Equal Protection For Duck Fuckers

Pat Robertson, on the 700 Club, had this little gem of fear-mongering against the new LGBT-inclusive hate crimes legislation that recently passed in the House:

“Ladies and gentleman, just figure this: You got somebody, he’s really weird, and—and his ‘sexual orientation’ is he likes to uh–have sex with ducks.  Is he protected under hate crime?  Is he protected if he likes to have sex with little boys?  They haven’t made that clear!  It’s sexual orientation which he[, our own 700 Club reporter,] said covers, what, thirty different,” he sputters, “pathologies.  And what are we going to do about that?”

Here’s what we’re going to do about that:  We’re going to protect paedophiles and zoophiles and, well, everybody from discrimination!  Raping children and animals and other beings which are incapable of giving or understanding consent is wrong.  Let there be no doubt about that.  But, as wrong and illegal as it is to fuck a little boy or a dog or–if you can figure out how to do it–a duck, people who commit those acts should not be harassed, unduly, by the public.

We shouldn’t have to continue adding groups to the hate crimes legislature, a crime of hate can happen to anyone, no matter what group they are a part of, and all crimes of hate should be illegal.  Let the courts deal with the duck fucker, Mr. Robertson, it’s not your job to take him to the gates of the city and stone him.  Nor is it your job to publicly humiliate him, as is your wish with homosexuals, or to spread damaging lies about him, as is your wish with homosexuals, or to raise up an army of pious sheep against him, as is your wish with homosexuals, or, well, you’re starting to see the pattern here, aren’t you.

Notice it’s the Christians, who whine about being oppressed by hatred, that are radically anti-hate crimes legislation and it’s the gays and secularists, who the Christians whine are the ones being hateful and oppressive, that are pushing for hate crimes legislation.  What does this tell you?

(via Media Matters)

City of Roanoke vs. Reed Braden: Epic Victory

As I predicted, my obscenity trial today was a fucking circus.

I was contacted yesterday by the Virginia ACLU and was advised to request that City of Roanoke vs. John Reed Braden be rescheduled for a future date so that the ACLU could come represent me.

With that in mind, I took a seat in the courtroom at 11 and was asked to move to another courtroom at 12.  I did so and the new presiding judge didn’t have a nameplate on the bench.  For all I know he was a janitor.  I took my affirmation and Officer Bowman (who, now that the trial is over, is retroactively Homosecular Gaytheist’s Dumbass of the Week for the week of 11 April, for forgetting that he is a member of the Executive Branch and not a member of the Judicial Branch and it is not up to him to interpret legal definitions) told his side of the story.  I told the nameless judge that everything Bowman said was indeed true and read to him the city’s legal definition of obscene and explained why my sign didn’t fit that definition.

The judge agreed and then lectured me for ten minutes on why he doesn’t like the First Amendment.  He ended with, “You’re obviously a very intelligent young man and it disgusts me to see that this is the best way you can express yourself.  Intelligent people don’t use language like that.”

Since we had pretty much already determined that the law is on my side and his lecture was getting on my nerves, I stopped him there:  “Your Honour, I respectfully disagree with that statement.  The illustrations on the poster are re-creations of Kurt Vonnegut’s famous sketches of his own asshole that he put in several of his books, and if you are insinuating that Kurt Vonnegut is unintelligent in any way, I’m going to disagree with you wholeheartedly.  And you have already insinuated that you think I’m an asshole, and I respect your right to hold and express that opinion, but I’m fairly certain it’s not a crime in the United States to be an asshole.  That said, I would like to know the relevance of your lecture to the charges Officer Bowman brought against me.”

To which he replied, “You can take your sign and leave.”

I said, “Thank you, your Honour, have a nice day,” took my sign from the flabbergasted Officer Bowman and left.

The weird thing about this, though, is something the ACLU representative said to me on the phone:  Normally all Class 1 Misdemeanours are sent to the district court, but there’s some obscure ordinance on the books that Class 1 Misdemeanours resulting from an obscenity violation are to be sent to the circuit court.  I was sent to the district court, so the judge didn’t even technically have jurisdiction over this case.  Bring in the goddamn clowns.

Thoughts and Links on Swine Flu

Who wants my nonprofessional opinion of Avian/Swine Flu with a list of hilarious Flying-Pig-Mexiflu-related links?

It’s up at The Contagious Narrative.  Read it.

That’s right… I said Flying Pig Mexiflu.  Go fuck yourself.

