My intolerance of your intolerance does NOT make me a bully

I've neglected this blog for some time now. I'm known for doing that but the thoughts I'd like to express here have been rattling around in my skull for some time now and have finally begun to come together enough I'd like to put them down on paper so to speak.

I recently read an article on Huffington Post (which you can read here ) about a video produced by Reach America which shows Christian teens bemoaning how they are treated in public schools, how they aren't allowed to pray (they of course are but what they mean is why can't a government funded school endorse their religion over another religion or lack of religion) and  "...the school system is now a place where...bullies call Christians "hateful," "hypocrites" and "bigots" for their beliefs".
The Christian Right is perhaps one of the most powerful groups in this country. Over the years they have managed to insert their god into The Pledge of Allegiance and onto our money with no resistance. This is the same group that demands that laws reflect their personal belief system even at the expense of the rights of others. Now they are claiming to be the target of "bullies" because they are finally being called out on their bullshit.
After bullying the secular world for centuries they are suddenly painting themselves as the victims because people are finally not afraid to stand up and say "You know what, I don't agree with what you are saying. I don't like the way you treat women and homosexuals and I think it's wrong."
Standing up for basic human decency doesn't make one a bully (it actually makes one a decent human being). If you believe your god hates homosexuals and wants to subjugate women there's probably nothing anyone can say to change your mind but that doesn't mean we have to sit around quietly and let you poison the minds of others. Your right to hold a hateful belief in no way trumps my right to protect my children from hearing such bullshit. Do you have a right to say "God hates fags"? Yes you do. Do I have a right to say "No (s)he doesn't"? Yes I do. I also have the right to say "There is no god to hate homosexuals in the first place" or to ask "if your god hates homosexuals so much, why did (s)he make them in the first place?"
The mindset that we have to respect everyone's beliefs equally is flawed. Bigotry wrapped up in religion is still bigotry and some of us are getting awfully tired of hearing "religious freedom" being offered up as an excuse for hate speech. The long overdue move to marriage equality is causing great pains among conservatives, many of whom argue with a straight face (pun intended) "that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society". Despite overwhelming evidence from the medical and scientific community that this simply isn't true, and despite the fact that conservatives one and only justification for this belief is a book written thousands of years ago, conservative Christians nevertheless expect everyone to not only respect their belief but to agree with it. Try discussing marriage equality with a conservative Christian and you are likely to hear them bemoan the loss of their religious freedoms as the rest of the world tries to shove tolerance down their throat. I think I speak for most of the secular world when I apologize for trying to help you be decent folks. We're sorry.
As stated earlier they have every right to hold that opinion (as far removed from reality as it may be) but they are crazy if they don't expect some much deserved backlash. Patton Oswalt (somewhat famously) said:

“ You've gotta respect everyone’s beliefs.” No, you don’t. That’s what gets us in trouble. Look, you have to acknowledge everyone’s beliefs, and then you have to reserve the right to go: “That is fucking stupid. Are you kidding me?” I acknowledge that you believe that, that’s great, but I'm not going to respect it"

