Support Bill C-279: Equal protection for transgender Canadians

by Zinnia — 5 April 2012

Did you know that Canada still has no federal law prohibiting discrimination against transgender people? While the Canadian Human Rights Act forbids discrimination on the basis of race, sex, age, religion, nationality, disability, marital status and sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression are not included.

Last year, Bill C-279 was introduced to ensure that transgender people are protected from discrimination as well. But until it passes, trans Canadians are still subject to prejudice in employment, housing, and public accommodations. They're also not considered an identifiable group in the provisions against advocating genocide and public incitement of hatred, which already include race, religion and sexual orientation. Further, the sentencing principles for bias-motivated crimes fail to mention gender identity or gender expression. Trans people are not currently covered by any of these laws, and this won't change unless Bill C-279 is passed.

Imagine being turned down everywhere you apply for a job - not because of your qualifications, but simply because of who you are. Or imagine not being able to find a home because people can openly discriminate against you for being trans. Imagine being kicked out of restaurants because of who you are. Imagine not even being able to use public restrooms because of who you are. Imagine not being able to find a doctor who's willing to treat you. That is the everyday reality faced by trans people, and they have no legal recourse against any of this.

Bill C-279 could finally put an end to that, but it's received practically no coverage in the media. If you want to do something about this, call your Member of Parliament and explain to them why this matters. Sign the petition at Change.org, and spread the word about this bill to everyone you know. Protection from discrimination is crucial in allowing every citizen to have a fair shot at achieving their full potential, without being held back by anyone's prejudice. We should all be able to participate in society on an equal footing, regardless of how we identify. Do the right thing, and get Bill C-279 passed.

Leave a comment — Filed under , , ,

NOM finally responds with predictable, disingenuous gay-blaming

by Zinnia — 30 March 2012

In the days following the release of confidential strategy documents from the National Organization for Marriage, the silence from NOM has been deafening. Thus far, their only response to the revelation of their explicit 'gays against blacks' proposals and Latino identity engineering tactics has been a few paragraphs buried in their weekly newsletter, and a softball interview with Maggie Gallagher on MSNBC. Most tellingly, everything they've said in their defense is completely in accordance with the talking points outlined in their documents.

NOM president Brian Brown says:

Let me be the first to say that the tone of the language in that document as quoted by the press is inapt. Here's something I know from the bottom of my soul: It would be enormously arrogant for anyone at NOM to believe that we can make or provoke African-American or Latino leaders do anything. The Black and Hispanic Democrats who stand up for marriage do so on principle - and get hit with a wave of vituperative attacks like nothing I have ever seen.

He continues, saying:

To Joe Solmonese and the Human Rights Campaign and Evan Wolfson of Freedom to Marry I would say: This is your movement. You are its leaders. Only you can hope to change the vicious attacks being made on Black and Hispanic Democrats (or white Republicans for that matter!) who don't agree with you on gay marriage.

This is a textbook example of NOM's plan to "find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage; develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right", and "provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots." So while he may claim it was "inapt" to say that "the strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks", that's exactly what he's doing right now by accusing marriage equality advocates of attacking black and Latino people!

On MSNBC, Maggie Gallagher added: "I don't like the language because I think it makes us sound way too big for our britches", and "it makes me seem much more - or NOM seem much more powerful than it is. It's insulting to suggest that these African American or Latino leaders are standing up because NOM is manipulating them." But Maggie Gallagher was chairman of the board at NOM when all of these documents were circulated to the board of directors. If she doesn't like the language, why did she allow this to be published as an official document "prepared by the National Organization for Marriage"?

And if she and Brian Brown think it's so impossible that NOM could influence black and Latino people to oppose gay marriage, why did NOM budget $1.1 million for targeted radio and TV ads to black neighborhoods, $50,000 for African-American "next generation leaders conferences", $70,000 for their "black bloggers project", $180,000 for an African-American outreach coordinator and spokesman, another $180,000 for a Hispanic outreach coordinator, $100,000 for radio and TV ad production under their "Latino project", $1 million for Spanish radio and TV ads, $100,000 for YouTube productions and viral marketing outreach, $70,000 for PR outreach to Hispanic publications, $100,000 for Hispanic "next generation leaders conferences", $200,000 for direct mail and email, and another $200,000 on robocalling to Latino zip codes? That's over $3 million NOM spent on selling their anti-gay message specifically to black and Latino people, and now they tell us they couldn't possibly make blacks and Latinos do anything. As Joe Biden Sr. said, "Don't tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I'll tell you what you value."

As if that wasn't enough, Brian Brown had the gall to say: "Rich white guys like Mayor Bloomberg, Tim Gill and Howard Schultz are determined to push gay marriage on us 'whether we like or not!'" This, coming from a white guy whose multi-million dollar organization privately admits to using black and Latino people as human shields to deflect criticism of the anti-gay movement. A man who intentionally exploits a history of violent racial strife to make people too uncomfortable to call out homophobia is really trying to claim that "rich white guys" are "determined to push gay marriage on us". This is just one more shameless, disgusting step in their continued attempts to "drive a wedge between gays and blacks".

