The Changing Map of Marriage Equality - Homophobia = Islam and Ignorance

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The Economist has an article that looks at the progress same sex marriage around the globe.  The map above reflects the current state of marriage equality.  On the international level one thing that immediately struck me is that nations that criminalize homosexuality directly correlate with the nations with Islamic extremist governments and nations with the lowest levels of education and highest level of ignorance throughout their populations.  On the domestic front in America, one could say there seems to be a similar correlations between bans on marriage equality and uneducated states with large numbers of unhinged conservative Christians - the Christian Taliban, if you will.  Here are highlights from the Economist article:

Just a dozen years after the Netherlands became the world’s first country to legalise gay nuptials, the global trend toward giving homosexuals full marriage rights seems to have gained unstoppable momentum. Same-sex marriage is now legal nationwide in 11 countries (see map), including Argentina and South Africa, as well as in parts of a further two. In Mexico it is allowed in the capital. In America nine states along with the capital have legalised it, mostly as a result of court challenges.

That said, in 78 countries—mostly in the Muslim world, Africa and other developing states—gay sex is still a crime, punishable by long prison terms and even death. Opposition against gay marriage remains fierce, particularly from churches, conservatives and some politicians. 

But attitudes are changing—and fast. Fifty years ago homosexuality itself was still a crime throughout most of the world. Britain decriminalised it only in 1967 and it was not until 2003 that America’s Supreme Court struck down the remaining sodomy laws in 14 states. Now, across most of the West, polls show a majority of public opinion in favour of equality for gays, including allowing them to marry and adopt children. Ten years ago two-thirds of Americans were opposed to gay marriage; now more than half, including most Catholics, are in favour. Similar trends can be seen in other Western countries.

Why this rapid shift, which has taken even many activists by surprise? It is partly generational. Younger people, brought up in a more tolerant age, simply cannot understand what all the fuss is about. But it is also a result of changing behaviour among gays themselves. As homophobic laws have fallen, so more homosexuals have come out. And as their straight neighbours see them leading normal happy family lives—including bringing up children—without the world falling apart, they become more widely accepted.

At the same time, the churches, most of which regard gay sex as a sin, are losing some of their influence. A recent survey of Americans’ religious beliefs by the Pew Research Centre showed one in five adults saying they had no religious affiliation—double the proportion 20 years ago. Three-quarters of these so-called “Nones” support gay marriage. In another study, 42% of Britons described themselves as atheists or agnostics—three times as many as in the early 1960s. In France only 7% of Catholics continue to attend mass at least once a week; 58%, including three-quarters of those aged under 35, never go.

The lesson from all of this?  That both politicians and Church leaders in western countries need to change their anti-gay stance or potentially suffer extinction.  As for the Islamic world and Africa?  The current powers that be should be terrified of efforts to increase education levels because nothing fuels homophobia more than ignorance and lack of education.  Which probably explains why the Christianist constantly seek to dumb down public education to their own levels of ignorance and superstition. 

World Congress of Families Seeks a New Dark Ages

It's no secret that conservative - might we better say ultra-reactionary - "family values" want to turn back time.  But the question really isn't turning the clock back to the 1950's.  No, they truly would prefer a period more akin tot he Middle Ages when religion trump almost everything and when dictatorial Popes could intimidate and threaten kings and rulers.  And that's not counting when they sent their own armies to invade noncomplying countries. A worldwide display of this deeply reactionary thinking recently took place at the World Congress of Families (WCF) gathering in Madrid where the purported goal was to to share tactics in defense of the “natural family.” In reality, the gathering was a planning session on how to usurp the civil rights of other citizens and inflict far right Christianist views on all.  Their version of the "natural family" not surprisingly is modeled on a 13th century model and relies on scientific and sociological knowledge from that ignorant and backward era.  And not surprisingly, they claim that they are being persecuted if the rights of others are recognized.  And as for gays?  We are clearly viewed as enemy number one.  Religion Dispatches looks at the gathering and the messages is that these people need to be stopped if civil liberties for those other than Christofascists are to be protected.  Here are highlights:

Last month the World Congress of Families (WCF), an international conservative network, met at the Palacio de Congresos in Madrid to share tactics in defense of the “natural family.” For its participants the natural family is a standard for social values that harkens back to a mythical era when men headed the household, women tended the kitchen and children, and sex was for procreation only.

[I]t’s tempting to dismiss the WCF as a gathering of out-of-touch extremists. Scratch the surface, though, and what you find are well-connected and well-funded groups hard at work codifying their “traditional values” through national and regional legislatures and judiciaries. 

While drolly retrograde panels like “Authentic Women and Rediscovering Homemaking” and “Solutions to Homosexual Behavior” featured prominently, embedded in these and most other panels were serious themes articulating a conservative worldview and strategies for protecting and promoting them in the public sphere.

What emerged after three days was a clear tension between agitating against governments, courts, and international human rights bodies that had “corrupted the meaning and dignity of marriage, devalued parenting, encouraged easy divorce and births outside of marriage, confused sexual identities, promoted promiscuity, created conditions that increased child abuse, isolated the elderly, and fostered depopulation,” and figuring out how to best manipulate those same systems into defending their particular religious values.

One concern undergirding the varied topics covered by the speakers was that the protection of individual rights (youth rights, gay rights, reproductive rights) was taking place at the expense of “fundamental” religious, cultural, and parental rights. .  .  .  .  Human rights were oppressive when they protected reproductive and gender rights (or “new” rights), whereas, when it came to protecting “traditional” rights to freedom of religion and speech, they were suddenly fundamental. New rights, they argued, cannot supersede traditional human rights. 

Stand Up For Religious Freedom, one of the lead networks agitating against health care reform, explicitly states that: “the American ideal of religious liberty is at stake. This isn’t really about contraception—it’s about the First Amendment.”

The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), one of four World Congress of Families co-conveners, has been extremely active in “defending religious organizations and businesses that refuse to comply with the mandate and abandon their faith.” .   .   .   .    The ADF is also actively litigating religious freedom cases overseas. Because U.S. justices are increasingly citing progressive international jurisprudence in their opinions and decisions, much of the ADF’s international litigation is aimed at ensuring that foreign rulings serve its domestic objectives.

“How to Fight Back against International Law,” included a four-point strategy that, while not revealing too many trade secrets, was notable for its venomous tone toward “humanists” and others who, he says, accuse Christians of demanding preferential treatment.

While WCF participants make the case that they’re being denied their fundamental rights, they are in fact using “religious freedom” as a cover to deny women, children, sexual minorities, and others access to basic needs and protections. The WCF may want to take us back to the Dark Ages, but they’re not afraid to use modern human rights systems to get there.

On the final day of the conference Paul Herzog Von Oldenburg, the Belgian president of the right-wing Catholic group Tradition, Family and Property, summarized it best: “our great aim, our great ideal, is to build a Christian civilization from the ruins of the modern world just as the medieval world arose from the ruins of the Roman world.”

