Gay marriage is really very scary

A terrified umbrella group has been set up who believe that because of the gays, that teetering, vulnerable institution which is heterosexual marriage, is under threat.



Warning of the Profound Consequences of legalising same sex marriage, the Coalition for Marriage fear that, "if marriage is redefined, those who believe in traditional marriage will be sidelined". They also, somewhat inexplicably, warn that "People's careers could be harmed, couples seeking to adopt or foster could be excluded". Because presumably, if the gays can marry, this will cause widespread redundancies and it will mean that social services will no longer accept heterosexual married couples as potential adopters or foster carers.



Following is that infamous slippery slope, "If marriage is redefined once, what is to stop it being redefined to allow polygamy?". I'm surprised they didn't carry on to the usual "or what is to stop people marrying their pets?". Are the Coalition for Marriage so fearful that if same sex relationships get equal rights, heterosexual people will abandon traditional marriage in droves, to marry their gay best friend instead?

The Coalition for Marriage are running a petition which, they say, "demonstrates that there is broad public opposition to redefining marriage". They may have jumped the gun with this statement, as the 'broad public support' currently stands at 124 signatories, the vast majority of whom are Bishops, Rectors, members of the General Synod of the Church of England, vicars, Ministers and Pastors. Three Labour MPs and four Conservative MPs have also signed, but the people who have signed can be considered to be neither numerous nor broad in range at this stage.

They begrudgingly promote Civil Partnerships as justification for now allowing same sex marriage, before pointing out that "It's not discriminatory to support traditional marriage", going on to say, "People should not feel pressurised to go along with same-sex marriage just because of political correctness. They should be free to express their views". So, I'm expressing my views.

Quite why allowing same sex people to marry fills these people with such dread is not something I can understand. If I marry a girlfriend, it doesn't have to be karmically balanced out by a straight couple getting divorced. Heterosexual marriage is one of the most established institutions in the whole world - just what do they imagine might happen if I could join in? It's almost flattering that they think equal marriage rights would be such a powerful move that the entire heteropatriarchal institution would be under immediate threat. I would be quite happy if it would, but I fear it is overestimating what two men or two women getting married would actually mean.

(Clue, it would mean they were married, then got on with their lives like everyone else)

The Coalition are asking for people to sign up to the following statement,

I support the legal definition of marriage which is the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. I oppose any attempt to redefine it.

Personally, I support the rights of same sex couples to marry, and of mixed sex couples to get a Civil Partnership.

Mind you, having just watched this video, maybe the Coalition for Marriage is right: gay marriage could in fact end humanity.



In all seriousness, however, many people struggle greatly with the inability to commit to marriage within their relationships. A video of Kitty Lambert in New York expresses powerfully just how ridiculous the current laws are.



You can see the full-length version of that video here.

[The first image is a screenshot of the Coalition for Marriage website. The second is a cartoon from Lefty Cartoons, used under a Creative Commons Licence. Hat tip to @bhiggi for helping me to find the second video. This post originally appeared at The F-Word]

Pope Benedict XVI

The Catholic Church has contributed more than most to the oppression of women. Whether it's the deaths of women in childbirth and of HIV / AIDS due to their commitment to preventing safer sex, or covering up the abuse of girl and boy children and protecting the abusers, they have consistently chosen paths which keep women controlled and 'in their place'.

This is the church that ordered the excommunication of everyone involved in helping a 9 year old girl, who was pregnant with twins after being raped by her stepfather, to have an abortion. The church actively tried to prevent the termination, and when it failed it ordered that the child's mother and the doctors involved be excommunicated. (Not the step-father, tellingly).

"If the B52 bombers flying over Vietnam were dropping contraceptives, the American Catholic hierarchy would have condemned that in a minute, but they were dropping napalm"
-- James Carroll

The Pope has also been in the news this week for speaking out against the UK government's equality policies, which would have required churches to stop discriminating against LGBT people. This is a man who, when he speaks, people listen. Just think what he could use his voice for. He could protest poverty, he could condemn domestic violence. But no, he speaks out against equality.

