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All Blog Posts Tagged 'marriage' - Atheist Nexus 2016-10-21T22:03:32Z http://atheistnexus.org/profiles/blog/feed?tag=marriage&xn_auth=no Trump Macho Infection tag:atheistnexus.org,2016-09-29:2182797:BlogPost:2710931 2016-09-29T04:22:18.000Z Joan Denoo http://atheistnexus.org/profile/JoanDenoo
Trump Macho Infection

Trump rises to power by tapping into the reptilian brain of humans. He is a con-man who recognizes a patsy when he sees one.

Trump pretends to be masculine in ways that remind me of Benito al when I was a child. Both behave with attitudes of entitlement, arrogance, selfishness, egocentricity, overbearing, pompous, and cruel. They believe in Social Darwinism…

Trump Macho Infection

Trump rises to power by tapping into the reptilian brain of humans. He is a con-man who recognizes a patsy when he sees one.

Trump pretends to be masculine in ways that remind me of Benito al when I was a child. Both behave with attitudes of entitlement, arrogance, selfishness, egocentricity, overbearing, pompous, and cruel. They believe in Social Darwinism with the survival of the fittest their highest value.

There seems to be no compassion in Trump except for his generosity to his family. He claims, "It's a tough world." "Only the strong survive." His appears to believe humans get their guidance from nature, cruel in tooth and claw, not reaching to a higher plane of compassion and care.

Isn't it sad that people such as Trump tell others to, "Man up?" He fails to reach that higher aspect of being part of a much larger dimension than wild animals. He doesn't seem to have a moral and ethical core of a contemplative human.

Trump makes no pretenses when it comes to politics, he buys politicians and does not deny it. It is, "the cost of doing business."

He entered into marriage agreements that he failed to honor. He confesses his first two marriages broke down because of his philandering. Apparently, his wives enter into marriage arrangements with him thinking they share the same definition of marriage. Just as people claim, "Boys will be boys!" and "Men will be men!", either one allows the boy to grow into a child and skip adulthood altogether.

Trump perceives women as pigs, slobs, and he makes statements trivializing their feminine functions. He knows his supporters, both men and women, think, "Guys are like that. Get used to it." There is not even an attempt to honor the male and female aspects of human beings.

Hillary Clinton personifies against which Donald Trump reacts. She appears to be the organized, disciplined, and the responsible one who works to solve problems. Hillary comes to the debates well prepared. Yes, she has enough flaws to give an opponent fuel to challenge her, and I am the first not to want Hillary as our first woman president.

The feminist movement has radically altered U.S. consciousness. Feminism elevated and developed the natural strength and virtue of the feminine. Motherhood, fertility, creativity, and fecundity become richer and more interesting with women having the legal right to contraception and abortion. Even with these two freedoms, the famine principle needs to keep kids safe and secure. With that as a foundation upon which women build their lives, they brought about an increase in traffic regulation, social changes, i.e. Mothers Against Drunk Driving, car safety, insurance and an abandonment of taking unnecessary risks.

Feminist train their children to take responsibility for their actions and hold them accountable for choices made that harm others, property, or themselves. There is no reason to allow boys to run amuck and say, "Boys will be boys!" Being responsible about their sexuality becomes a developmental task for both girls and boys.

Wives and husbands have the option to take marriage vows, or both agree not to enter into a marriage contract they are not willing to honor.

Mothers and fathers assume the responsibility for the lives they create and see them through to adulthood, whether they agree to monogamous marriage or not.

Let's grow up and face the fact that females like sex as much as males. Blaming one for exciting the other means each holds the other accountable rather than taking responsibility for one's feelings and action.

Both men and women need to feel competent and confident in what each does with his or her life. Each needs to define oneself as an individual and not lose boundaries to the other. Men and women have no reason to live according to gender stereotypes.

Living in community means each defines what community means individually and explores ways each compliments the other or finds no reason to be together. Marriage does not solve that dilemma, only skills of communication, negotiation and compromise that each enters as equal participants can accomplish that developmental task.

Feminism means the organized Mother who makes sure you wash your hands before touching foods, that you get plenty of sleep, do your homework and chores. These are the qualities that make living in social society healthy, pleasant, and satisfying. A feminist teaches her brood to think before they speak, speak clearly, precisely and honestly, listens for feelings as well as for meanings, and makes certain their kids know how to compromise, negotiate, and stand up for what they think is right.

I think it is most interesting that when a family is in deep dispute, it very often is because one member or each member does not know effective and efficient life-skills. Violence seems to be the default position when there is conflict.

Feminism is about moving beyond sex-role stereotypes into mentally healthy, mature, adult attitudes and behaviors. Individuals and society benefits.

The Donald Trumps of the world who fight against such social changes fight against their best interests. Those people who support him want to remain dysfunctional, immature, and childish. Being counter-dependent is as dependent as a dependent person.

Joan Denoo

September 28, 2016

 Church, State, and Marriage Licenses tag:atheistnexus.org,2015-09-04:2182797:BlogPost:2641675 2015-09-04T16:16:31.000Z Loren Miller http://atheistnexus.org/profile/LorenMiller
The preamble of the US Constitution reads as follows:

 We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

 In short, the purpose of the United States government, as outlined by the preamble,…

The preamble of the US Constitution reads as follows:

 We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

 In short, the purpose of the United States government, as outlined by the preamble, is to serve its people, and by that I would expect said service to cover all US citizens.

 One of those services is the management and dispensing of legal rights associated with marriage. Marriage over the years has evolved into considerably more than the joining of two people in a socially recognized relationship. Multiple rights, recognized at the local, state and federal level, attach automatically, including tax-free transfer of property, joint tax filing, next-of-kin status in the event of a medical emergency and multiple others. These rights have considerable value, which is likely a considerable part of the reason why those who have been excluded from access to marriage, gays and Lesbians most recently, have worked so hard to persuade the federal government to their point of view. Those efforts came to fruition when Obergefell v. Hodges came before the US Supreme Court, which ruled that same-sex marriage bans in those states which have enacted such laws are unconstitutional. In effect, that decision erased any distinction between same-sex marriage and opposite-sex marriage from the point of view of the government. There is just marriage.

 Enter Kim Davis, a county clerk for Rowan County, Kentucky. She is an Apostolic Christian who sees marriage in the purely parochial view of her church, being between one man and one woman. Certainly she is to be allowed this viewpoint without question. However, as a representative of Rowan County, Kentucky and by extension, the United States, she is obliged by law to perform her duties as county clerk in accordance with those laws which pertain to her position. I would rather suspect that she swore an oath to that effect upon assuming her office, an oath one would hope she would take seriously.

 Yet it probably comes as no surprise to any atheist that Ms. Davis was willing to exercise her own moral code when she was confronted with her first gay couple, applying for a marriage license, a few weeks back. As with many believers of her ilk, she may hold that God's Law holds sway over human pronouncements or that the US is a Christian nation and she therefore has the right to exercise her Christian beliefs as a right of her office. In both cases, of course, she is mistaken. Neither is her god a recognized authority by our government, nor is the United States a Christian nation, a fact affirmed by Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli. U.S. District Court Judge David Bunning stated clearly in citing her for contempt that: "Her good-faith belief is simply not a viable defense," adding that "Oaths mean things."

 So now she sits in a Rowan County jail cell until such time as she either relents in her obstinacy or is removed as a county clerk, with the latter being far more probable than the former. Right now her subordinates are issuing marriage licenses for couples both gay and straight. Any objections she may have to those actions are moot and ineffectual at this point; her office will function without her presence. Much as Ms. Davis wanted to serve her god, her job required her to serve people. She herself said: "God's moral law convicts me and conflicts with my duties." That being the case, she should be relieved of her duties – forthwith – and her position given to someone who is willing respect and honor the law of the land and provide services to those to whom the Constitution has guaranteed such service.

 To Ms. Davis I would simply say this: "Your attitude does not befit your position – get out."
 Kim Davis is in Jail! Yaay!! tag:atheistnexus.org,2015-09-04:2182797:BlogPost:2641645 2015-09-04T00:00:00.000Z Hiram http://atheistnexus.org/profile/Hiram
Originally written for The Autarkist.

What an entertaining set of historical events we've had so far this year! After the gay marriage ruling, the media circus around Kim Davis was to be expected. For a moment I felt sorry for her, but…

Originally written for The Autarkist.

What an entertaining set of historical events we've had so far this year! After the gay marriage ruling, the media circus around Kim Davis was to be expected. For a moment I felt sorry for her, but then I remembered how she slammed the door of her office and locked herself in, rather than do her job–while earning an $80,000 salary that her eager-to-marry constituents helped to pay–as the couples asked, and waited, for marriage licenses … and told them things like "you'll have a very long day" waiting for the licenses, which were never issued.

 Anyone who tries to depict her as a martyr must consider the abuse, humiliation and hatred experienced by the gay and lesbian citizens whose civil rights she hypocritically violated. In an excellently written piece for thestranger.com that EVERYONE should read, Dan Savage serves high doses of realness:

I say this with sadness, I say this as the son of a preacher, I say this as a former seminarian: This pathetic bullshit is what passes for Christianity in America today…
 … Kim Davis got knocked up by her third husband before she divorced her first husband and somehow managed to talk her second husband into adopting the kids she had by the man who would eventually become her third husband… and she's now on her fourth husband? …

 … and SHE is the voice of domestic stability and "family values" in America? One of the people who defended her in a news article was saying how we should ignore her turbulent marital past, and how she was just exercising her First Amendment right, just as her opponents are doing. Her twisted hordes of inane followers will now attempt to somehow paint this as a battle between the First and Fourteenth Amendments, the relevant parts of which read:

Amendment I
 Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …

 Amendment XIV, Section 1.

 No State shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

 If, by the "authority of God" as she claimed, her right to deny LGBT people a marriage license for reason of her faith had been upheld by the courts, then in effect a theocracy would have been established in the United States: the country would have been establishing a religion and replacing the rule of law with one woman's demented interpretation of Christianity, which is unconstitutional.

 Let's stop and consider what's at stake in all this. If Davis had not been put in jail, and if she had been granted the right to discriminate in the name of her faith, this would have set a dangerous and scary precedent that would have been used in the future by federal courts to dismantle the constitutionally-guaranteed civil rights of all citizens in the name of faith, while pushing a theocratic agenda. The rule of law, and our secular way of life, is what's at stake.

 On Davis' Spiritual Disease

 Davis' existential state was diagnosed centuries ago by one of the Masters in the Epicurean tradition, Polystratus. In his On Irrational Contempt, he argued that virtue, if pursued without wisdom (that is, without scientifically studying the nature of things), came to nothing and could even generate more evil than good. To be specific, he said:

In any case, the fact that even virtuous actions often have no advantage because, in the cases mentioned above, men show too much arrogance or fall back without reason into superstitious fears, and because in other actions in life they make many mistakes of every kind, so that no one really exhibits virtue.

 Let's consider this most unfortunate case study in light of Polystratus. Davis believes that her God will not hesitate to cast her into a pit of fire, to burn and suffer for all eternity, if she goes so far as to hand over a marriage license to a loving gay couple that has decided to build a life together.

 Let's consider this carefully. Davis says that she consciously chose to declare herself the slave of a Monster God who, she believes, would cook her alive and torture her forever.

 Let's put aside the reason why her God would do this, which is just as arbitrary, cruel, degrading, evil, and absurd as her superstitious fear. But let's put it aside. Davis is horrified of her God, and yet has entirely surrendered her life to that God, and lost her mind to a world-denying worldview, for the sake of which she's willing to suffer horribly and waste away her life in jail.

