Because Treating People Like 2nd Class Citizens is OK (in America)

Let me preface this by saying that the fact that we, as a society, do not allow any two people who love each other to marry and obtain equal rights and protection under the law is an affront. An affront.

That marriages of any kind are even an issue astounds me. We have two wars, economic crisis, crumbling infrastructure, foreign oil dependence, global warming, disease pandemics, and genocide, but some (primarily Christian) fundamentalists want to argue about whom gets to marry whom? Ridiculous. Gay marriage isn't an issue of right and wrong - it's a culture war meme strung up the flag pole every time a conservative wants to get elected by the inhabitants of Jesus-land. California's Proposition 8 to ban gay marriage (i.e. promote discrimination based on sexual orientation) is the perfect example of time and resources spent fighting about issues which literally do not matter.

I came across this earlier today:



(found here)

This video shows a mother, horrified at the mere notion of her daughter thinking that it is alright to marry another woman. Because the only thing worse than teaching your daughter acceptance is the chance that (heaven forfend!) she is a lesbian? Better vote 'yes' on 8, mom. (ed: Good thing we all know that good right-wing Christians are never ever homosexuals.)

If we allow gay marriage, then we are admitting that homosexuals are people too. Thus, we would have to teach that any two people who love one another and want to get married can do so, and that this is OK. Who is hurt by this? And how? "Traditional marriage" (the idea of marriage as traditional is laughable as it is; the nuclear family is not an age-old tradition) is not harmed; we're not forcing heterosexuals to have gay marriages, nor does it in some ephemeral way devalue the notion of a heterosexual marriage. All gay marriage does is allow gays to marry. It doesn't make children gay, it doesn't "promote" gay lifestyles (given how much persecution is inherent to homosexuality in our culture, who would, having weighed the pros and cons, "chose" to be gay?). Straight, gay, asexual; it does not matter. We are all people. We all have inalienable rights. The fact that only some people are allowed to legally marry cheapens the institution as a whole. Marriages for all, or marriages for none. Sorry bible-thumpers, hetero-normative privilege doesn't fly anymore.

Internets Was Yes is No on 8.

I Just Won 7.48 Trillion Dollars

Adnan Oktar, a Turkish creationist, has offered ten-trillion lira ($7,480,000,000,000) to "anyone who produces a single intermediate-form fossil demonstrating evolution."

Booya, muthafugga:
That's right, Oktar, it's the Tiktaalik roseae: A fish who's fossil exhibits, according to these scientists (as well as many evolutionary biologists and my thesis), an intermediate forelimb transitioning between fin and limb. Done. End of debate. Evolution happens.

So can we all, as an enlightened and informed society, stop talking about creationism like it has scientific merit? If any other "scientific" hypothesis had been proven wrong in so many ways, on so many levels, for so many reasons, we would have abandoned it long ago. But for some reason, some people still want to teach this utter garbage to children under the guise of science and fairly representing all opinions? Do we show school-children a globe and then explain that some people think that NASA is lying and that the earth is actually flat? No, we don't, because a flat earth is bullshit. Just like creationism.

If you want to teach your children that the earth is 6000 years old and that Jesus rode dinosaurs, that's fine, but do not expect the rest of us to swallow that tripe, or allow you to indoctrinate the nation's children by it's inclusion in the curriculum.

In conclusion: Science and reason: 1. Bronze-age mythology: 0.

Better Late Than Never

The Church of England is set to officially apologize to Charles Darwin for "misunderstanding his theory of evolution". Oh, wait, he died over 100 years ago:

"An article to be posted on the Church’s website will say: ‘Charles Darwin, 200 years from your birth [in 1809], the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still.'"

That's OK, since they've also apologized for trying Galileo as a heretic, the church's role in slavery, and the crusades. Nice work, Church of England; we Evolutionary Biologists are glad to finally have your approval.