Left In Lowell

And it’s not for the reasons you think. I don’t care that he’s a good Christian or that he believes wholeheartedly in an imaginary friend who’s an invisible omnipotent sky man. That’s totally his personal thing, and I am not the thought police. Of course, I reserve the right to call his God an “invisible sky man” all I want, likewise.

And his PDR (public display of religion) doesn’t bother me because I think that he thinks “God is on his side” when he plays football. It’s clear that (though his fans are another story) his faith is something deep, spiritual, and personal to him, and not to be trivialized in such a manner. He doesn’t pray to God because he wins (or loses), he prays to him to thank him for the opportunity to play. That’s cool in a way. I can respect that. He doesn’t credit God for his wins (though again his Christian fans are another story), and like most Christian types, never blames God for his losing. (That whole hypocrisy is another story for another time…)

I can even accept a public display of faith, as long as it stays away from the civic arena (as in, separation of church and state). But here’s why Tebow’s end-zone praying sessions bug the crap out of me:

If Tebow, and this extends to other Christians in similar circumstances, have a personal, deep, and spiritual non-trivial experience of God, then why the need for an excessively public show of faith at such a heightened moment? If it were truly only about his inner dialog with his deity, why not silently talk to God on his way back to the bench, or close his eyes once he gets there to hold a private conversation thanking his god for whatever it is Tebow is grateful for at that moment? I liken this need to kneel down in front of the TV cameras after a touchdown with a similar need of right wing Christians to extend prayer into schools - to make the action a visible display of religion. It is the same reason in both cases. It is a form of proselytizing, expressing your believe in an invisible friend to all onlookers, whether it’s Tebow dramatically kneeling down with his head bowed on a national network, or a school teacher who has her kids (the Christian ones anyway, while the other ones can feel left out and peer pressured) bow their heads at the beginning of class for a prayer. Of course the school prayer movement is not a perfect analogy, since I believe the separation of church and state should preclude that specific case.

So you can’t really say that Tebow’s relationship with his god is just a private, spiritual thing. A large part of his faith, via his theatrical demonstration, is meant to be public; an expression of tribalism, intended to be a showcase of ritual for the sole purpose of hoping to affect the millions of people watching a football game. I’m as inclined to be bugged by Tebow as I am by the Christians or others that come to my door every month or two. Except I can turn away the god people at my door. But when I am watching a game I care about that should have nothing to do with religion one way or the other, Tebow makes it about religion by throwing it in my face.

Ergo, while I respect his right to believe, and his right to make gestures of religion in non-governmental settings, doesn’t mean I have to respect his efforts to proselytize the entire football-watching audience. I find that not only does it do exactly the opposite of what he’s professing - that it actually trivializes his faith, in my opinion - but that by making it so public, and the endless subject of the sports and mainstream media, that he is no better than the cultists that knock on my door hoping to make another invisible-man convert.

Sure, he - and they - have a right to proselytize all they want. But let’s just be clear on what is actually going on here. When Tebow kneels in the end zone, he is not merely having a private, personal moment of faith.

Not so good when the shoe’s on the other foot, I imagine? But that’s exactly what’s going on this weekend - only, with Korans, not Bibles. It would be fitting if us atheists decided to host a Bible burning on the same day, don’t you think? No?

Universal condemnation of the Koran-burning assholes in Gainsville, FL (why, why is it always Florida?) isn’t stopping the tiny, bassackwards church and its leadership from hosting a Koran burning on 9/11. Even the fact that this will harm our troops overseas, and pleas from General Petraeus to not inflame hatred in the Muslim world with this act - not phasing them.

Here are some things that I think would be great counter-protests for the 99% of us that are still sane. Gainsville residents who don’t want to look like your entire town is filled with redneck hillbillies - you can use any of my suggestions and I don’t even need credit!

1. Hundreds of people showing up with a Koran in hand, but only to trick their way to the fire - where they throw a water bottle full of water on the flames, over and over til it’s out.

2. Hire a plane that fights fires and fill it with water, dump it over the site. Soak the lot of these bastards along with their pyre.

3. Get a fire hose (local hydrant?) and spray it into the air above the area so it falls like heavy rain, hitting the crowd and fire.

4. A few hundred people (with earplugs in place) show up to use the most annoying loud sound makers available - vuvuzelas if they can get them, air horns if not - and stand right nearby to drive the assholes away. Since they’re obviously already deaf to the pleas of the entire world, it can’t do much harm.

