive pastime are easily detectable. They are these: a disposition to eat, to drink, to smoke, to meet together convivially, to laugh, to joke and tell indelicate stories–and mainly, a yearning to paint pictures. The results of the habit are: loss of memory, loss of virility, loss of cheerfulness and loss of progeny.

Of all the various kinds of sexual intercourse, this has the least to recommend it. As an amusement, it is too fleeting; as an occupation, it is too wearing; as a public exhibition, there is no money in it. It is unsuited to the drawing room, and in the most cultured society it has long been banished from the social board. It has at last, in our day of progress and improvement, been degraded to brotherhood with flatulence. Among the best bred, these two arts are now indulged only in private — though by consent of the whole company, when only males are present, it is still permissible, in good society, to remove the embargo on the fundamental sigh.

My illustrious predecessor has taught you that all forms of the “social evil” are bad. I would teach you that some of these forms are more to be avoided than others. So, in concluding, I say, “If you must gamble your lives sexually, don’t play a lone hand too much.” When you feel a revolutionary uprising in your system, get your Vendome Column down some other way — don’t jerk it down.

The real Mark Twain wasn’t just a witty ole' codger with a flair for writing colloquial American fiction. He was a true progressive for those times. He was anti-slavery, anti-capitalist (he played a major role in the American Anti-Imperialist League) and supported women’s suffrage.

Digging deep in history, I found that he’s not as boring as most of my English teachers made him out to be. He was a man of courage, wit, common sense, with a compassionate heart to boot. He wasn’t without his failings, but who isn’t? The man behind the history is one of texture and depth. In the end, I found he ain’t so bad after all.

Post of the Day

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 18:54:19 +0100

Post of the day goes to one of my favorite local bloggers, Steph Mineart:

"In reality, religious people seem more obsessed with anal intercourse than gay people are. So here's the thing, for all you religious homobigots out there - it's not about the butt sex. Really. And if you so obsessed with it, please just go off and do it yourself, rather than trying to bash us because of your obsessions with your own sphincter.

I want to propose that this year when people are testifying about SJR-7 and some of the other legislation related to gay issues, that we play "Butt Sex Bingo" - create a grid of all of the cliched arguments that the religious nuts trot out, with Anal Intercourse being the bonus in the center square (how apropo!). And when they get up to testify, mark off every argument, until they trot out the bonus free space -- when everyone shouts "Bingo!" at the same time, it will truly highlight how absurd they are."

(link)

An Apology To My Christian Friends

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 19:45:02 +0100

Writing a response to a hateful, bigoted blogger, the words of Gandhi came to mind.

"I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians."
“Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. I consider western Christianity in its practical working a negation of Christ’s Christianity.”

“It is my firm opinion that Europe does not represent the spirit of God or Christianity but the spirit of Satan. And Satan’s successes are the greatest when he appears with the name of God on his lips."

The Christianity in this country that listens to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, or Laura Ingraham; consumes popular culture like there is no tomorrow, supports the Iraq war, and votes for George Bush, are not Christians. They are like Saul before Damascus, a Pharisee. Christ said of the Pharisee:

"You make God's law to mean nothing so you can keep your own laws! You are not true to yourselves! What Isaiah said about you was true. He said, 'These people respect me with their mouth but their heart is far from me. They do not mean it in their hearts when they worship me. Their teachings are only the words of men.'"

If you’re going to judge me, judge my life, and try to subject me to your religious beliefs, how about you follow your own teachings? Hell, how about you KNOW your scripture, before trying to teach it to me?

To you that do follow the example of Christ, I apologize. I love you. I thought that anyone who claims to be a Christian, is a Christian. I’m sorry I’ve thrown you in with the American Pharisee’s. You walk the walk, and talk the talk. You live the word, and are a shining example of the Christ found in the Bible. I admire you, and your conviction even though I do not share it. If every confessed Christian was like you, this country would be heaven on earth.

Sometimes You Find Beauty And Truth In The Strangest Places

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 16:05:21 +0100

From Anarcho-Judaism:

It is difficult to be human. It’s scary. Because in fact we are alone, we never really get to fully know anybody—not even ourselves. At the most we can touch, for a moment, the mystery that other lives are, for a moment of love, friendship, ideological or artistic or spiritual communion, sexual pleasure. But only barely.
Then we are again alone, we will die and we have no way of knowing what happens to us half an hour from that moment. We fear everything that we can not control, and that is almost everything, even though we like to imagine it is not so much so. In some issues, we might fool ourselves but in others, like sexuality, it is impossible. Here, control fails us in seconds before a desire, a dream that we would have never thought ourselves capable of, and suddenly there it is, happening to us. That is why the alliance of the cross and the sword that maintains empires is founded on our loneliness, our fragility, our need for warmth and approval, our vanity that makes us need to feel part of something eternal and transcendental. What this alliance controls the most is that part of life most impossible to control, the part we fear the most: our sexuality. We thank the cross and the sword for protecting us from what we can not control by obeying, by being part of their institutions, by believing that we need institutions to mediate between us and the chaos of life, uncertainty and death.

Meet The Press Christians

Tue, 26 Dec 2006 19:00:59 +0100

Talk of Jefferson and the seperation of church and state dominated this weekend’s “Meet The Press.” I have to laugh about their talk of the founders. If you dig into Jefferson, you cannot deny the seperation of church and state.

“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” –Thomas Jefferson

“The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man.” –Thomas Jefferson

You can read more from the founders thoughts on church vs state here and here and here.

The comment was made that Hitler was an atheist, and that between Hitler and Soviet rule, more people have died under atheism than Christianity.

“We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.” -Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on 24 Oct. 1933

Either they are ignorant fools or willfull liars.

You can read more at No Beliefs.com.

Why Reason and Fact Don't Matter

Tue, 21 Feb 2006 22:27:03 +0100

It’s obvious to me that evangelical right wing Christians don’t care about fact or reason… in fact they don’t care about children either. USA Today recently wrote a story about how gay adoption bans in are being considered in 16 states. No mind that there are 120,000 children in foster care and only 50,000 find permanent homes each year. Never mind that American Academy of Pediatrics, the Child Welfare League of America, and the American Psychiatric Association provide statistical data that shows that gay and lesbian parents are just as fit and parent just as well as their heterosexual counterparts.

Gays and lesbians shouldn’t be parents! Why? Because Jesus said so!

Jesus Said "LOVE!"

Mon, 26 Dec 2005 11:52:01 +0100

In response to the “No Comparison” blog entry at the Indy Star, “Joi” said

"my religious beliefs are against the act of homosexuality, but I LOVE YOU ANYWAY, just as Jesus loves you."

S/he went on to say that

"HOWEVER, injustice is injustice. This country lacks a whole lot of LOVE and RESPECT! Why should I care who you choose to sleep with, just like why should you care about the color of my skin? It SHOULDN'T MATTER!!! NO ONE deserves to be discriminated against based on race or sexual orientation. PERIOD!"

