Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1830

Some Florida Clerks Refuse to Perform Any Marriages Rather than Recognize Same Sex Couples

***Update***: Earlier, we accidentally said the clerks were going to stop giving marriage licenses to all couples. That was our mistake; they can’t do that. These clerks are choosing to not officiate all wedding ceremonies. The couples can still get their licenses, though. Sorry for the confusion!

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We already know that the Religious Right loves marriage so dearly that they desperately want to keep it away from gay couples.

Turns out, in Florida, there are some city officials who love it so much that they would prefer to keep it away from everyone rather than let gay people get married.

Zack Ford at Think Progress writes that clerks in fourteen counties in Florida have recently ceased performing all ceremonies:

Clerks in those counties have offered various justifications to the Tampa Bay Times for ending their courthouse wedding services, including cramped offices, staff limitations, and shrinking budgets. Others admitted that same-sex marriage was a contributing factor.

These include clerks like Paula O’Neil, of Pasco, who called the choice to stop performing ceremonies “an easy decision to make.” While she also cites pecuniary considerations, she acknowledges that opposition to marriage equality was a driving force.

Most of her staff who handle marriage licenses were “uncomfortable” officiating same-sex weddings, she said.

“The problem is we can’t discriminate,” she said. “So there are some people who would have wanted to transfer to another area, and we can’t transfer everybody.”

This is a source of conflict also alluded to by J.D. Peacock II, clerk of Okaloosa County — another county that has decided to stop performing marriages in order to take a stand for marriage.

“I do not want to have members of our team put in a situation which presents a conflict between their personal religious beliefs and the implementation of a contentious societal philosophy change,” Peacock wrote recently in a memo to his staff.

Because there’s nothing “contentious” about refusing to let anyone get married in your county because you’re no longer allowed to unequally and unlawfully prevent some from marriage, right? These are essentially playground tantrums, acted out by adults: if I have to share my toy, no one’s going to play!

After having lost their case in the courts — and in the court of public opinion — as gay marriage bans are falling all over the country and public support for marriage equality is on the rise, these “protests” only serve to hasten equality’s arrival. It’s hard to see these officials as anything but petty.

(Image via Shutterstock)

Anti-Gay Marriage Flier in Ireland Warns Against Children Being “Exposed to Sounds of Sodomy”

Ireland will hold a nationwide referendum on same-sex marriage this May, and since that date was announced a couple of weeks ago, certain groups have been trying to change public opinion on the matter (more than 70% of the electorate currently supports marriage equality).

This is the image being passed around by one Christian group:

Irish comedian Dara Ó Briain responded perfectly:

Of course, even if marriage equality is adopted, it’s not going to force children to do anything, including listening to whatever sounds the Christians fear (unless it’s two guys saying “I love you” to each other, which would probably send chills up their spines).

But it just goes to the point that conservative Christians, even in Ireland, never see gay marriage as a love-based union. For them, it’s always sexual. They just can’t stop thinking about gay sex. And because they’re obsessed, gay people have to be banned from having the same rights as them. #ChristianLogic

(Not that it matters, but they ignore the fact that straight couples also commit sodomy and not all gay couples do.)

It’s bigotry like this, though, that has pushed support for marriage equality well past the tipping point. When this is the best argument you have against civil rights — that children will have to listen to imaginary sounds that are scary only to you — it’s no wonder the public support for equality is overwhelming.

Foundation Beyond Belief Announces Q1 2015 Slate of Charities

The Foundation Beyond Belief has just announced its five beneficiaries for the new quarter — each charity will likely receive several thousands of dollars, courtesy of atheist donors:

POVERTY & HEALTH: Possible Health

HUMAN RIGHTS: Akili Dada

CHALLENGE THE GAP: Interfaith Youth Core

EDUCATION: ConTextos

THE NATURAL WORLD: Ocean Conservancy

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If you’re not already a member of the Foundation, please consider joining!

Where are you giving your donations this month?

Friendly Atheist Podcast Episode 36: Marshall Brain, Author of How “God” Works

Our latest podcast guest is Marshall Brain, best known as the founder of the website HowStuffWorks.com. In 2007, Discovery Communications bought the site for a whopping $250 million.

Brain has appeared on Oprah, National Geographic Channel, and CNN, and written several books.

His latest one may be the most controversial one yet. It’s called How “God” Works: A Logical Inquiry on Faith.

We spoke with Marshall about how his book is different from those by the New Atheists, why he’s risking his reputation by deconstructing God, and how he’ll know if the book is successful.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the podcast. If you have any suggestions for people we should chat with, please leave them in the comments, too.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, stream all the episodes on SoundCloud or Stitcher, or just listen to the whole thing below.

