I hate Rick Warren. I started hating him back when I still went to a Southern Baptist church, because my Sunday School teacher based months worth of lessons off his book The Purpose Driven Life, thus giving me the opportunity to observe that it's so much bound patriarchy and drivel.

And now he's been invited to give the invocation at Obama's inauguration. Well isn't that special. I'm not even going to get into why there's even any sort of religious leader at all reciting a prayer at a secular inauguration. I understand that this is a tradition that Obama couldn't just dispense with very easily. But it is NOT traditional to invite someone who holds views that are diametrically opposed to the views of a large number of your own supporters, thus fucking them over while trying to suck up to people who will never ever support you.

As Steve Benen points out in The Washington Monthly:

Warren is opposed, on religious grounds, to abortion rights, gay rights, stem-cell research, and euthanasia. In 2004, he described these issues as "nonnegotiable" and "not even debatable."

He also supported California's Proposition 8 for what Benen simply says are "absurd reasons." Melissa McEwan expands on that:

Those "absurd reasons," by the way, entailed Warren conflating same-sex marriage with polygamy, incest, and rape.

Melissa's rant on this is perfect, so I'm going to quote some more of it here as a stand-in for what I'm able to produce, which is mostly just spluttering indignation.

I understand that Warren isn't going to be driving policy, that he's only leading a prayer at the inauguration (and why there is a prayer at the presidential inauguration is a whole other post), but I also know that there are, literally, thousands of other religious leaders from multiple religions and Christian denominations, who aren't anti-choice, anti-gay, and anti-science, whose presence at the inauguration wouldn't be a sharp stick in the eye to progressive women and GBTQ men, and all their allies, so it would have been really fucking nice if any one of them could have been selected for this prominent opportunity instead of Rick bloody Warren.

WORD. If you say you're on our side, you have to actually, you know, be on our side. To use a reference Obama's esteemed friend Rick Warren might recognize, if you're going to talk the talk, you should walk the walk. Put very simply: We are tired of getting fucked around. I want my goddamn hope and change right the fuck now. I don't want another president like Clinton who says he supports us, then goes and does everything he can to placate religious nutjobs while ignoring us entirely.

On the way to the vet this morning to get Zoe's stitches removed I passed the Northridge Church of Christ marquee, which currently reads: "Dogs wag their tails, not their tongues."

Um.

WTF?

Am I supposed to be emulating dogs now? This is the first I've heard of it. Dogs sniff people's crotches too. Do they think I should be doing that?

Seriously, what is so virtuous about dogs?

(For anyone else who's local, I find that the Northridge Church of Christ marquee is a never-ending source of amusement and WTF moments. This one is the best yet, though.)

I'm reading a series of posts by guest-blogger Sara Robinson at Orcinus. It's a fascinating look at authoritarianism and what prompts people to leave authoritarian groups like fundamentalist religion. I don't know how interesting this is to anybody else, but I'm endlessly fascinated by what I guess you'd call the interplay between religion and sociology. What does religion do for us? What kinds of things change what we believe, or what our religion believes? What kind of things *should* change our religion and what shouldn't? I know that etumon, at least, has wanted to know what I actually believe, so hopefully at least one person will find some of this interesting.

( Unintentionally-long essay ahead )

Okay, there's a debate going on that's really bothering me. Many of the bloggers I read are atheists. Fine. No big. However, some of them feel the need to go out of their way to call all religious people "stupid" or "mentally ill." This bothers me a lot. I don't feel like they're criticising my religion, whatever that may be. I feel like they're criticising me. I've tried to figure out how to explain it, and all I can think to say is that they seem to consider me less than. And it's over an issue that doesn't even matter. I don't want to convert them. I don't think they're going to hell. I don't even talk about my religious beliefs or experiences. The existence of my religious beliefs does not impinge on them in any way, yet they go out of their way to insult me. Maybe I'm wrong. Other people are arguing on my side, but there doesn't seem to be any meeting of the minds going on.

If you want to read it, the (current) argument started here and continues here with a brief side trip here for Redneck Mother's liberal Christian pov. The people I tend to agree with are Redneck Mother (AKA kcb), Ms Kate to a certain extent, Greg, FoolishOwl, Roving Thundercloud, emily1, Tapetum, and Alix. The most insulting stuff is toward the end of the thread, so skim down if you don't have time to see it all.

