Some people are just so wrong

Posted on October 13, 2009 by Michael

This is a Letter to the Editor from today’s Kennebec Journal.

I don’t know about you but I am outraged to think that a felon can vote in Maine. Isn’t it wonderful that we have the reputation of being one of only two states in the country to allow a felon to vote?

Can you imagine that a pedophile who rapes a little child can vote? And, how about the adult rapist, the bank robber, the arsonist, the killer, the guys who used a machete to hack up those folks in Pittston and all the rest of the lowlifes.

I hope the editors of this newspaper write an editorial someday about this travesty of our law. The liberals like it because most of these punks vote for them. It’s easy to know why.

I will sign a petition to get this law changed. Is there an organization out there that will start one? Is there anybody or any group that will say “enough is enough?”

Is there a politician with guts enough to stand up and be counted and start the ball rolling? If the voters of this state don’t wake up and start electing people other than liberals, we will have such a mess that it will never get cleaned up.

C’mon folks, do something!

Roland Preble

Gardiner

Despite the lazy outrage (“Someone else do it!”), I actually was quite pleased to see this letter. I wasn’t aware (or at least had forgotten) that Maine allowed felons to vote. This is excellent. Why should criminality bar someone the voting booth? Committing a felony says nothing of a person’s ability or (more importantly) right to vote. I see no good argument for it.

I do, however, see a great argument against it. We still tax felons, no? We still charge them fees for various registrations and whathaveyou. If we are going to force them to give money to the state for the benefit of the whole, we must also give them the right to have a say in what we do with that money. It is not the place of the state to permanently dictate to any person what it shall do with said person’s money. That is an unreasonable punishment. It amounts to a life-long fine. Worst yet, it strips people of certain fundamental rights. The right to vote should never be taken away from any person, no matter how heinous a crime has been committed.

But I would imagine Roland would prefer felons to vote. The vast majority of the prison population is Christian and against da gays. The whole group could be a boon for conservative issues (like bigotry and ignoring reason).

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Another couple prays child to death

Posted on October 13, 2009 by Michael

A couple from Pennsylvania has prayed their child to death.

A fundamentalist couple who prayed over their sick toddler rather than get medical help before his pneumonia death have been ordered to stand trial on manslaughter charges.

Prosecutors believe 2-year-old Kent Schaible succumbed because his parents chose prayer over modern medicine.

There may be some legitimate defense in this particular case, but there is a more important issue here.

Some states carve out exceptions to criminal neglect statutes for parents who rely on faith or spiritual healing.

These states (including my own) disgust me. Believing in magic is not a license to practice magic, especially when the life of another person is at stake.

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PZ on Mr. Deity

Posted on October 12, 2009 by Michael

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Liars and the arguments they make

Posted on October 12, 2009 by Michael

Awhile back there were a couple of editorials in the local paper about same-sex marriage in Maine. I have taken to ripping apart the one that is against liberty and freedom and the pursuit of happiness and civil rights and all things good.

Research and statistics repeatedly show the best environment for stable families and children is one with an opposite-sex union of a father and mother.

This is a lie. No research has been done which compares mother/father relationships to father/father or mother/mother relationships in terms of child rearing. This is just another abuse of science by the right.

Marriage is not a civil right. Societies have always regulated marriage. A man cannot marry his daughter or mother. A woman cannot marry her brother or nephew. Marriage is a tool of the society to ensure that the next generation is stable and self-reliant.

Societies have also regulated voting. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a civil right. And that a man cannot marry his daughter goes to other reasoning than that marriage is between one man and one woman. It must. Obviously a man marrying his daughter is one man and one woman, so if we disagree that it should happen, then we must be using some other reasoning beside the one man/one woman mantra.

Marriage being a tool to ensure generational stability is a non-sequitur and bad writing.

The social institution of marriage is centered on children. Allowing same-sex couples to marry radically alters the social institution of marriage. Same-sex marriage is centered on adults and what is best for the adult rather than children. The two definitions of marriage cannot co-exist.