5. Host a book burning of the pastor’s “Islam Is of the Devil” - every copy you can get your hands on. This is a last resort, though, since it would likely require buying them up in the first place.

Your suggestions? I don’t advocate violence or vandalism, but I wouldn’t be that upset if some enterprising young person sneaked in the night before and plastered the place with obscene phallic symbols. That’s how angry this makes me. If you just can’t contain your hatred and bigotry, at least don’t do something that will endanger our troops and American civilians abroad with your actions. People are going to die because of this.

If you have a good half hour, a lot of browser tabs, and the stomach, this has got to be the most comprehensive list of Republican hypocrisies, lies, and bigotry you’ll see on the internets. You’ll need a dump truck to deliver it all to your computer…

Look, we all know underlying the debate between Dems and Republicans is a fundamental philosophical difference, points of view that can be debated. (One side, albeit, which is more supported by historic proof and facts than the other, and I mean that. If the debate was fair and honest, there would be a clear winner - the fact-based one.) However, today’s brand of Republican is less governed by their philosophy, and more by winning at any cost.

And beneath the win at any cost attitude, is a whole large segment of the Republican population (egged on, now, by their leaders) which is scared to death of losing white power. This isn’t rhetorical - the evidence is right before our eyes. It’s not even veiled any more. It’s right there, in black and white, audio and video. While there was some pretty serious opposition under, say, Clinton, the tone is entirely different now. A significant minority of the American citizenry are not afraid of a socialist takeover, they are afraid of a black or minority socialist takeover.

For a long time, this bigotry was a quietly-held belief, simmering, mostly invisible, living everywhere, but more prevalent in some regions. It bubbled silently in places where poverty and lack of education are still a problem. In states, particularly, which take more federal tax dollars than they give. Who are not productive enough economies to hold their own. And the more help they need, the more they can be played for their fears.

That simmering has come to a fierce boiling over. If anything, I think the best outcome of electing a black president is to thrust these attitudes out from the shadows. For too long, we have thought we have progressed past racism, and allowed to think that we are, mostly, above it. We’re finding out now that it is still among us.

Racism, in most cases (maybe all?), is the attempt for someone who is discontent with their own lives to blame someone else, The Other, for their problems - instead of their leaders, or themselves, their own actions. It is people in pain, distress, anger, and fear turning blame outward to answer why. It’s tribalism no matter the truth.

What I find the saddest part of this past year and the lengths the Republicans have gone to win, is the cynical way these leaders have decided to use that fear to stoke up their electoral chances. Never mind that this is a losing proposition - that they will and are tuning out the moderate middle, crucial to winning general elections. The violence being embraced by a portion of their followers is a direct result of the statements of Republican leaders, this last year, and prior, about Dems. No longer a loyal opposition, Republicans in office and in the media have decided that calling Dems treasonous, anti-American, fascist, tyrannical, and the arbiters of the death of democracy is the path to regaining a grip on power. But these leaders and media talkers are more to blame for what is happening than even the militia leaders calling for the breaking of windows or other violent acts. The words of Republican leaders are making it permissible for these actions to occur.

All this, of course, while defending one of their own regarding torture, illegal wiretaps, search and seizures, and wars on countries and peoples which have not attacked us while ignoring the ones who did.

The next decade will be very telling for Republicans. Will they do some soul searching and decide that they still want to remain a part of active American democracy, solving the problems we face with honesty and, often, a simple difference of philosophy? To call for the best in our country instead of the worst? Or will they continue to play, and pray, on the fears of many in their party, and become, at best, a permanent regional minority party?

And if they choose the second, who then will be the loyal opposition? We progressives do think that the country needs to swing leftward - I mean, today’s far Right are to the right of Attila the Hun for goodness’ sake - but we don’t want America to be a one party system. I also don’t want the conservative moderates fleeing the Republican totalitarian attitude to stretch the boundaries of what it means to be a Democrat (as has happened in Massachusetts, or with people like Sen. Spector). Come back towards sanity, Republicans, because the future of our democracy - and the nature of the debate - is at stake.

I don’t hold out a whole lot of hope right now, however. Talk to me in ten years…

(Cross-posted at BlueMassGroup)

So the elections are in and it looks like the hard-liner Israelis (as well as hard-line Palestinians) have sucessfully reaped benefits from the current rounds of conflict. This, in all likelyhood, means more lip-service to a two-state solution at the same time as settlements continue to expand. It seems to me that incentives for Palestinians to negotiate at this point are dwindling by the day. At some point they will come to the conclusion that any two-state option that Israel is willing to give isn’t one worth having. What then?