So, what do you think? Am I stupid and mentally ill because I'm religious, even though I believe in the complete separation of church and state and the scientific method? Am I being too sensitive? Because, sadly, PZ Myers is really starting to annoy me, and, like Redneck Mother, I'm kind of losing my blog crush on him.

I'm sitting on the porch reading my politics filter in order to get away from the stupidity that is Days of Our Lives. These two women with gigantic fanny packs are walking their dogs, and they've stopped in the neighbor's driveway and have been standing there for 10 minutes. It's very annoying. I don't get the point of the giant fanny packs either. Man. Remember when those were cool? Or did I just *think* they were cool? </dork>

I finished Stealing Jesus by Bruce Bawer earlier today. I highly recommend it for anyone who's interested in the origins of fundamentalism and what other kinds of Christians are out there. Part of the problem I've been having is that I knew I couldn't be a fundamentalist, but I'd somehow internalized the idea that fundamentalists are the "real" Christians and all others are fake. I didn't know there are, and have been for a long time, Christians and denominations that don't believe in biblical literalism, who don't proselytize by telling people they'll go to hell if they don't believe a certain set of doctrinal assertions. I don't know, still, what exactly I believe, but I kind of think that's just part of religion. Some things are mysteries, and religion isn't meant to answer every question we have. The point of religion is to bring us into contact with the spiritual. Anyway, read it if this is a subject that interests you.

Inhofe has decided to forbid evangelical groups from caring about the environment, because it's not in line with the conservative agenda. This is so wrong I don't even know where to begin. I wonder if I should write to him so he can tell me I've been brainwashed by the liberal media.

(LJ's spellchecker has these suggestions for "Inhofe": Inhale, Unhinge, Unsafe, Unholier. Heheheheheh.)

The Flying Spaghetti Monster has an entry at Wikipedia! I have a confession to make. I, too, am a Pastafarian. No, no, don't try to talk me out of it. I will resist persecution and remain true to my beliefs. May you be forever touched by His Noodly Appendage.

So, I'm thinking about getting a new bed. Mother and Daddy might be visiting for Labor Day, so they could help me transport it then. Then I could put the twin bed in the other room and use it as a guest room. I just happen to have been searching ebay for quilts for my hypothetical new bed, and I found this. Somebody convince me I don't need to bid on this. (Actually, I'm probably not going to, but, you know, quilt!)

I spent about an hour last night organizing the My Pictures folder on my computer. I separated screencaps by the movie they're from, and I renamed all the Hard Core Logo caps so I could tell which one they are (cause they were all named things like cap241). And, I just--the pretty!

( In the end it's love )

Yay! And now I am going to go read blogs and not buy a quilt!

Books I am Currently Reading:

Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett - This is my absolute favoritest Pratchett book EVER. I love the wizards, and Hex, and Cohen. Where the wizards are all afraid of the Luggage, and hiding in the chandelier? And the Bursar all "This is off the wall, I know." "What is?" "A hook for hanging pictures on." Ahahahaha!

Ashes of Victory by David Weber - I may have mentioned this before, but I reread the Honor Harrington books pretty much constantly. But! The new book is coming out in September! And at the rate I'm going I will have just finished going through the whole series again when the next one comes out.

Stranger at the Gate: To be Gay and Christian in America by Mel White - This is Mel White's autobiography, essentially, about how he grew up a fundamentalist Christian but kept looking for a way not to be gay. He's a great writer, and one of the things I like best about this book is how he describes the connection he was always longing for. He makes the point that heterosexual love isn't just about sex, and neither is homosexual love. At the time the book was written he was Dean of Dallas's Cathedral of Hope, which inspired me to check to see if that was the closest Metropolitan Community Church. And it's so not! There's an MCC in Denton! So I may try to visit there sometime soon.

Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture by John Shelby Spong - This isn't exactly what I was expecting. He's arguing against a literal interpretation of the Bible, but it seems a bit shallower than I expected. He uses some examples that I know there are explanations for that he isn't including. I don't know. I haven't finished it yet, so I'm suspending judgment till I've read the whole thing. On a separate note, though, I hate it when people attempt to criticize and/or argue with a book they haven't actually read. I was reading this book at Grandpa's house this weekend, and my aunt was trying to do just that. Grr. That's what I get for reading it in front of fundamentalists, I know.

