Just In Case The Christian News Network Won’t Allow My Comment…

I really don’t like it when I type a comment on a site, submit it, and it falls into a black hole. Now, it could be simply that it will be approved in due time… but just in case, this is what I said:

If chaplains provide tangible benefits regarding the earthly needs of members of the Armed Forces (which they do–confidential counseling, unlike therapist visits which are part of the official record, is just one example), House Republicans have just voted not just against the best interest of atheist servicemen and women, but also against the best interest of the military in general.

Apparently, it is more important to define the word “chaplain” as narrowly as possible than it is to see to the needs of Armed Forces.

It is true that only a small percentage of the military self-identify as atheists (however, there are many stories of atheists asking for “atheist” tags and being issued “no religious preference” instead, so the numbers of official atheists must be considered the low end of a range, rather than an accurate count), but that number is greater than the number of Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim troops combined. Each of those groups has their own chaplains–implying that the military knows that A) having chaplains with your own world view is important, and B) it is not simply that there are not enough atheists to warrant similar treatment.

The faith communities of the chaplains are not at all a good match for the faith communities of the people they serve. Some Christian sects are under-represented, while others are vastly over-represented. The current kerfuffle looks like nothing so much as a power struggle, with a handful of denominations trying to consolidate the power they have accrued, against the force of a rising tide of change.

Article VI, Section III

When they wrote the constitution
The framers thought it best
To make it clear
An office here
Needs no religious test

To defend the constitution
To the clause, the word, the letter
The framers knew
What best to do
But Congress, now, knows better

A chaplain serves the public trust
And Congress foots the bill
By their decree
A chaplain’s free—
“Choose any church you will”

The framers couldn’t mean, of course,
The godless get a voice!
You must pick one—
You can’t say “none”…
And that’s religious choice

Yeah, so… I was wondering about this chaplaincy thing. Chaplains are (duh) government employees–otherwise, Congress would have no authority to regulate them. Which, smarter people than I have already noted, brings to mind Article VI, Section III of the US Constitution–the “No Religious Test Ban Clause“:

no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

This clause, along with the first amendment clauses, is the basis of what we atheist types like to call the “wall of separation between church and state”. Sometimes called (again, by us atheist types) “freedom from religion”.

But, of course (as I am so often told), there is no freedom from religion, only freedom of religion. That’s the only explanation for the recent votes about atheist chaplains–religious choice must mean “your choice of religions”, not “your choice to worship or not”. Mind you, today’s Congress is not the beginning of the kerfuffle: here’s a nice source discussing the radical nature of the clause at its beginning. (Interesting note–religious types keep reminding me of how often our founders wrote and spoke about God. They don’t notice that there is a conspicuous lack of such talk in the Constitution itself.)

Anyway… I did want to quote one thing I read about the manufactroversy here…

Surely some basic equity—allowing service members without a religious tradition to have a safe space to talk about the fears and anxieties that come with military service—would benefit the military as much as it would benefit atheists. But for the House Republicans, it seems that acknowledging the needs of nonreligious service members would be another nail in the coffin of god-fearing America.

I couldn’t agree more.

Concrete Thinking About Atheist Chaplains

A word can have two meanings?
Why, the notion is absurd!
There can only be one essence,
One true meaning of a word!

Ever since the time of Plato,
Though the world itself is real,
We have understood that meaning
Is a heaven-sent ideal

Since a chaplain is a chaplain
Which we must admit is true
We must look at definitions
Not at what the chaplains do

We define them by the sacred
And this usage makes it plain
They must focus on your spirit
And ignore the mere mundane

Why, a chaplain’s not a therapist
A chaplain’s not a friend
A chaplain’s not a man on whom
A soldier can depend

A chaplain serves the sacred, but
He’s useless here on earth
There’s nothing of a chaplain
That is any worldly worth

So it doesn’t really matter
What a chaplain really does
Cos the meaning is the meaning
And it’s what it always was

And it doesn’t really matter
What the soldiers say they need—
Cos… an atheistic chaplain?
It’s preposterous! Indeed!

Involved philosophical rant, after the jump: [Read more…]

Why, Oh Why, Oh Why-Oh (…Would You Act This Way, Ohio)

Attorney General Mike DeWine
(Republican, Ohio)
Is looking for an act of hate
To supplement his bio

He can’t be seen as gentle
(He’s Republican, of course)
So while Jim’s love John is dying
Mike is showing no remorse

While he can’t appeal the ruling
(Which is really quite a shame)
He can still deny the rights of those
Whose marriage is the same

That’s the law here, in Ohio
(And we follow every rule)
Though it makes gays less than human
And it makes DeWine seem cruel

He will fight, defending marriage
(So the local paper quotes)
Just as long as that position
Is the one that gains him votes

My most recent post on Jim and John ended on a partially optimistic note:

The bad news is, the court’s injunction is limited to this particular case and these two individuals. The good news is, even Cincinnati doesn’t expect that to remain the case

Ed also had reason to be hopeful:

This is just a temporary restraining order, but it obviously indicates how the judge is likely to rule on the case itself.

