Religious leaders assume respect

Posted on May 5, 2010 by Michael

Assuming they deserve respect, religious leaders like Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony have taken to uniting in criticism of the new immigration law in Arizona.

Mahony is hardly the only religious leader outraged by Arizona’s approach to immigration, which requires police to ask for papers from anyone they suspect is in the country illegally. The progressive Evangelical leader Jim Wallis has declared the state’s new law a social and racial sin. The president of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society declared that by passing the law, Arizona has taken itself out of the mainstream of American life. And McMahon’s Catholic colleague the bishop of Tucson has suggested that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) join lawsuits challenging the law.

Granted they’re actually making some good points, but this is just another instance of religious leaders thinking they deserve respect. They’re presuming that because they lead gullible people who are hostile to and ignorant of science that they have some actual qualifications for speaking on these issues. If they want to keep yammering about this or that, fine, but do it in a way that doesn’t assume respect; maybe become a political pundit or something.

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The record of Ken Cuccinelli

Posted on May 2, 2010 by Michael

Ken Cuccinelli is a sexually immature, anti-scientific, bigoted conservative who unfortunately holds the high position of Attorney General for Virginia. He has been in the news recently for a few things.

Among the documents Cuccinelli demands are any and all emailed or written correspondence between or relating to Mann and more than 40 climate scientists, documents supporting any of five applications for the $484,875 in grants, and evidence of any documents that no longer exist along with proof of why, when, and how they were destroyed or disappeared.

Pure witch hunt.

I find politicians being involved in science like this especially frustrating given my most recent college semester. I spent a lot of time reading and summarizing a number of scientific papers, so my familiarity with their complexity has only increased. There are a number of things I wouldn’t have understood just a year ago; there are even more things I would have thought I understood, but I wouldn’t have appreciated their importance to the paper. This stuff is not easy. So when people like Cuccinelli pretend like they have the knowledge, qualifications, or honesty to make the accusations they do, it’s frustrating. They have no idea.

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National Day of Prayer letter to the editor

Posted on May 1, 2010 by Michael

On April 22nd I read a letter to the editor about the National Day of Prayer. It made no sense.

That this case was not dismissed is ridiculous. One’s decision about whether to pray or to participate in organized prayer is an entirely personal decision, protected by the Constitution.

(Judge) Crabb’s ruling says that she believes the government has the right to decide otherwise. A judge cannot undo the Constitution.

This was baffling to me because right before this, the writer (Stephen Russ) had just quoted where the Judge said that praying is a personal decision. In other words, the guy used the Judge’s logic, but stopped short of its conclusion when it became inconvenient. As such, I was compelled to respond.

In a letter on April 22, Stephen Russ said a recent federal ruling on the National Day of Prayer was “ridiculous.” He continued, “One’s decision about whether to pray or to participate in organized prayer is an entirely personal decision, protected by the Constitution.” He then bizarrely claimed that the ruling undermines this personal decision.

What makes this really weird is that Russ also quoted the judge’s decision, where she said that prayer is personal and government ought not interfere with “an individual’s decision whether and when to pray.” This specifically speaks to the fact that the National Day of Prayer is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion; via the government, it encourages individuals to specific religious action.

What so many believers miss is the fact that one cannot have freedom of religion without freedom from religion. An endorsement of a specific religious act will run counter to another religion every time.

But even should there somehow not be an inter-religious conflict, believers are not to be given preference over atheists and other non-believers. It, of course, happens all the time, but, ideally and constitutionally, it should not.

And, in fact, the Supreme Court has ruled that atheism is as protected as any religion. This does not mean atheism is a religion — no more than not collecting stamps is a hobby — but it does mean that the government cannot have a preference for religion over a lack of religion.

But just for giggles, let’s say the National Day of Prayer is constitutional. It then follows that the government also can encourage a lack of praying. How would Russ and other believers feel about a National Day of Godlessness? It would improve society, I think, but it certainly would be unconstitutional.

(Damn you, Kennebec Journal, for changing my en dash to that ugly, double en, pseudo-em dash.)