I responded with the following email:

"AMEN! I can't believe how some Christians defend their hatred by use of scripture. It's reminiscent of how the Bible to defend slavery. Love and compassion aren't bound by law. Allowing hatred, bigotry, and discrimination to happen to anyone is and never has been love.
Arguing who has been discriminated worse, does not benefit anyone. Is there a difference in the murders of Mr. James Byrd Jr.( His throat was cut, then he was chained by his ankles to a pickup and dragged to pieces along three miles of road), Gwen Araujo (she was struck on the head with a soup can, then struck again with a frying pan so hard that the blow caused her head to make a hole through an adjacent wall. She was then taken to the garage and strangled with a rope, hog-tied, wrapped in a blanket, and placed in the bed of a pick-up truck. Four of the men drove her body to a wooded area in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada where she was finally buried in a shallow grave) or 15 year old Sakia Gunn ( who was murdered on the streets of Newark because she admitted to being a lesbian)? I think not.

Martin Luther King Jr said"Life’s most urgent question is: What are you doing for others?" In Matthew 22:37-39 Jesus Christ said much the same thing when he was asked what the greatest commandment was. He said ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

Little else needs to be said."

Little else besides the fact that S/he has given me hope that Christ’s love and compassion truly is manifested in a few Americans.

Mitch Loves The Jesus, Not The First Amendment

Sat, 03 Dec 2005 12:16:36 +0100

Indiana Governor, Mitch Daniels, called the recent ruling on Christian prayer at the statehouse “regrettable.” He went on to say:

"I just think it's regrettable. "It's in a long line now of, I think, confusing and sometimes clumsy attempts by the courts to insert themselves into this issue."

Um, Mitch … the court wouldn’t of had to rule on this if Brian Bosma hadn’t pushed this. Singing Just A Little Talk With Jesus"? Why not pass the plate and give communion! You could invite a different church choir each week to back you up.

If anything is “regrettable” it’s that your Republican mates in the House don’t feel they can run on their record. It’s reprehensible that they find it necessary to use gays and Jesus to get reelected.

Salem Aint Got Nothin on Indy!

Tue, 25 Oct 2005 04:38:32 +0100

For you Indiana locals… did y’all catch the News at 6 on WRTV? Norm Cox did an interview with Pepper Partin about the planned protest at the The Annual Irvington Halloween Festival (you can read about the festival at Indyscribe ). The protest is being organized by Rock Indiana and is being dubbed “Indiana’s Witch Hunt.”

The main focus of the protest is State Senator Patricia Miller (she is co-sponsoring the festival). Miller’s recent history of aggressively supporting and sponsoring legislation that is aimed directly at gays and lesbians in Indiana is obvious. A few weeks ago she authored the controversial “authorized reproduction” bill, but has a history of trying to oppress gays and lesbians. She also sponsored a bill would that would move university employees to a state health-care plan and limit benefits to state and university employees, their spouses and children, effectively removing domestic partner benefits. She also voted in favor of SJR7. But she isn’t just limiting herself to legislating gays and lesbians into oblivion. Her position as the executive director of the Confessing Movement (a radical conservative anti-gay movement within the United Methodist Church) allows her to oppress gays and lesbians every day. This “movement” seeks to root out ANY acceptance of GLBT from within the United Methodist Church. It’s obvious that this woman is obsessed with denying GLBT citizens in every facet of life. In the interview with Channel 6 she denied being a religious zealot, but I think Senator Miller’s actions speak louder than her words.

The Pledge

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 18:04:12 +0100

I wrote the following email to John Gregg, a local talk show host here on AM radio (WIBC).

Hi, First of all, I’d like to say that even though I am sure we are philosophically at opposite ends of the spectrum (I’m a Green), I enjoy listening to your show on IBC.

You read a quote of someone that advocated that this was a bad time to “take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance.”

The Pledge was written by Reverend Francis Bellamy in 1892. Francis Bellamy was a Socialist Christian and did not include the words “under God” in the Pledge. “Under God” was not added to the pledge until 1954.It was a response to growth of communism. The genesis of adding “Under God” was from a sermon of Reverend Dr. George M. Docherty, a Presbyterian minister. He said “And I came to a strange conclusion. there was something missing in this Pledge, and that which was missing was the characteristic and definitive factor in the “American Way of Life.” Indeed, apart from the mention of the phrase, the United States of America, this could be the pledge of any Republic. In fact, I could hear little Muscovites repeat a similar pledge to their hammer and sickle flag in Moscow with equal solemnity, for Russia is also a Republic that claims to have overthrown the tyranny of kingship”

You can read his full sermon here: www.post-gazette.com/downloads…

I do not believe that you can have a representative republic and theocracy at the same time. Jefferson said

"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own."

The founding fathers spoke to the separation of church and state… to list a few…

Thomas Jefferson "Our civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions more than our opinions in physics or geometry."
James Madison “The Civil Government, tho' bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability and performs its functions with complete success; whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the Priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the Church from the State.”

John Adams “The substance and essence of Christianity, as I understand it, is eternal and enchangeable, and will bear examination forever, but it has been mixed with extraneous ingredients, which I think will not bear examination, and they ought to be separated.”

Thomas Paine “As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of government to protect all conscientious protesters thereof, and I know of no other business government has to do therewith.”

The voice of our founding fathers rings quite clear on this subject. That isn't to say that I think we should simply go on what the founding fathers believed (if we did, blacks would still be slaves and women would be considered property under the eyes of the law). I do believe that this is a nation where the government is dedicated to be "For the people, by the people, and of the people."

If we choose as a nation to move closer to a theocratic form of government, we should be honest and forthright about our intentions in doing so.

I listen to you on the drive home from work (I work 3rds). I hope at some point I get home in enough time to call in!

Be well,

Marti Abernathey

Gay Swedish Fiction By John Q Republican

Wed, 13 Jul 2005 19:09:52 +0100

This entry is a favorite of mine from my LiveJournal

Below is an article was in our local newspaper, “The Indianapolis Star.”

Lori Borgman Marriage: It’s for kids' sake March 14, 2004

If you want to peer into the crystal ball to see what family life will be like in the event we redefine marriage, look to Scandinavia. The equivalent of same-sex marriage has been legal for more than a decade, and the verdict is in – same-sex marriage has eroded the already rusty link in the chain between marriage and family.

Marriage is passe in Norway, Denmark and Sweden. Marriage is so out of fashion that among those who do marry, some choose to keep it private to avoid embarrassment. Even more surprising, few homosexuals are taking advantage of same-sex unions. The heterosexual and homosexual marriage pool has shriveled so much that marriage and divorce statistics are difficult to interpret.

Author Stanley Kurtz, who has been parsing the data coming from Scandinavia, says this much is crystal clear – any form of family is acceptable.

Marriage is no longer seen as a precursor to parenthood. When heterosexual marriage is no longer seen as the norm, and marriage and parenthood are no longer seen as going hand-in-hand, married parenthood becomes an oddity. Disassociating heterosexual marriage from parenting is like splitting up the salt and pepper, but that’s exactly what has happened.

