Excuse me, WTF did Bill Maher tweet?

I don’t even know where to begin with this one because between smacking a bitch up and the genocidal nature things are taking in Gaza, I’m at a loss.

Dealing w/ Hamas is like dealing w/ a crazy woman who's trying to kill u - u can only hold her wrists so long before you have to slap her
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) https://twitter.com/billmaher/statuses/489930991956262913">July 18, 2014

There is a kind of beauty to this kind of flippant sexism. Like, of course, you have to hit “crazy” women, which is a great insult to Gaza because who wants to be a woman? Iamiright? Aside, a dude who restrains both of my hands without permission is going to be kicked in the balls. Just sayin’.

Bill Maher’s Twitter’s account had this posted at the end of last week. As everyone, even Rebecca Rose at Jezebel—where I originally read this—understands Maher gets to have his own opinions has radically anti-Muslim as they maybe. Obviously, I disagree with Maher’s opinion on Gaza, mostly because we have fundamentally different perspectives on religion. See I think religion is fine as long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of others. Maher believes all religion is detrimental however, Judaism appears to be the least bad while Islam the worst. In this respect Maher follows in the long list of anti-Muslim atheists, which as an atheist I can tell you they are our shame.

Personally, I love the way Maher has conflated two seriously different situations (while both serious, no hierarchy here) as an attempt to make violence funny. As we have learned from the great rape joke controversy of our time, jokes about unbelievable violence are only funny when you are making fun of the perpetrators of violence. What is happening in Gaza isn’t funny. The massive number of women in violent situations is not funny. Put these things together and you get really not funny. Of course, there is some man out there just waiting to mansplain humor to me, as if I’m not the funniest person you know. Save it son; the adults are talking.  

As I said last week, I’m tired of crazy being used as an insult to dismiss women and discount anything they have to say. I’m also real tired of the US and the United Nations doing nothing about Gaza. We’re watching pre-genocidal actions, and that is being kind. Five hundred Palestinians have been killed as of Monday. That is about one percent of the estimated population of Gaza, a lot of them children, and it has been about a week. Israel is bombing hospitals and killing children; this is their strategy. They want Palestinians to flee and essentially give up Gaza. That is what Israel wants. We need to be talking about that. We need to talk about how Israeli’s have gone on record as saying kill all the Palestinians.

Of course, the white, hetero, cis dude of the Bat-Signal went up because who know who is struggling here: Bill Maher. The struggle is real guys, and Maher has to be Maher every fucking day. I can just not watch his show.

Feminist Atheist Killjoy

So I was in wonder of Dylan Byers’ stupidity on Tuesday when a post caught my eye about school prayer. Now I know my stance is that generally speaking atheists give zero fucks about what other people do with the provision that other people’s religions don’t infringe on the rights of others. However, I do have issues with school prayer, and not just as an atheist but there are complex issues to consider before we go along with the moment of contemplation.

Regardless, Travis Gettys wrote about the whole thing for Raw Story. South Carolina (the less of the Carolinas) legislatures have come up with something they are calling a compromise, but I’d go with waste of the legislature’s time, to fix the unconstitutional bill that requires teachers to lead prayer in public school. What the what? Sorry, I guess South Carolina found an even better way to waste the legislature’s time. Seven Democrats and three Republican co-sponsors introduced the measure to bring the bill in line with the Supreme Court rulings because well, yeah mandatory school prayer is unconstitutional. Our elected leaders, ladies and gentlemen.

The revised bill calls for a moment of contemplation, reflection, or prayer, which makes this bill redundant because South Carolina has mandated moments of silence in public schools starting in 1995. Because of course. Let’s read what the legislators are saying about the bill:

“The compromise would be to have the students to pray to whomever they want to. If they want to do away with teachers conducting the prayer, that would be fine with us. The essential part of the bill, the important part, is putting prayer back in school,” state Rep. Wendell Gilliard (D-Charleston).

“Even the atheists, it gives them the option of praying or not praying without anybody interfering,” Rep. Joseph Jefferson (D-Berkley).  [ßThis guy, atheists don’t pray.]

“Some of the folks say they never saw where prayer killed anyone in school but they saw what weapons did. We’re big on religious principles here. We pray in the General Assembly. We do it every session. What makes the General Assembly different from the school?" says Williams, who has a nice 67% grade from the NRA.

 Some of the Democrats in support of the bill are hiding behind, the my constituents want it line, which is probably bullshit because there is always at least one who wants something and one who doesn’t. Of course the ACLU is on it. They correctly point out that the state isn’t religiously homogeneous.

Seriously though, Williams is my favorite argument because didn’t a kid in Minnesota kill himself after being bully for being gay and then the bullies claimed religious freedom as Christians to protect themselves from a lawsuit? Additionally, I bet it was computers, computers kill students because they happen to have coming into schools during the rise in school shootings. Or, NAFTA, I bet it was NAFTA. Idiot.