Later this year, the Pope is planning a visit to Britain. Not only do I not want him here, I was really disgusted to hear that the £20 million cost of his visit will be paid for by public money. Just think how many Rape Crisis centres could be funded by that money!

The National Secular Society have started a petition to ask the Catholic Church itself to pay for the visit. As I write, it has 17,457 signatures, one of which is mine.

The Catholic Church, contrary to the guidance of many passages of the Bible, is a very rich institution. If this man, who played a leading role in a systematic cover-up of child sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests, wants to come here, let him pay for it himself.

(cross-posted at the f word)

God Wants to Cure Me

Yesterday a man approached me at a farmers' market, and said, "I can't help but notice you use a walking stick". This exact phrase is regularly used by people who want my address to send me mobility aid catalogues in the post.

However, he then went on to say, "And God wants you to walk home without your stick. I have seen healings here today, and wonder if you would let me pray for you so that he can heal you."

I was amused at the time, refused his offer and walked on. However it wasn't long until I was actually furious.

Firstly, how dare he make all sorts of presumptions on the basis of my using a walking stick? Actually, my stick is a good thing. It helps me to get around without falling over, which is always a bonus. Sure, it's a hassle sometimes and it's wrecking my wrist, but his outlook assumed that mobility aid = awful, must be fixed. When my outlook is mobility aid = great, helps me go places.

And secondly, I don't think that your God does want me to walk without a stick. If he did, he's had a good few years now to sort that out, and hasn't. If he was that bothered, he'd have done it by now, and frankly wouldn't need you praying to him to get around to it.

So please, don't make presumptions about my rather gorgeous purple walking stick, whether I should want to get rid of it or not, and whether I want you to get inside my head by promising something you can't possibly achieve, by means of superstitious nonsense.

Incurable Hippie Guff Filleted.

Ooh, ooh, ooh I'm feeling a bit giggly, having found myself discussed on a blog which links to Melanie Phillips, and not even as a joke!

Anyway, UK Commentators thought I was wrong to poke fun at Christian fundamentalists, as I did here, especially when I did the Amnesty International Greetings card campaign, including sending a card to someone held without charge in Guantanamo Bay.

So, UK Commentators thinks I have contradicted myself, indeed describes it as Cognitive Dissonance. He then linked to a couple of my photos (one of a star on the side of an old masons' pub and one of a demolished building. That's about it really.

The comments are worth quoting, for comedy value if nothing else. Here goes:

Rob said...
Note his mocking about the Christian who believed that "husband and wife should vote as one", yet is someone who sends Christmas cards to Islamists!

Bizarre. Does she really not see the reality of Islamism, or is she willfully blind to it just because they are our enemy, and any enemy of the West is a useful ally?

In an Islamist state, even a fairly mild one, her chances of remaining even a few of the things she calls herself - feminist, geek, warrior, etc are slim indeed. She could become a baby factory though. I'm sure she'd love that.

9:55 AM
Rob said...
Sorry, 'her' mocking

9:56 AM
paul ilc said...
Laban - Thank you for reading such guff as Incurable Hippy, and serving it up filleted and criticised. You have more patience and a stronger stomach than I have.

10:07 AM
Homophobic Horse said...
She could, at best, claim to be against both Islam and Human Rights abuse. This is unlikely.

9:22 PM

For what it's worth, I'm not a fan of any religion. Unlike the commenters, I don't see Islam or Muslims as any kind of enemy. I am uncomfortable with any kind of religious law, from swearing on the Bible to Sharia Law, Jewish Law or anything which involves personal beliefs in politics.

I am against human rights abuses of any kind, and I don't see sending a message of support to someone held against international law by America as the same thing as supporting fundamentalist Islam. They are completely different issues, even though the human rights abuses in Guantanamo Bay are certainly fuelling any rise of people angry against the West.

UK Commentators has lots of links - I had to go visit Never Trust a Hippy but was quite disappointed. They also link to the attractively named Fulham Reactionary (I have a mental picture), and the author of that also writes on Christianophobia Watch and New Crusaders.