In Scandinavia, marriage has ceased being a big event in most young men and women’s lives. Many Nordic beauties have bid farewell to chunky issues of Bride’s magazine, engagement rings and bridal showers. Marriage once signaled the hallmark of maturity in the journey of life. Today the mark of maturity in Scandinavia is having a baby.

Couples become an item, birth a child and often live together for a year or so. Ultimately, however, couples can manage financially as individuals, so they tend to split and move to the next partner. And the next. It appears similar to that awful going-steady-and-breaking-up cycle of junior high, only with sex, and without end.

Who bears the brunt of all these adults sailing in and out of relationships and unable to cast anchor? Hint: They tend to be short, have soft cheeks, big eyes and like to sleep with teddy bears.

The majority of children in Sweden and Norway are born out of wedlock. Sixty percent of first-born children in Denmark have unmarried parents. An immense welfare state and state-run day care, funded by the enormous, albeit compulsory, generosity of taxpayers, attempt to fill the void of moms and dads, or moms and moms, and dads and dads, who opt not to tie the knot.

Our own nation’s link between marriage and family has been showing signs of rust for several decades. Less than half of our twenty-somethings believe it is immoral to have a baby out of wedlock. We already lead the world in single parenthood and divorce. So is now the time to dismantle marriage even further? All quite possibly at the expense of our kids? One small step for man, one giant tumble for the children of tomorrow.

Marriage under the best of circumstances is a mystery. Oh, let’s be honest. Some days it’s an outright miracle.

You do not tinker with a social, legal and religious institution that has stood as a foundation to nations and cultures for centuries without risking serious repercussions.

Whichever path we choose, we will all – married or unmarried, heterosexual or homosexual – live out the consequences, as will our children, our grandchildren and their children.

In the words of Margaret Mead, “As the family goes, so goes the nation.”

I responded to her with this….

Let’s Be Honest, For The Kids’ Sake By Marti Abernathey

For the kids’ sake, let’s look at this logically with all the facts on the table. Mrs. Borgman insinuates that “The equivalent of same-sex marriage has been legal for more than a decade” in Norway, Denmark and Sweden. Not one same sex marriage has ever been performed in any of these countries. Denmark adopted a registered partnership law in 1989 that grants most of the benefits and obligations of marriage. Norway and Sweden have similar cohabitation laws as well. The only countries that same sex couples can legally marry are The Netherlands (April 1, 2001), Belgium (January 30, 2003), British Columbia (July 8, 2003), and Ontario (June 10, 2003).

She continues on to suggest that “the verdict is in – same-sex marriage has eroded the already rusty link in the chain between marriage and family” and that “the heterosexual and homosexual marriage pool has shriveled so much that marriage and divorce statistics are difficult to interpret.” The insinuation is that gay marriage has caused the decline in the family and the separation of marriage and family. The studies figures show that only 2,372 gay couples had registered in nine years of the Danish registered partnership law in a country of 5.1 million people. In Norway (674 same sex couples registered out of 4.2 million people after four years) and Sweden (749 same sex couples registered out of 8.5 million people after four years) the number of couples that have registered against the total population are miniscule. Mrs. Borgman also neglects to add that registered partnerships in Scandinavia restrict or forbid adoptions or artificial insemination by gay couples! It’s curious that such a small percentage of couples have affected marriage so strongly. She and Mr. Kurtz both glaze over the increase in no-fault divorces, yet most studies suggest (no-fault divorces) have increased divorce 20 to 25 percent in the United States.

So where does Mrs. Borgman get her data? This theory she espouses is from an article written by Stanley Kurtz, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. The Hoover Institution is a conservative think tank that has strong ties to President Bush. Past or present fellows include; Richard Allen (United States National Security Advisor to President Ronald Reagan), George Shultz, Edwin Meese, Condolezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Thomas Sowell, Pete Wilson, Williamson M. Evers, John B. Taylor, and Newt Gingrich.

The burning question in my mind is who exactly is Stanley Kurtz. Turns out Mr. Kurtz graduated from Haverford College (Haverford is a liberal arts college founded in 1833 by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)) where he majored in comparative religion. Stanley Kurtz went on to study comparative religion at Harvard Divinity School as well. Does anyone else besides me see a problem here?

She continues her diatribe saying “You do not tinker with a social, legal and religious institution that has stood as a foundation to nations and cultures for centuries without risking serious repercussions.” This argument sounds eerily familiar to the reasoning for a proposed amendment by Representative Seaborn Roddenberry of Georgia. Representative Roddenberry said that his amendment would uphold the sanctity of marriage. He said he took this action because some states have permitted marriages that are “abhorrent and repugnant.” He said he would like to “exterminate now this debasing, ultrademoralizing, un-American and inhuman leprosy.”

He warned, “Let this condition go on if you will. At some day, perhaps remote, it will be a question always whether or not the solemnizing of matrimony in the North is between two descendants of our Anglo-Saxon fathers and mothers or whether it be of a mixed blood descended from the orangutan-trodden shores of far-off Africa.” That’s right, he wasn’t talking about gay marriage but interracial marriage and the year he introduced this legislation was 1921.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Why I Want To Be A Canadian

Sun, 10 Jul 2005 06:20:42 +0100

Very few times in life have I heard something so moving, so honest, and so historically relevant that it moved me to tears….

To my Canadian friends, I envy you… if all goes well, when I die, it shall be on Canadian soil.

I can’t believe I missed this…

Prime Minister Paul Martin on February 16, 2005 See video of speech

"I rise today in support of Bill C-38, the Civil Marriage Act. I rise in support of a Canada in which liberties are safeguarded, rights are protected and the people of this land are treated as equals under the law.
This is an important day. The attention of our nation is focused on this chamber in which John Diefenbaker introduced the Bill of Rights, in which Pierre Trudeau fought to establish the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Our deliberations will be not merely about a piece of legislation or sections of legal text. More deeply, they will be about the kind of nation we are today, and the nation we want to be.

This bill protects minority rights. This bill affirms the Charter guarantee of religious freedom. It is that straightforward, Mr. Speaker, and it is that important.

And that is why I stand today before members here and before the people of this country to say I believe in, and I will fight for, the Charter of Rights. I believe in, and I will fight for, a Canada that respects the foresight and vision of those who created and entrenched the Charter. I believe in, and I will fight for, a future in which generations of Canadians to come, Canadians born here and abroad, will have the opportunity to value the Charter as we do today as an essential pillar of our democratic freedoms.

There have been a number of arguments put forward by those who do not support this bill. Its important and respectful to examine them and to assess them.

First, some have claimed that, once this bill becomes law, religious freedoms will be less than fully protected. This is demonstrably untrue. As it pertains to marriage, the government’s legislation affirms the Charter guarantee, that religious officials are free to perform such ceremonies in accordance with the beliefs of their faith.

