As expected, anti-gay lawmakers have begun to react violently to the Supreme Court overturning DOMA. As backlash to the ruling, Indiana has revisited a law that will make it a felony for same sex couples to apply for a marriage license. The law actually only punishes applicants for supplying false information on a marriage license, but because the form only has spaces for a male and a female applicant, all other applicants can be considered as violating a law that carries a maximum penalty of 18 months in prison. Those who perform the ceremony will be liable to 180 days in jail.
Of course the law will be overturned in court, but how long can the courts protect us from this kind of insanity? Continually proposing unconstitutional laws has a corrosive effect on the rule of secular law. When Republicans continually propose bills that would impose religion into the law books, they are playing Russian Roulette with our secular democracy and at some point the chamber will have a bullet in it.
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/indiana-makes-same-sex-felony
If you thought the Texas anti-abortion bill was sneaky wait until you hear about North Carolina. After failed attempts to sneak their religion into the law books in the guise of a law to prevent Muslims from doing the same thing, North Carolina Republicans were eventually able to anti-abortion language into a law concerning motorcycle safety.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/10/1222526/-North-Carolina-House-sneaks-revised-anti-abortion-language-onto-motorcycle-safety-bill?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29#
This is fun. It’s an 8 minute clip from mental floss debunking 50 common myths that some people think are scientific.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/51633/50-science-misconceptions—debunked
If I were a tyrant intent on taking over America, I would wrap myself in the flag. I would try to persuade people that they do not need to get involved in politics so long as they put flags on their houses and cars. I would teach them that all government is bad -even though, in a democracy, the people are the government. I would steer people away from learning anything negative about America’s history. Critical thinking about America’s role in the world would be treated as unpatriotic. I would teach people to hold America to a different standard from other nations, to see us as the exception always and the example never.
Most of all, I would make sure citizens did not feel the duty to take responsibility for their own citizenship. Instead, I would teach them to love parades, and patriotic songs, and most of all the flag. And then, I would take that flag and wave it over my own causes. I would claim that those who did not follow me were betraying the flag. I would say that any who questioned my warlike policies were attacking not me, but our brave troops. A cowardly and ill-informed populous would follow. They would destroy the very principles of their own liberty in the name of patriotism.
Last night, as I watched right-to-life activists at the capitol I was struck, as I always am at their sincerity. I do not have the same trust in all of their leaders, but I believe the rank and file right-to-life activist really believes in what they are doing.
Thinking back to my own right-to-life days, I understand. As long as I believed that the human personality resides in little invisible fleck called the “soul,” then I could believe that abortion is no different than taking a fully developed life. As long as I was ignorant of the scientific evidence, I could believe that a fetus can feel pain even before it has a nervous system. Before I began to work with survivors of rape and domestic violence, it was easy for me to ignore the fact that a woman who did or could not say “no” to sex, might need to say “no” to pregnancy.
I have no doubt that most right-to-light activists are sincere, but sincerity only goes so far. Many inquisitors believed salvation depends on confessing Jesus Christ as one’s savior and so they tortured Jews and others to confess Jesus. From within their religious assumptions, torture was an act of kindness. It is better, they reasoned, to suffer pain for a short time on earth than for an eternity in hell. Sincerity only goes so far. We have a duty to test our beliefs, and if we cannot present demonstrable evidence that others can accept, we have no right to force our private convictions onto the public sphere.
The insulting nature of some anti-choice legislation is hard for many men to understand. Perhaps this tongue and cheek article from Alternet will help. In the article, the author presents a case for protecting Texas men from the dangers of medicines that treat erectile disfunction (ED). Protecting Texas men will require such treatments as “transanal ultrasound” but nothing is too good for our men. Perhaps we should begin treatments with the brave legislators who want to protect Texas women from themselves.
http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/will-texas-try-pass-erectile-dysfunction-laws-next-it-would-be-only-fair
Bob Jensen has a new book out on critical thinking. In the book he poses an important question, "why do intellectuals who should help us criticize the frailties of our culture, defend those frailties instead? He asks, for example, why do intellectuals so often tend to defend hierarchy? His answer:
--The systems and structures in which we live are hierarchical.
--Hierarchical systems and structures deliver to those in the dominant class certain privileges, pleasures, and material benefits.
--People are typically hesitant to give up such privileges, pleasures, and benefits.
