Sex-offender chiropractors

Can someone please explain to me why registered sex offenders can practice (with limitations) as chiropractors, but physicians cannot?

Reader Miss Lou sent me this interesting article, saying, "Apparently if you are a sex offender in Minnesota, the state law says you can't be a physician but you can be a chiropractor. He doesn't even have to tell his patients!"

The long and the short of the article is that a chiropractor who engaged in egregious sex offenses on the clock, while practicing his trade, went to prison for 2 years, had his license revoked for 6 years, but was granted his license again – with limitations – so that he may continue to practice as a chiropractor.

This month, more than six years after revoking Fredin's license for the felony convictions, the state Board of Chiropractic Examiners granted Fredin's request to get his license back. To protect Fredin's clients, the board said he cannot treat any female patients without someone else in the room. Fredin is working in Minneapolis, but he can't treat patients until regulators approve his new location.

Why do I care? Well, because it seems that the regulations for chiropractors regarding registered sex offenders is much more lax then that of physicians and other medical care providers.

Under state law, many professionals -- including dentists, psychologists and nurses -- can't be barred from practicing after a criminal conviction as long as they can show licensing boards they were rehabilitated.

I wish I had a complete list of those who can't be barred.

However, there are no second chances at the state Board of Medical Practice, which regulates 22,000 health-care providers, including physicians, midwives and acupuncturists. In 1995, the Legislature passed a law requiring the board to yank the medical license of anyone convicted of a felony-level sexual offense.

Personally, I think that the standards of practice for chiropractic ought to be the same as the standards for any other medical profession. While I would contend that chiropractic is medicine, the field of chiropractic certainly acts like and in many cases is treated as such. I also wonder if these standards are limited to Minnesota or if one can find lax sex-offender standards for "medical" professionals in other states. Ah, to do research…

The Atheist’s Way: makes kids burn churches?

Sorry for the paucity of blog posts!

The other day I read on The Friendly Atheist and the news that there has been a recent rash of 11 church fires caused by arsonists.

This is, of course, very unfortunate. What I think is also unfortunate is the way some specific pieces of literature found in the home of the girlfriend of one of the arsonists has been handled.

Apparently much evidence was seized from the homes of the arsonists as well as the homes of anyone linked to the arsonists. One of the things seized was The Atheist's Way: Living Well Without Gods by Eric Maisel. This less than 200 page book has been the subject of news headlines everywhere: "Suspect in Texas Church Fires Reportedly Had Books on Atheism", Atheism books found in home of church fire suspect, "Atheist books indicated in charges of Arson."

Of course, my guess is that the main reason a headline might be written in this way is that it preys upon people's prejudices. Those prejudices being: Christians are good moral people and atheists are immoral, bad people. Christians (by the prejudicial definition) would never burn down a church, but atheists might. If you already think atheists are immoral, then headlines like these will only serve to reinforce your hatred and bigotry. Clearly, mentioning that an atheist book was found at the home of an arsonist is meant to lead the reader to believe that the books are linked to the aforementioned acts of arson. This is why we don't see headlines like, "Book on Cats found in home of church fire suspect" or, "Suspect in Texas church Fires Reportedly Had Bags of Ruffles."

What these headlines and most of the news stories associated with the arson do not mention is that 3 other books were also seized from linked homes.

If I were an investigator and I wanted to link a certain book to violence, I might read said books and see if any of the books advocate or promote violence.

I have a copy of The Atheist's Way, and can promise you that it does not advocate violence, arson, or anything other than upholding cherished values, and making your own ethics rather than parroting the ethics of someone else. The core of the book's moral philosophy is "expressing humanist values such as justice and fairness in a context of competing rights and interests, conflicting points of view, and complex circumstances." It advocates teaching moral philosophy to children by giving them the rare opportunity to think about ethics. I've also read about 20 books on atheism, and none of them advocate violence, arson, or the destruction of property. Ever. The only reason one might suspect that a book on atheism is linked to acts of arson can only be a matter of prejudice.

The other books, on the other hand, actually do advocate such violence. In these book, the main character – who is portrayed as someone readers should be as much like as possible, burns cities to the ground. He burns people to death. He explicitly commands that people be burned to death. The book also advocates praying that your enemies will burn to death.

If I were an investigator, I'd link the book that actually advocated setting buildings and people on fire to the arsonists rather than the book that advocates teaching children moral philosophy. 

So which book did these arsonists have three copies of? The Bible. In the bible, God burns cities, burns people, commands his followers to burn people, and advocates praying that your enemies be burned. This kind of thing just doesn't occur in an atheist book.

It makes me sad. Atheists are not bad people. They are not more likely to burn down a church than a theist. These headlines only serve to reinforce hatred towards people who are just people.

Faith Infiltration: World View Community Church, Pt 3

We're continuing our Faith Infiltration of World View Community Church, in which Flimsy and I watched a video on Sunday at a church called the 7 Mountain Mandate, led by Lance Wallnau. This is part 3 of our infiltration. Previous parts can be found here and here. You can also find more Faith Infiltrations by clicking the Faith Infiltration tab at the bottom of the page.

Today's post is particularly timely in light of the Prop 8 trials.

One of the causes that Wallnau was called by his god and in which his god "showed up" to fight is the passage of Prop 8 (the removal of laws preventing homosexual couples from having the same civil rights to marriage as heterosexual couples) in Rhode Island.

"The warfare issue is particularly important right now because there are strongholds that are not going to come down through five-fold ministry gifts, they're going to come down through the saints. And the reason is because where god is inviting us to go is someplace we've never gone –it's to the strategic recapturing of culture by the anointing of the people of god for the spheres they're assigned to have authority in, that leadership in the church for the most part does not have authority to go into. I can go speak before legislatures as I've had to do on same-sex marriage. I can sway a vote. But you know how I had to do it? I had to drop my "Pastor" title.

He goes on to say that he was called to Rhode Island to speak on the issue of gay marriage by a friend of his. He described the event as an orchestrated media event, complete with the ACLU, lawyers, protesters, a budget, a war chest, a "gay lobbyist initiative who wants to make Rhode Island the first same-sex state" with "only a handful of believers showing up". Wallnau describes his initial reaction:

"Aww man… God didn't call me to have to take on the homosexual issue. Besides, I'm not angry at anyone, I like everybody, I love 'em, I want more of 'em in my programs – my secular programs by being a Christian in a different form than they're used to anyway."

But his friend said, "Lance, it isn't like that. If you don't show up… there are Christian legislators that are saying if they don't see and hear any people with another viewpoint they have no choice". Wallnau shuffles his feet, not really wanting to be there and hoping that by the time he gets there that the room will be full. Apparently he tells himself that if his god really wants him to be there, then his god will open doors for him. He has no idea what to say, so he goes to Google and finds James Dobson's 8 points against gay marriage (Dobson has expanded this to 11 points. Guess what we're going to blog about soon!). He goes to the courthouse with his "Google talking points" and finds that the meeting room is full and the people who were not able to get into the main meeting room at the courthouse are all sitting in an adjacent room, watching the events unfold via video feed.

But wait! He has another friend at the courthouse who sneaks him into the courtroom and finds a seat for him -the seat of a guy who happened to get up to speak, leaving a chair empty. Wallnau is shoved into the empty seat. He describes how he sat there and watched as the other guy finished speaking, went to sit, and couldn't find his seat - because Wallnau took it. His friend then manages to get his name put on the list of people signed in.

Wallnau goes onto to explain what he observed while sitting in his stolen seat. He says that Christians do not understand how power works and that no one was listening to the Christians or reverends – even the Unitarian reverends who are endorsing gay marriage. He describes the senators as "checking out" whenever a Christian got up to speak. Huh? I thought his friend described the scene as having so few believers that legislators would have no choice but to support civil rights for same-sex couples. Instead, the legislators are apparently just ignoring all the believers. Interesting…

"In the social capital of influence, that means every sphere has a currency and you gotta know the currency of that sphere – you can't just go in with your currency… In the political sphere they like professors, they like any businessperson who looks like a big donor. They like people with a constituency that can influence their election. So I did a quick makeover. Because I noticed that they were knocking off those Christians fast. One woman in particular, her response to the legislatures was almost like cross-prosecuting. So I listened to all of her arguments because I was going last, so I prepared well… I readjusted my 'Google points' to go on the assault against her."

"This is what the lord told me to do. He said, 'Don't tell 'em you're a pastor. Practice social capital. Go in and out of their world where they are.'"