So the rest of the world acknowledges the beliefs of right wing conservative Christians, we really do. We know how you feel because you shove it in our face at every opportunity. We do not, however, respect you OR your beliefs in the slightest.
Just because we have a right to say something does not mean we have a right to say anything we want without repercussion. Kristie covered this point much better than I would back in August of last year (which I would recommend reading  by clicking here).
As much as I support everyone's right to say, within the confines of the law, pretty much anything they'd like this does not mean anyone cares that you get your feelings hurt when others disagree with you. It also means if what you say is so offensive to others that they call you out on it that you don't get to cry "bully".
Just like the last child in class who believes in Santa Claus is likely to be teased, if you send your children off to public school with a head full of nonsense they are likely to be ridiculed. When those beliefs aim to restrict the rights of others you cannot expect your child to not be ridiculed.
Dan Pearce shared the following video yesterday : Love is all you need? (TRIGGER WARNING: self harm, suicide). It's a very interesting take on the bullying of LBGT youth accomplished by role reversal . For years the Christian Right has argued that "homosexuality is a lifestyle choice" as a reason to justify their bigotry. After all if someone doesn't want to be discriminated against they can just not be gay, correct? Once again a claim that runs counter to what the medical and scientific community says but to be honest so are most of the claims they make. Being religious IS a lifestyle choice. You choose it, counter to any arguments of reason, and then you use it to justify your bigotry.
It would be bad enough if the Christian Right simply used their constitutional rights to promote their doctrine of bigotry but they go a step further with a constant push to dismiss the rights set forth in the Constitution for their own gain.
Another recent Huffington Post article (here) details how one Arkansas School District cancelled an elementary school graduation rather than comply with the law. Kristie has an excellent response to this that you can read here. Add to that the backlash one student in Oklahoma is experiencing after he complained to the FFRF concerning an unconstitutional display of the 10 commandments in his school (Raw Story Article here) and what you see are example after example of the Christian Right attempting to once again bully their way into the public sector, where they have no place.
While I personally believe that religion has no place in civilized society and that any good it does is vastly outweighed by the harm it inevitably causes I am still willing to admit and support the right of anyone to believe in any god they choose.
The day the government comes into your church, mosque, or synagogue and tells you and yours what you can or cannot believe is the day I become your ally. I don't respect your beliefs and I certainly don't respect your bigotry but unlike you I acknowledge that the government has no place in religion any more than religion has a place in government.
In the meantime however you're going to have to give up playing the bully card and admit that like it or not you have to accountable for your words and actions. You can't preach hate and intolerance while trying to paint yourselves as a religion of peace. Not only does it not work but it makes you look like a fool.
Go on preaching intolerance if you feel you must but for goodness sake drop the surprise when none of us are buying it, stop whining that we are finally pushing back, and give back the bully card to the truly bullied. Also please keep your beliefs out of our government and schools and keep them in your home and church where they belong.

Therapy

I'm sick of crying. It started about an hour ago.
First of all let me say this: I don't, as a rule, cry. Pretty much ever. It's not a macho thing it's just that I deal with emotions differently. Today's school shooting brought me to tears (lots of tears). My first reaction, like everyone, was one of shock followed by sadness. The sadness didn't bring forth tears, it never does. Within minutes the sadness was replaced with rage. Rage DOES make me cry on the rare occasion I let it get the better of me.
How DARE he kill anyone needlessly much less children?
While the fury coursed its way through my brain I was flooded with thoughts. I walked into my bedroom and saw the bags of gifts, most for my own children, waiting to be wrapped.
How dare he make those parents look at their own unwrapped gifts for children no longer living?
Then I began to mull over my own plans for the Holidays, how I'm looking forward to baking cookies with Miss B, playing games with K.
How dare he ruin the plans those unfortunate parents already had for their own children?
I'm sick of crying. I'm sick of being angry with no one to vent my frustration towards.
I'm sick of already reading people trying to politicize this tragedy. I agree with what's being said but now is not the time. There has long been a need for change and this tragedy only serves to solidify that fact but now is not the time. Now is the time for love in the face of tragic events.
I want to hug my children tightly, tell them how much they mean to me, and never, EVER let go.
I want to wave a magic wand and bring back those 18 children so that their parents can hug them tight, tell them how much they mean, and never let them go.

On shorts and sexism.

