Tag: Christianity

Tony Abbott, Christianity and “Boat People”

Tony Abbott said the following today (in the Australian, article titled: Abbott slams boatpeople as un-Christian*)

TONY Abbott yesterday claimed boatpeople were acting in an un-Christian manner by “coming through the back door” and should not be encouraged to “jump the queue” with people-smugglers.

Asked on ABC Perth radio why his attitude to asylum-seekers was unchristian, the Opposition Leader responded: “I don’t think it’s a very Christian thing to come in by the back door rather than the front door.

“And I’m all in favour of Australia having a healthy and compassionate refugee and humanitarian intake program.

“I think that’s a good thing. But I think the people we accept should be coming the right way and not the wrong way.

“If you pay a people-smuggler, if you jump the queue, if you take yourself and your family on a leaky boat, that’s doing the wrong thing, not the right thing, and we shouldn’t encourage it.”

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Government – the ACL isn’t doing it right

Malcolm Turnbull gave a speech on equal marriage and how perhaps Australia should have civil unions first as several other countries have, in order to demonstrate that the sky won’t fall in if same-sex  relationships are recognised.  I’m not going to engage in this debate here other than to say I support marriage equality now.

The Age wrote about this today, and for some reason quoted Lyle Sheldon from the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL), I have no idea why:

The Australian Christian Lobby, which is campaigning against the gay marriage legislation, is warning the Labor Party it risks the creation of a US style religious right if it continues to push for a change to the definition of marriage.

“At the moment both sides [of politics] have policies that appeal to Christians but this issue is damaging Labor,” the lobbby’s chief of staff, Lyle Shelton, said.

Mr Shelton said the rise of the religious right in America had been “polarising politics horribly” and “we don’t need that in Australia at all”.

Now, how I look at this collection of statements is as follows, the Australian Labour Party (ALP), for the most part, supports marriage equality.  The ACL warn that if the ALP continues to support marriage equality and not the ACL’s favourite form of bigotry, then there is the potential for the (small) religious right to get political and active in Australia, the way that the religious right is active in the US.  The ACL are suggesting that if the ALP continues to support (for the most part) marriage equality, then Australian Christians (and by this suggestion they think most of them although this is not the case) will abandon the ALP and will form their own political party.  The ACL go on to suggest that this is a bad thing.

Here’s a small hint for the ACL.  Australia has been for many years now a far less religious country than the US.  To even suggest that the religious right (such as the ACL) could suddenly be more polarising and horrible than they already are is somewhat laughable.  It is sad that the ACL has focused so much energy and fear marriage equality when the majority of Australia is on-board with the idea.

As we know the ACL is linked to the religious right in the US and Dominionism.  I suspect their “Warning, warning, you will create the religious right in Australia” is far more of a “YAY RELIGIOUS RIGHT”.

If the ACL want to stop “polarising politics horribly” they should just get out of the marriage equality debate and stop spreading fear and bigotry.  After all they cannot know the mind of their god, they cannot practice unconditional love while denying rights and recognition to others and there are so many other social justice issues to look at, poverty, war, the continuation of the NT Intervention, etc.  So many issues where Christian compassion, unconditional love, and care can be better spent, in my opinion, than continuing to fear a group who just want to be like everyone else.

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Designer Babies and Lazy Journalism from The Age

On 3 July, The Age published an article called, “Couples use IVF to pick genes” discussing how IVF has advanced to the stage where couples with some genetic diseases or susceptibilities can now screen out embryos (that is an important word there, remember that one for later) who carry the genes for those diseases or susceptibilities.  I’ll let the article explain more:

FERTILE women with genes that predispose them to breast and ovarian cancers are using IVF treatment at two Melbourne clinics to select embryos without the genes.

In a new trend that has heightened ethicists’ fears of ”designer babies”, Australian IVF specialists say women are spending thousands of dollars on a technique called preimplantation genetic diagnosis to select embryos without the same genetic issues.

The women involved carry mutations of the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 genes, which give them a 60-80 per cent chance of getting breast cancer in their lifetime.

Those with BRCA 1 also have a 30-60 per cent chance of getting ovarian cancer while those with BRCA 2 have a 5-20 per cent chance of getting ovarian cancer.

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New financial year Linkspam!

I’ve been distracted with my current Cook Book Project so haven’t been blogging as much, and this linkspam is pretty much the entire month of June, and the first few days of July.

