As I wrote a couple weeks ago, one of the Military Relligious Freedom Foundation’s clients, a sergeant in the Army, has started a petition on WhiteHouse.gov to “End the Military’s Discrimination against Non-Religious Service Members.” According to WhiteHouse.gov, 5,000 signatures within 30 days is supposed to get you a response from the White House. The petition, started on October 1 by SGT Dustin Chalker, currently has 2,855 signatures, so it needs 2,145 more by October 31.
Now, you do have to create an account and wait for a verification email if it’s your first time signing a petition on the WhiteHouse.gov site, so this does involve a few minutes of work and then remembering to go back and sign the petition when you get the verification email, which, as the comments on my original post indicate, some people were having difficulty doing.
But, meanwhile, the petition to legalize weed, started not long before SGT Chalker’s petition, has over 56,000 signatures. So, apparently, tens of thousands of potheads — people not exactly known for their ability to figure out and follow through on things — have managed to focus long enough to register, wait for the verification email, and then go back to the site to sign the petition to legalize weed.
So, come on, can’t we get a few thousand more atheists and other people who care about religious freedom to go sign SGT Chalker’s petition and help this soldier get a response from the White House?
29 comments
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cassandratoday
October 17, 2011 at 2:53 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I signed it. Hey, religious freedom is for Christians too. ;-)
Aquaria
October 17, 2011 at 2:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You need to get PZ on board. He will get you the signatures, and then some.
Jeremy Shaffer
October 17, 2011 at 2:58 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I signed it after the last post about the petition. The registration was a bit of a pain in the backside but it wasn’t that bad and it didn’t take the verification long. The biggest issue I had was in getting the pertition to pull up so that I could sign it.
Aquaria
October 17, 2011 at 3:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I had that problem, too, Jeremy, but the way I went around it was to go to the sign up page itself. I don’t remember how I got there, but I think it was by going to the top of the page, or something like that. I’m not going back to look.
dt
October 17, 2011 at 4:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Way to downplay the destructive effects of the drug war for the sake of a LOLWEED joke.
Chris Rodda
October 17, 2011 at 5:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Oh, lighten up, dt.
lorisee
October 17, 2011 at 6:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
They changed the rules (sounds familiar.) As of October 3 it takes 25,000 signatures to get a response.
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/how-why/terms-participation
Chris Rodda
October 17, 2011 at 6:39 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
But petitions that were already started before they changed the rules still only require 5,000 signatures, so that’s all this one needs.
Pinky
October 17, 2011 at 6:52 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It has taken me awhile because of some computer misadventures, but I’ve finally signed the petition.
If I could give the government’s web site a letter grade for its elegance and simplicity of use I would give it a “D.”
pnambic
October 17, 2011 at 7:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Dammit, Chris, we will not lighten up. As marginalized as we are as atheists, we the “potheads” (that’s drug-war for “nigger”) are arrested, robbed, and persecuted every f*cking day.
Get your head out of your ass.
Chris Rodda
October 17, 2011 at 7:23 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Geez, guys … I’m just kidding around. I’ve smoked plenty of weed in my life, and absolutely think it should be legalized, and that the “war on drugs” does infinitely more harm than people getting high do.
fastlane
October 17, 2011 at 8:32 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m with you, Chris. Maybe these guys need to take another toke and mellow out.
(See what I did there?) ;-)
satanaugustine
October 17, 2011 at 9:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
What Aquaria said: Ask PZ to post it. Maybe Jerry Coyne at whyevolutionistrue.com and Dawkins’ site as well.
edmundog
October 18, 2011 at 12:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
/we the “potheads” (that’s drug-war for “nigger”)/
WOW.
Nentuaby
October 18, 2011 at 10:23 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
pnambic:
Ummmmmm? I really, really hope that was a complaint about the disproportionate targeting of black folk by drug enforcers and not more of this kind of shit. And if it was the former, please take note of the fact that it sure sounded like the latter.
Chris Rodda:
It really did come across as “how can people be caring about THAT trivial issue when OUR important concerns are right over here.” I was going to post something about that yesterday but then got too lazy. (Yes, yes, irony noted. :P)
Chris Rodda
October 18, 2011 at 10:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Man, all I was thinking about when I wrote this was that if I was stoned I might goof out on the CAPTCHA letters and totally forget that I was there to sign a petition! I really wasn’t making any kind of serious statement at all about the merits of the weed petition. I was just kidding around. I never expected that anyone would try to read anything else into it. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar (and by cigar I mean a really fat …)
etcetera
October 19, 2011 at 12:43 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Would love to, but I’m not an American.
Aquaria
October 19, 2011 at 3:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
we the “potheads” (that’s drug-war for “nigger”) are arrested, robbed, and persecuted every f*cking day.
Shut up.
Atheists are also beaten up, robbed and persecuted every fucking day. Oh. and murdered for being atheists. Have you not been paying attention?
Chris Rodda
October 19, 2011 at 4:03 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
We went over 3,000 signatures last night — we’re now at 3,088 — need another 1,912 in the next two weeks to do it!
outside
October 19, 2011 at 5:03 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I have tried repeatedly to create an account so that I can sign the petition, but the website never sends me the email it says it is going to. I have checked my local junk folder as well as my spam settings at my service provider. I have sent a message detailing this issue using the “Contact Us” option at the bottom of the page, but have yet to receive a reply.