These people are frighteningly self-centered and do in fact want preferential rights - rights that trump the rights of everyone else.  As for the comparison of the Christian Middle Ages versus the Roman Empire, the former was based on ignorance and superstition while the latter despite its many flaws was a period of knowledge and creativity.

It may sound mean, but I truly believe that these ultra-far right Christianists suffer from a form of mental illness.  Life is short and all too fragile.  It should be lived and enjoyed while doing good by others.  In contrast, the Christianists dwell in a world of guilt, hate and condemnation of others.  Moreover, they are terrified of anything that challenge their childish beliefs and superstitions, or worse yet, requires that they have to think and make their own moral decisions.  I truly cannot fathom how one becomes so delusional.

Why Are Only Humans Homophobic? My Vote is Religion

While the Christianists rant, rave and spray spittle when confronted with the reality that homosexuality is seen across the animal kingdom - something that under cuts their efforts to blame gays on bad parenting and other invented psychobabble - the fact is that hundreds of species exhibit homosexual behavior. More importantly, only in humans does one find homophobia and mistreatment of individuals who are attracted to those of the same sex. Thus, the argument that homosexuality is "unnatural" and against the laws of nature quickly falls apart. So what cause humans to be unique in this mistreatment of other individuals? In my opinion, it's summed up in one word: religion. And if one knows accurate and true history, the development of religion and religious dogma often had little with supposed divine inspiration but instead involved uneducated and superstitious peoples (a) trying to explain the world, (ii) defining their own tribe(s) and differentiating themselves from the "other," and (c) providing a basis for the insecure to feel superior to others. Nature and so-called natural law often had little involvement and primitive social structure and circumstances were instead controlling. An article in Slate looks at the homophobia free nature of the rest of the animal kingdom. Here are highlights:

In an interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan on Sunday, former Growing Pains star Kirk Cameron called homosexuality “unnatural,” and a behavior that is “ultimately destructive to so many of the foundations of civilization.” We’ve heard that many species of nonhuman animals engage in gay sex, which calls into question the first part of Cameron’s statement. But what about the practice of shunning gays—can animals be homophobic too?

Not as far as we know. Homosexual behavior has been documented in hundreds of animal species, but the same does not hold for gay-bashing. For starters, few animals are exclusively gay. Two female Japanese macaques might have playful sex with each other on Tuesday, then mate with males on Wednesday. Pairs of male elephants sometimes form years-long companionships that include sexual activity, while their heterosexual couplings tend to be one-night stands. For these and many other species, sexual preferences seem to be fluid rather than binary: Gay sex doesn’t make them gay, and straight sex doesn’t make them straight. In these cases, the concept of homophobia simply doesn’t apply.

Still, it’s possible that a social grouping of animals would ostracize a member for engaging in even a single act of gay sex. Indeed, members of nonhuman species have been known to shun members of their social groups on account of certain specific behaviors. A 1995 study described a young adult chimpanzee that refused to grunt submissively and seemed to bully females; eight other males assaulted him and exiled him from the group for three months. It’s not inconceivable that unwanted sexual advances, homosexual or otherwise, might warrant the same harsh treatment; it simply hasn’t been documented.

What evidence we do have suggests that no such policing of sexual behavior exists. . . . . Researchers believe that gay sex is even rewarded in certain species. For bonobos, sexual activity serves as an instrument of social harmony: It reinforces bonds and keeps the peace. For instance, when a female bonobo migrates into a new group, she often ingratiates herself to the clan’s other ladies by having a lot of sex with them. Far from being shunned, this homosexual behavior is welcomed. And former Stanford researcher Joan Roughgarden has argued that among male bighorn sheep bisexuality may be the norm; those that don’t participate end up as outcasts.

Mankind likes to view itself as superior to the rest of the animal kingdom, but perhaps we've got it backwards. If anything is "unnatural" it would seem to be the Christofascists and anti-gay Islamic fundamentalist who are unnatural. Sadly, they allow ignorance and superstition to continue to control their lives and provide a salve to their fragile egos. Not to mention allowing them to avoid having to think for themselves - perhaps the most frightening issue of all to most of the Christianists.

NOM - The Face of Ignorance and Bigotry

Even as the USA is sliding downward in the competition for high levels education and a strong economic future as noted in the previous post, the National Organization for Marriage ("NOM") continues to exemplify the open embrace of ignorance, superstition and bigotry that are making the nation less competitive. With the Christianists, it's all about forcing their religious beliefs and small, wrongheaded world view on all Americans. Our economic competitors must jump for joy when they see the batshitery that passes for reasoned discourse within the GOP's Christianist and Tea Party base. With all of the huge problems that America is facing, the far right's biggest concern is keeping LGBT individuals second class citizens under the civil law and projecting an image of the nation as unwelcoming to those who aren't white and far right Christians. Here's a sampling of the bullshit being disseminated by NOM (as, of course, it asks for money):

With a high-stakes presidential election, Congress up for grabs, legal battles headed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and state-level battles raging over same-sex marriage from Maryland to Minnesota, from New Jersey to Washington, from Iowa to New Hampshire, the stakes could hardly be higher. And all of us at the National Organization for Marriage are gearing up to fight the anti-marriage assault like never before.

Look no further than the presidential campaign, where the issues of marriage and religious freedom have come up again and again, with nearly all the Republican presidential candidates issuing forceful statements in defense of marriage and the faith communities which sustain it.

[D]ozens of fights at the state and national levels will pop up over the next two months, and we must be prepared. Already this year, major new pushes to legalize same-sex marriage have erupted in Washington State and New Jersey.

And with just days left before the South Carolina primary, we are at a critical moment in the race for the GOP nomination for president. NOM is committed to making sure voters have a marriage champion who will stand as a clear alternative to President Obama this November.

Remember, we are fighting to stop a small group of zealots from discarding 3,000 years of human history and redefining our country's biblical traditions on sex and marriage as the equivalent of bigotry. If we lose, the result will be the absolute destruction of marriage in America...in your state, in my state, in all 50 states!

So please take action today—forward our TV ad to anyone you know who needs to see it. And please make one urgent financial gift to help NOM continue to lead the fight for marriage.

As I have said before, the nastiest, sleaziest whore has more integrity than the folks at NOM who one must remember are making an nice living for themselves while peddling hate and division and seeking to undermine religious freedom for all but themselves. Just as Christianity was a major cause for the fall of the western Roman Empire, so to it is potentially shaping up to be a cause for the decline of America.

Why Can't the USA Approve Gay Marriage When Unlikely Nations Have??

