ABC News reported yesterday that 800,000 rifle sights that will be provided to the U.S. Marine Corps will have coded references to New Testament Bible passages. The inscriptions include references to Second Corinthians of the New Testament and to the books of Revelation. Citations Trijicon, a Michigan-based company, is providing the sights under a $660 million multi-year contract.

Spokespeople for the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps said their services weren’t aware of the markings, and that officials are figuring out what steps to take now that the issue has been brought to light. Given Trijicon’s values statement, however, the revelation shouldn’t be too much of a shock. According to their website, “We believe that America is great when its people are good. This goodness has been based on Biblical standards throughout our history, and we will strive to follow those morals.” In addition, the group dismissed concerns about the coded sights by saying the issue was being raised by a group that is “not Christian.”

But not only should those who embrace non-Biblical values be worried about these coded sights. If our military has any appearance of waging a religious war in the Middle East, it’s dangerous to all of us and a threat to our mission to stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan—particularly considering Iraqi soldiers are being trained by our military with rifles that are outfitted with these sights. As Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation says, “It allows the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, al Qaeda and the insurrectionists and jihadists to claim they’re being shot by Jesus rifles,” and will play into the hands of “those who are calling this a Crusade.”

Iowa State Representative Dawn Pettengill (R) is proposing a resolution that would change the Iowa constitution to require lawmakers to say “so help me God” when being sworn into office. According to the Associated Press, Pettengill cares little about whether the proposal would offend lawmakers who don’t believe in God, saying that it’s offensive to her own faith not to require the phrase in the oath.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy says he’s checking with other lawmakers to see if there’s interest in moving forward with the resolution (it hasn’t been filed yet), but if any of them are at all familiar with Constitutional law they’d be wise to advise him to drop the matter. The ACLU and other groups are closely watching this issue, and no doubt someone will sue if such a measure were to move forward. And such a legal suit is very likely to win. There are all sorts of Constitutional protections this proposed resolution would violate, such as both religion clauses of the First Amendment, as well as the Free Speech Clause (most everyone is familiar with the Constitutional prohibition on restricting free speech—well, compelled speech also counts as violating free speech rights). Moreover, Article VI clearly states that the U.S. Constitution trumps state law on these issues.

But even if under the exceedingly unlikely scenario Iowa lawmakers aren’t aware of such Constitutional law, they should eschew Pettengill’s proposal based on simple principles of fairness and common sense. Besides being Constitutionally prohibited, anyone who understands the Golden Rule also understands that it’s wrong to require a nontheist to profess faith in God—just as much as it would be to require someone of faith to profess their disbelief in God. And such a requirement would do nothing to ensure the veracity of a person’s statement or promote reverence for the propaganda promoted therein, but rather would serve to undermine respect for the very ideas such a law would ostensibly advance.

On Friday Mayor Adrian Fenty signed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the signing ceremony and witness a moment in history of what has become one of the most important civil rights issues of my generation. “We knew this day would come,” Fenty said at the ceremony. “I say to the world: an era of struggle ends for thousands in Washington, DC.”

Unless Congress decides to step in during their review period, same-sex couples will be able to marry in the District starting in mid-spring.

However, although the ceremony  moved me--and it moved me greatly--I couldn’t help but be uneasy about where it took place: All Souls Unitarian Church. I need to start off by saying that I have the utmost respect for the Unitarian Church and All Souls in particular. The Church has long been a proponent of civil rights in DC and has done a lot of great work in the community. But however much good the church has done, it is a church never-the-less. And holding such a ceremony in a place of worship is misguided in that it serves to further blur the distinction between civil marriage and religious marriage--a distinction that is crucial for gaining acceptance for civil marriage across the United States.

Religious marriage is based on scripture and tradition. Different churches may have different qualifications for which couples’ marriages they will solemnize (many, of course, will refuse to perform or recognize a same-sex marriage) and have varying ideas about the purpose of a marriage and the duties and roles of those entering into it. However, civil marriage is a legal contract in which the state affords the couples certain benefits, rights and privileges. Religious and civil marriage are, in other words, very different things and defined in very different ways. But it’s partly the confusion about the differing roles of the two that have caused much of the opposition to gay marriage and the misconception that a change in who can enter into a civil marriage will disrupt the “traditional” definition of religious marriage many people of faith embrace. And in fact, a lot of the work I’ve been doing through the AHA to advocate for equality in marriage has centered on education about the difference between the two--particularly emphasizing that granting same-sex couples the right to enter into a civil marriage does not mean religious congregations will be forced to solemnize or recognize them as well.