Sisterhood is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women's Liberation Movement, edited by Robin Morgan - I have an original copy of this book, published in 1970, before Roe v. Wade and hundreds of other successes. I bought it several months ago and hadn't taken time to read it yet. I picked it up, though, because Susan Lydon died recently, and the blogs kept pointing out that she was famous for having written "The Politics of Orgasm," an essay that gave many women a feeling of liberation after having been told they were sexually immature because they didn't have vaginal orgasms. I wanted to read that essay, so I tried to find it online. And it turned out it had been published in this book I already own! Anyway, it's a fascinating book, and I love how it's a snapshot of what was going on at that time, when we'd had a few successes but the major victories were still to come. And some of the things they wanted still haven't happened.

Those are the books I'm actively reading. I have about 20 other books stacked around that I started and haven't finished yet. I have a short attention span sometimes.

I'm back from Oklahoma. Had a headache most of the drive back, which wasn't helped by looking at bright headlights a lot. I've just finished catching up on my friends list, which had gotten to skip=200 without me checking it constantly.

I have a big project due in Collection Development Tuesday night, so the next couple days are gonna be hectic. I'm probably around a third of the way through, and I'm not sure what format we're supposed to use to turn it in. I think she might want it printed out, which is annoying. My spreadsheet is too wide to print and have it look right. Basically what we're doing is picking a subject and creating a collection of books and other items for a pretend library we make up, with a budget of $2000. I have to figure out where the money comes from (e.g. famous person donates it for the purpose of setting up a collection on their pet topic) and write various collection development policy stuff, then talk about what I learned and crap like that. My topic is arctic exploration. So far I've managed to find about 20 books that I ABSOLUTELY MUST READ. This is not counting the ones I've already read. As you can see, I picked a topic I can gush about at great length. So far, I've just been putting the books in whatever order I find them, but I'd like to go back and separate them by what explorer they're about and stuff, so it's easier to see what kind of coverage I've got. I'm thinking that would make it more interesting (at least to me). There'd be topics like: Sir John Franklin, Sir John Ross, Elisha Kent Kane, North Pole, South Pole, Antarctica, Northwest Passage, William McClintock, Modern Exploration, Women Explorers (as someone on Amazon said, "cuz heaven forbid they'd just get in the other books"), Inuit, George Back, John Rae, Robert Falcon Scott, Roald Amundsen, OMG I LOVE THIS TOPIC!!!1!1!!!

I read two books this weekend, which was an amazing and wonderful treat. I mean, I reread the Honor Harrington books every five seconds, but I don't get to new stuff nearly as often. It takes more concentration to keep track of what's going on if I haven't read it before, so if I feel like I don't have enough time I don't tend to read as much new stuff. So I read Anything but Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth by Wayne R. Besen. Ex-gay ministries have been in the news a lot lately, because of Zach and because of a series on Salon.com. Love in Action actually came to SNU while I was there and did a chapel presentation, which apparently was rather misleading, according to the information in this book. That is, they said that being sexually abused as a child is what makes you gay, and that anybody can become 100% heterosexual (among other things). Now that I know there are religious groups who believe the Bible doesn't condemn homosexuality and who dispute the claims of ex-gay ministries and their supposed success rates (none of them actually keep statistics), it seems like it would have been appropriate for SNU to let us know there was an opposing view. I also read What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality by Daniel A. Helminiak, because I'm curious about about what pro-gay scholars have to say about the Bible's views.

Finally, GIP to lafemme_icons. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead: like Terry Pratchett, except it's LITRACHUR!

The Edge is giving away tickets to see a band called Snow Patrol at the Gypsy Tea Room in April. I spent an amusing (and totally productive, don't doubt it) 10 minutes reciting quotes and giggling to myself after hearing this.

"Cheese Gun."

"Uhhh...Snow Axe."

"Life Snow Picnic."

"Church of Worms."

*buzzer sound*

"Category is Fake Canadian Bands."

"Okay, Faster Leonard Cohen, Die Die."

"Sled Dog Afterbirth."

"You're the king, Pipe. Joe?"

"MacArthur Parka."


