United Methodist Church on Edge of Breakup Over Gays

Demonstrators at UMC General Conference.

First it was the Episcopal Church, then it was the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America , a/k/a the ELCA (to which I remain a member), and now it is the United Methodist Church which is about to tear itself apart over the issue of gays, sames sex marriage and LGBT clergy.  In the case of the first two denominations, those who chose to cling to the Bronze Age myths and legends found in selected passages of the Old Testament left their denomination. Here in Virginia Episcopalians found themselves caught in legal battles with elements aligning with African Anglican archbishops (some of whom seemingly authorized anti-Muslim massacres) over ownership of church properties (the break away elements lost) and large ELCA parishes aligned themselves with the Southern Baptist want to be Lutheran Missouri Synod. Fox News looks at the impending schism which is more personal to me since a college and law school classmate is one of the pro-gay delegates at the United Methodist Church General Conference in St. Louis.  Here are article highlights (note how the "conservatives" are aligned with African segments of the UMC which, like the Anglicans rely on ignorance and lack of education of the populace to cling to power and control):

The United Methodist Church teetered on the brink of breakup Monday after more than half the delegates at an international conference voted to maintain bans on same-sex weddings and ordination of gay clergy.

Their favored plan, if formally approved, could drive supporters of LGBT inclusion to leave America's second-largest Protestant denomination.

A final vote on rival plans for the church's future won't come until Tuesday's closing session, and the outcome remains uncertain. But the preliminary vote Monday showed that the Traditional Plan, which calls for keeping the LGBT bans and enforcing them more strictly, had the support of 56 percent of the more than 800 delegates attending the three-day conference in St. Louis.

The primary alternative proposal, called the One Church Plan, was rebuffed in a separate preliminary vote, getting only 47 percent support. Backed by a majority of the church's Council of Bishops in hopes of avoiding a schism, it would leave decisions about same-sex marriage and ordination of LGBT clergy up to regional bodies and would remove language from the church's law book asserting that "the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching."

Monday's voting did not kill the One Church Plan but makes its prospects on Tuesday far more difficult.

As evidence of the deep divisions within the faith, delegates Monday approved plans that would allow disaffected churches to leave the denomination while keeping their property.

Formed in a merger in 1968, the United Methodist Church claims about 12.6 million members worldwide, including nearly 7 million in the U.S. While other mainline Protestant denominations, such as the Episcopal and Presbyterian (U.S.A.) churches, have embraced the two gay-friendly practices, the Methodist church still officially bans them, even though acts of defiance by pro-LGBT clergy have multiplied and talk of a possible breakup has intensified.

The strong showing for the Traditional Plan reflects the fact that the UMC, unlike other mainstream Protestant churches in the U.S., is a global denomination. About 43 percent of the delegates in St. Louis are from abroad, mostly from Africa, and overwhelmingly support the LGBT bans.

"We Africans are not children in need of Western enlightenment when it comes to the church's sexual ethics," the Rev. Jerry Kulah, dean at a Methodist theology school in Liberia, said in a speech over the weekend. "We stand with the global church, not a culturally liberal church elite in the U.S."

Like the Roman Catholic Church, long term, the UMC seems bent on becoming a smaller, Africa based church. With anti-gay positions being the largest driver of Millennials from organized religion, expect the conservative remants of the UMC to shrink even more over time.

GOP Platform Committee - Religious Lunacy on Display

UPDATED:  The batshitery keeps on going.  Now this from the New Civil Rights Movement:

Republican National Committee subcommittee members Monday voted to approve a plank embracing the use of harmful anti-LGBT conversion therapy, after it was introduced by [Tony Perkins] the head of a certified anti-gay hate group [Family Research Council]. The plank will be voted on by a committee and then all RNC voting members before becoming an official part of the 2016 platform.

I had predicted that the Republican Party would find it difficult to tone down the party platform's anti-gay rhetoric.  So far, not only does that appear to be an on target prediction, but the Christian conservatives that are disproportionately represented on the platform committee seem hell bent to display to the world just how insane the GOP has become since they crawled out from under rocks and slithered from swamps to hijack the party.  Not only were efforts to blunt anti-gay positions defeated, but NBC News is reporting that a platform subcommittee has approved an amendment which calls for the Bible to be taught in public schools as a “historical document.”   As for the anti-gay elements, here are highlights from the New York Times which obtained some excerpts from the platform committee's work:

“The data and the facts lead to an inescapable conclusion: that every child deserves a married mom and dad. The reality remains that millions of American families do not have the advantages that come with that structure. We honor the courageous efforts of those who bear the burdens of parenting alone and embrace the principle that all Americans should be treated with dignity and respect. But respect is not enough. Our laws and our government’s regulations should recognize marriage as the union of one man and one woman and actively promote married family life as the basis of a stable and prosperous society. For that reason, as explained elsewhere in the platform, we do not accept the Supreme Court’s redefinition of marriage and we urge its reversal, whether through judicial reconsideration or a constitutional amendment returning control over marriage to states.” “

We emphatically support the original, authentic meaning of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. It affirmed that ‘No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination.’ ... That same provision of the law is now being used by bureaucrats — and by the current president of the United States — to impose a social and cultural revolution upon the American people. Their agenda has nothing to do with individual rights; it has everything to do with power. They are determined to reshape our schools — and our entire society — to fit the mold of an ideology alien to America’s history and traditions. Their edict to the states concerning restrooms, locker rooms and other facilities is at once illegal, ominous, and ignores privacy issues. We salute the several states which have filed suits against it.”

Evengelical Propaganda - the "Museum of the Bible"

While Syrian children are dying while fleeing civil war and religious extremism, American evangelicals - in particular, the founders of Hobby Lobby - are squandering millions of dollars building a massive propaganda vehicle in Washington, D.C., just a short way south of the National Mall.  For me, it's a symbol of the misplace values of the "godly folk" whose only real agenda is to force their childish beliefs on all of us whether we like it or not.  For these folks, the Gospel message of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and sheltering the homeless doesn't exist.  Instead, the engage in conduct that makes the Pharisees of the Bible sound upright and the height of morality.  The Washington Post looks at this travesty being built in the nation's capital.  Here are excerpts:

To many in the scholarly community, the museum seems like an oversize piece of evangelical claptrap. Some academics and curators also worry about the origins of its collection — the more than 40,000 biblical artifacts were amassed in a remarkably short time by Hobby Lobby President Steve Green.