Holding the signing ceremony in a government building rather than a church would have been much more appropriate and would have helped to stem fears that granting gays and lesbians the right to civil marriage would not force churches or other houses of worship that don’t recognize gay marriage to change their own, religiously-based definitions of marriage.

Apparently Jack Waldvogel, treasurer of the Petoskey, Michigan, school board, was being “tongue-in-cheek” when he demanded in an e-mail sent to district staff and board members that the wording of the school calendar be changed from “Winter holiday break” to “Christmas break.” Yes, I suppose I can see the irony in the following passages:

We are, in spite of what the Obamessiah proclaims, STILL a Christian nation, founded on Judeo Christian principles.

Two choices here for our school district…either agree to change the “December vacation” back to “Christmas Break,” in ALL future publications (including the school calendar) voluntarily, or I will make such a stink, and bring out every redneck Christian Conservative north of Clare, to compel the District to do so. The press will love this one…

Our children need to know that we are a Christian nation and taking all reference to a higher being out of our educational vocabulary is wrong. Let the Ramadamians and the Kwanzanians bring their celebrations to school too…to share with our Christian children, but don’t cut God out of the school completely.

And possibly also when he wrote, “Don’t assume this is a joke…I’m being as serious as I possibly can here.” Only, I don’t think his irony was intentional–particularly because what’s ironic about all this is that his ranting e-mail proves why it’s important to keep  church and state separate: so the Waldvogels of the world can’t impose their radical religious (and historically inaccurate) ideas onto others.

Waldvogel refers to Muslims as “Ramadamians” and seems to have absolutely no understanding of or care about the Establishment Cllause. To borrow from the inimitable Barney Frank, trying to have a conversation with this guy would be like trying to argue with a dining room table (except that the dining room table would probably be far more stable). And I have no interest in doing it.

Yesterday Judge Sotomayor was questioned about her Free Exercise jurisprudence by Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD). Here’s a snipped version of the exchange:

CARDIN: Well, let me conclude on one other case that you ruled on, where I also agree with your decision. That’s the Ford v. McGinnis, where you wrote a unanimous panel opinion overturning a district court summary judgment finding in favor of the Muslim inmate who was denied by prison officials’ access to his religious meals marking the end of Ramadan.

You held that the inmate’s fundamental rights were violated and that the opinions of the department of correction and religious authorities cannot trump the plaintiff’s sincere and religious beliefs…

[snip]

SOTOMAYOR: In the Ford case that you just mentioned, the question there before the court was, did the district court err in considering whether or not the religious belief that this prisoner had was consistent with the established traditional interpretation of a meal at issue, OK?

And what I was doing was applying very important Supreme Court precedent that said, it’s the subjective belief of the individual. Is it really motivated by a religious belief?

It’s one of the reasons we recognize conscientious objectors, because we’re asking a court not to look at whether this is orthodox or not, but to look at the sincerity of the individual’s religious belief and then look at what the state is doing in light of that. So that was what the issue was in Ford.

It’s reassuring to see Sotomayor recognizes that what is important in deciding a person’s right to free exercise of religion is not whether an establishment thinks a particular tradition is necessary or unnecessary to the practice of an individual’s religion, but whether that individual perceives it to be. Sotomayor has a good record of upholding that standard, and her rulings have maintained government neutrality between all faiths—whether mainstream or nontraditional.

However, I would like to see a member of the Judicial Committee ask Sotomayor her opinion on government neutrality between faith and non-faith. Is my right to any aspect of my humanist philosophy the same as any Christian’s right to any aspect of their faith? Or, to use an example cited by Sotomayor, would she recognize an atheist as a conscientious objector?

Is the burqa a religious sign or a symbol of enslavement?

It’s both—and neither. In fact, the burqa is a culturally and religiously loaded Rorschach test. What might be the epitome of religious expression to one person might only symbolize systemic misogyny to another. That’s simply the way symbols work—an otherwise valueless object becomes laden with meaning based on the personal and cultural perspective of the observer. And attempts to qualify a symbol as being definitely one thing over another reveals much more about the observer than it does about the object itself.

So, what then has been revealed about French President Nicolas Sarkozy?

Yesterday, while addressing the French Parliament at the Palace of Versailles (the first time a president has done so since Bonaparte—in other words, a big deal), Sarkozy laid out his vision of France’s future—and that vision emphatically excluded the burqa. Sarkozy railed against the Islamic garment, denying any religious aspect to the clothing:

The issue of the burqa is not a religious issue. It is a question of freedom and of women’s dignity. The burqa is not a religious sign. It is a sign of the subjugation, of the submission, of women….I want to say solemnly that it will not be welcome on our territory.

