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As an experiment, inspired by a comment on my Radical Atheist blog today, I have disabled the DISQUS commenting system here and am going back to comments within the framework of HeathenQueer.

This is a change I’ve wanted to try for some time. I’m not totally comfortable with having comments hosted by another service, away from the blog itself.

I don’t have any issues with the DISQUS service itself. It does what it claims and it does present a pleasant interface. I’ll be doing this same thing with IntenseDebate over at RadicalAtheist.com Both are worthy of consideration by blogs encumbered with hundreds of replies to deal with. They offer statistics and controls that many built-in commenting systems don’t.

I don’t suffer that burden. To me, sending the comments off-site is an impersonal way for me to treat those who do bother to leave a comment. I enjoy reading the comments left here. I know I need to reply more often, to encourage the conversation. For me the comments are personal. When I write I’m expressing honest opinions and beliefs (or lack of same). When people respond to my writing, they are responding to me, to my thoughts, to what makes me me to a large extent.

So let’s see how well this works. I’m eager to hear your opinions.

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Do you believe everything has a cause? Do you believe some supernatural/unnatural entity has created reality as it is and created everything for a reason? Do you believe nothing really happens by chance, especially on a macro level?

Why are days 24 hours long? What meaning does 24 hours have that it wouldn’t have had if it were a 27 hour day? Science suggests that there’s evidence that during the development of the Earth-Moon relationship the “day” on Earth has gone from 4 hours to our present 24. It will change more in the future. But if god created and/or designed everything that exists as it exists today, a “day” could never have been anything but 24 hours (god’s thousand-year-days don’t count), and that number of hours must have been chosen for a reason? So what is it? What does the Bible or Koran say about the significance of a 24 hour day?

Why are there two sexes and different races? There are plenty of examples in nature of plants and creatures that can impregnate themselves and give birth without ever having sex. We are told that god’s primary intent in creating male and female was procreation. The holy books are less clear on the creation of racial groups. Maybe god the designer just thought humans looked better in a variety of colors and shapes. Yet just look at all the problems that stem from humans being differentiated as male and female, black and yellow, comely and homely. So much strife, bloodshed and death brought on by nothing beyond the fact that humans are different from one another. Any designer that strays from the simplest solution, that unnecessarily complicates the goal the designer is attempting to realize, that introduces harmful noise into the design, lessens efficiency. It’s inefficient, if the goals attributed to the gods are true, to have two sexes and all the other differences between humans. Sexual propagation is inefficient. Asexual reproduction accomplishes same goals as those attributed to the gods. As long as the designer remembers to also make humans immune to any disease or virus that could take advantage of such a degree of genetic uniformity. What goals of a god would be thwarted by a planet full of single sex, single race, indistinguishable in appearance and genetically identical human beings? Would any of that stop humans from filling the Earth with their children, having dominion over the planet or worshiping a god? The gods could have achieved their goals much more simply with a far greater assurance that those goals would be met and with far less damage to these beings they are said to love had they not created sexes, races, varieties of any kind in nature. One kind of bug, hoofed animal, fish, tree, bird or human would have done the job better than the current condition. If we’d never known any different condition we’d never know what might have been. That’s why the gods created science fiction writers and conspiracy theorists. I suggest there is no practical reason for variety in nature. If the gods delight in variety, why isn’t there a variety of real gods?

Why is there a moon, why are there stars? Most holy books have some sort of “Genesis” story (in the “catholic” sense), a tale of how the gods brought the universe into being. Since ancient man must have been aware of the moon and stars, even the most ancient of religions have stories about how these came to be. If everything exists for a reason, what’s the point of a moon and stars? Why even have other planets? Everything that seems important to the gods is happening solely on this planet. What purpose do the others serve? Surely god or a good designer doesn’t need a moon to create tides or maintain Earth’s orbit. What good do stars do, other than our own? If Earth was created solely to house humans and humans were the gods’ greatest creations, of what use are the stars to us? They don’t even provide enough light to do us any good. Why wasn’t all that mass used to create one massive planet, ours? Then I could easily believe that the Earth was created for us.

When I enlisted in the Army in the early 70s I knew my life was about to become an open book. I was joining the Army Security Agency, an odd entity. Members of the ASA considered themselves somewhat unique from the rest of the units within the Army. The ASA only existed as the Army’s presence at the National Security Agency. If you weren’t assigned to the agency (only the top 3 out of my class of 30-some were) you worked for the agency in an infantry brigade.

