Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1848

Three Are Killed, Including Islamist Hostage-Taker, When Security Forces Storm Sydney Café

A day-long standoff between police and an Iranian-born gunman who had taken 17 hostages in a coffee house in downtown Sydney ended in bloodshed when Australian security forces swept in upon hearing shots fired inside. Two of the hostages were killed, as was the gunman, who had earlier forced his captives to hold up a black flag with the text “There is no god but God and Mohammed is his messenger.” Four others were wounded, including a policeman who was shot in the face.

From the Associated Press:

Police raided the Lindt Chocolat Cafe after they heard a number of gunshots from inside, said New South Wales state police Commissioner Andrew Scipione. “They made the call because they believed that at that time, if they didn’t enter, there would have been many more lives lost,” he said.

The gunman was identified as Man Haron Monis, who once was prosecuted for sending offensive letters to families of Australian troops killed in Afghanistan. … The standoff ended when a loud bang was heard from the cafe and five people ran out. Shortly after, police swooped in, amid heavy gunfire, shouts and flashes. A police bomb disposal robot also was sent into the building, but no explosives were found.

Monis has long been on officials’ radar. Last year, he was sentenced to 300 hours of community service for using the postal service to send what a judge called “grossly offensive” letters to families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan between 2007 and 2009. At the time, Monis said his letters were “flowers of advice,” adding: “Always, I stand behind my beliefs.”

He was later charged with being an accessory to the murder of his ex-wife. Earlier this year, he was charged with the sexual assault of a woman in 2002. He has been out on bail on the charges.

Commented his former lawyer, Manny Conditsis,

“His ideology is just so strong and so powerful that it clouds his vision for common sense and objectiveness.”

No shit.

The siege began around 9:45 a.m. in Martin Place, a plaza in Sydney’s financial and shopping district that is packed with holiday shoppers this time of year. Many of those inside the cafe would have been taken captive as they stopped in for their morning coffees.

Hundreds of police blanketed the city as streets were closed and offices evacuated. The public was told to stay away from Martin Place, site of the state premier’s office, the Reserve Bank of Australia, and the headquarters of two of the nation’s largest banks. The state parliament house is a few blocks away, and the landmark Sydney Opera House also is nearby.

Throughout the day, several people were seen with their arms in the air and hands pressed against the window of the cafe, with two people holding up a black flag with the Shahada, or Islamic declaration of faith, written on it. The Shahada translates as “There is no god but God and Mohammed is his messenger.” It is considered the first of Islam’s five pillars of faith, and is similar to the Lord’s Prayer in Christianity. …

Of course, Monis just misunderstood his own religion:

A number of Australian Muslim groups condemned the hostage-taking in a joint statement and said the flag’s inscription was a “testimony of faith that has been misappropriated by misguided individuals.”

The only silver lining:

In a show of solidarity, many Australians offered on Twitter to accompany people dressed in Muslim clothes who were afraid of a backlash from the cafe siege. The hashtag #IllRideWithYou was used more than 90,000 times by late Monday evening.

(Image via Wikipedia)

Wooden Sign Featuring Old Testament Verse Comes Down from Michigan Park After Atheists Point Out That It’s Illegal

If you were to walk into Hager Park in Jenison, Michigan sometime in the past 50 years, you might have seen this sign near the picnic shelter:

The sign [was] erected in the late 1960s by the Ottawa County Road Commission… The wording on the sign was a verse from the Bible, Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork.”

That’s… not right. Why is a government park promoting Christianity?

The Michigan Association of Civil Rights Activists, which is also fighting a hydraulic cross in the city of Grand Haven, wrote a letter to Ottawa County officials demanding that the sign come down:

This biblical passage, from the Old Testament (King James version), serves no secular purpose, endorses and promotes Judeo-Christianity over other religions, and demonstrates excessive government engagement with religion. The sign violates the constitutional rights of Ottawa County residents and other taxpayers and park users who do not subscribe to the Judeo-Christian faith.

The 10 members of the Parks Commission were asked for advice on what to do and the majority said the activists were correct. The sign had to come down.

Of course, online commenters are flipping out because those damn, dirty atheists ruined their illegal tradition. I’m sure they’d feel the same way if the sign featured a verse from the Koran…

One guy even started an online petition to get the sign back up. Because he doesn’t understand how laws work.