A column in the New York Times looks at the issue of gay marriage around the world and the at first blush surprising passage of full same sex marriage laws in South Africa, Spain, Portugal and Argentina, three of which were once viewed as bastions of Catholicism. The author, Frank Bruni comes up the hypothesis that these surprising supporters of same sex marriage have one trait in common: a devotion of equality and civil rights born out of years of regressive and/or dictatorship rule. These nations value modernity and civil equality all the more because they have experienced the opposite alternative and recognize the importance of the rule of law and a secular society. Stated differently, these nations endured the type of government and repressive society that the Christian Taliban would seek to impose in the United States. Bruni also notes something that played a significant role in the passage of same sex marriage laws in Spain and Portugal - and I'd posit in Argentina as well where President Kirchner gave a moving speech before the Argentine Senate passed the legislation: Political leadership and political will on the party leading the effort for change. Under the Obama administration, we have neither. Here are some column highlights:

With minimal international attention, Portugal — tiny, overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Portugal — legalized same-sex marriage last year. Although the country is hardly seen as a Scandinavian-style bastion of social progressivism, it’s one of just 10 countries where such marriages can be performed nationwide, and in this regard it finds itself ahead of a majority of wealthier, more populous European countries, like France, Germany, Italy and Britain. In the United States, only six states and the District of Columbia allow gay marriage. How did that happen? And what wisdom do the answers offer frustrated supporters of same-sex marriage here and elsewhere around the globe?

The eight countries that later joined the club were a mix of largely foreseeable and less predictable additions. In the first category I’d put Canada, Norway, Sweden and Iceland. In the second: South Africa, Spain, Portugal and Argentina.


Why those four countries? People who have studied the issue note that that they have something interesting and relevant in common: each spent a significant period of the late 20th century governed by a dictatorship or brutally discriminatory government, and each emerged from that determined to exhibit a modernity and concern for human rights that put the past to rest.

“They’re countries where the commitment to democracy and equal protection under the law was denied, flouted and oppressed, and the societies have struggled to restore that,” said Evan Wolfson, the president of Freedom to Marry, a New York-based advocacy group, in a recent interview. That dynamic informed Spain’s legalization of same-sex marriage in 2005.

Politicians in Portugal and Argentina — two countries with their own large Catholic majorities, strong geographic or historical ties to Spain, and a palpable desire to keep pace with it — took note of the same-sex marriage legislation there. Spain set off an Iberian wave with trans-Atlantic reach: one of the countries considered most likely to approve same-sex marriage next is Uruguay, which already permits same-sex civil unions and allows gay men and lesbians to adopt.

The idea that Portugal should do no less than Spain came up repeatedly in my conversations with those who pushed for the Portugal measure, and so did the insistence that Portugal was much more cosmopolitan than many outsiders gave it credit for being. I was left with the strong impression that for many highly educated and young people in Portugal . . . . . same-sex marriage became a badge of sophistication, affirming their country as an enlightened place.

And once it became law, everyone for the most part moved on. Sócrates’s government was tripped up by economic matters, not same-sex marriage, support for which rose significantly in polls following its institution, as people saw that their society wasn’t crumbling as a result. “It was a good example of the pedagogical effect of law,” Vale de Almeida said.

San Francisco isn’t all of America, and the religious dynamics and political vitriol in this country are different from Portugal’s. But might it be possible for President Obama, so maddeningly hesitant to endorse same-sex marriage, to take a lead on the issue? And might he find, as Sócrates did, that it wouldn’t make or break him? “At the end of the day,” Sócrates told me, “what we had was the political will.”

The Times also has a map that looks at the range of treatment of gays in nations around the world. Gay acceptance is the lowest and gays are treated most harshly in countries where national levels of education are abysmally low - not surprisingly, Africa and a number of Muslim nations rank the lowest on education levels. Another parallel with gay oppression is the role of religion in the national government. Again, theocratic Muslim nations and African nations under the sway of virulent form of Christianity exported by American Christianists lead the way in oppression. In sum, ignorance (also the reason Christianity is growing in Africa) and religious extremism are the leading causes anti-gay bigotry.

Career GOP Staffer - The Party Is Full of Lunatics

As a one time Republican from a family of long time Republicans, I note frequently the mental illness like state that has over taken the Republican Party. Ignorance is now celebrated, self-centered partisanship trumps the interests of the nation, and individuals who not too many years ago would have been viewed as lunatics are potentially viable presidential candidates by the party base. Add to that the reality that the GOP is now a de facto sectarian party and it adds up to a truly toxic brew. I'm not the only one who fled the GOP because of the sickness - and that's what it is - that has turned a once rational and respectable political party into a veritable insane asylum. Mike Lofgren, a retired 28 years veteran GOP Congressional staffer, has a piece on TruthOut.org that explains why he has now fled the GOP like so many others. It is a lengthy piece and I urge all readers to look at his full discussion of the three current tenants of the GOP. Here are some excerpts:

Both parties are rotten - how could they not be, given the complete infestation of the political system by corporate money on a scale that now requires a presidential candidate to raise upwards of a billion dollars to be competitive in the general election? Both parties are captives to corporate loot.

But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.

To those millions of Americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the Republican Party is so full of lunatics. To be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots . . .

But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy.

It was this cast of characters and the pernicious ideas they represent that impelled me to end a nearly 30-year career as a professional staff member on Capitol Hill.

The debt ceiling extension is not the only example of this sort of political terrorism. Republicans were willing to lay off 4,000 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, 70,000 private construction workers and let FAA safety inspectors work without pay, in fact, forcing them to pay for their own work-related travel - how prudent is that? - in order to strong arm some union-busting provisions into the FAA reauthorization.

It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. This trend has several implications, none of them pleasant.

John P. Judis sums up the modern GOP this way: "Over the last four decades, the Republican Party has transformed from a loyal opposition into an insurrectionary party that flouts the law when it is in the majority and threatens disorder when it is the minority. . . . If there is an earlier American precedent for today's Republican Party, it is the antebellum Southern Democrats of John Calhoun who threatened to nullify, or disregard, federal legislation they objected to and who later led the fight to secede from the union over slavery."

The media are also complicit in this phenomenon. Ever since the bifurcation of electronic media into a more or less respectable "hard news" segment and a rabidly ideological talk radio and cable TV political propaganda arm, the "respectable" media have been terrified of any criticism for perceived bias. Hence, they hew to the practice of false evenhandedness.

Undermining Americans' belief in their own institutions of self-government remains a prime GOP electoral strategy. But if this technique falls short of producing Karl Rove's dream of 30 years of unchallengeable one-party rule (as all such techniques always fall short of achieving the angry and embittered true believer's New Jerusalem), there are other even less savory techniques upon which to fall back. Ever since Republicans captured the majority in a number of state legislatures last November, they have systematically attempted to make it more difficult to vote: by onerous voter ID requirements

This legislative assault is moving in a diametrically opposed direction to 200 years of American history, when the arrow of progress pointed toward more political participation by more citizens. Republicans are among the most shrill in self-righteously lecturing other countries about the wonders of democracy; exporting democracy (albeit at the barrel of a gun) to the Middle East was a signature policy of the Bush administration. But domestically, they don't want those people voting.

