Despite all the battling over sexism within the atheist community (which has the goal of making us better), it’s worse outside that group. Case in point: the Midwest Freethought Conference is getting some pushback in Omaha, where a right-wing talk radio host, Scott Voorhees, is frolicking in the slime. But then, he’s working in the milieu that made the term “feminazi” popular, one of the best indicators that you’re dealing with a cretinous thug.
In response to being informed by show guest Luke Hoffman of the UNO Secular Student Alliance that the UNO CRU Christian group had cooperated with the secular student group to put on a debate last semester, Voorhees declared: “You know why the Christian kids helped you out in your debate? Because atheist chicks are easy. And a lot of them are Goth and hot.”
The remark was recorded; you can hear it yourself at about the 14 minute mark. This is genuinely repulsive, but about what I expect of an obnoxious evangelical Christian. They do such a good job of smearing their own name.
Luke Hoffman has sent out a few letters of complaint. The first is to the program director at the radio station.
Gary Sadlemyer
Program Director
KFAB Radio 1110
[email protected]July 18, 2012
Dear Mr. Sadlemyer,
My name is Luke Hoffman. I am the immediate past president of the
University of Nebraska at Omaha Secular Student Alliance. During a
radio interview July 10 with your talk show host Scott Voorhees,
Voorhees made a comment that I challenged on the spot and wish to
follow up on now. In reaction to the fact that a Christian club on
campus had networked with the UNO Secular Student Alliance to put on a
civil debate, Voorhees went so far as to say, “You know why the
Christian kids helped you out in your debate? Because atheist chicks
are easy. And a lot of them are Goth and hot.” (You can listen to this
remark at http://bit.ly/NmcGaG starting at the 14:16 mark.)In addition to this being another example of what has been termed the
“war on women,” it also impugns the motives of the Christian group,
suggesting that their cooperation was insincere. I called this sexist
remark disgusting at the time (after which I was immediately
disconnected) and, in response to numerous calls for further response,
wish to readdress the matter now.The reason that Voorhees was discussing this matter in the first place
was because of the forthcoming Midwest Freethought Conference and the
Omaha Coalition of Reason billboard on 72nd and Pacific here in the
city. This is the fourth Midwest Freethought Conference and, as such,
it contributes to Omaha’s economic development.But instead of discussing this unique community event, Voorhees chose
to be dismissive while dehumanizing atheist women. Moreover, when
listeners called in to express their legitimate outrage at his
comments, he ridiculed them for lacking a sense of humor. But isn’t
that the usual cover for bigoted remarks against minority groups? How
many times have people tried to excuse racism, anti-Semitism, and
sexism under the cover of humor? Radio announcer Don Imus tried this
in 2007 with his “joke” about the Rutgers University women’s
basketball team and was fired as a result.In the popular atheist blog “The Friendly Atheist,” Hemant Mehta
describes the interaction as “frustrating all around, and that was
even before he made his most inflammatory comment.” Voorhees’
misplaced hostility toward people with differing views was, I think,
demonstrated by his offensive remarks as well as his apparent
unwillingness to really listen to his guests on that occasion.The membership of the UNO SSA and I, therefore, request that KFAB
repudiate Voorhees’ remarks against atheist women and that he
personally apologize.Yours sincerely,
Luke Hoffman
Immediate Past President
UNO Secular Student Alliance
The second is to the president of the university.
President James B. Milliken
University of Nebraska
(402) 472-8636
[email protected]July 18, 2012
Dear President Milliken,
As has already been brought to your attention by others, during a
radio interview of me on July 10 on KFAB Radio 1110 by talk-show host
Scott Voorhees, Voorhees made a comment that I challenged on the spot.
It was in reaction to the fact that the University of Nebraska at
Omaha CRU Christian group had networked with my group, the UNO Secular
Student Alliance, last semester to put on a highly-regarded debate.
