Religion

The “Hoo Haa” Monologues

Irony, the phone is for you. A Florida theater was forced to change the name on their marquee after morons complained about the word “vagina” appearing in the title of the play “The Vagina Monologues” – which is, of course, a play about making women more comfortable talking about their bodies.
Personally, I wouldn’t have chosen hoohaa as the replacement — it should, of course, in the spirit of the play, be “Cunt.”

ATLANTIC BEACH, Fla. — A modified marquee in Atlantic Beach has been drawing some attention. “Hoohaa” replaced a word in the title of a play after a driver complained about finding the previous wording offensive.
“We got a complaint about this play The Vagina Monologues,” said Bryce Pfanenstiel, of the Atlantic Theater. The Hoohah Monologues is a replacement title for The Vagina Monologues — a well-known play about that part of the female body. “We decided we would just use child slang for it. That’s how we decided on Hoohah Monologues,” Pfanenstiel said. They did this after a driver who saw it complained to the theater, saying she was upset that her niece saw it.
“I’m on the phone and asked ‘What did you tell her?’ She’s like, ‘I’m offended I had to answer the question,'” Pfanenstiel said.

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Catholic League Bill Donohue Quotes

According to transcripts of his speech at Justice Sunday:

The most insane idea I’ve heard in my whole life, of two men getting married, I mean – that’s something that you expect in the asylum, quite frankly.

Donohue on MSNBC:

Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It’s not a secret, OK? And I’m not afraid to say it. That’s why they hate this movie. It’s about Jesus Christ, and it’s about truth. It’s about the messiah. Hollywood likes anal sex.

Donohue on homosexuality:

Name for me a book publishing company in this country, particularly in New York, which would allow you to publish a book which would tell the truth about the gay death style.

Read more about what this crazy nutjob has to say.

Fuck you, Bill.

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Mean Things I’ve Said about the Catholic Church

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I’m apparently not nearly as inflammatory as I thought, or perhaps I’m just remembering stuff I’ve said out loud, and not things I’ve blogged. Here’s the scrawny, short list of times I’ve blogged about the Church I grew up in – Catholicism. The top one is probably the longest thing I’ve written.

Which really just proves my point – that I’ve got nothing on Melissa McEwan when it comes to fully expressing what I think online; she writes well-thought-out, reasoned analysis, whereas I occasionally blurt out some half-formed notion. I have a lot of learning to do when it comes to self-expression.

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Melissa McEwan is a Goddess

One of my favorite writers is Melissa McEwan, who hosts a group blog called Shakesville – which I link to all the time here, so you should be at least familiar with it if you follow along with what I write at all.

Melissa is one of the most eloquent, intelligent writers I’ve ever run across. She seems to have some of the same ideas I do, but where mine are half-formed notions that cross my mind, she examines them in detail and depth that would never have occurred to me. She is, in a word, brilliant. I’ve thought for ages that she should be writing on a national level – for a major paper or magazine, so when I heard she was hired by the John Edwards campaign I was ecstatic – finally, she’d get her due. I hope every one there realizes how extraordinary she is — please.

However, the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue and some other right-wing attack groups like Michelle Malkin have started publicly criticizing the Edwards campaign for hiring Melissa, based on feminist posts she’s made in the past on her blog, criticizing the Catholic church for being the homophobic, misogynist bastards that they are.

The story has shown up in major papers like Salon and now the New York Times, and there are rumors that the Edwards campaign is considering firing Melissa.

I hope to goodness they don’t succumb to pressure and do that, because that would be the indication to me that Edwards doesn’t have the stones to be my president in 2008.

I’m going to make a list of all the angry things I’ve ever written about the Catholic Church on this blog — and you know I grew-up Catholic, so there are dozens of inflammatory things I’ve written — and post them all in one place, so if there’s ever any question, they’ll know right where to look.

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Dan Savage Takes on Mary Cheney’s Hypocrisy

Dan Savage calls out Mary Cheney’s hypocrisy on suggesting she should be allowed privacy from media scrutiny for her decision to have a baby with her lesbian partner Heather Poe:

In today’s New York Times Mary Cheney defends her decision to get her lezbo self knocked the fuck up. Like her father, Mary Cheney believes she shouldn’t have to answer for her party’s attacks on same-sex parents.

“When Heather and I decided to have a baby, I knew it wasn’t going to be the most popular decision,” Ms. Cheney said, referring to her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe. She then gestured to her middle—any bulge disguised by a boxy jacket—and asserted: “This is a baby. This is a blessing from God. It is not a political statement. It is not a prop to be used in a debate, on either side of a political issue. It is my child.”