 Davis' prison stay is a metaphor for her true spiritual state. She's imprisoned in a crazy cult, and we should now wonder what her pastor has said in church, and what other lives he's destroying with his evil and false doctrine. But he can not bear all the blame: his own instructors, and theirs, and the entire culture built around these beliefs which reinforces them, must all come under suspicion so that, as Nietzsche said in TSZ:

Unto your children shall ye make amends for being the children of your fathers: all the past shall ye thus redeem!

 Tonight we are making amends: Davis will sleep in jail. But it's sad that a woman who was nurtured in a land blessed with one of the most progressive legal infrastructures in history degenerated into this paranoid state, immersed in a cult and barking at law-abiding citizens, for cause of chasing after virtue while at the same time neglecting wisdom and science. She may have been well-meaning in chasing virtue, but naturalist ethical philosophy should have been her guide. Not religion–"that blind guide of human souls; that poisoner of human happiness", to paraphrase A Few Days in Athens.

 One final note must be added here, noting the extent to which our Constitution is a secular humanist manifesto, and a philosophical document itself that enshrines tremendous maturity of thought. That, not the writings of Bronze-Age animal-sacrificing savages, is and must be the Law of the Land in America.

 Further Reading:

 Dan Savage's Excellent Ops Piece on Kim Davis

 Time.com's KY Clerk Doesn't Seem to Understand How the Constitution Works
 The Week of Being Happy and Pissed Off tag:atheistnexus.org,2015-06-29:2182797:BlogPost:2615893 2015-06-29T14:00:00.000Z Loren Miller http://atheistnexus.org/profile/LorenMiller
The week of 21 June, 2015 is likely one of the more momentous of the past several years or more that I am aware of. It was a week of amazing and impactful news, incredibly GOOD news from where I sit, news which will be far more benefit than detriment in the long haul or so I'd be willing to wager. Though all of those stories are important and worthy of comment, it is one in particular on which I wish to record a few thoughts.

 And that is the confirmation by the United States…

The week of 21 June, 2015 is likely one of the more momentous of the past several years or more that I am aware of. It was a week of amazing and impactful news, incredibly GOOD news from where I sit, news which will be far more benefit than detriment in the long haul or so I'd be willing to wager. Though all of those stories are important and worthy of comment, it is one in particular on which I wish to record a few thoughts.

 And that is the confirmation by the United States Supreme Court that marriage between partners of the same sex has the same standing as heterosexual marriage, that indeed now there isn't straight marriage and gay marriage; there is just MARRIAGE. I find that I am ecstatic about this development, even as I have watched the progress of gay and Lesbian rights advance over the past five or six years. While it is conceivable that one day I might avail myself of such a rite, my happiness is more vicarious, more aimed at those who have longed to formalize their love and relationships with their significant others with an action now recognized and acknowledged nationwide. More importantly, they now have access to automatically assigned rights, such as those of inheritance and medical care decisions which heretofore had to be asserted in separate legal documents which could cost a considerable amount, yet might still not be practically recognized, despite their legality. To see those couples exchanging vows and joyously celebrating their legally endorsed unions was a most premium delight to me, and I am happier for them than words can do justice.

 In the midst of that happiness, I am also livid … at Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, hell, I might as well name the entire current GOP presidential field, for their mean-spirited, miserly and generally ill-considered attack on the granting of RIGHTS represented by the decision of Obergefell v. Hodges. "The democratic process should have been allowed to run its course," says Ken Blackwell on ABC's This Week; "The law of god cannot be overturned," complains Huckabee, and people of supposed faith in their hearts but apparently little generosity whine and complain about a change which will likely have NO IMPACT ON THEM. What Huckabee and Blackwell fail to recognize or acknowledge is that their god was never in charge of this country or its laws to begin with. The ultimate boss in this nation is "We, the People," not Yahweh or Jesus or Mohammed or any other imagined authority. I can't help but notice that these same bible-believing politicians are doing nothing about the spread of seafood restaurants or fashion houses which boldly promote their multi-fabric clothing lines or the general failure of state or federal legal statues to conform to Mosaic Law. For the umpti-umpth time, they fail to recognize that our government's disassociation from religion is what gives them the freedom to practice their religion as they see fit and vent their opinions regarding others' practices which they dislike.

 Sure the bitching and moaning amongst the Christians will continue and (I hope) fade to the background, while people continue to get married: men to women, women to women and men to men. Eventually such events will be so commonplace that no comment will be necessary, except for those few who still carry the chip on their shoulder. In this moment, though, the decision rendered by the Supreme Court is worthy of remark and celebration, along with the affirmation of the Affordable Care Act and the actions taken against the Confederate flag. Such good news is sometimes rare. What say we take note and do a bit of heel-kicking!
 Whoa—Put on the Brakes! tag:atheistnexus.org,2015-06-27:2182797:BlogPost:2615301 2015-06-27T03:53:49.000Z Donald R Barbera http://atheistnexus.org/profile/drbarbera
 Gay and lesbian couples around the nation can now legally marry. It is indeed a victory for equality, love and unity. It is a step in the United States moving into the 20th century. It is a potential financial bonanza for wedding planners, cake makers and flower shops. It's all coming up roses. In…

Gay and lesbian couples around the nation can now legally marry. It is indeed a victory for equality, love and unity. It is a step in the United States moving into the 20th century. It is a potential financial bonanza for wedding planners, cake makers and flower shops. It's all coming up roses. In fact, a potential windfall awaits many American businesses. In fact, UCLA study believes that the Supreme Court decision can generate as much as $2 billion annually.

However, not everything is coming up roses. With the SCOTUS decision comes the lawyers to handle the business of divorce, which depending on the state, could cost up to half of a divorcees property and money. The government will also get its share as married couple will be filing as married helping fill government coffers.

Gone are the days of just dropping a partner and moving on to another. Suddenly, there are rules to follow and societal no-no's to adjust to, which can be discouraging. Those new to the world of marriage might wonder, "What have I gotten myself into?" once the marriage turns into work and attention grabber. For those planning to adopt, the hoops are already difficult, but proving they are fit parents is another thing that may bring difficulty.

If children come into the family new issues arise. Who takes the kids to the park? Who takes them to soccer practice? Will both be able to schedule their time to fit with their children's schedule? In addition, there will be those unfavorable to same sex marriage and for a variety of reasons, but it will be necessary to protect children from those bigots.

Marriages are not all mild and honey as I can attest after two failed marriages and I'm heterosexual. In the United States nearly half of all marriages fail. Interestingly, born again Christians lead the pack with the most divorces in the country. African American rates are even higher. So, before running to the preacher, couples need to seriously assess their level of commitment and fully understand the laws connected with marriage and understand the new laws they are willingly accepting.

Of course, those having traditional weddings will have preachers, pastors and priest performing the rites. Those without religion will have a justice of the peace or a civil ceremony. Nevertheless, now that gay marriage is law, newlyweds need to be aware of the drawbacks.
 Bigotry is Finally Losing Ground in the US. tag:atheistnexus.org,2015-06-27:2182797:BlogPost:2615093 2015-06-27T01:57:54.000Z Eric Biggers (Show Me Skeptic) http://atheistnexus.org/profile/EricBiggers
Original version with pictures and hyperlinks to sources can be found here:

 http://showmeskeptic.blogspot.com/2015/06/bigotry-is-finally-losing-ground-in-us.html

This past week has been a political whirlwind. One the equality front civil liberties are winning, but on the economic front, the nation took a blow. The New York Times has covered the Trans-Pacific Partnership quite well.…

Original version with pictures and hyperlinks to sources can be found here:
 http://showmeskeptic.blogspot.com/2015/06/bigotry-is-finally-losing-ground-in-us.html

This past week has been a political whirlwind. One the equality front civil liberties are winning, but on the economic front, the nation took a blow. The New York Times has covered the Trans-Pacific Partnership quite well. You can read about it here.

This week has been more positive than negative, and I would rather write about that.

This week the Supreme Court of the US (SCOTUS) has issued two rulings that change the face of America. The first was upholding the Affordable Care Act's subsidies which allow millions of Americans to keep their health care. This is also the final hurdle (I think) for the Affordable Care Act. Now it joins the ranks of Social Security and Medicare, political suicide for those who try to repeal them. The Washington Post has a great article on it here.

The biggest predictor for success in school, and life as well, is the socioeconomic background of a student. Part of the reason is that the poor often have poor nutrition and poor health care. SNAP benefits help, but go nowhere near eliminating, the nutrition aspect. Proper health care goes a step further. This ruling levels the health playing field between the rich and the poor. Or rather the children of the rich and the poor.

Secondly, marriage is now recognized as a basic right. Today, Friday June 26th, 2015 SCOTUS has ruled same-sex marriage cannot be denied by the States, they have to honor and allow gay marriage. The last paragraph of the Majority Opinion is below. It is not only a powerful statement on equal rights, but it is also a masterpiece of prose.
 Of course the religious right is up in arms over the ruling. Everything from the ruling opening the doors to polygamy and bestiality, to God judging America (according to Franklin Graham) and bringing about the Apocalypse. Naturally, many Christians regard this as "Christian persecution", which is a claim that's always good for a laugh. You cannot claim persecution when the only thing you are restricted from is restricting others in practicing what the believe.
 Being beheaded by ISIS because you wear a cross and mumble to the sky is persecution. Not allowing you to force others to mumble to the sky, or allowing you to display your symbols and only your symbols on public property is not persecution. It is keeping the political sphere neutral to personal beliefs. Sure we can bring those beliefs to the table, but they are no better than their adherence to reason. Which is no different than anyone else.

This ties in with the third bit of good news: we may be seeing less of the American version of the swastika, the "Confederate" flag. I have to admit that it is a little hard for me to write about this. Only because The Dukes of Hazzard was one of my favorite shoes growing up. Yes, I remember when it was on prime time. I still have a fond place for the General Lee, the name of the Duke boys' orange 1969 Dodge Charger. Yes, it had the Confederate Flag on the roof, but this car would freaking FLY at least once per episode.
 But I digress. I didn't want to write about nostalgia, but about a blow for social equal rights. The story of the "Confederate" flag flown today begins decades before the Civil War. Slavery was a dividing issue between the States since the Articles of Confederation. However, the national government had no basis for abolition under the Articles. When the Constitution was written, Slavery was such a hot issue, it was tabled for twenty years so the rest of the document could be hammered out. However, the call for abolition was on the rise after the signing of the Constitution. At that time, Christianity had to contend with not only Freethinkers, but Deists as well. Both groups tended to be rabid abolitionists, and influential. Then the second Great Awakening happened. America had a religious revival and with it, opposition to abolition grew. In fact the Southern Baptist Church grew out of a pro-slavery movement in the South.

The Reverend Dr. Richard Furman was a highly influential Baptist in the early and mid 1800s. His essay, Exposition of the Views of the Baptists, Relative to the Coloured Population is a letter to the then Governor of South Carolina on the importance of slavery to the State, and the divine-created inferiority of blacks. The Holy Bible was the inspiration for the Willie Lynch Letter which expanded on the Bible's treatment of slaves. Of course the Bible was also used to fight for abolition, but the passages used were taken out of context. For instance, Exodus 21:16 "And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death." sounds like an anti-slavery verse, but the context is that the stolen man is in this case property, not a person. In other words, the bible prohibited stealing slaves, not owning them.

What does this have to do with the Stars and Bars?
 It would be adopted by a Christian organization forty years after the Civil War.