Yeah. I thought it was funny, anyway. So tonight I had a very nice time, just hanging out. I made a vegetarian pizza and watched Wilby Wonderful for the third time (one of those was with the director's commentary, so I don't know if you want to count it). This movie just, wow. So very good. Callum Keith Rennie! Paul Gross! Both of whom are so very very pretty. And Callum especially is such a very good actor. Callum plays a gay dyslexic sign painter, which was enough to make me want to see it. But you perhaps want to know what the movie is actually about. So, um...hm. It's kind of hard to describe. It's about a day in the life of a small island called Wilby. Dan Jarvis (Jim Allodi) spends most of the movie trying to kill himself, and being comically interrupted. He wants to kill himself because his wife has just left him and the newspaper is about to publish a list of gay men supposedly involved in some scandal, a list he will be on. Meanwhile, Paul Gross's character, Buddy, is investigating the scandal while his wife (Sandra Oh), a realtor, is running around trying to sell houses and organize things and generally do too much at once. So their marriage isn't going very well. Buddy is thinking about having an affair with Sandra (Rebecca Jenkins), whose daughter, Emily (Ellen Page), is starting a relationship with a boy who wants her to have sex with him. Tons of stuff is happening, and yet, it's just a normal day, because in another way, it's the kind of stuff that always happens to people and doesn't feel busy at all. I definitely haven't done it justice. This is a movie that has tons of great actors who do a great job. There's not a lot of plot, because the movie is really about relationships.

I just finished a great book called The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. It's about a Jesuit mission to Alpha Centauri. The main character is a Jesuit priest. The story is about his search for God. Good and bad things happen to him, and he has to deal with them and try to find God in them. Overall, I just love this book because of its perspective on the problem of pain. You know, if God is omnipotent and he loves us, why is there pain in the world? Why doesn't he stop it? Russell converted to Judaism, and she says, "When you convert to Judaism in a post-Holocaust world, you know two things for sure: one is that being Jewish can get you killed; the other is that God won't rescue you." Sure, it's depressing in a way. But the way she addresses the issue is comforting, too. She concludes that God dignifies our pain by watching and mourning and remembering. That doesn't mean he will stop it.

"There's an old Jewish story that says in the beginning God was everywhere and everything, a totality. But to make creation, God had to remove Himself from some part of the universe, so something besides Himself could exist. So He breathed in, and in the places where God withdrew, there creation exists."

"So God just leaves?" John asked, angry where Emilio had been desolate. "Abandons creation? You're on your own, apes. Good luck!"

"No. He watches. He rejoices. He weeps. He observes the moral drama of human life and gives meaning to it by caring passionately about us, and remembering."

"Matthew ten, verse twenty-nine," Vincenzo Giuliani said quietly. " 'Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.' "

"But the sparrow still falls," Felipe said.

Don't get me wrong, I really like the church I'm going to. They're very friendly and welcoming, and the regular pastor is very good about avoiding politics. I realize, however, that I'm going to disagree with the majority of people there where politics are concerned. I recognize this going in, though I haven't entirely formulated a strategy to deal with it. See, I learned this morning, in both Sunday School and the service (from the associate pastor) that "they" want to rename Easter something like "spring holiday" or "Egg Day." This is very bad, naturally, as it signifies the continuing drive to do away with God and anything associated with him, culminating in Hillary Clinton and John Kerry feeding all the Christians to the lions while a chortling Michael Moore captures it all on tape. I have no idea where the Sunday School teacher and the associate pastor got this idea, though. I don't even know who "they" are, which makes it really hard to argue with them. I'm arguably pretty well-plugged-in to the Liberal-God-Hating-Atheist news, for a regular old civilian anyway, and no one's gotten around to telling me to start saying Egg Day and boycotting the Easter Pageant. Apparently I don't subscribe to whatever publication runs the Irrational-Panicky-Rumors-About-Supposed-Renaming-Of-Religious-Holidays Memos. (I have a sneaking suspicion that it just might be the Baptist Messenger.)