If assigned to the agency you had to have a Top Secret Codeword clearance. You were subject to a Special Background Investigation (SBI). Your life was exposed back as far as the investagators could go. Gradeschool friends were interviewed. Ex-girlfriends. Friends of the family. You hope they really are your friends. It’s said that after an SBI the government knows you better than you know yourself. Your memories are frail and forgotten. Their “memories” of you are written down, stored in secure (again we hope) data banks, never erased and never deleted.

If you’ve ever smoked a joint they’ll find out about it. If you ever sucked a cock they’ll find the cock owner’s name and he’ll get a visit from the feds. That’s always perceived as such a nice way for your friends to spend an afternoon, being interview by federal agents. Of course for some it will be the highlight of their year if not their lives.

You have to pass two interviews yourself, one for entrance into the ASA and then at Ft. Meade. You know damned good and well you, on several occasions, smoked grass with Walter before letting him plow your ass. You know they’re going to know when they conduct that SBI. You think if you lie when asked about drug usage and homosexual activities (not “are you gay?” but rather “have you ever engaged in homosexual activities?” Why in a moment) you’ll be living in fear of discovery for the next few months before getting booted out. If you tell the truth you’ll get booted out now. No win.

Then you get to talking to the interviewer. He has a few tips before you get started with the formal interview. He says, “If you need to, tell me you tried marajuana, smoked maybe two joints, didn’t like it and you aren’t doing it now.” None of that is a lie, none of those answers will come back to bite you later. He also suggested that if you ever even played “you show me yours, I’ll show you mine” once with a person of the same sex you should mention it. They don’t like surprises, but at the same time they don’t need the details from you.

They want to know you are being honest and that you have done nothing that you could possibly be blackmailed for.

Here’s where the National Security Agency’s priorities best the priorities of the military, even though both are within the Department of Defense. The most famous defectors from the NSA to the Soviet Union were rumored to have been gay (rumor put to rest), yet the NSA didn’t bar you from admission just because you were gay, as long as you were open about it or were willing to be open about it, so you couldn’t be blackmailed over it. The same with pot usage. They didn’t care how much you did (as long as it didn’t affect your work) but only whether you have and most likely do. The NSA values creative thinking, much of code work involves finding patterns others can’t detect and unconventional solutions.It understands people like that are often gay or have experimented. It’s all about honesty and the benefits of honesty. Ironically, after you’ve been completely honest with them you’re admitted to the most secret building (people know about) in the country.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell encourages lying, it requires you to pretend you’re someone you aren’t. And it punishes you if you’re honest. Honesty is sacrificed to image.

It is indeed sad that Harvey Milk became a victim of the bigotry and insanity that still remains a real threat to members of the LBGT community. But there is good reason to celebrate his life. He was and is a role model for many young LGBT people. He showed us all that nothing can stop a person of character from realizing their dreams.

Harvey Milk

“I cannot prevent anyone from getting angry, or mad, or frustrated. I can only hope that they’ll turn that anger and frustration and madness into something positive, so that two, three, four, five hundred will step forward, so the gay doctors will come out, the gay lawyers, the gay judges, gay bankers, gay architects … I hope that every professional gay will say ‘enough’, come forward and tell everybody, wear a sign, let the world know. Maybe that will help.” Harvey Milk, 1978

“I fully realize that a person who stands for what I stand for, an activist, a gay activist, becomes the target or the potential target for a person who is insecure, terrified, afraid, or very disturbed with themselves.”

“It’s not my victory, it’s yours and yours and yours. If a gay can win, it means there is hope that the system can work for all minorities if we fight. We’ve given them hope.”

And perhaps the statement of his I love the most:

“All young people, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, deserve a safe and supportive environment in which to achieve their full potential.”

If you’re a member of the LGBT community, celebrate today be being yourself, openly and honestly. Peace, love and long life to all my brothers and sisters.

(Thanks to Queer Vision for the quotes)

Since it was implemented in 1993, over 12,500 men and women have been dismissed from the Armed Forces under the provisions of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”. More than 800 of those individuals have held positions deemed “mission critical” by the military. They were not dismissed for the failure to perform their duties, they did so, often with honor and distinction. They were not dismissed for refusing to serve and possibly die in the service of their country. They were not dismissed for a lack of patriotism.

They were dismissed for the sole reason that to the military the act of honestly stating your personal sexual orientation as a homosexual is a homosexual act. They have not, in the vast majority of cases, been accused of sexually assaulting another person or for engaging in sexual behavior with another person. They were not even accused of flaunting their sexual orientation.

