Saturday, August 22, 2009

Laurie Higgins Wants Parents to Know a HS Math Teacher is an Atheist

A call to arms for the godless, for the sake of our CHILDREN!

Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute Sends an Open Letter to the Friendly Atheist - Repost of my comment on Hemant’s blog:

This makes my blood boil. Who the hell does this woman think she is? Christian busybodies injecting their views into educational settings BY COMPLAINING about things their small minds find “offensive” is a reprehensible tactic that’s proven effective more often than not.

The reason the so-called “New Atheist” movement is an absolute necessity (like yesterday), is because these fundamentalist crybabies like Laurie Higgins have enjoyed 30 years of empire-building in the media, accomodation, appeasement and outright, illegal government endorsement allowing them to manipulate public policy in their favor. They insist on their First Amendment rights while seeking to restrain everyone else’s. They’re out of control and it’s long past time to remind them of their place. In church and homeschooling, if they’re so determined to raise generations of Jesus-bots devoid of intellectual curiosity.

With the sorry state of affairs in American education – in large part due to the dumbing down of our curriculum in order to not piss off Christians – I’m thrilled to have good teachers out there, and what they say or do outside the classroom is none of my concern.

These bullshit “Family” organizations are an obstacle to our kids’ education and a threat to the First Amendment liberties of every citizen. I consider this attack upon the Friendly Atheist (a teacher, no less!) yet another call to arms for all the rest of us, from closeted to militant. Ladies and gentlemen get those arms in (ergonomically correct typing) position and fire at will. No quarter given.
BUY HEMANT’S BOOK “I SOLD MY SOUL ON EBAY”

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Proposition 85: Vote NO, Californians!

The issue of teen pregnancy is one that I am, and always have been, quite passionate about. It started all the way back in 1970, when a relative of mine got pregnant at 15, and delivered her son just after she turned 16.  I was only 8 at the time, but the incident and its consequences were burned into my memory.  My relative was kicked out of high school, and lost not only her freedom to simply be a teenager, but it seemed to me that the friends she’d had previously were suddenly no longer allowed to hang out with her.  I don’t know if that was because their parents didn’t want them associating with the “bad girl” or if they stopped coming around of their own volition, but either way my relative’s life was irreversibly altered and she went from being a carefree teenager enjoying high school to a teenaged mother and a social pariah in the smallish town we lived in.  I swore that would NEVER happen to me, and the memory of that incident played a large part in my not having sex until after I was out of high school.  To this day, I consider it my moral duty to impress upon the teenagers within my sphere of influence that engaging in sex at such a young age is best avoided altogether, and that having a baby before finishing high school is a sure way to sabotage any decent future a girl, or her baby, might hope to have.

Not only have I been a teenager, I am the mother of one (and we actually TALK), which naturally puts me in the role of “pseudo-mom” to her friends.  And although I’m fairly confident that the parents of her closest friends are similarly honest and enjoy good relationships with their girls, I can’t imagine how awful it would be to see one of these kids (whom I’ve known all their lives) have to go through the process of getting a waiver if she for whatever reason couldn’t, or didn’t want to, tell her parents she wanted to have an abortion. I cannot imagine that I, the very person with whom the parents have for years entrusted their child’s safety and well-being, would become a criminal for answering a plea for help (even if it’s nothing more than a ride) from one of these girls who are as dear to me as my own daughter.

Proposition 85 is nothing more than shit law intended to chip away at the right of women to decide whether and when they will become mothers, cloaked in the rhetoric of “keeping children safe.” It does nothing of the kind, and in fact endangers those girls whose families are already so fucked up that they feel they can’t talk to their parents about a pregnancy. What really keeps kids safe is their having adults they can count on and confide in. In an ideal world their parents would fulfill that role, but here in the REAL world that’s not an option for many kids… so they have to be able to find other adults they can trust to advise them and act in their best interests in parental fashion, and the State should butt the fuck OUT!

I’m hopeful that Californians will once again reject this latest Parental Notification law, just like they did last year’s version, Prop. 73.  In the unlikely event Prop. 85 does pass, however, I suppose I’ll end up either spending some time on the phone and in court, or perhaps even doing time should I be called upon to skirt the law in an emergency situation.

* sigh *

(posted in response to CityMama’s call to action)

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Why Be Born Again When You Can Just Grow Up?

While wandering the web I came across this interesting post, with links to recent studies and data, posing the question:  Is Christian Morality Harmonious?

Can there be a harmonious Christian society? Even the United States can hardly be called harmonious, at least compared to the average. There is a certain level of disharmony to be expected, by virtue of human nature. So the question becomes - does Christianity improve on this, or regress ? Christians would say the former, but the data shows the latter.

I know I’ve ranted about my take on Francois’ next bits… like here

Now let’s look at the issue from the perspective of moral development. As I’ve proven before, Christianity is an order-based morality - a morality adapted for babies and little children - imposed on adults. So you necessarily have a tension there. What you get, is a society full of repressed children, grown adults who hoot and holler at sexuality and bodily functions as if they were schoolchildren, like a lot of Americans. People who are morally retarded in this fashion cannot truly appreciate the finer things of life. This tension results in the fight against alternative lifestyles, alternative worldviews, censorship, and the breakdown of responsibility and civility (for example, people dealing with each other by lawsuits and public recrimination).