It’s true that the burqa can be seen as a symbol of female oppression insofar as Islam can be seen as oppressive of women. Most Islamic theocracies are not very generous when it comes to granting women equal rights to men (then again, most theocracies are not very generous when it comes to granting rights in general). But it’s also true that plenty of Muslim women—including many Muslim women who live in the Western world—simply see the burqa only as an expression of their faith and don’t feel subjugated at all, thank you very much.

So Sarkozy is being disingenuous when he says that the burqa is a question of freedom and women’s dignity. It is that—but it’s not only that. The problem is that, deep down, Sarkozy—and much of the French populous—sees the burqa not as a symbol of religion nor as a symbol of female subjugation, but as a latent third option: a symbol of immigration.

In fact, France has one of the largest Muslim populations in Western Europe, ranging about five million. Signs that integration is failing, leading to an increasingly insular, radical—and sometimes violent—immigrant community, has stoked fear among the French. (And may also explain the rise of the far-right nationalist Front National party that recently won three seats in the European Parliament). It also doesn’t help the situation that France has a particularly stagnant economy and too few jobs to go around.

So really, Sarkosy and others’ problem with the burqa is that it signifies to them a failure of this troubled immigrant population to integrate. Consider that a much better way to combat the oppression of women—Sarkosy’s ostensible goal—would be to open more shelters for battered wives, or to ramp up prosecution of those who commit rape. Combating the woes of women’s fashion might conceivably be included somewhere on an actionable list—but it’s absurd to count it as the top priority, and should regardless not be a concern of the government.

If Sarkosy is serious about doing something to aid Muslim women—and the French populous in general—he should focus primarily on liberalizing the economy and creating new jobs, which will do more to bring Muslim women into the Western fold than banning an article of clothing ever could. Going after the burqa—a vital aspect of many Muslim women’s faith—will only be counter-productive by serving to further radicalize a population that probably feels vilified enough. It would be a shame for all involved if French Muslim women came to see the burqa as another sign of oppression—not by religion but by their government.

Recently, the American Humanist Association received an interesting email from ABC’s Wife Swap casting producer, soliciting families for the show:

Wife Swap is a reality television show in which two families swap wives for a period of two weeks. The two families are often very different in their rules, lifestyles, values, belief systems and statuses. In the first half of the stay, the swapped wife conforms to the rules of the family she is with and the second half she is allowed to instill the rules and values from her household upon the family. At the end, the couples meet and discuss their time together. The show often evokes interesting scenarios and culture clashes among the transplanted family members, which may end with the parties learning, reflecting and growing from the experience.

ABC is “currently casting its fifth season and looking for unique families with plenty of personality to take part in the show. Specifically, we’re looking for parents who take on philosophical ways of thinking and reasoning when it comes to living their lives, raising their children and navigating the world around them. If yours is a unique family that is constantly seeking out the meaning of truth and existence (among other things) and using these tools to raise your kids, we want to hear from you! Families who participate in this documentary-style program are given a unique opportunity to share their beliefs and lifestyles with another family. It is truly a once in a lifetime experience that can be life-changing for everyone. Please feel free to pass this posting along to any families who are interested in learning more!”

To apply or get information about the show, you may contact:

Danielle Gervais (Casting Producer)

Call: 646-747-7956

Email: Casting.DanielleGervais@gmail.com or Danielle.Gervais@castingrdf.com

A potentially great way to draw attention to humanist values.

The mayor of Bloomington, Indiana, Mark Kruzan, proved himself to be a principled public official yesterday when he took a stand against censorship and instructed the city’s legal services department not to defend Bloomington Transit (BT) in a free speech suit.

The suit in question has actually been brought by our friends, the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign (INABC), who are arguing that the transit company violated their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights (read the AHA’s press release for more info). As part of INABC’s campaign to foster awareness of atheism, they had approached BT with a proposal for an ad campaign. They wanted to put up signs that read “You Can be Good without God” on the side of buses in Bloomington, but BT turned down the proposal, claiming that the ad was “controversial.” INABC, represented by the ACLU of Indiana, thus launched the suit. (And as well they should. It’s baffling to me how some people can think that a simple matter of fact–that atheists can be good people–is controversial. Zuh? Shouldn’t being good, no matter what your religiosity, be, you know, a good thing?)