Gays have served honorably in the U.S. military for decades, for the most part undetected and unnoticed. If gays serving in the military is sure to lead to disruptions in the barracks and a lowering of overall moral, as many opposed to their service contend, where’s the evidence of this? Surely with the thousands of gays who have served there must have been hundreds of incidents of assault and homosexual rape, since we are told by those who oppose their service that they cannot possibly control themselves and would be a real and present danger to heterosexual troops.

There is a historical precedent for refusing to allow discrimination in the military.

When President Truman ordered the military to desegregate in 1948, the vast majority of the military — not to mention the population in most of the countries from the South where a big portion of the members of the military come from — had sharply racist tendencies against the blacks. When he sent his 10-point program to Congress on February 2, 1948, instructing “the Secretary of Defense to take steps to have the remaining instances of discrimination in the armed services eliminated as rapidly as possible,” he endured a storm of criticism from Southern Democrats in the run-up to the national nominating convention. But even when support for discrimination spread so far beyond the military and political stakes were so high, his response was not to postpone doing what was right. Instead, he responded by saying “My forebears were Confederates….But my very stomach turned over when I had learned that Negro soldiers, just back from overseas, were being dumped out of Army trucks in Mississippi and beaten.” President Truman ordered the military’s desegregation because he understood that the traditional culture of the military and appeasement to any biases and racism that may have been associated with it was not a condition that he had to accept as the price of having a strong army.

(Source)

How hard would it be for President Obama to end the practice of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell? Not hard at all.

A new study, about to be published by a group of experts in military law, shows that President Obama does, in fact, have stroke-of-the-pen authority to suspend gay discharges. The “don’t ask, don’t tell” law requires the military to fire anyone found to be gay or lesbian. But there is nothing requiring the military to make such a finding. The president can simply order the military to stop investigating service members’ sexuality.

An executive order would not get rid of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law, but would take the critical step of suspending its implementation, hence rendering it effectively dead. Once people see gays and lesbians serving openly, legally and without problems, it will be much easier to get rid of the law at a later time.

(Source)

Dan Choi, a West Point graduate and officer in the Army National Guard who is fluent in Arabic and who returned recently from Iraq, recently revealed on the Rachel Maddow show that he was gay. He has now been informed that he is to be dismissed from the National Guard. This is Obama’s first chance to act on his stated goal of repealing DADT.

During a presidential forum held by the Human Rights Campaign in August of 2007, candidate Obama said, “I will task the Defense Department and the senior command structure in every branch of the armed forces with developing an action plan for the implementation of a full repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell…. America is ready to get rid of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. All that is required is leadership.”

Until recently, on the White House Web site’s Civil Rights page, the following was posted.

Repeal Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell:
President Obama agrees with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili and other military experts that we need to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. The key test for military service should be patriotism, a sense of duty, and a willingness to serve. Discrimination should be prohibited. The U.S. government has spent millions of dollars replacing troops kicked out of the military because of their sexual orientation. Additionally, more than 300 language experts have been fired under this policy, including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic. The President will work with military leaders to repeal the current policy and ensure it helps accomplish our national defense goals.

This has since been altered to read, “He supports repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in a sensible way that strengthens our armed forces and our national security“, a change that worries some that he is weakening in his resolve.

This is not the time to let old and irrational fears destroy the lives of so many young men and women proudly and voluntarily serving their country in the military. Now is the time for President Obama to disallow the termination of Lt. Choi and take a stand against the worthless DADT rule.

I’ve been house bound for the last 5 days due to a cold, or the flu, who knows. Whatever it is, it sucks.

Now that I’m recovering, I’m able to reflect a bit on illness after 55. I realize that what merely inconvenienced me at 25 just might kill me at my age now. And maybe that’s what dying is going to be like, all stuffed up and miserable, unable to walk around without getting dizzy, preferring to just stay in bed and snooze. And that’s if I’m lucky.

So for nearly a week I’ve been musing and feeling sorry for myself contemplating my inevitable demise. Then I watched this classic bit by my philosophical hero, George Carlin, and realized that growing old wasn’t all bad.

Rabid far-right commentator Ann Coulter is known across America for sliming everyone and everything she disagrees with. Al Gore is a “total fag” and another one-time presidential candidate, John Edwards, is the same. Democrats are “gutless traitors” and their convention a “Spawn of Satan” gathering. Muslims are “ragheads” and America should “kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” Jews are people who need to be “perfected.” The New York Times building and its editorial staff should be bombed. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens should have “rat poisoning” mixed into his food. Princess Diana “ostentatiously [had] sex in front of [her] children.” The Rev. Al Sharpton is “a fat, race-baiting black man.” President Bill Clinton was “a very good rapist,” and North Korea should be “nuked.”