Brownian
October 19, 2011 at 5:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Does one have to be an American to sign? As a pothead atheist Canadian, I’m…
Kinda hungry.
larianlequella
October 19, 2011 at 9:08 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I agree with the need to Pharungylate this petition!
kennyg
October 19, 2011 at 11:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I signed both the discrimination and the weed petitions.
ewanmacdonald
October 20, 2011 at 3:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m a US resident but not a citizen. I’m pretty wary of signing up for things that you need to be a registered voter to take part in. But I’ve read the terms and conditions for Whitehouse.gov and can’t find anything requiring residency, much less citizenship.
Tl;dr version: I think anyone in the world over the age of 13 can participate, but I could be wrong.
cathypeterson pelot
October 21, 2011 at 6:01 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I don’t understand…everything in the Constitution was religion based. Ok, so you don’t believe in a high power…I am sorry, but you are in the armed services….Think of the pledge of allegiance. Maybe you should have thought your career out a tad differently. Maybe not. You be the judge, because I don’t judge you or the pot smokers of America. I have been taught that none of us are here to judge. You do what you have to do, just like I have to, and you call whom you have to call, but why do we have to sign a petition on it? I don’t understand.
ewanmacdonald
October 21, 2011 at 1:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The odds of your having read, or at least understood, the constitution are vanishingly long. The sole, single, solitary mention in the original US constitution of anything even slightly religious was “year of our lord” in the very last sentence, when they were writing down the date. One assumes that if they were seriously motivated by religion they might have mentioned it beforehand.
Then, when the constitution was first amended to add what’s now known as the Bill of Rights, Congress specifically and explicitly stated that Americans have religious freedom and that Congress has no right to establish any specific religion.
In the Pledge of Allegiance, “Under God” was only added years after its adoption by Congress, during the red scare. The original text – over a century old at this point – contained no mention of any deity or religion, but instead the principles on which the United States was (at least in principle) founded: liberty and jutice.
You don’t understand the need to sign petitions because you don’t understand law, principle, conscience, or free agency. Your post is passive-aggressive and fatalistic at the same time. It’s a most unattractive set of characteristics, and you should probably turn off the monitor and think for a few minutes before responding.
ewanmacdonald
October 21, 2011 at 1:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
How could I forget! There was one other mention of religion in the original constitution. It was to say that no religious test will ever be required as a qualification to hold any public office or trust in the USA.
darkstar
October 26, 2011 at 3:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Chris, my immediate reaction on reading your headline was basically the same as dt. Ok, so you didn’t mean anything by the phrasing, but I think you should at least acknowledge that you’ve been infected by the propaganda.
This is what you wrote that I take issue with:
That is not just a jovial use of “potheads”, it was full on, propaganda reinforcing rhetoric.
If it was just us, it wouldn’t be a problem but here is the key issue (I think): There are likely readers of your blog who don’t know that this stereotype is largely and falsely promulgated by the media.
They don’t know that most “potheads” are lawyers, judges, politicians, policemen, business men, and normal working folks. The average middle-class white male is far more likely to use cannabis than the average lower-to-middle class black male and yet, black males are arrested for cannabis possession at a much higher rate.
Please don’t just blow off and attack those who are pointing this out. Try to understand why we care and why it matters (which I’m trying to help with here). I’m not attacking you – I’m trying to help you understand why we care and why we think it matters. And I’m also hoping to inform the other readers as to why they should care.
The legalization movement represents much more than just people who want to get high (I know many pro-legalization people who never get high and have no interest in it) and it’s far more important to our country than most people imagine. The biggest reason to care is that the money many people spend on drugs is used, in turn, to infiltrate and corrupt our legal system and undermine our RIGHTS as US Citizens. EXACTLY the same as what happened during alcohol prohibition except the drug money criminals aren’t as stupid/blatant about it, they keep it relatively hidden.
The drug war began as a way to attack the “degenerate races” (in the words of Harry J. Anslinger), and the laws against it were passed in almost utter ignorance by the congress based on his lying, racist filth (Marihuana Tax Act, 1937).
The War on the American People was then furthered by Richard Nixon, AGAINST the advisement of his own Commission.
Nixon then wielded the “Drug War” as a way to viciously attack his political opponents – with the full force and violence of the police. How convenient for him.
So that’s where it comes from – and if you portray “potheads” as lazy, worthless people you are playing right into their game. Sure, there are lazy, worthless people – some of them smoke pot. And it’s just SO easy to stick that label on and so difficult to undo the damage such stereotyping does in the minds of the uninformed.
Chris Rodda
October 26, 2011 at 4:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Hey, darkstar … I really haven’t been affected by any propaganda. All that was in my head when I wrote this was picturing myself goofing on CAPTCHA letters (most of my own pot smoking was in pre-internet days, so I often think about what a goof some of the most common things on the web would be if I was looking at them stoned). On my first post about the petition, people were posting that they were having problems with the registration to sign it, so I was thinking that if people (most of whom were presumably un-stoned when they were trying to register) were having trouble, what would it be like to try to register stoned. Seriously, that’s all it was. I never expected anyone to take it as me making some sort of serious statement. I think the whole “war on drugs” thing and pot being illegal are as ridiculous (and do as much harm) as the prohibition of alcohol, and totally support pot being legalized.