In this, we are guided by the ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada, which makes clear that in no church, no synagogue, no mosque, no temple in no religious house will those who disagree with same-sex unions be compelled to perform them. Period. That is why this legislation is about civil marriage, not religious marriage.

Moreover, and this is crucially important , the Supreme Court has declared unanimously, and I quote: ‘The guarantee of religious freedom in section 2(a) of the Charter is broad enough to protect religious officials from being compelled by the state to perform civil or religious same-sex marriages that are contrary to their religious beliefs.’

The facts are plain. Religious leaders who preside over marriage ceremonies must and will be guided by what they believe. If they do not wish to celebrate marriages for same-sex couples, that is their right. The Supreme Court says so. And the Charter says so.

One final observation on this aspect of the issue: Religious leaders have strong views both for and against this legislation. They should express them. Certainly, many of us in this House, myself included, have a strong faith, and we value that faith and its influence on the decisions we make. But all of us have been elected to serve here as Parliamentarians. And as public legislators, we are responsible for serving all Canadians and protecting the rights of all Canadians.

We will be influenced by our faith but we also have an obligation to take the widest perspective – to recognize that one of the great strengths of Canada is its respect for the rights of each and every individual, to understand that we must not shrink from the need to reaffirm the rights and responsibilities of Canadians in an evolving society.

The second argument ventured by opponents of the bill is that government ought to hold a national referendum on this issue. I reject this not out of a disregard for the view of the people, but because it offends the very purpose of the Charter.

The Charter was enshrined to ensure that the rights of minorities are not subjected, are never subjected, to the will of the majority. The rights of Canadians who belong to a minority group must always be protected by virtue of their status as citizens, regardless of their numbers. These rights must never be left vulnerable to the impulses of the majority.

We embrace freedom and equality in theory, Mr. Speaker. We must also embrace them in fact.

Third, some have counseled the government to extend to gays and lesbians the right to ‘civil union.’ This would give same-sex couples many of the rights of a wedded couple, but their relationships would not legally be considered marriage. In other words, they would be equal, but not quite as equal as the rest of Canadians.

Mr. Speaker, the courts have clearly and consistently ruled that this option would offend the equality provisions of the Charter. For instance, the British Columbia Court of Appeal stated that, and I quote: ‘Marriage is the only road to true equality for same-sex couples. Any other form of recognition of same-sex relationships …falls short of true equality.’

Put simply, we must always remember that ‘separate but equal’ is not equal. Whats more, those who call for the establishment of civil unions fail to understand that the Government of Canada does not have the constitutional jurisdiction to do so. Only the provinces have that. Only the provinces could define such a regime, and they could define it in 10 different ways, and some jurisdictions might not bother to define it at all. There would be uncertainty. There would be confusion. There would certainly not be equality.

Fourth, some are urging the government to respond to the decisions of the courts by getting out of the marriage business altogether. That would mean no more civil weddings for any couples.

It is worth noting that this idea was rejected by the major religions themselves when their representatives appeared before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in 2003. Moreover, it would be an extreme and counterproductive response for the government to deny civil marriage to opposite-sex couples simply so it can keep it from same-sex couples. To do so would simply be to replace one form of discrimination with another.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, there are some who oppose this legislation who would have the government use the notwithstanding clause in the Charter of Rights to override the courts and reinstate the traditional definition of marriage. And really, this is the fundamental issue here.

Understand that in seven provinces and one territory, the lawful union of two people of the same sex in civil marriage is already the law of the land. The debate here today is not about whether to change the definition of marriage, its been changed. The debate comes down to whether we should override a right that is now in place. The debate comes down to the Charter, the protection of minority rights, and whether the federal government should invoke the notwithstanding clause.

I know that some think we should use the clause. For example, some religious leaders feel this way. I respect their candor in publicly recognizing that because same-sex marriage is already legal in most of the country, the only way. The only way to again make civil marriage the exclusive domain of opposite sex couples is to use the notwithstanding clause.

Ultimately Mr. Speaker, there is only one issue before this House in this debate. For most Canadians, in most parts of our country, same-sex marriage is already the law of the land. Thus, the issue is not whether rights are to be granted. The issue is whether rights that have been granted are to be taken away.

Some are frank and straightforward and say yes. Others have not been so candid. Despite being confronted with clear facts, despite being confronted with the unanimous opinion of 134 legal scholars, experts in their field, intimately familiar with the Constitution, some have chosen to not be forthright with Canadians. They have eschewed the honest approach in favour of the political approach. They have attempted to cajole the public into believing that we can return to the past with a simple snap of the fingers, that we can revert to traditional definition of marriage without consequence and without overriding the Charter. Theyre insincere. Theyre disingenuous. And theyre wrong.

There is one question that demands an answer a straight answer from those who would seek to lead this nation and its people. It is a simple question: Will you use the notwithstanding clause to overturn the definition of civil marriage and deny to Canadians a right guaranteed under the Charter?

This question does not demand rhetoric. It demands clarity. There are only two legitimate answers, yes or no. Not the demagoguery we have heard, not the dodging, the flawed reasoning, the false options. Just yes or no.

Will you take away a right as guaranteed under the Charter? I, for one, will answer that question Mr. Speaker. I will answer it clearly. I will say no.

The notwithstanding clause is part of the Charter of Rights. But theres a reason that no prime minister has ever used it. For a prime minister to use the powers of his office to explicitly deny rather than affirm a right enshrined under the Charter would serve as a signal to all minorities that no longer can they look to the nations leader and to the nations Constitution for protection, for security, for the guarantee of their freedoms. We would risk becoming a country in which the defence of rights is weighed, calculated and debated based on electoral or other considerations.

That would set us back decades as a nation. It would be wrong for the minorities of this country. It would be wrong for Canada.

The Charter is a living document, the heartbeat of our Constitution. It is also a proclamation. It declares that as Canadians, we live under a progressive and inclusive set of fundamental beliefs about the value of the individual. It declares that we all are lessened when any one of us is denied a fundamental right.

We cannot exalt the Charter as a fundamental aspect of our national character and then use the notwithstanding clause to reject the protections that it would extend. Our rights must be eternal, not subject to political whim.

To those who value the Charter yet oppose the protection of rights for same-sex couples, I ask you, If a prime minister and a national government are willing to take away the rights of one group, what is to say they will stop at that? If the Charter is not there today to protect the rights of one minority, then how can we as a nation of minorities ever hope, ever believe, ever trust that it will be there to protect us tomorrow?

My responsibility as Prime Minister, my duty to Canada and to Canadians, is to defend the Charter in its entirety. Not to pick and choose the rights that our laws shall protect and those that are to be ignored. Not to decree those who shall be equal and those who shall not. My duty is to protect the Charter, as some in this House will not.

Let us never forget that one of the reasons that Canada is such a vibrant nation, so diverse, so rich in the many cultures and races of the world, is that immigrants who come here as was the case with the ancestors of many of us in this chamber feel free and are free to practice their religion, follow their faith, live as they want to live. No homogenous system of beliefs is imposed on them.