And to top it all off, Maggie Gallagher made this asinine offering on MSNBC:

...if we could get together with the gay community and take the idea that it's bigoted or discriminatory to stand up for marriage off the table, for black people or for white people, we'd be happy to do it.

Yes, Maggie, I'm sure you would be very happy if we believed there was nothing bigoted or discriminatory about calling gay relationships unworthy of marriage. That would just make your job so much easier! It's no surprise when political figures are out of touch with the public, but it's really impressive when they manage to be so out of touch with human decency itself.

And throughout their mendacious orgy of denials, excuses and victim-blaming, the most notable thing is what they haven't said. Not once has anyone from NOM renounced their strategy of turning blacks and gays against each other and making "Latino identity" inherently homophobic. No, their only defense is that they weren't able to make it happen. It's not that they didn't want to, it's not that they weren't trying - they just couldn't get it done. If they honestly wanted to repudiate this, all they would have to say is: "We do not want to drive a wedge between gays and blacks." But they haven't. We're still waiting - and I suspect we'll be waiting a long time.

Leave a comment — Filed under , , ,

Secret NOM documents reveal disgraceful, racist, anti-family strategy

by Zinnia — 29 March 2012

In 2009, the National Organization for Marriage contributed $1.8 million to the campaign to overturn gay marriage in the state of Maine. Maine's campaign finance laws require groups soliciting over $5,000 for a ballot question to file disclosure reports, but NOM did not file any reports. The Maine Ethics Commission voted to investigate, and NOM responded with a lawsuit alleging that the state's reporting requirements are unconstitutional. NOM lost their case in the District Court of Maine and the First Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court declined to hear it.

This week, the Human Rights Campaign released previously confidential NOM documents that were entered into the trial record. These internal memos articulate NOM's strategies for fighting the legalization of gay marriage, as well as their plans for fomenting opposition to gay rights on a cultural level. These are some of the most revealing materials from NOM that have ever been uncovered, and they explicitly detail the organization's intent to evade campaign disclosure laws, coordinate with the Catholic Church for fundraising, associate gay marriage with pornography, solicit celebrities to speak out against gay equality, promote racial division to serve their own ends, and even turn gay families against themselves. This is their playbook of underhanded tactics to roll back our equal rights, and it's one of the most disgusting things I've ever read.

In their "National Strategy for Winning the Marriage Battle" from 2009, they say:

"We are working closely with the Catholic Church and Bishop Malone of Portland. NOM Executive Director Brian Brown serves on the Executive Committee of the Maine Campaign alongside Mark Mutty, the Catholic Church's Director of Public Affairs. The seed money that NOM initially provided has encouraged Bishop Malone to lead the fundraising effort - to date he has raised $150,000 and more than matched our initial funding."

Under the heading of "Catholic Clergy Project", they say:

"All clergy are key influencers on gay marriage, but Catholics are a key swing vote and Catholic clergy are notoriously difficult to personally reach. The Catholic Clergy Project aims to use NOM's close relationships with Catholic bishops to equip, energize and moralize Catholic priests on the marriage issue. NOM has provided this service to bishops in New York, New Jersey, Rhose Island, Iowa and Kansas to date."

Explaining how their "State Emergency Reserve Fund" can be used to keep their donors secret and get around disclosure requirements, they say:

"...we face a serious hurdle in getting state ballot initiatives and candidate campaigns funded because donors must be disclosed. However, if NOM makes a contribution from its own resources that are not specifically designated for one of these efforts donor identities are NOT disclosed."

Under the heading of "The American Principles Project", they say:

"Expose Obama as a social radical. Develop side issues to weaken pro-gay marriage political leaders and parties and develop an activist base of socially conservative voters. Raise such issues as pornography, protection of children, and the need to oppose all efforts to weaken religious liberty at the federal level. This is the mission of the American Principles Project."

They further add that "APP has launched a project to contact Congress on keeping the Guantanamo prison open". They explain that the APP's Preserve Innocence Project

"...will monitor all administration initiatives from the White House, Department of Justice, Education Department, and the Health and Human Services Department that affect the welfare of children. We will put a special focus on exposing those administration programs that have the effect of sexualizing young children. We will provide a weekly update to Congress, to conservative leaders and to the national media on personnel or policy threats to childhood innocence."

Attempting to find any famous people who are willing to promote their anti-gay message, they say:

"Hollywood with its cultural biases is far bigger than we can hope to be. We recognize this. But we also recognize the opportunity - the disproportionate potential impact of proactively seeking to gather and connect a community of artists, athletes, writers, beauty queens and other glamorous non-cognitive elites across national boundaries."

The document budgets $120,000 for the apparent purpose of finding children who are willing to speak out against their own gay parents, allocating it toward "Children of same-sex couples and their concerns - outreach coordinator to identify children of gay parents willing to speak on camera".

Under "The Latino Project: A Pan-American Strategy", they say:

"Will the process of assimilation to the dominant Anglo culture lead Hispanics to abandon traditional family values? We can interrupt this process of assimilation by making support for marriage a key badge of Latino identity."

