What is it with atheists and GLBT folk?

There is a strange correlation: most of the atheists I know are straight, yet when I post a pointless poll like this one, I know with near certainty which way the godless hordes of Pharyngula will try to skew it.

Do you agree with President Obama’s decision to extend certain benefits to gay partners of federal employees?

51.38% Yes
48.62% No

It goes further, too. We atheists tend to strongly favor women’s rights and equality in the marketplace, yet only about half of us are female. I could bring up an article like this one, in which conservative democrats demand that abortion services not be provided under universal healthcare, and I know how most of the progressive godless readers here will respond: with anger. You won’t be voting for Reps. Dan Boren (D-OK); Bart Stupak (D-MI); Colin Peterson (D-MN); Tim Holden (D-PA); Travis Childers (D-MS); Lincoln Davis (D-TN); Heath Shuler (D-NC) Solomon Ortiz (D-TX); Mike McIntyre (D-NC); Jerry Costello (D-IL); Gene Taylor (D-MS); James Oberstar (D-MN); Bobby Bright (D-AL); Steve Driehaus (D-OH); Marcy Kaptur (D-OH); Charlie Melancon (D-LA); John Murtha (D-PA); Paul Kanjorski (D-PA); and Kathleen Dahlkemper (D-PA) in the next election. Hey, Colin Peterson is my state representative; I’ll be writing him a pissed-off letter when I get home, and he has lost my vote.

It’s not just a selective reading on my part. Other sources, like Lavender Magazine, have noticed that the atheists in their communities have a rather reliable political and social position. Here’s a review of Atheists Talk radio (which is no more, I’m sorry to say).

Many radio programs broadcast locally are queer-inclusive. But aside from KFAI’s Fresh Fruit, which is total queer content, no program is as fully queer-supportive as Atheists Talk. Large time chunks have been devoted to Wayne Besen, the Fagbug, and Project 515. Plus, an organic queer sensitivity weaves throughout other segments, because of the atheist and democratic value that separates religion and state.

Host Mike Haubrich thinks “religious institutions that suppress the rights of GLBT folks are using their beliefs as justification for an underlying homophobia. By using the Bible as an absolute moral guide in legislating issues related to marriage and other societal benefits that should be recognized as being granted by such a basic document as the Declaration of Independence, they are demonstrating precisely the effects of church-state entanglement that James Madison was warning against. The state should not be used as a sledgehammer to enforce a particular religious code, and an individual’s sexuality should not be subject to the whims of religious interpretation.”

Contributor August Berkshire observes, “Americans are proud of our ideals of liberty and equality. Why then are some people shocked when these ideals are applied to people of color, women, and sexual minorities? Are some citizens ‘more equal’ than others?”

People dependent on religion like to claim that atheism is just another religion, and they argue that we can’t know that we’d have a better society if we got rid of god (and usually go the other way and claim we’d be immoral without our imaginary cosmic policeman in the sky), but you know, I look around at all the atheist communities springing up around the country, and I see the people who are most committed to tolerance and equality joining them, and I am convinced. A godless America would be a better America, one more committed to the Enlightenment ideals that accompanied its founding, one that would actually have some ideals and principles that would make it a better place to live for everyone.

Quitter

That wacky know-nothing up north, Sarah Palin, has quit her job as governor. She doesn’t give a good reason why; in an annoyingly chipper speech, she whines about the way she was being scrutinized for ethics violations, and the fact that she was currently an ineffective lame duck governor, and then announces that she’s stepping down from office. It makes no sense at all, and it does say something about the weakness of her character.

Brave Dame Sarah ran away.
(“No!”)
Bravely ran away away.
(“I didn’t!”)
When danger reared it’s ugly shead,
She bravely turned her tail and fled.
(“no!”)
Yes, brave Dame Sarah turned about
(“I didn’t!”)
And gallantly she chickened out.

Bravely taking (“I never did!”) to her feet,
She beat a very brave retreat.
(“all lies!”)
Bravest of the braaaave, Dame Sarah!
(“I never!”)

Remember this if (when) she runs for president in 2012. Who wants a president who at the first minor crisis turns her office over to the vice president and runs away?

Sanford’s very expensive fling

Some people have asked for a thread to laugh over the latest Republican hypocrite: Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina, chairman of the Republican Governors Association, often considered a likely Republican candidate for president, has been caught with his pants down. He had an affair with an Argentinian mistress, and lied to his staff and public about his prolonged absence, saying he was hiking the Appalachian trail.

I hope it was an awesome six days in Argentina. It’s cost him his political career, his marriage, and his credibility. Maybe he and John Edwards should get together and form a club.

Iran

The simple summary:

As the video says, the country is shutting down the flow of information, clamping down on the internet — that alone would tell me that something nasty has been going down in the government there. Information should flow freely, and I’ve run across one set of instructions for setting up a proxy server under Windows, and one for Linux. I run neither…does anyone have similar instructions for BSD or Mac OS X Unix?

