Previously I wrote about how it’s incorrect to say that you respect women if that respect is contingent on their dressing and behaving according to your notions of modesty. It’s also incorrect to say that you respect people while maintaining that for them to have children is “child abuse”: Francis […]
Read MoreForward Thinking: What Would You Tell Teenagers About Sex?
Libby Anne and Dan Finke at Patheos have started a project called Forward Thinking, which is a series of questions they put to bloggers to encourage them to think productively. The replies to these questions are then rounded up and a new prompt posted. This will be my first crack […]
Read MoreI must have missed that part of PCU…
Yesterday in my hometown, a man received seventeen life sentences for the repeated rape of two minor girls, some of which occurred while they were as young as 11 and 12 years old, respectively. Complicit in these rapes was the girls’ mother– actually no, she was far more than complicit. […]
Read MoreMarching, not racing
Item #3, “Make you like us,” conspicuously absent. So the Supreme Court has some consideration of gay marriage coming up, in two different forms. First there are a number of cases involving the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which may be added to the docket, which specifically […]
Read MoreProcotting
I can’t seem to find a word that denotes a deliberate decision to patronize a business in response to a boycott by others, so I’m going to say I’m procotting Home Depot. Here’s why: The American Family Association has announced yet another boycott, or perhaps a continuation of an already […]
Read MoreI would recommend….
…buying stand-up comedian Tig Notaro’s set off fellow comedian Louis CK’s web site. But before you listen to it, I would really recommend listening to listening to the Professor Blastoff podcast. In general, but especially since episode 63. Here’s the iTunes link. Hat tip to Kara, who pointed me in […]
Read MoreThe only football player I care about
He’s also nearly the only football player I could name, but only nearly. Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe writes again in response to another banal, thoughtless anti-gay marriage diatribe, and his essay is just superb. The diatribe in this case was written by his former team member Ravens center Matt […]
Read MoreMemo to Tony Perkins
You do not get to operate a hate group without being called a hate group. Sorry. Yes, when your group says that homosexuals are “destructive to society” and should be “exported from the U.S.,” it’s a hate group. When it says that we should return to having criminal sanctions for […]
Read MorePriorities
A couple of months ago I wrote about different categories I fit in, ideologically and politically. I was tempted to expand on it earlier this month when PZ Myers wrote a post asking people what kind of atheist they are– scientific, philosophical, political, or humanist. I understood what he was […]
Read MoreEqual opportunity flirt-slaying
I received an email this morning from Change.org: “Yeah, I killed him, but he did worse to me.” In 1997, a man in Queensland, Australia killed a gay man who he claimed flirted with him by bashing his head into a wall and stabbing him to death. Today, “gay panic” is still […]
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