"Now it just so happens that our church had the largest daycare in the state of Rhode Island, of which I am – by virtue of my role as a pastor – the uh, official president of the daycare. I also know I figured calculating-wise that we had at least, oh, a number of graduates that come through our daycare– a hundred a year, two hundred and we've been doing it for ten years – I figured I represented 10,000 radiuses of people that had family members in our little Rhode Island area because we had the largest daycare, so I sat down and said:

"'thank you very much. I realize it's very late and I appreciate your patience. I think I'm the last person so I'll make this really quick. First of all, as you look at me I want you to realize that I represent 10,000 people who vote for you. I am the president of a large daycare in the state of Rhode Island.'

"All of 'em leaned in like 'okay we got somebody now where's he going' and I proceeded to do the talking points. I had no idea how inflammatory the rhetoric of some of these talking points is. As I hit the fact that there is no statistical evidence to support the fact that same-sex marriage is going to be helpful but I have evidence from the Danish experiment which says that divorce has gone up 65%... Are we a culture that can endure reducing the status of our children to lab-rats in a vast sociologic untried experiment? At which point lesbians in the back shrieked in manifestations. I'm serious. They were screaming… they were freaking out that I was referring to kids that they wanted to adopt as lab-rats. I had no idea the words would have that kind of power.

"I saw smiles on the faces of all the legislatures that looked at me and said, 'that was sufficient'… you should know that it is 65%. Though you should know that at least 62% of most statistics quoted in public are spontaneous… 65 sounded good to me.. As I'm walking out the corridor…a legislature was saying 'put that in the [news] paper'. I gave them the talking points to go in and vote it down by a margin of 2 votes… I didn't even know what I was talking about. But I had Google and a cause. That was all I needed.

Wallnau's ultimate point is this:

I made the adjustment… If believers would think in terms of social capital, If we would start to raise up the next generation to link anointing, revival, the supernatural and the prophetic with the invasion of culture in spheres they have a passion for through the acquisition of social capital, we could take a nation within a generation. It will not come by the methodologies that we have assumed would work in the past. I am a little freaked out that there is no consensus on this within the body of Christ, that there will even be a debate over it. But this is the way power works and we are naive if we do not understand it.

Be wise as a serpent! Did he say serpent? Well I am glad Jesus said it because I wouldn't want to put it that way. Be shrewd as the devil and as innocent in motive as a lamb. Be wise in the adaptation of means to ends.

I chair the Fringe Science Committee of the Skeptical Society of St. Louis and am assistant organizer of the St. Louis Atheists – these groups have about 500 members between them. I have had over one hundred thousand unique visitors to my blog since it started. Wallnau claiming that he represents ten thousand voters is equivalent to me saying that I, Ziztur, am vice-president of a large nonprofit science organization and represent half a million voters. The population of the city in which his church is located is only 79 thousand! 

I don't represent half a million voters. I'm not vice-president of a large nonprofit science organization. To say as much would be a lie. Yet here we have someone basically bragging (it might be a touch difficult to read "bragging" into this without the audio) that he loves gays, so he snuck in to a courtroom with statistics pulled off the ever-accurate Google, lied about who he represented, gave statistics that by his own admission he had not verified as accurate because of the hasty way in which he had found them, and made a really ridiculous argument all in the name of preventing the homosexuals he loves so much from having equal civil rights. He did this, and then takes credit for swinging a vote in favor of his position. He tells his nodding audience that they should invade culture. Not because they have the facts on their side, but because their god has anointed them.

The "lesbian screaming" comment I find quite hateful. How did he know they were lesbians? He doesn't. He uses the term in order to be derogatory and to dismiss people for having a legitimate emotional expression to what is probably the most inane argument against civil rights I have ever heard.

Saying that if we do social change X, we are treating children like lab-rats is not an argument against social change X, because it can be used as an argument against any social change. What, abolish slavery? Well then we'd be treating our kids like lab rats! Desegregate schools? Why would we treat our kids like lab rats? De-institutionalize kids with disabilities and integrate them into the classroom? Our kids would be lab-rats! Stop performing female circumcision on young girls? We don't know the consequences of that vast sociologic untried experiment!

What if we lived in a society in which people were not allowed to marry or adopt children if the couple had different religious beliefs? Would Christians shriek and scream if someone argued that we should deny them the right to adopt because if we did, we'd be treating children like lab rats? The people in the audience shrieked and screamed because Wallnau's lab-rat comment was hateful, bigoted and discriminatory. He is saying that we should deny people civil rights because we don't fully know the consequences of granting them. We've never fully known the consequences of granting people civil rights until we've already done it. This is coming from the same guy who claims that all legitimate liberation of people and nations is due to prayer – yet he is actively fighting to withhold liberation and making an argument that could be made by anyone who intends to deny rights to people.

Believing that you've been anointed by god to take nations is an echo of the crusades and every single act of religious warfare throughout history. If you're anointed, then there is no argument – no room for rational discussion, no room for evidence, no room for critical thinking, no room to question that you might be wrong. You've effectively shut down and dehumanized your opponents. Believing you are anointed gives you the ability to rationalize away oppression, tyranny, or taking people's lives and freedoms.

This is why atheists and nonbelievers stand up to religion. This is why we care about your belief in god. We have seen people's lives and freedoms stamped out in the name of religion long enough.

I can't find this Danish study that supposedly shows the divorce rate has gone up 65%. I can, however, actually fact-check rather than just saying, "hey, this sounds good for my position, so who cares if it is true!". Divorce rates are higher in states that ban gay marriage. Marriage has increased while divorce has decreased in Scandinavia. Wallnau's agenda and belief system is more important than actual facts.

The last point that Wallnau makes is that he has not actually given people the complete key to seeing "obscene amounts of wealth". In order to see this wealth we have to understand that

"God wants to give Jesus his inheritance. Because Jesus died for more than souls. He died for nations. The actual assignment is to go make disciples of nations… Jesus is going to have nations given to him and god the father is going to bankroll the enterprises of people who give his son what he wants him to get. God is going to bankroll enterprises for those who are engaged in giving Jesus his inheritance. God is going to bankroll the enterprises of those people and organizations who make it their mission to give god what he wants – and he wants his son to have his inheritance!"

As Flimsy and I are sitting her watching this presentation, I wrote, "War Room" in my notebook and showed it to Flimsy. He nodded. I felt like a spy. We're the other side. We're the culture that this man is advocating invading and taking with lies and deception. I cannot say for sure what exactly the congregants at this church thought of this presentation, but I can only assume – given that no objections were raised – that they largely agree. There was some talk afterward about social capital and how to get people on the "outside" to listen, and taking on only one wrong in the world at a time instead of all of them. Taking on one problem instead of many is great advice. Utilizing social capital is also good advice. Using lies and deception is not. good. advice.

I can tell you now that using lies and deception, coupled with a fervent insistence that you've been anointed to invade and destroy the culture so that you can be rewarded with "obscene wealth" by god himself when you give Jesus his "inheritance" isn't going to work. When people lie, we do not trust those people. When people advocate infringing on the rights of others while simultaneously undermining fact and science, we will call those people out.

I can understand wanting to change the world. The world is a screwed up place, and it needs to be changed. I also agree that one needs to understand how to speak the language of the opposing side. But "speaking the language" does not mean failing to check your facts or being deceptive. If you need to resort to actively ignoring facts, perhaps you're fighting for the wrong side. Can you imagine what it would be like if we held private atheist meetings in which we advocated telling legislators that married Christian couples were 79% more likely to shoot their children than atheists or homosexual couples? What if we advocated toying with facts to promote our agenda? We'd be rightfully called evil and immoral. I've always said that people can believe whatever they want so long as they are not infringing on the rights of others or undermining science. Wallnau is doing both.

Even though I absolutely do not agree with the material presented on the DVD, I still have to thank the folks at World View Community Church for being nice and allowing a couple of atheists to spend a few hours as spies in their war room. I have to wonder what they thought of us being there. Usually I like to believe that Christians and atheists in a way want the same things out of life, but I am not sure if that is true in this case. Regardless, we appreciate the chance to engage in dialogue.

Progress and Bigotry

So President Obama has appointed Amanda Simpson to the position of senior technical adviser for the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security.  She's also transgendered.  You can just imagine how violently right-wingers and evangelicals are filling their pants over this.

