But only when they’re minors. Once they become adults they’re out.
Current trends in cartoons 2
There have been several cartoons about Jason Collins coming out, many of them from conservative cartoonists trying to dismiss the significance of the act by saying that Collins isn’t that good of a basketball player (what does that matter) or that it’s soooo common now for people to come out of the closet and nobody cares about non-famous people coming out, right?
It’s a weird strategy. How is this supposed to work? ‘I’m not OK with equality for gay people, so I’m going to pretend this is so commonplace it doesn’t matter.’ Are they trying to convince themselves no one really cares, that this is not a sign of progress for gays and lesbians?
Tim Tebow is the only christian in professional sports, God helped him win a superbowl
Isn’t Tebow moving to another team or something? I don’t follow sports, but is it normal for someone to be shuttled from team to team like this?
Yes it is, especially mediocre players. Collins himself is actually on his sixth NBA team, which isn’t out of the ordinary by any stretch.
But isn’t Tebow supposed to be this great prodigy who’s been hailed since high school?
In the eyes of some. Stantis doesn’t seem to get that: a) Tebow got tons of positive press coverage because of his unique displays of Christian identity; yet b) plenty of Christians thought these displays were self-serving, possibly even blasphemous, and not humble. But Stantis is serving his crowd the platter of imagined persecution it craves, so none of that matters.
Nail, meet head. As a follower of Ed Brayton’s blog, I am well aware of how pervasive a sense of persecution is among (usually right-wing) Christians.
Tim Tebow is the only christian in professional sports, God helped him win a superbowl
Isn’t Tebow moving to another team or something? I don’t follow sports, but is it normal for someone to be shuttled from team to team like this?
Yes it is, especially mediocre players. Collins himself is actually on his sixth NBA team, which isn’t out of the ordinary by any stretch.
But isn’t Tebow supposed to be this great prodigy who’s been hailed since high school?
Tim Tebow is the only christian in professional sports, God helped him win a superbowl
Isn’t Tebow moving to another team or something? I don’t follow sports, but is it normal for someone to be shuttled from team to team like this?
Basically every conversation I had this past week.
O hey, family of origin. When did you get here?
The condescension of people claiming to be filled with compassion while following a religion that clearly advocates specific forms of hatred is staggering.
Hey, did you guys see the film Flight? I considered it the third best film of 2012, and I recommend you all see it.
I mention it because I’m reminded of the scene where Denzel Washington visits his co-pilot on the eponymous flight in the hospital. The co-pilot’s wife is there, and as the co-pilot goes into a “God made this happen for a reason” speech his wife punctuates every other sentence with a loud and completely serious “Praise Jesus!” It’s unsettling, and I found myself wondering “Do people like this know how they come across to others?”
My guess is they do, and they don’t care. The Bible has self-reinforcing bits to reassure believers they’re in the right (note the ‘Only the fool says ‘There is no God” bit in Psalms).
But then I see something like this cartoon, and while no one ever speaks exactly like this in real life there are plenty who have this mindset. “I’m a condescending jerk who is fine with marginalizing those unlike me, but it’s OK because I’ve got Jesus on my side and I’m doing it for their own good.” And I wonder if they know how they come across to others, or if they’re convinced people like them more than they do.
Random tangent: I had a basic idea for a series recently about an American going to Britain for business or whatever and making an ass of himself. Not in a loud, boorish, worst-stereotypes-of-ignorant/arrogant-Americans kind of way, but in a more subtle way. Smug, conceited, but convinced his friends like him and his antics more than they do.
Which is America, in a nutshell. We have our allies, but we’re always at risk of alienating them with our ignorance of how we’re actually perceived. Think of George W. Bush reaching down to give Angela Merkel a massage and she reacts with “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I’m just rambling now. Got Casino Royale on in the background, we’re not yet at the poker tournament, so I’m frittering away the time :p
shutupandenjoythehomosexuality:
killthebloodyredprinceofdeath:
we ran out of plates
this can possibly be the greatest photo on tumblr.
This can possibly be the most disrespectful photo on Tumblr. I am not saying that you have to agree with what the bible says, but to utilize that book ‘as a plate’ knowing what it means to people, is just plain disrespectful.
It’s sad that people are so full of anger when it comes to religion, that they would rather post photos like this than deal with their hostilities in a more appropriate way.
i’m sorry, i cant hear you over the sound of nOT BEING ABLE TO GET MARRIED BECAUSE OF THAT BOOK.
best comment ^
just for that comment
i honestly started clapping for that comment
Bible should help people, shouldn’t it?
It’s not because of the Bible, it’s because of people’s interpretation of the Bible’s message. Really, you can’t get married because of people who believe that their view point is the only view point.
