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.
Shit that Pissed Me off This Week – 5/24
Florida Teenager Faces Felony Charges for Being a Lesbian
Actually, she isn’t facing felony charges for being a lesbian. She’s facing felony charges for statutory rape because she was having a consensual relationship with a girl who was 14. When she was 17, that was (at least according to the articles I’ve read), legal.
But she turned 18. And her girlfriends’ parents immediately had her arrested.
Update: Apparently it wasn’t legal when she was 17 because if you are under 16, you can’t have consensual sex with anyone in the State of Florida. It would seem they waited until she was 18 so she could be charged as an adult. Classy.
And the county prosecutor is going for it. Because the law is all about protecting the innocent and that fourteen year old was clearly being corrupted by her girlfriend the second she turned 18. There is, apparently, no nuance in statutory rape laws that takes the age of the offender into account. ‘Cuz an eighteen year old may be older than a fourteen year old but she is just as much of a child.
Oh sure, you can hold her hand now. But you’d better let it go before you turn eighteen!
If she had been a boy, I’ll bet this would not have happened.
Hey, you folks who are against same-sex marriage and who still think that you aren’t bigots – don’t you think getting an eighteen year old girl expelled from school and possibly putting her in prison because she’s a lesbian seems just a little bit bigoted?
Update: There is a lot more nuance to this case. I checked my sources before I posted it but bias is always a risk. I’m still annoyed by any situation that could have a child (and yes – an eighteen year old is still a child) sent to jail for fifteen years because of sexual curiousity. If there is one thing that scares the piss out of us in this country, it is human sexuality.
Shit that Pissed me Off – May 17th
Minnesotans for Marriage Are Worried that People think They are Bigots
Same-sex marriage is about to be a reality in Minnesota but the folks over at Minnesota for marriage tried their best to lie their way into a victory.
They warned folks that if the marriage law passed, people who believe that marriage is between one man and one woman would be labelled as “bigots” (because they are) and “prosecuted under the law” (which is complete bullshit).
See, the law says that same sex couples can get married. You don’t have to like it. There are lots of laws different groups of people don’t like. Not liking a law is completely legal and nobody is going to prosecute you for it.
I don’t like the fact that churches are tax exempt and yet, nobody has arrested me for thinking that way. I’M BEING PERSECUTED!!!!
Now if your job is to issue marriage licenses and you refuse to issue them to a same sex couple, you might lose your job because they are legally allowed a marriage license. You don’t get to re-write the law to suit your “deeply held religious beliefs.”
However, suggesting that people will be prosecuted for believing that same-sex marriage is wrong is a great example of inciting homophobia. All they are doing is trying to make people afraid of homosexuals. They seem to imply that once homosexuals have rights, they are going to trample all over everyone else’s.
That’s what bigots do.
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!!
Shit that Pissed Me Off This Week – 5/10
Chris Kluwe Released by the Vikings
I don’t know for certain why he was let go. I could speculate and a lot of other people have but the fact is the dude is a great voice for change and now he’s on his way out of town.
He’s bigger than the game he plays. I know that sounds ridiculous given Football is the most profitable professional sport in the world but it is just a sport. Kluwe tried to use his celebrity to help achieve a higher goal.
What goal could be higher than balancing a football on your middle finger? Get your priorities straight, Chris! Get it? Straight???? Get it?????????
And I’m pretty sure he got fired for it. I guess you should have waited to speak your mind until you weren’t a professional football player, Chris.
Not a problem now though! Boo-yah!
Shit that Pissed me Off – 5/3
Iowa Legislators want to Punish the Iowa Supreme Court by Cutting Their Pay
Let me start by saying that this particular law doesn’t stand a chance of passing. I’m not annoyed that it could actually become law.
I’m annoyed that it is being discussed. At issue is the fact that the Iowa supreme court, in a unanimous decision, declared that banning same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. That’s why same-sex marriage is legal in Iowa right now.
Well a few Legislators feel the court overstepped their bounds by interpreting the state constitution (or – to re-state – “doing their job”) in a way that these particular Legislators felt was wrong. So they have proposed to cut the pay of the “activist” justices until such a time as same-sex marriage becomes unconstitutional.
It’s like a bribe in reverse!
Just those justices, by the way. Any new justices would come in at the regular, pro-homophobic pay rate.
I’ve got a better idea, how about the Legislators cut their own pay until they understand you don’t cut the pay of another branch of government just because you don’t like their conclusions?
