Archive for the 'Equality'

An article in the Houston Chronicle blog, Female atheists fight for equality in freethought movement, goes out of its way to find some people who disagree with that sentiment. I don’t know whether the author was being cunningly ironic or not (he is a religion writer), but he really picked the worst possible critics, which I find amusing. “A lot of women are coming out as atheists and freethinkers,” said Hensley, “whether they want to become an active member of the community is another question.” Not only do women face backlash from religious groups opposed to their atheism and feminism, but there are sources of adversity within the secular community as well. Sites such as Slymepit.com and A Voice for Men are countering Women in Secularism’s claim that atheism and feminism fit together hand-in-glove. As Justin Vacula of Skeptics Ink said, “I fail to see how refusing to believe in God leads to the ‘logical conclusion’ of abandoning long held beliefs about women and men.” Yes, because reason never leads to the abandonment of traditions and beliefs. Somebody hand that man another shell for his shotgun so he can blow off his other foot. And to find critics, the author had to go to two hate sites. I think the point is clear. The article I linked to has since been revised, specifically to include a more accurate Vacula quote. “I fail to see how refusing to believe in God leads to the ‘logical conclusion’ of abandoning the belief that women exist to serve men.” I’m speechless.

Yesterday, I showed you that email promising 77 secular reasons to oppose gay marriage. Now the same guy has written back. My hope in suggesting this pamphlet to you was to get you to see that there is opposition,for sociological reasons, to the legislation signed by Gov. Dayton yesterday. I can accept that you have summarily dismissed these arguments against same sex marriage. However, I would like you to exposit reasons why I should support same sex marriage. I hope this will not be too much of an imposition of your time. Thank You. No, the opposition is not “sociological” — it’s religious and dogmatic, and you’ve merely thrown out some very poor rationalizations that pretend to be sociological. And if you can’t see all by yourself the reasons why we should treat all of our fellow human beings equally, I pity you your morally impoverished Christian background. But just for fun, I think I’ll sit back and let the commenters here generate some explanations. Maybe some will sink in.

Amanda Marcotte shares a success story in the struggle against casual sexism, and also plugs this great conference coming up this weekend. I bring this up because I’m one of the speakers at Women in Secularism, which starts on Friday in D.C. (There’s still time to register, if you want to come!)  The very existence of this conference is threatening to a lot of people who either believe that women should remain a small minority in secular activism, that they should embrace the role of disempowered harassment objects, or that feminist ideas—i.e. the belief that women are equal human beings—have no place in secular spaces, despite the long history of secularism and feminism being intertwined. I’ve been made to understand that many of these folks have been upping their already obsessive levels of harassment and making threats of showing up simply to harass people for holding the offensive belief that women have something to contribute as people and not just as sex objects. So I wanted to remind people not to let those bastards get you down. They don’t speak for the majority. They exploit the anonymity of the internet to make themselves seem greater in number than they are, mainly by posting non-stop and having no life outside of being angry that feminists are engaged in secular activism. But as this story shows, the fuck-you-women-are-objects-n0t-people attitude is not inevitable, and conversations can actually be had and good faith does exist. So, a bit of optimism! Oh, yeah, the other side is ramping up the freakout as the conference date comes ever closer. I expect the #wiscfi hashtag on twitter is going to become completely unusable and uninformative as the kooks become angrier and more obsessive about women talking about women’s issues (and generally human issues!) under the banner of secularism. It’s going to be interesting as the rational side calmly and dispassionately watches the haters melt down.

The great news: Governor Dayton signed the same-sex marriage bill into law this afternoon. You may now cheer wildly. The silly it-is-to-laugh news: the religious right is indignant. I got this email this afternoon: I have been reading your blog entries regarding The Minnesota Legislature’s legalizing of gay marriage. In these entries, you seem to put the blame for the hold up on the passing of this legislation on Christians and organized religion, who oppose gay marriage as a tenet of their faith. That is fine on your part and does not bother me one iota. What I would like to do is to send you 77 NON-RELIGIOUS Reasons to Support Man/Woman Marriage. If you are open minded enough and don’t mind sending me your “snail mail” address, I will send you a copy of this pamphlet for your information. Thank you for your cooperation. Sincerely Yours, David W. Zeile I told him to go ahead, but I took a wild guess at what these ‘reasons’ would be — I predict lots of repetition of the same few arguments with a few words twisted around, and much circling around the purpose of marriage being procreation and children needing a mommy and a daddy and how it’s so unfair for the law to force people to tolerate wicked gays. I figured I’d have fun ripping into it. But I don’t have to! I searched on the title of the pamphlet and found that the Rational Wiki has already done the job, and done it well. Also, the content is exactly what I predicted. Entirely on logical and rational reasons, the anti-gay bigots lose.

The Minnesota Senate has approved gay marriage. It now goes to Governor Dayton, who has already said he’ll sign it, and then we’re at last edging our way into the 21st century. Not everyone is happy about it. "In my heart, I grieve on both sides. Because I know what it’s like to be alone and I know what it is like to have somebody close to you and love you. But I grieve inside because I feel we are opening the doors to Sodom and Gomorra. And in the end, God is going to be the judge," said Nelson, of Blaine, tears running down her cheeks. I would bottle your tears and perhaps dot a little on my wrists every morning — Eau de Schadenfreude. Or perhaps I would drink them like a rich bitter wine, and laugh. Those aren’t tears of sorrow, but of nasty cruel bigotry — you didn’t get your way, you weren’t allowed to demean other citizens of this state in the way you wanted, and now you get to weep in frustration, while I have no sympathy. And to compare the happy men and women who can now aspire to share equally in love and marriage with evil, wicked horrible people from your book of lies, to tell yourself they are damned and will be destroyed…well, I’ll dance an especially happy spiteful dance on your broken dreams of oppression, lady.