Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Friday, March 24, 2006
Why Respect Religion?
After the Danish cartoons making fun of Islam, I have to ask: why respect religion? Any religion?
Religions are made up by men to control everybody else. They are especially constructed to control the sexuality of women.
Should we respect Nazism just because somebody believes in it? Should we respect the KuKlux Klan just because the members may fervently believe in the need to support the purity of their race?
These are beliefs based in nothing but control. They have no valid proofs. They are cruel. In so many ways, they are like so many religions.
This is not to say that everyone should be forced to give up their religion. If they wish to believe in Giant Magic Sky Fairies, let them. If they hate watching women and gay people having free, happy lives, then let them stew in their own hate. If they are fools who let priests and ministers and rabbis and mullahs tell them what to think, based on ancient unproven mythologies, then let them do so.
As long as their beliefs do not become the laws of other people who don't believe in those religions, then let them lie to themselves any way they please. In fact, if they do wish their beliefs to become law, let ONLY the practitioners of those religions be forced to obey those laws.
Go ahead. Chant torah. Hang out of a mosque and howl. Have your own rape-induced babies. Embalm your dead becauses you believe a rotten corpse is going to rise someday. Moan and groan and complain because your kids will fall behind in the Sciences -- and may someday walk off and deny you and your nonsense. Why should anyone care if you make a fool of yourself? As long as you don't try to practice your nonsense on anybody else, you can kneel down and moan to an imaginary spirit all you please.
You do know that the best liberals and the purest atheists come from the most conservative and religious households? Because they've been damaged by your beliefs and the moment they get their hands on a decent bit of education, they can see you for what you are -- and they will be angry and hurt that you lied to them for so long. WE don't have to have kids -- you will supply our population all by yourselves. As long as you can breed and your kids can think, you will lose them to us. We're certainly not going to lie to them. Lies are just too much hard work.
Your right to practice your religion -- like the right to swing your fist -- ends where my rights and my nose begin.
Your smarter kids will agree.
After the Danish cartoons making fun of Islam, I have to ask: why respect religion? Any religion?
Religions are made up by men to control everybody else. They are especially constructed to control the sexuality of women.
Should we respect Nazism just because somebody believes in it? Should we respect the KuKlux Klan just because the members may fervently believe in the need to support the purity of their race?
These are beliefs based in nothing but control. They have no valid proofs. They are cruel. In so many ways, they are like so many religions.
This is not to say that everyone should be forced to give up their religion. If they wish to believe in Giant Magic Sky Fairies, let them. If they hate watching women and gay people having free, happy lives, then let them stew in their own hate. If they are fools who let priests and ministers and rabbis and mullahs tell them what to think, based on ancient unproven mythologies, then let them do so.
As long as their beliefs do not become the laws of other people who don't believe in those religions, then let them lie to themselves any way they please. In fact, if they do wish their beliefs to become law, let ONLY the practitioners of those religions be forced to obey those laws.
Go ahead. Chant torah. Hang out of a mosque and howl. Have your own rape-induced babies. Embalm your dead becauses you believe a rotten corpse is going to rise someday. Moan and groan and complain because your kids will fall behind in the Sciences -- and may someday walk off and deny you and your nonsense. Why should anyone care if you make a fool of yourself? As long as you don't try to practice your nonsense on anybody else, you can kneel down and moan to an imaginary spirit all you please.
You do know that the best liberals and the purest atheists come from the most conservative and religious households? Because they've been damaged by your beliefs and the moment they get their hands on a decent bit of education, they can see you for what you are -- and they will be angry and hurt that you lied to them for so long. WE don't have to have kids -- you will supply our population all by yourselves. As long as you can breed and your kids can think, you will lose them to us. We're certainly not going to lie to them. Lies are just too much hard work.
Your right to practice your religion -- like the right to swing your fist -- ends where my rights and my nose begin.
Your smarter kids will agree.
Monday, March 06, 2006
Tiger Trap For The Right Wing.
You have to hand it to the Founding Fathers.
They let slavery alone when writing the constitution.
After what would finally become the United States fought a war partially over the question of the treatment of human beings, the trap left by the old men in powdered wigs yawned open beneath the feet of those who would treat anybody as less than human.
You don't want women to vote? "This country once considered slavery legal."
You don't want blacks to have equal treatment? "This country once considered slavery legal."
You want to treat Other gender preferances as less than human? "This country once considered slavery legal."
No matter what action this country takes, if it treats ANYONE as less than human, as merely seperate but equal, as anything but a fully and completely American citizen, that treatment, no matter how "legal" can bring up the reminder that slavery was once legal in this country, and that no other practice that treats any American as less than fully human can be allowed to stand.