Today, I discovered a new blog, thanks to @DeadlyBloggers on Twitter called, “Rantings of an Aboriginal Feminist“, and I love her most recent post, “A total and hairy non-issue“:

My own personal journey with depilating is probably similar to other women, particularly in western countries. I had grown up noticing my mother shave her legs, and seeing women with smooth legs on TV and all around me, and at what is probably a ridiculously young age (about 8 ) I deemed my own legs too hairy and shaved them for the first time. I cut them to bits with Dad’s rusty old Gillette Blue 2, and didn’t try that again for another year or so. I’d call my “need” to shave an “unconscious social intervention” as it was based on observation and “normalising messages” hitting me from a very young age. But what was a completely conscious one was when mum took me aside at about 11 or 12 and showed me how to shave my armpits. From that point onwards, I was paranoid of raising my arm if I hadn’t shaved. It wasn’t mum’s fault as nearly every girl in my school seemed to be in the same boat, if not then, then over the coming years.

After a spike in traffic on my blog, and specifically regarding my post about Dan Savage’s biphobia, I wondered what he’d done this time.  Apparently he’d used a derogatory comment in relation to GOProud, a coalition of LGBT Republicans and their straight allies.  *trigger warning for homophobic language* From the Huffington Post, “Dan Savage and the Other, Uglier F-Word“.

A great article discussing the myth that bisexuals don’t exist called, “Gay or Straight, Most People Think Bisexuality Isn’t Real” from the Philly Post:

There are many people who feel attraction to both genders—or who are indifferent to gender entirely, who are just attracted to people and deal with the gendered parts when things get intimate. How is it possible that high-schoolers think it’s chic (though a little passe) to be bi, but our mouthpieces of popular celebrity culture don’t know what to do with famous people who have fluid sexuality?

Even after all these years of progress and activism related to sexual orientation and gender, there remains a core disbelief among gay and straight that bisexuality exists. Some think it’s a phase girls go through in college; others think it’s a bullshit position a guy takes because he’s afraid to be gay. It’s not validated on either side of the aisle, so to speak. So bisexuals disappear into headlines: Frenchie Davis is a lesbian. Score 1 for the absolutist team.

Another article on bisexuality, this time from the Windy City Media Group titled, “Series on bisexuality looks to document diversity in sexual behaviors“:

Bisexuality is sometimes looked on with confusion from both the heterosexual and homosexual communities. Researchers from Indiana University conducted a series of studies recently to explore how the stigma and stereotypes of behaviorally bisexual individuals stands up to reality, and how these men and women are actually living out their sexual lives.

“I was really surprised to find, among some of the guys, how they weren’t open at all about their sexuality,” he said. “For a lot of them, it had been the first time they’d ever talked to someone about engaging in sexual behavior with both men and women. There was a lot of stigma, even shame from both gay and straight friends and family members about bisexuality that was above and beyond just typical stigma. For some of them it really did seem like they were clearly linking that with having mental health issues, like feeling depressed or anxious or not comfortable with their sexuality because they felt like they were sort of the only ones. So in terms of the needs for actually doing this type of research, it was really validated.”

No Place for Sheep wrote a piece about “Belief versus human rights“, in relation to Gillard’s (Aussie PM) personal beliefs about marriage equality impacting the human rights of the LGBTIQ community.  I recommend this post even though the BTIQ part of the spectrum are missing somewhat in the post.

Be that as it may, the fights led me to thinking about belief. While I agree that everyone is entitled to their beliefs, I don’t agree that everyone is entitled to act on those beliefs to the detriment of others. Once a belief is extrapolated from the personal realm and used to determine the lives of others it is no longer personal, it is political.

Personal belief can legitimately determine the course of one’s own life. If you don’t believe same-sex marriage is right, for example, then don’t make a same-sex marriage. Nobody in our country will force you into an arrangement that powerfully disturbs your moral sensibility.

What disturbs me, however, is the argument that personal beliefs ought to be set apart from the interrogations we are at liberty to apply to all other human processes. The personal belief is elevated to the sacred, inspiring respect and reverence simply because it is a personal belief, and regardless of its substance. While I find this bizarre, hinting as it does at some transcendental exterior governance, I have little problem with it, as long as the belief remains in the realm of the personal. When it becomes prescriptive, I argue that it is no longer protected from scrutiny and critique by reverence.

It turns out that Mitt Romney doesn’t like bisexuals or trans* people (well there is a surprise) to the point where those words in a anti-bullying guide resulted in the guide not being produced/endorsed by his office, “No mention of ‘bisexual,’ ‘transgender’ under Romney“:

Former governor Mitt Romney’s administration in 2006 blocked publication of a state antibullying guide for Massachusetts public schools because officials objected to use of the terms “bisexual’’ and “transgender’’ in passages about protecting certain students from harassment, according to state records and interviews with current and former state officials.