But despite denouncing school desegregation as a “spectacular” failure, Coulter has generally avoided bolstering white supremacist hate groups. Until now, that is.

In her latest foaming-mouth tome — Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America, released on Jan. 6 — Coulter spends the better part of three pages defending a group called the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), which The New York Times had described as a “thinly veiled white supremacist organization.” Coulter begs to differ. The CCC, Coulter opines, is “a conservative group” that has unfairly been branded as racist “because some of the directors of the CCC had, decades earlier, been leaders of a segregationist group.” “There is no evidence on its Web page that the modern incarnation of the CCC supports segregation,” she says. “Apart from some aggressive reporting on black-on-white crimes — the very crimes that are aggressively hidden by the establishment media — there is little on the CCC website suggesting” that the group is racist. Indeed, its main failing is “containing members who had belonged to a segregationist group thirty years earlier.”

Coulter could hardly be more wrong. And even if she can’t find time to read beyond a page of the CCC’s website, she really ought to know — after all, the organization where she frequently speaks, the Conservative Political Action Committee, has publicly banned the CCC from its annual gathering because it is racist. Also in the late 1990s, Jim Nicholson, then-chairman of the Republican National Committee, asked GOP members to stay away from the CCC because of its “racist and nationalist views.”

One day, the CCC ran photos on its home page of accused Beltway snipers John Muhammad and John Malvo, 9/11 conspirator Zacharias Moussaoui and accused shoe-bomber Richard Reed. “Notice a Pattern Here?” asked a caption underneath the four photos. “Is the face of death black after all?” On another occasion, its website featured a photo of Daniel Pearl, the “Jewish Wall Street Journal reporter” who had just been decapitated by Islamic terrorists. In the photo, Pearl was shown with his “mixed-race wife, Marianne.” The headline above the couple’s picture was stunning even for the CCC: “Death by Multiculturalism?” The CCC Arkansas chapter ran an essay waxing nostalgic for the days “when racial separation was the norm.”

But to Ann Coulter, there is “no evidence” on its website that the CCC “supports segregation.” Mostly, she says, the group — which was formed from the debris of the White Citizens Councils that Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall once called “the uptown Klan” — is about “a strong national defense, the right to keep and bear arms, the traditional family, and an ‘America First’ trade policy.” Indeed, she says, The New York Times and other critics of the CCC are simply liberals “who have no principles.” (Source-Southern Poverty Law Center)

I’m at a loss to determine what attraction Coulter holds for anyone who possesses even a modicum of human decency and common sense. Isn’t there enough violence and hate in our society without a self-styled pundit spewing crap disguised as opinion? Some have compared her to Micheal Moore, but that’s not fair to Moore. She’s far more similar to a female Rev. Phelps. She offers nothing positive, she has no solutions for the issues she sensationalizes and exploits.

Coulter's office on first floor

Hate speech is a touchy subject. It raises issues of freedom of speech, and as Americans, we shy away from anything that even hints at censorship. Yet we should remember freedoms come with responsibilities. We don’t object to the restriction on yelling “Fire!” in a theater. We understand that inciting a crowd to riot and cause personal and property damage is illegal.

The Constitution protects her right to free speech from censorship by the government. She enjoys no such protection from personal opinions like mine or from being justifiably booed off stage at commencement ceremonies. She has earned the scorn of every American concerned for their country.

On a personal level we ought to freely express our contempt for those who, while too cowardly to act out their hatred themselves, have no compunction over inciting others to hate. Political pundits, religious leaders, racist inbreds, anyone who chooses to encourage hate and violence deserves our scorn and outspoken condemnation. I admit Coulter has the right to be as stupid and disgusting as she wishes inside her own tiny little mind. Once she opens her mouth and releases her bile on others, it’s time to stand up and demand she shut up.

As punishment for the divisiveness she has encouraged in the U.S., she should be bound face-to-face with Fred Phelps and locked in a padded cell for the rest of her unnatural life.

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Micah, at LearnToDuck, has posted a thoughtful and insightful piece on his reaction to seeing the movie Milk.

I am Gay.

I went to go see the movie Milk today. I was seven when Harvey Milk and George Moscone were shot and killed by Dan White, who was crazy on Twinkies.

Its amazing how powerful those three words are, even today. I am Gay.