There's the real fringe nutjobs, like the folks at WorldNetDaily, who pointedly refer to Simpson as a "he" throughout the entire article, or this nugget of enlightened wisdom from Pamela Geller at the hilarious blog Atlas Shrugs;

Does Obama know anyone who isn't wacky, radical, militant, judeophobic, socialist, marxist, pedophilic? ...... Does he chill with anyone who is normal? Isn't there one Marilyn Munster in the family? What a freak show this presidency is.

David Brody at Christian Broadcasting Network chimed in:

The transgender thing doesn't play well with millions of conservative Evangelicals. Sorry if Biblical absolutes offend you or are so "1950 ish" but don't think conservative Evangelicals are apologizing for it.

Then there's the big players, who refuse to be out-bigoted.   Focus on the Family released an article that consists almost entirely of statements by Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth, and Matt Barber, associate dean at Liberty University:

"We should consider what transgender activism is about," he (LaBarbera) said," which is essentially recognizing civil rights based on gender confusion."

"This isn't like appointing an African-American in order to try to provide diversity and right some kind of discriminatory wrong," he (Barber) said.  "This is about political correctness."

I caught a portion of Laura Ingraham's show just the other day, on Tuesday, Jan. 5th.  She ranted about Simpson's appointment for a solid twenty minutes, with two main points.  Firstly, that she's sick and tired of our deep need to shove our opinions and lifestyles down her throat (this from a woman who literally gets paid to rant about her opinion on the radio and had just discussed how we need to worship Jesus in our schools more).  Secondly, she echoed some of the religious right named above in basically claiming that Simpson was only selected because the Obama administration is pandering to the left.

Obviously, I take issue with these folks.  It's entirely possible to discuss this appointment along the lines of, "Hm.  Transgender person.  Appointed directly by the President.  Very interesting."  That is obviously NOT what the above talking heads are doing; they are specifically saying that she is a Bad Choice.  It's very simple:  A rational discussion of this appointment might bring up her experience, or her politics.  If one is going to avoid being a completely bigoted fuck, the one, single issue that will be completely immaterial to your criticism of her is the fact that she happened to have been born with a penis.

Now, I'll bet you readers can never guess, but what's the single unifying theme of EVERY SINGLE criticism of Simpson that I've read or heard?  That's right - all of the above quoted column, articles, and radio shows, as well as all the others you can read online that I've seen, every one of them completely ignores whether she would be good for the job based on her experience.

Not one of them has tried to argue, in even the most superficial way, that she isn't well-qualified for the position.  She has worked for 30 years with Raytheon Missile Systems, a defense contractor company, as a test pilot, and her degrees include an MBA from the University of Arizona, Master of Science in Engineering from the California State University, Northridge, Bachelor of Science in Physics from the Harvey Mudd College.  She has some limited experience in politics as well, having run unsuccessfully for Representative of District 26 in the Arizona House of Representatives in 2004.  So yeah, she's qualified.

It's very simple.  You absolutely cannot claim that a person is not qualified for a job, and that they were only hired as a superficial political gesture, if you don't even bother to discuss that person's qualifications.  How can the miss something so painfully obvious?  If you whine and bitch about a person getting tapped for an appointment entirely and exclusively on the basis of then being transgendered, you are a bigot.

In which the irony burns my eyes

Did you know there is such an organization as the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission?

On January 4^th, the CADC released a list of "top ten incidents of anti-Christian defamation, bigotry and discrimination in the US from last year". Over at the Ethical Hedonist, this list was quickly researched and exposed for all it was worth in such a way as to actually bring a literal tear to my eye. If these are the top ten worst examples of bigotry, defamation, and discrimination, they need to honestly get out into the world of non-Christianity, where most of us face real bigotry, discrimination and defamation.

Real quick, here are some definitions:

Defamation: the communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business, product, group, government or nation a negative image.

Bigotry: Being irrationally, obstinately intolerantly devoted to one's own opinions and prejudices.

Discrimination: Negative treatment, exclusion, or rejection toward or against a person or group based on class or category.

Here's the list:

10. Pro-life Pastor Reverend Walter Hoye of Oakland, CA was jailed for exercising peaceful, pro-life speech.

As the Ethical Hedonist pointed out, Hoye was jailed for violating an ordinance that barred protesters from coming within 8 feet of anyone entering into an abortion clinic. He was not jailed for pro-life speech. Jailing someone for breaking the law is not an example of defamation, bigotry, or discrimination.Unless one wants to claim that the law is discriminatory.

9. Rev. Fred Winters was murdered while preaching in his pulpit in Maryville, Illinois.

Winters (who Flimsy and I both knew personally) was murdered, and the man responsible was mentally ill. His motivations have not been established, but we do know that he walked into a church and killed someone. This was a terrible crime, but because we do not know his motivations, it is wrong to jump to conclusions about said motivation.

Also note that the death of Pastor Fred is a mere #9 on the list. Pay close attention to the incidents that follow, remembering that these incidents are considered by the readers of the CADC to be worse than a man being killed while preaching. I wonder if the CADC would consider the murder of an atheist by his Christian roommate because he was an atheist an example of bigotry. I hope so, because the evidence of bigotry is very clear on that case.

8. HBO's program "Curb Your Enthusiasm" aired an episode where the main actor urinates on painting of Jesus. When confronted HBO would not apologize.

The main actor did not urinate on a picture of Jesus. The main actor pretended to urinate in a toilet, and a painting was pretend splashed with a (presumably pretend) drop of urine. The next few scenes played off the fact that something "terrible" happened to a depiction of a holy figure. This is hardly an example of defamation, bigotry or discrimination. Also, this is supposed to be worse than a man, a real man with a family and children, being shot and killed? Imagine for a moment that Pastor Fred is your son, your dad, your husband, your pastor, or your friend. Now imagine that a religious group thinks that a comedy sketch in which an actor pretends to get a pretend drop of urine on a picture of their holy figure is worse than the senseless death of a living, breathing human being. If anything, this is an example of CADC being bigots. This is a perfect example of one being irrationally, obstinately intolerantly devoted to one's own opinions and prejudices.

7. The overt homosexual participation in Obama's presidential inaugural events by "Bishop" Vickie Eugene Robinson, the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington D. C., and a homosexual marching band.

The irony is burning my eyes. Gene Robinson is a bishop. CADC is so bigoted toward any religious views other than their own that they think it is an attack on them when a Christian bishop who happens to be gay is INCLUDED IN AN INAUGURAL EVENT alongside other Christians like Rick Warren. Read: any example of not being exclusive to their specific type of Christianity is bigoted, defamatory and discriminatory towards Christians. CADC is so bigoted and discriminatory that they have the audacity to put Bishop in quotes, as if to say he isn't a real bishop. Also: being inclusive and having homosexuals involved in inaugural events is more discriminatory, bigoted and defamatory than a pastor being shot and killed?

6. Police called to East Jessamine Middle School in Lexington, Kentucky to stop 8th graders from praying during their lunch break for a student whose mother was tragically killed.

This is one that the Ethical Hedonist couldn't verify as true.

5. Pro-life activist Jim Pullion was murdered in front of his granddaughter's high school for showing the truth about abortion.

This is the same sort of situation as above: he was murdered by a mentally unstable individual. The individual murdered him not for being Christian, but for displaying pictures of aborted fetuses. So was he killed for being a Christian, or for displaying gory pictures to schoolchildren? Would the killer have left him alone if he was a pro-life atheist, showing pictures of aborted fetuses? I think this has much less to do with Christianity and more to do with a mentally unstable man offended by gory pictures being shown to children. I mean, could we show schoolchildren pictures of the "truth about circumcision" or "the truth about genital warts" or "the truth about Muslims killing nonbelievers" and then claim we're being discriminated against when people make us take the pictures down by lethal force?

4. An activist judge ordered a home school mom in New Hampshire to stop home schooling her daughter because the little girl "reflected too strongly" her mother's Christian faith.
When people get divorced, they often write up a legal document, underlining the contractual obligations of the divorce. In this case, as part of the custody agreement, the mother agreed to not homeschool her child, because the mother and the father disagreed over whether or not the child should be homeschooled. The mother homeschooled her child anyway, violating the custody agreement. I bet if the situation were reversed: if the mother agreed to homeschool her child per the father's wishes and then turned around and sent the kid to a public school, the CADC outcry would be identical. This is not an example of bigotry, discrimination or defamation – it is a legal battle between parents who have opposing wishes as to how their child should be cared for after divorce, with one parent going against the custody agreement who just happened to be Christian. I wonder what they would say if it were the case that dad wanted his kid to go to church every Sunday and mom decided not to take her.