Romney aides said publicly at the time that publication of the guide had been delayed because it was a lengthy document that required further review. But an e-mail authored in May of that year by a high-ranking Department of Public Health official – and obtained last week by the Globe through a public records request – reflected a different reason.

Two pieces, one from Novel Activist, “Martha Nussbaum: Objectification, Sexualisation and Conservative Hypocrisy” and the other from No Place for Sheep, “What is objectification, anyway?“:

There’s an almost constant stream of allegations of objectification through sexualisation currently being made in Western society. These are leveled by concerned citizens against much popular culture, and based largely on images of women that culture produces. These allegations presume an objectifying gaze, that is, they insist the viewer will inevitably reduce women portrayed in certain ways to objects to be used for sexual gratification, rather than seeing them as equal human beings. Clothing, facial expressions and postures are used as signifiers of objectification, as well as language.

The signifiers chosen by concerned citizens are based on a Judeo-Christian perception of the adult female body as unruly, dangerous and indecent, and requiring concealment except in specific circumstances such as marriage and other committed monogamous relationships. Clothing that reveals too much of the body’s “private” zones is regarded as transgressing moral codes, as are postures and language that imply female sexual desire, and/or stimulate male “lust.”

An introductory post and a follow up three post series on “Christian Fundamentalist Homophobia: It Really Is About Fear” (introduction, part 1, part 2, part 3) from the phoenix and the olive branch *trigger warning for homophobic language and hate speech  (excerpts from all four posts):

I was raised to be homophobic. Oh, my church had lots of ways to deflect the label when it was applied to us, but deep down, I was afraid. The other kids were afraid, too. When pressed, we would spew lines like “hate the sin, love the sinner” or “I’m not afraid of gay people, I just disagree with their lifestyle.” (That one confuses me now: how can you “disagree” with someone else’s life? It’s not about disagreement, it’s about disapproval.) There’s always this old favorite, too: “They don’t even know they’re in sin; they’re deceived. We need to pray for them.” Thing is, all of this masks a genuine, visceral, inculcated fear. I wasn’t raised to have a vague, condescending, pious pity for LGBTQ people. I was raised to be violently afraid of them.

In my church, homophobia was a matter of course. We didn’t spend a lot of time hashing out the Scriptural arguments against homosexuality. Occasionally Paul and Leviticus were cited, but more often, sermons would rattle out evidence of modern depravity along these lines: “…and Satan has so perverted this generation that it thinks there’s nothing wrong with divorce, abortion, contraception, homosexuality, and girls throwing their babies in trash cans and doing drugs.” Defiance of gender roles was just one of the most obvious signs of demonic control.

Whether or not my church explicitly intended for me to receive this message, I understood homosexuality as one of an array of perversions. Homosexuality, promiscuity, pedophilia drug addiction, alcoholism, cheating, self-harm, unwed pregnancy and abortion were not treated as separate issues. I was afraid of gay people because I was taught that it was impossible to be gay or lesbian without partaking in all of the above.

These rhetorical strategies also reveal fundamentalist Christianity’s basic approach to LGBTQ identities: they are symptoms of an overactive sexuality. The demon that leads men to pornography and women to prostitution is the same one that causes sexual attraction to break out of the appropriate boxes. Fundamentalists don’t fully accept LGBTQ identities as categories. Instead, they see them as temporary stopping points on the way to total depravity. Hence their slippery slope arguments and their conviction that you can “pray away the gay.” The implication is that if you don’t “pray away the gay,” you’re mere moments away from self-harm and child molestation. [emphasis in original]

I have one final thing to offer to the “hate the sin, love the sinner” crowd from the other side of the fence they built to keep us illegal Christians out:

Unconditional love does not mean loving someone while disapproving of their actions. It means forsaking the right to disapprove. You cannot love who I am and hate what I do. What I do shows you who I am.If you choose to love a figment of your imagination, some idea of who I might become, then you love only your own mind, and what you hate is me. [emphasis in original]

Another post from the phoenix and the olive branch, “Bedroom Submission, Birth Control and Tokophobia” on the harm of Christian Patriarchy on women and the author herself *trigger warning for discussion of rape*:

Worse yet, in my church, women were told we were merely “incubators” for male seed. A man’s children were his; a woman’s children were also his. There was effectively no difference between a man’s children from another marriage or the children a man and woman had together. All belonged to the father. The mother was just the vice president: a useful source of authority in her husband’s absence, but ultimately powerless.