I Would Totally Buy a Ticket for This Saving Christmas Sequel

I know Kirk Cameron‘s Saving Christmas is the worst movie of all time, but Saving Christmas 2 is going to be *amazing*… because it seems to be produced by the same people who brought you Saw.

(This would be a good time for the NSFW tag. Lots of violence.)

Make it happen, Kirk!

(via Third String Kicker)

The Satanic Temple’s Statue, Intended for Installation Outside the Oklahoma Capitol Building, Is Almost Ready

It was just a drawing before, but now we have something very tangible indeed: The Satanic Church’s sculpture of Baphomet flanked by fresh-faced children has been bronzed and is being assembled as I write this. In a matter of months, it could share pride of place with the Ten Commandments monument in front of Okahoma’s Capitol building.

Vice paid a visit to sculptor Mark Porter‘s work space and found that

… different parts of the sculpture lay scattered across the property. The bust sat on a wooden table inside a sort of open-air shed, while the torso rested nearby on a smaller table. The hooves and arms were splayed out on the ground nearby. The following day, Porter, along with two other men, would begin the arduous process of welding the disparate pieces together to create a smooth, fluid sculpture meant to serve as a testament to the equal representation of all religions under United States law.

Thanks to Vice and Porter, there are pictures! For instance:

Satanic Church spokesman Lucien Greaves clarifies that the installation of the sculpture is not quite a done deal yet.

[I]nstalling the statue in Oklahoma is contingent on the Ten Commandments monument being rebuilt after a drunk guy who heard voices in his head pissed on the slab b​efore smashing his car into it last October. If it’s not rebuilt, the Temple will stop trying to put Baphomet on the statehouse yard. According to Greaves, the existence of the Ten Commandments statue is essential to his organization’s goals with this project. …

“The message behind Baphomet is a reconciliation of the opposites, not this call to arms of one against one but a merging of the two. That’s part of the reason that it can only exist standing next to the Ten Commandments. That’s part of the message. We wouldn’t want to proselytize as a single voice in the public square.”

If you’d like to see more images of this exciting work-in-progress, click here.

Makes You Really Want to Go to Church on Christmas, Doesn’t It?

How many of you have been like Devin, the “newly-atheist teen who’s making a point of not saying the prayers”?

(via Saturday Night Live)

Christian Pastor: “I’m Not Gonna Let Any of These Dirty Faggots Inside My Church”

Another child of God has called for gay people to be put to death.

Right Wing Watch graciously grabbed this video of Pastor Donnie Romero, the leader of Stedfast Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, preaching that all “dirty faggots” want to “snatch your children” to “hurt and rape them.” He also cites numerous Bible passages claiming that his god advocates for gays to be destroyed.

I’m gonna explain to you why God wants these people to be put to death. Go to Deuteronomy 23… The word of God is very clear that God is against the sodomites, that they’re filthy and it says that they’re [an] abomination to God, okay? They’re an abomination to God.

I love that part of the Bible. And I’m going to preach that part of the Bible until the day I die. And if I ever stop preaching that part of the Bible, I hope my kids tell me, “Dad, you’re going soft on sin, you need to get up there and rip on these queers because it’s only getting worse and worse.” I’m not gonna stop doing it. I’m gonna preach it all the time because I, again, amen to what [another pastor] said, I’m not gonna let any of these dirty faggots inside my church.

These guys, they are all pedophiles. Look in the Bible. Every time it shows the sodomites, in Genesis 19, in Judges 19, they’re always trying to rape and hurt other people. They’re relentless. They are relentless. They are predators and, given an opportunity to snatch one of your children, they would do it in a heartbeat.

And folks wonder why, in spite of the number of LGBT-friendly churches and people and places out there, queer people cannot shake the fear that Christians hate them and want them harmed. This is the answer.

Ohio Governor Says Schools Wanting Tax Dollars for Mentorship Program Must Partner with Faith-Based Organization

Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich (below) championed a mentoring program for his state that would allocate $10 million to districts and private schools. Because he’s a man committed to bettering the educational opportunities of economically disadvantaged students.

Which is why, now that the measure succeeded and was signed into law, he’s tacked on a heretofore undisclosed requirement that all mentoring programs must partner with a “faith-based” non-profit or church.

No business and no faith-based partner means no state dollars.

“You must include a faith-based partner,” United Way of Greater Cleveland President Bill Kitson, told potential applicants…

Because nothing says you care about providing kids with mentors like depriving qualified mentors and mentoring programs of financial backing because they don’t have a faith-based aspect to them.

