Geeks Without God talks about a Wedge Issue!
This week’s episode of Geeks Without God was recorded in my hotel room at CONvergence 2013, which sounds dirty but really isn’t. My Twitter friend Finn Murphy was at the convention and she’s a co-host of the Skeprechaun podcast back in her native Ireland. Super cool! We asked her on our podcast and she agreed.
So what topic did she want to talk about? Abortion! A perfect topic for a comedy podcast, right?
Actually, it was a great topic. For all the issues we have with abortion laws in the United States, things are far worse in Ireland. It was a fascinating exploration of some really problematic legal choices.
Hey, I used the word choice. See what I did there?
Shit that Pissed me off This Week – 3/22
MegaChurch Pastor Told his Teenaged Girlfriend That Jesus Wanted them to be Together
Jack Schaap has pled guilty to taking a minor across state lines for the purpose of having sex. He’s not the first middle-aged guy who has shacked up with a teenager who looked up to him.
But I’m sure he’s been preaching about the abomination of homosexuality and possibly fornication and then he seems powerless to control his own lust. He even went so far as to tell his young lover that Jesus wanted them to be together.
Go ahead and do her, buddy! I’m behind you 100%! You don’t mind if I watch, do you?
I’m sure he’ll blame his behavior on the devil rather than himself. What will never occur to him (or his flock) is to question how a man so in tune with God could succumb to the same base lusts he condemns in other people. I’m sure he prayed to god for the strength to stop cheating on his wife with a child. Why didn’t god stop him? Why did he instead decide that god wanted him to do it?
It’s like the god he believed in didn’t really exist.
Shit that Pissed me Off This Week – 3/15
I get frustrated when science is doing something cool – in this case sampling water from a lake buried under four kilometers of ice to see if there is life there – and the results are less than thrilling.
I mean, it should be enough that they drilled through four kilometers of ice and took a sample of the lake water to begin with. And I admit, that is pretty fucking cool.
I was really hoping they would find something else there. Maybe they still will but for right now, it looks like the only thing they discovered was water.
Admit it. It would have been way cooler if they’d found one of these!
I don’t want to sound bitter but I’ve seen water before.
*Note: It isn’t over yet. There is a lot more scientific work to be done. For now, though, there are no ice monsters in Antarctica. Dammit.
Shit that Pissed me Off This Week – 2/22
Alaska Republicans respond to a question about Gay Marriage with Laughter
While the Alaskan public is beginning to warm up to the idea of legalizing gay unions (or at least giving homosexuals protection from discrimination in the workplace), the Republican caucus in the state legislature thinks idea is pretty funny.
You know, the Republican party is still full of openly anti-gay members. However, most of them are smart enough to avoid laughing at the idea of marriage equality on camera. Not this crew. They just laughed out loud because, I guess, fuck the gays.
Oh dear! I’ve laughed at the gays so much, I smeared my make-up!
I suppose when you know that you aren’t going to get the gay vote anyway, you have no reason to treat them with respect or compassion. Better if they all just commit suicide while they are still in high school, right?
You can laugh at gay people if you want, assholes. They aren’t going to disappear. You managed to make them hide for a while but most of them have finally realized they are right and you are wrong. Pretty soon they will be laughing at you. The difference will be that you deserve it.
Shit that Pissed me Off This Week – 11/16
This is not all of the members of the Wisconsin Legislature, mind you. Just nine of them. One of them says the Affordable care act is “unconstitutional” (even though the Supreme Court said it wasn’t) and that is his justification for supporting a law that would get a federal employee arrested for trying to do his job.
You can’t make something unconstitutional by saying so. That isn’t the way the system works. If it did, I’d say the Citizens’ United ruling was unconstitutional and Super Pac’s would be instantly dissolved.
As a lawmaker, you don’t get to pick which laws you follow. That’s not the job you got hired to do.
You can try to change laws. You can try to make laws better. You can’t decide that the supreme court got it wrong (even if you believe they did) and then start enacting laws based on what you think they should have ruled.
Aw fuck it! We can just assume that whoever wrote the dissent got it right, can’t we?
Either you believe in our system of government and you work within the rules or you shouldn’t have run for office.
Can we Stop Saying Horrible Things about Rape?
This election year has been filled with white, male Republicans falling all over themselves to say dumb things about rape. They talk about legitimate rape, the rape thing, forcible rape and they even imply that rape is god’s will. Every time you think they have gotten the “shut up about rape” message, one of them trips up and thinks they finally have a way to talk about pregnancy resulting from rape without sounding like a dick.
But here’s the thing – isn’t this all just a distraction?
The conversation about safe, legal abortion in this country has shifted from “you don’t get to tell a woman what she can do with her body” to “well, sometimes you can, but what about when she is the victim of sexual violence? Surely you don’t mean then?”
Grail Diary 