And if you like what you’re hearing, please consider supporting this site on Patreon and leaving us a positive rating!

Tampa Newspaper Journalist Twice Buried St. Joseph In Her Yard In Order To Sell Her House

Got a house for sale? The Bible’s most famous cuckold, Jesus’ adoptive father, can help you move it quickly.

From the Tampa Bay Times:

All over the Tampa Bay area, little plastic Josephs lie buried in lawns large and small, lush and scraggly. They are interred there by people who are trying to sell their homes and hope that St. Joseph will find them a buyer. …

Lori Bederman said she and her husband contracted to build a house in Bradenton three years ago but worried about unloading their place in Connecticut while the economy was so poor. “My husband was in a panic because we were now obligated to own two homes,” Bederman wrote in an email. “I knew my faith in St. Joseph would guide our way.” Bederman buried a statue of Joseph in the front yard and two days later had a cash offer.

How did this silliness get started? Enter Mother Teresa. No, an earlier Mother Teresa.

As one story goes, an order of Spanish nuns headed by Teresa of Avila in the 1500s prayed to Joseph to help them find land for new convents. For good measure, they also buried their medals of Joseph. Teresa opened 16 convents and soon other people began turning to Joseph when they had land transactions. Over time, the custom of burying medals gave way to burying statues.

After St. Joseph brings a buyer, sellers are supposed to say a novena to him — a series of prayers — or give a simple prayer of thanks. Successful sellers are also encouraged to take St. Joseph to their new home although many can’t find him again even after marking the burial site.

Reporter Susan Taylor Martin, after consulting experts, chirps happily that

Contrary to myth and common practice, the statue doesn’t have to be buried upside down, or facing the real estate sign or planted exactly 8 inches deep.

Good to know.

But here’s the sentence I found most gobsmacking:

This writer twice has enlisted Joseph’s help in selling houses although lowering the price likely was a factor.

Martin is a Senior Correspondent for a generally well-regarded newspaper that has collected ten Pulitzer Prizes. No word on which Catholic plastic baubles she buried, kissed, or smoked in order to land that job.

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P.S.: Reading up on Teresa of Ávila’s life, I was struck by the nun’s insistence that Jesus (invisible to all but her) visited her in person… coupled with her fantasies of being penetrated by a seraph.

I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the point there seemed to be a little fire.

Paging Doctor Freud!

He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it.

If you think that‘s messed up, I’d like to introduce you to another Bride of the Savior, the 14th-century nun Agnes Blannbekin, who frequently orgasmed as she imagined dining on Jesus’ severed foreskin.

[S]he felt with the greatest sweetness on her tongue a little piece of skin alike the skin in an egg, which she swallowed. After she had swallowed it, she again felt the little skin on her tongue with sweetness as before, and again she swallowed it. And this happened to her about a hundred times. And when she felt it so frequently, she was tempted to touch it with her finger. And when she wanted to do so, that little skin went down her throat on its own. And it was told to her that the foreskin was resurrected with the Lord on the day of resurrection. And so great was the sweetness of tasting that little skin that she felt in all [her] limbs and parts of the limbs a sweet transformation.

Loving Jesus has rarely felt so good.

(Image via Shutterstock)

If You Think the “I Met God, She’s Black” Shirt is Controversial, You Have to Explain Why

A shirt reading “I Met God, She’s Black,” created by 21-year-old “self-described Jewish atheist” Dylan Chenfeld, is generating all sorts of publicity and interest, especially in the wake of what’s happened with Michael Brown and Eric Garner:

The slogan has certainly become a source of business for Chenfield. When he initially started printing the shirts about one year ago, he says many of his buyers were white. He’s also gotten celebrities like Drake and Cara Delevingne to be photographed wearing his shirt.

“I like poking fun at sacred cows,” Chenfield told HuffPost. “I’m taking the idea that God is a white male and doing the opposite of that, which is a black woman.”

Although he’s trying to make money from the campaign, there also seems to be a spiritual side to his motives. Chenfield said that, compared to the other members of his Jewish family, he was always the one asking more questions about what God is really like. His grandparents are Orthodox Jews, he says, who follow a conservative strain of Judaism that doesn’t allow women to have a bat mitzvah.

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The shirt’s message actually speaks to a deep desire for people to see God in their own image, says The Rev. Dr. Jacqueline J. Lewis, a Senior Minister at Middle Collegiate Church who has been involved in protests against Eric Garner’s death at the hands of the NYPD.