Why did Green want to turn his private collection into a museum? A number of academics have questioned his family’s motives. “I don’t expect the Bible Museum to be anything other than a tax-deductible kitsch attempt at spreading Christian fundamentalist propaganda,” archaeologist Dorothy King said. In an interview with NPR, Jacques Berlinerblau, a professor of Jewish civilization at Georgetown University, questioned the location of the museum, two blocks south of the Mall, where it might overlook periodic rallies opposing abortion or same-sex marriage, offering brick-and-mortar moral support to conservative causes. Sarah Posner concurred, writing in Talking Points Memo: “The museum will be a living, breathing testament to how American evangelicalism can at once claim it is under siege from secularists, the LGBT rights movement, or feminism — yet also boast of acquiring a prime private perch, strategically located at the nation’s epicenter of law and politics.”  

There also have been questions about what approach to the Bible the museum will take. Green has promoted a public school curriculum based on the Bible as a factual historical text. Another ideological red flag: Museum President Cary Summers consulted for the Creation Museum in Kentucky, which teaches creationism as fact, with didactic material showing dinosaurs and humans living side by side on a 6,000-year-old planet Earth. The Summers link has prompted unflattering comparisons of the two museums.

The Green family’s initial public line on the Museum of the Bible seemed to confirm some of the concerns. The museum’s 501(c)(3) filing in 2011 declared that its mission would be “to bring to life the living Word of God, to tell its compelling story of preservation, and to inspire confidence in the absolute authority and reliability of the Bible.”

Beyond the possible motives for the Museum of the Bible, some scholars question the collection itself. Green began spending heavily on it in 2009. He had amassed more than 30,000 items by June 2010 and has added 10,000 more since.

That 40,000 number, however, is suspicious to Roberta Mazza, a leading scholar and professor at University of Manchester in Britain. The UNESCO convention controls the export of antiquities and makes it bureaucratically difficult to legally sell abroad objects that were excavated after 1970. Mazza wonders how Green managed to collect so much “in such a brief period of time and in the context, in theory, of a strictly regulated antiquities market?” 

Heightening their skepticism, Mazza and other scholars identified one item in the Green Collection — a Coptic papyrus fragment with lines from Galatians 2 — that was once advertised on eBay by a seller who was later banned from the site for allegedly selling looted antiquities.

Apparently mindful of skeptics, the Greens hired David Trobisch, a prominent liberal academic, to head its collection.  If Trobisch doesn't sell his soul for money, then the museum will document that there is no "official version" of the Bible and that the text was re-written at will over the centuries after first being authored by ignorant goat and sheep herders in the case of the Old Testament.  If done right, the museum would show that the Bible is anything but the "inerrant word of god."  I suspect, however, that this is not the Greens' agenda to tell the truth.  Propaganda is the real goal, in my view.

How the Bible Was Re-Written to Condemn Homosexuality

In the wake of last week's marriage ruling, we are seeing a resurgence of homophobia and bigotry justified by citations to the Bible.  Invariably, the bigots claim the Bible is the "inerrant word of God" and "God's law."  As noted in numerous previous posts, there is much that we don't know - e.g., who really authored its books - one thing that we do know is that the versions in circulation likely bear little or no resemblance to the original texts.  Over the centuries, the Bible has been revised and re-written to further the agendas of factions within the Catholic Church vying for power, control, and of course, money.  Sadly, these vying agenda were more important to the revisers than necessarily remaining true to the original texts. A piece in Gay Star News looks at some of the deliberate re-writes made in order to condemn and attack gays and same sex love.  Here are some excerpts:

We’ve a lot to celebrate this pride season. The Irish have voted to extend marriage to same-sex couples, Greenland too, and across the US anti-gay laws have been droping like popsicles in the sun – with the highlight being the Supreme Court decision to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide.

Some of equality’s most vocal opponents have been Christian churches and organizations. Right-wing evangelicals, Orthodox patriarchs, African bishops maintain the Bible is intrinsically anti-homosexual.

They say it clearly condemns homosexuality as a sin, an abomination, even that Jesus hated gays. But do the Biblical sources say these things?

In the tens of thousands of verses that make up the Bible, ‘homosexuality’ is, for the sake of argument, mentioned six times.

These brief but much quoted passages are by no means clear and would have been lost amid the enormity of wider Biblical narratives were it not for a determined anti-homosexual agenda.

First up, there’s the conflation of homosexuals with ‘Sodomites’, the inhabitants of the city of Sodom destroyed by God in Genesis. Early Church commentators, such as the fourth century Patriarch of Constantinople, John Chrysostom, interpreted Sodom’s sin to be specifically homosexual acts, which, incidentally, he believed were ‘worse than murder’.

Yet whenever Sodom’s actually mentioned in the Bible it’s only in the context that the Sodomites, suspicious of strangers, sought to do violence towards them.
Passages in Deuteronomy, Leviticus and Paul’s first letter to the Romans routinely get trotted out as evidence of God’s murderous intent.

But the surprising truth is that early Christian translators of the Bible sexed up these texts. They inserted, omitted and mistranslated words and phrases in order to bulk up a case for persecution.

A recent translation of Deuteronomy reads ‘there shall be no… sodomite of the sons of Israel’. But the original Hebrew does no such thing. It referred to something like ‘sacred male prostitutes’ – men who engaged in orgiastic sex rituals with people of either sex among Israel’s non-Jewish neighbors.

Leviticus 18.22 has always been the great stumbling block for Christians.  . . . . the Hebrew reads ‘[y]ou shall not lie with a male on the bedding of a wife; it is a despised thing’. Quite right too, shagging your boyfriend on your wife’s bed would be bad form!

The only source of anti-homosexual rhetoric in the New Testament is the writings of Paul, specifically the first letter to the Corinthians and, more extensively, Romans I.

The Gospels are, crucially, silent on the matter.