Others links are Nationalist News, which is particularly ugly, Vote Franco, Tottenham Lad, the dreaded Christian Voice, the Christian Institute, and of course the 'men's rights' Angry Harry, UK Men's Rights Movement and Fathers for Justice.

I'm leaving the links there - you can see for yourself if you want more (and there are plenty more), except for one final mention - Peter C Glover, notable for his post Sarah Palin: Conservative of the Year, in which he quotes Ann Coulter! I couldn't have found a better example of 'no need to parody because he does it well enough himself' if I'd tried!

Fundies Say The Darndest Things...

Fundies Say the Darndest Things is a site which is always worth a visit. People post totally bizarre or outrageous things said by Christian fundamentalists, and others can vote and comment on them.

It sounds maybe puerile, but that's until you see the quotes by the fundies... then you realise who is being sensible here and who's not.

Some examples:






I believe that the husband and wife should vote as one: meaning that, after discussing the possible options, both come to a mutual decision and the wife strengthens the husband's vote with hers. I think it's a shame if the wife disregards her husband's opinion and "cancels" his vote by choosing the opposite. And in my opinion, the same is true for adult unmarried daughters - they are under their father's authority until marriage.



But imagine some stranger came knocking on the door of your house and asked if he could move in and live with you. How much would you welcome him? You would certainly see him as "the other," and in many ways he is. He is not part of your family.

The request of gays to be "married" might be similar, even for a tolerant person like myself. The request to be married is a request to move into my "house"--the order of my society that has been traditional for thousands of years.



If those 40 million babies had lived, there wouldn’t be so many jobs for illegals to steal from Americans!



I believe it's in the heart of the earth. I suspect that earthquakes happen because hell is enlarging itself. But's that's my opinion.



In the 7th grade we always said grace before leaving the classroom to go to lunch and the whole class recited the 100th Psalm each morning. You weren't afraid to walk your own neighborhood after dark or even considered closing your windows at night since we had no AC in those days. Lock your car at night? What for? No reason to do that. They're wasn't car hijacking back then either. No one committed suicide either.



But Andrew, I beg to differ. All that science is really BS. If you have a penis, you're body automatically wants to find its way into a vagina, not into another dude's asshole.



God help us. We just voluntarily put an Antichrist in power. Hope you all enjoy socialism which will invariably take even more of your rights away. When you realize that I will say I told you so.



"An Anderson (SC) man who had alleged his father attacked him with a baseball bat "to cast the demons of homosexuality out of him"

Wishful thinking. More fathers should have such courage and take moral responsibility.



He explained that the ham came from a type of black-hoofed Iberico wild pig that wanders around eating acorns, "which turn into delicious fat in its muscle tissue, and also make it really healthy for you." That drew a chuckle from the reporters Obama had brought along. "All I know is it tastes good," said Obama. "That was delicious."]

Obama is a pork eating muslim to throw us off the trail



It is sad to see how mislead some of you people are. Abortions don't turn a profit? Not true! Aborted babies are used in vaccines and the medical establishment is trying to get more women to have abortions because the demand for vaccinations have gone up in recent years!



I accept and agree with equal rights. They already have these though. Every single homosexual is entitled to marry someone of the opposite sex anytime they so choose.



CHRISTIANS I HAVE BAD NEWS

OBAMA WON!
NOW PRAY HARDLY THAN YOU EVER PRAY BEFORE CAUSE ARMAGEDDON IS NEAR THAN EVER BEFORE!



Woman seem to think they are only beautiful when they are undressed as they show their flesh off?

I find it funny. Woman are just our slaves and they will always be. God puts woman to slave them selfs to only one man their mate. Which by the way is suppose to be someone that loves her. The devil slaves her to all the world.

There is, as expected, and as you have seen, much horror at the election of Barack Obama, commonly referred to in these fundie circles as Hussein (his middle name) with references to him being a Muslim (which he is not). I was ever-so-slightly amused by the reference to impending OBAMANATION though, I have to admit.