As stunning as my take-downs always are, some people still disagree. For example, one person in the online comment section said this (in direct response to another user):

There is no mandate, nobody is going to be “penalized” on their income tax for not praying, or not saying a prayer that is satisfactory to the IRS. You need to go back and review the history of the establishment clause and relevant court cases. The government can not “establish” an official religion or require participation in a specific religion. Nor can it act in any way which gives a preference to a specific religion. When the majority of us establish that day and use the government to distribute that, or our representatives meet and determine that the day is going to be “May 6”, or whenever. That is our right. Don’t like Democracy unless you’re shoving it down someone else’s throat huh?

Got that? Government cannot act in any way which gives preference to a specific religion, but if a majority of people decide they don’t like that, it’s their choice. And that’s just democracy!

Only a member of a majority religion could possibly think the National Day of Prayer makes any legal sense.

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Thank you, connoisseurs of tits

Posted on May 1, 2010 by Michael

Ever since my post on the topless march in Farmington the blog traffic has been up markedly. In the 7 or so hours my post was up for the 30th, it garnered me 329 hits. Today it has been 850 (with 6 hours to go). I even received an email asking me to forward the uncensored pictures to some pro-topless web master. I’m not sure why anyone would think I’m the go-to guy on that one. Find a UMF student and ask*. In fact, one UMF student (who was not there herself) forwarded this (censored) Facebook album to me, and I didn’t even ask. I’m sure a little sleuthing will turn up all those fun pictures.

My favorite part of the increase in traffic, though, is not the hits to that one post. It’s actually the increase in hits to my Photography page that really tickles me. None of those pictures have anything remotely to due with any topless march. Hell, most of them aren’t even that topical.

If anyone is wondering about the big spike, it was for the 20th anniversary of Hubble.

*UMF didn’t sponsor the event, but the only reason the whole thing was held in Farmington was because of the college.

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We aren’t racist! We aren’t rac…hang on a second

Posted on April 30, 2010 by Michael

It’s a lie that the Tea Party is not about pushing racist, bigoted agendas. All the movement represents is the philosophically incoherent libertarians of the Republican party. (Not that I want to suggest that there are a large number of Republicans who hold coherent philosophies, whether libertarian or not.) And here are some stats to back up this all-too-obvious fact.

Among whites who strongly support the Tea Party, 60 percent agreed that America “has gone too far in pushing equal rights.” By comparison, only 23 percent of white Tea Party opponents agreed with that statement.

Other findings from the survey:

  • 94 percent of Tea Party opponents said American society “should do whatever is necessary to ensure equal opportunity.” Of all whites polled for the survey, 79 percent agreed with that statement. Tea Party supporters agreed less. Sixty-four percent said America should do whatever’s necessary.
  • 72 percent of Tea Party opponents concurred that “we don’t give everyone an equal chance in this country.” By comparison, 55 percent of all whites and 23 percent of strong tea party supporters concurred with that idea.
  • 77 percent of Tea Party opponents agreed that “if people were treated more equally, we’d have many fewer problems in this country.” By comparison, 54 percent of all whites and 31 percent of Tea Party supporters agreed.

…

  • 90 percent of Tea Party opponents dissented from the idea that the “government can detain people as long as it wishes without trial.” By comparison, 70 percent of all whites and 54 percent of Tea Party supporters dissented.
  • 72 percent of Tea Party opponents disagreed that the government should be able to tap people’s telephones. By comparison, 50 percent of all whites and 33 percent of Tea Party supporters held that position.
  • 94 percent of Tea Party opponents agreed that “no matter what a person’s political beliefs, he or she is entitled to the same rights as everyone else.” By comparison, 89 percent of all whites and 81 percent of Tea Party supporters agreed.
  • 74 percent of Tea Party opponents dissented from the idea that “the government should be allowed to profile someone because of race or religion.” By comparison, 57 percent of all whites and 33 percent of Tea Party supporters opposed such moves.

When teabaggers say they want more liberty, they mean for themselves.