I’m all for ideas that force people to question their deeply-held beliefs, so more power to him. (My biggest problem with the slogan is the grammatically-incorrect comma.)

But the “controversial” aspect of this makes no sense to me because I think people are getting upset for the wrong reason, even on their terms.

Supposedly, Christians would be the ones offended by this. But why? Because they don’t think God’s a black woman? Well, most Christians would tell you God’s not a white man, either. They’d call Him a spirit of sorts — not any particular color, not any particular gender, and nothing like the depictions of Him in popular works of art.

And yet it seems like the negative reaction to this shirt isn’t “Why would you assign a color and gender to God?” Rather, it’s that God isn’t a black woman… which, even to Christians, should make no sense.

Personally, the slogan is just a lot of bullshit packed into a few words. God isn’t black. God isn’t a woman. And nobody who wears the shirt has actually met Her. But if it gets people irrationally worked up over something I doubt they can explain coherently, bring it on.

Film Spoofing Religious Strife Causes Religious Strife; Still Becomes India’s Highest-Grossing Blockbuster

Who would hate a comedy that spoofs religious hatred?

Some religious people do… and they want it banned.

PK is the story of an alien (played by Aamir Khan) who lands on earth as a blank slate and is uninfected with religious prejudices and material urges. He realizes that the human species is no different from him and it’s only religious beliefs and nationality that divide and polarize people against each other.

The story revolves around a Hindu girl, Jaggu (Anushka Sharma), who falls in love with Sarfaraz (Shushant Rajput), a Pakistani Muslim boy. But their relationship ruptures due to some misunderstanding and a Hindu saint takes advantage of the situation to create mistrust in her mind against Muslim men. … The story actually challenges myths and prejudices being spread against Muslims in India by supporters of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party.

The story pulls no punches while questioning the blind faith and superstition that prevails in all religious communities. … The makers of PK have raised basic questions, such as why one has to waste time and money on rituals and ceremonies when everyone knows what material conditions cause miseries in life, or why people blindly follow the saints and ascetics who actually con the public with magic tricks.

BJP fans, true to form, have been agitating against the film for weeks now, unsuccessfully calling for a boycott.

In the past, the BJP has used more violent means to protest against books, films, and TV serials depicting such realities. Earlier, a similar kind of film, Oh My God!, was banned by the Punjab government in which the BJP is a partner.

According to the Guardian,

Nationwide protests are being organized outside cinemas, even vandalizing a few and forcing some to cancel screenings. Complaints have also been filed with the police and in courts demanding a ban on the film and the arrest of its director and star.

You can get a further idea of how incensed some religionists are by reading the 6,000 YouTube comments on the trailer (many hyper-aggressive), though I wouldn’t recommend it.

Despite the anger, moviegoers in India and even Bollywood-lovers in America appear to be massively receptive to the movie’s message: that, at a minimum, religion ought to be taken with a few grains of salt. PK is already the biggest box office hit in India’s history. Plus,

At the end of its second week, [it] has become the highest-grossing Bollywood movie ever in North America with 9.15 million dollars.

I especially love that the people who wanted the movie banned or censored instead catapulted it into the national conversation, ensuring higher ticket sales — proof that the Streisand effect is alive and well abroad and at home.

The Religious Makeup of the 114th Congress: Only One Member is a “None” and Even She Won’t Call Herself an Atheist

I wrote this post almost word for word for 2013 and 2011 and 2009. In fact, I just copied/pasted it, updating a few things along the way.

It’s sad how little has changed since then regarding atheists in Congress.

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What are the religious affiliations of members of the 114th Congress?

Pretty similar to the American public — Overwhelmingly Christian (491 members, 92%) with a spattering of Jews (28, 5%), Muslims (2, 0.4%), Buddhists (2, 0.4%), and other faiths.

But there’s a striking disparity in one category…

The “Unaffiliated.” We’re 20% of the country and 0.2% of Congress with a single representative.

As was the case in the 113th Congress, the biggest difference between Congress and the general public is in the share of those who say they are religiously unaffiliated. This group makes up 20% of the general public but just 0.2% of Congress. The only member of Congress who describes herself as religiously unaffiliated is Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz.

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As noted above, Rep. Sinema of Arizona is the only member of Congress who identifies publicly as religiously unaffiliated. Rep. Ami Bera, D-Calif., is the only Unitarian Universalist, and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, is the only Hindu. Both Muslim members of Congress — Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind. — were re-elected in 2014. Nine members (all Democrats) refused to specify their religious affiliation, one fewer than in the 113th Congress.