You can probably guess who those people are. Above all, anyone not likely to vote Republican. As Sarah Palin would imply, the people who are not Real Americans. Racial minorities. Immigrants. Muslims. Gays. Intellectuals. Basically, anyone who doesn't look, think, or talk like the GOP base. This must account, at least to some degree, for their extraordinarily vitriolic hatred of President Obama.

Among the GOP base, there is constant harping about somebody else, some "other," who is deliberately, assiduously and with malice aforethought subverting the Good, the True and the Beautiful: Subversives. Commies. Socialists. Ragheads. Secular humanists. Blacks. Fags. Feminazis. The list may change with the political needs of the moment, but they always seem to need a scapegoat to hate and fear.

[T]he faux-populist wing of the party, knowing the mental compartmentalization that occurs in most low-information voters, played on the fears of that same white working class to focus their anger on scapegoats that do no damage to corporations' bottom lines: instead of raising the minimum wage, let's build a wall on the Southern border (then hire a defense contractor to incompetently manage it). Instead of predatory bankers, it's evil Muslims. Or evil gays. Or evil abortionists.

How do they manage to do this? Because Democrats ceded the field. Above all, they do not understand language. Their initiatives are posed in impenetrable policy-speak: . . . It was not always thus. It would have been hard to find an uneducated farmer during the depression of the 1890s who did not have a very accurate idea about exactly which economic interests were shafting him. An unemployed worker in a breadline in 1932 would have felt little gratitude to the Rockefellers or the Mellons. But that is not the case in the present economic crisis.

Thus far, I have concentrated on Republican tactics, rather than Republican beliefs, but the tactics themselves are important indicators of an absolutist, authoritarian mindset that is increasingly hostile to the democratic values of reason, compromise and conciliation.

As for what they really believe, the Republican Party of 2011 believes in three principal tenets I have laid out below. The rest of their platform one may safely dismiss as window dressing:

1. The GOP cares solely and exclusively about its rich contributors. The party has built a whole catechism on the protection and further enrichment of America's plutocracy.

2. They worship at the altar of Mars. While the me-too Democrats have set a horrible example of keeping up with the Joneses with respect to waging wars, they can never match GOP stalwarts such as John McCain or Lindsey Graham in their sheer, libidinous enthusiasm for invading other countries.

3. Give me that old time religion. Pandering to fundamentalism is a full-time vocation in the GOP. Beginning in the 1970s, religious cranks ceased simply to be a minor public nuisance in this country and grew into the major element of the Republican rank and file. Pat Robertson's strong showing in the 1988 Iowa Caucus signaled the gradual merger of politics and religion in the party. The results are all around us: if the American people poll more like Iranians or Nigerians than Europeans or Canadians on questions of evolution versus creationism, scriptural inerrancy, the existence of angels and demons, and so forth, that result is due to the rise of the religious right, its insertion into the public sphere by the Republican Party and the consequent normalizing of formerly reactionary or quaint beliefs. Also around us is a prevailing anti-intellectualism and hostility to science; it is this group that defines "low-information voter" - or, perhaps, "misinformation voter."

It is my view that the rise of politicized religious fundamentalism (which is a subset of the decline of rational problem solving in America) may have been the key ingredient of the takeover of the Republican Party. For politicized religion provides a substrate of beliefs that rationalizes - at least in the minds of followers - all three of the GOP's main tenets.

Some liberal writers have opined that the different socio-economic perspectives separating the "business" wing of the GOP and the religious right make it an unstable coalition that could crack. I am not so sure. There is no fundamental disagreement on which direction the two factions want to take the country, merely how far in that direction they want to take it. The plutocrats would drag us back to the Gilded Age, the theocrats to the Salem witch trials.

It is this broad and ever-widening gulf between the traditional Republicanism of an Eisenhower and the quasi-totalitarian cult of a Michele Bachmann that impelled my departure from Capitol Hill. . . . . I left because I was appalled at the headlong rush of Republicans, like Gadarene swine, to embrace policies that are deeply damaging to this country's future; and contemptuous of the feckless, craven incompetence of Democrats in their half-hearted attempts to stop them.

If Republicans have perfected a new form of politics that is successful electorally at the same time that it unleashes major policy disasters, it means twilight both for the democratic process and America's status as the world's leading power.

Sadly, I believe the analysis is correct and that if something isn't done to stop the increasingly dangerous lunatics now in control in the GOP, the future of this country does not look promising either economically for most citizens or in terms of sustained personal freedoms.

Dana Milbank Trashes Rick Perry's Extremism

It seems with each passing day - perhaps each passing hour - more coverage of GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry's batshit craziness and extremism is flooding the media. For example, Ruth Marcus has a column in the Washington Post that's more than a bit frightening in terms of what is discloses about Perry. But so far perhaps the most pointed view of Perry has come from Dana Milbank who is usually fairly reserved. Not so in a column also in the Washington Post that rightly savages Perry and puts his far out of the mainstream extremism on full view. Equally disturbing, of course, is the fact that Perry now largely embodies what it is to be a Republican in this day and age. I'm not a Democrat, but I certainly cannot be a Republican in this day where the open embrace of ignorance, religious bigotry, and hatred of others are the principal GOP hallmarks regardless of what efforts are made to hide that reality. Here are highlights from Milbank's column:

A s my Post colleague Perry Bacon reported in detail this week, Rick Perry has jettisoned the “compassion” that sometimes leavened the conservatism of his predecessor in the Texas governor’s mansion.

If Perry’s style resembles anybody’s in George W. Bush’s White House, in fact, it is that of former vice president Dick Cheney, whose just-published memoir, “In My Time,” might as well have been titled “Right Every Time (Even Though I Was Surrounded by Idiots).” Think of Perry as Bush without the charm.

Perry is passionately anti-government, or at least anti-this-government. But the man who suddenly tops the Republican presidential polls is no libertarian. Rick Perry is a theocrat.

By his own account, he is a cultural warrior, seeking to save marriage, Christmas and the Boy Scouts from liberals, gay people and moral relativism. His latest treatise, the Tea-Party-inspired “Fed Up!,” touches only briefly on matters such as abortion and gay marriage. For an eyeful of the full Perry, crack his 2008 book, “On My Honor.” While the rest of the political world was reading Cheney’s attacks on Colin Powell, I read about Perry’s attacks on gay scoutmasters. In the book’s most talked-about passage, he likens homosexuality to alcoholism.

Perry’s politics are religious in a way not seen before in modern-day mainstream presidential candidates. . . . . Perry has no use for those who “want to recognize Jesus as a good teacher, but nothing more.”

