Greta Christina has been writing professionally since 1989, on topics including atheism, sexuality and sex-positivity, LGBT issues, politics, culture, and whatever crosses her mind. She is author of
The Way of the Heathen: Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life, of
Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do with God, of
Coming Out Atheist: How to Do It, How to Help Each Other, and Why, of
Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless, and of
Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More, and is editor of
Paying For It: A Guide by Sex Workers for Their Clients. She has been a public speaker for many years, and many of her talks can be seen on YouTube. Her writing has appeared in multiple magazines and newspapers, including Ms., Penthouse, Chicago Sun-Times, On Our Backs, and Skeptical Inquirer, and numerous anthologies, including
Everything You Know About God Is Wrong and three volumes of
Best American Erotica. (Any views she expresses in this blog are solely hers, and do not necessarily represent this organizations.) She lives in San Francisco with her wife, Ingrid. You can email her at gretachristina (at) gmail (dot) com, or follow her on
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Doesn’t this dingbat (Haley) know that people make more money in the arts (movies, pop music) than in anything else except banking?
I kinda don’t want to say this out loud but…
In the US, at least, people get the government they deserve.
They voted for this dingbat.
If we’re constantly bailing her out from her own egregious mistakes, how are people going to figure out what a disaster she’s been?
I know, someone near and dear is affected. And that’s bad. But someone near and dear is affected every single day by every single thing the Tea Party is doing these days. And it all appears to be consequence-free to their political careers.
There are people out there who think the Tea Party is doing a fine job. Why? Because rational voices are constantly pulling them back from the brink of disaster.
What if, just once, we let it play out? Short-term pain but long-term gain, maybe? Maybe, just maybe, someone within the Republican Party will start to get wise.
There, I’ve said it.
Kevin @ #2: ?????
Do you seriously think that the staff of the South Carolina Commission for the Arts votes for the Tea Party?
The people who you think need to be taught this lesson are not the people who will suffer from it. And children will be harmed by it — children who don’t yet have the right to vote. What you’re proposing is like teaching the dog not to pee on the rug by smacking the cat.
It’s also cruel and utterly lacking in compassion.
In the future, I suggest you listen more carefully to that voice.
Kevin @ #2: And another thing: If we want people in the Republican Party to get wise, maybe a massive campaign of emails and phone calls from enraged constituents saying “We do not want this and will not stand for it” might be a bit more effective than just sitting around waiting for things to get even worse than they already have.
Kevin @#2 I appreciate that there are consequences for actions, but the 43% of the state that votes blue shouldn’t be fucked just because the rest of the state is stupid. The state also has no recall procedures, so even though everyone hates her we can’t do anything yet.
I’m a resident of SC, and I can promise you Kevin, not all of us voted for Governor Haley. We didn’t ask for her, we didn’t want her then, don’t want her now. How do we deserve her and her abuses of power?
While generally deplorable, I’m on the fence on this particular decision. The internet is a wider platform for distributing art than any movie house or museum could be. Further, I’ve often considered time spent putting kids in art class as time not spent teaching history, math, science or any other reality based thing.
As a result, I’ve often viewed the desire to get more funding for the arts as similar to getting more public funding for sports.
That said, it clearly matters to a lot of people, so I’m open to the sound thrashing my misconceptions are likely to receive. I’m not being sarcastic, I’m pretty sure I’m in the wrong on this one, but would like a good explanation as to why. It’s hard for me to figure out why it would need so much funding when people are naturally drawn towards things like making movies and acting and funny cat photos anyway. Yeah, that last comment was a little sarcastic… I see that now.
Governor Haley is 2 for 2 on cutting funding for important shit lately. She also doesn’t seem to think that sexual assault and domestic violence are important public health issues: http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/07/10/513736/south-carolina-gov-vetoes-abuse-and-rape-prevention-funding-calls-it-a-distraction/?mobile=nc
To tie in to Jackie@8:
I don’t know how this one got through the cracks, but Governor Haley has also decided to slash funding for rape crisis centers here in SC, which “distracts from the [Department of Health and Environmental Control’s] broader mission of protecting South Carolina’s public health.”
However just to show what a kind and caring individual she is, she does say that rape crisis center funding “attempts to serve a portion of our population for which we extend our sympathy and encouragement, but nevertheless, it is only a small portion of South Carolina’s chronically ill or abused.
The great wad of money saved by slashing this distraction? $453,000.
Mind you, since 1982 our state (SC) has reported above average rates of rape, and of the over 5000 victims helped in 2011, over half were children.
Well, folks, if anyone is still reading, I’m off to send more letters. I hope others do the same.