2012 is coming to a close. We’re going to start our next cycle about the Sun in a couple of days with multiple occasions for celebration. Many of my friends, heathen and otherwise, will be coming to the house on Friday to celebrate the winter solstice. Most everyone will be celebrating Christmas Day with family, The Christmas Story, football, and presents from loved ones and family. Then there will be yet another celebration when December 2012 becomes January 2013. Try as we might we just can’t protect our “time of multiple celebrations” from controversy and tragedy. Scuffling over whether or not there is a “War on Christmas” is mildly entertaining but the tragedy of a mass murder demands that we focus on darker thoughts. If you’d like to delve into the subject of mass murders in American you can find and excellent article on the Mother Jones website.

2012 had some highlight for us. We found out that the “nones,” those people with no religious affiliation, is the fastest growing “religious” group in America. This year the Supreme Court decided to review the “Under God” part of the Pledge of Allegiance. The arguments are now about equal rights and protection as opposed to violations of the First Amendment. In 2012, non-believers are finally recognized as a powerful voting block. This was the year of the Reason Rally in Washington, D.C. A couple of graduates from the Clergy Project came out in 2012 and have taken their place in helping the FreeThought community. Jerry DeWitt is the Executive Director of Recovering from Religion. Teresa McBain was a Methodist pastor for 10 years. She came out at the American Atheist convention and now works for that organization as a communications director. Jessica Ahlquist, a high school student, won a case that removed a banner from her school gymnasium. This year Arizona voted to have an avowed secularist sent to the House of Representatives, Kyrsten Sinema. Also this year the FFRF (Freedom from Religion Foundation) took action over the IRS’s failure to enforce electioneering restrictions. Ten Commandment monuments have been removed from public property in Pennsylvania. Prayer in public schools was fought and won in South Carolina. The fact that Pennsylvania declared 2012 the”Year of the Bible” was addressed. A long standing obvious violation of the separation of church and state was addressed in Montana where the permit for a life sized concrete statue of Jesus on public land was not renewed by the Forest Service. The FFRF is claiming over 140 legal victories in 2012 without going to court!

A scan of the Wikipedia page on science accomplishments during 2012 yields too many to list here. Off the top of my head I remember the discovery of the Higgs Boson and the amazing landing of the Martian rover Curiosity. There were of course many many more. While space science is always interesting we shouldn’t forget terrestrial advances being made by altruistic and dedicated individuals. The Guinea Worm Disease is about to become the second human disease to be completely eradicated. The first was small pox. In 2012 Stem cells were used to ease degnerative blindness in volunteers.

2012 was a year of the young activism. Jessica Ahlquist, Krystal Myers, Jeff Shott, Matthew Nielson, Maia Disbrow and Mayan and Balen Essak were all young activists that were in the news on the front lines of church and state separation. While the “nones” are on the rise generally and represent almost 20% or 1 in 5, the adults under 30 are polling at 33% or 1/3^rd of the population. We’re going into a new year and stats like that give the secularists a reason for hope for the future.

Happy Holidays!

FreeThought Arizona is a 501c3 charity, as such, we are not allowed to take a position on individual candidates but now the election is over. Mitt Romney is no longer a candidate and Barack Obama has been green lighted for another four years in office. Given the choice between the two from a Secularist’s point of view, neither candidate was ideal. Atheists including Agnostics and other FreeThinking Americans are famously independent and leading them is often compared to herding cats. Some say that it’s more like herding butterflies but one thing that we all agree on is that there should be a separation of the church and the state. We universally agree that laws and public policies should be based on science, empirical evidence, verifiable experiences, independent historical accounts, and sound logic—not religious dogma. Given that one concern, President Obama was clearly the better choice.