The governor forecasts divine punishment for those who hold different political views. “Shall they stand before God and brag that they fought to scrub His glorious name from the nation’s pledge?” he asks. “Shall they seek His approval for attacking private organizations merely because these organizations proclaim His existence?”

In a series of hoary bromides, the supposedly libertarian Perry condemns the “litigious advocates of licentious behavior” (that’s the ACLU) and informs us that “Sometimes the rules must protect society at large at the expense of individual expression when that expression is deemed harmful to others and society at large.”

Among the things Perry “deems” harmful: universities (students “have been taught that corporations are evil, religion is the opiate of the masses, and morality is relative”); human rights commissions (“often nothing more than a front for attacking institutions that teach traditional values”); and evolution (he says “the weight of evidence” supports intelligent design). Perry polishes the old “war on Christmas” chestnut and finds a way to cast Mitt Romney (now his rival for the nomination) as a defender of gay scoutmasters.

Though he speaks now as a small-government conservative, Perry argues in his book: “We are close to a tipping point in American society. If you believe there is right and wrong, that there are acceptable standards of behavior . . . then you have a stake in this war. If the attackers win many more victories . . . the culture war may be lost before we know it.

Exchange the Bible for the Koran and Perry doesn't sound too different from the Taliban and those Muslims alleged to be pushing for Sharia law.

Rick Perry, the Republicans’ Messiah?

Kathleen Parker is one of the few rational conservative pundits and, not surprisingly, she's not thrilled with the prospect of Rick Perry as the potential GOP presidential nominee. As I've made clear, I view Perry as an extremist and nutcase who make actually make Chimperator Bush look fairly bright. Yes, that's a frightening reality, but such is the insanity of today's Republican Party. Here are highlights from Parker's latest column in the Washington Post:

Rick Perry’s rapid lead over previous Republican front-runner Mitt Romney was predictable. But it is not a good sign for Republicans hoping to reclaim the White House and further highlights the crucial battle within GOP circles: Who is the godliest of us all?

That’s the mirror-mirror question for Republicans. Forget charisma, charm, intelligence, knowledge and that nuisance, “foreign policy experience.” The race of the moment concerns which candidate is the truest believer.

This was always a tough hurdle for Romney, whose Mormonism is reflexively distrusted by Southern evangelicals. Even so, in the absence of a better candidate, Romney had a fighting chance to win his party’s support. Then came Perry.

Talk about a perfect-storm, composite candidate. Combine Elmer Gantry’s nose for converts, Ronald Reagan’s folksy confidence and Sarah Palin’s disdain for the elites — and that dog hunts. Perry doesn’t just believe, he evangelizes. . . . . If you’re Romney, Perry is a nightmare that’s still there in the morning. If you’re Barack Obama, maybe not so much?

That we are yet again debating evolutionary theory and Earth’s origins — and that candidates now have to declare where they stand on established science — should be a signal that we are slip-sliding toward governance by emotion rather than reason. But it’s important to understand what’s undergirding the debate. It has little to do with a given candidate’s policy and everything to do with whether he or she believes in God.

If we are descended of some blend of apes, then we can’t have been created in God’s image. If we establish Earth’s age at 4.5 billion years, then we contradict the biblical view that God created the world just 6,500 years ago. And finally, if we say that climate change is partly the result of man’s actions, then God can’t be the One who punishes man’s sins with floods, droughts, earthquakes and hurricanes. If He wants the climate to change, then He will so ordain, and we’ll pray more.

Perry knows he has to make clear that God is his wingman. And this conviction seems not only to be sincere, but also to be relatively noncontroversial in the GOP’s church . . . . . And also why he probably can’t win a national election, in which large swaths of the electorate would prefer that their president keep his religion close and be respectful of knowledge that has evolved from thousands of years of human struggle against superstition and the kind of literal-mindedness that leads straight to the dark ages.

Faith and reason are not mutually exclusive, but Perry makes you think they are.

As a thinking, I like to think rational American, Rick Perry scares the Hell out of me and makes me worry for the future of the nation.

Goodbye Religion? The Number on Non-believers is Increasing With Each New Generation

As I've noted many times previously, the best argument for not being a believing Christian is self-identified, self-congratulatory Christians. Or at least those who belong to conservative denominations which seem more identifiable by their hatred of almost everyone rather than by living their lives in accordance with the Gospel message. These Christians have no compassion for others, begrudge government programs for the poor, the sick and the hungry, and spew hatred via "family values" organizations. Instead they act in ways that make the constantly condemned Pharisees of the Gospels look like they were pretty nice folks in comparison. The result of all of this is that increasingly younger generations are opting to join the ranks of agnostics and atheists. The irony - which for me is too sweet in some ways - is that it is not liberals or gays who are killing Christianity but the most vitriolic Christians who claim to be protecting faith. God/Allah/the Creator must be smiling at their handiwork. An article in Alternet looks at the phenomenon and here are some highlights:

Something strange is happening to American teenagers. If you believe popular wisdom, young people are apathetic, cynical and jaded; or, they're supposed to be conformists whose overriding desire is to fit in and be popular. But if you've been paying close attention over the past decade, you might have seen any of a growing number of cases that conspicuously defy these stereotypes stereotypes: stories of teenagers who have strong principles they're unashamed to display and which they're committed to defending, even at great personal cost, against the bullying of a hostile establishment.

For example, in 2002, an Eagle Scout named Darrell Lambert was threatened with expulsion from the Boy Scouts, despite his having earned dozens of merit badges and having held literally every leadership position in his troop. His crime? He's an outspoken atheist. When the news of his beliefs reached scouting officials, they demanded that he change his mind. He was given a week to think it over. All he had to do was lie, but if he did that, he said, "I wouldn't be a good Scout then, would I?" For his honesty, he was kicked out of the organization he'd devoted his life to.

In New Jersey in 2006, a public high school teacher named David Paskiewicz was openly preaching Christianity in the classroom, advocating creationism and telling a Muslim student she would burn in hell if she didn't convert. A junior named Matt LaClair reported this illegal government preaching to the school administration. In a meeting with the principal, Paskiewicz denied everything -- whereupon LaClair produced audio recordings of him saying the things he specifically denied having said.

Stories like these are multiplying all over the nation. In South Carolina just this year, a graduating senior named Harrison Hopkins put a stop to school prayer with help from the Freedom from Religion Foundation.

All these individual facts add up to a larger picture, which is confirmed by statistical evidence: Americans are becoming less religious, with rates of atheism and secularism increasing in each new generation. This demographic transformation has been in progress ever since World War II, but in recent years it's begun to seriously pick up steam. In the generation born since 1982, variously referred to as Generation Y, the Millennials, or Generation Next, one in five people identify as nonreligious, atheist, or agnostic. In the youngest cohort, the trend is even more dramatic: as many as 30% of those born since 1990 are nonbelievers. Another study, this one by a Christian polling firm, found that people are leaving Christianity at four times the rate that new members are joining.