In any case, Mayor Kruzan is absolutely on the right side on this issue. As the Bloomington’s Herald-Times reported Friday morning (Subscription Only):

Bloomington Mayor Mark Kruzan said he disagrees with the BT policy and he’s asked city government’s legal department not to represent BT in court.

“I felt strongly that the city shouldn’t be defending on this issue,” he said Thursday.

Bloomington Public Transportation Corp. operates as a separate municipal corporation, which contracts with he city of Bloomington legal department to provide legal services.

Kruzan said having city legal defend BT in court would amount to “promoting government sanctioned censorship” because the bus service gets city legal’s services at an hourly rate less than that of a private law firm, which is in essence a partial taxpayer subsidy.

As a result of the Mayor’s decision, BT is left in the uncomfortable position of procuring a private practice.

The Herald-Times also published an editorial Friday (Subscription Only), saying, “Faced with the prospect of paying for the lawsuit, BT officials may back off. That would be the better plan, rather than squelching free expression of beliefs.”

I agree. Kudos to the Herald-Times and especially kudos to Mayor Kruzan. Unfortunately, too few politicians are quick to defend atheists in any capacity these days, particularly in his part of the country. We should have more people like him in public office.

Currently, the Herald-Times Online is holding a quick poll to see if BT should accept the ad. What do you think?

Did you catch it? In his inaugural speech?

“…we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers.”

This is the first time nonbelievers have been explicitly referenced in an inaugural address. We’re finally a force that can’t be ignored in Washington.

Watch the clip here (it’s about 2:50 in)

Tomorrow, some same-sex marriage supporters are “calling in gay.” The Day Without a Gay has been organized in opposition to same-sex marriage bans in California, Florida, and Arizona, and to demonstrate the economic power of the LGBT population–participants will call out of work for the day and refrain from spending money.

I’m a little ambivalent about the effects staying home from work will have on a large scale–I would imagine many people aren’t “out” at work and thus would probably shy away from explicitly calling in gay. Moreover, probably most employers don’t mind if their employees call out of work as long as they have the vacation time (and if someone didn’t have the time I’d question their prudence in risking their jobs when our unemployment rate is as high as it is and only growing).

I think where this particular aspect of the campaign went wrong was borrowing from the “Day Without a Mexican” without recognizing that there are important differences between the immigrant population and the gay population. When immigrants organized and refused to show up for work it crippled many industries that rely almost exclusively on immigrant labor. Whereas the gay working population isn’t even close to being as condensed in any given industry. Thus, the overall economy should be able to absorb the hit pretty well.

However, I do think refraining from spending money is a good way to demonstrate the power this group holds. Particularly in this bum economy it’s important to illustrate the money that can be withheld from, or conversely, pumped into the system. Especially when a great argument for legalizing gay marriage (besides the civil rights one, of course) is the money that would introduced into the economy. After all, how much money are people spending on weddings these days?

Despite a lot of cause for celebration for progressives this election cycle–the election of our nation’s first biracial president and the defeat of a senator who manipulated anti-atheist prejudice as a campaign tactic–the movement for LGBT equality took a big hit on Tuesday.  California, Florida and Arizona all passed gay marriage bans and Arkansas voted to bar all unmarried people, LGBT or straight, from adopting children or serving as foster parents.

This turn of events is particularly upsetting in California, where voters directly voted to reverse the right to marriage that same-sex couples had won. Already, three lawsuits have been launched and protesters have taken to the streets in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento. No one is quite sure yet what will happen to the 18,000 or so same-sex couples that have already married; those unions remain in legal limbo.

How was it that California’s Proposition 8 was able to pass? The campaign had a great deal of money behind it (click here for a list of major donors–many of them businesses) and spread a lot of misinformation about the California supreme court ruling that legalized gay marriage, for example that same-sex marriage would be taught in schools and that houses of worship that refused to marry same-sex couples would lose their tax-exempt status.

The California supreme court has already said that marriage is a fundamental right, so I’m hopeful that one of the lawsuits will be successful in setting aside Proposition 8. In the meantime, it’s important to actively educate the masses about why marriage equality is important–perhaps starting with the list of donors supplied above.

Six in ten Americans believe that God has uniquely blessed America and that the United States should set the example as a Christian nation to the rest of the world, according to a new poll conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research Inc., for the PBS news program Religion & Ethics Newsweekly and the United Nations Foundation. (Interestingly enough, the poll found that a third of non-religious Americans agree that America should set the example as a Christian nation and slightly fewer believe that America is uniquely blessed by God. Go figure.)