This is an argument against infertility, the right to choose to not have children, and marriage beyond the age of child-bearing years, too. Does the right really want to go into those grounds?

If marriage becomes an adult-centered institution, the social expectation of raising children in a home where the biological parents are married will continue to erode and fewer heterosexual couples will marry.

This is purely speculative and has no data to back it up. It is also easily countered with more speculation because one can simply say that homosexuals getting married will have no effect on a heterosexual’s decision to marry. It’s sort of like how blacks getting married didn’t cause white marriage rates to decline.

Keeping marriage defined as the union of one man and one woman is not about discrimination, intolerance or denying civil rights, it is about ensuring our society continues to reap the benefits of marriage between a man and a woman.

Lies. This is about Bible-based hatred of homosexual activity (and often homosexuals, despite lying denials). And if this is about ensuring society continues to reap the benefits of marriage between one man and one woman, then there should be a push to legally compel people to marry. After all, that wouldn’t be about denying the civil rights of individuals to choose to not get married, it would be about ensuring societal benefits, no?

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If they want tax exemption…

Posted on October 11, 2009 by Michael

Catholics add $86,000 vs gay vows

Catholics in Maine gave about $86,000 to fight same-sex marriage through collections at Masses in September.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland said Friday that parishioners put $41,000 into baskets during collections supporting the campaign to repeal Maine’s new law legalizing same-sex marriage.

Donations made in envelopes weren’t opened by the churches but sent directly to Stand for Marriage Maine, the political action committee organizing the repeal effort.

This seems like such a clear issue. If any given religion wants tax-exempt status, it should effectively remain a-political. In this instance, preaching a lack of acceptance should be legally acceptable (and expected of religion), but donating to political campaigns is out of the question. Telling followers how to vote should not be allowed. It’s bad enough that these organizations are allowed to influence their parishioners towards bigotry; they should not be allowed to do it without paying taxes.

As we should have learned from Kent Hovind, Jesus does not put one above the law.

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Thought of the day

Posted on October 10, 2009 by Michael

Are those who are so ready to credit Christianity with the advancement of science also ready to blame Christianity for the existence of the Dark Ages?

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I knew there was a solution

Posted on October 9, 2009 by Michael

I had a bat problem this past summer. I turned toward using a blanket to capture and release them. As it turns out, there is a much better solution.

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Conservapædia's new project and theology

Posted on October 6, 2009 by Michael

Conservapædia has a new project.

So what to do? When your claim of godly authority rests on your interpretation of God’s holy word, but God’s holy words contradict your desired ends, you’re in a bit of a pickle. There is a solution, though: rewrite the Bible and change the liberal bits! For this reason some of the deranged editors at Conservapædia have launched The Conservative Bible Project, which will purge the wimpy stuff and return it to it’s authentic roots, as a book that could have been written by a dumb-as-a-stick American Republican NRA member who wants to kill communists and A-rabs.

Of course, such a project has been met with much criticism. But, as always, rather than defend themselves, the people at Conservapædia just whine and point at some red herring they find objectionable.

A year ago Time magazine’s David Van Biema wrote up a short, favorable take on the so-called Green Bible, an edition based on the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) that placed “green references” in “a pleasant shade of forest green, much as red-letter editions of the Bible encrimson the words of Jesus.” But wait, there’s more, The Green Bible also includes “supplementary writings” several of which “cite the Genesis verse in which God gives humanity ‘dominion’ over the earth” and “Others [which] assert that eco-neglect violates Jesus’ call to care for the least among us: it is the poor who inhabit the floodplains.”

Even though The Green Bible is risible both from a commercial standpoint as a marketing ploy and theologically as a bastardization of the real heart of Christian doctrine, neither charge was entertained as a valid criticism by the Time staffer. Van Biema even hinted that evangelicals, 54 percent of whom “agreed that ‘stricter environmental laws and regulations are worth the cost'” might embrace the translation despite strong reservations from conservative theologians.