Here in Arizona, we need to do a better job of keeping church and state separate. We’ve allowed the Center for Arizona Policy to have way too much power in our legislature. With the election behind us, it is time now to begin to work to roll back the power of Cathi Herrod. Her 501c3 organization is in flagrant violation of IRS rules for non-profit charitable organizations and has been active in partisan politics since 1995. She brags about over 100 laws that she has supported that have been enacted into law. We didn’t vote for her but she in effect tells everyone in the state who they should marry. She has decided that gambling is wrong, not just for herself, but for everyone in the state. She’s been instrumental in siphoning off money from the public education system into private institutions that don’t answer to the citizenry and are able to accept and reject students based on arbitrary criteria. She has supported a law that delays divorces by instilling a waiting period and unfunded mandatory counseling which in some cases extends the time women must endure in abusive situations. One of the laws she pushed through made it more difficult for children to be adopted by those that would remove them from state care. However, her most egregious violation of human dignity was her part in killing the Anti-Bullying law. The bill was killed by her because it protected gay kids from bullying. Never mind that it also protected all other kids as well.

The country has rejected Mitt Romney, the homophobic bully. Perhaps it’s time we started rejecting our own homophobic lobbying organization and Cathi Herrod. The best way to make that happen is to support the Secular Coalition for Arizona. The Secular Coalition for Arizona operates on a total budget that is less than the yearly compensation of Cathi Herrod. It is legally organized as a lobbying organization and represents many liaised non-theistic organizations in Arizona. Go to their website (http://www.secularaz.org/) and sign up for Email notification and find out about some of the liaised organizations make up the coalition.

It’s very difficult during an election season to not delve into politics and our self imposed rule here in the FreeThought Arizona Blog is to try and stay away from pure politics. However, when politicians from one particular party are seemingly duty bound to impose their religious beliefs on others, that position must be discussed here.

Most of the GOP candidates are “pro life” and would criminalize abortions. However, MSNBC reports that there are 12 GOP Senate candidates that hold the position that they would not make an exception even for victims of rape or incest. Twelve! There are only 100 senators so that means if they all win there will be at least 1 in 8 senators holding this extreme position. These people are so convinced that their religious convictions are right that they feel that they can in good conscience dictate to the victims of rape that the government has the right to make them criminals if they choose to end their unwanted pregnancy.

In a way, this discussion represents a “de-facto” win for the Religious Right. They have moved the discussion to their side so much that they are able to concentrate on just the extremes. In their world, Roe V Wade is already gone. Let’s remember that it’s still the law of the land and move the discussion back to where it should be. Women still have a choice in this country and it should remain that way. If your religion forbids that choice, that’s fine for adherents to your religion. Most people regardless of religion believe that abortions should be legal, safe, and rare. In a properly educated society with access to birth control, unwanted pregnancies along with abortions would be rare. In Sweden, they believe that every child should be wanted and have much better statistics than we do.

The GOP Senate candidates that have been reported to hold the position that rape victims must be forced to carry their rapists’ babies to delivery are: Richard Murdock (IN), Rick Berg (ND), Michael Baumgartner (WA), Pete Hoekstra (MI), Tom Smith (PA), Todd Akin (MO), Josh Mandel(OH), Deb Fischer(NE), Ted Cruz (TX), John MacGovern (VT), Wendy Long (NY), and John Raese (WV).

While we’re thinking about a women’s right to choose remember the next president will probably appoint a judge or two on the Supreme Court. Something to consider before pulling the lever…

Here is another incredulous entry from Jim Wilson:

Americans display disinterest, distrust, or illiteracy when it comes to science. They enjoy their smart phones and the other toys and conveniences science produces, but few delve further than that. Many felt a sense of nationalistic pride with the landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars in August but these moments seem all too infrequent. On a given day, there is more interest in sports or celebrities than scientific issues. Too many in this country reject scientific thinking in favor of new age superstition or ancient religious nonsense.

Today’s case in point is US House Rep. Paul Broun from Georgia; he recently told an audience at Liberty Baptist Church that:

 God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell. And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior. You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I’ve found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I don’t believe that the Earth’s but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says. And what I’ve come to learn is that it’s the manufacturer’s handbook, is what I call it. It teaches us how to run our lives individually, how to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all of public policy and everything in society. And that’s the reason as your congressman I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, D.C., and I’ll continue to do that.

In other words, we have a superstitious, religious zealot in our government who rejects all scientific findings that contradict his favorite story book. The theories he rejects as being conspiracies from Satan himself are the cornerstones of our understanding of the universe. Evolutionary biology, old Earth geology, and the big bang cosmology are consistent with all existing evidence and are contradicted by none of it. The universe we live in makes no sense without these theories. Scientific literacy requires knowledge of these theories. Representative Broun rejects them in favor of willful ignorance.