Is this kind of thinking positive or problematic? On the one hand, it does appear that because Americans believe in their own exceptionalism they are more likely to support an interventionist role on the global stage. And encouragingly that belief doesn’t just extend to an imperative to protect our national security interests: Most Americans believe that preventing global disease, stopping genocide, and international relief for humanitarian disasters should be some of our top priorities–and there’s little difference there between the religious and non-religious. In addition, the belief in our status as a shining city upon a hill thankfully does not make the United States infallible or undeserving of criticism in Americans’ eyes–the poll revealed an ambivalence about whether or not we have a positive influence around the world and most agreed that sometimes our involvement does more harm than good.

On the other hand, there’s evidence that Muslim countries view our military with suspicion because they see it as a distinctly Christian entity. And it certainly doesn’t help that many within our military also see it that way, nor that President Bush has framed our military involvement in the Middle East as a crusade. It can’t bode well for our global endeavors and our nation-building inclinations to be seen as a force for Christian proselytizing and conversion.

So, then, we’re caught in a global catch-22: we think we’re exceptional and are thus motivated to do good in the world, but those we want to help don’t trust us because we’re motivated by our belief that we’re exceptional. How do we extract ourselves from this tangled web? First off, we must keep our institutions strictly secular–especially the military. No more special privileges for Christian soldiers. And lets start investigating claims that military commanding officers have violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Also, we must be more sensitive to other cultures when we’re engaged abroad–particularly Muslim cultures. As I mentioned in a previous post, the Center for American Progress’s William Schulz argues that we need to be more flexible in promoting the separation of church and state if we want to stay on good terms with Muslim moderates.

In and of itself, the belief in God-bestowed American exceptionalism isn’t a bad thing if it motivates us to do a lot of good in the world. But we must be wary of letting that belief get in the way of implementing sound, executable, and ultimately secular military policies. No matter how well-intentioned or exceptional, we’re not immune from mucking things up–a fact that’s painfully exemplified by our disastrous endeavors in Iraq.

On the 10th of October I attended Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs symposium titled “The Future of U.S. International Religious Freedom Policy: Recommendations for the Next Administration.” The morning’s session on religious extremism contained some interesting advice for fighting Islamist terrorism from the Center for American Progress’s William Schulz.

Schulz argued that though there is an undeniable religious element to the Islamist movement, to say that Islam is somehow uniquely conductive to terrorism is misguided. In fact, out of the estimated 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, the five countries with the largest Muslim populations are Indonesia (170.3 billion), Pakistan (136 million), Bangladesh (106 million), India (103 million), Turkey (62.4 million); all democracies. In addition, even in Saudi Arabia, with its authoritarian Sharia regime, less than 10 percent of the population had a favorable view of Al-Qaeda and 15 percent had a favorable view of Osama bin Laden.

So, then, how do we fight terrorism within this context? Says Schultz, it’s ineffective to try to coax Islamists to a more moderate religious stance. Rather, we must convince the sympathizers of terrorism–those aforementioned 10 and 15 percent–of the ineffectiveness of terrorism and persuade them to ultimately abandon support (mostly monetary) of terrorists. He enumerated a few DO’s and DON’Ts of this strategy:

DON’T: Conflate uses of terror by some Muslims as terror by all Muslims. Recognize that most Muslims are moderate, peaceful people.

DON’T: Use inflammatory language and tactics against Islam.

DON’T: Play into the terrorists’ hands by spreading democracy at the point of a gun, allying with authoritarian regimes such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and using torture.

DO: Show terrorism as a dead end.

DO: Embrace moderate Muslims.

DO: Denounce corruption in government.

DO: Renew access to Muslim students who want to study in the United States.

DO: Be flexible on separation of church and state in the Middle East.

DO: Honor results of free elections even when we don’t like them.

Though I do think these are good, practical suggestions and comprehensively constitute a constructive plan for combating terrorism, I’m less convinced that terrorist tactics can be so easily separated from a radical interpretation of Islam that, I’m assuming, supporters of terrorists espouse. For example, if the U.S. were to denounce the Saudi regime, we may convince Islamist terrorists and their supporters that jihad is no longer necessary, but I’m doubtful that we’ll convince them of the illegitimacy of employing terrorism in the first place.

If Islamists and their supporters believe and act upon the notion that suicide bombers are entitled to 70 virgins in the afterlife, I’m not sure that rationalizing terrorism as an ineffective means to an end is possible.