During the Civil War, the "Confederate Flag" was just the battle flag for Northern Virginia. It fell into obscurity until the 1920s when the Ku Klux Klan took it up as their flag. At that moment, the "Confederate" flag went from a forgotten battle flag of a small region of the country, to the banner of Jim Crow. And this is why the flag must be taken down.

Now the movement to remove it has begun. Like the Cross, it is a symbol of oppression. The flag will be removed, and furthermore religious symbols will follow the flag's demise from the public sphere. Why? The World Wide Web.

The Internet is the place where religion goes to die. It is what is killing religion. Why? Humans have this annoying need to one-up each other. The Internet was once ruled by geeks, that is until social media made it cool. Concepts, like fallacies, were once the providence of a select few, a certain brand of geek. Now everyone wants to get their geek on. Yet we still yearn to one-up each other. The Internet has done more to spread skepticism and logic more than anything all for intellectual battles that have raged in academia for millenia. As religion becomes more irrelevant to American life, Civil Liberties will increase a la Humanism.

Now your average stay-at-home parent, liberal arts major, or plumber is a philosopher with a highly attuned bullshit detector.
 Religion is the highest form of bullshit.
 That is why religion is out.
 Reason is in.
 The Untold History of Gay Marriage and Two-Spirits tag:atheistnexus.org,2013-03-27:2182797:BlogPost:2200759 2013-03-27T23:46:14.000Z Hiram http://atheistnexus.org/profile/Hiram
The following piece was originally written for the NEIU Independent.

The film Two Spirits is a sad but empowering film about a hate crime committed against Freddie Martinez, a Two-Spirited transgendered Navajo youth in Colorado. 16-year-old Freddie was brutally killed by being repeatedly hit in the head with a large rock. Unlike the Matthew Shepherd case in Oct. of 1998, the Freddy Martinez case got little media…

The following piece was originally written for the NEIU Independent.

The film Two Spirits is a sad but empowering film about a hate crime committed against Freddie Martinez, a Two-Spirited transgendered Navajo youth in Colorado. 16-year-old Freddie was brutally killed by being repeatedly hit in the head with a large rock. Unlike the Matthew Shepherd case in Oct. of 1998, the Freddy Martinez case got little media attention. The film, and the visibility, was inspired in part by a renewed awareness of Two-Spirit traditions.

The film, in addition to details about his life and death, also contains interviews of Two-Spirit persons and tells the history of how, prior to colonial times in the land that we now know as the United States of America, LGBT people were respected, and at times even honored or feared, for their powers as Two Spirits.

The Two Spirits were considered the ceremonial leaders, the healers and sacred people of many tribes. They acquired names and clothing that identified accepted, even if liminal, gender identities. They were known as winkte by the Lakota, as lhamana by the Zuni, or as nadleehe of the Navajo nation, and by many others names. In order to coin an English word that approximates to the many terms used in the Native languages, in 1990 at the 3rd Annual First Nations Gay and Lesbian American Conference, which was held in Winnipeg, Canada, LGBT Native Americans decided on using Two-Spirits as the pan-tribal English term for their tradition.

Prior to this, anthropologists had labeled the phenomenon as berdache, but this term was linked to a history of human trafficking and of kept-boys and many considered the term an insult. Two-Spirits, in aboriginal tradition, were weavers, storytellers, caretakers of the orphans, healers, ritual leaders. A male-to-female Two-Spirit known as Wewha, who was beloved by her people, had been an ambassador of her people to the District of Columbia at one point and was quite respected by the politicians of her day (many of whom probably didn't suspect she was a biological male).

In Mexico, some of the conquistadors hated the Two-Spirits so much that they fed them to wild dogs according to one chronicle, but then in modern-day Oaxaca, Mexico today a similar tradition to Two-Spirits known as muxhes flourishes. Its region of Juchitan, known for its muxhes tradition, happens to be one of the regions with the highest proportions of indigenous in the country. Many nations used to entrust their Two-Spirits with keeping spiritual folklore, which leads one to suspect that the systematic killing of the Two-Spirits (which was documented both in Mexico and the US), like the near-extinction of the buffalo, also had the effect of dismantling the lore, the ritual cycle, and the cosmovision of the aboriginals.

In the documentary, some of the Native leaders mention in passing that Two-Spirits also married people of the same gender. At times, a female chief would live her life as a male warrior, even taking on her own wife. Or a male chief would have multiple wives, and among them count a male-to-female wife.

It's an irony of history that this had not been woven into our demoralizing and dishonest national narrative about gay marriage: so invisible are Native Americans, and so trivialized their culture, dismissed as if it wasn't part of our heritage, that the Christian Right's assertion, almost mantra, that "marriage has always been between a man and a woman" has never been challenged in a significantly public manner by someone with just a basic knowledge of Native American history.

Illinois has finally assumed a place in modernity by becoming one of the states where gay marriage is legal. But one should not forget that we are returning rights that were enjoyed for centuries before the arrival of Europeans. Traditions of same-sex marriage had been practiced for centuries and were as American as any other American tradition.

History gets told by the conqueror but let's get history straight, for once. Marriage was not always between a man and a woman. It was oftentimes between a man and many wives, in parts of Africa between a woman and many men, and in our continent it was often between two people of the same gender. Monogamy (both opposite-sex and same-sex) was a late-comer. But these were all marriage traditions, and they've always changed to reflect societal attitudes towards gender.
 Til Death Do Us Part tag:atheistnexus.org,2012-09-20:2182797:BlogPost:2057389 2012-09-20T17:09:03.000Z Darrel Ray http://atheistnexus.org/profile/DarrelRay
Till Death Do Us Part, Forced Celibacy in Religious Marriage.

 Traditional wedding vows contain these ominous words, they also promise to be faithful. What the vows don't address is "what happens when one partner doesn't want sex any more?" 20 years ago the wife of a very religious friend of mine told him, I am finished with sex. They had four children and she had lost all interest in sex. She went on to tell him that, if she ever caught him having an affair, she would divorce him.…

Till Death Do Us Part, Forced Celibacy in Religious Marriage.

 Traditional wedding vows contain these ominous words, they also promise to be faithful. What the vows don't address is "what happens when one partner doesn't want sex any more?" 20 years ago the wife of a very religious friend of mine told him, I am finished with sex. They had four children and she had lost all interest in sex. She went on to tell him that, if she ever caught him having an affair, she would divorce him. Needless to say this was a shock, but not unexpected, given their history of poor sexual relations.

 Of course, it wasn't always like that. When they were still in high school and early college, but before they got married, they were always sneaking off somewhere to have sex. Three or four times a day wasn't uncommon. It was only after marriage that their sexual relationship rapidly changed. What was fun and adventurous soon became sinful and immature to her. Even suggesting that they do something like they used to would shut her down. He quickly learned that if he wanted sex, it would be totally on her terms and more and more rare. When her ultimatum came, he was stuck. He did not believe in divorce, but he never dreamed he would be trapped in a sexless marriage by one of the sexiest women he had ever known.

 This is really a common story. Nothing unusual here. And don't get the idea it is always the woman. I have noticed that this seems to happen with Catholic men a lot. Something about the Catholic version of sexual guilt can really impact men.

 There are any number of reasons why people lose interest in sex, but religion often plays a critical role. Religiously induced shame and guilt prevents open and honest talk about sex, and religious wedding vows prevent divorce. The result is one or both partners eventually feel profoundly trapped in the marriage. But the resulting frustration and sexual energy will go somewhere. It may go into self loathing or hatred and nagging of the spouse. It may go into secret affairs. Even attempts to relieve sexual tension through masturbation often backfire as the non-sexual spouse may see this as a betrayal as well. Indeed, the person doing the masturbation often feels religious guilt about doing it.

 Half of all marriages end in divorce and religious people divorce at slightly higher rates than non-religious people. Among the religious who do stay married, a huge portion stay in sexually dead marriages. The actual number of happy and sexually satisfying marriages after 20 years, is very low. That doesn't mean they don't exist, but what is touted as the norm, is anything but, especially among the most religious.

 The moral of the story is, religious teaching and indoctrination ultimately leads to sexually dead marriages in the vast majority of religious people. If you are in a sexually dead or dying marriage, look first to your religious ideas about relationships and sex. You may find the root of the problem there.

 For a more in depth examination of this enormous problem, read Sex and God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality.
 Negative Reaction to Presidents Stand on Gay Marriage Predictable tag:atheistnexus.org,2012-05-11:2182797:BlogPost:1949129 2012-05-11T23:30:00.000Z Donald R Barbera http://atheistnexus.org/profile/drbarbera (this blog is longer than usual and I apologize for taking advantage of your better nature, but I think the negative reaction of many in the black community to the President's announcement uninformed, superstitious and unChristian.)

 I'd like to say I'm surprised by the negative reaction many in the black community had to the President's announcement that he favored gay marriage, but I'm not. A recent Pew study indicated that the Black Church community was more opposed to these marriages than… (this blog is longer than usual and I apologize for taking advantage of your better nature, but I think the negative reaction of many in the black community to the President's announcement uninformed, superstitious and unChristian.)

 I'd like to say I'm surprised by the negative reaction many in the black community had to the President's announcement that he favored gay marriage, but I'm not. A recent Pew study indicated that the Black Church community was more opposed to these marriages than any other, including Southern white evangelicals. The study cited 64 percent of African Americans opposing same-sex marriages, a rate that has held steady for several years, while the overall population has become more supportive with 53 percent now favoring gay marriage while those opposing it remains steady at 43 percent, according to the most recent Gallup Poll on the subject.

 That gay marriage threatens the institution of marriage is patently wrong and offensive. While many Christians piously present this as their defense, they completely ignore a much greater threat to marriage, adultery and divorce. Despite church scripture, the Christian church has not come up with an answer. Literally, the church has no option other than play ball or it loses a large portion of its members, the ones that remain quiet about their sexuality.

 At one time African Americans could not marry. Yet, even as slaves, blacks insisted upon marriage even though they could be sold away at any time. Still, slaves considered marriage a basic human right and even though slavemasters didn't sanction it, historical slave narratives and property logs show that it happened regularly. Keeping with their own people's history, African American LGBTs demand the same right as their ancestors to marry. Despite the church's issues with the demand, it must move positively and soon if it expects to escape unscathed.

 Black neoconservative ministers have bought into a phony, white evangelical agenda that sidesteps reality and tramples compassion and common sense. So far, the black church remains homophobic and judgmental, refusing to embrace homosexuals and others. Many black churches share evangelical-conservative theologies and biblical fundamentalism akin to the Christian right, believing in prescribed gender roles for men and women in order to maintain the traditional composition of the heterosexual family.

 Gays in the Black Community

 Long known for its inclusiveness, the African American community stands alone in the United States as the only Americans brought here for the express purpose of slavery. Coming from a background marked by brutal oppression, institutional racism and the denial of the most basic human rights, it appears accepting homosexuals or bisexuals into the black community would come easily.

 In general, the black community has a long history of demonstrating solidarity with other groups fighting for basic civil and human rights—except when it comes to gays. Homosexuality in the black community is seen as an aberration and unnatural. As in other parts of the country, homosexuals are subject to exclusion, derision and even violence.

 Black Homophobia

 It may come as a surprise to many that homophobia runs rampant in the black community, especially toward gay men. Without provocation, some black males react with anger towards gay men. Such unadulterated hostility masks much deeper heterosexual male issues including self-doubt, learned behavior, early sexual experimentation and even molestation as a child.

 In more than 30 years of observing the black community, the main purveyors of homosexual angst are black men and the main targets of their derision— gay males. There is often a tangible feeling of aversion to homosexuals, as many males in the community have no problem saying demeaning things to gay men or women. In certain areas, words like faggot or queer fill the air regularly.