At an informational meeting last Thursday, hosted by United Way of Greater Cleveland, attendees viewed a

… recorded video [of Governor Kasich] welcoming the applicants [which] made the importance he places on faith in this effort clear.

“The Good Lord has a purpose for each and every one of them (students) and you’re helping them to find it,” Kasich said on the video.

Reporter Patrick O’Donnell notes that the faith requirement was never a part of the original proposition or the governor’s efforts to promote it. The money was open to non-profits, including faith-based ones, but the partnership with religious groups was never a requirement.

What’s new is that Kasich and ODE [Ohio Department of Education] are requiring them and raising their status above other community non-profits.

Here’s how the requirement differs from previous discussion, testimony and law covering Community Connectors:

- Kasich presented the plan in his speech as a “an initiative to support the best ideas for bringing together schools, parents, communities, faith-based groups, businesses and students in mentoring efforts based on proven practices. ”

…

But faith-based groups — or businesses — were not presented as a required part, any more than parents or communities. See the whole speech HERE.

- As the proposal made its way through the state legislature as part of House Bill 483, State Superintendent Richard Ross did not highlight faith-based groups as a required part of applications in his testimony to the Senate Finance Committee in May.

…

- HB 483, as it went into law, makes faith-based organizations an option equal to “civic organizations” and business, but not a requirement.

It states: “Eligible school districts shall partner with members of the business community, civic organizations, or the faith-based community to provide sustainable career advising and mentoring services.”

…

- Kasich did not list faith-based organizations as a requirement when he did a ceremonial bill signing for HB 483 here in Cleveland.

- And he also did not list faith-based groups as a requirement for the money in his Nov. 3 executive order creating the advisory board, and instead only refers to “local networks of volunteers and organizations.”

- In addition, the examples Kasich listed in his State of the State speech of other mentoring programs that he would use as a model do not have a religious requirement…

Now, as Kasich is making the availability of mentoring funds contingent on inclusion of (irrelevant) faith-based elements, it might sound like his priority is not quality mentoring for disadvantaged students, but providing access for religious groups to disadvantaged students. But Buddy Harris, senior policy analyst for the Ohio Department of Education, assures us that proselytizing is not the goal.

“The faith-based organization is clearly at the heart of the vision of the governor,” Harris said after the session.

“We do not forsee any proseletyzing happening between mentors and students,” Harris said. “That’s not really what we’re seeking.”

So, if I’m hearing this right, Ohio will only give the money for mentoring if a faith-based organization is involved, because they totally don’t want to force faith on kids. Which, I guess, they want us to simply take on faith — because there’s no rational reason to believe anything so absurdly contradictory.

(Image via Wikipedia)

Let’s Not Concede the Topic of Death to the Religious

Greta Christina just released a short ebook compiling several essays on the subject of death. It’s called, very straightforwardly, Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do with God.

In the excerpt below, she talks about why atheists should not concede the ground of death too easily to religion:

“Sure, atheism may have better arguments and evidence. But religion is always to going to win on the death question. A secular philosophy of death will never comfort people the way religion does.”

I’ve heard this idea more times than I can count. And here’s the weird thing: It’s not just from religious believers. I hear it from some atheists, too. It shocks me how easily many non-believers concede the ground of death. Many of us assume that of course it would be lovely to believe in an eternal afterlife — if only that were plausible. And largely because of this assumption, we often shy away from the topic of death. We happily talk about science, sex, reality, medicine and technology, other advantages the secular life has to offer — but we stay away from death, and concede the ground before we even fight it.

I think this is a huge mistake. I agree that the fear of death is one of the main reasons people cling to religion. But I don’t agree, even in the slightest, that religious philosophies of death are inherently more comforting than secular ones. And if we want to make atheism a safe place to land when people let go of their faith, we need to get these secular philosophies into the public square, and let the world know what we think about death.

Here’s the thing you have to remember about religious beliefs in an afterlife: They’re only comforting if you don’t examine them.

Heaven is the most obvious example. The idea of a perfect, blissful afterlife where you and everyone you love will live forever — think about it for a moment. All your conflicts with the people you care about — do those just disappear? If they don’t, how will Heaven be perfectly blissful? And if they do disappear, how will you be you? Conflicts arise because people are individuals, with real differences between us. In Heaven, either those conflicts will still be raging, or our differences — the individuality that makes us who we are — will be eradicated.