Voorhees declared, “You know why the Christian kids helped you out in
your debate? Because atheist chicks are easy. And a lot of them are
Goth and hot.” (You can listen to this remark at http://bit.ly/NmcGaG
starting at the 14:16 mark.)In addition to this being another example of the right-wing war on
women, it also impugns the motives of the campus Christian group,
suggesting that their cooperation was insincere. I called this sexist
remark disgusting at the time (after which I was immediately
disconnected). Now, in response to numerous requests for further
action, I wish to readdress the matter.Reasonable people might have expected the UNO administration to act
swiftly and decisively in criticizing this remark against legitimate
UNO campus groups—especially after I brought it to the
administration’s attention last week. And not merely because the
remark attacked UNO students, both Atheist and Christian, but because
that broadcast also challenged UNO’s institutional reputation. After
all, Director of University Relations Tim Kaldahl appeared on the same
show and had to put up with attacks against UNO for hosting the fourth
annual Midwest Freethought Conference. Voorhees openly questioned
whether the university was still worthy of public support. And KFAB
pays UNO for rights to use the “N” logo and to broadcast Nebraska
football. The station calls itself “the Home of the Huskers,” which is
the UNO team. (For reference, KFAB is listed on the University website
as the Omaha affiliate for Nebraska football at:
http://www.huskers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&ATCLID=52 and,
on the KFAB website, the “N” logo is displayed on the homepage and at:
http://www.kfab.com/pages/Huskers.html .)In an effort to resolve this internally, I talked with Tim Kaldahl,
spoke with Charlene Russel in the campus Equal Access and Diversity
office, communicated with Nancy in the Chancellors office, and sent an
email directly to the chancellor. I have also discussed the matter
with other student leaders on campus.Adam Maley, immediate past president of the UNO Veterans Student
Organization, said: “This radio personality challenges a socially
unpopular category of people and, rather than discuss the issues, uses
prejudicial and disgusting stereotypes to distract.”UNO Council for Humanist Thought President John Powers said: “Scott
Voorhees…clearly does not understand the issues of the growing local
secular community and the struggles of living an atheist or agnostic
life.”Haili Copas-Starke, immediate past director for the Women’s Resource
Center, another student-run organization at UNO, showed her support
for the UNO SSA by saying, “Religion is a good background to formulate
your morals but it’s not the only method, and society allows for you
to do that without the guidance of religion.”The UNO SSA provides valuable support for nontheistic UNO students, as
Nicole Miller, the current UNO SSA president, noted when she said:
“The Secular Student Alliance has helped me grow on a personal level,
where I’ve made lifelong friends, have become more open to talk about
the issues. Especially family problems with coming out as atheist. I
feel like I’m making a difference in my community.”In the wake of this reaction, I must ask why the UNO administration
has so far declined comment on an affiliated radio station’s slur that
is prejudicial to UNO students and the university itself—and this in
the face of a reaction across the Internet. (Just Google the phrase
“atheist chicks are easy” and see the online response, which is now in
the thousands of hits when, at the time of the broadcast last week, it
only garnered two.)As an atheist, my moral compass compels me to stand up to Voorhees’
dehumanizing remark. Is it too much to ask UNO’s administration to
reconsider this opportunity to do the same? Radio KFAB and Scott
Voorhees need to hear, in no uncertain terms, that UNO finds the
remark in question unacceptable. And UNO needs to demand a retraction
and an apology.Yours sincerely,
Luke Hoffman
Immediate Past President
UNO Secular Student Alliance
Oh, this is going to be such a fun meeting!
This is the same as thinking atheists cannot have morals without god. They think that a woman without god to control her will turn into some kind of hypersexual porn woman.
What does it say about Voorhees’ opinion of the Christian student group’s morals that he believes they were helping out in an attempt to get sex?
What the hell is he even trying to accomplish? Does he think the prospect of hot, easy women will drive people away from atheist campus groups? Is he trying to pack the group with douchebags? (already a major problem in many student groups.)
Kudos to Hoffman for going straight for a university’s jugular – men’s athletics!