Watchmaker Argument Repackaged… Poorly

This question was on AskTheAtheists.com recently:

A case for rational belief in a creator?

I have an example of how belief in God would be rational and I would like your input. Here it goes:

Let’s say you or I are walking through a beautiful meadow, and a log cabin comes into view. Apparently the cabin was abandoned, and yet there is still some evidence that it was occupied at some time. Beautiful artwork is hung on the wall, and hand-crafted furniture is covered in dust. Now, wouldn’t be logical to conclude that somebody built the cabin, that some one painted the artwork, and that the furniture, now worn, was crafted by someone? So why couldn’t it be, that someone created this gorgeous earth, and this brilliant universe, both of which are infinitely more complex and shall I say, imaginative, than that old abandoned cabin. Wouldn’t that someone be greater than that which he/she/it built, just like the man or woman who built the cabin is greater than his/her creation?

And here is my answer:

Can you really replace “heath” with “meadow” and “watch” with “cabin” and call it a rational case? (The wording is very Lee Strobel of you, I might add.) This argument has been around since William Paley penned it in Natural Theology in 1802, before Charles Darwin wrote On The Origin of Species, the first major rebuttal of this fatuous argument.

Since the early 1800’s, science has grown by leaps and bounds and continues to meticulously revise and update our knowledge of the process of evolution. It seems to me, as evidenced by your argument, that religion, in all that time, has only learned to use a thesaurus. After 207 years, the only thing that has changed in this argument, which you’re laughably presenting to us as an exciting new hypothesis, is the wording.

If you’re arguing that life is so complex that it requires a creator, you are stopping short of one of three obvious conclusions to that argument. I’ll concede, for the sake of argument, that your “case” is valid and that cabins and watches prove the existence, somehow, of a creator god. The argument continues in three directions here:

Because creations cannot be more complex than their Creator, Whatever (or Whoever) created God must be even more complex.

And whatever created that Creator, and whatever created that Creator, and so on, ad infinitum. You can either believe that life came from simple beginnings and worked their way up to present form gradually with the energy supplied to it by our Sun, or you can believe that the universe is completely stuffed and overflowing with magical creator gods, because if you believe life absolutely has to have a creator, why should the creator be uncreated? If the creator can be uncreated, what’s to stop nature from being uncreated?

Since life on Earth is so distressingly violent and much of what occurs in nature is so outrageous to our moral senses, whoever created Earth was either uncaring or malevolent.

It’s no secret that life thrives on death. All animals on this planet (and quite a few plants and bacteria) must kill other forms of life and steal their energy in order to live. We call this eating, and even vegetarians are guilty of it, just not in such an obvious way.

Any God who could purposefully design a system where life could not exist without slaughter is not a God that I could feel comfortable spending an eternity with, were I given that choice. How many gazelles have to die from the time a lioness is born to the time she births her last litter and finishes passing on her genes? How many cows, pigs and chickens must die for a single human to live comfortably from birth until death? In 2007, 271,685,000 turkeys were slaughtered in the United States in preparation for Thanksgiving, a day in which we are supposed to give thanks to the God who designed this system.

In this clip from the series Planet Earth, a fungus from the genus Cordyceps infects several insects and hijacks their mind, forcing them to climb to where they can be easily eaten and the fungus can attach itself to a new host. The God who designed your cabin also designed a brain fungus that causes insects to commit suicide.

Which God is it?

You’ve successfully proved to me that God, while he is somewhat of a jerk and is subordinate to an infinite amount of bigger Gods, is real. Congratulations. Now which God is it? I assume you’re going to try and tell me that it’s your own God, and hope that since you’ve already convinced me thusfar, you won’t have to do any more arguing. (It’s obvious you’re a lazy debater since you plagiarised Paley.) I’m credulous, but I’m not that credulous. You’ve only done half the job. Now plagiarise something that will convince me that this Creator God is your Creator God.

You really need to start thinking about where your arguments lead before you present them. Your question led to nothing but more doubt.

So Texans Want to Secede, Eh?

During the teabagging hullaballoo news came out that the Governor of Texas gave a speech flirting with the idea of secession.  I’m completely in favour of states like Texas, Alaska, South Jesusina, and Ron Paulitopia seceding.  If we can pull the fundamentalists out of our voting population and put them in their own countries where they can no longer influence our politics and dictate their morality in US Law, I would have no problem changing our flag and redrawing our maps.  Buying a new flag and reprogramming my GPS seems like a good exchange for ‘Liberty and justice for all,’ whereas all means all, not just heterosexual American-born Christians.

