I do not understand how my logic–this decision mean  people like me will be treated like racists who opose interracial.

Is “refuted” by a guy who says “yes you are exactlly like a racists who opposes interracial marriage.”

Seems like my convulted logic was just confirmed.

Sorry we disagree.

Maggie

Fair enough.  She’s worried that they will be compared to racists, and she sees anything that points out the similarities between her movement and racist movements of the past as an attack.  So I clarified a bit:

I think the point is mainly that claiming religious liberty on a social issue where the law is pulling away from traditional value systems is similar to the claims made by opponents of interracial marriage.

We definitely don’t agree on this issue, but I think that you’re doing your argument a disservice by bringing up any sort of comparison to the civil rights movement and racism.  Drawing that comparison in the NPR interview just made me think about how similar the Pro-Family argument is to previous groups who have opposed civil rights.

I am curious, though.  Religious groups seem to be the ones protesting same sex marriage the loudest.  Do you have any non-religious justification for advocating a separate but equal stance when it comes to homosexuals?  I’m genuinely interested as it seems that the religious side of the argument is drowning out anything else.

I’m willing to listen to their argument as long as the justification for opposing same sex marriage doesn’t involve religion or the Bible.  After getting a real response, albeit one that sidestepped the issue rather nicely, I was hoping that I could finally get someone to explain the secular justification for the sanctity of marriage.  Something that was well thought out and that I could really get behind because it didn’t involve anyone’s invisible friend hating on legally sanctioned same sex lovin’.  Alas, it wasn’t to be:

 My main point is to get people to admit that what they are saying has consequences.

You think I’m the exact equivalent of a bigot who opposes interracial marriage and should be treated as such.

Let’s not pretend that’s not an idea that will afffect a whole bunch of people besides Adam and Steve.

Maggie

I’m assuming that she means advocating gay marriage will have consequences.  What consequences?  Homosexual couples will finally be able to inherit their spouse’s property?  They’ll be allowed to make medical decisions in the event of an emergency?  They’ll gain a measure of social legitimacy that has been denied them for most of human history?

Or perhaps we’re talking about religious consequences.  Maybe Christians are worried that legalizing same sex marriage will lead to a disaster of biblical proportions.  Old testament, real wrath of God type stuff.  Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies!  Rivers and seas boiling!  Forty years of darkness!  Earthquakes!  Volcanoes!  The dead rising from the grave!  Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!  Underlying the entire religious argument against gay marriage is the not-so-subtle subtext that if America starts allowing and flaunting this sort of sinful behavior we’re going to really get it from the Lord our God in much the same way as Sodom and Gomorrah.  To that I simply ask, why the hell hasn’t San Francisco been flung into the sea by a massive earthquake or destroyed by a meteor from the heavens?  I think they pretty much filled their “my cup runneth over” quota with God decades ago.  It hasn’t happened and it isn’t going to happen.

Maggie thinks this is going to affect a bunch of people other than Adam and Steve, but again fails to back it up or provide any justification for this stance.  Who is it going to affect?  How is this going to destroy the fabric of American society?  So far I see a lot of fire-breathing rhetoric with very little substance to back it up.  I was hoping that I could finally get a straight answer on gay marriage from one of its opponents, but again they sidestep the issue.

Technorati Tags: maggie gallagher, national organization for marriage, california, gay marriage, california supreme court

You could tell that she knew she was on shaky moral ground from the beginning of the interview:

“This is a court that ruled… that orientation is going to be treated like race under California law. It really means that our government is now in the business in California of saying that people like me who think marriage is the union of husband and wife are exactly like bigots who opposed interracial marriage.”

The thing is, Maggie, that people like you are exactly like racist bigots earlier in the century who opposed interracial marriage.  Let’s go through a short list of the reasons:

1. For starters, I have yet to hear a pro-family group come up with a justification for banning gay marriage that didn’t involve their slightly fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible.  We live in a secular society with a secular government and a secular constitution, so attempting to argue and legislate from a position is not only irrelevant, it’s also illegal.
2. Opponents of interracial marriage made sure that there were unjust laws on the books that made the practice illegal, and when someone protested they pointed to those laws and said it was the will of the people.
3. Proponents of slavery and later of Jim Crow laws certainly had a Biblical justification for their bigotry ready to trot out whenever someone protested, but that didn’t make them right.
4. Opponents of gay marriage in California point to civil unions as a way for homosexual couples to be “separate but equal” under the law.  Can you think of another example of a minority group that was oppressed under the flimsy legal justification of “separate but equal”?