Can you believe that this superstitious ignoramus is on the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology which has jurisdiction over NASA, the Department of Energy, EPA, ATSDR, NSF, FAA, NOAA, National Institute of Standards and Technology, FEMA, the U.S. Fire Administration, and United States Geological Survey as well as over federally funded scientific research and development that is not military-related? He shares this position with Todd “legitimate rape” Akin, who recently made news because of his incorrect belief that pregnancies are not likely to result from rape. There is certainly disagreement, among freethinkers about what role government should have in the sciences, but nearly all will agree that if we are to have a science committee the last people on it should scientific illiterates like Broun and Akin.

There are quite a few problems with Broun’s claims that the Bible is a good source of information on how to run society or a family. It is silent on many important issues like Nuclear proliferation, space travel, vaccinations, fossil fuel usage, and television to name a few. The New Testament’s main political instruction is to be obedient to earthly authorities: The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves (Romans 13:1). The Bible’s instructions on family life are completely insane. For example, it prescribes killing rebellious young people as well as family members who suggest you join other religions. Jesus himself was surprisingly anti-family when he said: If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters–yes, even his own life–he cannot be my disciple.(Luke 14:26)

Unfortunately, as of the time of writing Representative Broun is running unopposed. We need to free our government from the influence of superstitious crackpots and scientific illiterates who cling to Bronze Age mythology. Science has endless potential for improving our lives and our understanding of the universe we live in. We need law makers who understand this, rather than ones who want to base policy on primitive stories and outdated belief systems.

Jim Wilson’s thoughts on uniting with believers for a common cause:

We live in a society with a predominantly Christian population; roughly 80% of the Americans identify themselves as Christians. The Christian faith has undeniably influenced American culture and the way many Americans view the world. Despite this cultural proclivity towards Christianity, our country has a strong tradition of secular national government. The separation of church and state and respect for religious freedom that this codified made the United States very different from Europe which had official state religions.

Atheists think that the separation of church and state is a wonderful thing. We are a persistent but growing minority, with very little political clout. The last thing we want is our tax money being used to promote religious notions we disagree with or impose religious prohibitions we disagree with on society.

We recognize that we are not alone in this desire. There are countless religions practiced by tax-paying Americans and many of these have countless contending sects that disagree on many major points of theology. They all have different rituals, practices, and prohibitions. Many of their practitioners share our desire to not see their taxes go towards promoting ideas they disagree with or imposing the prohibitions of others on them. The only way to do this is by keeping government out of the business of promoting religion or imposing religious prohibitions. Freedom is for everyone!

Many Christians share this desire. They would rather allow their religion to compete on the free market of ideas than have it backed by the government which many view as corrupting everything it touches. They also would just assume not have some differing denomination of Christianity be the one that takes control of the state. After all mixing government with religion is likely to corrupt both.

Despite this, it seems all too often to be non-believers taking the on the issue of separation of church and state. Groups such as the Secular Coalition for America or the Freedom from Religion foundation do a lot of hard work to fight for religious freedom and get the message out but they are all too often seen as organizations that Christians do not want to associate with. In spite of the fact that most Christians do not want to see a return of mandatory school prayers, creation stories taught as biology, government interference in the lives of same-sex couples, expensive religious monuments on public grounds, unconditional support for Israel, or absolutist restrictions on abortion rights.

Unfortunately for us Arizonans, the religious right has completely dominated one of our state’s major parties. Their main lobbying organization CAP (Center for Arizona Policy), has pushed for laws allowing the teaching from the Bible in public schools at the exclusion of other religious text (HB2563), doctors to commit medical fraud for religious reasons (SB1359), licensed medical professionals (a government granted monopoly) to refuse to provide treatment for religious reasons, and many more (http://tucsoncitizen.com/freethought-arizona/2012/04/12/our-arizona-legislature-they-need-to-hear-from-you-today/). This group’s lobbying activities are clearly a violation of their 501(c)(3), meaning the government is giving them an unfair tax advantage.

