Barack Obama is a very intelligent man.  Which is why his invitation of Rick Warren is such a confusing move.  Its his latest fuck you note pinned to the hope that swept him into office  (Jesus’ General has a short and brilliant synopsis).  It would also appear to be a fundamentally naive misunderstanding of what Rick Warren represents.  Rick Warren is an ultra conservative Christian who is actively working to put a mainstream spin on fundamentalist ideas.  As Lindsey Beyerstein notes:

Giving Warren even more mainstream cred is not just a cost-free nod to evangelicals. It’s a boost for someone who actively opposes Obama’s agenda and who is eager to influence secular affairs.

That mainstream cred may be cost-free to the evangelicals, but it comes at a deadly cost to the LGBT community…

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Posted under News, Politics, Religion, Sexuality

Write to Marry Day!

Arguments in favor of California’s Proposition 8 are a fascinating study in hate apologetics.  Just as with the “life begins at conception” anti-choice movement or the pro-creationism lobby, from the start there is an intense pressure to hide the religious foundations beneath the nearest available logic-like substitute.  It comes down to an often hilarious yet very sobering look into the kind of people who think discrimination belongs in the California state constitution.

The favored defenses of institutionalized bigotry are:

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Posted under Culture, News, Politics, Religion, Sexuality

One of the most appealing qualities of being American is the role of the individual. Our culture glorifies liberty and with great reason. Coming from the state that hosts Walden Pond, I’ve always felt a strong connection to the tradition of writers and activists that continues to pour out of Massachusetts.

Massachusetts is also a state where Gay Marriage has been legal for quite some time. Looking over at the fight brewing in California makes me a little nostalgic. MA has its fair share of theocrats too.

This is something we need to be clear about. Anyone opposing the freedom of consenting adults to enter into the bonds of marriage with each other is doing so to impose their religious views on the entire country.  This line from the Wall Street Journal caught my eye:

Mormon leaders, on the church’s official Web site, ask their followers to support the California ballot measure to reinforce church teachings that “marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God.”

There is just no justification on this green Earth for using a ballot measure – an instrument of state – to enforce church teachings.  None.  This shit burns me up.  Sarah Palin, the Republican VP candidate is eating it up:

The issue has come up in the presidential campaign, with Republican Sen. John McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, suggesting this week that she would support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage nationwide.

She’s signaling just as clearly as she can that if elected, she’ll use her power as Queen of the U.S. Senate to begin pushing her Bible on our laws.

Its getting to a point where its just too much to take.  Check out this video of a McCain/Palin supporter (via an especially pertinent and brilliant post at Pandagon):

Its marked the first time I’ve felt strongly “This person shouldn’t have the right to vote”.  This thought startled and upset me as soon as I had it, since I strongly believe everyone has the right to vote (and ought to be encourage to).  Faith in this sense is not a virtue.  It is a liability.  It is a knife through the heart of reasoned discourse.  Watching that video, do you think it remotely possible to discuss positions and substance with that woman and get anywhere at all?  Everything comes down to this black and white binary of whether it fits into her personal religious view, and there is no room for anything other than the comfortable dogma she knows by rote.

What it comes down to is this rage and this conviction I have.  That however I feel about the election, I want with every ounce of me to resist a small but vocal segment of this country dragging us all deeper into their theocratic pit.

to the theocrat:

this is the land of the free

you won’t tread on me

Posted under Politics, Religion, Sexuality

Barring another stolen election (ironic given the white noise being made about acorn), Barack Obama is heading towards a decisive victory in November.  The stakes are as high as the passion and personal investment being poured into both sides of this campaign.

While there has been much focus on both candidate’s pledges to fight foreign terrorism, right-wing domestic terrorism has remained off the campaign radar.  This is deeply problematic given the anticipated likelihood of an increase in anti-liberal, anti-gay, anti-women and anti-minority violence come November 5th.

The source of that violence comes from the level of legitimacy we afford the ignorant and hateful dehuminization of target groups.  The Republican party has straight up embraced the crazier elements in their ranks for fear of losing their last vital reserves of faithful supporters.  Faithful being an apt word to describe the sheer lack of knowledge or reason informing their tenous grasp of reality.

The following video comes by way of Majikthise and Dana Blankenhorn:

I think its safe to say this is not a group of voters the Obama campaign will win over.  It is however a group of people who should not be left to their insane notion that their ideas are even valid.  Leaving these views alone to fester leads to closed door decisions like the one to install a nativist on the Prince William County, Virginia Board of County Supervisors (Hatewatch).