They continue:

"With the help of Schubert Flint Public Affairs, we will develop Spanish language radio and TV ads, as well as pamphlets, YouTube videos, and church handouts and popular songs. Our ultimate goal is to make opposition to gay marriage an identity marker, a badge of youth rebellion to conformist assimilation to the bad side of 'Anglo' culture."

In a board update, they explain their "Not a Civil Right Project" as follows:

"The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks - two key Democratic constituencies. Find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage; develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots. No politician wants to take up and push an issue that splits the base of the party. Fanning the hostility raised in the wake of Prop 8 is key to raising the costs of pushing gay marriage to its advocates and persuading the movement's allies that advocates are unacceptably overreaching on this issue. Consider pushing a marriage amendment in Washington D.C.; find attractive young black Democrats to challenge white gay marriage advocates electorally."

Where do we even begin with all this? While many of their plans come as no surprise given their past statements and campaign activities, these documents reveal an organization that's so outrageous and so openly ruthless, there's simply no tactic that's beneath them in their fight against our rights. The extremes to which they're willing to go make them look like a cartoon supervillain. How singleminded and amoral do you have to be when you're willing to encourage racial hostility just so you can take away the rights of American citizens? How revoltingly self-obsessed must you be to think a bunch of white people should be the ones to define Latino culture and identity? And after all of this has come to light, the only response from NOM and Maggie Gallagher has been to restate that they work with black and Latino churches. All they have to say is a big "So what?"

Well, here's what: You've been working across the country using millions of dollars from secret donors to influence elections with racial tension and fear. You've been trying to make entire races hate gays, because you decided they just weren't homophobic enough for your purposes. You've been using black and Latino people solely because they're minorities, only taking an interest in them so that you can force your manufactured racial conflict into our rights, our marriages and our lives.

I don't suppose you gave any thought to the fact that there are black and Latino people who are gay, and that your gays-versus-blacks narrative also means pitting gay people against gay people, and black people against black people. And as if that wasn't enough, you even went looking for people who were willing to criticize their own parents for being gay. This has gone so far beyond just marriage, the truth behind your group is undeniable: Your entire movement relies on making people hate each other, because that's what it takes for them to oppose gay rights. They have to be trained to hate, and that is what the National Organization for Marriage is doing to our country. That's the only reason you exist. And that's what you will always be known for.

3 comments — Filed under , , ,

Perspectives on pansexuality and bisexuality

by Zinnia — 21 March 2012

During the last live show, people brought up a number of questions about pansexuality and what it means as an orientation. I quickly realized that I didn't know very much about pansexuality, and neither did many other people. The most common understanding is that pansexuals have the potential to be attracted to anyone, without gender identity or physical sex characteristics posing an obstacle. Yet in practice, bisexuality is often used to denote that same openness to any gender or anatomical configuration. It occurred to me that I could possibly be considered bi or pan, so I decided to look into this further.

Is there any difference between bisexuality and pansexuality? I asked around, and many bisexuals and pansexuals were willing to explain their view of what these orientations mean. It soon became clear that there are a variety of opinions about what bisexuality and pansexuality are, and there is no one definition that can determine who is or isn't bi or pan. Beyond designating that a person can be attracted to more than one gender, these words appear to mean whatever people use them to mean. The easiest and most respectful position would be to recognize that bisexuals are people who identify as bisexual, and pansexuals are people who identify as pansexual. As such, I won't attempt to make any definitive statements about what bisexuality or pansexuality actually are. Instead, I'll simply go over some of the major themes in the responses I received.

One of the most common explanations was that pansexuality encompasses attraction to non-binary genders beyond men and women, including people of other genders, fluctuating gender, more than one gender, or no gender at all. They're willing to consider bigender, third-gender or agender people as potential partners, in addition to binary-identified men and women. In contrast, bisexuality was perceived as implying attraction to men and women only, as suggested by the "bi-" prefix. While some bisexuals said they identify as bi because they're only interested in binary-identified men and women, others said that their attractions are actually a great deal broader than that, overlapping with this definition of pansexuality. Some claimed that they identify as bi for the sake of convenience, since fewer people understand what it means to be pansexual.

Another widespread view was that pansexuality is a kind of "body-blindness", focusing on attraction based on emotion and personality, while disregarding physical sex characteristics. This was commonly phrased as loving someone for who they are, rather than what they are. Some people characterized bisexuality as being based on physical attraction, whereas pansexuality is not. However, other pansexuals made it clear that someone's physical sex, gender, and gender expression are indeed a significant part of what makes them attractive.

Finally, many people claimed that pansexuality is meant as an explicit statement of inclusion beyond the gender binary, serving to highlight the binary implications of bisexuality, in etymology if not in practice. One person suggested that while bisexuality focuses on sexual identity, pansexuality is focused on the acceptance of gender identities.

These are just some of the most prominent aspects of pansexuality that people have described, and it shouldn't come as a surprise that every person experiences their sexuality in their own unique way. Even the same label won't have the exact same meaning for everyone. However, certain definitions of bisexuality and pansexuality can come with troubling implications. For instance, some pansexuals, or people talking about pansexuals, have described pansexuality as the attraction to men, women, and transgender people. This phrasing depicts all trans people as a gender other than male or female, when in fact many of them identify as men or women. Trans men are already men, and trans women are already women.