The Greek text of Corinthians says that ‘the corrupt, and men who lie with men’ will not inherit the Kingdom of God.  But a version in Aramaic, a language commonly spoken among Jews and Gentiles in the Middle East, reads ‘the corrupted, and those who rape men’, a significant reversion. Most likely, Paul was condemning coercive same-sex acts not homosexuality.

Put simply, modern Christian homophobia is based on manipulations of the original Bible

But what about positive Biblical accounts of same-sex relations, like the love between David and Jonathan? And is Christ entirely silent on the issue?  What about his healing of the Centurion’s beloved servant? Or his opinion in Matthew that men ‘who were born that way’ shouldn’t marry?
Well these too were subject to textual revision in Greek and Latin translations to play down their significance or render them ‘Platonic’.

The Gospels’ silence cannot be construed as ‘being gay is a sin’. It doesn’t mean Jesus hates gays. As the Canterbury glass shows, it was anxiety over the old religions and their comfortable relationship with sex and sexuality that prompted the early church fathers.

So they turned to drafting Imperial edicts which, by the end of the fourth century, had effectively criminalized same-sex relationships, including same-sex marriage, to one of the worst crimes in history.  Stamp out same-sex love and you’ll stamp out rival cults.

For centuries this dogma has triumphed over truth, the alterations to the original Biblical texts became the word of God, and that forgery is still being used to persecute LGBTI people from Moscow to Mombasa.

Candidly, when I hear some "godly Christian" spouting off on the Bible's inerrancy, I at times find it difficult to refrain from asking them why the haven't had "I'm an idiot" tattooed on their foreheads.  Only an idiot should still believe that the Bible is the "inspired word of God."  It is a corrupt work of fallible men who had as the main objective wrenching power, control and money from rival cults.

The Bible As Justification for Child Abuse

One of the many evils of the Bible is the manner in which it provides parents citing "deeply held religious belief" justification for what is nothing less than child abuse.  This abuse ranges from physical beatings, deprivation of medical treatment, forced "ex-gay" conversion, to a treatment of children as little better than chattel property.  Sadly, Republicans not only are OK with such abuse but in some states are seeking to expand protections for parents who ought to be criminally prosecuted. A piece in Salon looks at this foul aspect of the Bible and conservative Christians.  Here are highlights:

Why do the same people who fight against abortion argue that parents should have the right to beat their children and deny them medical care or education, as some conservative Republicans have done recently? How can someone oppose family planning because a pill or IUD might have the rare and unintended consequence of interfering with implantation, and then endorse beating a child, which might have the rare and unintended consequence of battering her to death?

These two positions fit together seamlessly only when we understand the Iron Age view of the child imbedded throughout the Bible, and how that view has shaped the priorities and behavior of biblical literalists.

In 2014, Pentecostal parents Herbert and Catherine Schaible went to jail after a second of their nine children died from easily treatable bacterial pneumonia. The Schaibles belong to a sect that relies on prayer for physical as well as spiritual healing. In a police statement, Herbert Schiable explained that medicine “is against our religious beliefs.” 

Most devout Bible believers turn to science when their children can’t breathe, but 38 US states have now passed laws to protect parents who don’t—along with parents who beat their children in accordance with biblical advice, or deny them education on religious grounds.

[L]egislators in multiple states are looking to expand laws that exempt parents like the Schaibles from criminal charges. Georgia recently introduced legislation that appears to offer legal cover to parents who beat their children (and men who beat their wives) for religious reasons. In Idaho, despite more than a dozen child deaths linked to one small sect called the Followers of Christ, Republican state legislators introduced a bill in February granting parents broader leeway to harm children—as long as their motives are religious.  

Since the Supreme Court’s 2014 Hobby Lobby decision, conservative Christians in the U.S. are testing “religious freedom” claims as a means to opt out of a wide array of rules and responsibilities that otherwise apply to all Americans. . . . . exemption from child rights and protections should be thought of as a fourth leg of the “religious freedom” agenda.

Devout Bible believers regularly oppose child protective services, insisting that the right of religious adults to do as they choose trumps the right of children to be free from harm. Evangelical Christian leaders fought the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, making the U.S. one of two countries (along with Somalia) that failed to endorse it. In some U.S. locales, like the State of Virginia, they have sought and won the right to deny children basic education, including the ability to read and write.

In the Iron Age mindset of the Bible writers, children are not individual persons who have their own thoughts, with corresponding rights. Rather, like livestock and slaves, they are possessions of the male head of household, and the biblical framework governing treatment of children is property laws, not individual rights laws.

The term chattelrefers to moveable personal property, economic assets that are not real estate. In the Bible, children, like slaves and livestock, are chattel. Male children grow up to become persons, while females remain chattelthroughout their lives, first as assets of their fathers, then as assets of their husbands.

[T]he biblical formula for parenthood is based on several core assumptions:

§  Children are property of their fathers. This is why God can allow Satan to kill Job’s children  during a wager over Job’s loyalty—and then simply replace them. It is why a man who injures a woman causing her to miscarry must pay her husband for the loss.

§  Children are born bad and must be beaten to keep them from going astray. This mentality combines the idea of original sin because Eve defied God and ate from the Tree of Knowledge, with “spare the rod, spoil the child”admonitions from the book of Proverbs. It is one reason that early Christians believed that Jesus, as the perfect “lamb without blemish” could not have a human father and so added the virgin birth story to the Gospels at the end of the 1st Century.

§  A father’s right of ownership extends even to killing his child. This is why it makes sense for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac or Jephthah to sacrifice his daughter, or even God to give his “only begotten son” as a human sacrifice. In the Torah, a man can send his child into battle or sell his child into slavery. The Torah advises that a rebellious son should be put to death.

§  The primary value of adult females is to produce valuable children, meaning male children of known origin. Hence, a female’s virginity is a core part of her economic value. This is why a rapist can be forced to marry the damaged goods in the Torah as is sometimes the case in conservative Islam today, or a female can be stoned for pre-marital sex. In the Hebrew Torah, the wives of the patriarchs send their slave girls to get pregnant by their husbands to up the baby count. In modern America, Evangelical girls attend purity balls and receive promise rings by which they pledge their sexual purity to their fathers until they can be “given in marriage.”