…and this is worse than a pastor being killed?

3. The Federal Department of Homeland Security issued a report entitled "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate" that labeled conservative Christians extremists and potential terrorists.

Not really. I'm just going to quote Ethical Hedonist on this one:

Oh Jesus Tapdancing Christ, not this again. The document is talking about groups like Stormfront and other white supremacist groups.  In fact, in a quick search of the document, all I found was the following sentence:

"These teachings also have been linked with the radicalization of domestic extremist individuals and groups in the past, such as violent Christian Identity organizations and extremist members of the militia movement."

Christian Identity, for those not in the know, is a loosely affiliated group of white supremacist and white nationalist organizations and has nothing to do with anything most people would consider Christian.

…and this is worse than a pastor being killed?

2. President Obama's appointment of radical anti-Christians like homosexual activist Kevin Jennings as the "safe school czar;" pro-abortion advocate Kathleen Seblius made Secretary of Human and Health Services, and Chai Feldblum, pro-homosexual and anti-religious liberty judge nominated for Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Yup. Inclusion of anyone with an opinion other than the opinion held by the CADC is apparently discrimination, bigotry and defamation of Christianity. I guess we should exclude all of these people from holding positions in the government because they have an opinion or a stance that differs, lest we defame the Christians. If you're not specifically aligned with their opinions, you're bigoted. Oh, you're gay and Christian? Well fuck you, say the CADC readers.

Sorry, but believing that the appointing of people who happen to disagree with your specific version of reality is an attack on you is textbook bigot. It's also textbook discrimination. Oh, and it's pretty defamatory to claim that someone is a bigot when they aren't.

…and this is worse than a pastor being killed?

1. The Federal Hate Crimes Bill that attack religious liberty and freedom of speech. For the first time in our history ministers are vulnerable to investigation and prosecution for telling the truth about homosexuality.

No, they're "vulnerable to investigation and prosecution" if they actually commit acts of violence toward people. You do not have the religious liberty to commit violent crimes against people!

The CADC readers have gone so far as to say the number one incident of "anti-Christian defamation, bigotry and discrimination" is that people who commit hate crimes are criminally liable for hate crimes, and that in addition to crimes against Christians because they are Christians falling under the definition of "hate crime", crimes against homosexuals because they are homosexuals also fall under that definition. Here is the actual text of the document that they find so discriminatory, bigoted and defamatory:


OFFENSES INVOLVING ACTUAL OR PERCEIVED RACE, COLOR, RELIGION, OR NATIONAL ORIGIN.— Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, willfully causes bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, a dangerous weapon, or an explosive or incendiary device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin of any person—

(1) IN GENERAL.— Nothing in this division shall be construed to allow a court, in any criminal trial for an offense described under this division or an amendment made by this division, in the absence of a stipulation by the parties, to admit evidence of speech, beliefs, association, group membership, or expressive conduct unless that evidence is relevant and admissible under the Federal Rules of Evidence. Nothing in this division is intended to affect the existing rules of evidence.

(2) VIOLENT ACTS.— This division applies to violent acts motivated by actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of a victim.

(3) CONSTRUCTION AND APPLICATION.— Nothing in this division, or an amendment made by this division, shall be construed or applied in a manner that infringes any rights under the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Nor shall anything in this division, or an amendment made by this division, be construed or applied in a manner that substantially burdens a person's exercise of religion (regardless of whether compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief), speech, expression, or association, unless the Government demonstrates that application of the burden to the person is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest, if such exercise of religion, speech, expression, or association was not intended to— (A) plan or prepare for an act of physical violence; or (B) incite an imminent act of physical violence against another.


Really. Their number one concern about the past year is that violent crimes specifically perpetuated due to hatred toward the victim's actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability carry a stronger penalty than violent crimes not perpetuated due to these factors. This is coming, let me remind you, from a group of people who claim to have the moral high ground. If they could prove that the two murders above were due to hatred toward Christians, than those people would be prosecuted for hate crimes.

The CADC of course asks: "If these are not bona fide examples of persecution, than I wonder what more it might take?"

They aren't. They are bona fide examples of Christian bigotry.

Drug_Use_Take_Care.pdf

Fox news and just about everyone in the world is flipping out over this 16 page pamphlet paid for by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene that reportedly offers "information on how to prepare drugs carefully and care for veins to avoid infection." They are flipping out, of course, because the perceive the pamphlet to be "heroin for dummies", describing it as "step-by- step instruction on how to inject a poison". Critics say it implies that there are "safer" ways to inject heroin and enables drug users to use more drugs.

As with all things, it is important not to listen to the local talking heads, to purge yourself of their opinions, and take a look at the pamphlet yourself with the most objective eyes possible. Unfortunately, New York has made that rather difficult, by removing the link to the online .PDF of the pamphlet. That's okay though, because I saved a copy, so you can download drug_use_take_care.pdf here.

The drug use take care pamphlet is titled "Take Charge Take Care" and is subtitled, "10 tips for safer use". Bloggers and reporters everywhere are specifically mentioning the "cartoony" images and simple language, as if to imply that this manual is a how to manual for young people or children. In reality, almost all community health pamphlets are structured in this way, so that they are understood by as many people as possible. Take, for example, the pamphlets on STD's you find inside the patient rooms during visits to the doctor.

The very first page of this pamphlet says, in large friendly letters that one can get help and support to stop using drugs at any time day or night, and lists a phone number. The second page has a list of the 10 steps for safer use:

1. Prevent overdose
   
2. Treat overdose
   
3. Don't share
   
4. Use new syringes
   
5. Prepare drugs carefully
   
6. Take care of your veins
   
7. Know your HIV status
   
8. Get tested and treated for hepatitis
   
9. Get help for depression
   
10. Ask for help to stop using
    

Now, perhaps it would have been prudent to order these slightly differently, so that the overall outline of the pamphlet was something more like, "okay dude. We really want you to stop using heroin because it is very bad for you and can kill you. Heroin use is never safe and never a good idea. But you clearly have an addiction and can't just stop right away. We really don't want you to spread hepatitis or HIV around or die, so for the love of humanity, would you please prevent an overdose, use new syringes, and stop using watered-down soda in an old cup you found to dilute your drugs, kay?"

The next page is nothing to scoff at – basically, it explains that you should not use drugs alone, you should know your tolerance levels, and not mix drugs. The page after that explains how to recognize and treat an overdose – something we all should know how to do. The page s after this details pt 4. Tip 5 is the tip people are up in arms about – it gives some somewhat specific directions on how to safely prepare drugs.

I'd like to state here that I have not, nor will ever try heroin, but I do know how to give injections, I have spent some time giving people body piercings, and I am quite familiar with all sorts of hospital and medical precautions, including surgical precautions. I learned how to install any plumbing fixture you can name using a book, taught myself how to do electrical work on houses using online diagrams, and can diagnose and fix problems with my car using deductive reasoning and a Haynes manual. If someone handed me a nice, complete get-high kit, some heroin, and this pamphlet, I wouldn't know how to prepare it, and this pamphlet does not tell me. It is clearly for experienced users. If I can't figure out how to shoot heroin using this pamphlet and my fancy medical degree and ability to fix houses and cars practically in my sleep, then how can this be construed as a "how-to" guide or "heroin for dummies"?

The next page gives information on how to take care of your veins. A lot of it is in slang language: "Only 'boot' once or twice in one shot" – what?

The other pages are all about knowing your HIV status, getting tested for diseases, getting help for depression, and getting help to stop using.

Though the media is portraying this pamphlet as teaching people how to use drugs, it doesn't do that. The bulk of the information presented is geared toward stopping, but it is written in a non judgmental manner. I know it feels like the right thing to do to be judgmental and tell people that doing drugs is bad and that they should stop, but the reality is that this matter of fact, non-biased approach opens the door for people to consider quitting – if you just preach at them that their drug habit is wrong and will kill them, they are likely to shut down.

So, is this a manual for heroin use? No. Could it have been worded differently? Probably. I think it is far more likely to save the life of a user than to get someone to start using, or to make someone believe that using is safe.

It is also worth noting that this pamphlet has been around since 2007. I have to wonder why people are only noticing it now.

3H1P: Death Penalty

3H1P is a blogging project wherein three heathens (Ziztur, Flimsy and Petter) and one pastor (Keith) answer questions posed by readers of the blog and discuss various issues related to religion, philosophy, science, etc. If you have a question that you'd like to see answered by 3H1P, ask it in the comment box. We promise we'll probably get to it. The following comment is asked by David B. Ellis, a long time reader/commenter of this blog, who apparently has 3 blogs of his own. It is answered (sort of) by Ziztur.