It also suggests that bisexuality, or other sexualities, do not include binary-identified trans people. This is incorrect, because bisexuality, homosexuality and heterosexuality do not specify the exclusion of trans people as potential partners. They say nothing about any possible preference for cis people or trans people. It's not as though straight people cease to be straight if they're open to having a partner who's trans - except in the minds of homophobes and transphobes. If anything, this seems to be either an artifact of ignorance, or a poor choice of words, and given their awareness of diverse gender identities, most pansexuals probably don't mean to imply that trans people are a completely separate gender.

All in all, the meanings of bisexuality and pansexuality are still in flux, and they may never be corralled into a single definition. There will most likely always be details and exceptions and individual understandings. Ultimately, bisexuality and pansexuality are as diverse as bisexuals and pansexuals themselves.

3 comments — Filed under

Religion isn't special (but people think it is)

by Zinnia — 15 March 2012

Suppose for the sake of argument that the general category of "religion" did not exist, and the beliefs and activities which comprise religion were considered in isolation rather than within the framework of religion. Imagine that these aspects of religion had to be described in terms other than "religious". Without making use of the distinction between religion and that which is not religion, how might we instead distinguish beliefs currently classified as religious?

Most obviously, almost all such beliefs pertain to the existence and nature of proposed supernatural entities, such as deities, spirits, souls, blessings, curses, and afterlives. These beliefs also tend to make various statements about the origins of humanity, our purpose in the world, and the general meaning of life. They frequently feature the claim that certain texts are of a divine origin and possibly free of any errors. They often allege that there are laws and moral imperatives which have been put in place by a higher power.

Crucially, these beliefs are usually based in faith - a justification based on the simple fact that the person holding the belief believes it, without consideration for any evidence that may have a bearing on its actual truth. Another common feature of these beliefs is that they can be very important to the people who hold them, sometimes so important that people are afraid they'll be tortured forever if they do something wrong or endorse an improper belief. While this is only a rough and incomplete overview of the features of beliefs considered religious, it does encompass the major aspects of religion: its claims about the supernatural, its statements of ultimate purpose, its devotion to certain writings, its rules and moral guidance, its basis in faith, and its attribution of cosmic significance to one's beliefs and actions.

Suppose now that the overarching category of religion is introduced anew, encompassing these beliefs, and manifesting as derivative concepts such as "religious bigotry", "anti-religious prejudice", and "respect for religion". Because these beliefs often pertain to one's moral responsibilities, purpose in life, and the fate one will supposedly face for all eternity, beliefs classified as religious are frequently considered to possess great significance beyond that of other beliefs. But is this special treatment unique to religion actually warranted?

If someone fears that they may actually face eternal torture for not believing in God, getting a divorce, or masturbating, this is a personal issue for them to work through. It doesn't obligate the rest of us to treat them any differently for holding this belief - aside from, perhaps, offering sympathy and counseling services. Likewise, one's endorsement of a certain moral framework is not fundamentally different from other moral proposals merely because this particular morality is allegedly divine in origin. It doesn't need to be seen as something above or apart from moralities that aren't based on supernatural claims, and it merits no unique deference simply because of its incorporation of the divine.

And those claims about the nature and existence of supernatural things are still only claims like any other - no extra leeway is necessary just because claims about the supernatural happen to be about the supernatural. Similarly, if someone cites faith itself as a basis for a belief, this justification should hardly be exempted from the appropriate scrutiny just because it falls under the category of religion. A belief that's supported by nothing more than someone's choice to hold that belief is certainly not deserving of any additional respect, and calling it religious doesn't change that.

All too often, the reference to one's "deeply held religious beliefs" is meant to serve as a conversation stopper - they've played the religion card, and the rest of us have to shut up and leave them alone. It's as though the mere fact that they believe something that's considered religious is the only excuse they need. But it shouldn't matter how strongly a belief is held, and it shouldn't matter that this belief falls under religion. There are many things both religious and non-religious that people believe very strongly, but the strength with which they believe is not a defense or a justification of the belief itself.

When objections to the Mormon Church's involvement in passing Proposition 8 are characterized as "bigotry", and Catholics in Illinois claim that they're "not being tolerated" because their state-funded adoption services are required to treat gay couples equally, the dissolution of the concept of religion helps us to see these statements for what they really are. These religions, while shielding themselves behind claims of religious discrimination, actually just want to be free from following the law and even free from criticism itself. Why? Because they believe they should be, and that's that. They think that's all they need to say - and sometimes, it is.

The label of religion and the inordinate respect afforded to it has given them the opportunity to claim that they're being discriminated against because of their religion, when in fact they're being criticized for their bad ideas and required to follow the same laws as everyone else. In this way, accusations of prejudice against religion can function as a way of trying to silence those who have simply treated religious beliefs like any other beliefs, and found them lacking.

The unwarranted belief in the supernatural or the moral authority of certain questionable books is worthy of critique whether we call this religion or not, and depicting this as some kind of discrimination against religion means demanding that such claims be granted a privileged status, protecting them from the open debate to which non-religious beliefs are subject. In reality, religion isn't being criticized because it's religious. It's being criticized because it's wrong.