Shit that Pissed Me off – 4/26
Arkansas State Senator Nate Bell is a Douche
He decided to take a tense situation and make it all about gunz. As Bostonians were awaiting the results of a manhunt for a killer, he was wondering how many of them wished they had a semi-automatic weapon.
Ha ha!
I’m going to attempt some mind reading to suggest that the number he was looking for was damn near zero.
There were armed police everywhere. A bunch of civilians with machine guns weren’t going to make the situation any safer. In fact, the odds of an innocent bystander getting shot would have skyrocketed.
Maybe this was the gun they were wishing for.
Nate Bell loves his gunz. He loves them so much that he makes a fallacious assumption that people who don’t love gunz will automatically change their mind in a situation where a gun might have come in handy (although there is no proof that is the case.) He’s got that one wrong.
As with most things, the people on both sides of the issue have equally strong justifications for their choices and one fugitive is unlikely to change someone’s mind about how many guns they would like to have in their home.
Shit that Pissed me Off This Week 4/19
Eric Rush Engages in Classic Overreaction and States we Should Kill all Muslims
I’ve come out as being pretty uniformly against organized religion. I thikn it is a tool by which people push their own agenda onto others rather than a pathway to god (if there is one).
That is not the same thing as stating that everyone who adheres to a religion should be killed. Because that, my friends, is crazy talk. That is the sort of thing bigoted, ignorant people say.
Bigoted, ignorant people like this guy!
We don’t know yet if this bombing was the work of a Muslim extremist (Glenn Beck does) but even if it was, killing all Muslims is not a viable or reasonable solution. It is, in fact, far crazier than the act that just took place.
When you blame millions of people for the act of one, your priorities are seriously messed up.
Note: Reports this morning indicate the suspects were from Chechnya, which is predominantly Muslim. Preliminary evidence suggests they are Muslims. It still means millions of other Muslims had nothing to do with it.
Shit that Pissed me off This Week – 4/5
New York’s Cardinal Dolan wants to Improve the Catholic Church’s Message about Gay Marriage
Oh that’s great Cardinal! I’m glad to see that a high-ranking member of the Catholic Church finally realizes that the Church has no right to make moral judgements for those individuals who aren’t Catholic and you’d stay out of the political arena and…wait a minute.
No. That’s not what he thinks at all. He wants gay people to know that sex is only OK if you are trying to produce offspring so while it is totally OK to be gay, you can’t actually have sex or be married or anything like that. Gay people are totally entitled to friendship, though.
He also wants gay people to know that the Catholic Church is not anti “anybody.” They don’t hate gay people. They just want to make sure that gay people know they aren’t permitted to sexual fulfillment the way straight people are.
I came up with a new message! What do you guys think?
So basically, the difference between gay guys having male friends who are gay and me having male friends who are gay is a lifetime of unresolved sexual tension? I bring this up an awful lot but you know what? If that is really what god wants for gay people, god is a dick.
How about you work on improving that message, Cardinal?
Shit that Pissed me Off this Week – 3/29
Woman Complains about Sexist Behavior at a Convention and she gets Harassed and Fired
I just don’t get it, really. A couple of guys were making sexist jokes while sitting in the audience for a panel about women coders and an audience member thought they were in the wrong. Yeah. I agree.
She asked the conference organizers to tell them to stop. They were asked to stop and they did.
Then all hell breaks loose because one of the guys loses his job.
Look, I don’t think the guy should have lost his job for that but I wonder if it was really just for that? Isn’t it possible he was shitty at his job already? Even he was “just” fired for sexual harassment (oh the humanity), the logical response should not be for other people on the internet to attack the woman’s place of work and get her fired.
Hey guys! Let’s use our computers to teach this uppity bitch that she shouldn’t complain when we call her an uppity bitch!
That’s the sort thing dicks do.
Unfortunately, there are an awful lot of dicks on the internet.
Update: Clarifications in the comments below. And in this article. She did send a tweet to the conference organizers, not a public one (at least according to what I read). I question any firings happening and the harrassment is completely unacceptable.
Mea culpa on this one, though. I usually research the articles better before I comment on them. I didn’t look into this one deeply enough. If I had, I would still have commented on it but been more clear about all of the details.
The results of this situation – both firings – look to be classic overreactions by both companies and that still pisses me off.
Grail Diary 