 The fact that black men are most often the perpetrators, gay bashing opens the door to examine the concept of manhood in the African American community. Some black males see homosexuality as a threat to their masculinity and assume being gay makes for less of a man or detracts from maleness.

 Obviously, the reaction of heterosexual black males to gay men is complex. Combined with the marginalization of black men in today's society and the stereotypes thrust upon African American males makes understanding such blind homophobia difficult.

 Who's Ya Man?

 Inbred cultural bias of what constitutes manhood in the African American community is at best confusing and for any man unsure of their own masculinity, the idea of male homosexuality is at once unnerving and even frightening. Much of black manhood depends on male and female interaction, in particular a man's domination of women.

 The acceptance of fixed sexual roles, especially among African American men, may help explain homophobia among a large portion of black men. Stereotypes of male roles of sexuality, physical prowess combined with distorted ideas of masculinity provide keys to the black male view of manliness.

 This distortion doesn't permit seeing homosexuality as a sexual orientation. Instead, it appears as a choice and therein lies the problem. Misunderstanding that homosexuality is not a life style, but an orientation causes fear and where there is fear there is hatred.

 In the African American community, manhood often finds a basis in little more than sexuality, ignoring the more important aspects of manhood like responsibility, integrity and a sense of duty. This aspect of what it means to be a man, too often goes unnoticed or is ignored and replaced by testosterone driven maleness, which causes reckless behavior leading to increased incarceration, unnecessary death and fatherless children. Without the acceptance of a human-based shift in becoming a man, African American men will continue in their homophobia until they make the connection or it is lost forever.

 Running Out of Options

 Unfortunately, many black men still see homosexuality as an option when in reality—there is none. Homosexuality is not a choice. It is who you are. Adding confusion to an already homophobic community is the current 'down low' phenomena affecting the black community. The idea of straight men having sex with other men strikes a nerve in the black community and for several reasons. First and most important, is the potential exposure of spouses and girlfriends to the AIDS virus. Second, the idea of men having sex with men and women strikes some as at least bisexual and perhaps homosexual. Yet, many of those involved in the 'low down' activity claim they are heterosexual men.

 Gay Black Women

 Gay African American women escape much of this unwanted attention and with good reason, homophobia is significantly lower among black females. In fact, even among black men, female homosexuals don't receive the same homophobic reaction, unless it is to passes made by black men who mistakenly believe that lesbian women are truly bisexual and become disturbed when they discover otherwise.

 This is not to say comments made by black men and women don't come to the ears of gay African American females because they do and when it happens, the words usually carry history indicating some previous personal interaction. In many cases, it reflects a failed attempt by a male trying for a sexual conquest. Comments from women, especially concerning gay men, are far less hostile and many times even friendly. Gay women don't fare as well with other females, but comments from heterosexual women were far less caustic.

 A Family Affair

 Many in the black community believe that homosexuality is detrimental to family life. The black family holds an important place in the black community, but fear of homosexuals may be overstated as far as family is concerned as currently 2 out of 3 African American marriages end in divorce. Statistics on divorce, adultery and single-mother households shows the community needs no help in destroying the family unit.

 Family and children are also important to gays. Studies on the viability of gays as parents find no developmental differences between children raised by gays in four critical areas: their intelligence, psychological adjustment, social adjustment and popularity with friends. It is also important to realize that a parent's sexual orientation does not indicate their children's. Clearly, what passes for knowledge about homosexuality in the black community is in fact ignorance.

 Bigger Problems

 On the other hand, some in the black community have no problem sharing space with homosexuals, male or female. Why? The simple reason is a significant portion of people feel unaffected by homosexuals, especially when gangs, drugs, crime, violence and lack of jobs provide bigger concerns while attitudes toward gays drifts into unimportance.

 The Looming Specter of AIDS

 Bigotry against homosexuals in the black community contributes greatly to the AIDS epidemic. Today, AIDS drifts in and out of the top position as the number one killer of African American men and brings a host of denial and misguided ideas with it because of its association with homosexuality. As of December 2007, AIDS is the leading cause of death for African American women ages 25-34.

 Nevertheless, it is a disease that affects the African American community excessively. African Americans represent only 13% of the US population, but 49% of the 1.2 million Americans living with HIV or AIDS are black. African American men die of complications from HIV/AIDS at 5:1 ratio compared with white men and African American women are over 21 times as likely to die from HIV/AIDS as white women.

 Although African American women only represent less than 25% of all U.S. females, they account for almost 80% of AIDS cases in women. In addition, African American men more than likely will receive a diagnosis of HIV contamination in the latter stages of infection, meaning that treatment is less likely to be effective. The rate of AIDS diagnoses for black adults and adolescents is 10 times the rate for whites.

 From the beginning of the epidemic through December 2005, an estimated 211,559 blacks with AIDS died. About 25% of people in the United States infected with HIV do not know it and of that group, young African American males are the most likely to be unaware of their infection, but there is also a high instance of HIV among middle-aged and older African American men.

 Often, the stigma of homosexuality in the black community thwarts African American men from seeking treatment until the disease is in an advanced and often untreatable state. Nearly 36% of black males with AIDS contract it from having sex with other males in African American community. A prime example of this dangerous behavior is the "down low" phenomenon.

 Far too many people needlessly die of AIDS in the African American community. Yet, reckless behavior such as sharing needles when doing intravenous drugs contributes to 40% of AIDS cases. Other dangerous behavior includes failure to use condoms.

 What Everyone Should Know

 (The following information is specific and may be too graphic in nature for some readers. Continue at your own discretion.)

 Today, 33 million people worldwide suffer AIDS and more than 90% of all new HIV infections result from heterosexual intercourse. In the United States, more than 50% of AIDS infections among African American men are the result of male-male sexual intercourse, while 22% comes from high-risk heterosexual sex. Finally, injected drug use accounts for 23% of African American male cases.

 Among women in the United States, 70% of new cases come from heterosexual contact and the remainder, come from injected drugs such as heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine. Because of greater mucosal exposure during sex, women are more at risk to HIV contaminated seminal fluid. Although, women suffer some of the same complications of AIDS that affect men, they also suffer gender-specific symptoms, such as recurrent vaginal yeast infections, severe pelvic inflammatory disease and an increased risk of precancerous changes in the cervix such as HPV. Other vaginal infections may occur more frequently and with greater severity in HIV-infected women.

 AIDS and the Black Church

 For various problems, the black church is about the only ready resource available to African Americans. During slavery, the church was the one institution African Americans controlled and it played a major role in overcoming racism and empowering blacks. The history of the church shows how it has been a catalyst for change in the African American community.

 However, AIDS represents a case where the horse left the barn long ago as far as church concern and because of its squeamishness about sex millions of people suffer unnecessarily. The church slipped into the darkness when it came to helping in the AIDS epidemic, but, thankfully, as the problem grew, more churches stepped forward to confront a disease that now runs rampant in the community.

 The church has been reluctant to talk about sexuality even before a person contracted AIDS, and thus may actually contribute to reckless behavior, such as unprotected sex and risky sexual behaviors that lead to transmissions of STDs. As recently as 2005, blacks were 18 times more likely as whites to have gonorrhea and 5 times as likely to have syphilis. Now, the AIDS crisis challenges black churches to examine how to provide spiritual support to individuals living with HIV.

 The problems facing some black churches relate specifically to providing support without embracing homosexuality. The doctrine guiding some black churches causes discomfort for both homosexual and heterosexuals infected with the AIDS virus. Traditionally, the church stands with the rear echelons when fighting disease might mean talking about sex, in particular, homosexuality or bisexuality.

 Despite the difficulty and soul-searching it may cause, the church must dive into the fray and become a leader, even it means exploring new ways to connect with important health issues. Instead of safely standing on the sidelines and saying "God will find a way when there ain't no way," the church must wade into the water surrounding the flock to offer assistance and seek answers.

 Embracing Science

 The church could lead the way in setting the boat right with an aggressive approach to helping the community recognize that homosexuality is real and a normal part of life by making sure the congregation as well as the community know about the latest scientific findings.

 To their credit, some churches lead the efforts against this devastating disease. These are not easy subjects for the clergy to discuss because often they reach into the church's stand on morality, scripture and may even conflict with human stands on the love and care of people.
 It is also important to recognize as African America moves forward, the church has also been a hindrance when religion and science clash. At this moment, scientists are developing creams or gels, known as topical microbicides, women could apply before intercourse to protect themselves against HIV that would be non-irritating, inexpensive and unobtrusive.

 Unfortunately, the church lags in its interest in helping and could be cited as aiding and abetting the spread of AIDS in the community by its failure to do anything. Clearly, when it comes to health, the religiosity of African Americans can hinder treatment. The power of religion sometimes helps people already afraid of going to the doctor; find another reason to stay away until they show up too late at the emergency room.

 A Deeper Human Examination

 A few churches broach these subjects, but most stay away from anything other than traditional teachings, which is a major problem as the world has changed considerably since the bible's writing. A doctor or pharmacist operating from a 2,000-year-old medical book would be laughed out of business or jailed for malpractice. As the third leading cause of death among African American men, AIDS is a matter needing the church's immediate attention. This is not a religious issue, it is a human issue, a caring about humans issue—an issue worthy of whys, not why nots. Lizards threaten traditional marriage. tag:atheistnexus.org,2012-02-26:2182797:BlogPost:1870997 2012-02-26T23:30:00.000Z Richard Healy http://atheistnexus.org/profile/RichardHealy Ha-Ha Hee Hee Hee! ^^

 God Hates Lizards Ha-Ha Hee Hee Hee! ^^

 God Hates Lizards "That's Gay!"—What am I missing? tag:atheistnexus.org,2012-02-16:2182797:BlogPost:1860359 2012-02-16T15:55:41.000Z Reason Being http://atheistnexus.org/profile/ReasonBeing
http://reason-being.com/index.php/2012/02/16/thats-gay-what-am-i-missing/

I think it was time I started some blogs on gay marriage. I haven't really addressed it much on my site. I thought this would be a good way to start.

 Thanks,

 Reason Being

http://reason-being.com/index.php/2012/02/16/thats-gay-what-am-i-missing/

I think it was time I started some blogs on gay marriage. I haven't really addressed it much on my site. I thought this would be a good way to start.

 Thanks,

 Reason Being
 Pat Robertson is Divorced From Reality tag:atheistnexus.org,2011-09-15:2182797:BlogPost:1646006 2011-09-15T20:37:00.000Z Omnipotent Poobah http://atheistnexus.org/profile/OmnipotentPoobah

 When you're talking about the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) a good defense is apparently a good offense – and no one is more offensive than…

 When you're talking about the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) a good defense is apparently a good offense – and no one is more offensive than Pat Robertson.

Robertson, God's official gaffemeister, says it's okay to punch out of a presumably 'traditional' marriage if one spouse has Alzheimer's.

"I know it sounds cruel, but if he's (the spouse) going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again, but make sure she has custodial care and somebody looking after her," Robertson said.

From the quote, it's hard to tell if he intends this privilege as a traditional male-only perk, but that's another gaffe for another day.

Robertson's unusual advice comes with a sort of ecumenical escape clause. According to God's worst PR person, marriage vows to take each other "for better or for worse" and "in sickness and in health," are suspended by the whole "til death do us part" sub-clause.

Why? Robertson says Alzheimer's is "a kind of death." He doesn't cite a traditional values bible passage explaining his position, but if gays can cause hurricanes and earthquakes I suppose Robertson can choose only the gospels he finds convenient.

