Just in case anyone is still clinging to the false notion that aggressive Christianity is a non-issue in countries other than the Jesus-soaked USA, consider a recent situation in Japan.
A lesbian couple approached the Tokyo Disneyland to request permission to hold a ceremony to mark their union as a couple. Japan does not allow same-sex marriage, so it could only be an unofficial "wedding". Happily, Tokyo Disney agreed to the request. Chalk one up for Tokyo Disney! However, the couple were barred from exchanging any vows because of "Christian teachings". Wait, what? Christian teachings? Wasn't there a lot of talk recently about how religion for the Japanese, if they had any at all, was some form of vague, spiritual Shintoism? What is that I hear people saying about Japan's enviable secular society? No, it's not. (Cue the "but this is an isolated incident" prevarication).
Warning: Christians, shield your eyes from this terrifying image!
Anyway, after a brief kerfuffle over "an employee's" dictate that the ceremony must have one participant dressed in groom attire and one dressed in bride attire so as not to "offend" park visitors (an outcry on Twitter and other social media brought about a hasty retraction from Disney, thankfully), the theme park seems to have embraced a position of acceptance, setting the stage for future ceremonies so that same-sex couples can celebrate their union there with family and friends. Considering the cultural pressure against it - not to mention the powerful worldwide Christian lobby - my hat is off to Tokyo Disney for doing the right thing.
In the larger Japanese society, however, same-sex marriage continues to be the same thorny subject that it is in the USA:
"There needs to be more pressure for legal unions between gay people in Japan," said Taiga Ishikawa, one of only a handful of openly gay politicians in the country. "This is only a guess, but I'd say there are more people now who are in long-term relationships and want that to be recognized in the form of a civil partnership."
And of course, there are the usual homophobic and hateful tropes raised by prominent public figures equating marriage between two loving human beings to bestiality, pedophilia and general immorality. In this case, a film celebrity:
Commenting on TV on President Barack Obama's recent declaration of support for gay marriages in the US, the film director and comedian Takeshi Kitano told a fellow guest: "Obama supports gay marriage. You would support marriage between humanoid and animals eventually, then," before questioning the ability of gay couples to raise children.
These vicious and hateful slurs questioning the humanity and morality of GLBT people are one of the most repugnant weapons that Christians use in their bigoted campaign to marginalize and oppress. The "slippery slope" trope is particularly ironic coming from a group constantly balancing on the edge of a slimy slope of their own. David Barton, Christian apologist and professional liar demonstrates (If you prefer text, read this transcript of a right-wing radio talk show interview with Barton for an even clearer insight into the way these people think, and to understand what they would gladly do once they have the power to do it):
"I don't care what the Supreme Court says". Yes, that's right. He is saying that Christians are above the law.
Christians are adamant in their "righteous" zeal and open about their intention to force everyone in this country to submit to Biblical law and, in due course, to force every country in the world to convert and/or submit to the brand of Christianity that they are aggressively spreading via the modern Christian "missions" movement. Anderson Cooper's interview (CNN) of a defender of the pastor whose horrific anti-gay rant I linked here underlines just where that slimy slope would dump us.
Bible-based law in action.
Christians want the US Constitution subordinated to or replaced by "Yahweh's Law". They are proud about this - don't forget: they truly believe that they are doing what is best for all of us, even if they have to lie, cheat and trick the rest of us to achieve their goal - and they are actively, tirelessly working to bring it about. This Christian version of sharia would reduce women to the status of domestic animals or chattel, would criminalize inborn human sexual orientations and would demand the death penalty for dozens of offenses which our modern morality recognizes are not only not capital offenses but in many cases are not offenses at all. But true Bible-believers honestly believe that is what God wants for us, though we may not understand and resist. Just as they see indoctrinating children with fear of hell before children are old enough to defend themselves against the often permanent psychological impact, they see it as their job to lead those who disagree with them out of "sin" by forcing their religious belief system on them "for their own good".
So, following the logic of Christian antagonists - who hate and revile GLBT people so much they call for their punishment, persecution and even deaths - we should take a closer look at their proposed "improvements" of current laws; laws agreed upon by elected human beings to whom they already believethey are not answerable. Citizens who value the rule of law which protects our secular society for all citizens need to pay attention to what these Christians say and believe. They believe that their god's law supercedes the rule of civil law - including the Constitution of the United States and the Constitutions of all countries. When pressed on the question of who gets to say what "god's law" actually is, Christians point to the Bible as the final and inerrant authority.