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Topless march in Farmington

Posted on April 30, 2010 by Michael

After protesters marched topless in Portland for equal rights, Andrea Simoneau, a 22 year old student at the University of Maine at Farmington, decided to organize a similar march in her school’s town.

Hundreds of spectators poured into the street and lined the sidewalks to watch, while clusters of protesters held up signs in opposition to the march.

That’s roughly the desired outcome. Make something that shouldn’t be a big deal into a big deal. It’s too bad that there were so many non-news cameras all over the place, but it can’t be said that that wasn’t expected. Nor could it be said that it was unexpected that some people on the other end of the spectrum would go too far.

Resident Elaine Graham took on the most active role of protest, following topless women with a blue blanket and holding it up to cover them during and after the march.

That’s really not okay. Graham was being disruptive of what was a legal protest in Maine. She really needed to stay at an appropriate distance with a sign or some other form of non-interfering expression. Of course, this isn’t the first time Elaine Graham has gone too far.

Meet Elaine Graham of Farmington, Maine. This is Elaine Graham being expelled from a Judiciary Committee work session on the same sex marriage bill last April. I have no idea at all what she is screaming. However, Ms. Graham is holding three crudely crafted signs. The top one reads: “Mission Homosexual Movement CHANGE WORLD MORAL ORDER.”

(I added the link to the image.)

No stranger to silliness, Graham has again and again publicly expressed her sexual immaturity in ways more inappropriate than what’s par for the course. It’s sad and pathetic, really. Burdened with hatred based in Christianity, she cannot accept that other people have a more adult view than she when it comes to sex, the human body, and even love.

Finally, here’s one of the pictures from the march. Obviously I’m not going to upload bare breasts on WordPress (nor am I going to link to anything besides news images, should images be floating around out there), but I think it’s worthwhile to upload this particular picture because it captures the whole event so well. Graham is there, misbehaving out of sexual immaturity, while who knows how many men take video and pictures of the event.

This contrasts so much with a show I saw in Portland last night. The bulk of the show had three bands/musicians (one of which was Theodore Treehouse), but in between sets there was a belly dancer. Any person would have fallen over him- or herself if this woman merely made eye contact, but notably, everyone refrained from recording. There were a couple of photographers for the show itself, but no one in the audience pulled out a camera or cell phone and started snapping away. It wouldn’t have been appropriate by and large, but it also would have really distracted from what was actually a very skilled and talented performance. Of course, the reason for this difference in reaction is the certainly higher sexual maturity present in the audience at that show versus the sexual maturity of those who showed up to gawk in Farmington. People were able to recognize that the belly dancing was not a sexual act; many (though certainly not all!) in Farmington saw the topless march as a sexual display. It wasn’t.

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Obama expands rights for all

Posted on April 27, 2010 by Michael

I’m not sure how I managed to miss this story, but Obama has expanded visitation rights in hospitals that will primarily benefit gay couples.

The president directed the Department of Health and Human Services to prohibit discrimination in hospital visitation in a memo that was e-mailed to reporters Thursday night.

Administration officials and gay activists, who have been quietly working together on the issue, said the new rule, once in place, will affect any hospital that receives Medicare or Medicaid funding, a move that covers the vast majority of the nation’s health care institutions.

While those who irrationally hate gays because they think homosexuality is all about sex (and that’s just icky!) are going to paint this as special rights for gays, it is an expansion of rights for all.

Obama’s memo to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius orders the development of new rules to ensure that hospitals “respect the rights of patients to designate visitors” and to choose the people who will make medical decisions on their behalf.

This is common sense. Even with legal documents in place, gays and some unmarried straight couples still face horrific discrimination in hospitals. Specifically, this recent memo is in response to the case of Lisa Pond and Janice Langbehn.

Ms. Pond had filed a living will, a binding legal document, that appointed Ms. Langbehn to make medical decisions for her should she become too ill to speak for herself.

But even after copies of that document were faxed to the Florida hospital where Ms. Pond was dying, nurses refused to allow Ms. Langbehn and the couple’s three children into the room.