Now, I don’t agree that atheists are necessarily “easier” than the religious. But they are definitely “hotter.” Intelligence is very attractive, after all. Not sure about the “goth” thing, though. That can go either way. I certainly could never pull it off.
Thunderf00t’s on the radio now?
It’s not out of the blue. Plenty of youth Pastors and the like will tell stories about how they “only went to a youth group” because “they had cute girls”, but then they underwent a spiritual transformation when they heard someone read the Gospel of John or something. With an obvious implication that the females should use their charms to lure people in (really, if there wasn’t such a stigma about premarital sex there would be several sects getting into the Flirty Fishing game). They’re just turning that meme around as an offensive weapon towards another group.
Not excusing the remark, of course, it was reprehensible.
And here I thought it was Catholic girls who were supposed to be easy.
But I guess they’re pretty much the same to a fundie.
I posted about this in the original thread, I even linked to the full show. Am I to understand that this enormous group doesn’t hang on my every word?!? Stop censoring my speech by not happening to notice what I typed.
I just escaped Omaha, but I wish I was there for the meeting this year. I would not believe in god so hard, it would be epic. I might even treat other people with respect and discuss issues and ideas honestly… yep, I am THAT militant.
Voorhees is the same guy who called the Free Thought conference organizers “Godbusters” and posted that goofy photo of you and the stuffed panda and had that poll calling atheists “radicals who think being atheists somehow makes them superior”. What a piece of trash.
Sadlemyer is also on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gary.sadlemyer
As is KFAB: https://www.facebook.com/1110kfab
As is ClearChannel: https://www.facebook.com/ClearChannel
Call Voorhees show:
On air: 9-11 a.m.
Call: 402-558-1110 / 800-543-1110
twitter: https://twitter.com/kfabnews
Ideally pick things where the complaint is public and others can join in.
Why would anyone with the name Voorhees be given a radio show?
Especially if he’s going to then make horribly sexist comments?
Kudos to the Omaha Atheist president during her interview portion of the show. Mr. Voorhees asked her (I paraphrase)…”what does the organization raise money for?” She responded with the leukemia walk and homeless children in Omaha (via an organization). His response…”so that is your recruiting ground.” The president’s response (I paraphrase)…”no we never see the children we just donate the money.” Thanks to the Omaha Atheist president for staying classy to such a stupid question.
President of Omaha Atheists =1; Fox Radio affiliate shockjock =0
Not just sexist, but also goth-ist (is that a word? It is now) and bigotted against atheists… It’s funny how different forms of bigotry rarely come alone.
I wonder how Voorhees works the knobs with his knuckles dragging the ground. Nah, actually I don’t. He’s got engineers to do that. All he’s got to do his work his mouth and lungs. He doesn’t even need to engage his brain. Seldom do we see such an obvert expression of puerility. As he clearly knows nothing about women, atheists/secularists, or even Christians, he seems to be merely exposing his own fetishes.
The good news is that young secularists have strong voices and aren’t afraid to push back; Luke Hoffman, like JT Eberhard here at FtB, is setting a great example.
Well, in all fairness atheists are sexier than Christians. The brain is the sexiest part of the body. And “Godbusters” is an awesome descriptor.
Godbusters – I like it.
I wonder if it was just a throwaway line. It was intended as a ‘atheist chicks are loose and have no morals’, but he didn’t think through even the slightest bit how that reflects on the xian participants that he, theoretically, supports.
It wouldn’t surprise me, he’s that stupid. Out of curiosity, are any of those millions of moderate (and seemingly mythical) xians also calling/writing, or otherwise engaging this assclam?
I don’t what’s more pathetic, the sick double standard about female promiscuity, reduction of us to “hot easy chicks”…or the fact that we’re not even more sexed up than the religious.
andrewpang:
Well, he kind of has a point there. I’ve had radical bowel movements which were superior to him.
Scott Voorhees…. wasn’t his brother Jason famous?