If Sinema’s the only “None,” she’s certainly not very forthcoming about it. Her campaign made it clear to the media years ago that she is certainly no atheist:

While Sinema’s campaign was initially unavailable for comment after Tuesday’s election, spokesman Justin Unga said Friday that Sinema does not consider herself a nonbeliever, adding that she prefers a “secular approach.”

“Kyrsten believes the terms non-theist, atheist or nonbeliever are not befitting of her life’s work or personal character,” Unga said in email. “She does not identify as any of the above.”

So she may be Unaffiliated, but she’s not non-religious — not openly, anyway. (Note: When openly non-theistic Rep. Pete Stark was in Congress, he was listed as a Unitarian.) It does us no good. As far as I’m concerned, we have no representative. Allies? Yes, a handful. But nothing more than that.

Even if Sinema is a “None,” having only one openly non-religious member of Congress is just awful. We need better representation, which starts by having more open, electable atheists running for public office.

There’s very little doubt in my mind that there are more Unaffiliated, non-religious Americans in Congress, but they dare not say so because it would be political suicide where they come from. In the past several years, that pressure to stay in the closet has been strong… but not everywhere in the country. Maybe we’ll soon see more candidates at least not declaring a religious affiliation (even if they don’t say “Unaffiliated”).

In case you’re curious, here’s are the 9 members of Congress who are “Unspecified” or who didn’t answer the question:

Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA)
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA)
Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)
Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL)
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR)
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR)
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI)
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO)
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)

Rep. John F. Tierney (D-MA) used to be on that list, but he was defeated in his primary last year by fellow Democrat (and current House member) Seth Moulton, who happens to be a Christian.

Winfield (Alabama) City Council Declares God “Owner” of the City

Because the biggest problem with our nation is that it’s not religious enough, Winfield, Alabama Mayor Randy Price (below) requested that the local city council make amends on that front.

To that end, check out what they did, according to an editorial in the Marion County Journal Record (behind a paywall):

… [Price] successfully pushed for the Winfield City Council to declare Winfield as a “City Under God” and that God is the “owner” of the city and that the city acknowledges Him.

… the hell?

Who are they even trying to impress? (I promise you God has better things to do than take over your city.)

The editorial continued:

Mind you, some of other religions — or no religions — might fuss, but if our coins can say, “In God We Trust,” we see no harm in acknowledging the Almighty at Christmas. We think that the whole fuss about cleaning God from the spector of public service has been much ado about nothing.

In the same vein, this resolution may not change the city, either, but it will not hurt. And, if anyone in Marion County deserves our thanks, it is Him, for all He has blessed us with.

At least, that’s how we feel.

How many errors can you spot in that passage? There’s the jump from ceremonial Deism on our currency to government endorsement of Christianity. There’s the admission that this is all pointless (even though, legally speaking, what they’re doing is unconstitutional). There’s the blatant lie about how people are removing God from the public square.

You can find contact information for the Mayor and City Council members here and let them know what you think about their decision (the official minutes from the last meeting are not yet available).

I’ve also informed FFRF about this.

(via Underbelly Ham — Thanks to @FreemanToday for the link)

Troy Chancellor Jack Hawkins Says He Sent Video Promoting Religion to Students to “Encourage Thoughtful Discussion”

Last week, Chancellor Jack Hawkins of Alabama’s Troy University sent students and faculty members an email wishing them a happy new year… and it included a strange video:

That video was all about how religion was vital for democracy because it persuaded people to follow the law… since they were ultimately accountable to God. It’s a completely warped vision of how democracy works — and sends the message that Godless people are inherently immoral.

American Atheists even demanded an apology from Hawkins, sending him a letter addressing the faults of the video.

Well, Hawkins finally responded.

And it looks like he should enroll for some remedial reading comprehension classes at his university since his response addresses absolutely none of the criticisms.

In a statement sent to Inside Higher Ed, Hawkins wrote:

The purpose of this email was to spur introspection and encourage thoughtful discussion as we transition from the challenges of 2014 to the opportunities ahead in 2015. Troy University is an international university that contributes regularly to the global marketplace of ideas. This message and video were shared to provide the university community with information and insights for healthy consideration and debate about our country’s democracy, the role it plays in the world and the challenges America faces going forward.

In other words, no apology. Not even close.

I have no idea what sort of thoughtful discussions he expects to hear from a video that sends the message: “Fuck atheists.”

It was irresponsible to begin with and it’s a mark of piss-poor leadership that he can’t even bring himself to acknowledge why anyone might be upset about it.

I hope students at the university find a way to (respectfully) express their frustrations with their leader. This would never have been tolerated if he had slammed any other group of students besides atheists.

(Thanks to Brian for the link)