The other day I was doing laundry and found a rather tiny pair of shorts in the dirty clothes. I thought they belonged to my friends three year old daughter but realized they belonged instead to mine (she's 8). My initial reaction was perhaps a standard father response: "She's not wearing THOSE outside this house!". It took several days to come to the conclusion that I was, in fact, being sexist.
Before I go on I should say that I understand there are sick fucks out there and it is my job both as a parent and a human being to protect not only my children but all children from predators as much as possible. With that being said if I tell my daughter not to wear something that is in reality not even very revealing (sure they are mighty short and a bit tighter than a poor father would like) what am I telling her? Not to dress like a slut? Not to show off her body? She's eight years old for fuck sake. Hell she's already been to her first Slut Walk and I'm not interested in sending conflicting messages to my children. "Yes of course it's perfectly acceptable for HER to dress like that, she's not my daughter" just doesn't wash.
I should be teaching both of my children to love their bodies. Yes of course I'm well aware of age appropriate dress but we're not talking about her going out in thigh high boots, fishnets, and a mini skirt. I'm not speaking of sexually suggestive dress, simply perhaps covering a bit less skin than I might prefer. I don't want to bring my daughter up thinking she has to dress or act a certain way to appease society. She already has a unique style of dress (usually culminating with non matching bright colors and patterns) and her mother and I should be encouraging this not the opposite.
Am I being sexist (since I wouldn't have thought twice about my son wearing something like that, though I would have surely questioned his fashion sense) or am I just being a normal protective parent in a world full of sick people? Where do we draw the line? When she becomes a teen do I tell her not to dress a certain way because she's "asking to get raped"? Do I place the responsibility of men to control their urges and be decent human beings on my daughter and the way she chooses to dress?
I don't think so. I think I should let her dress however the hell she pleases while teaching her to be ever vigilant of the scumbags of the world. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm open to suggestions.