I’d like to draw your attention to the final bit of this thread, because we can start off by refuting this obviously wrong statement:
I can tell you’re saying: ‘Gee, Philip, we already knew this. Why are you bothering to post this just to inform us of that?’
And I answer ‘Because it’s part of a larger, currently ongoing movement that I want to draw your attention to.’ The person I’m reblogging this from is not the only one to make the claim “The Bible isn’t anti-gay. Just certain Christians are.” Here’s a couple more (warning on the latter link: the background is an annoying gif, click at your own risk). And I’m sure I could find a lot more if I went looking.
It’s a common response from younger, more progressive Christians: “Oh, no! Not all Christians are homophobic, there are plenty of us with gay friends and who support gay marriage!” Taking it a step further and trying to claim the Bible doesn’t forbid gay marriage is just insulting, but I want to focus on that first part, the ‘There are gay-friendly Christians out there.’
I’m not an expert on the history of religion, or the history of Christianity, or - as is relevant to this post - the history of Christianity and its social influence in America. But I do know how this story has played out before:
-The abolitionist movement met significant opposition from Christians who used genuine, fully in context quotes of the Bible to justify slavery (in addition to all the parts of the Bible where God commands Israel to take slaves or Paul commands slaves to obey their masters, you can Google ‘Curse of Ham’ for insight into this line of thinking). Slavery was eventually abolished (yay), and the generations after that have tried to claim that the abolitionist movement was solely the work of Christians. Now, yes, there were Christian abolitionists (this was a time when religious affiliation was taken for granted and a place where Christianity was the dominant religion), but the pro-slavery movement was founded on/supported by religion as much as anything.
-The women’s rights movement met significant opposition from Christians who pointed out that the Bible teaches women are inferior to men. There undoubtedly were pro-suffrage Christians, but the millennia of ‘women are less than men’ thinking that necessitated the women’s rights movement in the first place came from religion. Eventually the 19th Amendment was passed and there have been strides made to put women on equal footing with men. Today it’s not impossible to find people who argue that the Bible teaches women should be subservient to their husbands (and of course they believe women should be married), but most Christians take it as a given that women deserve the right to vote, choose their own spouse, work, drive, do whatever men do. They ignore the parts of the Bible that imply/advocate gender inequality.
-The Civil Rights movement met significant opposition from Christians and churches who argued that God had placed the different ethnicities in different parts of the world because miscegenation and a general mingling of races went against His wishes. Yes, there were Christian civil rights leaders (we all know Martin Luther King Jr. made his religious belief perhaps the most significant facet of his public persona), but those opposed to racial equality fell back on Biblical verses as much as they did rank bigotry. Eventually gains for ethnic minorities were made, but today conservative Christians who would have denounced Dr. King as a socialist in the ‘60’s try to claim the Civil Rights movement got its entire strength and momentum from Christians and Biblical teachings, and conveniently ignore the Bible-backed racism that gave the movement such a headache.
See the pattern here?
Now what’s happened/happening with the gay rights movement? They’ve met significant opposition from Christians who quote the Bible forbidding homosexuality (check), support for gay marriage is in the majority and we’re on the verge of it becoming either backed by the Supreme Court or perhaps Congress will (sooner or later) pass a bill recognizing gay marriage (check).
And what comes next? That’s right; Christians will try to claim the gay rights movement got its power from the church and attempt to whitewash all the bigotry and hatred against gays and lesbians that came out of religious belief. In 20 or 25 years, when we have people entering adulthood who have lived their entire lives in a world where gay marriage was accepted and legally recognized, there will be Christians trying to claim “Of course Christians support gay marriage. We’ve always supported gay marriage, and the first steps to recognizing gay rights came from the churches and other religious organizations.”
First they deny the rights, then they fight against granting the rights, then they claim they supported granting the rights all along. We’re already seeing that with the above post, trying to outright lie about the Bible’s explicit views on gay rights.
I already mentioned the standard response to this: “Not all Christians are homophobic, you can’t judge all of us based on the views or actions of a few.”
But the things is, I’m not judging any gay-friendly Christians on the views/actions of homophobic Christians. I’m judging them on their actions; namely their silence.
In my post about my views on guns I mentioned that when the majority of rational gun owners are silent they allow the fringe to dominate the conversation. What good does it do to say “The majority of gun owners practice safety and don’t fetishize their weapons and don’t believe conspiracy theories about the United Nations coming to take their guns away” when they’re standing away from the conversation? Rational gun owners can speak for themselves, and if they don’t then you or someone else shouldn’t be speaking for them.