There are multiple theories, but only one of them that I'm aware of both makes good sense and is corroborated by the facts. Over the last few decades, society in general, and young people in particular, have become increasingly tolerant of gays and other minorities. For the most part, this is a predictable result of familiarity: people who've grown up in an increasingly multicultural society see less problem

But while American society is moving forward on all these fronts, many churches not only refuse to go along, they're actively moving backward. Most large Christian sects, both Catholic and Protestant, have made fighting against gay rights and women's rights their all-consuming crusade. And young people have gotten this message loud and clear: polls find that the most common impressions of Christianity are that it's hostile, judgmental and hypocritical. In particular, an incredible 91% of young non-Christians say that Christianity is "anti-homosexual", and significant majorities say that Christianity treats being gay as a bigger sin than anything else.

In a society that's increasingly tolerant and enlightened, the big churches remain stubbornly entrenched in the past, clinging to medieval dogmas about gay people and women, presuming to lecture their members about how they should vote, whom they should love, how they should live. It's no surprise that people who've grown up in this tolerant age find it absurd when they're told that their family and friends don't deserve civil rights, and it's even less of a surprise that, when they're told they must believe this to be good Christians, they simply walk away.

The Roman Catholic church in particular has been hit hard by this. According to a 2009 Pew study, "Faith in Flux," one in ten American adults is a former Catholic, and a majority of ex-Catholics cite unhappiness with the church's archaic stance on abortion, homosexuality, birth control or the treatment of women as a major factor in their departure. But evangelical and other Protestant denominations are feeling the same sting. According to a survey by the sociologists Robert Putnam and David Campbell, moderates and progressives are heading for the exits as the churches increasingly become the domain of conservatives

What all this means is that the rise of atheism as a political force is an effect, rather than a cause, of the churches' hard right turn towards fundamentalism. . . . . the truth is that the churches' wounds are largely self-inflicted. By obstinately clinging to prejudices that the rest of society is moving beyond, they're in the process of making themselves irrelevant. In fact, there are indications that it's a vicious circle: as churches become less tolerant and more conservative, their younger and more progressive members depart, which makes their average membership still more conservative, which accelerates the progressive exodus still further, and so on. (A similar dynamic is at work in the Republican party, which explains their increasing levels of insanity over the past two or three decades.)

Of course, Christianity is still by far the largest religious affiliation in America, and likely will be for some time. But the numbers don't lie, and the trends of the last several decades show more and more evidence of the same secularizing wave that's overtaking most countries in Europe. The major churches, clinging to the inferior morality of long-gone ages, are increasingly out of step with a world that's more enlightened, rational and tolerant than it once was. And the more they dig in their heels, the more we can expect this process to accelerate. . . . .

For me, the process cannot accelerate fast enough. I see conservative Christianity is a blight on society that we'd all ultimately be far better off without.

The Three Fundamentalisms of the American Far Right

A column in Salon follows the evolution of the far right in America from the post WWII years through today analyzes how we've come to such batshit craziness and irrationality which has now taken over the Republican Party for the most part. The irony in the piece is that it looks at the evolution - using a concept that much of the far right refuses to believe in despite scientific evidence to support evolution. But then, that's part and parcel with the fundamentalism that has replaced facts and reason. Just look at the GOP Congressional leadership to see how little objective facts and reasoning have evaporated from the scene in the GOP. Much of the drift to irrational insanity not surprisingly flows from the fundamentalism and ignorance by choice of the Christianist faction within the GOP which in my view is like a metastasizing cancer. Here are some highlights:
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In contradiction to the hostility to Darwinism shared by many of its constituents, the American right is evolving rapidly before our eyes. The project of creating an American version of Burkean conservatism has collapsed. What has replaced it is best described as triple fundamentalism -- a synthesis of Biblical fundamentalism, constitutional fundamentalism and market fundamentalism.
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Following World War II, the American right was a miscellany of marginal, embittered subcultures -- anti-New Dealers, isolationists, paranoid anticommunists, anti-semites and white supremacists. Russell Kirk and others associated with William F. Buckley Jr.'s National Review sought to Americanize a version of high-toned British Burkean conservatism.
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The term "fundamentalism" originated in the early twentieth century as a description of reactionary evangelical Protestants in the U.S. who rejected liberal Protestantism and modern evolutionary science and insisted on the inerrancy of the Bible. . . . . once white Southerners captured the Republican party and the conservative movement, the High Church right that found Kirk and Buckley among its college of cardinals gave way to the political equivalent of the Foot-Washin’ Baptists.
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The increasingly-Southernized American Right has transferred the fundamentalist Protestant mentality from the sphere of religion to the spheres of law and the economy. Protestant fundamentalism is now joined by constitutional fundamentalism and market fundamentalism.
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In all three cases, the pattern is the same. There is the eternal Truth that never varies -- the will of God, the principles of the Founding Fathers, the so-called laws of the free market. There are the scriptures which explain the eternal truths -- the King James Bible, in the case of religious fundamentalism, the Constitution or the Federalist Papers, in the case of constitutional fundamentalism, and Friedrich von Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom in the case of market fundamentalism . . .
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History, to the fundamentalist mind, is a story of original perfection, followed by betrayal and restoration. The early Christian church was perfect; it was corrupted and betrayed by medieval Catholicism; and it was restored to its original purity by radical Protestant reformers. In the same way, the American constitution was not a flawed compromise among rival states and factions, to be improved by later amendment, but a document of superhuman wisdom, created in a kind of secular Pentecost at Philadelphia in the summer of 1787.
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Modern American market fundamentalism, too, is recognizably modeled on the fundamentalist Protestant version of church history . . . . the market fundamentalists pretend that the U.S. was governed by the laws of the market until Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal replaced capitalism with socialism . . .
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Back when conservatism was orthodox and traditional, rather than fundamentalist and counter-revolutionary, conservatives could engage in friendly debates with liberals, and minds on both sides could now and then be changed. But if your sect alone understands the True Religion and the True Constitution and the Laws of the Market, then there is no point in debate. All those who disagree with you are heretics, to be defeated, whether or not they are converted.
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The era of triple fundamentalism on the American right is bound to come to an end. Sooner or later, dogmatism and reality will collide, and it is not reality that will crumple like tinfoil. The only question is how much damage will be done to the American polity before the revolution of the saints fizzles out.
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As I've noted often before, the extreme fundamentalism that we are seeing suggests to me severe emotional and psychological issues on the part of adherents who are absolutely terrified of (i) having to exercise independent thought and analysis and (ii) having their house of cards religious beliefs exposed as lies. This mental illness if you will makes members of the far right perfect victims for demagogues both in the pulpit and in Congress.