In sum, it is much easier to extrapolate from the biblical worldview to the idea that a parent has the right to beat his child or withhold medical care, or that a teenage sex slave should be forced to bear a child, than to derive the idea that we have a responsibility to bring children into the world under the best of circumstances and to acknowledge their rights as individuals once they arrive. These are fundamentally post-biblical ideas, as is the notion that empowering women to delay or limit childbearing is a positive social good.

For those who are not bound to the priorities of the Iron Age, fetishizing fetal life while hurting and disempowering women or children is morally incoherent.

Quote of the Day: Religious Opinion Deserves No Respect

Henry Louis Mencken was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, critic of American life and culture, and scholar of American English.  He was sometimes known as the "Sage of Baltimore", and is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prose stylists of the first half of the twentieth century.  He is also remembered for his satirical reporting on the Scopes trial, which he dubbed the "Monkey Trial" and he commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians and contemporary movements.  He was no friend to blind faith religion and the idiocy and ignorance it fosters.  With Pope Francis blathering about not criticizing religious belief, these words of Menchen are worth remembering:

One of the most irrational of all the conventions of modern society is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected. [ … ] This convention protects them, and so they proceed with their blather unwhipped and almost unmolested, to the great damage of common sense and common decency. That they should have this immunity is an outrage. There is nothing in religious ideas, as a class, to lift them above other ideas. On the contrary, they are always dubious and often quite silly. Nor is there any visible intellectual dignity in theologians. Few of them know anything that is worth knowing, and not many of them are even honest. 

Individuals are free to believe what they want, but that does NOT mean that the rest of us are bound to show them respect or accept the ignorance and discord they peddle under the guise of religious dogma.  Ignorance and bigotry need to be called out for what they are and the harm they do in the world.

H/T Bob Felton

Homophobia - A Residue of British Colonial Rule

Click image to enlarge

At times I want to pull my hair out over the ignorance of those in Africa, India and now Singapore who claim that the acceptance of homosexuality is a western trait that threatens indigenous social mores.Why don't this homophobes have "I'm an ignorant cretin" tabooed on their foreheads?  The truth is that homophobia is a western import that traces back to British colonial rule.  As noted in treatise, The Origins and Roles of Same-Sex Relations in Human Societies, opposition to same sex relations was low across the globe until the arrival of Christian missionaries.  Now, American Christofascists are working diligently (with corrupt politicians and parasitic churchmen) to follow in the footsteps of their equally bigoted ancestors and dupe local populations into embracing homophobia.  A piece in the Washington Post traces all of this back to British colonial rule.  Here are highlights:

During the past half-century, many countries have eliminated criminal laws against what are variously called “homosexual offences”, “sodomy,” “unnatural acts” or  other terms used to describe consensual sexual relations between people (often specifically men) of the same sex.

Yet, the decriminalization of homosexual conduct is an uneven process and several countries are moving in the opposite direction. 

Among such criminalization cases, a common narrative is that acceptance and tolerance of homosexuality is a foreign, or alien, Western imposition on indigenous cultures.  For example, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has called homosexuality an invention of the West that will “disturb the African moral fabric.”

Here stands one of the biggest ironies.  The idea that the so-called tolerance towards homosexuality somehow sprang from a western source doesn’t hold.  As our research shows, this narrative is not only wrong-headed but the opposite of the historical facts.  Instead, for many countries, including some of those mentioned above, criminalization laws were based on British imperial legal instruments, like the Indian Penal Code Section 377A, introduced and imposed on these countries by Britain when they were colonized.

We investigated whether and why there is variation in laws regulating and punishing homosexual conduct around the world.  Looking at a variety of data on 185 countries, we found that former British colonies are much more likely to have laws that criminalize homosexual conduct than former colonies of other European powers, or than other states in general. 

It seems that when the British Empire was introducing legal systems around the world, one of the laws they included was the law against sodomy, which was not decriminalized in England and Wales until 1967. By this time, most of the “Winds of Change” wave of decolonization had left former colonies independent of changes in British legislation.  By contrast, after the French Revolution, the French Empire decriminalized sodomy between consenting adults, and spread this Enlightenment legacy among its colonies.

Highlighting the colonial origin of anti-gay legislation is an important way to counter the narrative that tolerance of homosexuality is a neo-colonial imposition. . . . Another strategy is to publicize the numerous examples of accepted homosexual practices and relations in various pre-colonial African cultures.

 What is sad is that the original British colonials played upon the ignorance of native populations in introducing anti-gay laws.  Now, American Christofascists are engaging in the same toxic conduct.   As for leaders who claim to be rejecting foreign influence by enacting anti-gay laws, all they ultimately prove are they they are ignorant asses.  Are you listen, Mr. Putin?

Maher Challenges Ralph Reed to Explain Bible Support for Slavery, Etc.

The Christofascists love to cite the Bible as being "the inspired word of God" and as being inerrant, especially as they loudly attack gays and others whom they don't like.  The problem with this course of action, however,is that the Bible contains a lot of truly foul stuff: support for slavery, subjugation of women, murder and violence, etc. Recently, closeted Christofacist Ralph Reed appeared on Bill Maher's show - one has to wonder WTF Reed was thinking - where Maher confronted Reed on the Christofascists very selective interpretation of the Bible as being inerrant and "the inspired word of God."  The Raw Story has details.  Here are highlights:

Real Time host Bill Maher clashed with Christian political activist Ralph Reed over the nature of the Christian faith on Friday, saying that a religion based on a text advocating for stoning women who had sex before marriage and for slavery was inherently flawed.

“If the Bible’s a perfect book written by a perfect guy, why is this in there?” Maher asked Reed. “Why did Jesus need to come along to correct his dad? I don’t get it.”

“But I’m asking you about the Bible,” Maher said, pressing his point. “People think that the Bible should be literally taken [as] true. And these are the literal words in the Bible from God.”

“But Bill, you’re ignoring the New Testament,” Reed responded. “Not one of those verses occurs in the New Testament. You’re ignoring the new covenant.”

“So the Old Testament — the Jew God — he’s bad,” Maher said.  “I didn’t say that,” Reed answered, laughing. “Bill, Jesus was a Jew.”