So it is with Christians and gay rights. What good does it do to say “There are plenty of gay-friendly Christians” when so many of them are/have been silent for so long, taking no part in the gay rights movement? When gay-friendly Christians stand aside they allow the homophobic Christians to frame the debate. If Pat Robertson and Tony Perkins are the only Christians taking part in the gay rights debate, then guess what: Christians as a whole will be defined by their homophobia.
To gay-friendly Christians offended by the above picture and conversation: Don’t get in my or anyone else’s face when people say “Christianity is homophobic” because your silence is a reason itself for this view. You don’t confront the church leaders and public figures, but then you’re upset when something like this happens?
Bluntly: fuck you. You don’t get to be offended by people having a view of Christianity (or religion in general) that you haven’t worked to challenge or undo.
I think it’s important to mention that the opposite of love isn’t hatred. It’s apathy. Silent, gay-friendly Christians are apathetic, and through that they’ve allowed the outright hatred to take its place at the debate.
Now I understand when it comes to gay marriage/gay rights you’re facing an uphill battle trying to change Christianity’s public image, because, as I said, the Bible is explicitly homophobic. No amount of lying or creative interpretation will change this. If you are honest you need to face the choice between taking the Bible as totally, completely literal truth, or taking the Bible as some truth and some archaic views that need to be rejected as society progresses. But you don’t get to claim what is or is not in the Bible to begin with. Leviticus 18:22 is there. It’s in every version. You can’t white it out, and you don’t get to be angry at the people who point out it’s there and they or their friends and loved ones are denied rights because of it.
But I don’t believe anyone who identifies as Christian must follow an explicitly literal interpretation of the Bible, cover to cover. There are plenty of Christians who reject a literal reading of Genesis and accept the evidence supporting the theory of evolution, and neither I nor anyone else has the right or power to say they aren’t Real, True Christians. It’s something I’ve noticed among certain circles of atheism, the idea that “real” believers need to be of the most fundamentalist, literal-minded stock, and progressives are just wishy-washy frauds. Maybe it’s because, as I mentioned, the most fundamentalist are often the most vocal and thus get the most attention, or maybe it’s just because some atheists find it easier to dismiss religion when it’s at its most obstinate and base.
But atheists don’t get to declare who is or is not a Real, True Christian, any more than any Christian gets to. Religions, like all complex memes, change over time the way complex organisms do. This doesn’t mean the pro-slavery, racist, sexist, or homophobic aspects of a religion retroactively disappear when a religion moves on from its Iron Age views - again, progressive Christians don’t get to lie and claim the Bible is not homophobic - but Christians don’t have to be bound by such vestigial views.
BUT THEY DO NEED TO CHALLENGE AND EXPLICITLY REJECT THE VIEWS IF THEY WANT TO DISTANCE THEMSELVES FROM THEM!
I’m not writing all this because I expect to change anyone’s mind about anything. Many progressive Christians will continue to claim offense whenever they see something like this picture, whining “Not all Christians are homophobic!” while ignoring that they’ve stood by and allowed the bigotry and homophobia to be spewed forth for so long.
But I wanted to say this because, as I said above, it’s not so much a prediction as a sure outcome that in another generation the dominant Christian argument will be “Christianity has always supported gay marriage,” and I want to be able to say ‘I told you so.’
Thank you. I had a discussion with someone about this exact post in the past, and they kept trying to hand-wave the anti-gay bits with “historical context.” Historical context doesn’t factor in when you’re claiming this is the literal word of god.
I can accept Christians simply rejecting Leviticus 18:22, just as modern Christians reject all the pro-slavery bits, but I want them to at least own Christianity’s history and just acknowledge that the Bible is homophobic. As I said above, I don’t think Christians need to be bound by every word of the Bible for all time (but I’m not a Christian, so why listen to me?). But there’s a difference between moving forward and denying the past ever happened.
shutupandenjoythehomosexuality:
killthebloodyredprinceofdeath:
we ran out of plates
this can possibly be the greatest photo on tumblr.
This can possibly be the most disrespectful photo on Tumblr. I am not saying that you have to agree with what the bible says, but to utilize that book ‘as a plate’ knowing what it means to people, is just plain disrespectful.
It’s sad that people are so full of anger when it comes to religion, that they would rather post photos like this than deal with their hostilities in a more appropriate way.
i’m sorry, i cant hear you over the sound of nOT BEING ABLE TO GET MARRIED BECAUSE OF THAT BOOK.
best comment ^
just for that comment
i honestly started clapping for that comment
Bible should help people, shouldn’t it?
It’s not because of the Bible, it’s because of people’s interpretation of the Bible’s message. Really, you can’t get married because of people who believe that their view point is the only view point.
I’d like to draw your attention to the final bit of this thread, because we can start off by refuting this obviously wrong statement:
I can tell you’re saying: ‘Gee, Philip, we already knew this. Why are you bothering to post this just to inform us of that?’