Religion - The Sole Basis for Anti-Gay Animus

All of the shrieking and whining that's going on in the wake of Friday's historic vote legalizing same sex marriage in New York has made in more starkly obvious that religious based hate and bigotry are the sole basis for Christianist and Catholic Church opposition to same sex marriage. It comes down to these religious extremists wanted the special right to make all citizens live by their belief system. And in making their case, modern knowledge, science and the U. S. Constitution all get flushed down the toilet. It's ALL about them and to Hell with everyone else. To me, it also shows the weakness of their faith system which starts to crumble like a house of cards if others are allowed to live their lives in accordance with differing religious/spiritual beliefs. A column in Huffington Post looks at the arguments against same sex marriage stripped of all the smoke screen and disingenuous blather that opponents utilize to try to hide their theocratic agenda. Here are some highlights:
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Success has a thousand fathers, the old saw goes, but failure is an orphan. Not this time. There is one and only one big loser in the New York's long overdue decision to legalize gay marriage: old-time religion. Rather than retreat in shame the self-anointed defenders of God's law continue to snort and stamp their feet in indignation.
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But, while a new day has dawned in New York, the fight now moves to other states, so it's important to consider the arguments offered against gay marriage. Let's take a look.
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In their desperate effort to block marriage equality, they pulled out all the rhetorical stops. If gay marriage becomes legal, argued Upstate New York Republican pol Sam Trombley, "we are going to have an HIV epidemic." You got that? 'Cause no way gay guys would ever have unprotected sex outside the bounds of holy matrimony.
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In their long march against gay marriage, exponents of old-time religion have lobbed countless rhetorical grenades. They've used the "What next? Marriage with animals?" tactic. They've cried, "No special rights!" (As if legal equality were somehow 'special.') Yet, few outbursts have been as vile or absurd as Archbishop Dolan's frantic attempt to hold Republicans in New York State Senate fast to their opposition to justice. In his official blog Dolan suggested that to grant marriage equality would be to turn America into a totalitarian state
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History shows that every time some blowhard pounds the podium in defense of "natural law," he is in fact defending brute religious bigotry. "Natural law" has been the cry against the abolition of slavery, the end of aristocracy, and equal rights for women. So, welcome, Archbishop, to the wrong side of history.
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The reason for all the bluster should be made plain: old-time religion, be it Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, is authoritarian, and its authority derives from a simple claim: "We have God's Word, and we'll tell you exactly how to obey it, or else." To accept same-sex marriage is to reject that claim. It's not society that's undermined, but these ancient, authoritarian structures.

The Correlation Between Conservativism and Ignorance and Economic Backwardness

Richard Florida - who has done studies on the so-called "creative class" and entrepreneurship and economic vitality has done another study that seems to demonstrate a direct correlation between the economic well being of states and the level of conservatism of the states' residents. Also directly tracking the level of conservatism in states is the level of education of residents. The more poorly educate a state's population, the more conservative the state. Yes, ignorance and bigotry does seem to have a high and direct price. Unfortunately, states that are politically lurching to the right are the antithesis to long term economic success and vibrancy. The chart above from The Atlantic also shows a direct correlation with between religiosity and lack of education to the Bible Belt. As for the "average" ranking for Virginia, the study obviously failed to fully factor in the maleficent influence of The Family Foundation and the Virginia Republican Party. Here are some highlights from Richard Florida's article in The Atlantic:
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[S]tates with more conservatives are considerably more religious than liberal-leaning states. The correlation between conservative political affiliation and religion (the share of state population for which religion is an important part of daily life) is considerable (.63).
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Conservative states are also less well-educated than liberal ones. The correlation between conservative affiliation and human capital (that is, the percent of adults who have graduated college) is substantially negative (-.53).
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States with more conservatives are less diverse. Conservative political affiliation is highly negatively correlated with the percent of the population that are immigrants (-.59) or gay and lesbian (-.66).
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Conservative states are more blue-collar. Conservative political affiliation is strongly positively correlated with the percentage of the workforce in blue-collar occupations (.73) and highly negatively correlated with the proportion of the workforce engaged in knowledge-based professional and creative work (-.61).
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Conservatism, more and more, is the ideology of the economically left behind. The current economic crisis only appears to have deepened conservatism's hold on America's states. This trend stands in sharp contrast to the Great Depression, when America embraced FDR and the New Deal.
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[L]ong-term danger is economic rather than political. This ideological state of affairs advantages the policy preferences of poorer, less innovative states over wealthier, more innovative, and productive ones. American politics is increasingly disconnected from its economic engine. And this deepening political divide has become perhaps the biggest bottleneck on the road to long-run prosperity.
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I have noted before that the biggest threat to the USA's future is not liberalism, gay marriage or diversity. Instead, it is individuals and states that embrace ignorance and backwardness by choice. Yes, its those like Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann and the Tea Party crowd and similar know nothings that are the real threat to America. As the USA slides towards regression, the rest of the world marches forward.

America's Great Passport Divide

I guess it should come as little surprise that the lowest per capita number of individuals who hold passports would directly parallel the regions of the country that comprise the Bible belt. You know, the same region where ignorance and intolerance tend to be enthusiastically embraced as a virtue. The map above shows that Mississippi wins the prize for the lowest number of citizens with passports. Perhaps if these folks got out and saw more of the world they might be forced to open their eyes to the fact that their made up reality is flawed and out of touch with objective reality. The Atlantic looks at the results of a new study - here are some highlights:
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It's a fun map. With the exception of Sarah Palin's home state, it reinforces the "differences" we expect to find between the states where more worldly, well-traveled people live versus those where the folks Palin likes to call "real Americans" preponderate. Mostly to entertain myself, I decided to look at how this passport metric correlates with a variety of other political, cultural, economic, and demographic measures. What surprised me is how closely it lines up with the other great cleavages in America today.
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It's also reasonable to assume that more highly educated people would be more likely to hold a passport. And that too is what we find across the states. There is a considerable correlation (.80) between passports and human capital levels (measured as the percentage of a population with a bachelor's degree or higher). What's really striking is that this correlation holds even when we control for income,
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There is a substantial correlation (.70) between the percentage of passport holders and the percentage of the workforce in knowledge-based and creative jobs. Conversely, there is significant negative correlation between passport holders and the share of the workforce in blue-collar working class jobs (-.82). Working class states have considerably less passport holders than creative class states.
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What about politics? How does passport holding line up against America's Red state-Blue state divide? Pretty darn well, actually. There is a considerable positive correlation between passports and Obama voters (.59) and a significant negative one (-.61) for McCain voters. It appears that more liberally-oriented states are more globally oriented as well, or at least their citizens like to travel abroad.
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There are stark cultural differences between places where international travel is common and those where it's not, and we can see them playing out in the cultural and political strife that has been riving the country over the past decades.
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The trends in passport use reflect America's starkly bifurcated system of infrastructure. One set of places has great universities and easy access to international airports; another an infrastructure that is much further off the beaten track of the global circulation of capital, talent, and ideas.