The outpouring of hate is not hard to understand given the games the McCain campaign is playing (The Guardian):

The Republicans have played on those fears and prejudices extremely well over the past week or so, but with the escalating hatred and disturbing language that has been espoused by some of their supporters at recent Republican rallies it seems that even McCain – forced this weekend to backtrack and start telling people what a “decent, family man” Obama is – now realizes that they may have gone a step too far.

At the most recent rallies, Republican supporters have cried out “kill him!”, “bomb Obama!” and “terrorist” in reference to Obama. Shouts of “treason” and other racial epithets have also been hurled.

I don’t think there is any solid indication McCain’s campaign realizes they’ve gone to far.  I think they’ve simply locked up a section of the vote at the cost of future political stability, a price they are all too willing to pay.  So much so their slogan “Country First” takes on a whole new meaning.

What we need to do is smash the lies and reason-like-substitutes being pushed around as firmly as we can.  This level of willful ignorance and anger will only be exacerbated by a Democratic win.

Posted under Politics

I saw an ad for the november 1st rally on facebook:

Six Virginia State Police Chaplains were just forced to resign by the Kaine Administration because they prayed publicly “in Jesus name.” In response, 86 Virginia Pastors have taken a pledge to mobilize their people to vote, and now we’re standing up for Jesus with these chaplains.

That caught my eye, so I decided to dig a bit deeper.  Turns out no one was forced to resign.  They chose to.  (Washington Times):

At least six of the Virginia State Police’s 17 chaplains have resigned following a request they offer only “nondenominational” prayers during department-sanctioned public events and ceremonies, police said Wednesday.

The request was made by state police Superintendent Col. W. Steven Flaherty earlier this month and has been decried by Virginia House Republicans as a violation of the First Amendment and an attack on Christianity. One Republican delegate said chaplains were told they could not invoke the name of Jesus, but a state police spokeswoman denied the assertion.

To “require those troopers to disregard their own faith while serving violates their First Amendment rights and prevents them from serving effectively as chaplains,” said House Majority Leader H. Morgan Griffith, Salem Republican. “These men had little choice but to resign.”

To better understand the dispute we ought to take a look at one of the men behind it:

However, Delegate Charles W. “Bill” Carrico Sr., a former state trooper, said he has spoken with some of the chaplains, who said the colonel’s request was not put in writing and was treated as an order.

The chaplains were told that “they cannot reference the name of Jesus Christ,” said Mr. Carrico, Grayson Republican. “That’s against their beliefs and against the dictates of their conscience.”

Bill Carrico is the owner of In Jesus Name I Pray.org (registered on the 22nd to his state email address: DelCCarrico@house.state.va.us).  He serves in the Virginia House.  He recently attempted to run for the US House, and held off an aggressive challenge (and a close vote) from a Democratic challenger.  He also put forth a bill (which passed the state house and failed in the state senate) to allow religious prayer on public property:

Amends the current religious freedom provisions of the Virginia Constitution to “secure further the people’s right to acknowledge God”; to permit prayer and the recognition of “religious beliefs, heritage, and traditions on public property, including public schools”; and to prohibit the Commonwealth and its political subdivisions, including public school divisions, from composing school prayers or requiring individuals to “join in prayer or other religious activity.”

The second half being a cover.  His real concern is in pushing Christianity further into the political mainstream.  Bill Carrico believes this is a Christian Nation (emphasis mine):

Patrick Henry once said “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was not founded by religionist, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason people of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity and freedom to worship here.”

Bill has an unsurprisingly poor understanding of the consitution:

Other religions have the right to worship here, however just because they are offended by what we were founded upon doesn’t give them the right to take away our constitutional freedoms.

The separation of church and state is no where in the constitution and was a letter from Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist suggesting that the state should never be allowed to run the church.

The first ammendment to the constitution clearly reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion

Arguing this is a Christian nation runs directly counter to the spirit and letter of the first ammendment.

The dispute on its surface is an argument over whether public officials can offer demoninational prayer in an official context.  Underneath is a strategy by Dominionist politicians to paint America as a Christian nation, which serves as a political foundation for easing more theocratic laws into the books.

(One wonders how would the same chaplains react if it had been a Hindu prayer in an official context?)

Posted under News, People, Politics, Religion