It is difficult to imagine that a heterosexual couple — even an unmarried heterosexual couple with a similarly long-standing relationship — would be treated the same way.

In another case (from the same link), a couple had designated each other as the person in charge of medical decisions should the other become ill.

Like Ms. Pond, Ms. Ritchie had a living will that designated her partner to make medical decisions for her. But hospital officials wouldn’t provide Ms. Reed with any information on her partner’s condition. Without that information, she couldn’t possibly make informed medical decisions, as Ms. Ritchie had intended.

Things like this are the successes of bigoted voters who go to the ballot box thinking they’re protecting some institution. This isn’t about abstract social constructs. It is about human beings. This goes beyond the petty narrow-mindedness that pervades so many; the happiness of others is what matters. Equal rights for all will increase happiness while not affecting the currently privileged one bit.

What is so damned hard about this? Institutions matter only insofar as they protect people.

Filed under: News, Politics and Social, Rights, Same-sex marriage | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Jack Hudson is a moron, part 2

Posted on April 26, 2010 by Michael

After rambling on with a number of lies and a little incoherency, one might imagine Jack Hudson couldn’t get worse. Don’t worry. There’s always art.

(Not only is Religion not Dangerous) But it appears to have given us art.

Please excuse the randomly capitalized words. Inside the parentheses is the title of the post (despite “only” being written inappropriately).

Jack is attempting to make a correlation and call it a causation here, nothing more. But let’s continue.

But we already knew that didn’t? After all, the vast majority of art, music, writing, and much architecture in human history appear to be motivated by some sort of spiritual beliefs.

Lol? Yes, lol.

1) “Spiritual beliefs” do not equal religious beliefs.
2) That something can be motivated by a type of belief is not evidence that that something originated in a type of belief. In other words, just because there is religious art, music, writing, and architecture does not mean that religion is somehow the creator of these things. Indeed, all of these things are actually what help to create religion. They are means of communication and expression which promote ideas that then morph and evolve into more and more complex things. Jack’s analysis is fairly immature.

The article on Science Daily discusses how the origin of art and religious beliefs are linked though – and how we had to overcome wrongheaded ideas about evolution to realize it.

The article in question actually says nothing about evolution. The original paper (to which Jack does not link), however, mentions ideas about social evolution. It quotes the beliefs surrounding early man – from 1865; it also quotes socially-based racist beliefs surrounding man from the same time. In fact, the paper then goes on to note that many of the beliefs that early man had no religion came largely from political considerations, not any actual evidence. None of the ideas expressed were ever really part of evolutionary theory, and they certainly are not part of it today.

The reality is that humans are spiritual creatures – we are in fact the only organisms which exhibit spirituality. Divest us of this spiritual reality, and we lose all that that it produces, and which makes us unique as humans – art, music, philosophy, systems of morality and law.

Jack has no idea what makes human unique.

1) Evidence exists which shows that Neanderthals also had art. Were they also spiritual? Does that put them on an even playing field with humans?
2) There is no evidence that spirituality – a nebulous term Jack has not bothered to define – gives us art or anything else.
3) No evidence has been offered which actually shows causation. Major fail. Move along.

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Jack Hudson is a moron, part 1

Posted on April 25, 2010 by Michael

In all likelihood, Jack Hudson still reads this blog. As regular readers will know, he left in a huff when I exposed the ‘anonymous’ phone calls he or one of his friends had been making to a family member of mine. Of course, I went out of my way to point out that the best evidence was track phone numbers which originated from his home state, but he’s likely one of the most deluded, arrogant individuals I’ve encountered so that fell on deaf ears since he didn’t want to hear it. My relative then berated him for the sake of causing anger, pulling out a number of insults which any rational person would have seen as zingers that should have little consequence beyond a small blog in the corner of the Internet. Then after all that, Jack blamed me for what someone else said (sharing 1/4 of my genes with someone makes me guilty, I guess?), defriended me on Facebook a la John Lott style, and stormed off the set.

But he still probably reads this blog.