Reed's problem is that the Bible isn't "the inspired word of God" and it was authored by ignorant men who had no modern knowledge of science and medical/mental health knowledge.  Increasingly, conservative Christianity is the religion of the ignorant and, in my view, the psychologically disturbed. As for Reed, I view him as a self-loathing closeted gay man - when we met in the past, Reed made my gaydar go off the charts - who has sold his soul as a Christian huckster.

New Study - Gays Are Born This Way

This past week the Texas Republican Party endorsed reparative therapy even though every legitimate (i.e., not funded by anti-gay organizations) medical and mental health association in America condemns such therapy and deems it dangerous.  Never let it be said that the Christofascists don't still call the shots in the GOP.  Meanwhile, a new study adds more evidence that gays are "born this way" to quote from Lady Gaga's song.  Will this new knowledge change any minds in the GOP?  Probably not.  The Christofascists cannot abide the fact that their mythical Bible may be wrong and few elected Republicans will cease prostituting themselves to those who embrace ignorance and bigotry.  An article in the Washington Post written by Jenny Graves, Distinguished Professor of Genetics at La Trobe University, looks at the new study and its implications.  Here are some highlights:

The claim that homosexual men share a “gay gene” created a furor in the 1990s. But new research two decades on supports this claim – and adds another candidate gene.

To an evolutionary geneticist, the idea that a person’s genetic makeup affects their mating preference is unsurprising. We see it in the animal world all the time. There are probably many genes that affect human sexual orientation.

But rather than thinking of them as “gay genes,” perhaps we should consider them “male-loving genes.” They may be common because these variant genes, in a female, predispose her to mate earlier and more often and to have more children.

Likewise, it would be surprising if there were not “female-loving genes” in lesbian women that, in a male, predispose him to mate earlier and have more children.

In 1993, American geneticist Dean Hamer found families with several gay males on the mother’s side, suggesting a gene on the X chromosome. He showed that pairs of brothers who were openly gay shared a small region at the tip of the X, and proposed that it contained a gene that predisposes a male to homosexuality.

Hamer’s conclusions were extremely controversial. He was challenged at every turn by people unwilling to accept that homosexuality is at least partly genetic, rather than a “lifestyle choice.”

This year, a larger study of gay brothers, using the many genetic markers now available through the Human Genome Project, confirmed the original finding and also detected another “gay gene” on chromosome 8. This has unleashed a new flurry of comment.

But why such a furor when we know of gay gene variants in species from flies to mammals? Homosexuality is quite common throughout the animal kingdom.
The puzzle is not whether “gay genes” exist in humans, but why they are so common (estimates from five percent to 15 percent). We know that gay men have fewer children on average, so shouldn’t these gene variants disappear?

There are several theories that account for the high frequency of homosexuality. A decade ago I wondered if gay gene variants have another effect that boosts the chances of leaving offspring (“evolutionary fitness”), and passing the gay allele on. This is a well-known situation (called “balanced polymorphism”) in which an allele is advantageous in one situation and not in another.

Perhaps “male-loving” alleles in a female predispose her to mate earlier and have more children. If their sisters, mother and aunts have more kids who share some of their genes, it would make up for the fewer children of gay males.

And they do. Lots more children. An Italian group showed that the female relatives of gay men have 1.3 times as many children as the female relatives of straight men. This is a huge selective advantage that a male-loving allele confers on women, and offsets the selective disadvantage that it confers on men.

Why the furor over such study findings?  It's very simple.  To the Christianists - and fundamentalist Muslims would be in the same category - if the Bible [or Koran] is wrong about homosexuality, then the question becomes what else is it wrong about.  Those who through ignorance or mental disorders cannot deal with a lack of absolute certainty in their lives simply cannot tolerate anything that might upset their simplistic, childish belief systems.  Since the very existence of gays suggests that the Bible/Koran is wrong, we are treated as enemies of the first magnitude.

New York Times: Ban "Ex-Gay" Therapy

"Ex-gay" therapy exists and is promoted by the Christofascists for two primary reasons in my view.  The first and foremost is that the normalcy of homosexuality demolishes their house of cards faith system which ignorantly (and very selectively) clings to Bible passages the authorship of which tracks back to ignorant Bronze Age nomads and herders - people who were utterly ignorant in terms of scientific and/or biological knowledge.  The Christofascists like to quote a Bible passage that instructs one not to build one's house on sand, and yet that is precisely what they themselves have done by basing their belief system on a book that requires ignorance and a disregard for objective reality in the face of modern knowledge.  That homosexuality is part of God's or nature's plan and normal utterly shakes the Christofascist fragile faith construct to the core. 

The second reason for the Christofascists' support of "ex-gay" therapy is that it has proven to be an effective tool to dupe the gullible into believing that sexual orientation is a "choice" and that, therefore, gays do not deserve any legal protections.  It is time that "ex-gay" therapy be thrown on the trash heap of history.  California and New Jersey have begun the process.  The process now needs to go nationwide.  Here are highlights from the New York Times supporting a ban on "ex-gay" therapy:

A discredited therapy that purports to convert homosexuals to heterosexuals was repudiated again late last month. This time, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit unanimously upheld a California law preventing licensed therapists from counseling minors to change their sexual orientation from gay to straight.

So-called “conversion therapy” or “reparative therapy” began at a time when professionals in medicine and psychology considered homosexuality an illness that was amenable to treatment. That ended in 1973, when homosexuality was removed from the psychiatry profession’s diagnostic manual of mental disorders. Soon all major mental health associations followed suit. A small number of therapists, however, continue to practice and advocate conversion therapy today. 

The California law, which was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in September 2012, says those practicing conversion therapy on a patient under 18 would be engaging in “unprofessional conduct” subject to discipline by state licensing authorities.

The three judges, appointed by Presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, concluded that the law did not violate the free-speech rights of therapists and minor patients or the fundamental rights of parents, because it did nothing to prevent licensed therapists from discussing the pros and cons of conversion therapy with their patients. The law regulates conduct, not speech, the panel reasoned, and lies well within the power of the state to prohibit practices it considers harmful to minors. 

Conversion therapy has had other setbacks in recent months. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey signed a bill on Aug. 19 banning conversion therapy for minors, making New Jersey the second state to do so.