I don't think the quotes on FSTDT need much commentary, they mainly speak for themselves in their ignorance, prejudice and bile. But if you want comments, click on the links. I won't make any because, rather like Thatcher or Dubya, you can't much parody someone that is already a total parody of themself.



NaBloPoMo

AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals...

Thanks to Positive Atheism, I can bring you this pile of shite touching homage to the recently deceased Jerry Falwell.

If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell (attributed: source unknown)

This is probably as bad a day as the court has had on social issues since "Roe v Wade."
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, reacting to the Supreme Court's ruling in the Texas sodomy case, "Lawrence v. Texas," wherein the high court upheld an individual's (or a couple's) right to privacy; "It is a promise of the Constitution that there is a realm of personal liberty which the government may not enter," said Justice Anthony M Kennedy, for the majority in an opinion "as broad in its constitutional vision as any ever issued by the court," wrote Charles Lane for The Washington Post; in his dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia, an extremist Evangelical Christian, complained that the justices voting to uphold the right to privacy were creating a new constitutional right, that they were not upholding the Constitution, quoted from "Planned Parenthood Federal Action Report" (July, 2003) ††

I had a student ask me, "Could the savior you believe in save Osama bin Laden?" Of course, we know the blood of Jesus Christ can save him, and then he must be executed.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, cited in Cary McMullen, "Falwell: Now Is the Time for Gospel," in the Lakeland (Florida) Ledger (November 12, 2001), quoted from Randy Cassingham, This is True (18 November 2001). Falwell added: "We visit prisoners on death row, and some of them are saved, but we believe their sentences should be carried out because they have a debt to society."

God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, blaming civil libertarians, feminists, homosexuals, and abortion rights supporters for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, to which Rev Pat Robertson agreed, quoted from John F Harris, "God Gave US 'What We Deserve,' Falwell Says," The Washington Post (September 14, 2001)

The ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, blaming civil libertarians for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, to which Rev Pat Robertson again agreed, quoted from AANEWS #958 by American Atheists (September 14, 2001)

And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, "You helped this happen."
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, blaming civil libertarians, feminists, homosexuals, and abortion rights supporters for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, quoted from John F Harris, "God Gave US 'What We Deserve,' Falwell Says," The Washington Post (September 14, 2001)

I sincerely believe that the collective efforts of many secularists during the past generation, resulting in the expulsion from our schools and from the public square, has left us vulnerable.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, after the 700 Club broadcast wherein he had blamed civil libertarians, feminists, homosexuals, and abortion rights supporters for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, speaking to The New York Times, quoted from Dick Meyer, "Holy Smoke," CBS News (September 15, 2001)

I put all the blame legally and morally on the actions of the terrorist, [but America's] secular and anti-Christian environment left us open to our Lord's [decision] not to protect. When a nation deserts God and expels God from the culture ... the result is not good.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, backpedaling amidst criticism of his statement blaming civil libertarians, feminists, homosexuals, and abortion rights supporters for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, quoted from John F Harris, "God Gave US 'What We Deserve,' Falwell Says," The Washington Post (September 14, 2001)

Pat, did you notice yesterday the ACLU, and all the Christ-haters, People For the American Way, NOW, etc. were totally disregarded by the Democrats and the Republicans in both houses of Congress as they went out on the steps and called out on to God in prayer and sang "God Bless America" and said "let the ACLU be hanged"? In other words, when the nation is on its knees, the only normal and natural and spiritual thing to do is what we ought to be doing all the time -- calling upon God.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, justifying the breech of Constitutional Separation of Religion from Government while blaming civil libertarians for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, to which Rev Pat Robertson again agreed, quoted from AANEWS #958 by American Atheists (September 14, 2001)

I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, America Can Be Saved, 1979 pp. 52-53, from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom

AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.
-- Jerry Falwell (attributed: source unknown)

The idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, Sermon, July 4, 1976