1. Do you advocate the death penalty? Why or why not?

    -David B. Ellis

First, let's talk about what exactly the death penalty is, in the context of United States law:

In the US, federal policy reserves capital punishment for murder, treason or espionage. Of the 38 states that allow capital punishment, it is done primarily for murder of varying severities. I don't think people should die because they've committed an act of treason or espionage, and the reasons behind why someone might commit treason or espionage may or may not be moral (think of committing treason against the Nazi party…), so I'll focus on capital punishment for murder, and ignore the other reasons for capital punishment for now.

Here are some of the common justifications for advocating the death penalty for murder:

1. The death penalty serves as a deterrent to crime.
   

Bullshit. States without the death penalty have constantly lower murder rates. Clearly people are not being deterred.

1. It improves the community by making sure that convicted criminals do not offend again.
   

Bullshit. There are other ways of doing that which do not involve killing people.

1. It provides closure to surviving victims or loved ones.
   

Bullshit. "Closure" is not a commodity that should be purchased with death. Really. If someone murdered Flimsy in his sleep, I would surely want them to die. But this is an emotional reaction and not a rational reaction.

1. And eye for an eye is just.
   

Maybe. I don't find this argument very compelling either. Without even arguing for whether or not "eye for eye" is just or not, one can point out that coupling the permanence of death the with capacity for humans to make mistakes, there is a very real possibility that we may, in the course of convicting someone and sentencing them to death, wrongly kill someone. If we take the life of someone, we've taken all that they have away from them, forever. Personally, I think that a life in prison is a worse fate than death.

1. It's expensive to keep people in prison forever. It therefore costs less to eliminate murderers from society.
   

One could argue that it's not.

So basically, I do not find the arguments for the death penalty compelling, and so I do not advocate the death penalty.

Pinning down this MLK guy.

So, Martin Luther King Jr.  The name alone conjures up images of grand ideas, pivotal history, and notions of all that is best in the United States of America.  When Christians want an example of a fellow follower of Jesus that fought bravely for noble causes, it's just a matter of time until you hear MLK's name.  In this respect, he's squarely in the category of the legendary "founding fathers" of the U.S.A. as a valuable name to claim for "our side."  It seems like everyone wants those rare, awe-inspiring names that other people respect to share their own opinions on big, important questions, as if their worldview is somehow vindicated by the agreement of a long-dead historical figure.

Can we atheists claim MLK as one of our own?  We can't claim Thomas Paine; he was a deist.  Similarly, can't claim Thomas Jefferson.  Susan B. Anthony is debatable.  We could make a case for Charles Darwin or Albert Einstein, but, c'mon, they're scientists; of course they're awesome.

The answer, obviously, is no, no we can't.  MLK was clearly a theist; he was a reverend, for Pete's sake.  He claimed Christianity.  That's not necessarily the end of the question, though.

In 1949, MLK wrote a paper titled, "What Experiences of Christians Living is the Early Christian Century Led to the Christian Doctrines of the Divine Sonship of Jesus, the Virgin Birth, and the Bodily Resurrection."  Quite the explanatory title, eh?  Many believers would be shocked at the statements in it:

Although we may be able to argue with all degrees of logic that these doctrines are historically and philolophically untenable*, yet we can never undermind the foundation on which they are based.

The first doctrine of our discussion which deals with the divine sonship of Jesus went through a great process of developement . . . How then did this doctrine of divine sonship come into being? . . . We may find a partial clue to the actual rise of this doctrine in the spreading of Christianity into the Greco-Roman world. . . . Through philosophical thinking the Greeks came to the point of subordinating, distrusting, and even minimizing anything physical. Anything that possessed flesh was always underminded in Greek thought. And so in order to receive inspiration from Jesus the Greeks had to apotheosize him.

(Regarding the virgin birth) First we must admit that the evidence for the tenability of this doctrine is to shallow to convince any objective thinker. To begin with, the earliest written documents in the New Testament make no mention of the virgin birth. Moreover, the Gospel of Mark, the most primitive and authentic of the four, gives not the slightest suggestion of the virgin birth. The effort to justify this doctrine on the grounds that it was predicted by the prophet Isaiah is immediately eliminated, for all New Testament scholars agree that the word virgin is not found in the Hebrew original, but only in the Greek text which is a mistranslation of the Hebrew word for "young woman." How then did this doctrine arise? A clue to this inquiry may be found in a sentence from St. Justin's First Apology. Here Justin states that the birth of Jesus is quite similar to the birth of the sons of Zeus. It was believed in Greek thought that an extraordinary person could only be explained by saying that he had a father who was more than human. It is probable that this Greek idea influenced Christian thought.

The last doctrine in our discussion deals with the resurrection story. This doctrine, upon which the Easter Faith rests, symbolizes the ultimate Christian conviction: that Christ conquered death. From a literary, historical, and philosophical point of view this doctrine raises many questions. In fact the external evidence for the authenticity of this doctrine is found wanting."

In each case, MLK ultimately concludes that there is a significant underlying spiritual reality behind each of these seemingly irrational doctrines, so we certainly have no basis for insisting that he was not a Christian . . .

Unless, of course, we were fundamentalist Christians.  I'd wager that a good number of Christians of a more traditional, literalistic bent would not hesitate to declare that if you don't believe in Jesus' literal virgin birth, divinity, and resurrection, you cannot be a Christian.  I strongly disagree; I think we could even potentially make an argument for the existence of an atheist Christian who does not believe in a literal god but who advocates and upholds the teachings of Jesus in every other way, to the exclusion of all others.  It's strange, I think that it's pretty irrational, I'd argue about one of those conclusions for a good long time, but I don't think that the concepts of 'atheist; and 'Christian' must necessarily be mutually exclusive in the way that 'atheist' and, for example, 'theist' are.

Again, if we are going to include the acceptance of specific supernatural assertions as being necessary to consider oneself a Christian, we wouldn't have to go far to exclude MLK.

Another paper, again from 1949, describes what MLK considers to be "fundamentalism," of which he does not speak highly, to say the least.  Particular attention should be paid to the last paragraph:

When the fundamentalist comes to the nature of man he finds all of his answers in the Bible. The story of man in the garden of Eden gives a conclusive answer. Man was created by a direct act of God. Moreover, he was created in the image of God, but through the workings of the devil man {was} lead into disobedience. Then began all human ills: hardship and labor, the agony of childbirth, hatred, sorrow, suffering, and death. The fundamentalist is quite aware of the fact that scholars regard the garden of Eden and the serpent Satan and the hell of fire as myths analogous to those found in other oriental religions. He knows also that his beliefs are the center of redicule by many. But this does not shake his faith--rather it convinces him more of the existence of the devil. The critics, says the fundamentalist, would never indulge in such skeptical thinking if the devil hadn't influenced them. The fundamentalist is convinced that this skepticism of scholars and cheap humor of the laity can by no means prevent the revelation of God.

Others doctrines such as a supernatural plan of salvation, the Trinity, the substitutionary theory of the atonement, and the second coming of Christ are all quite prominant in fundamentalist thinking. Such are the views of the fundamentalist and they reveal that he is oppose to theological adaptation to social and cultural change. He sees a progressive scientific age as a retrogressive spiritual age. Amid change all around he was {is} willing to preserve certain ancient ideas even though they are contrary to science.

Again, as far as I'm concerned, MLK claimed Christianity, so he's a Christian.  Still, how many Christians would read that last paragraph and conclude that the author could not possibly be a "believer"?

Moreover, MLK obviously had a thing for ethics and social justice, for which he is rightly known.  In all his writings, he basically never appeals to the Bible or the direct will of God for his moral position.  In "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," he explains his opinion of the morality of the "Natural Law," but then he immediately defines the Natural Law in explicitly humanistic terms:

An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.

He goes on to give and explain examples of specific injustices wrought by segregation.  True, the "Natural Law" is traditionally understood as a theistic morality, but MLK defines it completely differently.

So MLK was indeed a Christian.  He claimed Christianity.  We can't claim him for the atheist camp.  We can, however, claim him as a liberal.  We can certainly claim him, perhaps most importantly, as a skeptic and a humanist.

Strawman for climategate?