What good are Christian values or morality if the government has to force it on the population? Barry Lynn is the Executive Director of Americans United for Separation of Church and state. He is an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ and believes that the state should not be doing the work of the church. He does not want the government telling his church how to operate or his church telling the government what to do.

Atheists, Agnostics, and religious people of all sorts need to recognize that when ideas are free to compete it is a good thing.  What makes America great is that we are able to freely express our ideas and preferences without the government having a say in the matter.

Last night, a small subset of the Tucson Atheists met in the Fronimos restaurant. Tucson Atheists hosts quite a few meetups. We have a diverse membership and it makes perfect sense to have many different kinds of meetings. Last night’s meeting is called, “Caffeinated Godlessly.” It is held every other Thursday and the current venue is Fronimos, a Greek restaurant, where the food is good, reasonably priced, and they have a nice area for discussion.

The subject of the meeting was, “Should Atheists be organizing politically?” The organizer is Nancy and she kicked off the discussion. Apparently, there is a new political party called the National Atheist Party. Nancy wanted to find out from those attending if it is a good idea to have an Atheist political party. Gregg, an occasional contributor to this blog, has been checking into it and was familiar with the organization. Most of us at the meeting were not very familiar with the specifics which is why the question was posed to be more general than, “What do you think of the National Atheist Party?”

After the requisite discussions about the meaning of Atheism, a frequently debated question in our group, we started kicking around the positive and negatives of organizing Atheists politically. There were some fundamental discussions such as:

• Would you vote for a poorly qualified candidate simply because he or she is an Atheist?
• What would we feel about a “National Christian Party?”
• Are we defined by our Atheism?
• Is there anything wrong with an elected representative taking governing guidance from an invisible entity?

As I mentioned earlier, we are a rather diverse group. We tend to think independently and the discussions were lively. Yet, as heated as the discussions were, everyone left the meeting with the full intention of returning in two weeks. Many of the discussions were continued in the parking lot. No one stomped off and we continued an ad hoc meeting with respect and camaraderie. Amazing!

The closest thing to a result is that most felt that the National Atheist Party may not be the best idea but we would still like to see more Atheists in office. The question of Atheism is very narrow and Atheists are all over the map politically. The difficulty becomes apparent as soon as the political party starts building a platform. Each plank that doesn’t relate specifically to the Atheist question will not be universally accepted and cause minor divisions. In some cases, people will reject the party entirely if it takes a controversial position and all positions other than the “god” question are controversial in the Atheist community.

There are existing “secular” organizations that we should support such as: The Secular Coalition for America, the Secular Coalition for Arizona, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State to name a few. There are many more. Most of us are not defined by our Atheism but it is part of who we are. Finally, there were some strong feelings about our elected representatives taking guidance from invisible (or imaginary) entities.

Jim Wilson makes the case for legalization of recreational marijuana use:

“If you don’t believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor. Go home tonight. Take all your albums, all your tapes and all your CDs and burn them. ‘Cause you know what, the musicians that made all that great music that’s enhanced your lives throughout the years were rrreal fxxxing high on drugs”

-Bill Hicks

In the series BBC’s Stephen Fry in America, Stephen Fry tours each U.S state in a London Taxi cab stopping at historical sites, hanging out with locals, and generally doing some really interesting things. In the final episode Stephen Fry accompanies a California sheriff on a drug bust. The sheriff’s men invade a man’s home and seize several marijuana plants he was growing. We live in a place where it is criminal offense to grow the wrong kind of plant.

Later in the episode, Fry spent some time with individuals who were in favor of legalizing recreational marijuana. As a group, pot users tend to be harmless. Unlike alcohol users they are not likely to get into bar brawls or riots. According to comedian Kat Williams, marijuana’s only side effects are “hungry, happy and sleepy.” For decades millions of Americans have enjoyed recreational cannabis use. If you have never tried the drug, it is likely that some of your friends or family have and perhaps still enjoy its use. The idea that all of these people should have been arrested for it is absurd.