So I’m sorry, Maggie, but groups who oppose gay marriage today are exactly like groups who opposed interracial marriage.  My fervent hope is that history remembers you and your colleagues as the bigots that you are after the dust has cleared and the legality of gay marriage has been established once and for all.

“That means people in these faith traditions are going to be treated like racists in the public square if we don’t overturn this decision.”

Sometimes, Maggie, you have to call a spade a spade.  Anyone who treats you or your friends in Christ like bigots in the public square would be perfectly justified in doing so, because that’s what you are.  You’re trying to keep basic human rights that don’t harm anyone from a minority group because your invisible friend in the sky wrote down a few lines six thousand years ago that vaguely condemn one man lying with another man if you interpret it through the proper fundamentalist theology.  Your argument has no basis in modern morality.  The best you can come up with is that it’s the will of the people, but one of the great things about this country is that the will of the people can be overturned when the will of the people is wrong and violates the law.  The constitution is the highest law in America, not God.

“The next step is to raise $10 million to wage a media war.”

This is where conscientious people from all walks of life need to step in and step up.  You can see from the interview above that even when they come close to the truth, these fundamentalist nutjobs are still so set in their ways that they’re going to fight for a constitutional amendment tooth and nail.  We need to fight against them and make sure that this amendment doesn’t pass.  Of course all is not lost if it does pass, that just means that the decision will likely go to the Supreme Court to see if a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage is unconstitutional, but we have the opportunity to defeat this now and protect basic human rights for everyone, not just heterosexuals.

I’d like to leave everyone with one last thought from the duplicitous Maggie Gallagher:

“My concern is to protect marriage and religious liberty in the state of California and the rest of the United States.”

Sorry, Maggie, but heterosexuals have already destroyed the institution of marriage far more thoroughly than gays could ever hope to.  Heterosexuals have waged a vicious scorched earth campaign against marriage that has stretched across divorce courts, Jerry Springer, and reality shows like “Who Wants to Marry A Millionaire.”  You can’t fight for the integrity of marriage, because as it stands today heterosexuals have made sure that there is almost no integrity left in the institution.

And let’s remember that this is a society where we are guaranteed freedom from religious oppression.  The Establishment Clause was put in to prevent exactly the sort of thing that you are trying to do right now.  Your religious liberty does not extend so far that it should prevent the basic civil liberties of others.  This is a secular society, not a theocracy, and if your religious beliefs are so outdated as to become immoral then it’s probably time to examine them and make some changes.

Technorati Tags: Maggie Gallagher, National Organization for Marriage, NPR, Day to Day, marriage debate, fundamentalist, christianity, religious bigots, bigotry, gay marriage, California gay marriage

“The National Center for Science Education is antichrist.”

Just about anything that is said afterwards can be discredited by this first sentence alone.  This is a debate about whether or not religion should be taught in public schools under the guise of Intelligent Design.  Intelligent Design has been proven time and again to be a slapdash repackaging of creationism in secular sounding terms in a feeble attempt to get it into science curriculum.  The National Center for Science Education isn’t antichrist, they’re simply asking that science curriculum reflects the separation of church and state that was established with the founding of this country.  To call the NCSE antichrist is to call America and most of the founding fathers antichrist while at the same time revealing your true religious motives right from the get go.

“Text taken from The Quest for Right, a 7-book series on origins based on physical science, the old science of cause and effect:”

As far as I know science is still operating under the same old system of theorize, test, modify, and test again until you get it right or get as close to right as is possible with current technology and methodology.  It’s the same system that has been in use since the beginning of the Enlightenment, and it’s the same system that has consistently validated ideas like evolution that have gotten your panties in such a twist.  Could it be that you’re hearkening back to the pure science of the dark ages that served humanity so well for so long?

“Special note on obstructionism: In 1916, one thousand scientists were polled as to their belief in a deity (i.e., God). Of the ones responding, 60 percent had no religious belief. A follow-up study 80 years later revealed that the percentage of atheists, someone who does not believe in or denies the existence of God, among scientists remains shockingly high: 78 percent of physicists, 58 percent of biologists, and 55 percent of mathematicians are atheists.”

This is one of the biggest gripes that I have with modern religions.  Why is it shocking that scientists don’t believe in God?  Why is this such a scandal?  Why do the religious have this impulse to convert everyone around them to their particular belief system?  In short, who cares if they don’t believe in God?  It doesn’t surprise me that a good deal of scientists don’t hold a religious belief one way or the other.  Their whole life revolves around coming up with a suitable cosmology that is based on observable evidence and rigorous testing, which is something that no religion in the world can stand up to.  There is no case for God other than taking it on faith, and you’ll forgive me if I prefer scientists who question the world around me rather than taking it at face value based on ancient and outdated tribal morality.