So let them secede!  If the flag thing becomes an issue, we can always replace Texas and Alaska with Puerto Rico and Guam.  They’ve been waiting for citizenship for quite some time now.

Today’s Superpoop inspired this post:

superpoop.com

Dumbasses of the Week: Firefox

Aaaarrrrrrrrgh!

Since Firefox forced me to upgrade to the newest fix, it’s crashed about 4 times a day.

The developers who came up with the automatic upgrade are this week’s dumbasses of the week.

Fuck you guys.

Bea Arthur Dead

Bea Arthur died.  I was flabbergasted when I heard.  My first thought was:  “She’s still alive?!” 

Well, to celebrate her life, you should all go give Jeffrey Rowland your money by buying this poster of Bea Arthur wrasslin’ a dinosaur.

Let’s talk about DISEASE. MMMM….

Okay HG readers. I kind of want to hijack you and direct you to my blog.

It’s always fun to comment on Atheism, but how about we have a discussion on the Swine Flu Pandemic over at my blog: The Contagious Narrative . (edit: maybe pandemic is not the right word yet…but news sources say it has pandemic potential…so let’s prepare for the worst)

It will be buckets of fun, I promise.

–Katie

“We Are America! We Do Not Fucking Torture!” – Shepherd Smith

Very rarely does Fox News make me smile, but sometimes when being constantly surrounded by vapid Limbaugh parrots, rationality turbulently surfaces… and I smile:

Bravo, Shepherd!  If you lose your job at Fox, I’ll let you come blog for me.

Who Wants to Chat With a Mormon?

The Mormon church is advertising a new feature on Mormon.org:  A chat room where you are assigned a Mormon missionary that you can talk to!  Oh goodie!  Now I can sow seeds of doubt without having to wait on them to find my apartment again.

You are speaking live with Zachary, who is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Information provided in this session is to provide assistance only and is not an official statement of the Church.

Zachary: Hello Reed, This is Zachary from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints, How can I help you today?

Reed: Well, for starters, you can convince me that your religion is real. I don’t have a religion of my own, but I’m willing to accept one that answers my questions with enough reason and evidence.

Reed: Are you there?

Zachary: Well Reed I will be glad to answer any questions you have to the best of my ability.

Zachary: yes I am here.

Reed: Okay. Evolution is extremely convincing. The evidence is clearly on the side of evolution by natural selection, but things like abiogenesis (the origin of life; non-life into life) and the Big Bang are a bit confusing and sometimes it seems like the evidence for those are stretched a bit thin. Does your religion allow for natural selection but answer the questions of abiogenesis and big bang theory better than science can?

Zachary: Reed, I understand your question very well. As I have an absolute love of science. However the Church has taken no stand on evolution, However in the Bible God describes the Creation of the World.

Zachary: Even Albert einstein said "the More I learn the more I believe in God" I’m sorry I don’t have a direct answer for you, but I know God Created the Heavens and the Earth, That life does Change due to the forces of nature.

Reed: Yes, I was raised Baptist and I still study the Bible. The Creation account simply doesn’t cut it anymore. Where it astounded people a few thousand years ago, it barely stirs the soul today in the way that, say, pictures from the Hubble do. Your church doesn’t take Genesis literally, does it?

Reed: And I doubt Einstein ever said that. His belief was in a god that was the universe, not a god of the universe. He saw the laws of physics and nature as "god". So I doubt he would have used the highly-confusing phrase, "believe in God." Especially with a capital G.

Zachary: Yes we Take genesis Literally, however if Genesis no longer stirs your soul, I invite you to read this http://scriptures.lds.org/en/moses/2 I understand perfectly what you mean with the hubble pictures The creations are truly astounding and the universe

Zachary: is so vast, and amazing. The meaning of the einstein quote was not to prove belife in god, but that we as humans Cannot understand the works of God yet.

Reed: This chatroom is terribly coded. Your URL isn’t a link and I can’t copy-paste the url into my browser since I can’t select text. I’ll have to hit Ctrl-A and paste the whole thing into Notepad then search for the link. It would be easier just to describe it to me.

Reed: But I’m pretty sure Einstein never said that to begin with. Can you cite a source?