Check out this new site, brought to you by the Secular Coalition for America: http://election08.secular.org/. Make sure to read up on the issues that are important to you as we near Election Day, November 4, 2008. For those of us concerned about the erosion of the Jeffersonian Wall this is an indispensable resource.

The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that the California Supreme Court ruled doctors cannot withhold care to gays and lesbians based on their religious beliefs. The case concerned a lesbian couple that was denied fertility treatment by Christian doctors. The court ruled that California’s civil rights law that bars discrimination based on sexual orientation extends to medical care, and that doctors must not deny a procedure to some that they offer to others.

I think this ruling strikes a good balance between the right of doctors to practice medicine in a way that doesn’t violate their faith and the right of patients to receive medical care indiscriminate of their sexuality. The ruling does not dictate that doctors must perform any procedure they find incongruent with their faith, only that if they do offer a procedure they must do so for everyone.

Think of it this way, using race instead of sexuality: it’s the difference between refusing to artificially inseminate anyone because of religion as opposed to refusing to artificially inseminate a particular person just because they’re black. At that point I don’t think your religion should protect you anymore.

Today, I circulated a press release with information about the Star Hill controversy. This concerns the Village of Holmen, Wisconsin, which decided to sell to the local Lion’s Club a small patch of public land on which a cross and a star are erected. The Lion’s Club will pay $600–despite the fact that the American Humanist Association offered $1,000 and the Freedom From Religion Foundation offered $1,200 for the land. This is because the Lion’s Club will keep the cross and star in the midst of government-owned property while the AHA and FFRF won’t. (Those of you who have followed the San Diego Mt. Soledad case should be pretty familiar with this new tactic.)

As an AHA staff member who deals with public policy, I’ve sent out quite a number of press releases during my tenure here. I’ve rarely ever received editorializing e-mails back from media people. However, today I received two of particular note:

From Daniel S. Brandenburg, Publisher/Editor of the Marion Advertiser

“Three Cheers for the Village of Holmen. I think I’ll use this as an editorial to give these leaders the credit they deserve.”

From Ingrid Schlueter, co-host of VCY America Radio Network

“Ha Ha Ha. This is great. Long live the Lions Club and kudos to the village board of Holmen, Wisconsin. God bless America.”

Clearly, we have a lot of church-state educating yet to do.

Major General Robert L. Caslen Jr—one of the seven military officers who caused a minor stir (though it should have been a major one) when he improperly appeared in a Christian Embassy promotional video in uniform—is getting a promotion. The change-of-command date is yet to be set, but at some point Caslen will become the commanding general at the Schofield Barracks.

I wonder if he’d be receiving the same promotion had he appeared in a humanist or otherwise atheist video? Actually, I don’t have to wonder—the answer is clearly no. Just look at what the military did to atheist Specialist Jeremy Hall if you have any doubt of that.

I had the pleasure of attending a 2008 Perspectives Series at McLean Community Center last night that featured Marjane Satrapi, who is the artist behind the amazing Persepolis comic books. For those of you who aren’t familiar, the books are autobiographical, recounting Satrapi’s struggles growing up in Iran during the revolution. They’re striking for their humor–even in the face of such devastation–and Satrapi’s ability to find the universal in the very extraordinary circumstances of her life.

Satrapi was delightful–very intelligent, funny, and opinionated. One of the most compelling moments of the evening was when she discussed religion, saying she never gave religion much thought at all before the revolution, growing up in a secular household. She said she came to understand that religion at the personal level can be very wonderful and fulfilling, but fundamentalism wreaks horrors. And this is true regardless of whether the religion in question is Islam, Christianity, or even Buddhism. As she said in an interview with Powells:

The real war is not between the West and the East. The real war is between intelligent and stupid people. There is much more in common between George Bush and the fanatics in my country than between me and the fanatics of my country. There is much more common ground between me and normal people here in America who don’t want that. As an Iranian, I feel much closer to an American who thinks like me than to the bearded guy of my country.

In another fantastic moment, she also told us that she was not very concerned that fundamentalists in Iran might wish her harm. In fact she said the most scared she had been since the books gained popularity was during a lecture in Texas. She said one man in particular looked very angry, and she was convinced she was going to be shot by a cowboy and become an inadvertent martyr of Islam. But in the end said cowboy actually had her sign three of her books. Never judge a book by its cover, I suppose.

