Posted on 07/06/2011 7:52:03 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Atheists and agnostics have a lot to learn from gays about the essential role of coming out in any long-term battle for personal respect and political recognition in American society. When New York’s state Senate passed a historic bill legalizing gay marriage last weekend, I happened to be attending a reunion of my eighth-grade class at St. Thomas Aquinas School in East Lansing, MI. A striking fact about this group of men and women, raised on the Catholic and American verities of the 1950s, was that many of my classmates, influenced by gay relatives and friends, long ago discarded the anti-homosexual biases with which we were all raised. Atheism, however, is still—if not a dirty word—an uneasy secret. Several of my classmates told me quietly that they would be happy to be interviewed about their nonreligious beliefs but wanted to remain anonymous.
What gays learned, painfully, during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s is that not only self-respect but respect from others depends on owning up to (and owning) who you are and what you believe. Atheists in many walks of life have yet to learn that lesson. There is only one self-acknowledged atheist in Congress, Democratic Rep. Pete Stark of California.
There are undoubtedly many other politicians who hide their beliefs behind nominal church membership because they fear that owning up to atheism would end their political careers. And they might be right. But there is absolutely no way to make a positive case for secular values by pretending to be religious when you aren’t.
Several months ago, a spokesman for a respected secular organization told me about a member of the House who was uncertain about how to explain a seemingly antireligious vote in his heavily religious district. He was uncertain because
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Another atheist shouting “look at me - I’m important - and smarter than all you God-believers”.
Susan - personally, I don’t care what you think.
[snip] What gays learned, painfully, during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s is that not only self-respect but respect from others depends on owning up to (and owning) who you are and what you believe. [end]That's why NAMBLA exists now. Thanks nickcarraway.
Americans need to take that same “playbook” and start shoving it up somebody’s ***.
Nothing enrages my militant lesbian cousin more than 3 little words.
“I Don’t Care”.
Why not? If you had told me, 30 years ago, that a political movement and victim group would be born based on the improper use of body orifaces, I would think you were crazy.
Now the legislature is signing bills in CA forcing children to learn respect for the deviancy.
Sodom and Gomorrahh, here we come.
I know that atheists have it so rough in universities and acadameia.
This once great nation is quickly becoming a nation full of Godless, infant/toddler murdering, sexual deviants.
I had way more respect for gays BEFORE I read “And The Band Played On”.
Conservatives should also study the playbook. After all, if a lobby which probably represents less than five percent of the population can impose its will on the other 95 percent, they must be doing something effective.
OK, I'll help atheists and agnostics out so they don't have to go to all the trouble of starting a movement and all that: you're good enough, you're smart enough and, doggone it, people like you.
Besides, much of the culture is already functionally atheistic anyway, so what is your beef?
Back in 1970, when the New Left began to embrace "gay liberation," I thought they were crazy, that they had overreached, and that they would marginalize themselves politically. I would never have imagined that our society would eventually adopt the entire "gay lib" agenda, and then some--same sex marriage, for example, being not even conceivable in 1970.
What is so obnoxious is the author’s deliberate use of a passive voice. She is so “reasonable” so uncritical of believers that you would be a fanatic to claim that atheists are the enemy. This is another devise of Satan to destroy not only the United States but the world. Miss Jacoby seems functionally unintelligent if she thinks that secularism and atheism is getting a bum rap. Sure, politically it is anathema, now,but honestly if voters in NY could vote a fornicator into office, then it is unavoidable that one day an atheist would have no problem expressing his rebelliousness towards the Lord in the open.
Pshh. I don’t want to be recognized or respected for my religious beliefs (or lack thereof). How freakin’ stupid. That’s a Muzzie thing. Believe or don’t believe in whatever you want. No one cares. (Yes, I am one of those very rare conservative atheists. Don’t bother flaming me, you’ll just give credence to this stupid article. Besides, I am on your side.)
Are atheists trying to angle for some sort of special interest group status? I didn’t realize that atheist was such a problem, or issue, that somehow atheist is much worse than gay? Sure, the elites are trying to destroy religion, but most people don’t think about atheists at all. Specific religions like Muslim bother people, but I don’t really worry about atheists. The level of acceptance of gay is a lot lower than the author thinks it is.
A political candidate could easily take the 100% anti gay position and do well with it. Who was the last unsuccessful political candidate to try that? Seriously, we’re just getting sick of it. And transsexuals, that’s even crazier.
Can’t Rick Santorum start talking about this again, this time making a slightly different and better argument? Maybe one with words like “mental illness” “science” and “medicine”. Instead of “prayer”. When you start talking about curing mental illnesses with prayer instead of medicine, you start losing undecideds who believe in modern medicine, which is everybody. And we’ve got Marcus Bachmann who makes a living praying away the gay. I’m all for a War on Gay, instead of a War on Drugs. A better case could be made for a War on Gay.
Like: have you noticed there aren’t as many young people and so many old people. Abortion and Gay. We really shouldn’t be enouraging extinctionary behaviors. If everyone was gay, the human race would be extinct. I’m against the extinction of the human race. Same with abortions. It’s true that God doesn’t like it. But there are very good public policy reasons completely based on science and reason which indicate we should be discouraging these behaviors.
No, care what she thinks. Figure her out and then take her out. These people think they know what’s best for everyone else and if conservatives just try to ignore them while they infiltrate another unexplored wing of the “government-culture complex”, then they will happily go about destroying what’s left of this country’s traditions with impunity. My belief is that atheists, gays, druggies, trust fund kids, hipsters, delusional DINKs, bikers, communists, etc. should be free to ruin their lives as they see fit but in the privacy of their own homes, not in the public square.
I can’t decide. Who are more annoying, gays or atheists?
What I think what many in our country have lost is the personal confidence in their own individual choices that enables people who disagree to engage in an enjoyable, intellectual exploration of their differences without coming to blows, unleashing streams of vituperative language, or coming to regard each other with derision.
If a controversial subject can be set at arm’s length, and eyed with a good degree of objectivity, speaking almost as if one has no interest in any particular conclusion, but as if exploring all the angles is the principle goal, this is the formula for the best conversation that can be had among parties who disagree.
St. Thomas Aquinas, eh? From the news/editorials touting gay marriage, it seems as if all the politicians favoring it had rosaries around their necks and portraits of Thomas More on their desktops, right next to those of their concubines. So it’s not real surprising to learn that the atheists too are steeped in the traditions of faith. At one time, we called their stance apostasy. Now it is evidently just more evidence of our fabulous diversity.
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