Unfortunately for Conservapædia and the author of this criticism, Ken Shepherd, there is no way to internally resolve any theological conflict within any holy text that isn’t trivial. The only method for fixing the guessmanship in these books is to turn to external source, the primary of which is science.

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Conservapædia’s new project and theology

Posted on October 6, 2009 by Michael

Conservapædia has a new project.

So what to do? When your claim of godly authority rests on your interpretation of God’s holy word, but God’s holy words contradict your desired ends, you’re in a bit of a pickle. There is a solution, though: rewrite the Bible and change the liberal bits! For this reason some of the deranged editors at Conservapædia have launched The Conservative Bible Project, which will purge the wimpy stuff and return it to it’s authentic roots, as a book that could have been written by a dumb-as-a-stick American Republican NRA member who wants to kill communists and A-rabs.

Of course, such a project has been met with much criticism. But, as always, rather than defend themselves, the people at Conservapædia just whine and point at some red herring they find objectionable.

A year ago Time magazine’s David Van Biema wrote up a short, favorable take on the so-called Green Bible, an edition based on the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) that placed “green references” in “a pleasant shade of forest green, much as red-letter editions of the Bible encrimson the words of Jesus.” But wait, there’s more, The Green Bible also includes “supplementary writings” several of which “cite the Genesis verse in which God gives humanity ‘dominion’ over the earth” and “Others [which] assert that eco-neglect violates Jesus’ call to care for the least among us: it is the poor who inhabit the floodplains.”

Even though The Green Bible is risible both from a commercial standpoint as a marketing ploy and theologically as a bastardization of the real heart of Christian doctrine, neither charge was entertained as a valid criticism by the Time staffer. Van Biema even hinted that evangelicals, 54 percent of whom “agreed that ‘stricter environmental laws and regulations are worth the cost'” might embrace the translation despite strong reservations from conservative theologians.

Unfortunately for Conservapædia and the author of this criticism, Ken Shepherd, there is no way to internally resolve any theological conflict within any holy text that isn’t trivial. The only method for fixing the guessmanship in these books is to turn to external source, the primary of which is science.

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Oh, this "news"paper

Posted on October 6, 2009 by Michael

So the Kennebec Journal has been advertising for certain political positions lately. This hasn’t come in the form of regular ad space, but by a devotion of front page space.

A little while ago the editor, Richard Connor, printed an article advertising a political strategy for pro-bigots on the front page. This was done when Obama had just given a widely-anticipated speech on health care. After multiple opinion pieces printed by the KJ by its editors saying Obama needed to make his positions known, his speech found itself on page A3. There are two possibilities: Connor is a dumb editor who does not have a basic ability to recognize front page news or – and here’s where my money is – he’s a hack who wants to use a newspaper to prop up his particular views.

A couple days later, he followed up. The article said nothing other than “We had a meeting and decided we still hate da gays”. Not long after that, Connor, hack extraordinaire, advertised an anti-abortion rally.

Now there’s yet another article. In today’s paper, he advertised some rhetoric from the bigots. It was all about how proponents of same-sex marriage are utilizing outside resources to help with their campaign. The sub-headline said something to the effect of “People from away are helping with the campaign”. I would quote that directly, but I do not waste my money on rags, so I don’t have a copy of the paper on hand. But how about a link? Well, sir, I cannot find it. The KJ is not featuring this article on its website, despite the decision to put it on the front page of today’s paper. But I can tell you that the Vassalboro boat ramp will be closed. Because that’s important.

My favorite part of this is that this is the exact rhetoric used by the bigots. Both sides are guilty of it, actually, but the bigots seem to be more aggressive with their tactics. “From away” is a Maine phrase which means anyone who isn’t from Maine. In this context, it is designed to alienate the opposition from voters. It’s an unsubstantial ploy to woo their votes. Who really sits at home and says, “Hmm, people from out of state are trying to persuade me. Yeah, all right, voting just to spite them is a good idea”? Come on.

The kicker to all this is that it was only about 6 weeks ago that the KJ had an article which noted, simply, that both sides are getting outside funds. I guess Connor forgot about that when he decided to get hung up in all his campaigning.

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