Looks like even if Cincinnati recognizes a marriage, and the judge does as well, the attorney general does not. Although DeWine appears to have initially said he would actually appeal the judge’s decision, he seems to have walked back from that cliff just a bit. ThinkProgress includes this update (after an unknown number of calls to DeWine’s office by concerned citizens):

A spokesperson for DeWine clarifies that he does not intend to appeal this temporary order because, the spokesperson says, such an order is not generally appealable. Nevertheless, DeWine also plans to “continue to defend Ohio’s constitutional amendment and law banning same-sex couples from marrying and banning the state from recognizing such marriages,” according to BuzzFeed’s Chris Geidner.
In other words, while DeWine does not plan to appeal the judge’s recent temporary order, he still plans to put up a full legal fight against Arthur and Obergefell’s right to be permanently recognized by Ohio as husbands.

Fucking Bastard.

How Did Your Congressweasel Vote?

It was only a little amendment
And no one would really take note
But of course, it would all be recorded
(Check your own representative’s vote!)
There are thousands of chaplains already
Not one is an atheist, though
If the Pentagon thinks they might need some
It seems Congress already said “no”.
We have patriots working in Congress
Watching over our soldiers abroad
And we’ll do what they can to support them
Just as long as they worship our God.

In yesterday’s post, I missed the fact that they actually voted–and the amendment banning atheist chaplains did pass. You can check here for how your congressweasel voted, and consider contacting them to thank or chastise them, as the case may be. The only possible reason for supporting this amendment that I can see, would be that they attach more importance to the word “chaplain” than they do to the needs of thousands of soldiers.

GOP Congressman Attempts To Prohibit Atheist Chaplains

If you need to see a counselor
There’s someplace you can go
But it shows up on your record that you went
But a chaplain, if you see one,
No one else will ever know–
An alternative that’s clearly heaven-sent!

If you choose to go to chapel
You can get the morning off
If you don’t, you are free to stay and work
So the floors are mopped and polished
By the folks who chose to scoff–
Just another well-deserved religious perk!

Though the godless here among us
Number roughly one in five
(More than Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu troops combined)
We’ll claim none are found in foxholes
Where religion comes alive–
If their chaplains all are christian, they won’t mind!

Foolish congressmen are singing
Hymns with many sour notes
And it’s frankly disrespectful to the troops
Don’t expect their tune to change, though,
Cos it guarantees them votes…
And it keeps the godless jumping through their hoops

Not content to simply vote down an amendment providing specifically for atheist chaplains in the military, GOP congressweasel John Fleming is attempting to actively prohibit such chaplains, on the off chance the military decided that providing support for the 20% of troops who identify as atheists or agnostics was a good idea. If anyone thought “support our troops” was enough to overcome prejudice against atheists, today’s news will disabuse you of that illusion.

A positive view, with thoughtful legal analysis.

A relatively neutral, unsophisticated view, from the Christian News Network.

Batshit crazy (especially the comments) from The Blaze.

Garbage! (A Happy Dog Song)

My dog was a little bit frisky
As we went for our evening walk
And it might be the moon, or the whisky
But I swear I could hear the pup talk
My pooch wasn’t sleepy, nor hungry
He’s well rested, and recently fed—
Well then what, of all things, was the matter?
And so help me, here’s what my dog said:

Oh, please, can we roll in some garbage?
Can we wallow in filth for a bit?
As an eau-de-toilette, it’s the best you can get
Can we please roll around in some shit?
I love how it feels, the saran wrap and peels,
The aroma of chicken and fish
Oh, please, can we roll in some garbage?
Won’t you please grant your doggie his wish!

Then he smiled and he puckered his eyebrows
Did that thing where he cocks his cute head
He was doing his best to be fetching
But I wasn’t so easily led
So he whined and he wagged, and he wiggled,
But he wasn’t quite making it plain
He could tell that I wasn’t persuaded
So my puppy implored me again:

Oh, please, can we roll in some garbage?
There’s some stinky stuff here on the lawn
And I think I smell skunk, such a wonderful funk
We should hurry, before it’s all gone!
How could anyone think it’s a bad kind of stink?
When it’s all of the things I adore?
Oh, please, can we roll in some garbage?
I won’t ask you for anything more!