Listen to heart-wrenching testimony from Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans from Winter Soldier, a four-day event that’s currently in day two and will last until Sunday. The description from Iraq Veterans Against the War:

The…event will bring together veterans from across the country to testify about their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan—and present video and photographic evidence. In addition, there will be panels of scholars, veterans, journalists, and other specialists to give context to the testimony. These panels will cover everything from the history of the GI resistance movement to the fight for veterans’ health benefits and support.

Find out how to watch or listen here.

This morning Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! broadcasted Vietnam vet’s testimony from the first Winter Soldier, held on January 31, 1971. Names and places have changed, but otherwise the testimony from then and now are eerily similar, particularly with regards to policy, enforced by military higher-ups, of abuse of detainees and innocent civilians.

Yesterday I attended a panel discussion, “Has the Religious Right Lost Its Way? Religious Leaders from the Left and Right Discuss the Future of Faith in Politics,” featuring Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council; Bishop Harry Jackson, chairman of the High Impact Leadership Coalition; Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference; and Rev. Jim Wallis, president and executive director of Sojourners. The event was held to discuss the forthcoming book, Personal Faith, Public Policy, co-authored by Perkins and Jackson, in which the pair argues that the Evangelical movement is not, in fact, dead (as so many pundits are quick to report) but merely regrouping and expanding in breadth to include issues such as poverty, the environment, race, and immigration to its primarily pro-life/pro-marriage platform. They also made the point that “Religious Right” is actually becoming a misnomer—one of the Evangelical movement’s main focal points is to transcend categories of Republican or Democrat and to reconfigure themselves as Independents, or as Wallis put it, the “ultimate swing vote.”

I agree that—for better or worse—the power of Evangelicals isn’t extinguished, only perhaps waned. The pendulum will inevitably swing back. And in terms of socio-political movements, the power of faith should never be underestimated or devalued. As long as the wall between church and state remains strong I welcome the moral imperative to change society that can be derived from religion. We should be focused on protecting the environment and alleviating poverty, and if religion is compelling people to do so all the better. It’s only when religious movements try to impose rather than promote their morality by using the government to force it on others—such as in the case of trying to outlaw abortion—that I have a problem.

The most compelling portion of the event was an exchange between Perkins, Wallis, and moderator Michel Martin of NPR’s Tell Me More, during which health care made an entrance. Perkins made the argument that it’s wrong to force pregnant women to test their fetuses for Down syndrome but then not offer them government aid if the test turns out to be positive, leaving them in the heart-wrenching position to choose between abortion or the astronomically high cost of raising a Downs child. (My two cents: bravo for Perkins. It’s hypocritical to claim to want to reduce the abortion rate but then not make the costs of raising a child more affordable. Now when are we going to talk about comprehensive sex education?) Martin challenged that that’s a good argument for universal health care, which is eschewed by the Religious Right. Perkins said he agreed there needs to be more affordable health care but that it shouldn’t come from the government—do we really want to rely on an inept government for our health care needs? He called for more personal responsibility as a solution (so in a more free-market system people might be more likely to rethink eating from McDonald’s three times a week if they knew they’d have to pay later on if they developed heart disease). Wallis jumped in, arguing that health care should be a universal right—if a person is genetically predisposed to cancer it’s not a matter of personal responsibility. Wallis reasoned that government isn’t the answer or the enemy; we need to strike a balance between personal responsibility and the responsibility of society to take care of those in need.

Charlotte Allen hosted a Q&A on the Washington Post website today to respond to the reactions to her inflammatory opinion piece asserting women are dumb. Read the transcript here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/03/04/DI2008030402153.html

I managed to get three of my questions in, although I do feel they were given short shrift by Allen:

Washington: You write that you doubt women’s representation in such fields as law (the Supreme Court) and medicine (brain surgeons) will rise much in the 21st century. However more women than men currently are graduating from law school and medical school. Could you please comment on this apparent contradiction?

Charlotte Allen: That’s absolutely true, but the proportion of women at the highest levels of these fields is going to remain relatively small, I predict.

 

Washington: Do you believe caring for children, men and the weak is something that should be valued less in society? I ask because you seem to imply that they are tasks only fit for the dim, and unworthy of an intelligent mind. What do you think about men who are caregivers?

Charlotte Allen: Quite the opposite: I think that caring for children, men, and the weak are the most important things that can be done. It’s women who have devalued them by mocking stay-at-home mothers, etc.

 

Washington: Were you trying to start a constructive debate with your opinion piece? Do you think that’s happened? I think by concluding that women are “dumb” because of real sex differences that exist just pisses people off, and thus precludes any real debate on this issue—and it’s something I think should be explored openly. Name-calling doesn’t get us anywhere.