The issue of course isn’t being conscribed into praying to a god you don’t believe in. I did it for years, and nothing came of it, except some interesting variations on the “Our Father.” The issue is students being singled out for different beliefs than those in power and by extension their connection to that power structure. Students who opt out, who would rather spend this time reading, or studying, will be singled out as different. And what about the class time it wastes that could be used for I don’t know actual education? Will a student who refuses to sit or sat in silence and instead reads, will that student be treated as a disruption?

I went to Catholic school complete with the ugly skirts and vests that may have been made we fabric that mixed polyester and burlap. So itchy. I wasn’t ever baptized (so my sisters and I are not part of the Catholic faith, that is to say we never left the faith, we just never belonged, more like witnesses to others) just the local public school’s roof fell in and my parents opted for the safer alternative. In Catholic school a lack of participation in faith matters way more than mouthing the words to prayers because of the sacraments. J and I did a teacher called Ms. Z, and this woman believed we were going to hell, our parents, possibly anyone I made eye contact with between birth and age seven. She actually said when our class was preparing for reconciliation that people who can’t ask for forgiveness through confession go to hell, which was frightening to seven year old me. J and I had to respond to this question for the next six years, “Are you really going to hell?” My crush asked me that in the third grade; I’ll never forget it.

I think it may have been the first time I had a cognitive thought about people staying and socializing exclusively within the categories they were prescribed…not in those terms of course. But this is something I wrestle with even now. Also, I think Ms. Z was the first person I associated with a person in power using her power, and acting on behalf of an institution, to bully those without power, and her belief that she was doing the right thing, which, and I don’t want to speak for J, provided me with all I needed to become the nonconformist I am today. Of course, we attended their school because we wanted the opportunities associated with a private education including potential access to college, and I know I’ve mentioned it before, kids who grew up where I did don’t always have the option of college.

I know people complain about the emotional damage from childhood, and I think we’re all better people for surviving it because almost everyone goes through it usually on both sides. But outside of zealots with some racism thrown in (Jesus, not a white guy, probably a brown Jew), things could have been so much worse. I can’t imagine what school would have been like if I were even more different from my peers. Or in a situation where I didn’t have a sister riding it out with me. The assertion that students can just remain silent assumes that those silent are atheists, so what about the kids of other faiths? Asking kids who don’t believe in the dominate religion to stay silent or pretend for the benefit of a tyrannical majority is damaging to those silenced students. Prayer doesn’t have a place in schools. If students want to do it on their own time with their own money, then so be it, but otherwise it is a violation of the separation of church and state. Someone want to complain about how Christians are being persecuted and their rights being violated? No, good because they aren’t.

The big secret

I'm going to blow some minds with this post. I'm going to share some big old secret; most atheists give zero fucks about your faith unless it infringes on their rights of others. Sure Dawkins has some zealot follows who replaced faith in god with faith in him, and they suck, hard, but most of us *shoulder shrug*. I participated in a study last year, where the researcher was studying atheists, and his questions framed atheism as a faith, but it isn't at least not for me or any I know. It is a lack of faith, which is probably what freaks believers out, but again zero fucks.

Thus I don't care about what people tell themselves to make themselves happy in their marriages. I don't care. God gives you strength to work through problems because marriage is a partnership (or the more traditional view as a medium of the patriarchy), thumbs up (on the first one). You'll be excommunicated if you divorce so better work this shit out, less good, but ok. Or maybe you weigh the cost benefit analysis of marriage for you and your partner and decided yeah, this partnership should be legally binding because I can't think of anyone else I'd rather be legally bound to indefinitely, and you've finally worked through your commitment issues, good for you (and you know who you are). The only time I care about your marriage is if someone is being abused; you, spouse, kids, dog, I care about violence because people need help to leave bad situations.

Where religion and I come to blows is when it starts getting in the way of rights, which neither of the posts I'm going to talk about do. However, the later makes some allegations and assertions that I do want to address, specifically, reason is important when entering a marriage because it is a legally binding contract and to pretend different is irresponsible.

People who read this blog, are familiar with my views on marriage. I think the state should issue a legally binding contract (like a civil union) and then religious marriages should be sought through your place of faith. Because again, your faith has no business in my life. Likewise, my lack of faith is leaving your marriage alone, but the state is also being removed. Win-win-win. I also believe people should put a lot of thought into their marriages, and not only marriages, but living together as well (as society’s practice marriage). If you can’t or haven’t had hard discussions about children, finances, and life goals, maybe marriage isn’t in the cards for this partnership. Also, yeah it is a partnership, and however works for you and your partner, who am I to say what that should look like. I also get a little iffy when people proclaim how in love they are, but they have put little thought into an indefinite legally binding contract.