Pregnancy and babies, to me, signaled the dehumanization of women. Once women became mothers, they were trapped forever, at the mercy of their husbands. I looked at pregnant bellies and I saw swollen bee stings inflicted by aggressive overlords. In darker moments, I imagined myself committing suicide if I became pregnant. Abortion would save my life (a desperate realization that shocked me a little bit), but I would be cast out on my face. Pregnancy therefore looked like the end of the road. A death sentence. Once the wedding bells rang, I was a soul without a body in the eyes of the church. [emphasis in original]

 

 

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Knowing the mind of God

I am regularly amazed that some religious folk claim to know the mind of their god.  I’m specifically referring to the Judeo-Christian god at this point, I have had insufficient exposure to adherents of other religions to know if there any people who claim to speak on behalf of their god/s (though given people I wouldn’t be surprised).

The god of the Old and New Testament clearly states in the Bible that:

8 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.
“And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.

9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways
and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55: 8 – 9 New Living Translation

 

33 Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways!

34 For who can know the Lord’s thoughts?
Who knows enough to give him advice?

35 And who has given him so much
that he needs to pay it back?

Romans 11: 33-35 New Living Translation

So clearly the mind of at the very least the Christian god is unknowable, inscrutable and unlike any adherent’s own mind, and yet so many people claim to know and even act as if they know, exactly what their god wants.

I’ve always been confused by what god is actually like (even when I was a Christian), because the Bible is rather contradictory about that, god was jealous, loving, peace, all knowing, all powerful, all present, the light, vengeful, etc (nice list here), so clearly knowing what god thought about on any particular topic was impossible.

The Bible itself is contradictory, condemning queer people in one part and then celebrating them in others (the story of Ruth, the story of David and Saul), and then Jesus who allegedly lived during the Roman empire when same-sex relationships were part of society.  Nowhere did Jesus (who was allegedly the son of God) actually condemn same-sex relationships, even though they would have been practised by the Roman occupiers of Jerusalem.  Those who point to the Bible to condemn queer relationships tend to focus on two main parts of the Bible, Leviticus (while ignoring ALL the other parts of Leviticus that no longer apply in this modern day and age), and the various letters of Paul (while ignoring his other commentary, for the most part, on the role of women both in the church and in relationships, and how the end times were imminent).

So I do not understand how lobbyists from the Australian [un]Christian Lobby, or how someone like Archbishop Peter Jensen can claim, or appear to claim, that they speak not only for themselves and their own fears about queer people, but for the deity they claim to believe in – the one who they should well know they cannot speak for.

If you believe in a deity of some description, I don’t really have a problem with your personal belief, but I do have a big problem with any attempt to shift that personal belief onto the lives of other people because you believe that your deity would be much happier if segments of the population lived miserable and unhappy lives.  I have big problems when people’s personal beliefs are treated like the be-all and end-all of all ethical and moral existence, so that in effect the faith you ascribe to is the only source of morality in the world.  I have a big problem when personal belief is used to restrict the human rights of other people – because you believe your god (who you cannot know the thoughts of) would be much happier if queer people couldn’t marry their partner of choice.

As I have, and as many other people have, pointed out before – religion has been used to defend slavery, defend not granting equal rights for women, defend racism, defend arranged marriages, defend refusing birth control, defend not providing abortion services, etc – and these things have slowly passed and changed as society has matured.

And as society continues to mature, more will change.  Queer people will get the equal rights they seek, and the versus in the Bible that condemn them will be assigned to irrelevancy just as most of Leviticus is now.  This change is inevitable and is the right thing to do.  Those who cling to homophobia are frightened of change, and I can understand that, but if you profess to love the god of the Bible, then you have to trust that change happens for a reason and god’s inscrutable plan is the way forward.  That the god you believe in is in control (because that’s what you believe) and that you shouldn’t fight his/her wishes.

I don’t believe in any god, I believe in doing the right thing because it is right not because I will get some future reward or punishment otherwise.  I believe in granting human rights to all regardless of their sexual orientation, race, religion, political opinion, place of origin, etc.  My rights will not be diminished by other people having access to the same rights.  There is not a finite amount of human rights in the world, which would mean that granting some to a disadvantaged group will take away any of my own rights (it might remove some of my privilege but that’s another story).