--But, those benefits clearly come at the expense of those in the subordinated class.
--Given the widespread acceptance of basic notions of dignity, solidarity, and equality, the existence of hierarchy has to be justified in some way other than crass self-interest.
--One of the most persuasive arguments for systems of domination and
subordination is that they are “natural.”
In other words, intellectuals are usually imbedded in a system such as a university that manifest the hierarchy. For very human reasons many intellectuals are tempted not to see the flaws in a system that gives them privilege and the admiration of their colleagues.
http://www.alternet.org/books/widespread-failure-intellectuals-stand-authoritarian-power-america?paging=off
This border fence is finally making sense. For a while it seemed strange when undocumented immigration was at a forty year low to obsess on building a border wall. John McCain said the new improved wall would give us the “most militarized border since the fall of the Berlin Wall.” So now the Berlin Wall was a good thing? I was getting so confused. But not any more.
It is now becoming clear that the wall will funnel money to military contractors. It is estimated that unmanned drones cost ten times as much as the small piloted crafts used before, but then the firms that make the drones spent $2.5 million last year on lobbying so, of course, the new legislation will require new drones, 50 fixed surveillance towers 72 fixed camera towers, 28 mobile surveillance systems and 685 unattended ground sensors. Only certain military contractors have such capacity. Are you starting to get the picture?
To get a sampling of the money to be made on such a project, consider this: Boeing made $1.2 billion dollars over five years in a fence building project that was eventually cancelled. No wonder defense contractors are lining up to bid on the border wall. Whether it is a failed war or failed wall they always get to keep the money.
http://www.salon.com/2013/07/06/an_ungodly_stupid_get_rich_scheme_the_real_border_security_story/
No religion starts from scratch. Every religion is a syncretistic mixture of what came before.
The very belief that our religion is unique and better than others may seem like piety, but it is a recipe for disaster when we consider the ramifications. The nation or sect that considers itself the exception to the rest of humankind holds itself to no external standard of ethics or truth.
This August 1st, 8th and 15th I will be presenting a noon workshop at Seton Cove on the Universal Roots of Christianity. We will look at how knowledge of earlier faiths help clarifies what early Christianity was about.
Week 1 we will look at Osiris and the roots of Christian communion.
Week 2 we will look at Persephone and the roots of a belief in hell.
Week 3 we will look at Sophia and realize that Jesus was calling us to universal wisdom not sectarian belief.
I have waived a fee, but the cost of the class is $75 which covers lunch and the ongoing programs at the cove. Registration can be done at www.setoncove.net or calling 512-451-0272.
Mary Ann Kaiser has been faithfully ministering in the Methodist Church for some time. Her pursuit of ordination was denied by a committee without even conducting the required interview. Their reasoning was impeccable. According to the Methodist Book of Discipline, a “self-avowed practicing homosexual” is barred from ordination. The question not being asked is, “does any human being have a right to mistreat another human being because of the unjust rules of their sect?”
Ms. Kaiser made an appeal to the Bishop to require the committee to at least go through proper channels. In a scene that could have come out of the passion narrative, the Bishop washed his hands sending the case on to another counsel. Like Pontius Pilate in the Easter story, the Bishop did not weigh in as a human being, but dissolved into the machinery of process.
The Bishop ruled that Ms. Kaiser’s appeal was “moot and hypothetical,” which basically made of her a nonentity. His ruling is hailed as moderate, but begs the question of whether any of us has a right to withhold justice from another just because our group does not consider them worthy of equal treatment.
It is a damnable thing to be successful in a religious hierarchy. The higher one rises, the more evil one must participate in. That is why Jesus forbade religious hierarchy. To get to wear the big hat requires a surrender of one’s conscience and submission to process that requires us to surrender personal responsibility for our words and deeds on behalf of the group.
Looking back at history, do the church leaders who submitted to a process that mistreated Jewish persons seem like such good church leaders today? In their day they were considered moderate, but today we recognize that they simply lacked courage. Do the Southern clergy who remained silent about their congregations’ practice of slavery seem faithful? In their day they blended into their culture and thus were considered moderate, but can anyone deem them so today?
Ms. Kaiser appealed to her Bishop for justice. His side stepping her request may seem moderate today, but there will come a day when it will be seen as the cowardice it truly was. People of faith have a duty before God not to mistreat any other person even if their church or synagogue demands it.