Mr Voorhees, if you want hot chicks, don’t suppress their sexuality. Because basically you’re right: You’ll find more women with a more relaxed sexual attitude among atheists. Because we don’t have a moral standard that tells them what to do with their genitals. That does not mean, however, that atheist women are forced to constantly look for a mate (well, recent events show that some male atheists expect that, too). They can decide just as they want, and if some want to be hot, easy chicks one day and others don’t it’s simply because they are allowed to think (and decide who to touch and love and fuck) with their own head.
I actually don’t disagree with your statement but it says more about double standards in christianity that about rotten atheist morals.
@ #5 Brownian
That is uncalled for. Not understanding the need for feminism and/or the needs of female conference attendees is not the same as this blatant sexism and hostility. Smug slander does not get anyone anywhere.
—————-
“But nobody can handle that other trip – the possibility that any freak with $1.98 can walk into the Circus-Circus and suddenly appear in the sky over downtown Las Vegas twelve times the size of God, howling anything that comes into his head. No, this is not a good town for psychedelic drugs. Realty itself is too twisted.” -Hunter S. Thompson
That is one sad part about our society, every asshole gets a megaphone.
If you’re going to complain about Jason, please don’t bring my brother Michael into the discussion.
I actually do have a brother named Michael.
You know the world is fucked up when you have a constitutionally secular democracy where secularists are the minority. Democracy doesn’t work. :-(
@kurt
TF’s blatant hostility is blatant hostility.
Maybe if Voorhees had worked something about “hypersensitive pencil-necked PC jockeys” into his bit, the two would be more comparable.
I don’t understand your objection, unless for some reason you think Thundefoot has been neither sexist nor hostile. I doubt that to be case, since it would clearly be an idiotic thing for you to believe.
I don´t want to defend thunderf00t or what he did in any way, but connecting him to some assholes statement, with which TF has nothing to do, is neither nice nor necessary.
This stereotype of the easy hot goth atheist chick is of course the fault of Rebecca Watson.
Everything is.
This shit’s been going on for a year or more. If there were some technique that would effectively get through to thick-skulled ‘skeptics’, it would have been tried by now.
Since nothing is going to get anyone anywhere, I’ll stick to what I’m good at, thank you.
Thunderf00t is neither nice nor necessary. So we’re on even footing.
That is not the argument you made. Do I take it you withdraw your original argument on the basis is was wrong ? And so, why did you not just say so ?
Why thanks!
Oh wait…
Uh oh.
“The station calls itself “the Home of the Huskers,” which is
the UNO team.”
UNO’s team is the Mavericks, UNL is the Huskers.
Nitpicky, but in NE, Husker football is a close second to religion.
Any relation to Jason Vorhees?
I wonder if Scott Voorhees realizes that masturbating to pictures of atheist girls doesn’t actually make the girls themselves easy.
I am sorry if my argument came across the wrong way. In my view thunderf00ts stated opinions here were deeply flawed, stupid and sexist. But that does not justify to connect him to all the sexist bullshit anyone says, because then you head towards strawmen territory. If TF actually said anything like “atheist girls are easy”, which I am unaware of, I am sorry.
Strawman has officially reached the point of needing to be retired from everyone’s dictionary.
Oh, metaphor of burning effigies. We hardly knew ye!
Some people need to be reminded that even if she is a slut by her own description, she’s not required to sleep with anyone she doesn’t want to.
@samwisecg:
As the first member of my mother’s side of the family in about four generations NOT to graduate from Nebraska, I’d question that last sentence. It’s way above religion. Or perhaps it IS religion.
When I visited Lincoln with my mom some years ago we wandered around the campus and came upon a huge memorial, with marble columns and bronze plaques. It was dedicated to the CURRENT (at the time) AD and football coach.
Nonreligious people on average lose their virginity 6 months earlier than fundamentalist protestants and 1.5 years earlier than Catholics. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
source: http://www.newstrategist.com/productdetails/Sex.SamplePgs.pdf (sample from a textbook on American sexual behavior. see bibliography and table of contents at http://www.newstrategist.com/productdetails/Sex)
Another interesting tidbit: Gay men outnumber bisexual men 2:1 and bisexual women outnumber lesbians.