In June, a Christian group that was a leading proponent of conversion therapy disbanded after 37 years, and issued an apology to gays and lesbians for the harm it had caused.  The old idea that homosexuality is an illness that can be “cured” may at last be headed for the trash heap.

Sequestration Cuts Causing Scientists to Contemplate Moving Overseas

While the Republican Party has become the anti-knowledge party as a result of it having been hijacked by the Christofascists and moronic members of the Tea Party crowd, it nevertheless does not bode well for America's future that the sequestration cuts caused by GOP intransigence are cause nearly 20% of U.S. scientists to consider moving overseas in pursuit of better funding.  America has long been a leader in scientific research and development, but a mass exodus of research scientists could leave the country in a non-competitive position.  This may be fine with those who choose to leader their lives according to the anonymous writings of Bronze Age herders, but sentient individuals should be deeply concerned.   Here are excerpts from a Huffington Post piece that looks at this worrisome development:

New data compiled by a coalition of top scientific and medical research groups show that a large majority of scientists are receiving less federal help than they were three years ago, despite spending far more time writing grants in search of it. Nearly one-fifth of scientists are considering going overseas to continue their research because of the poor funding climate in America.

The study, which was spearheaded by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) and will be formally released next week, is the latest to highlight the extent to which years of stagnant or declining budgets, made worse by sequestration, have damaged the world of science.

More than 3,700 scientists from all 50 states participated in the study, offering online responses in June and July 2013. They offered sobering assessments of the state of their profession. Eighty percent said they were spending more of their time writing grants now than in 2010, while 67 percent said they were receiving less grant money now than they were back then. Only two percent of respondents said they had received money from their employers -- predominantly academic institutions -- to make up for the loss of federal funds.

The drying up of resources has had a damaging effect on the research being conducted, forcing scientists to curtail their projects or trim their staffs.

According to the survey, 68 percent of respondents said they do not have the funds to expand their research operations; 55 percent said they have a colleague who has lost a job or expects to soon; and 18 percent of respondents said they were considering continuing their careers in another country. 

Sequestration is responsible for much of the damage being done to scientific research. The sweeping federal budget cuts have decreased funding for research and development projects across a wide swath of government agencies by $9.3 billion. The $1.7 billion budget cut to the National Institutes of Health alone has meant more than 700 fewer grants were funded this year, NIH Director Francis Collins told The Huffington Post. 

[I]n terms of percentage of gross domestic product, the United States is reducing its investment in scientific research. In fact, of the 10 countries investing the most money in scientific research, the United States is the only country that has reduced its investment in scientific research as a percentage of GDP since 2011."

Southern Baptist Convention Condemn Boy Scouts Policy on Gays

Proving yet again that it is rushing backward in time and embracing more and more simple minded ignorance, the Southern Baptist Convention formally denounced the Boy Scouts of America for changing its policy prohibiting gays scouts.  One can only wonder when the SBC will reaffirm support for slavery  - the issue that brought it into existence in the first place.  The batshitery, ignorance and outright bigotry is stunning and as a Chicago Tribune piece indicates, some of the spittle flecked, knuckle dragging Neanderthals of the SBS are right here in nearby Newport News, Virginia.  Such folks prefer to cling to supposed Bible inerrancy rather than think for themselves or admit that much of their lives have been based on untrue myths and witch doctor like hocus pocus.    Here are highlights from the Tribune story:

The Southern Baptist Convention on Wednesday voted to voice opposition to the Boy Scouts of America decision to admit gay members, saying that homosexual conduct is contrary to a scout's oath to do his duty to God.

The Southern Baptists, the nation's largest Protestant denomination, approved a non-binding resolution opposing the policy at its annual convention in Houston. The resolution requires no action by member churches but leaves them to decide individually whether to stop sponsoring scout troops.

"I am very sad to say that it seems as though (Boy Scouts) are moving away from the principles they were founded upon," Wes Taylor, pastor at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Newport News, Virginia, said during the debate at the annual convention. "It is an environment just fertile for young boys to be exposed to something that is ungodly and unacceptable."

Leaders at the convention said the resolution was not aimed at the boys, but at the organization they said was opening the door for homosexual scout leaders and creating an unhealthy environment.

"This (BSA) decision politicizes the membership, and it also brings a sexual dimension that wasn't there before," said Steve Lemke, provost of the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and chairman of Southern Baptist Convention Resolutions Committee.

Some at the Southern Baptist conference said the church should embrace gay members of scouting and guide them toward a more Christian life.   One pastor argued that a young boy who claims to be gay is most likely the victim of abuse or otherwise needs guidance, and that the church or scouts should not abandon him.

Some religious organizations have accepted the Boy Scouts' new policy. The Mormon Church, the largest sponsor of scouting troops nationwide with about 430,000 youth members, expressed its support. The United Methodist Church, the second-largest sponsor, also plans to continue its role in scouting.

Two things to note.  One, gay boys are still alleged to be victims of sexual abuse rather than admit some of us are born gay and made by God that way.  These cretins will go to any lengths to avoid admitting the Bible is flat out wrong.  Second, for those who want to bring gays toward a "more Christian life," in the SBC that equates to embracing hate, bigotry and a rejection of modern knowledge.  Why not simply propose giving boys lobotomies?

Parental Rejection - The Bible As a Message of Hate - America's Got Talent

As regular readers know, I hold "godly Christians" who disown their own children for being gay in utter contempt.  Such individuals are utterly despicable and underscore the reality that those who profess piety and cling to a few selective Bible passages (passages that originated with ignorant, uneducated authors) are NOT nice people and clearly people worthy of one shred of deference or respect.  They are horrible people.  The video clip below is of a 20 year who was disowned by his parents who "did not like his lifestyle" who wowed the folks at America's Got Talent.  Kudos to Jonathan Allen and shame on his parents who I hope will find themselves met with well deserved ridicule and contempt.  When I hear being gay referred to as a lifestyle choice I know that either the party making the statement is (i) an ignorant ass, or (ii) an raging bigot.  Being gay is about as much of a lifestyle choice as breathing.  Personally, if I was Jonathan, I'd write his folks off, go on to do great things and treat his parents as they treated him.  Here's the video:

David Mixner states the matter well on his blog:

In the most moving moment for the LGBT community in the history of America's Got Talent, a young gay youth who appeared last night absolutely had America fall in love with him. The young sweet man was kicked out of his home in Tennessee for being gay. His parents kicked him out of his house on his 18th birthday. Be prepared to be inspired, proud and moved with this Susan Boyle moment! 