This reality, following the Christians' own logic, begs the question of just where following "Yahweh's Law" will lead us. Conservative Christians have already succeeded in gaining enough power to roll back secular law to deprive women of most of their hard-won reproductive and equal pay rights. Christians have succeeded in denying GLBT people of the right to marry, their right to protection from bullying and a host of other forms of discrimination. Christians have succeeded in circumventing the legal separation of church and state in so many ways that their religion, their calendar and their privileges have become ubiquitous in the culture, and their power continues to grow.
If and when they succeed in changing enough laws that their continued power is assured, what then will stop Christians from imposing every jot and tittle of the Biblical laws upon all people? They already treat women and LGBT people as less than fully human. How soon before they will return us to the Biblical days of stonings for adultery and theft? Forget "training up a child"; the Bible is clear that a rebellious child must be stoned to death. What will stop the Christian majority from imposing these and similarly horrific laws on us?
"I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished." Matthew:5:18 (NIV)
Christians insist that the Bible is literally, unerringly the word of God. Those of us who have been avoiding the issue - telling ourselves that Christians just mean some of the Bible is to be followed to the letter, or only the New Testament or only the "red text" of Jesus' words - need to start paying closer attention. There is no way around the fact that the entire Bible is sacred truth to Christians and, in the New Testament, Jesus himself affirmed that the Mosaic laws must not be discarded.
Any doubts people might have about the determination of Christians to enshrine Biblical "truth" into this culture while they push out secular knowledge which threatens their religious beliefs - or threatens the justification of Biblical foundations for their ascension to authoritarian power - must be dispelled. This belief in absolute Biblical "truth" is the foundation of their efforts to force educators to teach Biblical creationism as science. This determination is the source of their push to deny global climate change. It is the impetus behind their efforts to undermine scientific research, to defund public education and to gut the public social safety net.
The Christian accusations against GLBT people have no foundation in fact, unlike my concerns about the slippery slope from Christian influence on secular laws to a return to the brutality and conservatism of a Bible-based legal structure. There is ample evidence which unequivocally proves that the homophobic Christian hypotheses about the people they hate and fear are false, while there is no evidence that Christians would not persecute non-Christians, LGBTs and women should they gain enough power to do so, and plenty of evidence that they have begun to do exactly that. Indeed, we have a long history that shows just how viciously oppressive, immoral and evil unfettered Christian power can be.
Here is the true slippery slope: If Christians manage to impose any more "Bible-based" law onto the citizens of the United States (and in Canada, and in the UK, and in continental Europe, and in Australia, and in ...), it will only be a matter of time before women lose what remaining human rights they have not yet lost to religious conservatism (including the right to vote), children will be abused and even killed if they do not conform to Biblical strictures, and our dreams of a secular, free and open society of peaceful coexistence will be shattered for generations to come.
It has happened before. I hope we are wise enough to recognise that it could happen again, if we do not take steps to defend our freedom from religion.
A refreshing dose of rationality on a Thorsday morning. Sit back and enjoy, "Anti-Science", another excellent rap created by the inimitable Tombstone Da Deadman.
Watch it! This song will stay in your head all day!
We are having a very dry spring here, after an extremely dry and mild winter. I noticed the other day that the pine tree in our yard is showing signs of stress, it's needles faded and slightly rusty looking. Today I saw that the grass in the local parks is dry and yellow like the end of July in a hot summer! Our spring flowers were forced out too early by the unseasonable heat in March and their colors faded within days - sometimes hours - of first blooming. When I was planting some summer annuals this weekend, the earth in some places was so dry it collapsed like gravely sand. I've never seen anything like it here before.
I hope we get rain soon and plenty of it!
Anyway, all of this dryness and wonky weather made me long for spring showers, the soft caress of cool damp fog on the cheeks and the sweet, clean fresh air heavy with the fragrance of lilacs after a late spring rain. I am longing for deep, bright colors and cool refreshing damp air. And I know just the place to find that!
(via Newfoundland on facebook)
Some houses are wide. Some houses are thin. Some are so thin you can hardly get in.
But wherever you go, you will hear someone say, "Come over to my house. Come over and play!"
Come over to my house. The fishing is great! They bite all the time and you don't have to wait.
Come over some day and bring plenty of bait.
You can play on my roof, but my house is so tall, it's a long way downstairs to go after a ball.
My house is bright pink and it's happy and gay. Our streets are wet water. We like it that way.
Every house in the world has a ceiling and floor. But the ones you'll like best have a wide-open door.