Reed: Well, I’m done with this. I’ll try to find another religion since all you can offer me is literal readings of Bronze-Age creation myths and mis-attributions to famous scientists in a futile appeal to authority. Work on your sales pitch.

Reed: Later, Zack.

The chat room is apparently hosted through Brigham Young University.  That may explain the poor coding and the poor ability to appeal to a modern public.

Happy Late Birthday to HG!

Oops!  I forgot that April 17 was the first birthday of Homosecular Gaytheist.  Before then, I wrote the blog Unorthodox Atheism and I switched to Homosecular Gaytheist in my move from Blogger to WordPress.

Since then, there have been 689 posts (including this one), 2,817 comments that made it through the spam filter, 16,740 comments that did not, and 102,508 visits to Homosecular Gaytheist from fine people like yourself.  My writing staff has grown from 1 person to 5 people and Homosecular Gaytheist was mentioned on RichardDawkins.net, Reason Magazine (who panned me for calling Bristol Palin a slut) and Pharyngula.

All-in-all, that seems like a decent year.  Here’s to hoping year two is better! [Takes a sip of cheap birthday champagne.]

Pale Blue Dot

Carl Sagan reading from his book Pale Blue Dot with music by Mogwai.

Now take care of the Earth guys.  It’s teeny tiny, but we have no where else to live that’s nearly as cool as this ol’ rock we’re standing on.

I want you to get angry (but not at me)

This is not a formal post. You know me. The grad student who comes in once every few weeks or months and has some weird things to say…slightly off topic, but interesting none the less.

I am in an e-mail conversation right now with an Orthodox Jew. He is explaining to me the dating rituals of the Orthodox, something I hadn’t really thought about before. I told him I was an atheist, but that I don’t normally blurt it out. I don’t normally blurt it out to people I don’t know, because for the vast majority of this nation it seems to be a horrific, anger inciting thing to be an atheist. I told my friend that sometimes my being an atheist “scares people away”–he’s a fairly open minded and understanding fellow, so he didn’t understand.

So this is where your turn comes in.

This isn’t my post, it’s yours. I want you to get angry, I want to incite a riot right here at HG. (I hope Reed doesn’t mind–and I hope you will all chime in…I know I’m not as verbose or offensive as Reed, but I smell better and I’m prettier…)

So I wanted to get you guys talking with the following things in mind:

–Are you verbal about your atheism? And not just here at HG or in cyberspace…but are you “out” to everyone you know? And if you aren’t…WHY NOT? And it’s okay to not be for now, but I am wondering if you share my feeling of being resented and feared by the “Christian Nation”…

–Do you think you scare or anger Christians and other religions equally…or is all that resentment coming from one area??

–Do you even feel like you scare or anger religious types at all?

–Where is your voice? We are a minority…but we are growing! Where is our voice and how do we find it?

–Do you feel you are unfairly categorized or stereotyped when you tell someone about your atheism?

I am, both personally and academically, deeply interested in what you, the readers of Homosecular Gaytheist, have to say. I want to see the passion, the anger, the MORALITY that the evangelicals claim WE DON’T HAVE. Well fuck them. Just because I don’t go to church on Sunday or believe in “God” I must be immoral! I have more morals and ethics and good humour and philanthropic tendencies than almost any “Christian” I’ve ever met (and that’s not for all of them…there are the truly good ones).

So I am asking, pleading, begging you to use your voice and tell me how you feel about being an atheist. Are you proud? Are you angry? Are you scared?

I want to know, because I want to hear it, I want to hear it to know that there are others who feel just as slighted as I do.

So tell me, friends. Do you feel slighted as an Atheist?

–Katie

Peter LaBarberastreisand Responds!

[Edit: Let's try this again.  With grammar!]

I just got this email from Peter LaBarberastreisand of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality:

Wisdom is following God, Reed, as revealed through Scripture. You distortJesus to serve your sinful cause. I could deconstruct your “deconstruction,”but frankly I’ve better things to do.—pl

So he read the first three paragraphs of my email, responded, and ignored the rest.  Otherwise, I’m sure someone of Peter’s calibre would have loved rubbing the fact that he read the whole thing in my face after I presumptuously mentioned that he wouldn’t read the whole thing.  Nor did he mention that I was willing to donate to his organization crappy one-man blog if he published my email, as I am doing with his.

Like I said, he wouldn’t read the whole thing.

I’m getting bored with Christians.  They’re getting far too predictable.

Something tells me he didn’t listen to James Neiley’s entire speech either.