 ”Sixty percent of those polled by the University of Georgia historian Edward Larson snubbed Judaism, Islam, and Christianity by equating “belief in a deity and an afterlife with superstition based on fear and wishful thinking.” Nature, 4-09-1997″

At the risk of sounding pedantic, here is the dictionary.com definition of superstition:

1.	a belief or notion, not based on reason or knowledge, in or of the ominous significance of a particular thing, circumstance, occurrence, proceeding, or the like.

2.	a system or collection of such beliefs.

3.	a custom or act based on such a belief.

4.	irrational fear of what is unknown or mysterious, esp. in connection with religion.

5.	any blindly accepted belief or notion.

Sounds like religion fits the definition of superstition perfectly!  Moving on.

“Even more disturbing, only 10 percent of those polled “expressed an intense desire for immortality” (that is, going to heaven), thus, signifying that on the average only 10 percent of physicists, biologists, and mathematicians are under covenant.”

Again you’re showing your ass by revealing your true motives.  Basing an argument against science on the fact that scientists aren’t “under covenent” is ridiculous.  Freedom of religion means they have the freedom to no religion, but that shouldn’t affect how they do their job either way.  Ethical scientists have their own system, the scientific method, that has done pretty well so far.

“The great majority (90 percent) have little or no regard for God but, rather, oppose Him, promoting the error that the earth and all that is in existence happened by chance. The mystical tenet governs every aspect of academic science”

There is a subtle but very distinct difference between actively opposing God and teaching a cosmology that has no room for God, though that’s a distinction lost on the religious.  If an experiment was carried out tomorrow that proved once and for all that God did exist then that would be put into the science textbooks, but so far the almighty creator of the universe has been strangely silent for the past five thousand years.  Science teachers aren’t actively trying to convert their classrooms to radical atheism, they are simply teaching the sum total of centuries of scientific inquiry.  It’s not the scientists’ fault that God hasn’t shown any evidence of his existence once in all that time, and it isn’t the teacher’s job to teach religion to students.  Religion and schools are separate, and that’s how it should be.  If you’re interested in theocracy then you can move to Iran where they’re more welcoming to that brand of close-minded thinking.

“To the point, obstructionists: scientists, biologists, mathematicians, and the NEA, teach the innocents within the classroom that there is no God.”

Again, God and religion shouldn’t be taught in the classroom.  We are a secular society that has the basis for that secularism written into the Constitution.  I for one am glad that I live in a society where freedom of inquiry and freedom of thought is considered a basic human right that is part of the highest law in the land.  Otherwise we might live in a world where creationist theocrats such as C. David Parsons got their way and stifled true understanding of the universe with a tragically limited cosmology written by primitive nomads six-thousand years ago.

Technorati Tags: C. David Parsons, secularism, religion, creationism, intelligent design, The Quest For Right, theocracy

First off, their slogan is annoying and wrong.  An educated person knows the Bible?  Perhaps that’s the case.  I know a few educated people who have read the Bible, myself included, and in each case reading the Bible was what led them to decide that Christianity was just another pack of nonsensical myths the same as any other pantheon that has fallen out of favor over the millennia.  I also know plenty of educated people who haven’t read the Bible, and I would say that they’re better people for not having that pack of lies forced on them as universal truths in their formative years.  I would argue that in some fields, basically any of the sciences and math (God was notoriously bad at math, I read it in the Bible!), an educated person is better off not being acquainted with the Bible lest they have a minor crisis of faith when they realize that the universe and the Bible just don’t match up.

But none of that matters, because the Bible Literacy Project is nothing more than yet another thinly-veiled attempt by Christians to get their religious teachings incorporated into the schools by dressing them up with a facade of secularism.  The “project” is really nothing more than a retread of the whole Intelligent Design fiasco, only this time they’re coming at the problem from a liberal arts perspective rather than a science perspective.

The basic idea is that knowledge of the Bible is a necessity for students studying literature and history due to the influence that the holy book has had on society over the past few thousand years.  Their website is full of attempts to get educators to adopt their program in a class, using clever lines like “You wouldn’t teach Shakespeare without reading his plays” to justify forcing students to read the Bible in an educational setting.  In fact, their website is  so loaded down with secular-sounding justifications and rationalizations for forcing kids to read the Bible in school that I’m reminded of one of my favorite Shakespeare quotes: “The lady doth protest too much.”