More below the fold. (more…)

Some of you might remember when the hateful Fred Phelps came to Dracut and Lowell. The best way to fight a person like this isn’t to give him the attention he craves and didn’t get from his mother as a child, but to use him to make progress instead. We raised over $600 for equality groups in MA in two counter-rallies where we asked people to give a pledge “for every minute that hate stands here.”

In other words, the longer he and his ilk stood in hate, the more money we raised for equality. Go gay agenda!

Well, now this moron is planning to come to Boston to picket the show “The Laramie Project” at the Boston Center for the Arts, and it’s time to use him like a cheap tissue once again to raise awareness - and cash! - for gay rights. Chris Mason posts at BMG that they are using the same exact idea, pledging per minute. Donations this time are for Driving Equality, an “85-day trek across America to all of the lower 48 states to advance LGBT equality.” You can pledge here.

The personal family trials of VP pick Sarah Palin should be off limits. Obviously the press has a right to report and discuss the pregnancy of her 17-year-old daughter Bristol, but hands off interviewing her, her friends and people surrounding her in a paparazzi-like frenzy.

That said, it’s still a legitimate discussion point, particularly because of Palin’s views on abstinence-only education.

Statistics (real ones, not the faked ones we get from the Bush administration) show that teens who get abstinence-only ed, instead of comprehensive sex ed (which always includes abstinence, as well as contraceptive and other alternatives) are just as likely to engage in sexual activity as their more educated counterparts, but of course less likely to know all the information that could prevent them from getting sick or pregnant.

A recent CDC report said that 1 in 4 girls has an STD (sexually transmitted disease). Another CDC report told us last year that abstinence-only was literally ineffective (information which the Bush administration tried to release as quietly as possible on a Friday).

Sadly, it seems that Sarah Palin’s daughter had become another statistic proving this point.

The right thing to do, the moral one, is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. I’m all for that. The route to do so, however, is not to lock your kids in a dark room blindfolded and hope they can trip and feel their way out on their own. I’ll say one thing - the McCain team is as opposed to real science and practical real-world solutions as the Bush administration has been. A fine legacy to take up if you ask me.

So I say let’s leave Bristol alone. However, her mother and her views on sex ed and a woman’s right to choose are totally fair game. And remember, the same right wingnuts who salivate over Palin and her family values are the ones who want to take contraceptives away - from consenting, even married, adults. Overturning Roe v Wade (which both McCain and Palin say they are for) overturns the reasoning for making bans on contraception unconstitutional.

And does anyone believe that McCain really knew about this? Of course he would say he did, even if he didn’t. “Uhhh…I meant to do that!” It’s like a comedy routine, only…it’s not funny.

All this, of course, shouldn’t overshadow Palin’s ethical troubles…which the McCain camp also says they knew about. Except they have now sent a campaign team to Alaska to, um, find out if there’s more to know. Oops!

“I give you dominion over the earth” says God in the Bible (all right, not an exact quote, I haven’t been to church since I was a teen). And this passage is often given by the Religious Right as an excuse to abuse, pollute, and otherwise exploit nature.

Talk to Action’s cyncooper puts it this way in the title to his post: “Baby Trap: Why Anti-Environmental Evangelicals are Pro-Life Hypocrites.” This subject, of course, must be discussed in the new context of the Evangelical Climate Initiative recently publicized all over the place, for which these evangelical leaders are taking a lot of flack from their own side.

By the way, I want to point out that anyone interested in the intersection of religion and politics really ought to read Talk to Action. It’s a highly intelligent cadre of writers in one place, talking about the far Right, Dominionism (if you don’t know what that is, you ought to), and how to take back the country from those who use religion to further political ends.

No really, it’s getting to that point. I can’t believe how much stupid, wasteful, hurtful, deadly, unjustified horsecrap my federal tax dollars are going to.

Where are all the goddamned conservatives who claim they are sick of seeing their tax money wasted? This is so much worse than a $200 hammer. It’s millions to big pharma for overpriced pills, billions for a deadly and unjustified war, and $500 million to anti-gay groups to “promote and strengthen opposite-sex marriage.” Here is THE quote you should read (bold mine):

Assistant Health and Human Services Secretary Wade Horn said that the financial windfall is not intended to specifically oppose same-sex marriage, although the President is a major supporter of a proposed amendment to ban gay marriage in the Constitution.

Horn said, however, that none of the money could be used to promote or support same-sex marriage in Massachusetts where gay marriage is legal.