The fact that a hard working American cannot legally relax with a joint or a bong hit after a long day of work makes a mockery of the claims that this country is the land of the free. Reefer Madness is a myth. The truth of the matter is that pot users tend to be regular Americans just like everyone else. The vast majority of them do not become addicts of other drugs or drains on society. In fact, many hardworking individuals like Olympic athlete Michael Phelps, Musician Louis Armstrong, and Cosmologist Carl Sagan were all pot users. Additionally, a great many of the artists and entertainers that may that have done much to make life more enjoyable use cannabis as a way of relaxing or a source of inspiration. The suburban house moms that support zero tolerance are often hypocrites who have either tried the drug themselves or cruise around listening to a bunch of routine tokers on their soft rock radio stations.

A growing number of Americans now realize that the war on cannabis has cost this country billions of dollars, created horrible black markets, and done little to keep drugs off the streets. A recent Public Policy Polling survey showed that in Colorado legalizing pot got a higher approval rating than either Mitt Romney or Barack Obama. Acting on this, Colorado, Washington, and Oregon will have ballot measures this year for legalizing recreational marijuana use.

Bringing a major cash crop into the economy and allowing it to be taxed would be good for the economy and reduce deficit spending. Furthermore, legally selling marijuana could be a profitable business venture or source of employment for many impoverished Americans who don’t have a lot of other options. Let’s legalize it and eliminating any barriers of entry for those wishing to make money selling it. Additionally, money will be saved from policing and punishing people caught with this plant. It may also be a boon to the snack food industry.

However both of the major parties are vehemently opposed to legalization, despite its popularity among much of their base that can’t see the economic benefits. President Obama has cracked down on medical marijuana dispensaries far more than his predecessor. Mitt Romney has made it clear that he is vehemently opposed to ending the pointless expensive war against pot smokers. Romney states:

“If you’d like to get someone who is in favor of marijuana, I know there are some on the Democratic side of the aisle who will be happy to get in your campaign. But I’m opposed to it, and if you elect me president, you’re not going to see legalized marijuana. I’m going to fight it tooth and nail”

Of course there will be some people who are happy about this. The thugs that run the drug cartels are thrilled to see government policies raise the price of their product, while doing nothing to decrease demand. The alcohol industry is another beneficiary. It lobbies heavily to keep prohibition against what they see as a competitor intoxicant on the books. Ironically, alcohol is by any conventional standards a far more dangerous drug than pot.

The case for legalization is clear.

Jim Wilson reports on what’s going on in Lubbock, Texas and shares his opinions on the presidential race:

In a recent appeal for more money to be spent on public safety, Tom Head, a county Judge from Lubbock Texas, had the following to say:

He (President Obama) is going to try to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to the UN. Okay, what’s going to happen when that happens? I’m thinking worst case scenario here: Civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war maybe. We’re not just talking a few riots here and demonstrations. We’re talking Lexington-Concord take up arms and get rid of the guy.

Now what’s going to happen if we do that, if the public decides to do that? He’s going to send in U.N. troops — with the little blue beanies. I don’t want ‘em in Lubbock County. Okay. So I’m going to stand in front of their armored personnel carrier and say ‘you’re not coming in here’. “And the sheriff, I’ve already asked him, I said ‘you gonna back me’ he said, ‘yeah, I’ll back you.’”

The local Sheriff Kelly Rowe denies ever having any such conversations with Judge Head. I just don’t see Judge Head’s scenarios playing out. The idea that Mitt Romney is the only thing standing between us and a United Nation’s takeover of our country and possible civil war is just crazy. Head has since stated that this is only a worst case scenario but that hardly makes it sound less insane.

Of course, every U.S. president has had a hatedom—a group of people dedicated to vocally expressing their disapproval of him and his actions. Presidential hatedoms all have their pet conspiracy theories. George W. Bush for example was accused of orchestrating the September 11th attacks, while Clinton was alleged to be killing his associates. It turns out Reagan really was selling weapons to an enemy state to fund a secret war. Maybe this is just cultural near-sightedness but Obama conspiracy theories strike me as more wide- spread and crazier sounding than those assigned to other presidents. So many conservatives want to see the guy as some sort of anti-Christ and want to see themselves as living in times of cosmic struggle between good and evil, or they want to believe that Obama is some sort of global Marxist and we are on our way to civil war or the gulag.

Before Obama, I have heard American’s threaten to leave the country when candidates they disliked got elected. Now there is talk of preparations for civil war and rock musician Ted Nugent making statements like, “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” I seriously do not see how Obama is different enough from his opponent to justify such and attitude.

