Freedom From Religion

From Good As You:

I mean just the other day this was chatting with this Jewish friend of mine who keeps kosher, and he was all like, ” Ya know, my religious beliefs tell me that consuming pork is not in my best interest, so I think I’m gonna take that belief to the public, church/state separated realm of governance and try and get pork banned for all.” After grabbing a hot dog, I then trekked down to visit my Muslin chum, who told me about this new “one woman, one head cover” bill he’s hoping to have enforced on people of all faiths. After briefly imagining the career death of virtually every female celebrity under 30, I continued to my Scientologist pal’s mansion, where he told me to stop being “glib” and start helping him ban psychiatric medicine and drugs in this country. Weirded out, I finally swung by my Atheist friend’s home, where she eagerly told me about her “One nation under self-replicating molecules” changes she was proposing for this nation’s pledge of allegiance.
It was only after visiting all of these folks that I finally realized, “Hey, why let the facts that there are many different beliefs and that we, as Americans, have the right to subscribe to any or none of them stop each of us from pushing our own versions of moral fitness onto the public at large?” My world view has been changed at the hand of extremist religious conviction!

Continue ReadingFreedom From Religion

Prize for killing gay people

Via Good As You:

Just a month before the 2006 WorldPride Parade is scheduled to be held in Jerusalem (Aug. 6-12), protest flyers are reportedly being distributed to residents of the capital city offering a cash reward to “anyone who brings about the death of one of the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

I haven’t always been a fan of our local pride celebrations, and I need to stop taking them for granted.

The anonymous letter also suggests using Molotov cocktails against marchers and adds instructions as to how to make them at home. The explosives are nicknamed “Shliesel Special”, in honor of the Haredi protester who disrupted the Jerusalem Pride Parade last year by stabbing three marchers.

Continue ReadingPrize for killing gay people

Cross-dresser doused with gasoline

Cross-dresser doused with gasoline” is a headline in today’s IndyStar.

Alternative headline in UPI: Woman douses cross-dresser with gasoline

INDIANAPOLIS, July 5 (UPI) — An Indianapolis woman was held without bond Wednesday after she allegedly doused a cross-dressing man with gasoline and threatened to set him on fire.

Jacqueline Dejournett, 42, faced initial charges of battery and criminal recklessness, the Indianapolis Star reported.

Dejournett was arguing with Cece Miller, 38, at a gas station Tuesday night, police said. She filled a plastic jug with gasoline and doused Miller with the fuel while threatening to light him on fire. Miller was dressed in women’s clothes, police said.

Dejournett also went inside the gas station’s payment office and poured gasoline onto a rug and a candy display, police said.

A station clerk locked Dejournett in the office until police arrived.

That’s the kind of headline that makes my heart stop. Fortunately, it didn’t have a tragic outcome. And the story itself seemed to have little to do with the person in question being a cross-dresser, so I wonder why it made a headline, other than the sensationalism of the idea of a person wearing the clothing of a different sex than their own.

I wonder if we’ll look back at news items like this with incredulousness 100 years from now — they way do today when reading news items from the recent past, regarding black people and women, that contained casually racist and sexist statements.

Continue ReadingCross-dresser doused with gasoline