So. Unconstitutional. I’m sputtering maledictions as I write this. This sort of cherry-picking of “causes” to fund with this faith-based initiative crap is exactly why the state should not be involved with religion.

Right now, I totally respect anyone brave enough to refuse to pay their taxes. Probably about 90% of it is going to shit with this bunch. Animals.

[Via Queer Today.]

If you’re chewing your nails waiting for election day returns tonight (go, vote, only a few hours left!), then you should tune in tonight to Frontline at 9pm on Channel 2 (WGBH). They’re going to be presenting “The Last Abortion Clinic” - a rundown on the religious right’s assault on abortion clinics, focusing on Mississippi, where there is only one abortion clinic left in the entire state.

I’m off to help maanav and the amazing technicolor UTEC crew with their get out the vote activities.

I’m going to say this one time: AMERICA, WAKE THE HELL UP.

I don’t believe in using CAPS to “shout” unless it really needs to be shouted. I’m shouting. And you should be, too.

Because this is the America in which they, the religious right minority, want you to live.

After a sexual assault one recent weekend, a young Tucson woman spent three frantic days trying to obtain the drug to prevent a pregnancy, knowing that each passing day lowered the chance the drug would work.

While calling dozens of Tucson pharmacies trying to fill a prescription for emergency contraception, she found that most did not stock the drug.

When she finally did find a pharmacy with it, she said she was told the pharmacist on duty would not dispense it because of religious and moral objections.

“I was so shocked,” said the 20-year-old woman, who, as a victim of sexual assault, is not being named by the Star. “I just did not understand how they could legally refuse to do this.”

Readers should be grateful that I’m only using mild four-letter words.

Look, I have no problem with people who are pro-life. You have your beliefs, I understand that. I have family members who are passionately against abortion as much as I am passionately for a woman’s right to choose (whether or not to have one). But abortion, and the morning after pill, is LEGAL, SAFE, and it is NOT, I repeat, NOT the place of a pharmacist to decide FOR me or my doctor, or anyone else. Not now, not ever. Not unless you change the constitution and we go back to the dark, terrible days of back-ally abortions and arresting doctors who only want to help their desperate patients. And I have news for those of you who do want to outlaw it once again: You are not the majority of people in this country. You will not, in the end, prevail.

You will hurt a lot of people by your “moralizing” from behind the counter, behind the bench, and behind the law. But mark my words: you will make no friends with your fascist-religious goals. You will, now or later, be sent back to the very fringes of political society, where you belong. I will not stop fighting until this has come to pass.

(Via AMERICAblog.)

Update: Add THIS to the outrage:

Target is claiming the 1964 Civil Rights Act gives their employees the right to do whatever they want to any customer so long as the employee claims their actions are motivated by their religion. Funny, but when we studied civil rights in law school, I don’t remember that section of the Civil Rights Act.
…
Here’s what Target is saying, then read my analysis below:
…

Target consistently ensures that prescriptions for emergency contraception are filled. As an Equal Opportunity Employer, we also are legally required to accommodate our team members’ sincerely held religious beliefs as required by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In the unusual event that a Target pharmacist’s sincerely held religious beliefs conflict with filling a guest’s prescription for emergency contraception, Target policy requires our pharmacists to take responsibility for ensuring that the guest’s prescription is filled in a timely and respectful manner. If it is not done in this manner, disciplinary action will be taken.

Now, the 1964 Civil Rights Act certainly does protect religious folks against discrimination in the workplace. But the kind of discrimination it refers to would be, for example, Target saying “we’re not going to hire Christ killers,” or, “man we hate those Baptists, none of them get promoted at Target.” Yes, that would be illegal under the ‘64 act.

But Target is now saying, outright, that the 1964 Act covers any action a Target employee takes so long as the employee claims the action is motivated by his or her religion. Though, then they turn around and say that their religious employees have no such rights at all (see further down).

By that logic, a shop owner should be able to keep a Muslim out of his store - hey, he’s part of a wacky Christian sect that says all other religions are blasphemy and thou shalt have no dealings with them. A grocery store chain owner could, if he the had a thing against those “Christ-killers,” keep Jews from shopping at his outlets. Say, one might even imagine a KKK-Christian might cease to serve blacks because he believes they are a subhuman race. And one can easily manage to use the same logic to discriminate against gays.

I mean, why not stop at a woman’s right to make her own medical choices? Why not just let everyone discriminate - so long, of course, as they can justify it with their religious beliefs.

UPDATE II: And keep in mind, folks, these people are often the same ones that will not dispense birth control methods.