By allowing slavery to remain in place during a period of this country's history, the founders made it possible to forever after paint any less than human treatment as on a level with slavery, regardless of legality, in that it doesn't allow for full citizenship.
Pretty smart, those old guys.
And -- "They had them some fabulous wigs."
You have to hand it to the Founding Fathers.
They let slavery alone when writing the constitution.
After what would finally become the United States fought a war partially over the question of the treatment of human beings, the trap left by the old men in powdered wigs yawned open beneath the feet of those who would treat anybody as less than human.
You don't want women to vote? "This country once considered slavery legal."
You don't want blacks to have equal treatment? "This country once considered slavery legal."
You want to treat Other gender preferances as less than human? "This country once considered slavery legal."
No matter what action this country takes, if it treats ANYONE as less than human, as merely seperate but equal, as anything but a fully and completely American citizen, that treatment, no matter how "legal" can bring up the reminder that slavery was once legal in this country, and that no other practice that treats any American as less than fully human can be allowed to stand.
By allowing slavery to remain in place during a period of this country's history, the founders made it possible to forever after paint any less than human treatment as on a level with slavery, regardless of legality, in that it doesn't allow for full citizenship.
Pretty smart, those old guys.
And -- "They had them some fabulous wigs."
Monday, February 06, 2006
Scapegoats -- America's Big Dirty Secret.
Lately, when speaking with people who are afraid of or uncertain about their LGBT fellow human beings, I've found more confusion and fear than real hatred. I've been approached by folks from bikers to housewives and always with the same questions:
Again and again, these people have been sexually abused by some family member. They ask me if their dad/brother/uncle was gay. Does that "make them gay" for submitting?
I explain to them that these attacks are by sick people, not part of a normal loving human relationship. That they have nothing to do with whether someone is gay or not. That sex is for consenting adults. That nobody is either gay or straight or in any little box based on one forced moment.
But I'm beginning to seriously wonder -- is the LGBT community being scapegoated for the attacks of so-called "straight" family members? Is the hatred and fear of LGBT citizens based less on biblical texts -- and more on sexual child abuse?
Is the attack on the LGBT community just a cover for America's dirty big secret of child abuse?
For some reason complete strangers open up to me about this. All the time. It's heartbreaking, to hear what their relatives did to them, and the pain they're still in. Sometimes they speak to me in code. Sometimes -- with the help of alcohol -- the language is very plain.
In every case, the victims hunch over tables or sit in cars and whisper intently to me, as though I'm the first person they've ever been able to tell this to, and they know I won't betray them. They all blame themselves, like there was something they did to bring on the attack.
Sometimes they get very intent on what "gay people do" or what a gay person "really" is. I try not to get too clinical. One very church lady got into an intense discussion of what transexuals are and do. There are a lot of hang-ups about sex roles, but there's also a deep interest in the true story, rather than the propaganda.
(I get this concerning all sorts of things, including the war in Iraq. Again and again, I've seen an American pull den deutschen Blick -- the German glance -- what the Germans called it when you looked over your shoulder before talking in the Third Reich. I even had this happen at a pro-war rally, when the marchers could get away from their fellows and hiss whispered questions at me. How many damn things are we whispering about in this country?)
The guys who jump these kids are always "straight" (whatever that EVER means). "Normal" Americans. And they're letting the gay community take the rap for them. Not only abusing kids, but hiding behind the LGBT community. Bastards.
A friend's comment: "I had a friend who was homophobic, years ago, who seemed to think that all gay males were pedephiles. The reason this came up for discussion was that Robert Reed of the Brady Bunch had been outed. My friend immediately made the jump to: "I'll bet those poor kids on the show were all abused by him". I was dumbfounded. So yeah, I think you may be on to something."
Lately, when speaking with people who are afraid of or uncertain about their LGBT fellow human beings, I've found more confusion and fear than real hatred. I've been approached by folks from bikers to housewives and always with the same questions:
Again and again, these people have been sexually abused by some family member. They ask me if their dad/brother/uncle was gay. Does that "make them gay" for submitting?
I explain to them that these attacks are by sick people, not part of a normal loving human relationship. That they have nothing to do with whether someone is gay or not. That sex is for consenting adults. That nobody is either gay or straight or in any little box based on one forced moment.
But I'm beginning to seriously wonder -- is the LGBT community being scapegoated for the attacks of so-called "straight" family members? Is the hatred and fear of LGBT citizens based less on biblical texts -- and more on sexual child abuse?
Is the attack on the LGBT community just a cover for America's dirty big secret of child abuse?