Then ask yourself this: In Heaven, would we have the ability to do harm, or to make bad decisions? Again — if we do, it won’t be perfect or blissful. But if we don’t, we’ve lost one of the essential things that makes us who we are. Even Christians understand this: they’re always going on about how free will makes us special, how it’s a unique gift God gave to humanity, how God had to make us free to do evil so we could choose to do good. Yet when we’re in Heaven — when we’re in the perfect place that God created for us to be our most perfect selves — this unique gift, the gift that’s the sole reason for suffering and evil, somehow vanishes into thin air?

And when you’re in Heaven, will you remember the people who didn’t make it? Will you be aware of your loved ones — or anyone, for that matter — screaming and begging for mercy in the eternal agony of Hell? Again: If you are aware of this torture, there is no way for Heaven to be blissful, even for a microsecond. But if you’re not — if you’re so blissed-out by God’s presence that your awareness of Hell is obliterated, like morphine obliterating your awareness of pain — how could you be you? Isn’t our love and compassion for others one of the best, most central parts of who we are? How could we possibly be who we are, and not care about the suffering of the people we love?

This is not abstract philosophizing. This question of how Heaven will be Heaven if our loved ones are burning in Hell — it’s a question many Christians struggle with terribly. My wife’s fundamentalist grandparents were tormented because their children and grandchildren had all left the church, and they were sure they were all going to burn. It created deep strife in her family, and caused her grandparents great unhappiness in their old age. And the monstrous notion of being so blissed-out in Heaven you won’t notice your loved ones shrieking for mercy in Hell — this is put forward by many Christian theologians, including the supposedly respectable William Lane Craig, in response to direct questions from believers who find this whole “not knowing or caring if our loved ones are in agony” thing rather hard to swallow.

And I haven’t even gotten to the monotony of Heaven. I haven’t even started on how people need change, challenges, growth, to be happy, and how an eternity of any one thing would eventually become tedious to the point of madness. Unless, again, our personalities changed so much we’d be unrecognizable.

I’m with Christopher Hitchens on this one. Heaven sounds like North Korea — an eternity of mindless conformity spent singing the praises of a powerful tyrant. In order for it to actually be perfect and blissful, our natures would have to change so radically, we wouldn’t be who we are. The idea is comforting only if you think about it for a fleeting moment — “Oo, eternal bliss and seeing everyone I love forever!” — and you then immediately shove it to the back of your mind and start thinking about something else.

The same is true for every other afterlife I’ve heard of. Reincarnation, for instance. If dying and being reborn obliterates the memories of our past lives — then without those memories, how would we be ourselves? And it’s true of the notion of our souls being dissolved into the soup of a larger World-Soul: nice idea, maybe, but how is it immortality if our unique identity is gone? I have never heard of any imagined afterlife that could withstand more than a few minutes of careful examination without sounding like a nightmare.

This is conspicuously not true with secular philosophies of death.

Secular philosophies of death — that being dead will be no more frightening than not yet being born, that death helps us focus and acts as a deadline, that permanence isn’t the only measure of value, any of the others — can withstand scrutiny. They can withstand scrutiny, because they’re based in reality. (Most of them, anyway. There are secular notions of death that I think are self-deluded, but they’re the exception, not the rule.)

And for many atheists, this is a profound comfort.

When I was a spiritual believer, thinking about death meant being propelled into cognitive dissonance. I’d think, “Oh, my mom’s not really dead, my friend Rob isn’t really dead, I’m not really going to die” — and then I’d get uncomfortable, and anxious, and I’d have to think about something else right away. On some level, I knew that my spiritual beliefs didn’t make sense, that they weren’t supported by good evidence, that they were mostly founded on wishful thinking, that I was making them up as I went along. I was comforted by them only to the degree that I didn’t think about them.

And that’s not a happy way to live.

When I finally did let go of my wishful thinking, I went through a traumatic time. I had to accept that I was never going to see my mother again, or my friend Rob, and that when I died I would really be gone forever. That was intensely hard. But once I started building a new, secular foundation for dealing with death, I found it far more consoling. I wasn’t constantly juggling a flock of inconsistent, incoherent ideas — or shoving them onto the back burner. When I was grieving the death of someone I loved, or when I was frightened by my own eventual death, I could actually, you know, think about my ideas. I could actually feel my feelings. I could actually experience my grief, and my fear — because my understanding of death was based on reality, and could withstand as much exploration as I cared to give it. The comfort I’ve gotten from my humanist philosophy hasn’t been as easy or simple as the comfort I once got from my belief in a world-soul and a reincarnated afterlife — but it’s been a whole lot more solid.