He was asking so very politely
With that puppy-dog look in his eyes
So I stopped for a bit and considered
And you know, he deserved a surprise
We were passing some odorous trash bags
When I told him “ok, we can stop”
And I opened a bag and I dumped it,
And we both rolled around in the slop!

Come join us, and roll in some garbage!
In coffee grounds, fish heads, and slime
Squirm around, if you please, in some old moldy cheese
Cos it’s really a wonderful time!
You won’t really know, till you give it a go,
What it’s like to be happy and free
Come join us, and roll in some garbage!
Have fun with my puppy and me!

John and Jim: An Update

This is why it matters.

James Obergefell has lived with the love of his life for 20 years before they married two weeks ago.

They also hoped to be buried next to each other, to spend eternity together, but the state of Ohio and his spouse’s relatives won’t let him – because he married another man, John Arthur.

Last week, the two men sued Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and the Cincinnati doctor responsible for approving death certificates. Obergefell and Arthur asked a judge to overturn existing Ohio law – which doesn’t recognize same-sex marriage – to allow Obergefell to be listed as surviving spouse on Arthur’s death certificate and for it to show that Arthur’s marital status at death as married.

The most beautiful wedding you never attended…was not going to be recognized by the state of Ohio. Which meant that John, who is actively dying, was not going to be allowed to be buried next to Jim, his spouse, his partner of 20 years.

“We’ve been beside each other for 20 years. We deserve to be beside each other in perpetuity,” Obergefell testified Monday.

Arthur has ALS, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that has no known cure and is fatal, and is “days maybe weeks if we are lucky” from death, Obergefell testified.

“What he wants is to die knowing that I am legally taken care for and recognized as his spouse,” Obergefell said of Arthur, both 47.

The bad news is, the court’s injunction is limited to this particular case and these two individuals. The good news is, even Cincinnati doesn’t expect that to remain the case:

Aaron Herzig, an attorney for the city, said the city doesn’t oppose the request by Obergefell and Arthur. The city named July 11, the day the two men were married in Maryland, as James Obergefell and John Arthur Day in Cincinnati.

369

Three hundred sixty nine. That’s the current number, as of when I got caught up with the present, a moment or two ago. I mentioned, last post, that I’m gathering up my verses in preparation for another book. This 369 verses represents the quick-and-dirty sort–anything that I just hated didn’t make the cut; muse of the week limericks did not make the cut, stuff that was clearly crap, that anyone in their right mind would have binned and been done with, but which I posted because that’s what I do, did not make the cut.

In other words, the easy bit is done.

The last volume (still available, up there in the “cuttlestuff” tab) held some 244 verses (342 pages); I expect that the next volume will be slimmer. Which means I expect to be cutting the current crop by at least a third. Which will be difficult, but maybe in the opposite direction than you might think: It is exceedingly easy for me to say “oh, that one is horrible”. If I held to the standards of my staunchest inner critic, I could easily cut the verses down to a nice round number… the roundest of numbers, in fact. It is in defiance of that inner critic that I publish the “clearly crap”… but that critic did have a point. The nature of this blog requires that my inner critic be kept in irons most of the time, exercised only rarely and briefly. This editing will be difficult, in determining which ones to keep, not which to cull.

And so the tug-of-war begins. At present, I have no idea what the final book will look like. What categories? With or without commentary? Art? (I have an idea for the cover, though, which is a big step.) Or even a title. And I especially don’t have a target date. I keep intending to have something ready for Cephalopodmas season, but that hasn’t happened in years. But… who knows?

Wish me luck?

Two Years At FtB

As the first annual FtBConscience wraps up, it astonishes me to note that my first FtB post went up two years ago today. As I said last year, I thank Ed and PZ for creating this place and populating it with these people. And I especially thank my readers and commenters for helping feed my addiction. I am gathering up verses in preparation for putting another book out, and it astonishes me to find literally hundreds of verses I don’t really remember writing, and some of them really aren’t half bad (others, of course, are astonishingly bad).

From two years ago, my first FtB post:

The gods have taken many guises;
Fathers, mothers, monsters, friends,
Tricksters bent on bold surprises
Schemers bent on selfish ends
That’s how we’ve known ‘em.

We’ve done our best to try to please ,
To understand as best we could;
For eons we had bent our knees;
Then questioned gods, then boldly stood,
And now, outgrown ‘em.

This was once a beautiful temple. Now it is a beautiful swamp.

I took this photo at the Temple of Isis at Dion, in the shadow of Mount Olympus.   Long-time readers with photographic memories might remember me using it once before.  It must have been a beautiful temple; it certainly is a beautiful swamp.