Shit That Pissed me Off This Week – 6/7
Baptist Church Plans to Dump the Boy Scouts because They Don’t Hate Gay People
The Boy Scouts expected that they would get some pushback from members of the faith community when they chose to accept openly gay scouts. Good thing, too. Because they are getting it.
Baptist ministers are saying that they have no choice. It is not a hate thing. It’s a morality thing. They just can’t support the Boy Scouts now that the organization has embraced a morally improper lifestyle by accepting openly gay scouts.
Look at how immoral this possibly gay boy scout looks!
That isn’t hate. They feel really badly about the whole thing. It isn’t their fault. It’s god’s fault!
I mean, sure, Jesus preached forgiveness and all that bullshit but not if you aren’t willing to deny your own sexuality because god doesn’t love you just the way you are.
Yeah. Fuck those guys.
Shit that Pissed me Off this Week – 5/31
Arizona State Representative was so Upset an Atheist Rep. Didn’t pray, he Prayed Twice
I missed this one last week, sorry.
So here’s what happened. Arizona State Representative (and secular humanist) Juan Mendez gave an invocation that did not include God. They take turns giving the invocation, it was his turn and he gave an invocation based on his beliefs. Which is totally his fucking right.
Representative Steve Smith was so upset about it, he offered up a special prayer the next day for “repentance of the previous day.” In addition to a prayer he’d already given. Because he had to make up for Mendez, I guess.
Oh god, please forgive my fellow legislators for being tolerant of beliefs other than their own. As I’m the only one of them without sin, I’m going to cast the first stone.
Now let’s step back for a moment and ask what the appropriate response would be had Mendez given a Hindu prayer. Or a Jewish one. Or an Islamic one. Would that have been OK because he’d mentioned a god or gods (even if they weren’t the right one)?
Assuming Smith’s response had been the same (two prayers to make up for the lack of a Christian one), would he have taken flak for choosing to disrespect any belief system other than humanism?
I’ll bet people would have been pissed as hell. Not just Muslims or Jews or whatever other religion he’d chosen to disrespect but Christians as well.
As it is, Smith will be applauded by the religious right for standing up to the godless left even though the godless left has had to tolerate Christian prayer in the Arizona state house for every day except one.
Geeks Without God Talks Politics
What a week it has been. When we sat down to record our podcast last week, same-sex marriage was not legal in Minnesota. Today, Governor Dayton signs that bill into law.
Eric Jacobson bid a tidy sum of money at the Fearless launch party for the right to join us this week. He wanted to talk about atheists in politics so that’s exactly what we discussed. Of course we talked about the upcoming votes in the Minnesota House and Senate and perhaps you will enjoy reaching back into history to hear our thoughts about the legislation and the chances for success.
The central question for anyone who is living a godless life is how do we have more impact on the political process as atheists? We didn’t answer that question in the podcast but we hope that by talking about politics, we can convince other godless folk to get involved in politics.
Eric also provides a stunning level of detail about his sandwich. Click here and enjoy!!
Thoughts about a Successful Failure
Sometimes you come up with an idea for a show and it seems to fit perfectly with your vision as a company. You think you have a great idea how to approach it. The audience laughs and you feel you had a success.
And in one way, you did. Most of the audience left the theatre thinking your show was hilarious. You can’t please everyone so it is foolish to try. However, it is the way in which you displease those audience members that says a lot about the success or failure of your show.
Friday’s Vilification Tennis show was, by most measures, a success. We only had one structure that didn’t work and we got a lot of laughs. Most of the people who left the theatre thought it was a very funny show and they told us so.
Not so the people who left the theatre early. Clearly we crossed a line that made them uncomfortable. Too uncomfortable to stay in the theatre.
On The differences between Satire and Bigotry
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Yesterday, I posted a satirical post about the Pope. I was happy with it. I thought it was pretty silly. I was especially pleased when I called him “Benedict the Cumberbatch.” Comedy genius, I tell ya!
I knew that it might upset a few Catholics if they read it and that was totally OK. That’s what happens when you write a blog post that is critical of the Papacy – even if it is primarily written as a joke. If someone doesn’t like the joke, the intent is not relevant.
Well, a friend of mine shared the post and then a friend of hers got pretty upset about it and we had a conversation. He kept saying he didn’t want to have a conversation but he actions suggested otherwise. I guess he was obsessed with someone being wrong on the internet. I get that. I’ve been there.