Robertson also breaks from the traditional dogma followed by most other Christians by ignoring Jesus's words in the Gospel of Mark. Words that say divorce and remarriage is adultery. You know, that pesky 7th Commandment plastered on school hallways across the land.

Perhaps Robertson needs to stop by a school hallway for a refresher course.

As with most of his goof-spouting, he derives his idea of consistent piousness comes from the same intellectual font as Michelle Bachmann's – Nasty, Rude, Brutish, and Short – Official Barristers to God. He gets all the communal property in his traditional values divorce so he can dole it out as he sees fit, including his definition of death.

Morality is the business of the person living it, not some failed faith healer claiming to have a non-secular cellphone with the Big Guy on speed dial. Married gays would, and expect to be, in the same positions as straights. Some accept each other in, "for better or worse and in sickness and health, until death do us part" and stick it out. Some, not so much. Just like traditional couples. It's a tough decision for anyone, so I'd suggest you follow your own wise advice. "(I) wouldn't put a guilt trip on anyone who took such a step."

But Pat, if you wouldn't put it this on someone else, you should feel guilty as hell about putting a guilt trip in other circumstances – like gay marriage.
 Cross posted at <a href="http://When%20you%E2%80%99re%20talking%20about%20the%20Defense%20of%20Marriage%20Act%20(DOMA)%20a%20good%20defense%20is%20apparently%20a%20good%20offense%20%E2%80%93%20and%20no%20one%20is%20more%20offensive%20than%20Pat%20Robertson.%20Robertson,%20God%E2%80%99s%20official%20gaffemeister,%20says%20it%E2%80%99s%20okay%20to%20punch%20out%20of%20a%20presumably%20%E2%80%98traditional%E2%80%99%20marriage%20if%20one%20spouse%20has%20Alzheimer%E2%80%99s.%20%E2%80%9CI%20know%20it%20sounds%20cruel,%20but%20if%20he%E2%80%99s%20(the%20spouse)%20going%20to%20do%20something,%20he%20should%20divorce%20her%20and%20start%20all%20over%20again,%20but%20make%20sure%20she%20has%20custodial%20care%20and%20somebody%20looking%20after%20her,%E2%80%9D%20Robertson%20said.%20From%20the%20quote,%20it%E2%80%99s%20hard%20to%20tell%20if%20he%20intends%20this%20privilege%20as%20a%20traditional%20male-only%20perk,%20but%20that%E2%80%99s%20another%20gaffe%20for%20another%20day.%20Robertson%E2%80%99s%20unusual%20advice%20comes%20with%20a%20sort%20of%20ecumenical%20escape%20clause.%20According%20to%20God%E2%80%99s%20worst%20PR%20person,%20marriage%20vows%20to%20take%20each%20other%20%E2%80%9Cfor%20better%20or%20for%20worse%E2%80%9D%20and%20%E2%80%9Cin%20sickness%20and%20in%20health,%E2%80%9D%20are%20suspended%20by%20the%20whole%20%E2%80%9Ctil%20death%20do%20us%20part%E2%80%9D%20sub-clause.%20Why?%20Robertson%20says%20Alzheimer%E2%80%99s%20is%20%E2%80%9Ca%20kind%20of%20death.%E2%80%9D%20He%20doesn%E2%80%99t%20cite%20a%20traditional%20values%20bible%20passage%20explaining%20his%20position,%20but%20if%20gays%20can%20cause%20hurricanes%20and%20earthquakes%20I%20suppose%20Robertson%20can%20choose%20only%20the%20gospels%20he%20finds%20convenient.%20Robertson%20also%20breaks%20from%20the%20traditional%20dogma%20followed%20by%20most%20other%20Christians%20by%20ignoring%20Jesus%E2%80%99s%20words%20in%20the%20Gospel%20of%20Mark.%20Words%20that%20say%20divorce%20and%20remarriage%20is%20adultery.%20You%20know,%20that%20pesky%207th%20Commandment%20plastered%20on%20school%20hallways%20across%20the%20land.%20Perhaps%20Robertson%20needs%20to%20stop%20by%20a%20school%20hallway%20for%20a%20refresher%20course.%20As%20with%20most%20of%20his%20goof-spouting,%20he%20derives%20his%20idea%20of%20consistent%20piousness%20comes%20from%20the%20same%20intellectual%20font%20as%20Michelle%20Bachmann%E2%80%99s%20%E2%80%93%20Nasty,%20Rude,%20Brutish,%20and%20Short%20%E2%80%93%20Official%20Barristers%20to%20God.%20He%20gets%20all%20the%20communal%20property%20in%20his%20traditional%20values%20divorce%20so%20he%20can%20dole%20it%20out%20as%20he%20sees%20fit,%20including%20his%20definition%20of%20death.%20Morality%20is%20the%20business%20of%20the%20person%20living%20it,%20not%20some%20failed%20faith%20healer%20claiming%20to%20have%20a%20non-secular%20cellphone%20with%20the%20Big%20Guy%20on%20speed%20dial.%20Married%20gays%20would,%20and%20expect%20to%20be,%20in%20the%20same%20positions%20as%20straights.%20Some%20accept%20each%20other%20in,%20%E2%80%9Cfor%20better%20or%20worse%20and%20in%20sickness%20and%20health,%20until%20death%20do%20us%20part%E2%80%9D%20and%20stick%20it%20out.%20Some,%20not%20so%20much.%20Just%20like%20traditional%20couples.%20It%E2%80%99s%20a%20tough%20decision%20for%20anyone,%20so%20I%E2%80%99d%20suggest%20you%20follow%20your%20own%20wise%20advice.%20%E2%80%9C(I)%20wouldn%E2%80%99t%20put%20a%20guilt%20trip%20on%20anyone%20who%20took%20such%20a%20step.%E2%80%9D%20But%20Pat,%20if%20you%20wouldn%E2%80%99t%20put%20it%20this%20on%20someone%20else,%20you%20should%20feel%20guilty%20as%20hell%20about%20putting%20a%20guilt%20trip%20in%20other%20circumstances%20%E2%80%93%20like%20gay%20marriage." target="_blank">The Omnipotent Poobah Speaks!
 Bigotry tag:atheistnexus.org,2011-02-18:2182797:BlogPost:1129798 2011-02-18T12:45:02.000Z Sean Asbury http://atheistnexus.org/profile/SeanAsbury
Love to hear thoughts on this.

If anyone knows how to link a blog - please let me know...

http://centersolid.blogspot.com/2011/02/bigotry.html

Love to hear thoughts on this.

If anyone knows how to link a blog - please let me know...

http://centersolid.blogspot.com/2011/02/bigotry.html
 Why I will never come out of the closet as an Atheist tag:atheistnexus.org,2010-12-13:2182797:BlogPost:1053925 2010-12-13T01:37:37.000Z Shannon http://atheistnexus.org/profile/ShannonTalton
It's cowardly I know, then again most people are cowards about most things. I will never come out as an Athiest. My two sons are scouts, my daughters best friend is a fundamentalist, and my boss is an Evangelical. Scouts have to believe in god as well as be heterosexual. My daughters friend would not be allowed to play with her if it was known that we are athiest. My boss would hound me mercilessly if he found out I didn't believe, first in an attempt to save me, and later in anger when I…

It's cowardly I know, then again most people are cowards about most things. I will never come out as an Athiest. My two sons are scouts, my daughters best friend is a fundamentalist, and my boss is an Evangelical. Scouts have to believe in god as well as be heterosexual. My daughters friend would not be allowed to play with her if it was known that we are athiest. My boss would hound me mercilessly if he found out I didn't believe, first in an attempt to save me, and later in anger when I did not conform. I have seen this happen. Most difficult of all- my husband is religious.

My four children began to question god early on. The furious reaction that they encountered shut them up quickly. I came to them and told them that people were easily frightened when others questioned gods existence. They were young when they decided this, 9, 11, 12, and 7 yo when they started questioning. Im proud of them, but I also fear for them. Our society finds it easy to discriminate against athiest. The devil fearing, and effectively devil worshipping, public has amost no tolerance for the non-believer. I felt my children need to know what they are up against and that they need to pick their battles. One believes he is a homosexual (13 yo), and another is a staunch advocate for rationality and science. I know it's not good to hide the truth of oneself from the world, but we can't pretend that such honesty has no cost. We talk all the time about these things. My main message is- come out as an atheist when you are ready but be willing to face the consequences and pay the price. It's very difficult to live in such a narrow minded families. You can love them all you want but it is never enough to dispel their fear of your 'thought crime." The pain inflicted on both sides, the believers and the rationalist, would be immense and strain relationships. I have relatives who would worry incessantly about my children going to hell as much as I worry about their children not receiving modern medical care because of their belief systems. The crazy never ends. Im certainly glad it's more theirs than mine.

I know I will get a lot of flack for this blog. I accept your opinions. I also beieve that there is no one right answer to any common problem and that even the most rational of people make irrational decisions all the time. There is no area of my life that is not impacted by extreme christians. I went out of my way to allow my children another view of the world. I told them I would accept whatever they decided as their choice. How could I do otherwise with everyone else insisting that there was only one truth? I will not become an ass in response to asinine people. They know theirs is a bright and broad future for them with many many people who believe as they do although there doesn't seem to be many of them out there at the moment. For myself- I do not see a day where the benefits ever even remotely approach the cost of coming out as an Atheist.
 Was Mary's husband Joseph was a "cuckold" tag:atheistnexus.org,2010-08-04:2182797:BlogPost:933439 2010-08-04T03:32:44.000Z Rick http://atheistnexus.org/profile/Goddamnathiest I think we all know the story of Jesus being born in a manger.

And I think we all now that "Jesus" was the "Son of God."

Now Jesus' mother was Mary.

His human "father" was Joseph.…

 I think we all know the story of Jesus being born in a manger.
And I think we all now that "Jesus" was the "Son of God."
Now Jesus' mother was Mary.
His human "father" was Joseph.
But his "real" father was "God."
Okay…..
So, being an Atheist, I have to ask the following:

1. Were Mary and Joseph married?
a. When did they get married?
b. Where did they get married?
c. How long were they married before she got pregnant?

2. Was Jesus conceived out of wedlock?

3. Did God have consensual sex with Mary?
a. If not did "God" rape Mary?

4. Did Mary know who Jesus father really was?

5. Was Marry sleeping around?

6. Was Joseph a "cuckold?" *
a. Where was Joseph when Mary was conceiving Jesus?

7. We're May and Joseph having sex with others?

8. Did Mary and Joseph have any other children?
a. Did they have any before Jesus?
b. Did they have any after Jesus?

* Cuckold defined:
–noun 1. the husband of an unfaithful wife.
–verb (used with object) 2. to make a cuckold of (a husband).
Origin:
1200–50; ME cukeweld, later cok ( k ) ewold, cukwold < AF *cucuald (cf. MF cucuault ), equiv. to OF cocu cuckoo + -ald, -alt pejorative suffix ( see ribald); appar. orig. applied to an adulterer, in allusion to the cuckoo's habit of laying its eggs in other birds' nests
—Related forms cuck·old·ly, adverb
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2010.

 Under Sharia Law.... tag:atheistnexus.org,2009-11-12:2182797:BlogPost:597020 2009-11-12T23:55:40.000Z Rikka http://atheistnexus.org/profile/Rikka Under Sharia Law, virgins cannot be executed, so all those rabble-rousing 9 year old girls on death row for crimes against religion in Iran have to be raped first.

 No.

 Seriously.

 I Stumbled on this which led to… Under Sharia Law, virgins cannot be executed, so all those rabble-rousing 9 year old girls on death row for crimes against religion in Iran have to be raped first.

 No.

 Seriously.