The truth about Obama is far more mundane. Obama is a president who has kept pretty close to the country’s political establishment and in fact, represents the interests of much of the same corporate elite Romney does. Though I have mixed feelings about Ron Paul, I fully agree with his assertion that rather than being a Marxist or Socialist, Obama is a corporatist—one who favors “government officials who often act in collusion with their favored business interests to design polices that give those interests an advantageous position to the detriment of both competitors and consumers.” In other words Obama’s administration has been a continuation of most of the policies of his recent predecessors.

As evidence, Obama has extended Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy and presided over free-trade deals that most benefit corporations to the objections of much of his base. He has called for expanded Bush’s defense spending and has increased oil exploration/drilling in the U.S. He increased the deportation of illegal immigrants and the raids on distributors of medical marijuana. He has also appointed a former Monsanto executive as his senior advisor to the FDA. His much feared health care package ended up being the scheme to force everyone to buy private insurance. It also happened to be similar to the scheme his opponent, Mitt Romney, implemented in Massachusetts.

I’m not enthusiastic about either of our major presidential candidates this year but, I figure there is much real stuff to criticize both candidates for, without making unsubstantiated, apocalyptic claims about UN invasions, fake birth certificates, global conspiracies or the coming of the anti-Christ.

[Editor’s note: Jim’s opinions should not be construed as the opinion of everyone in FreeThought Arizona. Links were added to allow the reader the ability to look into specific assertions.]

For Immediate Release: August 23, 2012

AMERICAN ATHEISTS REMOVES RELIGIOUS BILLBOARDS FROM CHARLOTTE

Large Volume of Threats by Email, Phone Ends Campaign to Question Faith in Politics

Cranford, NJ – American Atheists announced today that the billboards the organization had placed in Charlotte, NC, ahead of the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, criticizing Christianity and Mormonism would be coming down weeks early.

“It is with regret that we tell our members and all of those who treasure free speech and the separation of religion and government that American Atheists and Adams Outdoor Advertising have mutually agreed to remove the billboards immediately,” said Amanda Knief, American Atheists’ Managing Director.

“No subject, no idea should be above scrutiny—and this includes religion in all forms,” Ms. Knief said. “We are saddened that by choosing to express our rights as Atheists through questioning the religious beliefs of the men who want to be our president that our fellow citizens have responded with vitriol, threats, and hate speech against our staff, volunteers, and Adams Outdoor Advertising.”

Teresa MacBain, American Atheists’ Public Relations Director said, “It saddens me to think that our country is not a safe place for all people to publicly question religious belief. How can we grow as a nation when such censorship exists from our own citizens?”

The billboards are scheduled to be removed by the end of day Thursday, August 23, 2012.

Greetings,

It’s been a bad week for free speech and the American Atheists. I represent the American Atheists in the state of Arizona and thought that readers of this blog should know what went on in South Carolina over the past couple of days. Many people are not aware how difficult it is to get our message out as part of a distrusted minority. It is a bad thing to have to take down our billboards due to threats to the people we contracted to erect them. American Atheists decided to pull the signs as a result of the negative impact they were having on the company that we contracted with. Had the negative reactions and threats been directed solely at American Atheists, the sign would not have been removed early. It was a decision meant to protect the billboard company personnel. After the convention, the American Atheists will leave Charlotte, but the sign company will still be there to face the wrath of irrational hatred caused by the religiosity of their neighbors. American Atheists understand that we are on the front lines fighting in a country founded on secular values but we also understand that there are those that are not involved in the fight and our actions to remove the signs before the end of the contract were made to prevent collateral damage.

In Tampa, no one would take the job and put our signs up. That is their right. Private businesses that are not places of public accommodations are allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion.