And I’m not the only one that’s true for. I’ve talked with lots of non-believers about this, and I’ve lost count of the number who’ve said something like, “Yeah, eternity seems like a good idea, but once I started thinking about it, I realized it would suck. Dealing with death as an atheist seems like it’d be harsh — but actually, I find it easier.”

This is a subjective question, of course. If you, personally, don’t find secular philosophies of death comforting or appealing, then you don’t. But… well, actually, that’s my point. It’s absurd to say that religious ideas about death are inherently more appealing than secular ones. For a lot of us, they aren’t. For a lot of us, the exact opposite is true.

So let’s stop treating death as if it belongs to religion.

We don’t have to be afraid of this topic. We can talk about it. And we should talk about it. There are many believers who feel the way I used to: they’re having questions, they’re having doubts, but they’re scared to let go. They’re scared to imagine a life where death is real, and final. If we can get our ideas and feelings about death out into the world, these people will find it easier to let go — knowing they’ll have a safe place to land when they do.

When it comes to death, we don’t have to simply say, “Of course religion is a comforting lie — but it’s still a lie, and you should care about that.” For many people, the lie is not actually very comforting. And the very fact that it is a lie is a large part of what undercuts its comfort.

We do not have to concede this ground.

Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do with God is now available on Kindle and other ebook readers.

This essay was originally published in Free Inquiry.

I Filed a Lawsuit Against My School District for Allowing Christian Prayers During Graduation, and It’s Finally Over

This is a guest post by Max Nielson. Max is a student at the College of Charleston.

…

In 2012, I filed a federal lawsuit against South Carolina’s Lexington/Richland School District 5, where I attended Irmo High School, because I wanted to do something to change the district-wide policy of holding Christian prayers during graduation ceremonies. (They let the majority-Christian senior class vote on the prayer, but the outcome was never in doubt.)

The lawsuit was amended to include the district practice of holding preacher-led prayers at board meetings after I recruited two younger District 5 students, Dakota McMillan and Jacob Zupan, to maintain legal standing after my graduation.

Jacob Zupan, Max Nielson, and Dakota McMillan at the start of the lawsuit

In August of 2013, the district agreed to stop holding graduation prayers and changed their policy to reflect the South Carolina Student-Led Message Act, which prevents district administrators from altering the content of a student’s speech. They paid our side’s legal fees, too. The new policy could still allow prayer if it’s part of a student’s graduation speech, but it prevents a formal Christian prayer from being on the agenda for the ceremony.

U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie dismissed the remainder of the case a couple of weeks ago on December 1, citing our lack of standing on the issue of prayer at board meetings since none of the plaintiffs had attended recent meetings.

Despite that, I am happy about the progress we were able to make towards a more secular school district, and grateful for the help and support I received from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Aaron Kozloski, other secular activists, and my fellow students at Irmo High School.

This lawsuit was my introduction into the world of secular activism, and over the course of the suit, I have started a Secular Student Alliance group at the College of Charleston, interned for the Secular Coalition for America and Center for Inquiry, and served (since the summer of 2013) as the Secular Coalition for America’s social media coordinator. I hope that my continued involvement in the freethought movement inspires others to take up the cause of secular activism.

Brian Brown Says Marriage Equality Will Result in Mass Poverty, Drug Use, End of the World As We Know It

Ten years from now, Brian Brown says, the world will be a terrifying bastion of sexual perversion, a hotbed for mass marriages, a poverty-stricken, post-apocalyptic shell of what it once was — and all because we didn’t stop marriage equality when we had the chance.

That’s the gist, at least, of a letter the National Organization for Marriage’s president wrote to the group’s supporters. Like many conservative Christian leaders of our time, Brown is terrified that marriage equality, equal rights for transgender people, and other steps toward a more civil and just society will destroy his comfortably bigoted way of living.

Brown’s blog post, titled “Ten Years From Now,” opens with an imaginary scenario of his teenage daughter getting suspended from school because she asked a trans girl to leave the women’s restroom. Brown and his cohorts seem downright terrified of trans people — they don’t understand them, they don’t care to.