He has this post about a case of bigotry in Sonoma County in California, likely having taken the news from FTSOS; the main ways of finding the story were via a short post from PZ or by being someone who specifically searches gay and lesbian sites for news. And since most of Jack’s posts relating to PZ only pop up after I post about them, it’s hard to believe he doesn’t still peruse FTSOS. And that’s fine. I glance at some of his posts. I’ve even tried leaving a couple comments, but alas, he has already gone out of his way to block my IP. Some people just can’t take it. (Even those who can beat people up real bad!)

But enough qualification, let’s get to the post in question (which is about two elderly gay men who were forcefully separated by Sonoma County).

So the story came out, was gobbled up (though not digested) – and of course no follow-up will happen, because these folks aren’t interested in facts which might muddle up their epistemic closure on all things homosexual.

Of course there will be follow-up. If the result is in favor of the elderly gay man who is still living (despite having all his property stolen), then that’s good news for gay rights. If the result is against the elderly gay man, it’s an unfortunate blow which serves roughly the same political purpose as the initial story.

At the outset its important to note the events themselves take place in Sonoma County, California. This is important because we aren’t talking about some back-woods, redneck, right-wing enclave that systematically oppresses anyone who isn’t a white heterosexual – this is perhaps one of the most gay-friendly places on earth. It is also one of the most ‘progressive’ parts of the country; so there is little indication that politics ordered the set of events detailed in this story.

Here Jack wants a strawman. No one said there was some deep political current. Those in charge separated the two because the couple could not get married. Nothing beyond that matters.

It also went without note the reasoning the county gave for acting as it did with the two men…In this case of course, the left-wingers weren’t interested in the whole story, because another set of facts might threaten the usefulness of the story they had concocted

(The ellipsis is for some meaningless, irrelevant excerpt from the Bible.)

One of the first sites to break the story actually linked to the .pdf of the lawsuit which included that claim.

No one is saying supposed accounts of abuse are unimportant, but the county did not charge anyone. No convictions were made. The county had no right to dissolve all the legal arrangements the two had set up. They did it with no authority, and in fact, they repeatedly claimed both men were suffering from dementia. Isn’t it just convenient that both men were suffering from severe mental impairment, yet the county was still able to selectively believe certain claims? And how can anyone believe these people? The man who is still living, Clay, is not actually suffering from anything (other than the torment of having not seen the final days of his partner’s life). He is actually free from the abuse he actually suffered at his prison nursing home.

And what is even more ironic is what is really bothersome in this case is the wanton disregard the county showed for property rights. The fact that they felt they could imprison an individual and then confiscate his property to pay for his incarceration, even if they felt it was for his own health, is outrageous – but it is outrageous for conservative reasons, not progressive reasons. In this situation the bureaucrats were acting exactly as progressives want the state to act; to be indifferent to our property, to act in what they deem is our best interest, and to intrude into what should be personal and individual financial issues.

Going off the looney deep-end with a non-sequitur much? If the couple was married, the county would not have been able to steal property. End of story.

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Hear ye, hear ye!

Posted on April 22, 2010 by Michael

The April-May edition of Without Apology is out. This is likely the last edition I do for quite some time as I will be busy this summer (not to mention the cost, plus the reduced audience given the end of the spring semester).

The articles in this edition of Without Apology are more varied than usual. From issues in the NFL to a revisiting of T’s Golf to gene therapy for mouse vision, the range is wider.

Perhaps the best article, however, is the one by Gabriel Levesque. Also known as Mr. Jay Gatsby, Gabe has written about bastardizing history.

History is too often called upon to support presentist ideological and political themes. Politicians and radio personalities use historical figures to suggest their ideas are correct and in accordance with some great historical figure. Polarizing images and comparisons with Lincoln, for example, dominated Obama’s campaign and the first year of his presidency. Obama’s political adversaries countered by comparing his policies with Soviet Russia and Joseph Stalin. This is a practice that is unfair and all too common…

Thanks to Gabe for his contribution. Physical copies of the paper were placed around UMA, but it looks like they went quickly. A second batch will show up around campus sometime soon.

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