Parents would disown their own children; friends would walk away. I am Gay.

In some cases entire lives would be wrecked. Destroyed.

I am Gay.

Think about what you thought when you saw the title of this post. How would it change how you think of me, if I were gay? Would it change it at all? Really?

Click on over and read the rest of his excellent comment.

As a gay leftie I’m so going to hell…oh wait, I’m an atheist, too.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor claims that the rise of secularism has led to a liberal society, hostile to Christian morals and values, in which religious belief is viewed as “a private eccentricity” and the voice of faith groups is marginalised.

The cardinal warns that Britain shows signs of degenerating into a country free of morals, because of its rejection of traditional values and its new emphasis on the rights of the individual.

There are now “serious tensions” between Christians and secularist society, he says, in which atheists are becoming more “vocal and aggressive”.

(Note: “vocal and aggressive” means we refuse to sit down and shut up like we used to)

Writing in a book on multiculturalism, to be published on Monday, the Cardinal argues that immigrants have a duty to adjust to British life, but expresses concern that they are faced with a culture that is increasingly repressive and intolerant. He says that while the country has become more diverse and pluralistic, the Christian values which have shaped its identity should not be abandoned.

The book, called Faith in the Nation, is published by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), with the backing of the Prime Minister. In it the cardinal says: “Religious belief of any kind tends now to be treated more as a private eccentricity than as the central and formative element in British society that it is.

“Although the tone of public discussion is sceptical or dismissive rather than antireligious, atheism has become more vocal and aggressive.”

Britain’s most senior Catholic leader says that the “unfriendly climate for people of all faiths” has united the country’s three major faiths, Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

(Note: people do tend to congregate in one place on a sinking ship)

However, he claims that Catholicism has borne the brunt of “liberal hostility” in its battles to fight for values it considers to be “fundamental pillars of a rightly ordered society”.

“The vocal minority who argue that religion has no role in modern British society portray Catholic teaching on the family as prejudiced and intolerant to those pursuing alternatives,” he says.

In particular, the cardinal highlights the Church’s opposition to liberal laws on abortion and homosexuality, its defence of faith schools and its support for marriage.

He led the Church’s unsuccessful attempt to block the controversial embryo Bill, which allows for saviour siblings and babies to be born without fathers.

The campaign raised questions over the role of religion in influencing public policy, but the cardinal argues that moves to silence the faith communities must be resisted.

“There is a current dislike of absolutes in any area of human activity, including morality,” he says.

(Note: bullshit, sir. Where are your absolute moralities when it comes to condoning the killing of gays for being gay? Morality has always been conditional, even theists ignore their own moral beliefs when it’s convenient)

“The intolerance of liberal sceptics can be as repressive as the intolerance of religious believers.”

(Note: the old “they’re as bad as us” defense. We are intolerant of superstitions being paraded as reality, of using that type of nonsense to oppress people and deny them their right to life, as the church has done for centuries)

 ”Catholics are not alone in watching with dismay as the liberal society shows signs of degenerating into the libertine society.”

He blames the culture of individual rights, encouraged by the Human Rights Act, as responsible for creating a society that claims to be tolerant, but in fact denies the rights of religious groups to act according to their conscience and beliefs.

“British society champions tolerance and freedom, but that freedom is dependent on responsibility,” he says.

“A simplistic belief that right or wrong is an individualistic construct denies our responsibilities to neighbour and wider society.”

(Note: this person doesn’t even know who he’s talking about. Not all humanists are atheists and not all atheists are humanists. His argument is against humanism which the church rightly sees as an enemy of their power and negative influence in the world)

Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, said: “Secularists and atheists are finding it necessary to express their views more vocally because of the increasing demands made by Christians and minority faiths.

“The position of bishops and the Vatican on moral issues such as abortion and contraception is at odds with the views of poeple in the pews and in the country as a whole. We support the right of everyone to express their religion and their views in public but we have a problem with religion having a privileged place, as it does with bishops in the House of Lords.” (The Telegraph)

Religion demands a privileged position in society, one free of criticism and responsibility for their actions. Society has long granted them an exemption from skepticism, but this is coming to an end. Even this religious leader has to acknowledge that his beliefs are outdated and irrelevant in our modern world.

There is real panic among the rich and powerful religious, the ministers and priests who live off the sweat of their followers. Once religious superstition is seen for what it really is, these guys (and a few gals) will have to find a real job and actually work for a living. That thought is what truly scares them. Their actions give lie to the idea they have any concern at all for humanity.