I've got one (1) week of my internship left and then I graduate! This means that I will have more time to blog. It also means I will be looking for some type of gainful employment. That aside…

The other day I was listening to the local Christian radio station. Someone on air was talking about "Climategate", the incident in which climate scientists' emails were hacks and posted on the internet, revealing that scientists use words like "trick" and "hide" and that those words can be usurped as the smoking gun that global warming is a myth.

On this program, the radio personality (unfortunately, I forget who) actually made the argument that there was no way humans could fuck up the earth because god made the earth for us to use, and we can't expect to be such a powerful force as to muck up god's great planet. Therefore, global warming is a myth invented by power-hungry scientists who are trying to elevate themselves to godly levels because they crave power and the ability to control others.

…

Yes, they actually made that argument. Here I was thinking that said argument was nothing more than an absurd strawman invented by critical thinkers to mock believers. Apparently I was giving some people too much credit.

The Manhattan Declaration; Part 6

Wrapping up the Manhattan Declaration, with their arguments (a term I use very loosely indeed, here) and examples of the religious freedom of Christians being infringed upon:

"We see this, for example, in the effort to weaken or eliminate conscience clauses . . ."


Easy answer - if you don't want to do work of a given type (because of moral or religious objection or any other reason) then don't take the job.  I'm always entertained by how they only ever think of Christian doctors whose job involves women who might get abortions or need contraception, or Christian organizations who might not get to discriminate against homosexual couples, or some such bit of Christian fundamentalist dogma.  There are a million examples of other beliefs that are just grossly violated if somebody, for some idiotic reason, takes a job that involves things that they believe to be immoral.  What about a vegan who takes a job at a meat-packing plant?  What about a pacifist who joins the military?  There are even some kookier fringe believers who believe that blood transfusions are a sin; should hospitals and other health care businesses and organizations be forced to hire these folks and permit them to refuse to administer such procedures?


"We see it in the use of antidiscrimination statutes to force religious institutions, businesses, and service providers of various sorts to comply with activities they judge to be deeply immoral or go out of business."

This is an old question - how much discrimination should the government forcibly forbid?  Well, I would just ask the supporters and signers of the MD:  Would you be okay with businesses or organizations  refusing to serve Christians?  Do such establishments have a right to be discriminatory against Christians, in the same way that you're claiming a right to discriminate against others?


"After the judicial imposition of "same-sex marriage" in Massachusetts, for example, Catholic Charities chose with great reluctance to end its century-long work of helping to place orphaned children in good homes rather than comply with a legal mandate that it place children in same-sex households in violation of Catholic moral teaching."

Yes, the Catholic Church ceased it charitable activities because they were told that they couldn't discriminate against gay couples anymore.  The Church made their priorities crystal clear - with a choice between continuing to do material good in the world and maintaining their discriminatory doctrine while ceasing to do that good, they chose the latter.  Again, to the supporters of the MD, what would you think of an organization that believed that Christian homes are so intrinsically hostile to children that they universally refuse to place orphaned children with Christian couples?  What would you think of them if the government told them that they had to stop their discriminatory policy, or they would be risking their tax-exempt status, and they responded by stopping their charity work altogether?

"In New Jersey, after the establishment of a quasi-marital "civil unions" scheme, a Methodist institution was stripped of its tax exempt status when it declined, as a matter of religious conscience, to permit a facility it owned and operated to be used for ceremonies blessing homosexual unions."

This bit doesn't actually reference the incident that it's referring to (no surprise there - you may have notices that the MD doesn't reference any of it's claims).  If it's referring to this semi-famous incident, though, they're being dishonest again.  This was not a Methodist organization being forced to carry out a wedding ceremony, it was a tiny pavilion on a beach that had been open to the public but that they now decided was off-limits to gay couples blessing civil unions.  In the words of a lawyer representing a lesbian couple who was denied by the group, the pavilion is open to everyone — and therefore the group could no more refuse to accommodate the lesbians than a restaurant owner could refuse to serve a black man.  The Methodist group was also not "stripped of its tax exempt status," it was stripped of it's tax exemption only for the small pavilion area that they barred gay couples from.

"In Canada and some European nations, Christian clergy have been prosecuted for preaching Biblical norms against the practice of homosexuality."

Citation needed.  I've heard of a few religious people being basically scolded for disruptive behavior, nothing more.  If there is more, I want to look into it.  You'll be disturbed to know where they're going with this, though:

"New hate-crime laws in America raise the specter of the same practice here."

Um, hate-crime legislation only addresses motivations of violent crime.  I am alarmed and appalled that the MD is concerned over a law's effect on their ability to "preach" their religious beliefs when that law only addresses violent attack.

They go on to use really, really scary language about how the destruction of religious freedom will allow society to devolve into complete tyranny.  Again, entertaining, seeing as how this entire document's central idea is that the government should enforce their specific religion.

"In Acts 4, Peter and John were ordered to stop preaching. Their answer was, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.""

They don't stop hammering this.  They would have a point; I strongly disagree with any restriction on the religious speech of anybody.  Except for one thing:  Nobody is telling anybody to stop preaching!  It's a lie (repeated over and over again in the MD) that any Christians are being prevented from preaching in America.

"There is no more eloquent defense of the rights and duties of religious conscience than the one offered by Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail."

The hilarious part is this:  By King's argument, we should be discussing whether gay men and women, along with their progressive, ethical friends, family, and fellow citizens, should be contemplating civil disobedience in favor of gay rights.  The MD, of course, seems to have concluded that it is Christians who should be contemplating civil disobedience because they might not be permitted to uphold their doctrine (even though their fundamentalist doctrine is unambiguously discriminatory).

In any event, I agree wholeheartedly that Letter from a Birmingham Jail is an extraordinarily eloquent reasoning for principled defiance of unjust authority, except for one thing - King clearly does not base his ethical reasoning on Biblical theology - his reasoning is entirely humanistic.  Similarly, he does indeed quote several thinkers from the Christian church, yet all such statements are secular and humanistic in nature, such as, "I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."  He mentions St. Thomas Aquinas and the 'natural law,' but he immediately goes on to define what he considers the 'natural law' to be in completely secular, humanistic terms.

I have more to say about Martin Luther King Jr., but I think he deserves his own blog post.  The capstone to the Manhattan Declaration:

"Because we honor justice and the common good, we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family. We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar's. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God's."

We don't want to make you participate in abortions, "embryo-destructive" research, or assisted suicide.  However, we also won't let you force these religious beliefs of yours on others.  You are similarly welcome to refuse to bless sexual partnerships that you consider to be immoral, but you may not enshrine your bigotry against such partnerships into law, and we will also exercise our right to point out how primitive and downright childish are your doctrines of sexual morality.  We fully render your rights and freedoms to believe these things to you, but under no circumstances will we surrender the rights and freedoms of others that you would take away.

The Manhattan Declaration; Part 4

More from the Manhattan Declaration.  Yep, still ranting about gay marriage.  Remember, I had warned you that the closest thing to an argument in their whole section on gay marriage just repeatedly hammers the old, standard "marriage is about making babies" line?  This bit has me scratching my head:


". . . loving sexual intercourse in which the spouses become one flesh, not in some merely metaphorical sense, but by fulfilling together the behavioral conditions of procreation.  That is why in the Christian tradition, and historically in Western law, consummated marriages are not dissoluble or annullable on the ground of infertility, even though the nature of the marital relationship is shaped and structured by its intrinsic orientation to the great good of procreation."

Um . . . what?  Read that again.  They specifically mention "procreation" as the basis of the marriage, yet they immediately point out that it's just downright stupid to disolve a marriage on the grounds that the couple cannot procreate!  How can they not see the blatant inconsistency here?


The only thing I can think of is that they could be claiming that, specifically, a penis being inserted into a vagina is the basis of marriage.  That it is . . . some kind of procreation "ritual," not the actual reproduction, that matters.  What material difference there is, specifically and in terms of procreation, between the sex of an infertile couple and the sex of homosexual partners, well, they don't elaborate.   Either reproduction is the basis, or it is not.  The whole premise of this inane argument is ridiculous - would they lobby for a couple, one male, one female, who are asexual, with no sexual desire at all, but who wish to adopt, to be forbidden to marry?  Why, then . . . horror of horrors, not a single penis or vagina in use at all!


". . . it could be asserted with equal validity for polyamorous partnerships, polygamous households, even adult brothers, sisters, or brothers and sisters living in incestuous relationships.  Should these, as a matter of equality or civil rights, be recognized as lawful marriages, and would they have no effects on other relationships?"