When we as a nation protect minority rights, we are protecting our multicultural nature. We are reinforcing the Canada we value. We are saying, proudly and unflinchingly, that defending rights not just those that happen to apply to us, not just that everyone approves of, but all fundamental rights is at the very soul of what it means to be a Canadian.

This is a vital aspect of the values we hold dear and strive to pass on to others in the world who are embattled, who endure tyranny, whose freedoms are curtailed, whose rights are violated.

Why is the Charter so important, Mr. Speaker? We have only to look at our own history. Unfortunately, Canadas story is one in which not everyones rights were protected under the law. We have not been free from discrimination, bias, unfairness. There have been blatant inequalities.

Remember that it was once thought perfectly acceptable to deny women ‘personhood’ and the right to vote. There was a time, not that long ago, that if you wore a turban, you couldnt serve in the RCMP. The examples are many, but whats important now is that they are part of our past, not our present.

Over time, perspectives changed. We evolved, we grew, and our laws evolved and grew with us. That is as it should be. Our laws must reflect equality not as we understood it a century or even a decade ago, but as we understand it today.

For gays and lesbians, evolving social attitudes have, over the years, prompted a number of important changes in the law. Recall that, until the late 1960s, the state believed it had the right to peek into our bedrooms. Until 1977, homosexuality was still sufficient grounds for deportation. Until 1992, gay people were prohibited from serving in the military. In many parts of the country, gays and lesbians could not designate their partners as beneficiaries under employee medical and dental benefits, insurance policies or private pensions. Until very recently, people were being fired merely for being gay.

Today, we rightly see discrimination based on sexual orientation as arbitrary, inappropriate and unfair. Looking back, we can hardly believe that such rights were ever a matter for debate. It is my hope that we will ultimately see the current debate in a similar light; realizing that nothing has been lost or sacrificed by the majority in extending full rights to the minority.

Without our relentless, inviolable commitment to equality and minority rights, Canada would not be at the forefront in accepting newcomers from all over the world, in making a virtue of our multicultural nature the complexity of ethnicities and beliefs that make up Canada, that make us proud that we are where our world is going, not where its been.

Four years ago, I stood in this House and voted to support the traditional definition of marriage. Many of us did. My misgivings about extending the right of civil marriage to same-sex couples were a function of my faith, my perspective on the world around us.

But much has changed since that day. Weve heard from courts across the country, including the Supreme Court. We’ve come to the realization that instituting civil unions, adopting a ‘separate but equal’ approach would violate the equality provisions of the Charter. We’ve confirmed that extending the right of civil marriage to gays and lesbians will not in any way infringe on religious freedoms.

And so where does that leave us? It leaves us staring in the face of the Charter of Rights with but a single decision to make. Do we abide by the Charter and protect minority rights, or do we not?

To those who would oppose this bill, I urge you to consider that the core of the issue before us today is whether the rights of all Canadians are to be respected. I believe they must be. Justice demands it. Fairness demands it. The Canada we love demands it.

Mr. Speaker, in the 1960s the government of Lester Pearson faced opposition as it moved to entrench official bilingualism. But it persevered and it won the day. Its members believed it was the right thing to do, and it was. In the 1980s the government of Pierre Trudeau faced opposition as it attempted to repatriate the Constitution and enshrine a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But it persevered, and it won the day. Its members believed it was the right thing to do, and it was.

There are times, Mr. Speaker, when we as Parliamentarians can feel the gaze of history upon us. They felt it in the days of Pearson. They felt it in the days of Trudeau. And we, the 308 men and women elected to represent one of the most inclusive, just and respectful countries on the face of this earth, feel it today.

There are few nations whose citizens cannot look to Canada and see their own reflection. For generations, men and women and families from the four corners of the globe have made the decision to chose Canada to be their home. Many have come here seeking freedom of thought, religion and belief. Seeking the freedom simply to be.

The people of Canada have worked hard to build a country that opens its doors to include all, regardless of their differences; a country that respects all, regardless of their differences; a country that demands equality for all, regardless of their differences.

If we do not step forward, then we step back. If we do not protect a right, then we deny it. Mr. Speaker, together as a nation, together as Canadians, let us step forward."

Holy Water of Jesus!

Mon, 27 Jun 2005 23:01:24 +0100

US Secretary of Defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, said recently “That [the] insurgency could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years. Coalition forces, foreign forces are not going to repress that insurgency. We’re going to create an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win against that insurgency.” This stuff isn’t rocket science, Donald….

Every day that the US is in Iraq and doesn’t provide basic life sustaining needs, the insurgency will grow. Consider Iraqi blogger hnk’s words (a 16 year old Iraqi blogger)

"we have big problem in Mosul this week. The fuel is not available and it cost 25 times more than before from the black market. We don't buy it from the fuel station because it's too crowded and there is no hope to reach your turn before 10 hours, and after that 50% they will not get you fuel. That if you could wait till after 10 hours."
“Baghdad have another problem, the people there don’t have water, not even polluted water. And we are in summer and this is Baghdad.”

“Clear water, dirty water doesn’t trouble it’s not making a different. We drink both of them. My uncle house’s water has a small fish on it beside its color and its taste which we get use on them. But fish, It’s another problem.”

Water! Iraqi’s are drinking foul, polluted water!

Another common problem in Iraq is lack of electricity. Hnk said

"Bad electricity service that we have here in Iraq couldn't give us more than 4 hours in the day. In lucky days, we have 7 hours of electricity at the most level." You see a pattern developing?

Then there is the matter of security. Hnk said

"I said that today is better than tomorrow we were so near from being died this week. Especially my parents. The people around me killed and kidnapped. OH, Allah help us."
“One of the people who work with my father in the same building, called before an hour and asked my father not to come to the clinic, he said there is a confrontation in the region around the clinic."

Having no clean water, little electricity, and no security will do more to grow this insurgency than anything else. Security and quality of life issues should be front and center if we expect to win the hearts and minds of Iraqi’s.

Like I said, it’s not rocket science. Unfortunately those in authority believe more in the power of neocon Jesus than in science.

DON'T YOU DARE CALL ME A NAZI, YOU NAZI!

