I approve this message.
I approve this message.

If you don’t teach your child to obey Jesus, the devil will teach them evolution, sexuality, psychology, witchcraft
Jerry Coyne has a new book out, Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible, and it already has the religion apologists squawking and making excuses. I haven’t read it yet, though, so maybe the critics are right this time? (Kidding!)
One of those apologists is Sean Illing, writing for Salon.
I was just chided by Ally Fogg!
No. of days Heather Hironimus in jail for protecting her child from genital mutilation? Now 5 No. of US liberals giving a fuck? Still 0
— Ally Fogg (@AllyFogg) May 18, 2015
No. of days Heather Hironimus in jail for protecting her child from genital mutilation? Now 5
No. of US liberals giving a fuck? Still 0
Hey! I’m a US liberal…and I had no idea who Heather Hironimus was. My excuse was that it was the end of the semester followed by a bout of travel and family business. But now I’ve looked her up and…hoo boy. I am shocked.
Ireland is having a referendum on marriage equality this week, so Aoife is running a series of guest posts on why LGBTQ people deserve the same respect as others. It seems obvious how the vote should go, but I’ve been living in the US all my life and seen that human decency seems to be a struggle for a lot of people. Let’s all hope for good outcomes everywhere!
For a few days. So trolls, please scurry away to your dark corners again.
Skatje Myers and Kyle Hughart, 16 May 2015.
I only cried a little bit.
It’s going to be a busy day today — that rascally ragamuffin to the right is getting married this afternoon. And I somehow tore the one suit jacket I brought with me. Perfection is ruined! I may just have to break down into tears of anxiety. Or call it all off! Or hide in a closet!
The Basque newspaper Berria has an article all about me. I can’t read a bit of it, which makes it interesting: I’m looking over it, wondering what I actually said, and just making up stuff in my head that I’m sure is much cleverer than what’s actually on the page.
Online Gender Workshop, as ever, is brought to you by your friendly, neighborhood Crip Dyke.
In a recent thread, Okidemia posed a question that many parents have these days: When and how should I teach my child/ren about trans* folk?
Okidemia framed it this way:
…kids have not been told about transpeople yet, because we don’t know any. Thus an important educationnal question:
at what age would you* speak about it to kids? (certainly, you* should begin before they meet psychologically transgendering acquaintances –as opposed to biologically transitioning which certainly happens later in life.
One of the reasons this question seems so confounding is that, like many confounding questions, it is the wrong question. [Read more…]
While I’ve been distracted and gallivanting about, some good news has come in. The Australian government had set aside $4 million to give to Bjørn Lomborg, to create an institute of climate quackery at the University of Western Australia. I’m sure UWA could use $4 million (is there a university that isn’t strapped?) but they decided they didn’t need it that much and turned it down. I think most institutions of higher learning would similarly reject money for that purpose, or for building an astrology center, or a creationist think-tank.
It’s a little something called intellectual integrity.
(Universities sometimes fail in this regard, though, which is how the University of Minnesota ends up with a Center for Spirituality and Healing. But that’s a different story.)
As you might guess, conservatives are furious. Their standard line is that this was a violation of FREE SPEECH!