5 comments — Filed under

The false dichotomy of the afterlife

by Zinnia — 8 March 2012

It's fairly straightforward to point out that belief in an afterlife can have the effect of devaluing this life, causing various misconceptions about its purpose, and influencing people to act for the sake of an imagined eternity that will never take place. This much is obvious. But not so much thought has been given to the impact that beliefs in an afterlife have had on the views of atheists. All too often, the repudiation of an afterlife is accompanied by various proclamations about how important it is that we live a limited life and experience genuine death. We see it in the shallow aphorisms claiming that "death gives meaning to life", as though finding a meaning for our lives is only possible if everyone eventually dies. Such a stunning lack of imagination about how to find personal meaning barely deserves the time of day, but it's interesting to consider where this notion might come from.

In many ways, it seems that the recognition that there is no afterlife can lead people to endorse the negation of numerous aspects of that belief. When religious people claim that the prospect of permanent death is nihilistic and renders life hopeless, many atheists reply that this mortality is precisely what gives their lives value. When religious people proclaim the glory of eternal life, atheists instead fear that this would eventually become boring. When religious people are frightened by the reality of actual death, some atheists reassure them that there's nothing to be afraid of, and it'll just be like taking a very long rest - as if they'll even be able to experience a state of restfulness ever again.

But just because an idea is wrong or bad doesn't mean the reverse of that idea must be right or good. If it were that simple, the most ignorant among us could become a source of unparalleled genius, simply by inverting everything they believe. This is clearly no guarantee of rightness or truth, and common atheistic views on death actually end up sharing certain similarities with their religious counterparts. Both religious followers and many atheists ultimately agree that death, whatever its nature, is a good thing that's very important to our lives, and nothing should be done about it. And in both cases, their beliefs serve as a way to cope with something frightening, incomprehensible, and unavoidable, and instead spin it as somehow beneficial to us. It's just another comforting tale to soften the impact of the utter obliteration of human minds.

This is some of the most overlooked damage of belief in an afterlife: simply for the sake of contradicting religion, so many atheists are willing to abandon any desire, let alone effort, toward actual immortality - an immortality born not of supernatural magic, but natural technology. Even after understanding that we exist completely within the natural world, many people still resist any attempt to use that knowledge to do something about the myriad vulnerabilities of our current existence. Sure, science is great for curing diseases and extending lifespans - at a slow enough pace that no one's too uncomfortable about it - but dethroning death itself and eliminating the universal inevitability of our demise is apparently a step too far.

Here we can see how the rightly despised fantasies of religion have thrown the very idea of life without end into disrepute. These hollow, meaningless, imaginary fates have repulsed so many people that when the real thing is finally within our grasp, it's treated as no better than the religious delusions that came before. It takes some effort to work past the well-worn tendency to dismiss the possibility of eternal life, and make it clear that this really is something different. The nonexistence of an afterlife is obvious and trivially easy to recognize, but objections to true immortality end up being much more tenuous.

Our present mortality may influence how we live our lives, but that doesn't mean it must be our only source of purpose. People might say death is what gives meaning to life, but no one is especially eager to optimize for this alleged source of value by seeking to bring about more and earlier death for everyone. After all, if this life is really so important, then why should we have less of it when we could have so much more? Why not seek out the most joy, the most love, and the most discovery we can possibly achieve? Why not enjoy life as much as we can, for as long as we can? And why should this ever have to end? It doesn't - if you're ready to do something about it.

10 comments — Filed under , , ,

One million moms are complete idiots

by Zinnia — 11 February 2012

The recent campaign against Ellen DeGeneres by the American Family Association epitomizes the total intellectual bankruptcy of the anti-gay movement. Even though their so-called "One Million Moms" project failed to find any plausible reason why she shouldn't be the new spokesperson for J. C. Penney, they didn't let that stop them - they went right ahead and said she's wrong for the job simply because she's gay. No further explanation was needed beyond that. She's gay, and that's bad, and that's all there is to it.

According to these million moms, just hiring someone who's gay is so intolerable to "traditional families" that they supposedly won't want to shop at J. C. Penney now. That's not just offensive to gay people. It's offensive to those families, because it implies that this entire category of people is so uniformly homophobic that they can't even bear to do business with a company that employs gay people. What makes them think every "traditional family" would agree with that?

They further demand that J. C. Penney "remain neutral in the culture war." But since when does neutrality require the total exclusion of gay people from jobs just because they're gay? How could that possibly fall under any imaginable concept of what it means to be neutral? It sounds more like they've tried to redefine "neutral" as only doing what they want, and to do otherwise must be a departure from that. How else could someone believe it's neutral to discriminate against gay people for no reason whatsoever?

After their attack on Ellen backfired tremendously, they sent out an email claiming that "Ellen is attempting to indoctrinate our children." Apparently she'll be doing that via her role as a department store spokesperson, in which she'll naturally be serving as an exponent of sexual morality. Clearly, that must be what J. C. Penney hired her to do. If they did decide to replace her, do those million moms expect that someone more representative of "traditional families" would use their position to instruct people on how they should be having sex? "Attention shoppers: Please don't be gay! It makes a million moms really sad!"? How is this even tangentially related to their job? Are company spokespeople supposed to be a source of moral guidance now?