Honestly?  Easy answer.  Yes, they should be, and no, they wouldn't.


"The truth is that marriage is not something abstract or neutral that the law may legitimately define and re-define to please those who are powerful and influential."

Um, isn't that exactly what you, the Christian, heterosexual majority, are doing?  This is exactly what has been done throughout all of marriage's history.  It has been redefined to mean a union of choice and mutual love, instead of one arranged or forced.  It has been redefined to include interracial couples.  It has been redefined, starting with polygyny, to mean a union of one man and only one woman, then again to mean a union of one man and many, many women,and back again.   If redefining it again will make the institution worse off, then make that case.  The Manhattan Declaration, though, has NOT done this; it has simply tried to scare people with emotionally-charged, prejudice-exploiting language.


". . . it is the duty of the law to recognize and support [marriage] for the sake of justice and the common good.  If it fails to do so, genuine social harms follow.  First, the religious liberty of those for whom this is a matter of conscience is jeopardized."


Oh, I see.  The government must recognize and uphold your religious opinion, even if it's discriminatory to others and clearly excludes other people's religious opinions, or you will consider your own religious freedoms to be violated.  It should be obvious that there are religious persons who disagree with your traditional view of marriage; what of their religious freedom?  By this tortured logic, isn't their religious freedom being violated when the government specifically enforces your view of marriage?


"Second, the rights of parents are abused as family life and sex education programs in schools are used to teach children that an enlightened understanding recognizes as "marriages" sexual partnerships that many parents believe are intrinsically non-marital and immoral."


Yes, there is a role in public education in promoting a healthy, humanistic societal ethic, or, at the very least, mildly discouraging blatant, outright prejudice.  If there is a rational reason for declaring gay men and women to be immoral people, then make that case.  Sorry, but until then, you are, by definition, a bigot, and you cannot use the public schools to disseminate your bigotry.


"Third, the common good of civil society is damaged when the law itself, in its critical pedagogical function, becomes a tool for eroding a sound understanding of marriage on which the flourishing of the marriage culture in any society vitally depends."


Not to get too intellectually elitist, but blah, blah, blah.  There's been no attempt, at all, to make this case so far.  No case that marriage should be intrinsically between one man and one woman, and no specifics of the "damage" of the terrible, terrible gay marriage.  Only repeated, vague statements about how society will somehow be irreparably harmed if certain people are allowed to get married.


"And so it is out of love (not "animus") and prudent concern for the common good (not "prejudice"), that we pledge to labor ceaselessly to preserve the legal definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman and to rebuild the marriage culture."


Your position would have more credibility if you went after divorce instead of gay marriage, given how much more often divorces occur than gay marriages would occur.  Also, given that Jesus never explicitly condemned homosexuality, but he did specifically state that Christians should not allow divorce, it seems to be the big J's higher priority, too.


"The Bible teaches us that marriage is a central part of God's creation covenant."


Firstly, no, it doesn't, as I mentioned in the last installment of this review, the Bible gives highest honors to men like Jesus and Paul, who never touch a woman at all, and both of them explicitly stated that all Christians should refrain from marriage if they possibly can.  Secondly, the Bible also teaches that marriage, that central part of God's creation covenant, is between one man and as many women as he can afford.


"Indeed, the union of husband and wife mirrors the bond between Christ and his church."


Yes, the Bible often compares "husband and wife" to "Christ and his church."  Um . . . isn't the church expressly subservient to Jesus Christ in all things?  So . . . Christian marriage is unambiguously sexist.  Nice.  Topping it off with a great note, there.

Next time; their final point:  Religious freedom.  Yes, after all this, they actually end the Declaration with a supposed oath to defend religious freedom.  We'll see how that turns out.

The Manhattan Declaration; Part 3

The second main point of the Manhattan Declaration, predictably, refers to gay marriage, and it's quite long.  There's so much madness here, I'll need to split this one point of theirs into two blog posts on it's own.

"In the transmission of life and the nurturing of children, men and women joined as spouses are given the great honor of being partners with God Himself."

So, obviously, filthy atheists like Ziztur and I should not be permitted to marry.  Being incapable of "the transmission of life," neither should anybody be issued a marriage permit if they are infertile or elderly.  Yes, I know, these are the same objections to this stupid reproductive argument that we've all heard before, but I intend to keep repeating them until I hear a decent answer to them.  This spectacularly bad argument makes up the vast majority of their text on "marriage," and this point about gay marriage has more text than either of the points about abortion or freedom of religion.  They just hammer this "natural reproductive nature" of "true" marriage over and over again.

"In the Bible, God Himself blesses and holds marriage in the highest esteem."

Jesus Christ of Nazareth, claimed to be perfect in every single way, never married.  Paul never married.  Actually, highest biblical honors are given to men who don't ever touch women, and the Bible states as much.  Matthew 19, 10-12: 

The disciples said to him, "If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry."  Jesus replied, "Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given.  For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it."

Paul likewise says, "Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry. . . .  I wish that all men were as I am. . . .  Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. . . .  I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs—how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife— and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord's affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband. I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord. . . ."

Etc., etc., etc.  Anti-gay marriage folks always go on and on, in very emotionally-charged language, how important marriage is.  Not only should this rhetoric illustrate how important it is to give marriage rights to everyone, including gay men and women, but it is also directly contrary to the Bible.

"Vast human experience confirms that marriage is the original and most important institution for sustaining the health, education, and welfare of all persons in a society."

Um, no.  A cultural respect for individual freedom and human rights is far more important, for one thing.  Nazi Germany had marriage.  Imperialist Japan had marriage.  Islamic fundamentalism has marriage.  Etc., etc., etc.  Even if this weren't obviously false, again, arguing for the extraordinary value of marriage only illustrates the importance of protecting the marriage rights of everyone.

"Perhaps the most telling - and alarming - indicator is the out-of-wedlock birth rate.  Less than fifty years ago, it was under 5 percent.  Today it is over 40 percent.  Our society - and particularly its poorest and most vulnerable sectors, where the out-of-wedlock birth rate is much higher even than the national average - is paying a huge price in delinquency, drug abuse, crime, incarceration, hopelessness, and despair."

Except that rising rates of out-of-wedlock birth over the last fifty years would primarily affect crime rates in the last 15-20 years, as those "illegitimate" children reached adolescence and adulthood.  So have crime rates went up or down in the last 15-20 years?  Down.  Sharply.  So, the document is dead wrong.

"We confess with sadness that Christians and our institutions have too often scandalously failed to uphold the institution of marriage and to model for the world the true meaning of marriage.  Insofar as we have too easily embraced the culture of divorce and remained silent about social practices that undermine the dignity of marriage we repent, and call upon all Christians to do the same."

This is what really gets my blood up over the earlier claims about Christians and Christian churches being the ones responsible for abolition, women's suffrage, and civil rights.  They can't examine Christian history with open-minded ethical humility when it comes to those social evils that the Bible explicitly condones, but they are aware of, ashamed of, and need to repent of the fact that some Christians occasionally get divorced?  WTF.

"We call on the entire Christian community to resist sexual immorality, and at the same time refrain from disdainful condemnation of those who yield to it.  Our rejection of sin, though resolute, must never become the rejection of sinners."

This would be a nice sentiment and all, except for two things:  One, they are still describing a person's private sexual choices as immoral without any justification.  If we said this about anyone else's private decisions that don't infringe upon the rights of others in any way, we would transparently expose ourselves as bigots.  Two, this statement, and the larger context in which it appears, illustrates a profound prejudice.  They are trying to claim humility with this seeming recognition that there are other forms of sexual immorality besides homosexuality.  My question is simple:  If homosexual relationships are no worse than premarital or extra-marital sex, pornography, and/or divorce, they why aren't they lobbying for any of these acts to be restricted by law?  Any one of these other forms of "sexual immorality" are far, FAR more widespread than homosexuality, so why are they ignoring them to focus so exclusively on the terrible gays folks?

More about gay marriage next time; like I said, they have a lot to say about how dangerous the monstrous gay folks are.

The Manhattan Declaration; Part 2

So the first part of this document declares boldly and without reservation that it was Christianity and Christianity alone that was responsible for abolition, civil rights, and most laughably of all, women's suffrage.  Ziztur and I discussed this last night, and she pointed out that such a statement could be technically true in one sense, that Christians have always constituted an overwhelming majority in America.  Thus, it wouldn't actually be possible for any of these events to occur unless they received at least some significant support from the Christian majority.