It’s time that those who campaign so tirelessly against the equal rights of others and claim that they are doing it for their god, sat down, took a deep breath, and considered whether or not they are acting for their own personal interests and whether they are indeed following the precepts of their own god.  Time to examine the plank in their eye before checking the splinter in mine, as well as considering how Jesus treated the disadvantaged of his own time as a lesson on how perhaps you should treat the disadvantaged of today.

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Forgetting History

George Christensen MP (for Mackay to Townsville, QLD), tweeted this:

 Wow. Ex @SenatorBobBrown sledges Aust’s top cleric at #NPC. The Church has done more good 4 humanity than Greens ever will.

According to George’s twitter stream, the top cleric referred to is George Pell.

After receiving some very minor, as far as the replies to the original tweet indicate go, criticism of his comment, George posted the following:

 The lefty church-hating #twitterwarriors would do less good in their collective lives than most nuns, priests or brothers.

Clearly, in George’s blind faith to the Catholic Church he is forgetting some key history of definitely not good, that the Catholic Church has been involved in – and I do question whether the past (and even the present) can even be forgiven with further good works.  Though he has tweeted (on 1 June) that not all Christians are actually Christian when referring to Pastors calling for the killing of those who are LGBTIQ:

 @equality4dawson There’s bad in every crowd inc Christians. Ultimately, its the song, not the singers, that matter.

But anyway, back to his comments, suggesting that those who have issues with the Catholic Church do less good in their communities than those who have joined religious orders, as well as the comment that the Catholic Church has done more good for humanity than the Greens ever will.

When you have an organisation that today says that the ordination of women is a sin equally bad as the rape of children by priests, when you have an organisation that calls those who are LGBTIQ “intrinsically disordered“, when you have an organisation that covers up the abuse of children (and the forgotten adults) by paying off priests, moving them between churches, hushing up the abuse, and treating the victims as if it were their own fault, when you have an organisation that tells people that condoms spread aids, when you have an organisation that excommunicates the mother of a 9 year old girl, and the doctor who performed the abortion, but not the father who had repeatedly raped his daughter, because abortion is a far greater sin, and when you have an organisation that believes and teaches that it is better for pregnant women to die than perform a life saving abortion, then you have an organisation that is not doing good for the world.

And that’s just now.  If we look at recent history, then we have the Catholic Church’s involvement in Australian politics with the DLP, and we have the Catholic Church and their involvement with the Stolen Generations in Australia.

In less recent history we have the Catholic Church and the witch trials, we have the Catholic Church and the Inquisition, we have the Catholic Church and the pillaging of South America, we have the Catholic Church and conversion by the sword.

I don’t have problems with people stating that the Catholic Church does good things, but I do have a problem when those people don’t acknowledge the big issues that have faced and are facing the Catholic Church.  There are indeed many wonderful things certain Catholics and certain Catholic organisations do, but there is still a lot of corruption, and a history and present that is liberally bloodied.

I definitely have a big problem with anyone claiming that the Catholic Church has more “good” than any other organisation in the world, especially given the atrocities previously and currently being performed in the name of the Church.  I cannot see how an organisation, one with it’s own country, one with a staggering asset base, one with an amazing number of adherents, still sees so many of their adherents in poverty, is not democratic (and not just the old men voting for other old men, but rather the people the policies affect voting for who is in charge), and seems so resistant to change that so many of its adherents desire.

So George, don’t claim that the Catholic Church has done more good for humanity than the Greens ever will, unless you can really back that claim up with some solid facts.  I don’t see how you’re going to manage that without looking like an apologist for an organisation that is still hiding its dirty laundry in the bottom of the cupboard.

 

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All the linkspam in the world

This is going to be rather epic, because I’ve been busy, and because I caught up with my RSS feed while I was visiting family and so I have many articles which I found interesting.  And since I can’t share them on Google Reader anymore, everyone else gets to enjoy them here.

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The ACL fail to surprise me

So the ACL put out a press release today claiming that the “gay activists” (yes I know, I’m one too, I want to know who isn’t apart from the ACL), was claiming victory over the (voluntary as far as we know) resignation of Professor Kuruvilla George from the Victorian Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission.  For those who haven’t been following Australian Politics (and I completely get that), Professor Kuruvilla George co-signed a submission to the Australian Senate Enquiry into equal marriage suggesting that children should be brought up in a heterosexual unit as that was the most appropriate family unit and that no studies have ever found that having same sex parents is good for children.  Yes, I know.

The submission was listed as “Doctors for the Family” and is available here.

