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.
I am a White Male and I Cannot be Silenced
It sounds really stupid when I say that I can’t be silenced, doesn’t it?
I mean, here I am writing a blog entry and I get to say whatever the fuck I want. Nobody is telling me to shut up because I’m a white guy. Nobody seems to think that I haven’t a right to speak my mind. It’s really fucking easy for me to have my say any time I like.
I bring this up because I’ve been reading a lot about a welcome address given at the Women in Secularism conference just over a week ago. The address got on the nerves of a lot of attendees because the speaker, a white male, chose to use part of his speech to admonish the women in attendance for perhaps taking feminism too far.
Now the fact he is a white male should not be the big issue here as he is the CEO of the Center for Inquiry and they did sponsor the event. Having him open the conference does seem somewhat appropriate.
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.
Geeks Without God gets Artsy Fartsy
I gotta be honest. I could have talked about this week’s topic for a lot longer than we did. Our jumping off point was a discussion of a jackass that Molly had as a professor in college. From there, we talked about the idea of aesthetic beauty and what art we all found attractive or interesting.
Of course, given the theme of the podcast, we also talked about whether or not religion could be afforded any intrinsic value because of the art and architecture that has been created in the name of religion.
It is all very philosophical and involves discussions of trips to Europe, artistic styles and even comic books. Have a listen if that is your thing!
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.
Alphabetical Movie – Looney Toons: Back in Action
Look, I know that this movie isn’t all that good. It spends a good portion of it’s incredibly short running time recalling funny moments from old Looney Tunes cartoons in ways that make them nowhere near as funny.
When Marvin the Martian said “where’s the Kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth shattering Kaboom” in “Hare-way to the Stars,” it was funny. When he says the same thing in this film, it feels kind of desperate.
Back in my youth, I fell in love with the Looney Toons on Saturday morning. For 60 or 90 minutes, they would play the best of the classic cartoons. A lot of them were shortened or they would splice together a couple of road runner cartoons to make a really long road runner cartoon in which Wile E. Coyote really got the shit kicked out of him.
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!!