 I Stumbled on this which led to this which is a bit old (July 09) but should be brought to people's attention anyway.

 Oh, and Iraq (you know, where we've spent an exorbitant amount of money setting up a "democratic" government") isn't much better. Separate still not equal: Why gays need to call it marriage tag:atheistnexus.org,2009-11-12:2182797:BlogPost:595656 2009-11-12T01:30:53.000Z Billy Deaton http://atheistnexus.org/profile/billyist Hey, AN, here's a post I wrote yesterday at Good Reason News. Please feel free to visit me there and leave comments, if'n that's what you're into.
 -b.

 I've laid out my argument for gay marriage several times before, but to succinctly review what I've said, I maintain that since homosexuality is not a mental disorder, that when it takes… Hey, AN, here's a post I wrote yesterday at Good Reason News. Please feel free to visit me there and leave comments, if'n that's what you're into.
 -b.

 I've laid out my argument for gay marriage several times before, but to succinctly review what I've said, I maintain that since homosexuality is not a mental disorder, that when it takes place between two human adults, they are both in the position to provide sound consent. And that since nearly all our laws concerning sex involve sound consent (and are designed to protect those who are unable to provide it), a ban on gay marriage can not be logically defended.

 It, of course, is religiously defended - to which any reasonable person would reply that religion does not and should not play a role in our government.

 Now, it takes a lot of discussion to bring the Christian conservative to understand that they're logically cornered on this, but once they do, they often use the last little projectile in their pathetic arsenal — civil unions.

 Today the governor of Rhode Island vetoed a bill that would allow domestic partners the right to organize each other's funerals. Now look, I understand that domestic partnerships are not civil unions. That's exactly my point. Less rights are afforded to those in domestic partnerships than are to those in civil unions just as less rights are afforded to those in civil unions than are to those married.

 Conservatives ask me if I'd be happy if 'civil unions' were legally identical to marriage, if I'd be happy.

 They can't, and they never will be because with the different title comes a different set of legislation. Would African-Americans in the 1940s and 50s been happy if their children's schools were segregated, but equal?

 This case in Rhode Island proves that different classifications result in different treatment and eventually different institutions. Separate is never equal.

 Nobody's looking to change your precious churches or force kids to try being gay, it's rights like funeral arrangements that need to be afforded these people.

 Since this different classification forever puts upon the 'civilly united' the threat of unequal treatment, I couldn't really back it and so no, I wouldn't be happy with that.

 By calling it something else, even if it started out exactly equal, it's leaving open the loophole that one day the country will sway right and the powers that be will bestow some benefit to one and not the other, probably in an attempt to shore up their base (just like this Rhode Island case).

 That's what I mean when I say separate is not equal. Gay Marriage: Why the responsibility is on us. tag:atheistnexus.org,2009-11-06:2182797:BlogPost:587088 2009-11-06T01:51:56.000Z Christy Gonzalez http://atheistnexus.org/profile/ChristyGonzalez This is sick and it needs to stop. What am I talking about? The nasty, vile, infectious, bitter, hate-mongering that is spreading itself around our country in the form of anti-gay marriage legislation. I don't care if I sound like I am exaggerating, because this is honestly how I feel about it. As a group we clearly skew left, but we all have seen on this site conservative atheists (maybe you are conservative- hello!). However, I have never encountered anyone here who does not support gay… This is sick and it needs to stop. What am I talking about? The nasty, vile, infectious, bitter, hate-mongering that is spreading itself around our country in the form of anti-gay marriage legislation. I don't care if I sound like I am exaggerating, because this is honestly how I feel about it. As a group we clearly skew left, but we all have seen on this site conservative atheists (maybe you are conservative- hello!). However, I have never encountered anyone here who does not support gay marriage. I would never go so far as to assume it is not possible or does not exist, but I think we can all agree that it is highly rare.

 So what's gotten me this worked up? Well, obviously the passing of Prop 1 in Maine this past Tuesday, for one. I was so thrilled as I drifted to sleep Tuesday night. As a New Jerseyan, I was disappointed by my state's election results, as well as many of the results being projected around the country. But! All would be worth it, because on Wednesday I'd wake up and Prop 1 would be a distant nightmare. I did not prepare myself for loss, because I honestly did not think it would happen. Not only had I interpreted an easy rejection of the Proposition based on early projections, I had also counted on the wonderful campaign against Prop 1 to have done the trick and on what I assumed was a majority of voters who valued compassion and equal rights for all. I was wrong. It was California and Prop 8 all over again. I guess I set myself up for disappointment when I surround myself with like-minded freethinkers and forget that the rest of the United States as a whole is not as progressive.

 I spent Wednesday in dejected helplessness, planning what I'd do and how far I'd go if the same battle ever came to New Jersey. Then today I realized I needed to get my ass in gear. I saw this. I don't know what I will or can do yet, but I have to do something. We cannot let these people force their will upon us. They seem to be mounting a systemic campaign against those of us who disagree with them, and somehow they are getting the voter support behind them.

 Why, as a group, do we resoundingly support gay marriage? As atheists we are forced to look at life through clear lenses. We have no religious tints clouding our opinions, and so our views must be based on rational thought. This is not true for all of us, as nothing ever is, but surely most of us. If we oppose an idea or viewpoint, it must be for secular reasons only, and the secular argument against same-sex marriage is incredibly weak. I am not sure I've ever heard a true secularist make one. It seems to me that any such secular argument is a thinly veiled theistic tactic, and while rational on the surface, it provides very little proof or objective reasoning. When people start yammering on about the deterioration of society's structure, all I can hear is "Wah-wah, I wanna be special! I don't wanna share 'cuz I don't hafta and you can't make me!"

 Well unlike the blocks in *kindergarten, there is enough marriage to go around. If you really want to support society, how about we encourage as many families as possible. If a family cannot naturally procreate, all the better, I say. The United States and the world is overburdened by humanity, and there are many children who need a good home. They do not have a single person giving them the attention they deserve at the moment, so how can two fathers or two mothers possibly hurt them? Do these people honestly believe that these children are better off in foster care than in a stable, same-sex parent home?

 I do believe that more than fifty percent of United Statesians support gay marriage, but I have absolutely no proof to back me up. I have to believe this, because if I didn't, the fight might feel too overwhelming. The results rest in the hands of the moderates and undecideds. What can we do to sway them to the side of right, the side of progress, and to get really hippie on your ass, the side of peace and love? I think the first step, at least to make the process easier on ourselves, might be to realize that this may take longer than it should. If I could flip a switch and make same-sex marriage legal everywhere tomorrow, I would. All I can realistically do is start lighting fires in individual minds.

 My goal right now is my sister. She is sixteen, which we all know is an interesting age. Many of us start to seriously question the ideals with which we were raised. We form our own worldviews, oftentimes very different from our parents'. My parents are right-wing, Republican, Carrie Underwood-loving, mission-trip-to-Mexico-going, fundamentalist, evangelical Christians. When I was sixteen, I became more socially liberal than I had been before, but continued to hold on to my religious <s>indoctrination</s> beliefs. It might have been impossible not to. It took getting out of the house and going off to college to become the fiercely liberal, lefty atheist I am now. However, I see the same wheels turning in my sister's brain as were churning in mine. How do I capitalize on this situation?

 Even though my sister still stands behind the Christian notion that homosexuality is a "sin", she seems to have a clearer understanding than my parents do on the separation of church and state. I am planting the critical thinking seeds in her mind, and she is a very intelligent teenager. The combination should produce great results, and even better ones if she waters them with good company and a rational environment. Happily, she also has gay friends who can help her along. My parents, on the other hand, are a lost cause. I have a closer relationship with my father's youngest, gay brother than he does, and I don't think he sees anything odd about that. My mother holds fast to her opposition to same-sex marriage, even with a gay nephew and brother-in-law. They are very much the "love the sinner, hate the sin," sort of Christians. How compassionate of them.

 My plan is not much of a plan, I know. I would love to do more, but I don't know what I can do other than what I am doing unless the fight comes to my neck-'o-the-woods. In some ways, we atheists are at the forefront of the issue. We alone have the ability to form our opinions regardless of the whim of some sky daddy or daddies (or mommies). Now the responsibility is on us, not necessarily to disabuse our theistic friends, family, and neighbors of their silly notions, but to bring the debate into the realm of the rational. I know, I know, it's what we try to do everyday. But we have to keep trying, because once we get people to think critically, we can't lose.

 *This is a completely off-topic story, but when I was in kindergarten, I was not too fond of sharing or playing with others. There is a story I'm reminded of often, in which I was playing with blocks alone and other kids were trying to play with me. Apparently I got so irritated, I couldn't take it anymore, and shouted, "Would you leave me the fuck alone?!" I was four. I've grown up a bit since then.

 Lot of talk about gay marriage today and yesterday tag:atheistnexus.org,2009-06-03:2182797:BlogPost:353584 2009-06-03T04:32:48.000Z Billy Deaton http://atheistnexus.org/profile/billyist Obama's declaring it LGBT month, Cheney's calling fo gay marriage, I'm blogging about it...:

 http://goodreasonnews.blogspot.com/2009/06/june-declared-lgbt-month.html Obama's declaring it LGBT month, Cheney's calling fo gay marriage, I'm blogging about it...:

 http://goodreasonnews.blogspot.com/2009/06/june-declared-lgbt-month.html Which Constitution has the last say? A States or the US? tag:atheistnexus.org,2009-05-31:2182797:BlogPost:350218 2009-05-31T23:46:52.000Z Woody Bass http://atheistnexus.org/profile/WoodyBass n the last week, California has seen two violations of human rights. The first being the California Supreme Court upholding Prop 8, and the other in San Diego County where a families right to assemble for a bible study has been violated. (I know Im shocked I am defending them too.. but they have that right)

 So here is my question... Which Constitution has the last say? A States Constitution? or the US Constitution?

 Naturally I make my argument in my blog:… n the last week, California has seen two violations of human rights. The first being the California Supreme Court upholding Prop 8, and the other in San Diego County where a families right to assemble for a bible study has been violated. (I know Im shocked I am defending them too.. but they have that right)

 So here is my question... Which Constitution has the last say? A States Constitution? or the US Constitution?

 Naturally I make my argument in my blog: WoodyBass.com Today, I am ashamed to be a Californian. Tomorrow, I get even. tag:atheistnexus.org,2009-05-27:2182797:BlogPost:343888 2009-05-27T07:01:12.000Z LaRae Meadows http://atheistnexus.org/profile/LaRaeMeadows

 Today, I am ashamed to be a Californian.
 Today, our courts did not have the bravery to ensure equality for all citizens.
 Today, the court made me complacent in a crime to which we will be held accountable by the next generation.
 Today, the California Supreme Court returned the institution of marriage back to its stone-aged meaning, turning straight women into heifers.
 Today, the court tore apart all Californian's First Amendment right to be free from…

 Today, I am ashamed to be a Californian.
 Today, our courts did not have the bravery to ensure equality for all citizens.
 Today, the court made me complacent in a crime to which we will be held accountable by the next generation.
 Today, the California Supreme Court returned the institution of marriage back to its stone-aged meaning, turning straight women into heifers.
 Today, the court tore apart all Californian's First Amendment right to be free from an established religion.
 Today, my struggle to be a tolerant atheist is being tested.
 Today, I am angry.
 Tomorrow, I get even. The Worst View Of Marriage tag:atheistnexus.org,2009-05-24:2182797:BlogPost:338833 2009-05-24T14:46:59.000Z NH Baritone http://atheistnexus.org/profile/NHBaritone

Well, here's an agenda for your review:

The most recent edition of The Weekly Standard contains an article by Sam Schulman entitled "The Worst Thing About Gay Marriage."