The big problem for Professor Kuruvilla George, being his role as a board member for an organisation that promotes equality and acts in cases of discrimination against protected attributes, one of which is sexual orientation.  He is also the Deputy Chief Psychiatrist for Victoria.  According to The Age today, his resignation was voluntary and had nothing to do with his submission to the Senate Enquiry which was done in as a private individual (though signed with: MBBS MPhil FRCPsych FRANZCP after his name – which means he was signing it in a medical capacity at least – as far as I read it).

I was going to talk about the ACL’s press release and their suggestion that all research on queer families was bunk, but the delightful Chrys beat me too it, so I’ll point you at her work here, and another article which debunks the authors that the ACL are relying on here.

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Linkspam not quite mid February 2012 edition

Things that I have read about the place and thought that would be interesting to share:

The Nation writes about Obama standing up to Catholic Bishops, which has been a topic of discussion on twitter and elsewhere.

As if it had finally noticed that women out-
number bishops, the Obama administra
tion has decided against permitting religious organizations a broad exemption from rules requiring that all methods of contraception be covered, with no co-payment, by health insurance plans. Strictly religious organizations—churches, missions and such—will be exempt, but not universities, hospitals and charities. As a public health matter, this is excellent news: for women whose health plans don’t cover birth control, it can be difficult to obtain and costs hundreds of dollars a year out of pocket.

As part of “Why I am an Athiest” on Pharyngula, Frances shares her thoughts on atheism and feminism *trigger warning for discussion of sexual harassment and rape*:

I wondered where god was in all this. Not in an angry, he-should-have-my-back sort of way, but in a literal way. I went to church every Sunday for my entire life, and as near as I can tell, god has no opinions at all on rape, sexual harassment, sexual assault, or actually any of the issues women have to deal with. I knew the church was against abortion, premarital sex, and being gay (I was raised catholic in an area with lots of fundamentalists), but beyond that, there was literally no guidance. There were no ethics relating to this at all, or if there were, the priests were very tight-lipped about them.

Sandy Ghandi writes on The Anti Bogan about the racism she’s faced in Australia, in “F**k Off You Indian Monkey“:

The reply from the newsdesk was probably predictable, although I didn’t see it coming. After all, I had been submitting my weekly column to the Northern Star for four years, receiving the the stellar payment of $50 (raised from $30 after some agitation).

The email came from the then acting editor and he said, in part: “I know you are trying to push the envelope and be feisty but I think in trying to do that you sometimes confuse the point you are trying to make.”

“Like it or not, we are a family newspaper (the demographic is 40-65, mainly professional people working in Lismore, Casino and Ballina). That’s a fairly conservative audience so swear words are not going to go down too well.

“… thank you for your input to the Star, but we won’t be reconsidering the decision (to cease your column), nor will we be asking readers what they think. If we do cop some backlash and get some letters to the editor, we’ll run these in the appropriate place.”

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Guest post: No special rights for lifestyle choices

This is a guest post from James Dominguez.

Right now in this country, and around the world, huge numbers of wicked, self-entitled people are demanding that the government grant them special rights based on their lifestyle. That’s right! We’re not talking about in-born traits here (no matter what these sickos claim) but a conscious lifestyle choice.

For some reason, these people think they can demand special treatment from government, special exceptions from our traditional laws, and special human rights that aren’t granted to anyone else outside of their sordid little club. How on earth could this be constitutional?

People can’t help who they are, or where they were born, or the circumstances of their birth. Disallowing discrimination based on these inherent traits, such as race or disability, makes sense of course. The problem is that these shrill, demanding people want us to believe that even though they have chosen this deviant lifestyle long after birth (some of them not even acting on these impulses until very late in life!) they are entitled to all kinds of legal protections and special rights.

No reasonable person could possibly agree with this. If you make a choice to join a minority group based on weird behaviours, then you know that you are buying into any negative consequences that go along with that. Don’t want people to treat you badly? Don’t choose to join in with this destructive lifestyle! It’s so simple!

Hopefully I’ve convinced you by now that these people should be denied any kind of special rights and protections. Please join me in spreading the word about this widespread injustice:

People who choose to join religious groups should not be granted any legal protection against discrimination.

I mean honestly, it’s not like it’s something they’re BORN with, like sexual orientation!

Disclaimer: No, I don’t really think religious groups deserve no protections: everyone should have the legal right to live their lives in peace. But seriously, why is the religious right still using such an easily reversed argument?

Oh, and thanks for letting me guest-post, Rebecca! 🙂

 – James “DexX” Dominguez

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