If we are going to save America and evangelize the world, we cannot accommodate secular philosophies that are diametrically opposed to Christian truth ... We need to pull out all the stops to recruit and train 25 million Americans to become informed pro-moral activists whose voices can be heard in the halls of Congress.
I am convinced that America can be turned around if we will all get serious about the Master's business. It may be late, but it is never too late to do what is right. We need an old-fashioned, God-honoring, Christ-exalting revival to turn American back to God. America can be saved!
-- Jerry Falwell, "Moral Majority Report" for September, 1984

It appears that America's anti-Biblical feminist movement is at last dying, thank God, and is possibly being replaced by a Christ-centered men's movement which may become the foundation for a desperately needed national spiritual awakening.
-- Jerry Falwell (attributed: source unknown)

There is no separation of church and state. Modern US Supreme Courts have raped the Constitution and raped the Christian faith and raped the churches by misinterpreting what the Founders had in mind in the First Amendment to the Constitution.
-- Jerry Falwell (attributed: source unknown)

The Bible is the inerrant ... word of the living God. It is absolutely infallible,without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history, etc.
-- Jerry Falwell, Finding Inner Peace and Strength

But these things speak evil of those things, verse 10 [reading from Jude] which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. Look at the Metropolitan Community Church today, the gay church, almost accepted into the World Council of Churches. Almost, the vote was against them. But they will try again and again until they get in, and the tragedy is that they would get one vote. Because they are spoken of here in Jude as being brute beasts, that is going to the baser lust of the flesh to live immorally, and so Jude describes this as apostasy. But thank God this vile and satanic system will one day be utterly annihilated and there'll be a celebration in heaven.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, "Old Time Gospel Hour" broadcast, March 11, 1984, quoted by Rev Jerry Sloan, "Is Jerry Falwell a liar?" Freedom Writer, September, 1994

The Jews are returning to their land of unbelief. They are spiritually blind and desperately in need of their Messiah and Savior.
-- Jerry Falwell, Listen, America!

Grown men should not be having sex with prostitutes unless they are married to them.
-- Jerry Falwell, on CNN's Crossfire, May 17, 1997

I do not believe the homosexual community deserves minority status. One's misbehavior does not qualify him or her for minority status. Blacks, Hispanics, women, etc., are God-ordained minorities who do indeed deserve minority status.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, USA Today Chat, quoted from The Religious Freedom Coalition, "The Two faces of Jerry Falwell"

Dan Moldea, the lead investigator for Larry Flynt's ongoing quest to uncover sexual indiscretions of Republican congressional members, has now admitted he was hired by the law firm defending President Clinton.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, from "The Bizarre Flynt-Clinton Connection," in the January 15, 1999, "Falwell Confidential" fax report to 162,000 members, referring to the firm Williams & Connolly. Dan Moldea responded, "This entire statement is false and misleading, reckless and malicious. It is a complete fabrication." However, the San Diego Union-Tribune picked up the fabrication and ran it as fact. Quoted from The Religious Freedom Coalition, "The Two faces of Jerry Falwell."

Jerry FalwellWe're fighting against humanism, we're fighting against liberalism ... we are fighting against all the systems of Satan that are destroying our nation today ... our battle is with Satan himself.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell (attributed: source unknown)

Billy Graham is the chief servant of Satan.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell (attributed: source unknown)

The ACLU is to Christians what the American Nazi party is to Jews.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell (attributed: source unknown)

AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharoah's chariotters.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell (attributed: source unknown)

You'll be riding along in an automobile. You'll be the driver perhaps. You're a Christian. There'll be several people in the automobile with you, maybe someone who is not a Christian. When the trumpet sounds you and the other born-again believers in that automobile will be instantly caught away -- you will disappear, leaving behind only your clothes and physical things that cannot inherit eternal life. That unsaved person or persons in the automobile will suddenly be startled to find the car suddenly somewhere crashes.... Other cars on the highway driven by believers will suddenly be out of control and stark pandemonium will occur on ... every highway in the world where Christians are caught away from the drivers wheel.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, in his pamphlet, "Nuclear War and the Second Coming of Christ," quoted from Ronnie Dugger,"Does Reagan Expect a Nuclear Armageddon?" in Washington Post Outlook (April 8, 1984)