Wed, 22 Jun 2005 14:45:55 +0100

Because the whole system [is] like going to a concentration camp and picking out which people go to the death chamber." - Bob Novak 5/14/05

“I mean, imagine, the rule has been in place for 214 years that this is the way we confirm judges. Broken by the other side two years ago, and the audacity of some members to stand up and say, how dare you break this rule. It’s the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942 saying, ‘I’m in Paris. How dare you invade me. How dare you bomb my city? It’s mine.'” - Senator Rick Santorum

“Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It’s no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. " Pat Robertson 1993

“The EPA, the Gestapo of government, pure and simply has been one of the major claw-hooks that the government maintains on the backs of our constituents.” Tom DeLay 1995

Hitler was “an individual of great courage” and a “genius.” Talk about Jews killed at Treblinka reflected “group fantasies of martyrdom.” Pat Buchanan 1990

“Those who support gay and lesbian families are no different from those who supported Adolph Hitler in the years preceding World War II” - Sheri Drew, who gave the invocation at the Republican National Convention on August 31, 2004

“The Nazis were for gun control, the Nazis were for high marginal tax rates. Do you want to talk about who’s closer politically to national socialism, the Right or the Left?” Anti-Tax Activist Grover Norquist, 2004

“What Hitler began to build against the Jews is now being built against people of faith who believe the Scriptures are valid for today and their injunctions against certain sexual behaviors is correct.” Lou Sheldon, Traditional Value Coalition 1998

*“The notion that is involved in homosexuality, the unbridled sort of satisfaction of human passions’ leads to ‘totalitarianism,’ ‘Nazism,’ and ‘communism.’ - Alan Keyes 1997

“We certainly have all seen the rejections of Nazi Germany’s abuses of science,” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) declared regarding his opposition to stem cell research last October. “As a society and a nation, there ought to be some limit on what we can allow or should allow.”

“The whole system [for picking judges] is like going to a concentration camp and picking out which people go to the death chamber.” Robert Novak May 15, 2005

Please Bring Our Soldiers Home...

Tue, 21 Jun 2005 17:56:17 +0100

Help Jesus' General in the effort to recruit college Republicans into the armed forces.

TRUTH IS BAD!

Thu, 16 Jun 2005 01:51:22 +0100

A youth opinion writer for the Indianapolis star wrote recently that

"Howard Deans recent comment generalizing the GOP as 'pretty much a white, Christian party' was both untimely and ill-advised." and that "The greatest prospect for the Democratic Party to win the 2008 presidential election is its potential to exploit the flaws of the Bush administration. Repetition of the issues, however, and not mindless name-calling, is the key to Democratic victory."

I responded with the following:

Mindless name-calling? Is it suddenly a mudslinging to speak the truth?

44 of 3,643 Republicans serving in state legislatures across the country are minorities. For those of you into percentages that’s about 1.2%. In Washington, 274 of the 535 elected Senators and Representatives are Republican… 5 are minorities (2%).

Howard Dean simply spoke the truth…. This type of comment is similar to the rhetoric of the Right that demonized John Kerry for pointing out that Dick Cheney’s daughter was a lesbian. Somehow its become controversial to speak truth.

They Fired Me Because I Hate Queers

Wed, 15 Jun 2005 15:42:46 +0100

Two former members of the Indianapolis Star’s editorial board, James Patterson and Lisa Coffey, have claiming the Star discriminated against them based on their religious views. James Patterson said “This is America. We have the right, under the first amendment, to express those views. At a newspaper, which has had a conservative voice for years and years and years, our argument is we should be allowed to express those views without being persecuted.”

Persecuted? Christians in the Sudan have been persecuted for their religious views. I think Mr Patterson needs an education on what persecution is. An opinion writer does have the right to SAY what ever they like but the paper has no legal duty to publish it. Furthermore, the Star has no legal obligation to keep a Christian on staff just because of their religious affiliation.

Mr Patterson went on to say that “The Star not only discriminated against me, but they actually have waged a campaign people with strong Christian beliefs. Both of us were editorial board members and we should have the right.” “We should have the right to express our religious views, especially as opinion writers. That’s what opinions are for right?”

It’s ironic that fundamentalist Christians are running around crying about employment discrimination yet they were the main opponents of Prop 68 (which would have banned employment and housing discrimination).

Jefferson Vs The Religious Right

Sat, 30 Apr 2005 15:47:45 +0100

Dr Albert Mohler Jr.

“In the case Lawrence V. Texas, the Supreme Court of the United States of America struck down every sodomy law in this country. You see, they found the Constitutional right to sodomy. Does anyone believe that the framers of our Constitution intended for it to be there? By no means. Well if it’s not there, how did the court decision get there? By reading into the Constitution what they wanted to find, which isn’t there, but is constructed there, by expanding the Constitution by re-interpretation. Now, of all people, we ought to be the folks who understand that. Because we as Christians have had to understand there are people who will take the word of God, and say it’s really not about the text. It’s about what’s behind the text. We can take the text and make it say what it doesn’t mean. We have seen that pattern. And God’s people have had to learn to discern and say, no, the text is the inerrant and infallible word of God. It is what God said it is, and what God revealed it to be. And that’s what must constrain our interpretations. God bless you for believing that and affirming that."

Thomas Jefferson:

“I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.” –Thomas Jefferson to Edward Dowse, 1803. ME 10:378

“Whenever… preachers, instead of a lesson in religion, put [their congregation] off with a discourse on the Copernican system, on chemical affinities, on the construction of government, or the characters or conduct of those administering it, it is a breach of contract, depriving their audience of the kind of service for which they are salaried, and giving them, instead of it, what they did not want, or, if wanted, would rather seek from better sources in that particular art of science.” –Thomas Jefferson to P. H. Wendover, 1815. ME 14:281

“I am really mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, a fact like this [i.e., the purchase of an apparent geological or astronomical work] can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too, as an offense against religion; that a question about the sale of a book can be carried before the civil magistrate. Is this then our freedom of religion? and are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule for what we are to read, and what we must believe? It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason. If [this] book be false in its facts, disprove them; if false in its reasoning, refute it. But, for God’s sake, let us freely hear both sides, if we choose.” –Thomas Jefferson to N. G. Dufief, 1814. ME 14:127

“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.” –Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, 1813. ME 14:21

“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.” –Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 1814. ME 14:119

I’m wondering when Jefferson’s writings will go to the Ministry of Truth… I remember reading 1984 but now I’m living it.

For The Love of Christ

Mon, 25 Apr 2005 14:59:14 +0100

It was brought to my attention yesterday that a few members of the GLBT community had emailed the fifth district city council member Ginny Cain, concerning Prop 68 (the Indianapolis Human Rights ordinance). She said:

"I will always discriminate against unhealthy addictive behaviors."
“Most importantly, I love Jesus because He gave His all for me, and so I will give my all for Him in honoring why He created sex to be within the boundaries of heterosexual marriage. He came to rescue us from our unhealthiness/sins. I will vote NO!”

“It is never helpful to condone and justify someone’s unhealthy chosen addiction. Homosexuality is an addiction to unhealthy sexual behavior. It can be overcome with proper treatment. Check out Exodus International for confirmation of this.”

“The Bible is clear that sex was created and intended within the confines of heterosexual marriage. It is meant to mirror our relationship to our Creator. Who would want to pervert that? Satan… is the author of sin. Jesus came to overcome sin’s power over us so that we can live and live abundantly! He came to rescue us…not condemn us. Thus, we need to help those who are entrapped in any kind of unhealthy lifestyle. I will never support something that is meant for destruction of human beings and our civilization."