The billboard war is not new and American Atheists are not the only ones involved. Around the country there have been multiple organizations posting many billboards. There is a national organization called The Coalition of Reason that has put up many signs. Locally, FreeThought Arizona put up its own sign that said, “Are you good without God? Millions are”

Many signs have been rejected. In Pennsylvania, COLTS (the County of Lackawanna Transit System) rejected a sign that simply said, “Atheists” and had some web addresses. Unlike Tampa, COLTS is not a private business and as a government entity, they ARE NOT allowed to reject business based on religion. American Atheists sent them a letter asking them to rescind their decision or face a legal challenge. In Arkansas, the Central Arkansas Transit System tried to have the Coalition of Reason pay a huge bond that others didn’t have to pay to insure against the vandalism that they thought Christians might inflict on their busses. The message was the same as ours here in Tucson, “Are you good without God? Millions are.” Apparently, it was anticipated that the Christian Arkies weren’t all that good with God.

By the way, part of my job as the Arizona State Director for American Atheists is to address individual complaints of religious discrimination. If you need to contact me, my email is AZAtheist@atheists.org.

Jim Wilson rushed this right out to get his thoughts on the record as Todd Akin seeks to impose his “right-to-life” will on rape victims. There is so much wrong in what he said in the interview on the Jaco Report . In the interview, he exposed his uncompromising anti-abortion stance and his willingness to legislate to force women to carry a rapist’s child to full term. As bad as that is, he went one notch further stating that not all rape victims are legitimate…Here’s Jim’s take on the Todd Akin situation: 

Why does this country feel the need to elect people like Todd Akin?  For those unfamiliar, with the story, Congressman Todd Akin the representative of Missouri’s second district in an interview earlier this week discussed his desire to ban abortion even in cases where the pregnancy is the result of rape.  He said such a ban was justified because pregnancies from rape are “extremely rare”.  He goes on to say:

“If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

Akin is wrong.  Pregnancy is caused by the uniting of male sperm with the female egg.  These cells do not know or care if their union was the result of a forced sexual encounter.  A 1996 study by the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Medical University of South Carolina, (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8765248) estimated that some 5% of rapes result in pregnancy amounting to 32,101 pregnancies per year.  Akin’s notion that the female body has some sort of mysterious anti-rape-pregnancy mechanism is bizarre even if we lacked statistics proving otherwise. It is completely unsupported by evidence.  Ignorance of this type in the fields of biology, human sexuality, and medicine should be unheard of in our elected officials and especially true of elected officials who were elected, in part, on their positions regarding reproductive health.  Unfortunately, Todd Akin is now running for a seat in the U.S. Senate!

Congressman Akin uses a bizarre choice of words.  What is his definition of “legitimate rape?” This may betray his belief that many of the rape cases in this country are fraudulent where women commonly bring forth false accusations of rape.  Perhaps he was speaking under the belief that any rape involving pregnancy must be fraudulent, because if the rape really happened it would have set off the woman’s magical pregnancy prevention mechanism.  This may sound cynical but it is an attitude similar to the whole “you dressed like a slut, so you are asking for it” attitude.  Blaming the victims of rape or giving blanket dismissals of the experiences of rape victims should be utterly unacceptable in politics.

Unfortunately, the conservative movement in this country thrives on biological and sexual ignorance.  Their emphasis on abstinence-only education indicates that they want a nation of married people and sexually frustrated virgins, ignorant of contraception and basic biology.  Unsurprisingly, American conservatives have increasingly politicized issues like contraception.  Consequence-free sex is seen as the enemy by much of the conservative movement. There are people with huge amounts of political power, in this country, who want to keep your kids sexually ignorant, make it more difficult to get contraception, and then force women to carry the pregnancies resulting from the policies to term.  It’s insane, and it is antithetical to a healthy attitude towards sexuality.

Akin continues:

“But let’s assume that maybe that [the magic anti-pregnancy mechanism] didn’t work or something: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.”

Of course Akin has no problem punishing the woman involved as well, by making her carry her rapist’s child.  This is like raping the woman a second time in the sense that it forces the woman to use her body in a way that is against her will.  I see the intuitive appeal of the pro-life position, but seriously, the woman should not be forced to go through a 9 month pregnancy and raise a kid just because Todd Akin does not want to punish a cluster of cells.  Keep in mind that is what the embryo is. It’s just a cluster of cells like any other and still has a long way to go before it develops anything resembling a central nervous system or sentience.  I reject the notion that fertilized eggs or embryos have a right to life.  I hold the same view even for more developed fetuses.  No one should have the right to use someone else’s body against their will, especially if the one using the other’s body was forcibly imposed on them through rape!