Gathering Storm

Yes another hilarious strike at anti-marriage folks from the celebs at Funny or Die.com.

Starring: Sarah Chalke, Jason Lewis, Lynne Stewart, Alicia Silverstone, Lance Bass, Liz Feldman, Sophia Bush, Drew Droege, Mike Hitchcock, Daniele Gathier, Jay Lay, Erin Foley, George Takei, and Jane Lynch.

Andrew Milne Saved By Zombie Jesus

Read this blog post: Xena: Prayer Warrior.  I haven’t laughed this hard since Carrot Top got face implants and started taking steroids.

Here’s a sample:

Now that I’m a born again Christian, and I’m Heaven-bound, I was finally going to be able to speak with Zombie Jesus about Sash’s disease.

One thing I would add:

Jesus came back as a body. His body was gone from the tomb, Thomas and others touched his body and his body resurrected! Jesus was not a ghost, he was a zombie!  Bitch don’t know her own Bible!

Why are you still reading this?  Go read Andrew’s blog.  DO IT NAO!

A Quick Note on Policy Reform

Usually I wouldn’t diverge so much from the usual topics of the blog, but considering it is 4/20, and I am otherwise a very vocal pro-legalization advocate, I’d like to take a little time to talk about the positive, beneficial aspects of the decriminalization and medical distribution of marijuana.  Full post below the fold:

Elegant, Young Gay Male Speaks Up For Marriage in Vermont, Ham-Handed Christian Shitstain Commits Libel Against Him

17-year-old James Neiley from Charlotte, Vermont spoke during a hearing prior to the Vermont Senate vote that legalised LGBT Marriage in that state.

He was well-spoken, elegant, made good points and showed a fabulous understanding of the effects of marriage bans on the psyche of gay youth and the prejudices of heterosexual youth and adults.  And, because that’s what Jesus would do, Peter LaBarberastreisand  of the fatuously-named “Americans for Truth About Homosexuality” pulled down his pants and crapped on young James, calling his faeces ‘an argument,’ even though it is apparent to all that it’s simply Peter’s excrement.

Behold in the YouTube video below the polar opposite of wisdom. It is sad and troubling, on so many levels: a 17-year-old boy, James Neiley, argues for same-sex “marriage” in a hearing prior to the Vermont Senate voting to legalize the same. Young, effeminate James is right about one thing: the cultural battle over the homosexual campaign to revolutionize “marriage” is, indeed, ultimately about whether homosexual behavior and relationships are OK and deserve government recognition and the rewards we used to reserve for actual marriage. But he’s wrong about everything else — including the idea that legalized “gay marriage” will ultimately validate his choice to embrace a homosexual identity. Before Vermont liberals, maybe, but not before a holy God, because Neiley is on a very dangerous eternal path. There is a way that seems right to a man but in the end it leads to death (Proverbs 14:12).

As a Christian, I believe that every homosexual “coming out” is a tragedy — balanced off, as it were, by the wonderful testimonies of men and women who have “come out” of homosexuality. My heart aches over this mere child who has convinced himself of a very big adult lie — that he is intrinsically “gay.” Now the homosexual activists and fellow travelers cheer as James’ self-deception becomes a platform to promote corollary lies, of which “same-sex marriage” is but one. He even talks about having children! We will write some more about this video but in the meantime please pray for this confused teenager — that he will find and receive godly counsel and escape the clutches of a sin movement that endangers body and soul. Send us your note to him for us to publish; write americansfortruth@comcast.net:

And, because I watched Laura Dern plunge elbow-deep into triceratops shit on Jurassic Park today, a thorough dissection of this dense wad of poop seems to be in order… if only so I can best that slack-jawed two-bit nobody.  (I only hate her because I want to be her.)

The Question has Been Solved.

The question of who holds the keys to my heart–Capt. James T. Kirk or Capt. Jen-Luc Picard–has finally been solved:

Picard, FTW!

Orwell, Where The Fuck Are You?

“You would like to place Zubaydah in a cramped confinement box with an insect.  You have informed us that he appears to have a fear of insects.  In particular, you would like to tell Zubaydah that you intend to place a stinging insect into the box with him.”

That was just released alongside other memos regarding torture used by the United States.

President Obama doesn’t want to prosecute the Bush Administration.

When we finally prosecute the entire Bush Administration, including George W. Bush, can we prosecute Obama too?  You know… “accessory,” “obstruction of justice” and all that jazz.