Prop 68 isn’t about marriage. Even if one wants to make this about marriage, the logic still doesn’t fly. The standard line put forth by fundamentalist Christians is that it is the responsibility of the government to codify and support the growth of strong families through civil marriage. Is marriage strictly a matter of reproduction? I have experienced being in a heterosexual marriage and I’d venture to say that most heterosexual couples marry because they are “in love”, not to reproduce. In our modern day society, reproduction is seen as an outgrowth of the love within a marriage, not the other way around. These so called “shotgun marriages” (marriages that come about from pregnancy) are looked on with distained within present day society.

I do understand where Councilor Cain is coming from though. I have a very traditional history, before coming out transgender. I was raised to believe that gays and lesbians were promiscuously fractured adults that were stunted in their psychological development. I believed that homosexuals couldn’t love a same sex partner the way I loved my wife. Unfortunately my beliefs were built to support my own fears and self hatred. My observations were based on ignorance and lacked any real life exposure. They were simply constructs to fit my beliefs. I believe that Mrs. Cain suffers from much the same thing. Luckily I’ve been educated by others.

Saturday night I had one such “education.” I attended a silent auction (held for Rock Indiana Campaign for Equality) during the IndyIndie event at Jesus MCC church. Jan Williams and her partner Val also attended the auction/show. I’ve worked with Jan on the two dollar bill campaign but I’ve never seen them in a social setting. Seeing them interact together, their love for each other was obvious. I came to learn that Jan and Val have been in a committed relationship for 15 years. I began to survey the room and observed many couples that emitted this same kind of light that is given off by a couple that shares a deep love for one another. Such relationships are testaments of commitment that gays and lesbians live every day. It’s obvious to me today that Jan and Val’s love for each other isn’t one borne out of promiscuity or any other kind of unhealthy behavior, but borne out of love.

I lived and observed the “heterosexual Christian lifestyle” that Miss Cain, advocates. Since coming to terms with my transsexuality I’ve also been exposed to many flavors of family from within the GLBT community. The most ironic of observations is that I’ve felt more of “Christ’s love” from with the GLBT community, than from self professed Christians. They’re too busy being Pharasitical in their damnation to fulfill Christ’s ultimate mission of love. Jesus never spoke about homosexuality. His ministry was centered on love, not laws.

Christian “family values” should be based on Christ’s admonishment to “Love one another, as I have loved you.” Christian fundamentalists can spout 1 Corinthians 6:9 from memory, but can they do the same with Romans 13:8? (“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law.") Jesus repeatedly broke the laws of within the Jewish faith. He did it for reasons of love. His message was transparent. It was a message that love trumps the law. Marriage isn’t a contract (or covenant) of pregnancy. When two people marry they take a vow “to love and comfort,” to “honor and keep in sickness and in health”, to “forsake all others,” and to “be faithful as long as both shall live.” The standard of marriage is one of love, not an ability to bring forth children. Marriage is not a covenant of child production, but of love.

Whatever Councilor Cain argues, it’s obvious that it doesn’t come from a position of love, and certainly not from any kind of “agape” or spiritual love. Prop 68 isn’t about marriage. It isn’t about sex. It’s about having some human compassion and understanding for your fellow man. It’s about not sanctioning hatred of another human being. Mrs. Cain’s fundamentalist ranting misses the boat. If she wants to speak of Christ’s love, then she needs to start showing some consistency in her own words and deeds. Can she love another, as Christ loved her, by denying another human being their most basic civil rights?

Welcome to Jesusland

Fri, 15 Apr 2005 17:19:24 +0100

As a child, I used to be afraid that one day soon Armageddon would come and destroy my world. In those days I feared the rapture, yet now I welcome it.

"I'm a radical! I'm a real extremist. I don't want to impeach judges. I want to impale them!" - Mark Schwartz, Republican Senator Tom Coburn's chief of staff.

This extremist tone permeates the Congress and the White House.

"Our next step, whatever it is, must be more than rhetoric." - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay

Today’s theocratic mindset is exposed bare and naked by reading Virginia Republican and writer, James Atticus Bowden. He writes that:

"Today, America is engaged in another Civil War, a long Culture War, to determine the consensus culture, the world view, and purpose of our Nation. Judeo-Christian or Pagan Human Secularism. The issues; Ten Commandments, public prayer, partial birth abortion, homosexual marriage, euthanasia, etc., are stalking horses for the intolerance of Tolerance and Multi-Culturalism. These Liberal Puritans are culturally cleansing Judeo-Christian America. Their judges are today's tyrants. The Liberal Human Secularist Totalitarians are hand maidens of Islamist Totalitarians seeking to destroy Judeo-Christian America."
“The Confederate battle flag is a racist symbol only to racists, demagogues (liberals, thus Democrats), and dummies. To Southerners, Confederate symbols stand for courage, sacrifice, and fidelity.”

“Tolerate homosexuals – they’re your kin – but don’t honor them.”

“We don’t give a damn what foreigners think of us. And, frankly, my dear, we don’t give a damn what Yankees think of us (and that really bothers them).”

“As a man actually named ‘Bubba’ all my life, I’m proud to be disdained by any non-Southerner - and non-conservative, non-family, anti-evangelical Christian - ‘youse guys’.”

“Red States will never abandon Israel - it’s an Evangelical Christian thing about loving the Jews. So, fighting the Islamists for centuries appears not to be a problem.” - Virginia Republican and writer James Atticus Bowden

Um…ya. PLEASE hurry Lord. These people really need to go. America needs the rapture….. and I need a new car.

I May Be A Queer, But I Love Thomas Jefferson

Fri, 18 Feb 2005 10:24:13 +0100

The error seems not sufficiently eradicated that the operations of the mind as well as the acts of the body are subject to the coercion of the laws. But our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XVII, 1782. ME 2:221

"I am... averse to the communication of my religious tenets to the public: because it would countenance the presumption of those who have endeavored to draw them before that tribunal, and to seduce public opinion to erect itself into that inquisition over the rights of conscience which the laws have so justly proscribed." --Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 1803. ME 10:380

"I have ever thought religion a concern purely between our God and our consciences, for which we were accountable to Him, and not to the priests." --Thomas Jefferson to Mrs. M. Harrison Smith, 1816. ME 15:60

"I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Dowse, 1803. ME 10:378

"I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrines; nor of the religious societies, that the General Government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting and prayer are religious exercises. The enjoining them, an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises and the objects proper for them according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands where the Constitution has deposited it... Everyone must act according to the dictates of his own reason, and mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. ME 11:429

Whenever... preachers, instead of a lesson in religion, put [their congregation] off with a discourse on the Copernican system, on chemical affinities, on the construction of government, or the characters or conduct of those administering it, it is a breach of contract, depriving their audience of the kind of service for which they are salaried, and giving them, instead of it, what they did not want, or, if wanted, would rather seek from better sources in that particular art of science." --Thomas Jefferson to P. H. Wendover, 1815. ME 14:281

"No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of any religious sect or denomination." --Thomas Jefferson: Elementary School Act, 1817 ME 17:425

"The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man." --Thomas Jefferson to Jeremiah Moor, 1800.