“Because atheist chicks are easy. And a lot of them are Goth and hot.”
I know it’s slut-shaming and sexualising.. but isn’t this actually a compliment? (I mean sex-positivity being better than sexual repression of the abstinence-only kind). Also the “Goth” bit – yeah I agree with the idea, getting rid of traditional quasi-religious concservative dress-codes is also a positive to me.
For instance my brother, still a hardcore Catholic kept abstinent until his wedding night with his Catholic wife. And he had two atheist/nonbeleiving girls dump him previously, essentially for not wanting to have sex before marriage.
I feel much happier around “easy” (=sex-positive, adventurous) atheist women, who have no problem talking about their sexual experiences, relationships, etc than around people (my bro’s wife) who take offence at any mention of “promiscuous” behaviour. I think I also have to qualify this by saying that I myself am actually quite conservative in my sexual experience and really enjoy mostly the open conversations myself.
=8)-DX:
What, you reckon slut-shaming and sexualising is being complimentary?
(One can’t simultaneously be complimentary and shaming to the same group, unless you imagine shaming is a form of compliment)
I suspect DX is attempting to communicate that this is a case of this.
Azkyroth, you should have given a warning you were linking to TV Tropes.
DX – sex-positive =/= easy. Talking about sex =/= easy.
jonathanray – time of having first sex =/= easy.
Have I stepped into an alternate universe? Where I’m from, “easy” was a slur that always meant “very low to no standards on who to sleep with”. That has nothing to do with attitude towards sex, when you start having sex, number of sex partners, etc. Liking sex doesn’t mean you’ll have it with anybody.
I do wish people would get their stories straight.
If atheist girls are so easy, how come there a so many vocal atheist men complaining because they have been told they should not go around asking atheist girls if they want a fuck ?
Matt – the shriveled old feminazi harpies don’t count as atheists, obvs.
No, of course it was meant in a derogatory manner, and of course slut-shaming and sexualising is not complimentary, I meant that the substance of what the sentence was actually something positive. It’s like saying “What, so he thought he had to come out of the closet?” – Coming out of the closet is actually a very positive and comendable thing to do, showing courage and honesty, but can be used derisively to shame gays for expressing themselves in public.
Yes, “easy” is pretty much always taken to be negative, I just don’t think “promiscuous” or “doesn’t have a problem with premarital sex” – which are kind of implied here, are negative things to say about someone.
Isn’t that the whole thing that’s wrong with slut-shaming (placing shame and social derision on a common, generally positive or at worst risky behaviour, that both sexes take part in equally)?
Yeah. Otherwise he wouldn’t associate “Goth” with “hot” as if everybody did that.
It’s a pretty marginal difference, and as always there are outliers from the trend, but from the GSS (using GOD against PARTNERS or PARTNRS5, control SEX, and possibly filter MARITAL and other factors), it would superficially appear accurate that atheists both male and female tend “easier” than their theist counterparts, if you measure it by the number of partners. Of course, atheist “chicks” tend to be feminists, and want to be treated as fellow human beings; this may contribute against the measure of “easier” if you’re from the sort of Christian background that expects females to submit to male authority.
But that (randomly) brings to mind one point seems to have been omitted entirely from the discussion so far. Presumably, there were also women helping out from the Christian group. How does that fit in with the motivational analysis given by Voorhees? Is is my presumption there in error, or are the Christian girls just as interested in finding hot-and-easy atheist goth boys, or are the Christian girls sufficiently bisexual that they’re about as interested as the Christian boys in finding hot-and-easy atheist goth girls, or is Vorhees merely an ignorant idiot waving phatic sophistries to reassure the bigot brigade within Christianity?
Hot goth chick.
Yep, probably an atheist.
Maybe when he said “Goth” he meant “Have actual personalities and a sense of individuality” and Goth was just an example…? Intelligence is hot though so he does have that part right.