A (short) introduction and (rather long) rant

Some recent posts and comments related to these posts on Facebook got my mind turning and I finally decided it was high time to start blogging once again. My rants and raves on Facebook have ostracized countless folks and while I do not bemoan their loss I have come to the conclusion that perhaps my opinion is best digested more by choice and less by showing up in ones feed.
My very first foray back into the blogosphere after a quite extended absence centers around religion and my complete and utter disdain for it. 
First, a confession. I'm not, technically, an atheist. To be more precise I'm an anti-theist. Atheism simply reflects ones lack of belief in a god or goddess. An atheist can say "I've seen no reliable evidence to support that there is a god of any sort but wouldn't it be lovely?". I cannot, after careful consideration, do even this. In my eyes the negatives of religion far outweigh any perceived benefit to the point I view religion not with disinterest but with active disdain. With that being said...
I know that I come across as quite militant in my views and I suppose I am. I don't feel the need to defend why I am how I am, any more than I expect anyone else to defend their views and actions to me, but I'd like to mention a few things. Growing up in the "Bible Belt" and having doubts about religion (which in my family was a part of daily life) from a young age and subsequently struggling for many years with my non-belief had a profound impact on me (Little know fact about me to most: Before accepting reason as the only religion I needed I have been, in turn, Church of Christ, vaguely Catholic, and even for a brief time, vaguely Pentecostal).  As I grew and learned more and more, as the possibility of the existence of an omnipotent being became too remote a possibility to even consider, and as I discovered Richard Dawkins, then later Christopher Hitchens (whose writings I dearly miss) I began to view religion not as something to be taken or left but something to consciously avoid. With that realization also came the one a great many homosexuals must feel. What if I'm found out? What would my family think? What would my employer think? Then furthermore, would they view me as less moral, less trustworthy, because I don't have an organized belief structure? I am not about to compare any perceived discrimination I might have suffered as on par with what the gay and lesbian community has been through and continues to suffer, I'm just saying I have an unwanted though tiny glimpse into what it must be like.
This isn't a tale of woe, I've been very lucky in my life. I have two wonderful kids, an amazing mother, and great friends. What this IS about is trying to let my friends and acquaintances who do not share my view, understand where I'm coming from. I've tried to live my life with the "live and let live" mentality on just about everything so long as what someone is doing doesn't harm anyone. I used to apply this to religion, back before I began to see just how religion is continuing to harm folks other than myself.
Imagine the situation was reversed, that you had grown up a believer in a society that ostracized and blatantly discriminated against religion (think back to the stories of the first Christians). Ever since the church firmly established its hold on society that is what we've been subject to. Witches, heretics, atheists, scientists, and the like have been burned, beaten, stoned, hung, and all manner of unpleasantness bestowed upon them for centuries. Sadly in many parts of the world it's still going on. Believers attack other believers as well, for the sin of not believing the same thing. Now imagine after years of this fear the tides have turned enough that you can speak out. You no longer feel as repressed as you once did, but you are still a minority and what you see around you is, in your eyes, wrong. Flawed. Broken. People are delusional. Do you sit home and still quietly practice your belief or do you go out and tell anyone who might listen?
It could be said that my lack of belief should mean I don't care what others believe and this is, to a point, true. I don't care what consenting adults believe any more than I care how consenting adults practice (or in turn abstain from) sex. Leave kids alone though. This turned into a better analogy than I'd first imagined. Religion really is just like sex: anything goes so long as it's consensual - and you have to be of age to understand what your consent entails.
When I attack religion this is where I come from. Years lived in fear of ridicule or discrimination. Years as a child full of doubt, lying in bed wishing a god would give me some small glimmer of belief so that I wouldn't go to hell for my non-belief. When I say I believe religious indoctrination to be child abuse I'm not just being overly dramatic or mouthy, I mean it because I've lived it. My mother neither meant nor means any ill will by her indoctrinations both past and present but that doesn't discount the fact that I suffered a great deal I simply didn't have to suffer, both as a child and an adult.
For the record my mother is an outstanding person and the best mom I could have asked for. She just comes from a time and socioeconomic background that invites belief in the supernatural over rational thought. She is the one person on the entire planet with whom I will not discuss religion. She thinks she needs it. I understand this and despite all its ills and knowing I'm enabling, I cannot bring myself to tell the woman who gave me life and who has loved and cared for me throughout my life that she is sadly mistaken. My fathers death still weighs heavily on her, as it does me, and I think she clings so tightly to religion as some sort of consolation. Am I a hypocrite for wishing religion could be wiped from history while refusing to even discuss it with my own mother? Yes and I've resigned myself to that.
Rather than being a less moral person for my non-belief I consider myself more so, because I strive to do the right thing not with the promise of a paradise or the fear of hell, but because it is what I feel is the right thing to do.
I'm not discounting that there are a great many moral, upstanding people of faith. I'd like to think that most people of any faith are, in their hearts, only trying to do the right thing. Just as Christians say to love the sinner but hate the sin, I say love the Christian but hate Christianity (or Islam, or Judaism etc). Take all the good done in the name of religion over the centuries and strip away the dogma. What you are left with is good people doing good deeds for others, usually with no direct benefit for themselves. Now, take all the atrocities committed in the name of religion and strip away the same dogma. Where do the atrocities go? Would humanists have mounted the crusades? How many atheist suicide bombers do your read about?
Yes, we would still have war and conflict. We are still too primitive a species to expect the lack of one reason for war to not be replaced with another but looking back over history I think you would be hard pressed to say there would be just as much conflict if religion had never been born. Religion was our first attempt at science, to explain what we couldn't make sense of. It served its purpose for its time I suppose, but I am honestly confused as to why so many still cling tightly to archaic beliefs written by cave dwellers.
People are not the problem. Religion is the problem and it appeals most to those least equipped to filter through the mess.
To my friends and acquaintances who claim a belief structure I close with this: You are selling yourselves short. You are, each and every one of you, good and moral people. Not because you were made by a god that way, not because you "have" to be that way to attain paradise and in turn avoid eternal damnation, but simply because you're good upstanding folk.
This is my always long winded (and usually meandering) way of saying that even though we disagree, quite strongly, it doesn't mean I don't love you. I might disapprove of your ways and I might feel the need to shelter my family from that which you believe but I know that you can in turn say the same thing.