In it, he declares that, although same-sex couples are just as legitimately romantically…

Well, here's an agenda for your review:

The most recent edition of The Weekly Standard contains an article by Sam Schulman entitled "The Worst Thing About Gay Marriage."

In it, he declares that, although same-sex couples are just as legitimately romantically involved as straight couples, romance is no reason to get married. He states that marriage is based on "The Kinship System.".

Now I had to go look that up, but it basically goes back to feudal times when wives were conferred with property. In fact, wives were property. This is his ideal marriage?

So he states that 4 aspects of the kinship system that comprise marriage are not available to same-sex couples.

"[M]arriage is concerned above all with female sexuality. The very existence of kinship depends on the protection of females from rape, degradation, and concubinage."
(Ah, but who is to protect them from the oppression of being married to a man who assumes he must protect her 24-7?)

Kinship sets up rules that prevent "ritual pollution" of family lines. In other words, no one will object if an Irish guy marries an Italian guy, since they can't have kids.
(You may draw your own prejudicial parallels.)

Marriage legitimizes sexual relations, and "many of us feel that licit sexuality loses, moreover, a bit of its oomph. Gay lovers live merrily free of this system."
(Do you sense a bit of jealousy on his part?)

Marriage builds a bond between two families. "There can, of course, be warm relations between families and their children's same-sex partners, but these come about because of liking, sympathy, and the inherent kindness of many people. A wedding between same-sex lovers does not create the fact (or even the feeling) of kinship between a man and his husband's family; a woman and her wife's kin."
(Then why are my parents still in contact with my partner's parents 9 years after he died, while my father's family and mother's family never speak to one another?)

 These he describes as "duties." Protect women, maintain ethnic/class purity, pressure folks to get married to guarantee them bad sex (I swear that's what it sounded like), and build interfamilial bridges. And after lengthily describing these duties he slipped in the following:

"Few men would ever bother to enter into a romantic heterosexual marriage--much less three, as I have done--were it not for the iron grip of necessity that falls upon us when we are unwise enough to fall in love with a woman other than our mom. There would be very few flowerings of domestic ecstasy were it not for the granite underpinnings of marriage."

 Cough ... Cough ... three marriages? And, oh, dear, men don't want to get married?

I do not condemn him for having married three times. In fact, I applaud his faith in the institution, no matter how often it has failed him or he has failed it. However, doesn't it SLIGHTLY bring into question his perspective that he is protecting women, holding the bulwark on purity, and building bonds between families? (He certainly seems to have found his way around the sexual monotony issue, although it is a pity he decided to involve America's legal system in the process.) And his assertion that men do not want to get married actually falls apart in the face of his own life. Men LIKE getting married ... some like doing it over, and over, and over again. In fact, most studies show that men's benefits from marriage far outweigh those gains for women.

I find it bewildering that The Weekly Standard, America's premier conservative publication, would print such an article that prizes a feudal mentality, demeans women, promotes ethnic purity, and legitimizes such obvious male superiority. However, when your highest hope is to stop the progress of gay marriage, it seems that even the Weekly Standard is willing to engage in a scorched-earth strategy. Luckily, their spokesperson is such a buffoon that I don't think anyone will take it very seriously. The Ultimate Outsider tag:atheistnexus.org,2009-05-23:2182797:BlogPost:337684 2009-05-23T16:30:00.000Z Manny Espinola http://atheistnexus.org/profile/EmmanuelLEspinolaJr As a gay person I would have felt at home in ancient Greece, but as an atheist I would have been arrested and forced to drink hemlock or something. In present day China, I would have felt at home as an atheist, but then the communist party thinks homosexuality is a Western perversion that has somehow penetrated China, an undesirable import the cultural revolution failed to eradicate. Actually, I'm not the ultimate outsider. The ultimate outsider is this: gay, atheist, black, female, overweight,… As a gay person I would have felt at home in ancient Greece, but as an atheist I would have been arrested and forced to drink hemlock or something. In present day China, I would have felt at home as an atheist, but then the communist party thinks homosexuality is a Western perversion that has somehow penetrated China, an undesirable import the cultural revolution failed to eradicate. Actually, I'm not the ultimate outsider. The ultimate outsider is this: gay, atheist, black, female, overweight, dyslexic, uneducated, unemployed. But where I live----racially homogeneous (Asian) Third World country soaked to the bone in religion and reproduction (Philippines), being gay and atheist pretty much comes close to it. On the other hand, it's not as bad here as it is in, say, Iran, Iraq, and most Muslim countries, where homosexuality is a crime punishable by death. Even in "progressive" Malaysia homosexual acts are capital crimes.

 Gay rights are the last to be recognized, and the struggle has just began. Abject slavery and human trafficking still goes on in Africa, the Middle East, and and Southeast Asia, but it is now universally considered wrong and immoral. Women are still second class citizens in most Arab countries, but they are slowly being allowed to assert their rights, and all non-Arab non-Muslim UN-member nations are overtly on their side. But only a few countries allow same-sex marriage, and this act of the state to recognize marriage between two voting-age men or women is a measure of how far their culture have come to embrace diversity and harmony. That all these countries are democracies is no accident, although being a democracy is obviously no guarantee of not being homophobic. None of these countries are Islamic, that's for sure, but all of them, with the exception of South Africa, experienced Christian fundamentalism at one time or another in their history. At present all of these countries are in accord with the principle of the separation of government and religion. All these countries, again with the exception of South Africa, are European, or of a strongly European origin (Canada). Secularism and acceptance of homosexuality can, therefore, be taken as a measure of a democracy's maturity. These "maturing democracies" are:

 1. Netherlands
 2. Germany
 3. Canada
 4. Spain
 5. Belgium
 6. Norway
 7. Sweden
 8. South Africa

 Please comment on this entry as a whole or on each of the 8 countries above. I am particularly curious with South Africa, being such a young democracy, making the leap into same-sex marriage acceptance from a hard-fought racial equality in so short a time. Is it because the form of Christianity that penetrated South Africa is less homophobic than the millennarian/evangelical fundamentalism of American Christianity?

 I used my real name---Emmanuel---because I was asked to at registration. I don't use it if I can help it because it's contrary to my identity as a nontheist ("Emmanuel" means "god is with us" or something like that) so I'll sign this entry with "Manny" my AKA. I am twice Pacquiao's age so I have first claim to the name. Besides, he's religious---and that definitely turns me off. I'm Manny E. I sign my artworks Manny E-SPIN-ola Bishop Accidently Acknowledges Church and State Separation at Anti-Gay Marriage Rally tag:atheistnexus.org,2009-05-06:2182797:BlogPost:314219 2009-05-06T23:30:00.000Z LaRae Meadows http://atheistnexus.org/profile/LaRaeMeadows

 Lone Bigot Marian Barry

 "There is a difference between civil rights and sacred rights." – Bishop Harry Jackson

 Washington D.C. City Council voted to recognize the same-sex marriages performed in other states. Twelve council members voted to ensure equality for all of their citizens and one voted in favor of letting his religious beliefs trump his duty to all of his constituents.

 The lone dogmatist on the city council was Marion Barry, former mayor of…

 Lone Bigot Marian Barry

 "There is a difference between civil rights and sacred rights." – Bishop Harry Jackson

 Washington D.C. City Council voted to recognize the same-sex marriages performed in other states. Twelve council members voted to ensure equality for all of their citizens and one voted in favor of letting his religious beliefs trump his duty to all of his constituents.

 The lone dogmatist on the city council was Marion Barry, former mayor of Washington D.C. Barry told reporters that he had to pray and consult the "religious community" for guidance. Barry called his decision to perpetuate the systemic prejudice against his city's gay citizens an "agonizing and difficult decision." It is unfortunate for Barry that the religious groups he is consulting with, in a moment of utter stupidity, have made an articulate argument against using scripture as a basis for law.

 On April 28th, in opposition to the gay marriage measure, the religious community Barry consulted had a rally at Freedom Plaza in Washington D.C. During one of the rally speeches, Bishop Harry Jackson unintentionally clobbered the religious argument against same sex marriage. With all the rationale religious passion produces, he launched into a vacuous, gospel tempoed, bible thumping diatribe about how gays will taint the precious institution of marriage. During this improvisational pontification he made a tremendous error, he unwound his own argument when constitutional wisdom spilled out. "There is a difference between civil rights and sacred rights."

 <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/dK-XbBeP7xM&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="never"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/dK-XbBeP7xM&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
 Harry Jackson, the Bishop of the Beltsville, MD's Hope Christian Church, was trying raise Christian doctrine above common civil laws. Unwittingly he affirmed what gay rights advocates have been asserting all along; there is a separation between the laws of god and the laws of government.
 Harry hit the nail right on the head: there is a difference between civil rights and sacred rights. America's very first law was written on just this topic. ""Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" is in the first amendment of our constitution and establishes the freedom that gave the plaza where this anti-first amendment rally was held. The distinction between the canon and civil law, acknowledged by Bishop Harry, is all the gay community has been asking of Washington D.C. and the states in the union.

 "We don't have any interest in making their religious institution recognize our marriage or our relationship," said Ed Grandis, married in California to his husband and who now lives in Washington D.C.

 For the two openly gay members of the city council, David A Catania and Jim Graham, this was a personal measure. David Catania said, "This issue is whether or not our colleagues, on a personal level, view me and Jim Graham as your equals. If we are permitted the same rights and responsibilities and obligations as our colleagues. So this is personal. This is acknowledging our families as much as we acknowledge you."

 This didn't sit well with Barry. "I resent Mr. Catania saying either you are a bigot or against bigotry, as though this particular legislation represents all of that," said Marion Barry. At the April 28th rally, Barry addressed the group of primarily African American church goers. After a discussion about diversity being the foundation of democracy and then proceeded to lead the group in a chant "Say No Gay Marriage in DC!" Barry then incited the crowd to walk across the street and confront all twelve members of the city council who voted for the gay marriage measure.

 <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Vo111P32te0&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="never"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Vo111P32te0&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
 Marriam-Webster defines a bigot as "a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices ; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance" In essence, Marriam defines Marion as a bigot.
 The special nature of the Washington D.C. limits the ability of the city council to actually enact laws. The measure must first get approval from Congress. The religious opponents in Congress need to go consult with Barry's religious community. It may not have been what Bishop Harry Jackson meant to say, but they understand the foundation of American society and have made a powerful argument for gay rights.

 "There is a difference between civil rights and sacred rights." – Bishop Harry Jackson

 I agree with Harry and with David Catenia when he says,

 "The march towards equality is coming to this country, and you can either be a part of it or stand in the way."

 Make sure your voice is heard by your congressperson about gay marriage and preserving the first amendment. Contact them by a visit, phone, email, fax or handwritten letter. You can find out who your congress people are and how to reach them at these websites.

 http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
 https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8034601.stm
 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090505/ap_on_re_us/us_gay_marriage_congress
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Barry

 Bishop Accidently Acknowledges Separation of Church and State
"There is a difference between civil rights and sacred rights." - Bishop Harry Jackson
http://www.associatedcontent.comarticle/1722156/bishop_accidently_acknowledges_separation.html In New Hampshire, One Man Left To Convince tag:atheistnexus.org,2009-05-03:2182797:BlogPost:309289 2009-05-03T16:00:00.000Z NH Baritone http://atheistnexus.org/profile/NHBaritone

New Hampshire Governor John Lynch & his wife, Dr. Susan Lynch

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcn/2616349259/…

New Hampshire Governor John Lynch & his wife, Dr. Susan Lynch
Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcn/2616349259/

 Dear New Hampshire Governor Lynch,

I fervently ask you to sign the civil marriage legislation, once it arrives on your desk.