The boyfriend and I were both verklempt watching the clip  As a parent of three children myself, I cannot comprehend how one can consciously decide to embrace ignorance and bigotry and disown one's own child.  Perhaps Allen and his parents will reconcile.  In my view, they deserve to burn in Hell.  By the way, has anyone told them that Adam and Eve never existed?   They have disowned their own son why?  In sum, religion is a foul, toxic force that produce more ill fruits than positive benefits.

P.S. "Time to Say Goodbye" is one of my favorites and was one of the musical selections at my late mother's memorial service.

Science Tells Us Climate Change Alarm is Sounding

Among the many complaints I have with today's Republican Party is its willing embrace of ignorance and refusal to accept scientific knowledge be it on the issue of sexual orientation or climate change.  Rather than stand up to the drooling, spittle flecked party base which rejects anything that challenges its prejudices or that suggests that changes are needed in a host of ways things have been done in the past, the party leadership time and time again panders to the lowest and most ignorant common denominator.  Recently Congressman Lamar Smith of Texas demonstrated the problem when he challenged scientific knowledge on climate change and parroted the favored talking points of the idiot GOP base.  In a column in the Washington Post, two scientist rip Smith a new one and rightfully so.  Here are some column excerpts:

In a recent op-ed for The Post, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) offered up a reheated stew of isolated factoids and sweeping generalizations about climate science to defend the destructive status quo. We agree with the chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology that policy should be based on sound science. But Smith presented political talking points, and none of his implied conclusions is accurate.

The two of us have spent, in total, more than seven decades studying Earth’s climate, and we have joined hundreds of top climate scientists to summarize the state of knowledge for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the World Climate Research Program and other science-based bodies. We believe that our views are representative of the 97 percent of climate scientists who agree that global warming is caused by humans. Legions of studies support the view that, left unabated, this warming will produce dangerous effects. 

Man-made heat-trapping gases are warming our planet and leading to increases in extreme weather events. Droughts are becoming longer and deeper in many areas. The risk of wildfires is increasing. The year 2012, the hottest on record for the United States, illustrated this risk with severe, widespread drought accompanied by extensive wildfires.

Last month, levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere exceeded 400 parts per million, approaching the halfway mark between preindustrial amounts and a doubling of those levels. This doubling is expected to cause a warming this century of four to seven degrees Fahrenheit. The last time atmospheric carbon dioxide reached this level was more than 3 million years ago, when Arctic lands were covered with forests. The unprecedented rate of increase has been driven entirely by human-produced emissions.

[B]y the end of this century, people will be experiencing higher temperatures than any known during human civilization — temperatures that our societies, crops and ecosystems are not adapted to.  

Contrary to Smith’s assertions, there is conclusive evidence that climate change worsened the damage caused by Superstorm Sandy. Sea levels in New York City harbors have risen by more than a foot since the beginning of the 20th century. Had the storm surge not been riding on higher seas, there would have been less flooding and less damage. Warmer air also allows storms such as Sandy to hold more moisture and dump more rainfall, exacerbating flooding.

The combined impetus of observed trends in climate and weather extremes, and continuing discoveries in climate science, lay bare how ludicrous Smith’s suggestion is that since we know nothing, we should do nothing.

We know a lot, more than enough to recognize that the alarm bells are ringing.  Increases in heat waves and record high temperatures; record lows in Arctic sea ice; more severe rainstorms, droughts and wildfires; and coastal communities threatened by rising seas all offer a preview of the new normal in a warmer world. Smith’s policy plan amounts to “wait and see.” But the longer we wait — effectively, like him, closing our eyes to science — the more difficult and expensive the solutions become, and the more irreversible the damage will be.

The GOP base - especially the Christofascists - and the political whores who pose as the GOP leadership cling to a Neolithic world view and a  a religious fantasy world that science is destroying more ever day.  Not wanting to admit that long held views and beliefs are wrong doesn't make them any less wrong.

Gay Son Doesn’t ChangeBigoted Congressman’s View on Gay Marriage

North Carolina blogger Bob Felton often correctly notes that even though the Christofascists love to wrap themselves in the cloak of "family values," conservative Christianity is in fact anything but family friendly.  Rather, one is encouraged to put God before all else, family first and foremost, and if one's family gets in the way of this allegiance, then they are to be discarded and shunned.  When faced with having a gay son, GOP Senator Rob Portman did the moral thing and embraced his son and did an about turn on gay marriage.  Sadly, GOP Rep. Matt Salmon of Arizona - who is Mormon - has chosen the opposite path.  While claiming to love and care about his son, he prefers to cling to ignorance and bigotry rather than embrace his son and support gay marriage.  I continually am shocked and saddened to see individuals like Salmon prefer to base their moral judgments on the writings and myths of ignorant nomads from the centuries before - individuals who knew less about biology and a host of modern knowledge matters than a typical middle school student.  In my view, individuals like Salmon suffer from some sick psychological syndrome if they put ignorance and hate based religious views before their own family members.    Pieces in the Washington Post and Think Progress look at Salmon's sickness and failure to be moved by the testimony of his own son.  Here are highlights from the Post article:

“I don’t support the gay marriage,” the congressman said. But Salmon emphasized that he loved and respected his son and did not consider homosexuality a choice.

“My son is by far one of the most important people in my life. I love him more than I can say,” an emotional Salmon told 3TV. “It doesn’t mean that I don’t have respect, it doesn’t mean that I don’t sympathize with some of the issues. It just means I haven’t evolved to that stage.”

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) recently endorsed gay marriage, saying his son’s homosexuality inspired him to change his position.

A staunch social conservative, Salmon voted for the Defense of Marriage Act and for a ban on gay adoptions in Washington, D.C. His wife, Nancy Salmon, led the Arizona chapter of the group United Families International during an unsuccessful 2006 fight to ban gay marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships in the state constitution. (A narrower marriage amendment was passed two years later).