Nice try, Mary.
Yes, it’s a baby, not a prop. My kid isn’t a prop either, but that never stopped right-wingers from attacking me and my boyfriend over our decision to become parents. The fitness of same-sex couples to parent is very much part of the political debate thanks to the GOP and the Christian bigots that make up its lunatic “base.” You’re a Republican, Mary, you worked on both of your father’s campaigns, and you kept your mouth clamped shut while Karl Rove and George Bush ran around the country attacking gay people, gay parents, and our children in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006. It’s a little late to declare the private choices of gays and lesbians unfit for public debate, Mary.
And so long as your party insists on making the fitness of homosexuals to marry or parent—or, hell, exist—a subject of public debate, Mary, your decision to become a parent is germane and very much fit for public discussion and debate. The GOP’s selective embrace of some pregnant dykes—only knocked-up lesbians with powerful connections will be treated with respect—is a disconnect that demands answers. From you, from your father, from your venomous mother, from the idiot president you helped elect. Is that fair? Maybe not. Want to blame someone? Go look in the mirror—and then come out swinging, Mary—for yourself, your partner, and your child.

Read the whole thing, it’s excellent.

Continue ReadingDan Savage Takes on Mary Cheney’s Hypocrisy

How Islam Rationalizes Prostitution

A bizarre sexual practice sanctioned by Islam that has re-emerged in Iraq because we invaded, according the the Washington Post:

Temporary ‘Enjoyment Marriages’ In Vogue Again With Some Iraqis
BAGHDAD — Fatima Ali was a 24-year-old divorcee with no high school diploma and no job. Shawket al-Rubae was a 34-year-old Shiite sheik with a pregnant wife who, he said, could not have sex with him. If people are looking for filing for divorce in Virginia, then they can get some help from here.

Ali wanted someone to take care of her. Rubae wanted a companion. People can hire fathers rights lawyers from here, during or before a divorce.

They met one afternoon in May at the house he shares with his wife, in the room where he accepts visitors seeking his religious counsel. He had a proposal. Would Ali be his temporary wife? He would pay her 5,000 Iraqi dinars upfront — about $4 — in addition to her monthly expenses. About twice a week over the next eight months, he would summon her to a house he would rent.
The negotiations took an hour and ended with an unwritten agreement, the couple recalled. Thus began their “mutaa,” or enjoyment marriage, a temporary union believed by Shiite Muslims to be sanctioned by Islamic law. If you need help with divorce law, family law lawyers for hire can be checked out before things get out of hand.

The Shiite practice began 1,400 years ago, in what is now Iraq and other parts of the region, as a way to provide for war widows. Banned by President Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-led government, it has regained popularity since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq brought the majority Shiites to power, said clerics, women’s rights activists and mutaa spouses.

“It’s a cover for prostitution,” said Um Akram, a women’s rights activist in Baghdad. “Some women, because they don’t want to be prostitutes, they think that this is legal because it’s got some kind of religious cover. But it is wrong, and they’re still prostitutes from the society’s point of view.” Um Akram, like the mutaa spouses interviewed, asked that only parts of her name be published.

Boy, anything can be rationalized if you just write it into your religion. We’re certainly improving things over there.

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Retrofitting with Square Wheels

One of my favorite writers, Ian Williams, has this to say in a recent blog post:

