Marti Abernathey

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According to Amanda’s site:

“To correct misinformation in the comments, I was not “fired”. I offered my resignation and it was accepted.” - Amanda via her blog, Pandagon.net

Amanda was one of the bloggers hired to blog for the John Edwards campaign. GlennSacks wrote:

“Though Marcotte has been very critical of the men’s movement (and of yours truly), I think she is a talented writer, and I like her personally. But Marcotte is a foul-mouthed radical feminist, which is an odd blogger-in-chief for a presidential candidate. I predicted that she would be a ‘fodder-rich target for Edwards’ enemies.’ This has now begun.”

It’s easy to smear her with labels, but when you look at what they claim is radical…

1. “The Republicans are a Misogynistic, Homophobic, Racist Party”

Um. Duh? The Republicans stand on womens reproductive rights, civil rights, and gay rights are obvious.

2. NASCAR is an Emblem of Southern White Supremacism
Oh, no… that’s total bullshit. Why Nascar’s a fuckin’ melting pot!

3. Christian Supporters of Israel Hate Muslims, Seek the End of the World…
4. …But Are Still Eager to Kill Off Some Jews, As Well

DUH?

5. The Crucifixion of Christ Makes Fundamentalists Yearn To Torture Muslims

“The paradox was this—how can anybody look at the figure of Christ on the cross and think that’s anything but a condemnation of torture? For the thinking person, it clearly is. But for the fundamentalist, that image creates anxiety about death and makes them cling to their hierarchical values even more, and those values include the belief that Muslims are inferior, not-saved, and eligible for torture. They’re going to hell anyway, by the fundie logic, and why should god get all the fun of punishing them and making them suffer?”

George Bush is a Christian, no? He approved of torture! If I remember correctly, he also uttered the words “holy war.”

6. Religion Is Bad For Society, and Charity is an Excuse To Harm the Weak

“The favorite defense of religion, even the more odious Bible-thumping kinds, is that it’s a great source of charity and has a positive overall impact on society. I’m skeptical, particularly for reasons like the above where the actual behavior of religious people, particularly the hardcore ones, demonstrates a pattern of using religious charity as a way to bolster tribalism, create damaging hierarchies, and leave the neediest members of society out in the cold.”

- Amanda at Pandagon.net

Who can forget this?

“A California-based ministry that reaches out to the persecuted Church worldwide is helping believing residents of war-torn Iraq as they prepare to celebrate the first Christmas since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Open Doors International is distributing 50,000 Christian-themed coloring books to Iraqi children, and early next year children’s Bible story books will be printed for distribution in Iraq. Devotional materials for adults are being selected as well and are scheduled to be distributed next year. The ministry is also supporting the training of Iraqi Sunday School teachers.

Now that the tyrannical rule of Hussein is definitively over, Open Doors is making efforts to take advantage of the current climate of openness and relative religious freedom in Iraq. Although the nation’s future is uncertain, some Christian leaders are suggesting that this period in the history of the liberated but still embattled Iraq may be a window of opportunity for Church growth and the spread of the gospel.” - Agape Press

I guess truth is radical notion.

Writing a response to a hateful, bigoted blogger, the words of
Gandhi came to mind.

“I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians.”

“Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. I consider western Christianity in its practical working a negation of Christ’s Christianity.”

“It is my firm opinion that Europe does not represent the spirit of God or Christianity but the spirit of Satan. And Satan’s successes are the greatest when he appears with the name of God on his lips.”

The Christianity in this country that listens to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, or Laura Ingraham; consumes popular culture like there is no tomorrow, supports the Iraq war, and votes for George Bush, are not Christians. They are like Saul before Damascus, a Pharisee. Christ said of the Pharisee:

“You make God’s law to mean nothing so you can keep your own laws! You are not true to yourselves! What Isaiah said about you was true. He said, ‘These people respect me with their mouth but their heart is far from me. They do not mean it in their hearts when they worship me. Their teachings are only the words of men.’”

If you’re going to judge me, judge my life, and try to subject me to your religious beliefs, how about you follow your own teachings? Hell, how about you KNOW your scripture, before trying to teach it to me?

To you that do follow the example of Christ, I apologize. I love you. I thought that anyone who claims to be a Christian, is a Christian. I’m sorry I’ve thrown you in with the American Pharisee’s. You walk the walk, and talk the talk. You live the word, and are a shining example of the Christ found in the Bible. I admire you, and your conviction even though I do not share it. If every confessed Christian was like you, this country would be heaven on earth.

From Anarcho-Judaism:

It is difficult to be human. It’s scary. Because in fact we are alone, we never really get to fully know anybody—not even ourselves. At the most we can touch, for a moment, the mystery that other lives are, for a moment of love, friendship, ideological or artistic or spiritual communion, sexual pleasure. But only barely.

Then we are again alone, we will die and we have no way of knowing what happens to us half an hour from that moment. We fear everything that we can not control, and that is almost everything, even though we like to imagine it is not so much so. In some issues, we might fool ourselves but in others, like sexuality, it is impossible. Here, control fails us in seconds before a desire, a dream that we would have never thought ourselves capable of, and suddenly there it is, happening to us. That is why the alliance of the cross and the sword that maintains empires is founded on our loneliness, our fragility, our need for warmth and approval, our vanity that makes us need to feel part of something eternal and transcendental. What this alliance controls the most is that part of life most impossible to control, the part we fear the most: our sexuality. We thank the cross and the sword for protecting us from what we can not control by obeying, by being part of their institutions, by believing that we need institutions to mediate between us and the chaos of life, uncertainty and death.