“We respect each others’ opinions and we just know that on certain issues we have to agree to disagree,” the congressman’s son, Matt R. Salmon, told The Post. “I love my father and realize that he can have the opinions that he has, and they might differ from mine, but that doesn’t change the way I feel about him.”

In a 2010 interview with the Phoenix New Times, the then-22-year-old revealed that he was dating Kent Flake, the second cousin of Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). In the article both young men, who have since broken up, discussed coming out to their conservative Mormon families.

“The first time I had a conversation with [my father] about it, it did not go well. He was very upset and said some things right off that I know he doesn’t really feel,” Salmon revealed. “He’s never called me any slurs or anything like that, but he made it clear he didn’t like it.”

The younger Salmon said his father came to support his activism even if he didn’t agree with it, a point he emphasized in a 2011 “It Gets Better” video describing his experience with his family, with bullies and with gay “conversion” therapy:

Salmon's son has taken the high road on the issue and I respect him for it.  However, as a father of three children myself, I cannot comprehend how any decent and truly loving father can take the stance of Rep. Salmon.  He's a hypocrite if he says he loves his son yet clings to the ignorant bullshit peddled by his church.  It is simply sick and underscores to me the great evil that is continually caused by religion.  The world would be a better place if it were free of religion, especially fundamentalists and ignorance embracing religion.

Mike Huckabee Threatens GOP on Marriage Equality

The cases before the U.S. Supreme Court today and tomorrow combined with a number of Republicans switching sides on the issue of gay marriage has the Christofascists in a serious funk.  They apparently see gay marriage becoming a reality nationwide at some point despite their anti-gay jihad - even 64% of Southern Baptists expect gay marriage to eventually be nationwide - and they are lashing out and increasingly threatening the GOP that they will walk away if the GOP shifts on marriage equality.  We've already seen hate group leader Tony Perkins making this threat.  Now, Mike Huckabee - who has said on Morning Joe once that he'd like to see the U.S. Constitution supplanted by the Bible - is echoing the threat:

Mike Huckabee is asked by Newsmax if he thinks the GOP will pivot to support marriage equality:

“They might. And if they do, they’re going to lose a large part of their base because evangelicals will take a walk. And it’s not because there’s an anti-homosexual mood, and nobody’s homophobic that I know of, but many of us, and I consider myself included, base our standards not on the latest Washington Post poll, but on an objective standard, not a subjective standard. I have great sympathy and extraordinary admiration for Sen. Portman. I consider him a friend and I value his work in the Senate and think he’s a great person. The mistake is that we sometimes base our public policy decisions on how we feel, how we think, maybe even some personal experiences, and we don’t regard a lot of these issues from the standpoint of an objective standard."

What's most laughable is Huckabee's claim that evangelicals base their position on objective standards.  If there is any group that denies objective reality more than evangelical Christians it would hard to identify it.  The only ones perhaps equally deranged are Islamic fundamentalists - hardly a group Huckabee would want to be equated with.   Equally laughable is Huckabee's criticism of those who base policy decisions on feelings.  That's all the Christofascists do - they base their decisions on a fear of modernity, a fear of thinking for themselves, and a fear of anyone who is not an white evangelical Christian.  It is amazing how Huckabee and others of his ilk always seem to transfer their own motivations and behavior to others and never bother to take a good look in the mirror at themselves.

Texas Public School Classes Teach Races Come from Noah’s Sons, Biblical Literalism, 6000-year-old Earth

As America faces increasing global competition and the need for quality fact and science based education becomes more urgent if the nation is to prosper, a number of schools in Texas -what a surprise - have taken a 2007 law encouraging the state’s public schools to teach about the influence of the Bible in history and literature and turned it into a route to teaching utter batshitery as part of their curriculum.  While the Christian Taliban no doubt rejoice at such idiocy, taxpayers ought to be outraged.   The Texas Freedom Network Education Fund has released a report, authored by a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University, that examines what students are learning in the 57 school districts that teach Bible related courses under the guise of the 2007 law.  Here is some of the crap actually being taught to students:

• Instructional material in two school districts teach that racial diversity today can be traced back to Noah’s sons, a long-discredited claim that has been a foundational component of some forms of racism.
• Religious bias is common, with most courses taught from a Protestant — often a conservative Protestant — perspective. One course, for example, assumes Christians will at some point be “raptured.” Materials include a Venn diagram showing the pros and cons of theories that posit the rapture before the returning Jesus’ 1,000-year reign and those that place it afterward. In many courses, the perspectives of Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Jews are often left out.
• Anti-Jewish bias — intentional or not — is not uncommon. Some courses even portray Judaism as a flawed and incomplete religion that has been replaced by Christianity.
• Many courses suggest or openly claim that the Bible is literally true. “The Bible is the written word of God,” students are told in one PowerPoint presentation. Some courses go so far as to suggest that the Bible can be used to verify events in history. One district, for example, teaches students that the Bible’s historical claims are largely beyond question by listing biblical events side by side with historical developments from around the globe.
• Course materials in numerous classes are designed to evangelize rather than provide an objective study of the Bible’s influence. A book in one district makes its purpose clear in the preface: “May this study be of value to you. May you fully come to believe that ‘Jesus is the Christ, the son of God.’ And may you have ‘life in His name.’”
• A number of courses teach students that the Bible proves Earth is just 6,000 years old.
• Students are taught that the United States is a Christian nation founded on the Christian biblical principles taught in their classrooms.
• Academic rigor is so poor that many courses rely mostly on memorization of Bible verses and factoids from Bible stories rather than teaching students how to analyze what they are studying. One district relies heavily on Bible cartoons from Hanna-Barbera for its high school class. Students in another district spend two days watching what lesson plans describe a “the historic documentary Ancient Aliens,” which presents “a new interpretation of angelic beings described as extraterrestrials.”

The report blames part of the problem on Texas' failure to properly develop course guidelines for Bible related classes.  I suspect that the larger cause is that the State Board of Education which has been under the control of religious conservatives has refused to adopt serious curriculum standards to help guide school districts as they planned their courses.

The irony, of course, is that members of the far right are those most likely to whine about America's decline in the world, yet their joyful embrace of ignorance and idiocy is one of the factors holding America back.  Not to mention their racism, bigotry and misogamy in general.