Otherwise, feel free to talk about the new source of chaos in the Middle East.

Netroots Nation dives into inanity

Netroots Nation, the big lefty political/blogging meeting, is organizing sessions for their conference in August. Unfortunately, they seem have given up on the idea of a secular nation, because this one session on A New Progressive Vision for Church and State has a bizarre description.

The old liberal vision of a total separation of religion from politics has been discredited. Despite growing secularization, a secular progressive majority is still impossible, and a new two-part approach is needed–one that first admits that there is no political wall of separation. Voters must be allowed, without criticism, to propose policies based on religious belief. But, when government speaks and acts, messages must be universal. The burden is on religious believers, therefore, to explain public references like “under God” in universal terms. For example, the word “God” can refer to the ceaseless creativity of the universe and the objective validity of human rights. Promoting and accepting religious images as universal will help heal culture-war divisions and promote the formation of a broad-based progressive coalition.

That makes no sense at all. Separation of church and state certainly isn’t discredited — if anything, the experience of the last few years makes it more important than ever. Voters can already propose policies based on religion, and they do, unfortunately…but whoever wrote this thinks there should be no criticism? That’s insane. This is a progressive organization that is proposing that we shouldn’t even criticize religious intrusion into government.

And then look what they do: they redefine “god” into a waffling, meaningless placeholder for anything anyone wants!

I’d like to know who came up with this garbage — it reeks of the Jim Wallis/Amy Sullivan camp of liberal theocrats, although neither is actually on the panel.

Duh.

The US 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that display of ten commandments monuments violates the establishment clause. Well, yeah. When the first commandment is basically “No way but JHWH!”, it should be basically impossible to argue otherwise. Although it is fun to watch the crazy people twist themselves to argue that Moses was a secular dude.

Speaking of twisted, ex-Judge Ray Moore is running for Alabama governor in 2010. If you enjoy the occasional video of squirrelly wingnuts denouncing all that is evil in the world, he’s got several there. I like the one where he announces that he will protect Alabamians from all the immorality from California and Massachusetts.

More clues to God’s identity!

One of those right-wing circle-jerks has been going on in Virginia, and the wingnuts are vying to see who can be holiest — it looks like a contest between Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee. It’s boring, except, I think, for the revelation about the nature of God.

Huckabee was not to be outdone in the use of hyperbole. The former Republican presidential candidate called the United States a “blessed” nation whose victory against the British in the Revolutionary War was “a miracle from God’s hand,” indeed the same type of miracle that defeated the legalization of gay marriage in California.

Since we know how both of those victories were accomplished, that tells us something about the nature of the agent behind them. Thanks to Mike Huckabee, we now know that God is a) French, and b) Mormon.

Bérubéan snark

Sometimes, it just takes a little sharp humor to clarify our current situation.

Well, to understand the Sonia Sotomayor fracas you have to realize that the timespace confundulum has actually fractured into two frozen moments, one having to do with the sudden appearance of emotional, abrasive Latinas and their strange cuisine amid the eating clubs of Princeton, and the other having to do with ungrateful women of color getting named to positions where they can dole out their reverse-racist versions of “justice.” Yes, that’s right, it’s always 1972 and it’s always 1993–and at the same time.

I didn’t get admitted to anything in 1972.  But in 1974, I was a freshman at Regis High School in New York, where I heard one of my more conservative classmates say, in the course of a discussion about affirmative action, that he had been the victim of reverse discrimination for too long.  Exasperated to the point of flummoxation, I noted in reply that (a) affirmative action showed up only yesterday, (b) you’re thirteen years old, d00d, and (c) you’re attending an elite, tuition-free Jesuit high school that does not admit women.  And the reason I remember that moment 35 years later is that it has never gone away: guys like Stuart Taylor and Fred Barnes are still thirteen years old, still the victims of reverse discrimination, and still questioning the credentials of smart women while campaigning for the protection of conservative white men under the Endangered Species Act.  Taylor graduated from Princeton in 1970; Barnes from the University of Virginia in 1965.  Neither of them had to compete with women for admission; Princeton started opening its doors to that half of the population in 1969, Virginia a year later.  That’s why guys like these worry so much about the decline of standards in college admissions since 1970, you understand.  Because things were tougher and people were smarter when white guys only had to compete with 44 percent of the population for admission to elite colleges, positions of power and influence, and so forth.

He also reminds us that Clinton caved in when faced with a similar situation during his presidency. Let’s hope Obama is made of sterner stuff.

44 more to go

One more joins the ranks of states on the side of goodness: the New Hampshire legislature has passed the last few bills needed to legalize gay marrriage in that state. Unfortunately, part of the compromise is a set of exemptions for religious organizations, who won’t need to do the right thing. Just remember, no one can point to the atheists and claim they tried to hinder civil rights here…we didn’t ask for the privilege to discriminate.

(via Digital Cuttlefish, who naturally has a poem to go with it)