For some reason complete strangers open up to me about this. All the time. It's heartbreaking, to hear what their relatives did to them, and the pain they're still in. Sometimes they speak to me in code. Sometimes -- with the help of alcohol -- the language is very plain.
In every case, the victims hunch over tables or sit in cars and whisper intently to me, as though I'm the first person they've ever been able to tell this to, and they know I won't betray them. They all blame themselves, like there was something they did to bring on the attack.
Sometimes they get very intent on what "gay people do" or what a gay person "really" is. I try not to get too clinical. One very church lady got into an intense discussion of what transexuals are and do. There are a lot of hang-ups about sex roles, but there's also a deep interest in the true story, rather than the propaganda.
(I get this concerning all sorts of things, including the war in Iraq. Again and again, I've seen an American pull den deutschen Blick -- the German glance -- what the Germans called it when you looked over your shoulder before talking in the Third Reich. I even had this happen at a pro-war rally, when the marchers could get away from their fellows and hiss whispered questions at me. How many damn things are we whispering about in this country?)
The guys who jump these kids are always "straight" (whatever that EVER means). "Normal" Americans. And they're letting the gay community take the rap for them. Not only abusing kids, but hiding behind the LGBT community. Bastards.
A friend's comment: "I had a friend who was homophobic, years ago, who seemed to think that all gay males were pedephiles. The reason this came up for discussion was that Robert Reed of the Brady Bunch had been outed. My friend immediately made the jump to: "I'll bet those poor kids on the show were all abused by him". I was dumbfounded. So yeah, I think you may be on to something."
Friday, December 09, 2005
Real Christians
I'm not Christian, myself -- but the values I follow are much closer to the values preached by the original founder of Christianity. Too often, what we call Christianity in this country is a grab-bag of more ancient religions and political constructs.
But the -- and I hesitate to say "real" Christians -- seem to be so lost, confused and misdirected in the face of all these later traditions and have lost track of what is basically a very simple, easy, reasonable set of rules for life. The founder of the religion got killed because he wouldn't keep his mouth shut (and being as sarcastic as he was probably didn't make any points, either). Where are the Christians today willing to stand up to, fight and push back the practitioners of the cruel scrambled mess that the Christian right claim is Chritianity? Why are they allowing the word "Christian" to become just another word for "Bigot?"
And yes, I've heard it used. When someone was saying ugly things about my gay friends, someone else sneered, "You must be Christian."
Christians need to stand up to the people that are painting them with the brush of intolerance, bigotry and hatred for anything female, even men who are like women. Or the word "Christian" is going to end up on the same level as "Pharisee."
If it hasn't already.
I'm not Christian, myself -- but the values I follow are much closer to the values preached by the original founder of Christianity. Too often, what we call Christianity in this country is a grab-bag of more ancient religions and political constructs.
But the -- and I hesitate to say "real" Christians -- seem to be so lost, confused and misdirected in the face of all these later traditions and have lost track of what is basically a very simple, easy, reasonable set of rules for life. The founder of the religion got killed because he wouldn't keep his mouth shut (and being as sarcastic as he was probably didn't make any points, either). Where are the Christians today willing to stand up to, fight and push back the practitioners of the cruel scrambled mess that the Christian right claim is Chritianity? Why are they allowing the word "Christian" to become just another word for "Bigot?"
And yes, I've heard it used. When someone was saying ugly things about my gay friends, someone else sneered, "You must be Christian."
Christians need to stand up to the people that are painting them with the brush of intolerance, bigotry and hatred for anything female, even men who are like women. Or the word "Christian" is going to end up on the same level as "Pharisee."
If it hasn't already.
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Gay Comics List Review.
http://gaycomicslist.free.fr/pages/blogarch.php?month=2005-11#187
Francis Peneaud, on the Gay Comics Review List. I'm glad that the positive as well as the horribly nihilistic message came through.
http://gaycomicslist.free.fr/pages/blogarch.php?month=2005-11#187
Francis Peneaud, on the Gay Comics Review List. I'm glad that the positive as well as the horribly nihilistic message came through.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Goodbye Saddam
Saddam Hussein's trial starts tomorrow.
Regardless of his crimes against his own people, a death sentence will silence him forever.
Do we really want a source and witness for possible future prosecutions of pertinent parties to disappear permanently?
And who among these parties might -- for their own protection through his being silenced -- most benefit?
Saddam Hussein's trial starts tomorrow.
Regardless of his crimes against his own people, a death sentence will silence him forever.
Do we really want a source and witness for possible future prosecutions of pertinent parties to disappear permanently?
And who among these parties might -- for their own protection through his being silenced -- most benefit?
