Put on Your Kid Gloves

The city of Rancho Cucamonga had the "Imagine No Religion" billboard taken down. The billboard was put up by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

I am so sick of this country treating those who are brainwashed by religion with kid gloves. It seems that every time that they are offended and complain everyone scrambles to make them happy because they are afraid of a lawsuit. This kind of special treatment needs to end. There are thousands of people in this country that aren't religious and we deserve to have our ideas heard and to not have our freedom of speech squashed because religious people don't approve. I have seen numerous billboards that were put up by churches advocating their particular brand of religion These billboards don't offended me, they have every right to put of their billboards. Most of the time I get a good chuckle by reading them, or some blog fuel if they are particularly zany.

I am Being Persecuted! *grin*

I just received an AFA action alert about the Michigan Senate hate crimes bill. Which increases the punishment by 50% if it is found that a person committed a crime against someone based on any of the following: (a) Disability. (b) Gender, gender identity, or expression of gender.(c) National origin or ancestry.(d) Race, color, or ethnicity.(e) Religion.(f) Sexual orientation.(g) Veterans. The AFA is claiming that if this bill passes it will suppress their religious free speech rights. I have read the bill a few times and this bill only applies to people who have committed a crime it says nothing about prosecuting people for protesting or speaking out agaist groups that they don't like. So, unless they are planning on committing crimes against gays rather than just talk about how immoral and awful they are not going to be prosecuted under this bill.

The AFA's outrage over this bill is nothing more than them claiming persecution when there really isn't any. This annoying persecution complex is fueled, in part, by the fact that their "holy" book claims that there will be more rewards in heaven for those that persevere through the persecution that they will encounter. Christians need to open up their eyes and look around they are not being persecuted! They enjoy many more freedoms than any other religion in America. What other religion has their dusty book in just about every hotel room? What other religion has their god mentioned on the currency and in the pledge? No one is stopping you from going to church any time you want. You can go door-to-door witnessing without fear of getting arrested. Your Church even gets to claim tax-exemption. I fail to see how you are being persecuted in any way shape or form, but feel free to comment on this post if you feel that you are persecuted.

Atheist Blogroll

I added the Atheist Blogroll to my sidebar. Through this blogroll I am discovering new blogs and hope to expand my reading list.

The blogroll is maintained by Mojoey at Deep Thoughts.

The Bigots are Celebrating

I am on the e-mail list for the Right-Wing Patriarchal Cult to provide blog fuel and to keep up with what the extreme fundies are whining about. Here is the latest e-mail that I received.

Dear Friend,

No doubt, it was a disappointing night with overwhelmingly bad news. But there was some good news for those who support traditional marriage. In the states of Arizona, Florida and California voters said no to homosexual “marriage.” In fact, in the Sunshine State, 60% of the vote was needed to keep marriage only between a man and a woman, and our side was able to garner 62% of the vote.

We won in Arizona, too! This is significant because a couple of years ago the marriage amendment was defeated when the pro-homosexual marriage advocates played the fear card with senior citizens.

Finally, in California, our country’s largest and most liberal state, the citizens voted 52% to 48% to overturn the state Supreme Court’s decision to allow same-sex marriage. This is BIG news! Radical homosexual groups, Hollywood celebrities and the liberal media came together to try and defeat Proposition 8, yet the pro-family and pro-marriage citizens of California won a huge victory and, if I might add, put the arrogant California Supreme Court in its place.

Your American Family Association was deeply involved in all three challenges. We kept the people of those states informed and encouraged. In fact, AFA contributed $500,000 to help achieve the victory in California. We had been saving the money over a period of years because we knew that one day it would be needed for a fight like the one we had in California. Of course, these funds came from people like you.

So despite some discouraging news on the national front, 30 states have adopted a state constitutional amendment preserving traditional marriage since the legalization of same-sex “marriage” in Massachusetts. That is due to the hard work of people like you.

Thank you for caring enough to get involved. If you feel our efforts are worthy of support, would you consider making a small tax-deductible contribution to help us continue?
Sincerely,

Don

Donald E. Wildmon,
Founder and Chairman
American Family Association

If you read my last post I am sure you can imagine my reaction to this e-mail. From the word marriage being placed in quotes at the beginning of the letter to his request for more funds to support this despicable discrimination I was furious. I hate how they advertise that by supporting this bigotry you are protecting marriage. That is completely backwards with the passing of this proposal the joy of marriage is being withheld from people.

The part about the pro-homosexuality movement playing the fear card with senior citizens I think that they were talking about telling people that in the hospital their partner might not be allowed in the hospital room or able to make the important decisions for their partner that they should have the right to make. This is true because even if they have appointed their partner to make those decisions that can be contested in court.

I can't wait until this country doesn't discriminate against anyone, but I don't think that will ever happen with the extreme religious nuts that fell everyone should adopt their "values".

Religion Hurts People!

I have heard the phrase "Religion doesn't hurt anyone, so just let us/them believe what we/they want". Today I cry out "BULLSHIT!".

As it looks now, Proposition 8 in California is going to pass and therefore make thousands of same-sex marriages in the state invalid. Please explain to me how same-sex couples marrying affects heterosexual marriages in any way. It doesn't! Plain and simply, those who voted "Yes" on Proposition 8 are ignorant, bigoted scum. Those who vote based on an ancient, dusty, outdated religious book need to stop pushing their bullshit on the rest of society. I don't care if you believe in an invisible man as long as you don't try and push him or your idiotic "values" on anyone else. That is when you cross the line.

Some reading this post may say that my words are too strong. I don't think so. If this goes through, thousands are going to lose their right to be married or get married. There are no words that are strong enough to state how horrible the passing of this proposition is. I really hope that in the future, this country will get past this stupid discriminating mindset and realize that everyone has the right to get married to whomever they want.

VOTE NOW!

Make sure that you get out and vote. This country can't afford to have you just sitting on your couch thinking that there are enough other people voting. This is going to be an historic election no mater what happens, make sure that you can say you participated.

Which one shall I choose?

There are so many gods that have been worshiped and are currently being worshiped. This is one of the many reasons that I am an atheist. I am not going to go into a long discussion about exactly why this poses a problem to religion for two reasons. First, I think that it is common sense if there is more than one god claiming to be the one true god at least one is mistaken. Multiply that by several thousand and you have the history of religions. Second it has been covered by several other great bloggers and writers. One such blogger was my husbands, Kevin DeGraaf, with his post The Problem of Plurality. Also this article from About: Agnosticism/Atheism.

I wrote this post to hopefully get the logic wheels turning in any religious person that may run across this page. Religious people often wonder why any person would reject their beloved god, well this my friend is one reason among many.