Of course, this doesn't say anything about whether Christianity was the force that originally championed these societal changes.  To my mind, it's clear that if abolition, civil rights, women's suffrage, gay rights, etc. are gates of progress that America passes through, then Christianity (as an overwhelming majority of the population) holds the key to each gate.  Yes, Christianity eventually unlocked each of these gates one by one, but the had to be dragged kicking and screaming to each one, complaining the whole time.

Obviously, Christians will strongly disagree with the conclusion that their religion seems to be intrinsically resistant to ethical, societal progress.  Here's my honest question:  If Christianity was such a champion of these specific ethical causes, then why did they continue to exist for almost two millennium after Jesus Christ?  In contrast, The United States of America, clearly founded as a Secular Humanist nation, began seriously considering these important issues right off the bat, and beginning to accomplish these goals in less than a century.

(/rant)

In any event, the main point of the Manhattan Declaration is three issues.  The first is abortion.  I won't ramble on about it for too long, for the simple reason that the Declaration doesn't even attempt to defend it's view.  I have nothing to argue against.

"A culture of death inevitably cheapens life in all its stages and conditions by promoting the belief that lives that are imperfect, immature or inconvenient are discardable."

Basically, the Declaration simply states, over and over again, that they "affirm" that killing people is wrong, and so abortion is too.  This is often the form that arguments against abortion take.  As an aside, I freely admit that pro-choice arguments often take a similar form - people will simply assert that abortion is a woman's reproductive right, and how dare people take that right away.  I'm not saying that such declarations, on either side of the issue, are wrong, because not everybody always speaks specifically to persuade those who disagree.  If you're pro-choice and giving a talk to a pro-choice crowd, of course you won't get into the details of why abortion isn't morally evil.  In the same way, the Manhattan Declaration doesn't exactly seem to be intended for an audience of Secular Humanists, so it's nothing wrong with it, per se . . .

Just be aware, if you're pro-life, and you are trying to persuade others of your opinion, it might seem obvious to you that abortion is murdering an innocent person, but you will never convince a pro-choice person of this simply by stating it.  I know it's hard to believe, but no, really, we pro-choice folks don't sit around talking about how it's stupid that homicide is against the law, about how murdering innocent people should be everybody's right.  We agree with you that killing innocent people is grossly immoral.  We don't agree that a fetus should rationally be considered a "person" (or some variation of this argument).

There's some other interesting bits in this first point about abortion:

"The President says that he wants to reduce the "need" for abortion - a commendable goal. But he has also pledged to make abortion more easily and widely available . . ."

I agree, yet it is exactly conservative Christians in America who are directly combating this goal by opposing contraception and science-based sex education.  Entertainingly, the Manhattan Declaration itself does exactly that, later on, in a different point.  I'll get to that in a future post.

"As predicted by many prescient persons, the cheapening of life that began with abortion has now metastasized."

This is the beginning of long rant about several different topics, starting with embryonic stem cells.  I'll just comment briefly on each one.  Regarding stem cells, if you say that a late-term fetus should rationally be considered a "person," I'll respectfully disagree.  If you say that a just-fertilized human egg should be considered a person, . . . honestly?  I'll probably question your sanity and basic powers of reason.  To claim that a clump of cells too small to see with the naked eye is so definitively a "person" that we should not use said clumps to save or improve countless innocent lives is bordering on certifiable.

"At the other end of life, an increasingly powerful movement to promote assisted suicide and "voluntary" euthanasia threatens the lives of vulnerable elderly and disabled persons."

Only if, in your view, people should not have the freedom to end their life on their own terms, even if they are in extreme pain and/or have a chronic, incurable condition.  As usual, no rational explanation for this stance is provided, nor have I ever heard one.

I'll quote the entire last paragraph, beginning with universal, humanistic morality that we can all agree with, and then degenerating into a simple restatement of previous claims:

"Our concern is not confined to our own nation.  Around the globe, we are witnessing cases of genocide and "ethnic cleansing," the failure to assist those who are suffering as innocent victims of war, the neglect and abuse of children, the exploitation of vulnerable laborers, the sexual trafficking of girls and young women, the abandonment of the aged, racial oppression and discrimination, the persecution of believers of all faiths, and the failure to take steps necessary to halt the spread of preventable diseases like AIDS.  We see these travesties as flowing from the same loss of the sense of the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of human life that drives the abortion industry and the movements for assisted suicide, euthanasia, and human cloning for biomedical research.  And so ours is, as it must be, a truly consistent ethic of love and life for all humans in all circumstances."

I would only point out that, again, conservative Christianity has been opposed to contraceptive and evidence-based sex education, which is the single greatest weapon against "preventable diseases like AIDS."  As well, no argument is given for embryonic stem-cell research and pro-choice stances on abortion and assisted suicide being equitable to sex trafficking and racial genocide.  If there's a connection there to make, by all means, make it.  Whatever you do, don't simply declare it and expect it to convince people who have already considered your perspective and rejected it.

Next time, the second main point of the Declaration, out of three:  Gay Marriage is evil!  Interestingly, this point receives more text than either of the others.

The Manhattan Declaration; Part 1

So, here we have, conveniently codified, the antithesis of all that Secular Humanism represents.  This link was given to us by a Christian reader and commenter.  Let's take a look.

"Christians are heirs of a 2,000-year tradition of proclaiming God's word, seeking justice in our societies, resisting tyranny, and reaching out with compassion to the poor, oppressed and suffering."

There's a lot of revisionism in this thing.  It starts with slavery:

"It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery . . ."

This is always hilarious.  There were some Christians who fought against slavery, of course, but it was certainly not an exclusively Christian principle.  Likewise, there were many, many Christian organizations and churches that explicitly fought to preserve slavery.  These things are simple, unambiguous matters of history.  From Wikipedia:

[Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God...it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation...it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts - Jefferson Davis, President, Confederate States of America

Every hope of the existence of church and state, and of civilization itself, hangs upon our arduous effort to defeat the doctrine of Negro suffrage - Robert Dabney, a prominent 19th century Southern Presbyterian pastor
... the right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example - Richard Furman, President, South Carolina Baptist Convention

Of course, these prominent Christian leaders are entirely correct; one could be absolutely buried in Biblical scripture explicitly condoning slavery.  The document continues:

"The great civil rights crusades of the 1950s and 60s were led by Christians claiming the Scriptures and asserting the glory of the image of God in every human being regardless of race, religion, age or class."


Funny . . .  Why then did Martin Luther King Jr. so vehemently criticize the white churches of his day for their opposition to civil rights?

"And in America, Christian women stood at the vanguard of the suffrage movement."

 This is laugh-out-loud wrong.  As with the above issues of slavery and opposition to civil rights, virtually all opposition to women's suffrage came from conservative Christians.  The Bible is even more transparently sexist than in it's condoning of slavery, and that's saying something.  Is it any coincidence that conservative Christian groups today still rail against "Feminism" as a force of evil?

Ziztur has pointed out many times before - in twenty years, fifty years, a hundred years, or more, however many generations it takes, eventually people will overwhelmingly look back on opposition to gay rights and gay marriage as barbaric and morally primitive, exactly as we look at issues like slavery today.  When that happens, there's no doubt that Christians will claim that it was Christianity that championed gay rights.

I can't help but notice, this document specifically mentions that "Christian women stood at the vanguard of the suffrage movement."  In the same way, Christians often point to Dr. King as a Christian minister and the icon of civil rights.  Um, does it really need to be said?  Of course women supported suffrage, even some Christian women, and of course African-Americans, even Christians and ministers, opposed segregation!  Isn't it obvious that when we ask whether Christianity and/or Christian churches generally supported or opposed women's suffrage/abolition/civil rights/etc., we should look not at the few Christians who were part of the oppressed demographic, that we should look instead at the Christians who were part of the oppressing majority?  The question is not whether black Christians opposed abolition or civil rights, but whether white churches opposed them.  Similarly, we should ask not whether there were a few Christian women who supported women's suffrage, but whether a majority of male Christian leaders did so.  Hint:  They didn't, in either case.

Today, there are a very few, scattered, infrequent Christian leaders actively supporting gay marriage, and of course there are gay Christians who support gay marriage, but they are far overshadowed by religious leaders and laypersons who oppose it.  This is especially true among evangelicals, and, likewise, especially true among those who attend church at least weekly.  From 2009 Pew Research data:

The consensus is clear - Christianity does not support same sex marriage.  Let's all keep this in mind a century or so down the road.  More from the Manhattan Declaration later.