Charlotte Allen: I called no names, but to be quite honest, I wasn’t trying to start a debate, constructive or otherwise. I was just expressing my views.

Read a rebuttal to Allen’s piece that was posted on the WP website here.

I have to admit I’m starting to wonder if Allen’s opinion piece doesn’t actually signify something good after all. In Allen’s Q&A session she argued that men are lampooned all the time as idiotic oafs but women are off-limits, unfairly so. I don’t know if I completely agree with that (surely it’s not hard to think of instances in which popular culture makes fun of women), but it’s certainly much more mainstream acceptable to poke fun at those who have power in society (i.e. men). Maybe the fact that a media powerhouse such as the Washington Post would publish a “humor” piece that pokes fun at women means that women have truly risen above their historically weaker status in society–both institutionally and socially. Maybe this is an important turning point, rather than the display of crass cattiness I first thought.

Or, you know, at least in addition to.

Or so the Washington Post says. In one of the most insulting, inflammatory opinion pieces about sex differences I’ve ever read, Charlotte Allen asserts that because of gender differences in spatial perception ability, car accident rates, and even literature tastes, women are dumber than men. She ends her piece by suggesting women might just well be happier if they stayed home and took care of others:

So I don’t understand why more women don’t relax, enjoy the innate abilities most of us possess (as well as the ones fewer of us possess) and revel in the things most important to life at which nearly all of us excel: tenderness toward children and men and the weak and the ability to make a house a home… Then we could shriek and swoon and gossip and read chick lit to our hearts’ content and not mind the fact that way down deep, we are…kind of dim.

Well. Maybe romance novels aren’t the most mind-expanding book list choice, but at least we can read.

Allen is seeing an awful lot in a few minor differences between men and women. Certainly it’s true that women perform worse on average than men on spatial perception tasks (it’s actually a subject I’ve taken up myself in a past issue of the Humanist), but there is still far more variation in ability among the sexes than between. Plus, even if the differences were huge and across the board, difficulty with direction a dumber sex does not make. Moreover, Allen herself relates data that shows IQ is pretty much level between men and women anyway, so shouldn’t that pretty much clinch it? Maybe she just really hates Eat, Pray, Love.

I certainly don’t think that differences between sexes is a topic that should be taboo—the more we understand about ourselves the better off we’ll be. But to conclude that the science proves women are dim is purely asinine. Shame on Allen, and shame on the Washington Post for tacitly endorsing such drivel.

Reuters today reported on a great response to the photo of Barak Obama dressed in a turban (purportedly circulated by the Clinton Campaign) and the smear campaign against Obama in general alleging that he subscribes to the Muslim faith:

Obama, a Christian, has fought a whispering campaign from fringe elements that say he is a Muslim. The Democratic front-runner’s middle family name — Hussein — has been used by some to draw a link between him and late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

“But it’s interesting,” [Jack] Shaheen [author of Guilty---Hollywood's Verdict on Arabs After 9/11] said, “no one has said so what? What if he were a Muslim?”

I agree with Shaheen up to a point. Simply being Muslim of course doesn’t preclude your ability to be a great leader. Or being Christian, Jewish, or Wiccan for that matter. As Shaheen says, so what?

But what does concern me, and what should be a concern to all voters, is how a candidate’s religion might influence the future choices they’d make as a leader, and if that influence would be balanced with a hefty dose of reason. I don’t care that George W. Bush is a Christian. I do care that he uses his religion as a primary justification for launching war, curtailing a range of freedoms (most notably reproductive), ignoring science, and charitable choice. That his religion is Christianity matters only so far as what doctrine is being invoked.

That’s why religion matters in elections and politics. It’s not what religion a candidate subscribes to. It’s how they use it.

Recently, St. Louis-area junior high school students Tori Shoemaker and Cheyenne Byrd were suspended for two days because they wore home-made t-shirts that read “safe sex or no sex.” The shirts were decorated with condoms, and were meant to protest the school’s abstinence-only sex education curriculum. The students said their shirts were a form of free speech, but a superintendent said that the shirts were inappropriate and a distraction at school (so, apparently free speech is only permissible when appropriate). Watch the CNN report here.

Haven’t we seen this kind of thing before, with students punished for wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam war? In 1969 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District that symbolic speech and political expression were protected under the First Amendment. How are Shoemaker and Byrd’s t-shirts any different from those black armbands, to which the 1969 ruling applied? As the Court wrote, “it can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”