So the first post, “Marriage isn’t for you,” by Seth Adam Smith is harmless. It is all about how marriage should be about the other person. While I have some objections to this idea because the marriage I want to emulate, that of my parents is a partnership, and no one can live a selfless life all the time, which is what Smith is inadvertently arguing. There really isn’t anything wrong with aiming to make the person you love happy. Though there are dangers to being completely self-sacrificing especially if things don’t work out the way you plan, but hey I’m the pragmatic kind of person who believes in separate savings accounts.

It was the second post that got me wondering about the aims of the first post because this second author is convinced the secular people are waging war on the author of the first, and honestly with Christmas coming up, I’m not sure when we’ll have the time. Sarcasm aside, I went back and read the first post a second time, and while trite still nothing to worry about. The second post however, “Our society doesn’t know anything about marriage,” on the Matt Walsh Blog got my attention when it cited the Blaze as evidence of the secular hate for religious marriage, but see above zero fucks. This post argues that his version of traditional marriage is the way to go, and he makes some assertions about liberals, feminists, and secular life that 1. aren’t backed up by evidence, and 2. are really limiting and reading into the original post.  Let’s start with the second, Smith’s post says nothing about gendered service (or explicitly about marriage as a sacrament or between a man and woman) sure some is implied, but at no point does Smith state anything controversial.

Well, what do we know about secular marriage? Generally it is perceived to be more egalitarian, though atheism has its own problems with sexism (I’m looking at you Dawkins). But we also know based on new research, that atheist have longer marriages and lower divorce rates (as do Catholics and Lutherans) as compared to Jews, Baptists, and the non-denominational. So what does that say about the changing views of marriage? Maybe people who look at marriage as a contract are onto something?

I’ve been having this conversation with my sister M about marriage. She liked both posts, but I don’t think she believes secularism somehow is responsible for the change in views on marriage. However, she does subscribe to an either or perspective. I’m not quite clear on it. I have questions out about how looking at marriage as a contract that people think through and weigh the benefits is in contrast with “for better or for worse.”

I want to discuss two more things: one the actual motives of the second post and the changes in cultural interpretations of marriage.

First, I think we can take a lot away from this conclusion:

“People enter marriage like mercenaries. They aren’t spouses—they’re scalpers. They give only when they get, and the amount they give will be directly proportioned to the amount they receive. They are calculating and immature. They thing their ‘feelings’ are what should guide their union. They drift with the breeze until the breeze no longer carries them. They think of love as a train you buy tickets for and then ride as far as the track will take you. They don’t realize that love is a choice and we must CHOOSE it every day until we die. Sometimes we have to choose it in spite of ourselves and our feelings.

“That’s the message about marriage that isn’t popular, and because it isn’t popular it must be shouted all the louder. I say these things not because I think I am an example of how to perfectly implement them, but because they are true. Simple as that.

“Our culture is poison to marriage. Our culture is poison in general. Every day brings us more evidence of this fact.”

All the things. First, let me say as someone with a reluctance to act on emotions this really spoke to me for all the wrong reasons. I rarely respond with my first emotional response instead I wait and think things through: how will this response impact the person I’m speaking with? Do they need support or do they need a pragmatic look? Would this enhance the other person’s situation or just my own? When I do fly off, I feel terrible, always. Thus I am all about picking the emotion to act on at the appropriate time to prevent as much scarring of other people. The author talks about feelings and not acting on them, while doubling back to stress the importance of acting on this one emotion. That’s fine, I’m just being picky about language, and oh the flowery language. That said, this was written by someone of privilege, which you can tell because he is talking about more than ourselves and our feelings. A friend of mine has been in a violent marriage, she is out now, but I have no trouble telling her to dissolve her marriage. By pushing marriage as something that isn’t supposed to be about you at all sets up unhealthy situations. Marriages should be partnerships between two responsible people, and that is what is lost, though maybe it was never there.

Oh that last line...oh dear. I agree that our culture is poisoning us. Specifically, the emphasis on the individual at the expense of the collective is creating vast inequality and inequity. Oh, was that not what you were going for? Perhaps he’s thinking about how society is held hostage by the elite few to gut food stamps and prevent programs that could help millions? No, still, no? Maybe he’s thinking about voter suppression, poverty wages, the rise of corporations at the expense of people, the Texas drive through death penalty? Nope, nope, nope. Damn, well he mentions marriage so he must be referring to the TANF push for welfare recipients to marry for the sake of raising out of poverty, which simultaneously devalues marriage, put some people in real danger bound to violent partners, and is economically ineffective because of the before mentioned poverty wages? I certainly hope this is what he’s referring to and not something silly like gay marriage, atheism, or people freely choosing divorce as the right choice for themselves.