Some houses are rich full of silver and gold. And some are quite poor, sort of empty and old.
Some houses are marble and some are just tin. But they're all, all alike when a friend asks you in.
There are so many houses you'll meet on your way. And wherever you go, you will hear someone say . . . "Come over to my house! Come over and play!" From Come Over to My House, Theo.LeSieg (Theo. Geisel)
And, just for good measure - one last dose of color and glory - and an iceberg!
You're welcome!
On NPR this morning, an interview with Amber Cooper - a wife, mother, worker and liver transplant recipient - reminded me to get cracking on a healthcare series.
Amber Cooper had a successful liver transplant when she was ten years old. She grew up, married, had a child, bought a house and holds down a job. She is a great success story for liver transplantation. She is a great success story full stop.
Life-preserving drugs for transplant patients, as well as for heart disease and other chronic life-threatening conditions cost hundreds, even thousands, per month.
Ms. Cooper requires expensive medications every day of her life to prevent her body from rejecting the transplanted organ that keeps her alive. Because of her pre-existing condition, health insurance was always going to be a challenge, but Amber had insurance prescription coverage with her employer - until recently.
At an all-employee meeting, Amber learned that her company was changing their health insurance coverage and the new "coverage" would not cover any of her most urgent healthcare needs. You can read or listen to the story.
This story is only one of thousands of stories of Americans who literally face life or death decisions every day because they have no access to affordable healthcare services. Millions of other Americans have no or not enough coverage, and their stories will join these sooner or later. The richest country in the world has made a huge business out of health, life and death. And Republicans fight tooth and nail to preserve it.
I think it is time that people honestly ask themselves: is this morally defensible?
A group called Physicians For a National Health Program put up an excellent webpage with questions and answers that people might have about the relative merits of a single-payer healthcare system compared to the current for-profit system. While I do not agree with everything they have written (more in future posts), overall this page is an excellent source of information to help people form clear and concise responses to the common concerns that many people have about socialized healthcare.
I will end this brief post with one quote from the site linked above, which is, I think, the fundamental reality of our situation in the USA:
"Q. Won’t this result in rationing like in Canada? A. The U.S. already rations care. Rationing in U.S. health care is based on income: if you can afford care, you get it; if you can’t, you don’t. A recent study found that 45,000 Americans die every year because they don’t have health insurance. Many more skip treatments that their insurance company refuses to cover. That’s rationing. Other countries do not ration in this way." PNHP FAQs.
"If you can afford care, you get it; if you can't, you don't." Words to ponder.
In a just society, should decent healthcare be a privilege reserved for the wealthy?
The YouTube version of this has been cut to remove the damning evidence of Christian hatred, illegal political influence and the most fetid and revolting inhuman bigotry. Obviously, someone from their ranks wanted to erase the evidence which shows the depth of their bigotry. Luckily, Left Hemispheres posted this uncut version.
This pastor openly tells his congregation of his awesome "solution" to the "problem" of homosexuality - herd lesbians into an enclosure surrounded by an electric fence, and herd the "queers" into another fenced enclosure. And "in a few years, they'll die.'
"I figured a way out — a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers. But I couldn’t get it passed through Congress. Build a great big large fence, 150 or 100 miles long. Put all the lesbians in there. Fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals. Have that fence electrified so they can’t get out. Feed ‘em, and– And you know what? In a few years they’ll die out. You know why? They can’t reproduce." Pastor Charles Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, NC.
Voices shout "Amen!"
He polishes off his remarks by asking his audience to imagine a same-sex kiss - which "about makes him puke" don't you know. The poor guy! Don't make him imagine it! The horror!
There is so much real horror in this video, I hardly know where to start. Is it the homophobia? The hatred of gays and lesbians - even to sharing a plan for their extermination? Is it the blatant violation of church and state as he tells the congregation how to vote? It's a toss up right now what is the worst part in the video. But what is truly the worst part about this window into the bloodthirsty wishes of people like this is the reality that this is not a minority view in the Christian church in the USA right now. This is happening right now all over the country. If these people manage to gain any more power, they really will use it to harm other people - starting with gays and lesbians and anyone else who does not conform to the narrow gender roles that are acceptable to Christians.
It's the weekend, People, and I have a yard to whip into shape!
Nevertheless, I am nothing if not a font of inspirational material for my readers. Take a five minute break from your Sunday leisure - or if you are a productive person like Yours Truly, from your Sunday achievements - and listen to Neil DeGrasse Tyson's rousing words in defense of NASA research.
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