What’s more, such moral retards often pose a DANGER to themselves and to the rest of us due to their ignorance and/or shame about their own bodies.  The pervasiveness of this attitude that everything between your navel and your knees is something secret and shameful often makes it quite difficult for many people with conditions like Crohn’s Disease to seek treatment until they’re in rather dire straits.  After all, one’s bowel habits or butt pains aren’t to be discussed… that’s dirty! 

The second tension is between order-based morality and natural morality. As adults, Christians still have the brain development, the instincts, the desires that all adults have. But on the other hand, their order-based morality directly contradicts all of these elements, in fact attacks these elements as being of “the world”, “anti-Christian”.and “sinful”. So we end up with a situation where people are conflicted and feel tremendous guilt about their own mind and their own actions. This is not the recipe for a healthy society, but rather the recipe for an oppressive society. We see the results of this tension in high teen pregnancy, high rates of adultery and divorce, high rates of obesity and preponderence of violent crimes born out of insecurity and frustration.

And I wonder how many of today’s “good Christians” caught something nasty during their coked-up days in the 80s or 90s before they got hooked on Jesus, and think they’re safe now because their naughty bits haven’t seen the light of day (never mind any thorough self- or outside exams) for such a long, long time… their shameful behavior is forgiven, being from their “old” life and all… until they give it to their new spouse?

How the hell are we supposed to not be “of the world” when this is where we friggin’ LIVE?  Disconnecting from reality is NOT the way to go… educating people to deal with today’s realities IS.  That includes the children—because otherwise they’ll be freakin’ children FOREVER.  We all have to grow up, which really sucks ass most of the time.

The third moral tension is between Christianity in general and Western civilization. This civilization of ours, regardless of its many faults, was founded on the tearing-down of authority, on the progress brought about by reason and science, on trade and material progress, on the freedom of being (through “human rights"), belief and lifestyle. Although we may have strayed from these ideals in the past century, we can still identify living Western values, such as material gain, romantic love and sexuality, equality, tolerance and respect, the importance of life – as well as our most noble and venerable institutions – the discovery and application of scientific principles, peaceful trading and commercialism, as well as acting and being judged based on one’s values.

[all emphasis mine]

We’ve been straying farther from those ideals in the past 25 years than I’m comfortable with, and it’s no coincidence that in that same 25 years the fundie Christians have been finding more and more devious ways to subject all Americans to their order-based morality with the support of government.  Why wouldn’t the sort of people who make up our government be on board with that?  What could be better than ruling over a nation of children… ignorant, fearful and easily led?  Big Brother, Heavenly Father… someone to save them from the demons and monsters… it’s all good.

We rational people, the actual grown-ups, know who the real monsters are.  They are those who warp children’s minds with tales of vengeful gods, heavenly rewards; with myths and lies about sex, drugs, people unlike themeselves in whatever way and the realities of everyday life in our own country and the world over.  They are those who aim to create a world FULL of children by limiting what we learn, know and speak of to those things appropriate only for children.

Children who giggle and snicker and blush when discussing anything that happens below the waist.

Saturday, December 06, 2003

Just in case it gets deleted from the board it’s posted on…

The trouble with sex education

The primary problem with what’s been called “sex ed” throughout American history is that we have trouble speaking plainly. I hear people saying that “we tell them too much,” but IMO not only don’t we tell them enough, but what little we can bring ourselves to talk about is more allusion and circumlocution than straight-up facts and clinical terms.

Until we (and I’m speaking of us as a culture) grow up and get over our adolescent attitude and puritan shame about sex and start treating our reproductive systems with the same respect as we have for the rest of our body, people will get in trouble, get sick and die because they’re either ignorant, in denial or ashamed.

The only guarantees come with abstinence. Period. However, here in real life teenagers (and adults) do not always abstain. So they need to be educated in what ELSE will minimize the risks. Those options include condoms and safer sex, which offers a RANGE of activities that keep everyone safe *and* happy.  Not only are few people willing to come forth and present those options in a straightforward manner, but those who do are shouted down and vilified for “encouraging licentious behavior.”

Joycelyn Elder had the right idea, and for daring to suggest teaching our kids about ONE *very* common safe sex practice, she was branded a heretic and kicked out of her job. How ridiculous!

We’ve made some progress since my grandmother’s day, but we’ve got a LONG way to go. We’re doomed until we are allowed to educate people - all of their lives - in the proper care for the health of their “naughty bits” (euphemisms are the American Way!) with the same level of maturity, honesty and plain speech we offer about caring for their lungs, hearts, kidneys and teeth. People have sex, that’s a fact. They need to know when, why and HOW to do it to keep themselves healthy, without making everything about it seem shameful.

Our Attorney General felt Lady Justice was immodest… that’s a *really* bad sign for the future of sex ed in America.