No sarcasm. I’ve been this guy. Thanks, XKCD!
Rope a Pope
Looks like the eighth dwarf
Well, it happened. An event that hasn’t taken place for over five hundred years happened and it has had an immediate impact on millions of people. Most of them journalists.
Pope Benedict the somethingth (I don’t know – it’s more than ten) has abdicated his position. He’s stepping down. For almost every pope that preceded him, the papacy was a death sentence. They literally worked themselves to death. Not this pope, though. He’d like some time to enjoy his final years in a way that is just a little less infallible.
Lots of pressure goes with infallibility, I would imagine. Many popes before Benedict the VIIVXth have felt that pressure and they never had the guts to just give it up. They were probably too attached to the colorful robes that were definitely NOT GAY and the golden jewelry that was also NOT GAY and living in the one country in the world almost entirely populated by men, who are all NOT GAY.
Shit that Pissed me Off This Week – 2/8
Catholic Girls Take a no Profanity pledge but Catholic Boys Don’t
Apparently use of profanity is “unladylike” but it is totally “manlike.”
I can actually support the idea of using more civil language in school but not because a civil tongue is a function of gender identity. I’m (obviously) not opposed to swearing but keeping foul language out of discourse in school can, I think, make it easier to learn.
In this case, though, what the young ladies are learning is that they are expected to be proper young ladies while the boys can be vulgar and nasty and, basically, act like assholes. That’s OK, you see, because they are boys.
Can the girls do this or is it also unladylike?
Well I cry bullshit (I can say that because I’m a guy). If you want civil discourse in school, you can’t exclude the boys from the conversation. When you do, you are making it very clear that the young men at that school are simultaneously better than the young women because they can say whatever they want and worse because they can’t be counted on to control themselves.
In other words, swear up a fucking storm, guys! God says it’s OK!!!!
Big Fun Radio Writers Wanted
About a week ago, I debuted my newest comedy show, Big Fun Radio Funtime. The idea behind the show is to have a quarterly show that features work by several different writers. That’s where this post comes in.
I know a good number of writers in the cities and I’ve contacted some of them. Mostly the ones I was pretty sure would enjoy writing something in this particular comedy sandbox. Actually, to be honest, they were the people who I could think of off the top of my head shortly after I had the idea for the show.
I missed a whole bunch of other people. Some pretty obvious. Some not so obvious. Maybe you were one of those folks.
So if anyone out there is waiting for an invitation, here it is. Do you want to write for the show? Tell me so. I need four original 10-12 minute scripts per show so I’m going to run out of people on my first contact list in a hurry.
You don’t have to be local, either. I can direct the script and I’ll make sure you get an audio copy of the show so you can impress all of your friends.
Drop me a line. Comment on this blog entry or on Facebook. Send me an e-mail at bigfunradio@fearlesscomedyproductions.com.
I’d love to feature your script at one of these shows. I just didn’t know you wanted to write one!
And on a separate but equally important note – I want to feature solo songwriters and voice actors at each show as well. Do you do one of those things? If so, you could be doing it for me!
Stories from a Fearless week of Fearlessness
This entry is going to be pretty long because the last week was a pretty massively amazing week and even though I’m just trying to sum all of it up, there is a lot to sum up.
Last week, we launched a theatre company.
Interesting how I say that so casually. We launched a theatre company. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Any yahoo can launch a theatre company.
That is quite possibly true. Fortunately, when I tossed the idea at a bunch of other yahoos I knew, their initial response was not to laugh at me and tell me that I was a crazy person. Instead, they told me they liked the idea and that they wanted to help. Still sounds pretty casual, doesn’t it?
New Show art!
I’ve not been showing off art for shows the last couple of months because the last two Vilification show posters are good but got thrown together at the last minute. For the March shows, we got a little ahead of the game for the first time in a while.
The March Vilification Tennis show is one of my favorites – the Game Show. I love putting this show together and I love performing it. We all do. It’s one of the reasons we have it on our schedule every year.
My biggest problem is balancing the number of performers who want to appear in the show with the number of performers I can reasonably cast.
Well, it’s coming up and again and to celebrate, here’s the art by John Newstrom! Also, here is a link to show information!
Grail Diary 