But they didn't stop there. The American Family Association's radio host Fred Jackson was unusually revealing when he said, "What makes Ellen DeGeneres dangerous is that she's a nice person". And he's right: Ellen is dangerous. Not to the rest of us, of course. No, she's dangerous to these people. She provides them with no way to use her as an example of the alleged depravity, sickness and misery of gay people. She's proven that an openly gay woman can be accepted, appreciated, and even admired by middle America and "traditional families". She absolutely overturns their reality in a way they cannot respond to without retreating to simple prejudice.

The sheer breadth of her achievement incinerates their claims that gay people are doomed to a life of isolation, desperation and ostracism. The only way they can try to rescuscitate their failed perspective is by working to force that exclusion and disapproval upon Ellen herself, as if to prove that life must really be that bad for gay people - and if it's not, they'll do their damnedest to make sure that it is. This is their last resort: trying to roll back progress by hand.

And how dare these "million moms" suggest that motherhood must mean shielding children from the fact that gay people can be successful? Fuck everything about that! Children deserve better than to be told that happiness and accomplishment are off-limits to anyone who isn't straight. I'd rather have my kids "indoctrinated" by Ellen, because they should know that the world can be theirs no matter who they love. And I bet there actually are a million moms who agree with that.

8 comments — Filed under , , ,

FACT: Catholics do NOT oppose birth control!

by Zinnia — 9 February 2012

Last year, the Department of Health and Human Services ruled that health insurance plans would be required to provide preventive care services for women, including contraception, at no extra cost and with no co-pays or deductibles. This January, they announced that certain religiously affiliated organizations would have an additional year to comply with this rule, but they would not be exempt from the requirement. It is still possible for a religious employer to be exempted if it meets the following four criteria: it must have "the inculcation of religious values as its purpose", it must "primarily employ persons who share its religious tenets", it must "primarily serve persons who share its religious tenets", and it must be a non-profit organization. Under these standards, a church or synagogue would not be required to provide contraceptive coverage through their employee health care plans. However, religiously affiliated hospitals, universities, and charities would still have to cover contraception.

In the wake of this directive, over a hundred Catholic bishops have spoken out and claimed that this requirement is an attack on their religious liberty and a violation of their conscience. Officially, the Catholic Church's doctrine on birth control holds that separating the procreative element from heterosexual intercourse is a sin. This includes the use of condoms, birth control pills, injections, IUDs, and other artificial methods. Instead, the church approves of "natural family planning", which involves reserving sex for the phases of the menstrual cycle when a woman cannot become pregnant. So, according to the church, it's okay to choose to prevent pregnancy by intentionally having sex during a time of known infertility, but it's not okay to choose to prevent pregnancy by medically or mechanically precluding the possibility of fertilization. It's not entirely clear to me how that doesn't encompass the technique of ensuring that an egg won't be present to be fertilized when you're having sex, but I'm sure they've justified it one way or another.

In any case, whether the requirement to cover contraception is against the beliefs of Catholics is largely irrelevant. The hospitals and colleges which would have to provide this coverage employ people from every walk of life and every belief system. These Catholic-affiliated organizations do not exclusively hire Catholics. We're talking about hospitals and schools that all kinds of people go to, and all kinds of people work at. With this objection, Catholic bishops are demanding that employees of the University of Notre Dame, St. Joseph's Hospital of Phoenix, and practically any religiously affiliated business, should not have the same access to contraception that any other employees would. Why should non-Catholics and non-believers be denied that coverage simply because they work for a business that's associated with a certain church?

Further, does this requirement actually conflict with the conscience of Catholics? Their doctrine considers contraception to be sinful, and their leaders have condemned this directive, but what do everyday Catholics think? Do they, too, have a problem with birth control? No! A recent poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 49% of Americans overall agree that religiously affiliated colleges and hospitals should be required to provide health care plans that cover birth control at no cost. How many Catholics agreed with this? 52%, dropping to 45% among Catholics who vote. The difference in support for this requirement between Catholics and all Americans is negligible. A survey by Public Policy Polling confirmed this, finding that 57% of voters believe women employed by Catholic hospitals and universities should have the same rights to contraceptive coverage, and 53% of Catholics agree with this.

But how do Catholics themselves feel about the use of birth control? A 2011 report by the Guttmacher Institute found that out of all Catholic women who have had sex, 98% used contraception other than the church-endorsed "natural family planning" method, which only 2% of them rely on - "even among Catholic women who attend church once a month or more". 68% use IUDs, hormonal methods, or male or female sterilization. Another 15% use condoms. The statistics are largely the same for Catholic women who are married: only 3% use "natural family planning", and 72% use IUDs, sterilization or hormonal methods.

If that's the case, then why are these Catholic bishops claiming it would violate their conscience if Catholic-affiliated businesses are required to provide access to birth control methods which a strong majority of Catholic women have already chosen to use? Why are they depicting this as an attack on Catholic values, when most Catholics don't share those values at all? When Catholic views on this policy hardly differ from those of Americans altogether, there is no way this can be honestly characterized as something that has a disproportionate impact on Catholics.