Now you might think that they do actually have some justification for teaching the Bible.  It’s actually a little scary how justified their argument can become when it’s switched from the science classroom to the English classroom.  The evidence clearly points to God having absolutely no influence whatsoever in the scientific realm, but he’s been quite busy in literature where fictional characters thrive.  But we’re in luck, because they shoot themselves in the foot and reveal their true intentions in plain sight on their Frequently Asked Questions page:

Of course, the Bible is not merely literature—for a number of religious traditions it is sacred text. Our curriculum and online teacher training prepare teachers to address the relevant, major religious readings of the text in an academic and objective manner.

Emphasis mine.  If this was a secular project to examine the Bible and teach its influence to young people so that they’d have a better understanding of Western literary tradition then yes, the Bible is merely literature.  No matter what you might personally believe about everything written between Genesis and Revelation, the instant you step into an English classroom the Bible is just literature.  It’s another set of myths that literary greats have drawn on for inspiration over the years.  It most definitely is not a holy text, which is how the Bible Literacy Project is treating it.  Like I said before, this is nothing more than another thinly-veiled attempt to get Christian theology shoehorned back into the curriculum by shoving it in a nice secular-sounding trojan horse.

Technorati Tags: Bible Literacy Project, bible, christianity, secular trojan, religious education, religious indoctrination

I’m starting this feature with John McCain mainly because he has broken ahead of the pack as the front runner for the Republicans while the Democrats are still mired in a neck and neck race that might not be resolved until they get to the convention in Denver later this year.

So where does McCain stand on religious issues?  Can we look forward to a more secular society under a McCain presidency, or will it be more of the same religiously informed bad decision making that we’ve had to endure under the Bush presidency?  He went through his 2000 campaign and the start of the current campaign with a more centrist political stance, but in recent months he’s been courting the religious right in an effort to get a piece of that voting block that put George W. in the White House for two terms, and as a result he’s said some alarming things concerning religion and politics.

(more…)

Enjoy this quote from Mr. Scot:

The notion that science literacy in the U.S. is substandard is rooted in the results of science surveys that include questions about evolution. Without doubt a much larger fraction of the US populace doesn’t believe in mud to man evolution than compared to any other industrialized nation. So in those surveys they give the “incorrect” answer to questions about the origin of life… the weight of the “wrong” answers about evolution pulls down the average and makes it appear a few other countries are doing a better job of science education.

American students don’t believe in evolution.  Evolution is accepted sciene that hasn’t been disproven to this point, and there’s certainly more empirical evidence for evolution than for the alternate idea that an invisible man in the sky snapped his fingers and everything suddenly appeared.  Americans say they don’t believe in evolution, preferring the irrational invisible man theory, and as a result we score lower on science tests.  So DaveScot would have us believe that if you don’t like the results of an exam then you just change the standards until you’re right!

Here’s the thing.  If you want to excel in science standards then you need to actually have a solid grounding in science.  There is overwhelming evidence in favor of evolution, that’s how science works.Saying that you don’t believe the foundational theory that sets the groundwork for the entire study of biology would be like saying that you don’t believe in gravity.  A society where over 60% of the population didn’t believe in gravity would be the laughing stock of the scientific community and would deserve the low scores they received, but these creationists would like you to believe that evolution is somehow different because it contradicts the prevailing mythology of the day.

Sorry, but science education shouldn’t work that way.

DaveScot takes a few more liberties with logic and rational thinking and eventually rapes the law of syllogism in a back alley to come up with this gem:

Disbelief in evolution makes a country into a superpower - militarily, economically, and yes even scientifically… Education in America is working just fine, thank you, judging by the fruits of American science and engineering. Disbelief in Darwinian evolution, if anything, leads to greater technological achievements not lesser.

Let’s parse this: America leads the world in terms of scientific achievement.  Most Americans are in a state of religiously induced self-delusional ignorance concerning evolution.  Therefore, a lack of belief in evolution makes America a superpower! 

This is simplistic and flawed, to put it mildly.  America is a leading scientific powerhouse in the world right now, true, but a lot of those scientific minds are coming from other countries that have a proper science curriculum that is presumably unclouded by the religious myopia our educators are suffering here in the states. 

Then there’s also the pesky little fact that the scientific community that is creating all of this progress does for the most part believe in evolution.  The majority of the American population out there that’s content to stew in their own ignorance aren’t helping to move science in America forward.  A small subset of the population that prefers education over ignorance is doing all the work.  So don’t try to claim that not believing in evolution creates a superpower just because most of the idiots living in that superpower and working outside of the sciences prefer fairy tales to fact.

Technorati Tags: Intelligent Design, DaveScot, Uncommon Descent, science education, evolution, science standards