Religion and Modernity: Embrace New Knowledge or Die

Whether it's the Roman Catholic Church clinging to a 13th century version of "natural law" or the Southern Baptist Convention and professional Christians ranting against gays, the real collision course facing a free and educated society is the fact that increasingly modern knowledge simply contradicts what the self-congratulatory and/or fear driven Christians claim to believe. Claims of Bible inerrancy in particular underscores the disconnect from objective reality. And the contradictions range from modern knowledge of sexual orientation, to in vitro fertilization for the childless to the likelihood that Earth is not the only planet in the universe with intelligent life. Generally, the (in my view falsely) pious refuse to face this reality and in the long term - and deservedly so - the result will be the death of Christianity. Or at least the ignorance embracing, inflexible, non-thinking, hate based version that currently seems to still predominate far too many denominations. An op-ed piece in The Lutheran (subscription only - I get it through my parish) looks at this situation and makes a case with which I generally agree: basically, change or die. Here are some highlights:
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As a result of the skepticism of Reformation-era religious leaders, church polity underwent unsettling and significant changes. This coincided with challenges to church perspectives from science and enlightened thought.

The ELCA needs to engage, once again, in vigorous dialogue about modern thinking and religion. Conversations with church colleagues suggest that, for many of us, postmodern thinking challenges notions of unscientific religious dogma. Specific religious doctrines and practices seem increasingly irrelevant to many of our educationally sophisticated, technologically advanced young people. Declining attendance implies disengagement from the church.

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Conservative organizations and denominations often cling to outmoded concepts, traditional styles or homophobic ideas that are rejected by many modern critics.

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A parishioner recently said, "I believe the Bible is God's word, not God's words." But what does God's word say if the words are inaccurate or outside of scientific conceptualization?

Wingnut B&B Owners Tell Gay Couple they Are "Wrong and Unnatural"

Based on their treatment of a gay couple seeking a venue for their civil union ceremony, the owners of TimberCreek B&B (pictured at left) demonstrate the mindless idiocy - and bigotry - of self-congratulatory Christianists who feel they can flout the civil laws and discriminate against anyone who does not live their life in accordance with fear based and intolerant based Christianist religious beliefs. One can only hope that the State of Illinois will prosecute these jerks for violating the Illinois Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation by businesses open to the public. Not only did the B&B owners refuse to accommodate the civil unions ceremony but they also chastised the couple and called on them to repent. With too many individuals like these B&B owners, it is no wonder that the USA is sliding towards second tier nation status. Here are some highlights from the Advocate:
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Todd Wathen of downstate Illinois sent out inquiries to Beall Mansion and the TimberCreek B&B regarding his upcoming civil union reception. While Beall Mansion's managers told Wathen they allow only traditional weddings at their property, the TimberCreek B&B went much further.
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"We will never host same-sex civil unions. We will never host same-sex weddings even if they become legal in Illinois," TimberCreek operators told Wathen in an e-mail. “We believe homosexuality is wrong and unnatural based on what the Bible says about it. If that is discrimination, I guess we unfortunately discriminate."
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When informed of Illinois's new civil unions law, Jim Walder of TimberCreek replied, “The Bible does not state opinions, but facts. It contains the highest laws pertinent to man. It trumps Illinois law, United States law, and global law should there ever be any.”
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Walder later sent an unsolicited e-mail of Bible passages to Wathen. He wrote, “Hi Todd, I know you may not want to hear this, but I thought I would send along a couple of verses in Romans 1 detailing how the Creator of the Universe looks at the gay lifestyle. It’s not to late to change your behavior.”
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Walder obviously knows very little accurate history and has done no serious study of the Bible and its many rewritings and the political compromises made in dogma all the way back to the time of Constantine the Great. Oh, and did I mention that some of the "facts" recounted in the Bible are off by centuries in terms of true time line chronology? Perhaps Walden needs to be shipped to Iran where the current leadership welcomes such ignorance in the populace.

Gays in Africa Face Growing Persecution

Religion continues to show its face as a perverse evil in Africa where gays and lesbians are under increased persecution which is fueled by fundamentalist Christians - often with the assistance and bankrolling of American based religious extremists. And just as in the USA, politicians prove themselves to more or less be shameless whores only too ready to pander to the Christian hate merchants. And right be hind the Christianists peddling hatred are Islamic gay haters. It's a phenomenon that makes be once again believe that a world without religion would be a marked improvement from the present situation. If nothing else, the situation underscores what religion needs to remain utterly separate from the civil laws and that more needs to be done to expose the work of American based groups who are exporting religious based discrimination abroad. With all of the economic, social and health problems in Africa, gays are sadly being cynically scapegoated. Here are highlights from the Washington Post:
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KAMPALA, UGANDA - Persecution of gays is intensifying across Africa, fueled by fundamentalist preachers, intolerant governments and homophobic politicians. Gay people have been denied access to health care, detained, tortured and even killed, human rights activists and witnesses say.
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The growing tide of homophobia comes at a time when gays in Africa are expressing themselves more openly, prompting greater media attention and debates about homosexuality. The rapid growth of Islam and evangelical forms of Christianity, both espousing conservative views on family values and marriage, have persuaded many Africans that homosexuality should not be tolerated in their societies.
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Local newspapers are outing gays, potentially inciting the public to attack them, activists say. A day after a newspaper article said that gays should be hanged, Sheila Hope Mugisha became a target. As the prominent gay rights activist neared her home, she said, boys from the neighborhood threw stones at the gate and chanted, "You are a homo." Mugisha ran inside and locked the door. She didn't leave for several days.
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"In Uganda, we look at homosexuality as an abomination. It is not normal," said Nsaba Butoro, Uganda's minister on ethics and integrity and a vocal supporter of the bill. "You are talking about a clash of cultures. The question is: Which culture is superior, the African one or the Western one?" More than two-thirds of African countries have laws criminalizing homosexuality.
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One exception is South Africa, whose constitution was the first in the world to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation and is among a few countries in the world that have legalized same-sex marriages. Still, even there, negative attitudes toward gays persist in many rural areas and townships.
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In recent years, conservative American evangelical churches have had a profound influence on society in Uganda and other African nations. They send missions and help fund local churches that share their brand of Christianity. Sermons and seminars by American evangelist preachers are staples on local television and radio networks across the continent.
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"The religious fundamentalists want to rule everyone. They want everyone to follow their religious agenda," said Pepe Julien Onziema, a gay rights activist here.
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The article goes on with more sickening details. There are certainly ironies reported in the story: the fact that utterly corrupt Uganda purports to have a minister of ethics and integrity and that Africans have been duped into believing they are protecting African values when its American fundamentalist Christian beliefs that are fueling the anti-gay jihad. The situation again proves why an ignorant and uneducated population are so necessary for Christianist to be successful.