A comprehensive plan for the enhancement of sexual morality among the people

The Reverend Peter Mullin doesn’t like those darn pushy homosexuals — they must make him feel uncomfortable and all squirmy deep down inside. He wrote some amazingly stupid things about gays.

The Rev Dr Peter Mullen said in an blog that homosexuality was “clearly unnatural, a perversion and corruption of natural instincts and affections” and “a cause of fatal disease”.

He recommended that homosexual practices be discouraged “after the style of warnings on cigarette packets”.

He wrote: “Let us make it obligatory for homosexuals to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan SODOMY CAN SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH and their chins with FELLATIO KILLS.”

What about the heterosexual women? Everyone forgets the loving ladies in these arguments. Do they also get chin tattoos? That would be a real shame. And then there are those heterosexual couples that engage in all of the same activities that homosexuals do — why do they get a free pass from the Rev. Mullen?

He also didn’t say a thing about cunnilingus, but they never do. Lesbians also always get a free pass, and it’s just not fair. I’m beginning to think they are god’s favored people.

Let’s just simplify everything. At birth, everyone, male and female, gender preference as yet undetermined, gets two tattoos. One on their backside that says “EXIT ONLY”, with big bold pointy arrows, and one on their tongue that says “FOOD ONLY”. Since human beings are naturally obedient and incurious, these injunctions will of course be followed to the letter, and no one will ever be so rebellious as to try and see what else these body parts can do. They especially won’t be tempted by the instructions to the contrary so boldly written on their bodies.

I suppose that if people insist on being obedient, but start getting creative, we can extend the tattooing program to nostrils, armpits, earholes, hair, the bendy elbow bits, the back of the knee, toes, fingers and palms (Of course! Palms are very naughty), that very sexy curve at the nape of the neck, household pets, underwear, soles of the feet, washing machines, noses, eyelashes, feather dusters, shoes, athletic socks, belly buttons, nipples, lips, beards, showerheads, the Bible, pommel horses, horses, my little ponies, anything vaguely phallic, anything with a hole in it, skin, oh heck, everything except Tab A and Slot B. They’re all dangerous, except for the aforementioned Tab A and Slot B, which never get anyone into trouble and never cause any risk or danger when used properly, errm, I mean, naturally. And of course, when everything is labeled, and someone sees a nice silk tie prominently marked “NOT FOR SEXUAL PURPOSES”, no one will get any crazy ideas.

We should also begin a pattern of early childhood education in which the little tykes are instructed in exactly what is “natural”, and informed that they can’t do anything “unnatural”. As a textbook, I recommend Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), which takes a very ecumenical approach to the subject. Remember, kiddies, don’t do anything a sponge louse or a duck or Acarophenax mahunkai wouldn’t do!

Rev. Mullin lacks the courage of his convictions, however; now he plays the “my best friends are gay” and “I was only joking” cards very unconvincingly.

But the rector insisted that he meant to harm: “I wrote some satirical things on my blog and anybody with an ounce of sense of humour or any understanding of the tradition of English satire would immediately assume that they’re light-hearted jokes. I certainly have nothing against homosexuals. Many of my dear friends have been and are of that persuasion. What I have got against them is the militant preaching of homosexuality.”

Here’s a hint, Rev. Mullin: it’s only satire if you say the cruel things about some people with he intent of mocking the cruelty, not to promote the continued discrimination against the people.


Besides, some of the practices Rev Mullin derides may actually have some health benefits.

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Pregnancy poll

Since you all whomped that last poll with a ruthless savagery that does a godless brute proud, how about a new one? Should abstinence-only sex ed continue?. So far, “Yes” is winning 53% to 47%, despite the fact that abstinence-only sex ed does not work, and has been demonstrated to be an abject failure time and time again.

It’s sad to see such a close vote in a poll that really should be a slam dunk. How about making one of those bars swell like Bristol Palin’s fecund little belly?

The saga of the Butcher of Mt Vernon

John Freshwater, the fanatical evangelical school teacher who burned a cross into a sudent’s arm, is in the midst of a hearing in Ohio right now. It doesn’t sound like it’s going all that well for him. Richard Hoppe has been attending the hearings, and has a regularly updated summary at the Panda’s Thumb. Hoppe is being very circumspect and professional in his descriptions, however; if you want cruel flair, look elsewhere.

Integrity

And courage. And, in these precarious economic times, a little bit of the crazy.

Hank Fox has quit his job at a newspaper. Why? Because they ran an article, in spite of his protests, that was plain, simple, taken-for-granted bigotry against atheists.

If you’re looking for godless heroes, there’s one; it takes guts to make these personal sacrifices for a principle. If you want to help him out, take advantage of his editorial services sometime. He’s also got a book in the works which will deserve your attention when it is published.

Astrology is bunk

If you notice little things going wrong in your everyday life right now, it’s because Mercury is in retrograde. At least, that’s the excuse astrologers like to give, even though it’s entirely nonsensical and the apparent motion of the planets really has no effect on your life, unless you’re an astronomer. MSNBC has a fluff piece on gadgets going wrong in astrological crises, and they consulted Phil Plait on the subject. I think he blew a few raspberries through the phone at the reporter.

I used to wrassle astrologers for fun and the lulz ages ago, which is why I resurrected the previous old article, in which an astrologer made similar claims about a predictable astrological gremlin, the void-of-course moon. The void-of-course moon is even more ridiculous than the retrograde motion of Mercury — all it means is that the Moon isn’t residing within one of the 12 canonical signs of the zodiac, with consequences that are both petty and dire. We actually had a testable specific prediction from an astrologer, though, so with great joy a whole mob of skeptics rushed to test it.

You can guess what happened: the prediction failed, astrologer made a bunch of random excuses. That was the most predictable part of the exercise.

Scientific bias and the void-of-course moon

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Stuart Buck persists in claiming that scientists have a bias against the supernatural, and that we dismiss it out of hand. This isn’t true; the problem is that supernatural explanations are poorly framed and typically unaddressable, so we tend to avoid them as unproductive. What one would actually find, if one took the trouble to discuss the ideas with a scientist, is that they are perfectly willing to consider peculiar possibilities if they are clearly stated. We’ll even briefly consider something as insane and worthless as astrology, which is even less credible as a field of study than Intelligent Design.

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Texans keep going against the stereotype

Look, Texas is supposed to be all about the Gablers and Don McLeroy and the dwarf from Pampa and George W. Bush, and then the darned atheist Texans have to show up and ruin the image. The Texas Freethought Convention is happening on Sunday, 26 October in Austin — check out the infomercial. I wish I could go — it’s a state that hasn’t worked its way onto my itinerary yet, and I keep hearing about the good people working hard against rampant idiocy down there.

And the Nobel Prize goes to…

It looks like Alex’s predictions for the Nobel Prise this year did not come to pass — although I was thinking McCulloch and Till were likely, so I was wrong, too. The Nobel for Physiology or Medicine has just been announced, and the winners are Harald zur Hausen, for discovering that HPV causes cervical cancer, and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier for the discovery of HIV. It’s a viral year this time around.