My first reaction is to start coming up with rational reasons anyone might want to call Easter "spring holiday," since I don't know who came up with this idea and I need a place to start. The first thing I can think of is that "they" are school administrators, who want to call it spring holiday so that they can close school for Good Friday. This is not something new, though. Schools haven't been letting out for Good Friday since I was in at least high school, it being a primarily religious holiday that isn't celebrated secularly. That would make sense, right? And it doesn't signal the end of Christian civilization, as far as I can tell. Of course, I don't know that this is the reason. But when church-going people start passing around rumors like this, they don't give you evidence or reasons, because that kind of thing doesn't matter to them. And I can understand that a bit, I guess. It seems to them that religion's role in society is being nibbled away a little at a time. This rumor fits into the pattern they've already observed, so they don't question it. But if you stop to think about it, it doesn't make any sense. All they've heard is "They want to rename Easter 'spring holiday.' " The first questions should be "Who wants to?" and "Why?" When they don't ask these questions, or even think about asking them, it offends me. It offends me because I hear an implied answer to those questions, even if it's not the answer the rumor-passers intended. I hear "Liberals want to rename Easter 'spring holiday' because they hate God and want to pretend he doesn't exist." It's judgmental, yes. But it also hurts. It implies that liberals (of which I am one) are evil, that we have nothing in common with the "good folks." Maybe it's entirely my own reaction, but it makes me feel like an eternal enemy of the church, of Christianity, of religion. Because I think this is a cosmetic battle. Because I think people are overreacting. Because I know there are liberal Christians who see separation of church and state as a good thing. Because I know there is no vast left-wing conspiracy to stamp out the last vestiges of good in America.

There doesn't seem to be any way to end this without a plea for us all to "just get along." But come on. Liberals are not evil. Conservatives are not evil. Most liberals don't want the end of morality, and most conservatives don't want to live in a theocracy. Maybe if we stopped worrying about what to call things we'd have time to fix some real problems, like, I don't know, poverty, hunger, AIDS, ethnic cleansing, pollution.

And please. "Egg Day"?! If liberals were planning to rename Easter, we'd come up with a much better name than that.

I got my big College and University Libraries paper written, ten minutes before it was due! :-D I think it turned out pretty well, actually. I was surprised, when I went to reread, how good it actually sounded. Yay! I win at life!

So that was due Thursday, and I felt like I'd been living that paper for months by that time. So Friday I wanted to do something fun, so Mary Beth and I decided to go see a movie or something. We were just gonna figure it out when we got there. We went to the mall here in Denton, since I'd checked the listings for, you know, real theaters, that show new releases, and nothing jumped out at us as something we wanted to see. We decided to see Ocean's 12, as the best option there, so we hung out and window shopped and ate at El Chico before the movie. I have to say, Ocean's 12 does not stand up well to repeat viewing. It was funny the first time. The second time it wasn't nearly as good, and the annoying parts were way way WAY more annoying. I had the dubious privilege of seeing that messed up icky wrong homoerotic Brawny paper towel commercial on the big screen. And if you haven't seen it...you really really have to. I promise, there is no way I can describe this that you will actually believe. It's the second commercial down.

I went to church again this morning. I'd decided to visit the college department, and...I don't know what it is about college departments, but I never seem to find one I like. Maybe it's because they feel temporary. Like, all the people in the class are only even in town because they're going to school, and they'll stop being in town as soon as they finish school. They don't really seem to be a part of the church, or even that connected to each other. Have any of you had that experience? People were friendly, anyway, which was nice. It was kind of amusing, in an annoying way--for the lesson the teacher handed out outlines with blanks to fill in. I wasn't going to fill mine in, because, you know, whatever. I'll just throw it away afterwards. Everyone around me started falling all over themselves to find me a pen when it looked like I wasn't going to take notes. It must be against the rules not to take notes on the Sunday School lesson. *rolls eyes*

I've been writing it since 3 am, when the Al Franken Show ended, and I'm tired of writing it so I'm declaring it finished. I hate writing, but thinking about what I might end up doing after I graduate is kind of interesting. So, I thought I'd post the finished product here, in case I ever want to look at it again. (Who knows. It could happen.) ( Tada: )
See, now I'm all excited about possibly working at SNU. That'd be, like, so cool.

I saw Edita, my counselor, today, and she thinks I'm doing really well, like I have a new resolve or something. I've kind of been feeling that too, but it took her saying it to make me really realize it. I really think it's the election that did it. The Republicans have been trying to claim they have a monopoly on morality, and it makes me mad. It also made me realize that I can be moral and upright and all that without being a fundamentalist. I don't have to hate gay people. I don't have to go to church three times a week. I don't have to disapprove of everyone who isn't a fundamentalist Christian. I can be a progressive, or a liberal, or whatever we're calling it now, and that doesn't make me a sinner. Christian fundamentalists are not in charge of deciding who's a sinner and who isn't. And it's entirely possible that Jesus is sitting up there shaking his head, trying to figure out where they get off, just like I am. So I'm moving on. My life isn't on hold anymore. I am who I am, and I don't have to wait anymore. I'm gonna find a church, and I'm gonna be me and stop feeling guilty about it. Yay!