So why are the media uncritically parroting and validating this plainly inaccurate narrative? Why is Reuters running a story titled "Obama risks Catholic vote with birth-control mandate", when surveys indicate he isn't risking the Catholic vote any more than the average American vote? Why is USA Today letting Archbishop Timothy Dolan use their opinion page to allege that this policy is "un-American" - a claim which, in light of recent polls, doesn't even make sense? Why does the archbishop of Atlanta get coverage for saying that "The Church is going to fight this regulation with all the available resources we have", when a majority of church members don't consider this worth fighting against, and many of them are actually using the very birth control methods at issue here?

If this is supposed to be about respecting the conscience of Catholics, then why has everyone been focusing on the bloviations of a handful of bishops, while ignoring the millions of Catholics who disagree with them? How does that possibly respect their values?

1 comment — Filed under , , ,

A Morality Tale

by Zinnia — 8 February 2012

If you're not a believer, you may be perplexed
When you see how they treat their most sacred of texts
Interpreted, twisted, distorted, and flexed,
Their exegesis leaves us feeling quite vexed
For whenever you quote what their holy book said,
They'll claim that it doesn't - you must have misread
If you think you've found something to leave their face red,
They've reasoned it means something different instead.

Six days made the earth? Just a metaphor, fool
We're allowed to buy slaves? That's no longer a rule
And Adam and Eve, with a literate snake?
It's only a parable, make no mistake
Does it preach death for gays? No, they're just damned to hell
You can let witches live, but they're hellbound as well
And all of those laws that regard menstruation?
An old, obsolete, bureaucratic creation!

Excuses abound, with their long-practiced skill
They can write off most anything - you know they will
But then comes the twist in this splitting of hairs:
Their comrades have much different answers from theirs!
They've rationalized it a whole different way
You won't get a straight answer, I'm sorry to say
For the doctrines of everyone other than they
Are the very beliefs against which they inveigh.

From Catholic to Baptist, Messianic Jew,
Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran too,
LDS, Christian Science, they all get their due
As each one insists that the rest are untrue
So who's figured out the correct world view?
Which one do we follow? Which ones to eschew?
Who among them is right? Have they even a clue?
There's so much to sort through. So let's start our review...

Can women be clergy, or only the men?
What happens when Jesus comes back here again?
Was he even a god? Or a man, nothing more?
Was he stuck to the cross with three nails or four?
Could this holy wafer be part of his head?
A leg or a thigh, or just plain old white bread?
Did humans evolve? Were they made in a week?
Is Hell full of screaming, or nary a squeak?

Is the pontiff the antichrist? Some say it's true
Is salvation by faith, or are works needed too?
Are gays really sinners? Just maybe, they're not
Should saints be ignored, or petitioned a lot?
Must priests remain celibate? What's the result?
Should infants be baptized, or only adults?
Is the Bible correct to the very last letter?
Did Joseph Smith Jr. write something much better?

And let's not forget the apocalypse lore,
With horsemen and dragons and angels galore
Do we all have our own resurrection in store?
Or just one-hundred-forty-four thousand, no more?
Do we even know when it might happen, if ever?
Like 2012, on the fifteenth of never?
You might be surprised, because some people say
That the world ends once there are too many gays.

And that's just a slice of the faith smorgasbord,
The diversity's simply too vast to record
But if you cite the Bible, you won't be ignored
You'll be set upon by a devout, raging horde
From every direction, in mob and in throng,
They'll rush to accuse you of reading it wrong
Though they shouldn't be shocked when this doesn't hold sway
For they all would be wrong, if they all had their way.

You can see how it makes for a frustrating time
When this mishmash of faith has no reason or rhyme
It's enough to make atheists throw up their hands
And tell Christians to go figure out where they stand
But amidst all the turmoil, confusion and stress
Something very revealing comes out of this mess
For these plain contradictions, dissensions and shouts
Give us great ammunition for our kind of doubts.

In particular, one frequent question you'll see
Can be answered quite swiftly - if you've got the key
"So God's not your thing," pounds the old Christian drum,
"But where do you get your morality from?"

Yes, it's common enough to make anyone ill
Do they really believe that we'll swallow this pill?
As if no one could possibly know wrong from right
Without putting their faith in a myth that's so trite
Nope, I'd have no idea just what I should do
If I hadn't read tales from around the year 2
I'd be paralyzed, frozen, bewildered and lost
Without moral advice from some guy on a cross.

To claim this sincerely is silly enough
Yet it raises a question that's really quite tough
You're telling me that's how your ethics were seeded,
But how did you know it was this that you needed?
Just why did you think that the Bible was true,
And not the Qur'an, or the Mormon books too?
And once you'd picked out your religion of choice,
How'd you find the best church with the right faithful voice?

What made you decide contraception was bad,
And the Catholics are right when they get very mad?
Why did you believe that God loves all the gays,
And the liberal churches have found the true way?
What made you dismiss all that snake-handling crap?
Does your church say religion's a self-righteous trap?
On origins, sexism, Hell, and the pope,
What made up your mind? Tell me, how did you cope?