You see, the individual my daughter is referring to is a fully-developed seventeen year old young man, but he has chosen to “identify” as a “she.” The school says “she” is entitled to use the girl’s bathroom, locker room and even shower facilities, and that those like my daughter who object to losing their privacy are harming her identity and bullying her. Bullying will not be tolerated.

Kids these days are told that they can choose their own gender. In fact, gender is no longer particularly relevant in the public schools. A few years ago the school district adopted the Ontario, Canada construct of telling students there were six genders, but recently they’ve gone to the Facebook model and teach that there are dozens of genders. What is relevant these days is not gender, but “gender identity.”

This conservative Christian aversion to trans people has come up more times than I can stand in the last few months, especially as more schools take action to protect (or, in some cases, discriminate against) transgender students. Gender norms, behaviors and expectations associated with a person’s assigned sex at birth are so crucial, they take precedence over a person’s own sense of what’s safe, healthy, and right for them.

Here is my question: How does having a person with different body parts in the stall next to you affect your privacy?

Unless you demand each person in the bathroom strip down before they walk in, how do you know what their body looks like? How would they know what your body looks like? Are other girls required to show IDs or more at the door proving they’re “really” girls? Is restroom usage a group activity that involves looking, commenting, being aware of what a person looks like under their clothes? Not in the schools I went to; maybe elsewhere?

If someone is peeking through the stall cracks to look at you, or harasses you in some other way, that’s a crime no matter the person’s gender. But if you’re each in locked stalls, completely unaware of one another’s bodies, how is it any of your business?

Brown’s imaginary 2024 includes other talking point scenarios often cited by anti-gay conservatives: Christian student groups being shut down for blatant discrimination, for example, and the sudden legalization of polygamous marriages.

Prominent supporters of multi-person marriages, Brown will recall, are often Christians themselves. The same First Amendment that allows Christian student groups to meet in public schools ensures that students can’t get kicked out of those groups for holding different beliefs. Brown wants to have his cake and abuse it, too.

Now, this is the part of Brown’s imagined future I really don’t follow:

I read an article on my device that noted that even though marriage has been made available to any number or combination of people regardless of gender, there are fewer marriages taking place. A majority of children are now being born to unwed parents.

A new study came out the other day showing that teenage drug use, criminality, truancy and suicide were on the rise, while educational attainment is declining. More people are living in poverty than any other time in my life. The President published a video saying these facts point to the need for a massive new government program and proposed to raise taxes to pay for it.

All this resulting from allowing committed couples to marry, provide for one another in times of hardship, and raise children in a safe and loving home?

Apparently, yes. When he zaps out of his futuristic fantasy to describe how we *must act now* to save ourselves, he says outright that virtually every societal wrong stems from allowing same-sex couples to marry:

States and local governments across the nation are passing laws prohibiting discrimination based on “gender identity.” Schools allowing students to use the bathroom of their choice is becoming common. Canadian schools do recognize six genders, while Facebook recognizes 50. Virtually every high school campus has an LGBTQ group, but Christian organizations are increasingly being eliminated. More and more children are being born out of wedlock, and those children are much more prone to experience problems in their lives, including living in poverty. While polyamorous marriages are not yet legal, courts have already moved to remove some barriers to polygamy. And the concept of short-term marriage contracts is actively being promoted in some quarters.

All of this — every bit and more — stems from the failure of our society to preserve marriage in the law and to promote a healthy marriage culture.

Every bit and more! I had no idea my gayness was inflicting poverty. Damn.

Joking aside, this is a horrific claim with virtually no evidence to back it up. Perhaps Brown has missed out on the many studies that suggest children of same-sex couples are just as happy and healthy as those with a mom and dad.

Maybe he’s ignoring how many states which recently legalized marriage equality have seen (or likely will see) boosts to their economies, or that there are literally no cases of students abusing transgender nondiscrimination policies to harass other kids in the bathroom.

He’s not paying attention to how public support for marriage equality has grown quickly in the last several years, with a proper majority now in favor.

He conveniently forgets that more and more churches are stepping forward to affirm and accept LGBT people, not vilify them.

None of this matters, so long as Brian Brown can continue to condemn a transgender teenager for using the women’s bathroom.

To put it bluntly, there’s already a whole lot wrong with society, and marriage equality is not what caused it. Ten years from now, marriage equality may actually be legal nationwide. Despite what Brown says, we can rest assured that extending rights, respect, and dignity to same-sex couples will only improve the world for ourselves, our kids, and our grandkids, not destroy it.

(Image via Wikipedia)