Your recent statement says that the Federal law should be changed to extend rights. However, Federal law now relates to marriage, not to civil unions, and it is just as likely that Federal law will continue to do so.

You indicate that you are interested in equality, so you should be invested in ensuring that there is never any question about whether a legally-joined couple has the full equal rights and responsibilities of marriage. Civil unions leave that question open, both among New Hampshire citizens and when same-sex couples travel to other states.

If and when Federal law changes, you should not have left New Hampshire in a position of retrofitting our laws to meet Federal standards. Instead, by including same-sex couples in current state marriage law, you can leave New Hampshire prepared for any changes in Federal law.

The only way that you can ensure equality is to grant equality. If civil rights history & practice show anything, they indicate that separate is never equal. I urge you to bring to an end the exclusion of same-sex couples from civil marriage in the state of New Hampshire by signing the civil marriage legislation. Vermont legislature overrides veto to legalize gay marriage tag:atheistnexus.org,2009-04-07:2182797:BlogPost:273771 2009-04-07T19:55:55.000Z cj the cynic http://atheistnexus.org/profile/cjthecynic Vermont Legislature Makes Same-Sex Marriage Legal

 MONTPELIER, Vt. — The Vermont Legislature on Tuesday overrode Gov. Jim Douglas's veto of a bill allowing gay couples to marry, mustering one more vote than needed to preserve the measure.

 The step makes Vermont the first state to allow same-sex marriage through legislative action instead of a court ruling. The law goes into effect Sept. 1.

 Approval had… Vermont Legislature Makes Same-Sex Marriage Legal

 MONTPELIER, Vt. — The Vermont Legislature on Tuesday overrode Gov. Jim Douglas's veto of a bill allowing gay couples to marry, mustering one more vote than needed to preserve the measure.

 The step makes Vermont the first state to allow same-sex marriage through legislative action instead of a court ruling. The law goes into effect Sept. 1.

 Approval had been expected in the Senate, where the vote was 23 to 5.

 But the outcome in the House of Representatives was not clear until the final moments of a long roll call, when Rep. Jeff Young, a Democrat who voted against the bill last week, reversed his position. In the end the vote was 100 to 49, just slightly more than the required two-thirds majority of members present.

 After the final tally, cheers erupted in both legislative chambers of the State House and in the hallways outside, and several lawmakers on both sides of the debate looked stunned.

 "It's a great day for equality," said State Representative Margaret Cheney, a Democrat from Norwich. "People saw this as an equality issue, and we're proud that Vermont has led the way without a court order to provide equal benefits."

 The override came days after the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that not permitting gay marriage there was unconstitutional. Vermont, which in 2000 became the first state to adopt civil unions for gay couples, now brings the number of states allowing same-sex marriage to four; the others are Massachusetts, Connecticut and Iowa.

 The battle over the issue has largely been centered in the Northeast. Massachusetts became the first state in the country to make same-sex marriage a reality in 2004 when its supreme court ruled that it was required under the state's Constitution, which contains an equal-protection clause. Connecticut followed in October 2008. .

 Two other states in the region recognize civil unions — New Jersey and New Hampshire — and gay rights advocates have waged a campaign in hopes of making same-sex marriage legal in every state in New England by 2012. Before Tuesday, Vermont, like New Jersey and New Hampshire, had also allowed civil unions, a step that gay rights advocates say helps ease the transition to laws allowing same-sex marriage. Just last month, the House of Representatives in New Hampshire voted narrowly to approve a bill to legalize such marriages, which moves to the state Senate and could be considered there as early as this week.

 But organizers in Maine and Rhode Island have opposed the civil-union approach, which they say makes same-sex couples appear unequal. Instead, they have sought to change the laws directly. In Rhode Island, for example, gay rights advocates plan to wait until 2011, when the Republican governor, Donald L. Carcieri, who opposes gay marriage, leaves office.[...] Iowa legalizes gay marriage! tag:atheistnexus.org,2009-04-03:2182797:BlogPost:270753 2009-04-03T23:14:04.000Z cj the cynic http://atheistnexus.org/profile/cjthecynic Iowa Supreme Court legalizes gay marriage

 DES MOINES, Iowa – Iowa's Supreme Court legalized gay marriage Friday in a unanimous and emphatic decision that makes Iowa the third state — and first in the nation's heartland — to allow same-sex couples to wed.

 Iowa joins only Massachusetts and Connecticut in permitting same-sex marriage. For six months last year, California's high court allowed… Iowa Supreme Court legalizes gay marriage

 DES MOINES, Iowa – Iowa's Supreme Court legalized gay marriage Friday in a unanimous and emphatic decision that makes Iowa the third state — and first in the nation's heartland — to allow same-sex couples to wed.

 Iowa joins only Massachusetts and Connecticut in permitting same-sex marriage. For six months last year, California's high court allowed gay marriage before voters banned it in November.

 The Iowa justices upheld a lower-court ruling that rejected a state law restricting marriage to a union between a man and woman.

 The county attorney who defended the law said he would not seek a rehearing. The only recourse for opponents appeared to be a constitutional amendment, which could take years to ratify.

 "We are firmly convinced the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective," the Supreme Court wrote.

 Iowa lawmakers have "excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification."

 To issue any other decision, the justices said, "would be an abdication of our constitutional duty."

 The Iowa attorney general's office said gay and lesbian couples can seek marriage licenses starting April 24, once the ruling is considered final.

 Des Moines attorney Dennis Johnson, who represented gay and lesbian couples, said "this is a great day for civil rights in Iowa."

 At a news conference announcing the decision, he thanked the plaintiffs and said, "Go get married, live happily ever after, live the American dream." [...]

 <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/11kr5wjKfms&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/11kr5wjKfms&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344" allowscriptaccess="never"></embed><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="never"></param></object> Quickest way to get my credit card out of my wallet. tag:atheistnexus.org,2009-03-28:2182797:BlogPost:265687 2009-03-28T05:46:57.000Z Creature http://atheistnexus.org/profile/HeatherMorrison <object height="220" width="400"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="false"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="never"></param><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=3819906&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1"></param><embed allowscriptaccess="never" height="220" src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=3819906&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" wmode="opaque"></embed> <param name="wmode" value="opaque"></param></object>

Gary Randall Defends Marriage at State Rally from Gary Randall on Vimeo. http://vimeo.com/3819906

 I've had to be a tightwad lately. I haven't been able to donate as much as I'd like to for various worthy causes. Today I recieved the following from Equal Rights Washington, a local group advocating marriage equality for everyone in my state. As a married person… <object width="400" height="220"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="never"></param><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=3819906&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1"></param><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=3819906&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" width="400" height="220"></embed></object>
Gary Randall Defends Marriage at State Rally from Gary Randall on Vimeo. http://vimeo.com/3819906

 I've had to be a tightwad lately. I haven't been able to donate as much as I'd like to for various worthy causes. Today I recieved the following from Equal Rights Washington, a local group advocating marriage equality for everyone in my state. As a married person it sickens me that marriage discrimination still exists. Anyways I think I made it about 30 seconds into that video before my wallet came out. Any of you that would like to help out, I encourage you to do so, I don't think it really matters where you live. We don't need another California. We don't need more of this church state violation:

 Dear Heather,
 Last week in Olympia, we were given a glimpse of what the Far-Right is capable of producing. Extremists converged on the Capitol grounds in an effort to convince legislators in support of granting those in domestic partnerships the same rights as married couples to change their vote. Crowd estimates were larger than normal. Here is footage of Gary Randall, of the Faith and Freedom Network, during the rally.

 While we are looking with great optimism toward a legislative victory shortly, this also comes with knowing the larger fight is soon to take place, potentially in a matter of months and likely will play out through the next one to two years. Inevitably, we will face a referendum at some point.

 Contribute here to say you will ACT for real change when the time comes!

 Only with your support can we move into the next phase of this process. Within the next two legislative sessions, it is HIGHLY likely that the issue of marriage will come before the legislature again.

 Will you have done enough when that time comes, or will our state become another California?

 We must mobilize Eastern Washington though opening offices and implementing aggressive, strong, state-wide field strategy. We must be able to do the work to assure that public and legislative support are in tandem. That takes a great deal of time and effort on the behalf of many, which also takes funding.

 Join us in this FIGHT and say YES to your personal commitment to EQUALITY!

 Sincerely,

 Connie Watts
 Executive Director
 Equal Rights Washington
 PS- Please consider making a monthly contribution to help us and to say you will help us with this effort! Gay marriage tag:atheistnexus.org,2009-03-06:2182797:BlogPost:247276 2009-03-06T16:30:58.000Z Atheist Insurgency http://atheistnexus.org/profile/AtheistInsurgency Attempts have been made to scientifically articulate sexual preference and physical sexual traits (Masters and Johnson). It is clear that there are degrees of sexual preference and physical traits. The only remaining scientific debate is measuring the subdivisions of the scale in between.

 All the symbols, language and rituals involved in marriage are purely subjective exercises. Meaning is in people, not in things. Religion is nothing but a tool that dictates and reinforces subjective useless… Attempts have been made to scientifically articulate sexual preference and physical sexual traits (Masters and Johnson). It is clear that there are degrees of sexual preference and physical traits. The only remaining scientific debate is measuring the subdivisions of the scale in between.

 All the symbols, language and rituals involved in marriage are purely subjective exercises. Meaning is in people, not in things. Religion is nothing but a tool that dictates and reinforces subjective useless meanings on people. Marriage is a meaning with no independent physical attributes. a quarrel For Start!!! tag:atheistnexus.org,2009-03-01:2182797:BlogPost:241574 2009-03-01T12:43:06.000Z ObscureAtheist http://atheistnexus.org/profile/ObscureAtheist Now that i am typing these words i don't feel good . because i had a quarrel with my mother a few minutes ago.
 perhaps a quarrel is not a good topic to start a blog but i want to do this.

 I rarely watch TV but my mum watches a lot. this noon she told me look this girl(in TV program ) wants to have right of divorce before marriage.(in Islam women can't divorce without their husbands' permission and that TV program wanted to denounce the girl's behaviour!) I replied every woman must have this… Now that i am typing these words i don't feel good . because i had a quarrel with my mother a few minutes ago.
 perhaps a quarrel is not a good topic to start a blog but i want to do this.

 I rarely watch TV but my mum watches a lot. this noon she told me look this girl(in TV program ) wants to have right of divorce before marriage.(in Islam women can't divorce without their husbands' permission and that TV program wanted to denounce the girl's behaviour!) I replied every woman must have this right and this Islamic law is very ridiculous . then my dad said would you give this right to your future wife. I said yes of course but i won't give or promise any dowry (in Iran and other Islamic societies almost all women want a big dowry however in most cases they don't take it until they get divorced and it will remain just as an official promise) I added : "marriage is just a shared life with love for me and I don't give any shit to your Islamic rules" then my father told these are laws and rules of your society and people live with them and you won't succeed with these thoughts . I angrily replied "Fuck this society!!! Fuck its rules and laws and..."
 my very religious mother wanted to defend her Islamic laws. at last I replied her "Mohammad and his Islam counts you as an animal . in the eyes of Islam and Mohammad all women are like their husbands' animals even less ...
 then i returned to my room and opened Firefox and ...

 I was very nervous in those moments but now I am a little regretful not for what I said but for making her sad.
 i guess she has cried! :(

 not related : if you mention me any grammatical or structural mistake I will thank you a lot.