It's clear that you couldn't be morally impotent
You picked your own favorite brand of omnipotent!
That was your ethical judgment in action
And we have that, too - it's not owned by your faction
We use our own judgment to filter beliefs,
We just don't make religion our ethical chief
While you claim your morals are guided by scripture,
I think we all know this is not the whole picture.

No matter your faith, and no matter how strong,
You use your own sense of what's right and what's wrong
Meta-ethically speaking, your god's not a plus,
So please don't pretend that you're better than us.

9 comments — Filed under , , ,

A reminder about Komen and charity efficiency

by Zinnia — 4 February 2012

During the recent controversy over the Susan G. Komen foundation declaring Planned Parenthood ineligible for breast cancer screening grants, Komen has been frequently criticized for allegedly allocating excessive funding to administrative costs and executive salaries, and insufficient funding to cancer research and health services. Administrative overhead provides a number that's very easy to wield against almost any major organization. It's trivial to point out that a lot of money goes toward management and advertising, and claim that it should have been spent on actually providing services to people. Instead of paying for fundraisers and marketing, they should be funding scientific research. So why would they direct any of their resources away from these initiatives? Clearly, they're just being greedy.

This line of reasoning is easily understandable by everyone, and it's also completely wrong. As a measure of an organization's efficiency in funding certain initiatives, this tells us almost nothing. The implication is that the proportion of their expenses which doesn't go directly to providing services is unacceptably high. But this conclusion can't be justified simply by citing a number like 20% or 25%. Expecting that an organization should put all of its funding toward actual services, or even as much of its funding as is technically possible, demonstrates a stunning nearsightedness about financial planning. Such organizations must acquire their funding somehow. They have to manage how that funding is used, ensure a continued supply of funds, and defend against any possible threats to their organization. They need to make decisions about what they do. They need to hire people to make those decisions. And they need to find people who will make good decisions.

Six-digit salaries for top executives may sound outrageous, but they might also serve to attract extremely competent people. Under their leadership, the organization may find that this was a very worthwhile investment. Similarly, paying for expensive fundraisers and marketing campaigns might turn out to be worth it, earning them more money than they spent on this. If these funds had simply been used to provide services instead, the organization could find it has much less funding available for that purpose, due to unqualified management and dismal fundraising efforts. If acquiring more funding for their causes requires spending more money on marketing and directors, why shouldn't they aim to maximize their available funding? It's easy to get angry about a charity's CEO making a million dollars a year. It's not so easy to say that cancer research and health services for the poor should lose their funding because your sensibilities were offended.

Of course, this doesn't mean that the expenses of salaries and fundraising should have no upper limit at all. There's obviously a point where any further returns would be insubstantial and not worth the cost, and anything beyond that actually would be an unnecessary expense. Every charitable organization is responsible for striking a balance that's appropriate to its goals. But even if they do manage to work out the best proportion of administrative overhead to maximize their funding, this still doesn't show that they're directing it toward a worthwhile goal. This isn't always as easy to quantify, but it's not hard to understand that efficiency is meaningless when you're efficiently doing something wrong. "Wrong" is a concept that can be challenging to pin down, so let's just consider a couple of especially striking examples.

The Toys for Tots Foundation claims to spend 98% of the donations it receives on providing gifts for less fortunate children. VillageReach provides vaccines in Mozambique, and is estimated to prevent one death for every $400-800 spent. If we have $800 to spend as we please, we can either give $800 worth of toys to a number of children, or we can give $800 worth of not being dead to someone in Africa. The choice is yours, but you do have a decision to make.

Going back to Mozambique, Remnant Publications reports: "They are hungry for the Word of God but cannot afford Bibles! The majority are fortunate to have even one meal a day. They need our help!" Indeed they do. In this situation, the numbers aren't quite so important. For a starving person, no amount of Bibles can add up to the equivalent of food. Bibles are inedible, and for them to have any plausible purpose, their readers must first not be dead. It's somewhat like trying to stop a flood by providing iPods instead of sandbags. Remnant Publications claims that every donation of $3 will ship one Bible to Mozambique. Knowing that $800 will prevent someone's death, would you rather spend it on 260 Bibles or saving one life?

People make choices like these on a regular basis. They withhold their money from initiatives to provide food and vaccines - initiatives they may not have even been aware of - and instead spend it on Bibles or toys or the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Considering that this is how many people choose to allocate their donations on the scale of tens to hundreds of dollars, what the hell makes them think they're qualified to manage the finances of a $400 million-a-year foundation?

To be clear - because some people tend to conflate these things - this does not mean that Komen's current resource allocation is the best it could be, or even that it's good. It does not mean that it isn't possible for charity directors to be overpaid, or for marketing efforts to be excessive. It is not a defense of Komen's litigation against other charities. It is not a defense of their senior VP Karen Handel, who believes that gay adoption should be outlawed and gay parents are less legitimate than straight parents. And it does not mean Komen was correct in rescinding their grants to Planned Parenthood. Those arguments can stand or fall on their own merits. But simply criticizing a charitable organization for having operating costs and paying its employees does absolutely nothing to show any kind of wrongdoing on their part. Overhead ratios don't just give you an incomplete picture of an organization's efficiency - they don't tell you anything useful at all.

1 comment — Filed under ,