There are three issues, for me, that bear specific importance to the survival of my family: drastically reducing our carbon output, jumpstarting research on stem cells, and securing ALL loose nuclear materials in the world. If we make headway on those things in my lifetime, I will consider this era to be largely successful.
Yet all three have ticking clocks. It is only a matter of time before some very bad people get their hands on weapons-grade nuclear material. We only have a decade – at most – to stop a potential environmental holocaust. And I would like to unlock the stem cell secrets before any one of us, currently healthy reading this blog, starts to get Alzheimers, Parkinsons, or has a spinal injury.
That’s three clocks. One ticks down to an American city flattened into glass, one ticks down to you not remembering your own children, and one ticks down to billions dead because of a little change in the weather. I’m not being histrionic or even cavalier. It took me a lot of Celexa, therapy and a healthy dose of nihilism to come to grips with it. They all loom, but all come with a saving grace: THEY ALL CAN BE PREVENTED IF WE ACT IN TIME.
Let’s leave aside the nuclear material problem, because that’s my own little bête noire. The other two issues, however, are being roadblocked, again and again, by American religious fundamentalists. If we don’t stop them, they will actually end up killing us. I’m not being histrionic. Their efforts to suppress the news of global warming and their stalwart opposition to stem cells will, if nothing else does, eventually end your (or your kids’) life before its time.
I was listening to this story about two brothers who are trying to bridge their cultural divide: both are Christian, but one is a pro-war Republican who believed the Earth was created in seven actual days by God, and the other, well, votes for Democrats. They discuss how they’ve decided to get together more often and see where they have common ground.
The evangelical brother’s biggest problem with… I dunno, people that don’t agree with him, I suppose… is their perceived superiority. He doesn’t like the disdain, and he’s enraged by conversations where he’s perceived as an idiot.
For me, it’s summed up in a metaphor. Suppose there is a car that is supposed to drive us into the future. A lot of people with a lot of skill made the car, and it was almost done and ready to go, when another group of people come along and say “nice car, but it needs square wheels.”
“Square wheels?” the craftsmen say, “You’re… you’re joking, right?”
“No,” the group says, very loudly, “And I’ll thank you not to act so smug.”
“But round wheels work infinitely better than square wheels.”
“We don’t care. We firmly believe, to the depths of our hearts, that square wheels are the way to go.”
“We’re not putting square wheels on the car! That’s totally fucking stupid!”
“HOW DARE YOU CALL US STUPID! WE’RE GOING TO LIE IN FRONT OF THE CAR UNTIL YOU PUT OUR SQUARE WHEELS ON IT!!!”
“We’re sorry, we’re sorry,” say the craftsmen, “Maybe we can compromise… um, maybe octagons? Um…”
That argument? That’s where America is right now. The future is coming on incredibly fast, the clocks are ticking. We’re dying to go, excited about a future that could be so much better for ourselves and our families. We could be so far along on the journey, and yet we’re stuck retrofitting our vehicle with bling from the Dark Ages.
That time has expired. We have work to do. For the love of your God, please get your Hell out of the way.

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The Catholic Church Has a New Policy on Gay People

This happened earlier in the week, but I haven’t had time to address it before now. If you know me, you know I grew up Catholic and have had somethings to say in the past about the Catholic Church and their behavior towards gay people.

Catholic Bishops have officially approved new guidelines concerning ministry to gay people that basically say gays are sort of okay within the church, just as long as their sexual orientation is in no way sexual.

The guidelines state that while the Church teaches that homosexual acts are immoral, there is a distinction between engaging in homosexual acts and having a homosexual orientation. “While the former is always sinful, the latter is not.”

“It is crucially important to understand that saying a person has a particular inclination that is disordered is not to say that the person as a whole is disordered. Nor does it mean that one has been rejected by God or the Church.”

In other words, it’s okay if I’m gay, but I have to be celibate. And there are some other conditions, too:

  • Persons who experience same-sex attraction and yet are living in accord with Church teaching should be encouraged to take an active role in the life of the faith community. However, the Church has a right to deny roles of service to those whose behavior violates her teaching.
  • The Christian life is a progressive journey toward a deepening of one’s discipleship of Christ…Those who stumble along the way should be encouraged to remain in the community and to continue to strive for holiness. In this regard, frequent reception of the Sacrament of Reconciliation is of great importance.
  • The Church does not support so-called same-sex “marriages” or any semblance thereof, including civil unions that give the appearance of a marriage. Church ministers may not bless such unions or promote them in any way, directly or indirectly.
  • Similarly, the Church does not support the adoption of children by homosexual couples since homosexual unions are contrary to the divine plan. For this reason, Baptism of children adopted by such couples presents a pastoral concern. Nevertheless, the Church does not refuse the Sacrament of Baptism to these children, but there must be a well founded hope that the children will be brought up in the Catholic religion.

So I get to be a part of the church, but I have to be a sexless second class citizen within it. Oh lucky fucking me.

Yay! Here’s what I think about that:

let me laugh even harder.

Honey, no.

Continue ReadingThe Catholic Church Has a New Policy on Gay People

Soulforce urges people to write compassionate letters to Haggard

Soulforce is urging gay people to write compassionate letters to Ted Haggard now that he’s being targeted for “spiritual restoration.”

In response to the news that Rev. Ted Haggard has been dismissed by New Life Church and resigned as President of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), Soulforce has urged the gay community to respond compassionately.
We acknowledge that many in our community feel legitimate anger toward Haggard and the NAE for their history of religion-based bigotry.
However, Haggard has now been referred to the same “spiritual restoration” therapy that has threatened the mental and spiritual wellbeing of so many gay men and lesbians.
Don’t let the voices of spiritual violence and intolerance be the only voices that he hears in this time of personal, familial, and professional crisis.
We urge you to write to Ted Haggard in a spirit of empathy and welcoming. Let him know that there are alternatives to ex-gay therapy, and that LGBT people can live loving, honest, and purposeful lives.

Continue ReadingSoulforce urges people to write compassionate letters to Haggard