Talk of Jefferson and the seperation of church and state dominated this weekend’s “Meet The Press.” I have to laugh about their talk of the founders. If you dig into Jefferson, you cannot deny the seperation of church and state.

“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” –Thomas Jefferson

“The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man.” –Thomas Jefferson

You can read more from the founders thoughts on church vs state here and here and here.

The comment was made that Hitler was an atheist, and that between Hitler and Soviet rule, more people have died under atheism than Christianity.

“We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith.
We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement,
and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.”
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on 24 Oct. 1933

Either they are ignorant fools or willfull liars.

You can read more at No Beliefs.com.

Mark Angelo Cummings

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But not you…

Lots of tranny/Jesus chatter on the internets.

Over at “The Cafeteria Is Closed” Gerald Augustinus comments on a BBC story about an Anglican reverend that transitioned on the job. He quips:

“Obviously, that person has some deep-seated issues, why else would he have wanted to become a mannish looking elderly lady.”

and then wonders what the Vatican’s position on sex change procedures is. He cited a press release from the John Norton Catholic News Service:

“The key point is that the (transsexual) surgical operation is so superficial and external that it does not change the personality. If the person was male, he remains male. If she was female, she remains female,”

The Vatican text defines transsexualism as a psychic disorder of those whose genetic makeup and physical characteristics are unambiguously of one sex but who feel that they belong to the
opposite sex. In some cases, the urge is so strong that the person undergoes a “sex-change” operation to acquire the opposite sex’s external sexual organs. The new organs have no reproductive function.”

In the comments “berrien” says:

Sick, sick, sick. Better keep an eye on him….uh, her,…uh, it. Good thing he got the knife before he came into the church and got transfered to the Catholic priesthood, eh?

My response:

First of all, Peter is Anglican, not Catholic, correct?

I’m not a theologian, I just play one on the internets.

As far as “genital mutilation,” I’m not that familiar with Catholic doctrine, but I know that the Bible speaks specifically to this:

Matthew 19:12 “For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.”

“Sick, sick, sick. Better keep an eye on him….uh, her,…uh, it“

Nice. Might explain why Catholicism and Christianity in general is in decline.

Christ never dehumanized, never condemned, never mocked those in sin.

Now, I would note that I do not believe in sin. To believe in sin, you need to believe in the existence of God, which I don’t.

Over at POWERBLOG! “Powerball” complains about parents who let their gender dysphoric children live in their chosen gender. He states it’s

“one of those stories that make you pull your hair out.”

Rob commented:

Often, these children are actually hermaphroditic, and the parents are simply hiding this information from people who really don’t need to know.

I responded to them both:

Why would you pull your hair out? Your blog seems to indicate that you’re a Christian American, yet you don’t seem to support free will choice? Does the Constitution or the Bible somehow make this decision by parents and health care professionals any of your business?

Rob, in all fairness, there’s a big difference between gender identity disorder and an intersex condition. I’m about as left wing as they come, but lets not muddy the waters between the two conditions.

GID isn’t something that’s just dreamed up in the heads of the parents. It’s a known, mental disorder that is treatable. What this debate centers around is science vs faith. You’re talking about a group of people that believe that carbon dating is conspiracy against God, and the Earth is 4000 years old. If you can’t agree on carbon dating, then there’s no way you’re going to come to a concensus on this.

This a battle of reason verses faith, plain and simple.

Well, unless you’re trying to carbon date something….

I can hardly write this post without writhing in disgust. Right Wing talk show host, Glenn Beck, recently compared Hillary Clinton’s comment on the need for health care reform to the genocide perpetrated by the Adolph Hitler and the Nazi death machine. What could Clinton say to bring comparisons to Adolph Hitler?

“But the whole issue of health care is coming back. That may be a bad dream for some, but for others, it’s a very welcome possibility, because we are on an unsustainable course. I think that we have to come up with a uniquely American solution.”

Some pretty controversial stuff there! These right wing talking heads are the first ones to criticize movie stars for speaking out on topics they have no educational background on, yet these same hacks will make outrageous statements when a politician dares to say there is a problem with our health care system.

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.

I laugh at that quote, considering the National Black Republican Association has made a ludicrous claim that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican. 46 MILLION people are without health insurance. Those that have coverage are paying more money for less benefit. Is that the “Dream” that King spoke to the nation about?

So I ask you, who’s more like the Nazi’s, Glenn Beck or Hilary Clinton? If the US has a “Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda,” Beck is definitely an officer. He spews rhetoric and propaganda without any kind of moral or intellectual basis for his arguments. In that vein, he reminds me of Lewis Prothero, from “V for Vendetta:”

“Here was a country that had everything, absolutely everything. And now, 20 years later, is what? The world’s biggest leper colony. Why? Godlessness. Let me say that again… Godlessness. It wasn’t the war they started. It wasn’t the plague they created. It was Judgement. No one escapes their past. No one escapes Judgement. You think he’s not up there? You think he’s not watching over this country? How else can you explain it? He tested us, but we came through. We did what we had to do. Islington. Enfield. I was there, I saw it all. Immigrants, Muslims, homosexuals, terrorists. Disease-ridden degenerates. They had to go. Strength through unity. Unity through faith.”

The scary part is that he still has a voice, an audience, a fan base. The election this year gave me hope, hope for change. But as long as assholes like Glenn Beck have a podium at which they can spew this baseless rhetoric around, our country is at risk.

Hillary Clinton is by no means a friend of progressives, but the people like Glenn Beck are definitely the mouthpiece of the enemy.