5 Reasons The Supreme Court, and Not Just States, Should Acknowledge Gay Marriage

With an encouraging high of 58% of Americans now supporting gay marriage, it is beginning to look excitingly inevitable that gay people will finally have full equality before the law with respect to marriage any day, year, or decade now. It is possible that this will happen as soon as this summer when the Supreme [...]

Marginalized Groups, Civility, Privilege, and What Replaces Religion: An Interview with James Croft

I just finished having a great conversation with James Croft of the blog Temple of the Future for this week’s episode of The Camels With Hammers Show. There is a special announcement related to James’s blog at the end of the interview. We had some technical difficulties so the interview took the form of two parts.

In the first video we talked primarily about my stance in favor of civility. I have in recent months controversially argued that members of marginalized groups shouldn’t embrace using abusive language as a routine method of fighting oppression. I decided to run these views by James, who is himself gay and a vigorous activist for both atheist and gay causes.

In the second video, James answers my questions about whether people with social privilege can ever learn enough about out-group experiences in order to offer critical suggestions to members of marginalized groups or whether an epistemic privilege stemming from marginalization can be absolute. Then the rest of the video is spent discussing questions about controversies in the atheist community related to how to relate to religious people and how atheists can go about meeting people’s needs that most people presently turn to religion for–without turning atheism into a religion itself.

Click on the title of this post to see the videos!

James Croft on Humanist Values, Opposing Religion, and Supporting Gay Marriage as Sacred

James Croft will be on the Camels With Hammers Show on Sunday morning at 10am EST. In this post, I put up two excellent speeches he gave this year. In one he explains how Humanists historically have, and in the future can, play a special role as moral reformers. In another he attempts to give a morally and politically influential speech–and succeeds. Along with the videos, I quote an illuminating section of an interview I conducted with him last summer.

Is Religious Circumcision of Male Infants Morally Defensible?

Last month a court in Cologne, Germany ruled against allowing the circumcision of children too young to give consent. CBS News summarized the facts: a German court ruled that circumcision infringes on a child’s right to be protected from bodily harm. The regional court in Cologne said that circumcision went against the “fundamental right of [...]

The Truth About The Help

Melissa Harris-Perry hated the film The Help. You can see her memorably scathing, outraged review here. This morning, ahead of the Oscar’s, she had a really illuminating segment on the real history of African American women domestic workers, the economic and sexual exploitation they have suffered, their role in the Civil Rights Movement, and the disservices [...]

Virginia's Aggressively Theocratic Governor

Have you gotten up to speed yet on Bob McDonnell, Virginia’s theocratic governor who is being touted as a serious contender to be the GOP Vice Presidential nominee? If not, Rachel Maddow’s report is eye opening, troubling, and must-see: Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Your Thoughts?

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie Vetoes Gay Marriage Bill

Infuriating: Gov. Chris Christie has followed through on his promise to reject a bill allowing same-sex marriage in New Jersey by quickly vetoing the measure Friday.   “I am adhering to what I’ve said since this bill was first introduced — an issue of this magnitude and importance, which requires a constitutional amendment, should be [...]

Virginia Expected To Allow Religious Adoption Agencies To Discriminate Against Gays

More special, unconstitutional, protections of religious conscience bigotry, to the exclusion of equal protection: On Friday, the Virginia Senate passed SB 349, which gives private adoption agencies the power to deny the placement of children with same-sex couples on religious grounds. Known as the ‘conscience clause’ bill, the bill allows adoption agencies to deny same-sex couples the [...]

Are You One of the Millions Who Support Ellen?

The “One Million Moms” (who actually only had around 40,000 Facebook likes) tried to get Ellen Degeneres fired as a JC Penney spokesperson on account of her being gay. A counter Facebook page looking to garner an actual 1,000,000 supporters for Ellen started fishing for likes and has received over 100,000 in a hurry. If you happen [...]

"Gay Marriage Doesn't Threaten Our Marriage"

Friend of Camels With Hammers George Waye has passed on to me information about a photo campaign by Heterosexuals for Same Sex Equality. Preferably by Valentine’s Day they’d like to get a bunch of heterosexual couples to pose with signs that read “Gay Marriage Doesn’t Threaten Our Marriage”. Here are the founders of the group, [...]