"I am really mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, a fact like this [i.e., the purchase of an apparent geological or astronomical work] can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too, as an offense against religion; that a question about the sale of a book can be carried before the civil magistrate. Is this then our freedom of religion? and are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule for what we are to read, and what we must believe? It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason. If [this] book be false in its facts, disprove them; if false in its reasoning, refute it. But, for God's sake, let us freely hear both sides, if we choose." --Thomas Jefferson to N. G. Dufief, 1814. ME 14:127

"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own." --Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 1814. ME 14:119

"Our civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions more than our opinions in physics or geometry." --Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. ME 2:301, Papers 2:545

My weekend

Wed, 08 Sep 2004 11:41:38 +0100

Sorry for not posting of late. I read a couple days back, but I can’t read back far enough to get caught up. If you have had something major happen, post a link to the url and I will make sure to read.

The reason I haven’t posted is because of something you may have read about on this LJ. The gubernatorial race here is very tight and the Republican candidate agreed to meet with the GLBT community to discuss his position. You can read about the drama here. This drama caused me to have to stay home on Saturday and write.

Sunday I had a meeting with INTRAA and then after the meeting we played poker. I suck at Poker. I had a great time though, and am really happy that I am finding people that I connect with. Lori, Evan, Rhys, really make me feel accepted and normal. Many people talk about finding a place they feel comfortable in, a community. I feel this way with the trans community in Indy.

Monday I spent working all day and when I got home I continued to dialog with Christian about the Democrat fiasco.

Tuesday, I actually got to attend the meeting with the Republican candidate for Governor. It was really a bold step for him to meet with us and at least explain where he stands on things. I may vote for him, I am still very undecided. I think my vote sways on if he supports amending the civil rights law of indiana to include gender identity and sexual orientation.

Pride Extravaganza!

Mon, 14 Jun 2004 00:38:33 +0100

My Friend

Lexy from Boston came into Indy on Friday night. I met her out at the airport, then took her back to the apartment. I had to work, so I showed her the apartment, then went to work.

Cafe In the morning we went to a nearby cafe called “The Yellow Canary.”

Then we proceeded to prance over to pride. We caught a bit of the parade….

and then jetted over to the actual festival.

Of course no pride would be complete without drag queens…..

I started to pass out flyers with information about the HRC and their sponsorship of non-inclusive hate crimes legislation, all the while they pretend to advocate for us. The response from most people was great!

How straight do I look here? OMFG :)

The HRC people gave me that “Oh god!! The Jehovah’s Witnesses are at my door!!” look. Oh fucking well.

I went over to the INTRAA booth for a bit of a visit.

I met Bree there.... omg.. um... she's cute, and very articulate too. I also saw the founders of INTRAA, Bryan and Lori Sirtosky. TG folk around the state owe these two a lot. They have put a lot of time and effort into building INTRAA into what it is today.

Indy Boyz were also at pride. These two pics I got are both from F2M’S AND ARE PRICELESS!

Then Lexy and I went to the mall, then back home. She got ready to go to her High School reunion, then she left :( . She was a lot of fun!

Went to work and worked 12hrs……. then came home.

:) Long weekend!

Farty Jones and Pathetic North Americans

Sun, 06 Jun 2004 18:49:46 +0100

Yahoo News ran a story about Smarty Jones that stated, “By then the backyard was in near-silence. There were tears on little girls' cheeks and expletives shouted into the air and big, strong guys with their heads buried in their calloused hands.” Later the news piece stated, “Smarty was the people’s horse. Smarty was the people’s champion.”

Am I the only one that thinks this is pathetic? CRYING? It’s a goddamn horse race! I think the authorities should be summoned to the park and the parents arrested for neglect. Anyone that would immerse their kids into horse racing and then take them to the track should spend time in jail.

Hero worship of a horse…

Land of the free, home of the fat, ignorant, and pathetic.

Sleep Sleep ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Sun, 30 May 2004 16:26:21 +0100

I slept little yesterday after work, but lord did I pay for it later. I around 6 or 7 I fell asleep and didnt wake up till 1 am. Then I stayed up for a whole 10 minutes and slept until 630am. Shhhhhhhhit! Much to do today! I want to start doing a week of FMA posts. (What is FMA, you ask? It stands for Federal Marriage Amendment, and I have a place on OUTlet Radio. I find quotes from the sponsors of the FMA. You can add my FMA posts to your website, email me for the details. If you’re on LJ you can add it here FMA words to your friends list). For some reason it gets harder and harder to do even though I am very proud of it. I believe once people see what asses their local representatives are, they will vote the intolerant fucks out of office.

Much to do today…. As I write this I am also cleaning my room. I need to clean our fridge out (it looks like a goddamn pig sty). :) That is another rant all together. Oh wait… I have a digital camera now! Welcome to the grossness:

You think that is nasty? How about a close-up! FUCKING GROSS!

On another topic, do you like these shoes? I am watching these shoes on ebay: The ad says: These are Bongo Ronnie size 10 like new in box. These have never been worn anywhere but around the house. These are from my daughter’s gigantic shoe collection, and no longer fit her. These have been stored in the box and show no signs of abuse. Originally costing $39. Thanks for looking.

They are selling at 10 bucks plus actual price of shipping. I will wait till the last few minutes and buy em. Think they are worth 15 bucks? I like em. I am going to go to goodwill today too. I think I need to find some summer clothes. I REFUSE to buy myself any new clothes until I get down to my goal weight. When I get there, I am going to throw out all my old clothes. I know if I just keep up my workouts and Atkins I will get there. Why waste good money on clothes that wont fit next month?

O! Another thing I am bidding on is the bottom half of a laptop. My lappy has been dead for at least 6 months. I hope this action stays at this price ($24.00 plus 20 dollars for shipping)! I would get the parts i need for 50 bucks! FINGERS AND TOES CROSSED

Oh! I got this in the mail:

YAY! Thank you babe. I am digging this CD! For all you younger fucks that like Offspring or the like, go here and give it a listen! These guys were doing this in 87, back when Offspring was in their cribs shittin in their respective diapers. Anyways, thanks for the CD! :)

OMG! As I am sitting here writing this, I hear a song from Alanis Morrissette called “If I Would Be Good.” Goddamn this hit me like a ton of bricks!

that i would be good even if i did nothing that i would be good even if i got the thumbs down that i would be good if a got and stayed sick that i would be good even if i gained ten pounds that i would be fine even if i went bankrupt that i would be good if i lost my hair and my youth that i would be great if i was no longer queen that i would be grand if i was not all knowing that i would be loved even when i’m not myself that i would be good even when i’m overwhelmed that i would be loved even when i was fuming that i would be good even if i was clinging that i would be good even if i lost sanity that i would be good whether with or without you

Wake up Alanis! This is America!!!! smirk

Oh well kiddies, I best get back to cleaning!

I love you all!

xoxoxox DRag queen smoochies