And I answer ‘Because it’s part of a larger, currently ongoing movement that I want to draw your attention to.’ The person I’m reblogging this from is not the only one to make the claim “The Bible isn’t anti-gay. Just certain Christians are.” Here’s a couple more (warning on the latter link: the background is an annoying gif, click at your own risk). And I’m sure I could find a lot more if I went looking.
It’s a common response from younger, more progressive Christians: “Oh, no! Not all Christians are homophobic, there are plenty of us with gay friends and who support gay marriage!” Taking it a step further and trying to claim the Bible doesn’t forbid gay marriage is just insulting, but I want to focus on that first part, the ‘There are gay-friendly Christians out there.’
I’m not an expert on the history of religion, or the history of Christianity, or - as is relevant to this post - the history of Christianity and its social influence in America. But I do know how this story has played out before:
-The abolitionist movement met significant opposition from Christians who used genuine, fully in context quotes of the Bible to justify slavery (in addition to all the parts of the Bible where God commands Israel to take slaves or Paul commands slaves to obey their masters, you can Google ‘Curse of Ham’ for insight into this line of thinking). Slavery was eventually abolished (yay), and the generations after that have tried to claim that the abolitionist movement was solely the work of Christians. Now, yes, there were Christian abolitionists (this was a time when religious affiliation was taken for granted and a place where Christianity was the dominant religion), but the pro-slavery movement was founded on/supported by religion as much as anything.
-The women’s rights movement met significant opposition from Christians who pointed out that the Bible teaches women are inferior to men. There undoubtedly were pro-suffrage Christians, but the millennia of ‘women are less than men’ thinking that necessitated the women’s rights movement in the first place came from religion. Eventually the 19th Amendment was passed and there have been strides made to put women on equal footing with men. Today it’s not impossible to find people who argue that the Bible teaches women should be subservient to their husbands (and of course they believe women should be married), but most Christians take it as a given that women deserve the right to vote, choose their own spouse, work, drive, do whatever men do. They ignore the parts of the Bible that imply/advocate gender inequality.
-The Civil Rights movement met significant opposition from Christians and churches who argued that God had placed the different ethnicities in different parts of the world because miscegenation and a general mingling of races went against His wishes. Yes, there were Christian civil rights leaders (we all know Martin Luther King Jr. made his religious belief perhaps the most significant facet of his public persona), but those opposed to racial equality fell back on Biblical verses as much as they did rank bigotry. Eventually gains for ethnic minorities were made, but today conservative Christians who would have denounced Dr. King as a socialist in the ‘60’s try to claim the Civil Rights movement got its entire strength and momentum from Christians and Biblical teachings, and conveniently ignore the Bible-backed racism that gave the movement such a headache.
See the pattern here?
Now what’s happened/happening with the gay rights movement? They’ve met significant opposition from Christians who quote the Bible forbidding homosexuality (check), support for gay marriage is in the majority and we’re on the verge of it becoming either backed by the Supreme Court or perhaps Congress will (sooner or later) pass a bill recognizing gay marriage (check).
And what comes next? That’s right; Christians will try to claim the gay rights movement got its power from the church and attempt to whitewash all the bigotry and hatred against gays and lesbians that came out of religious belief. In 20 or 25 years, when we have people entering adulthood who have lived their entire lives in a world where gay marriage was accepted and legally recognized, there will be Christians trying to claim “Of course Christians support gay marriage. We’ve always supported gay marriage, and the first steps to recognizing gay rights came from the churches and other religious organizations.”
First they deny the rights, then they fight against granting the rights, then they claim they supported granting the rights all along. We’re already seeing that with the above post, trying to outright lie about the Bible’s explicit views on gay rights.
I already mentioned the standard response to this: “Not all Christians are homophobic, you can’t judge all of us based on the views or actions of a few.”
But the things is, I’m not judging any gay-friendly Christians on the views/actions of homophobic Christians. I’m judging them on their actions; namely their silence.
In my post about my views on guns I mentioned that when the majority of rational gun owners are silent they allow the fringe to dominate the conversation. What good does it do to say “The majority of gun owners practice safety and don’t fetishize their weapons and don’t believe conspiracy theories about the United Nations coming to take their guns away” when they’re standing away from the conversation? Rational gun owners can speak for themselves, and if they don’t then you or someone else shouldn’t be speaking for them.
So it is with Christians and gay rights. What good does it do to say “There are plenty of gay-friendly Christians” when so many of them are/have been silent for so long, taking no part in the gay rights movement? When gay-friendly Christians stand aside they allow the homophobic Christians to frame the debate. If Pat Robertson and Tony Perkins are the only Christians taking part in the gay rights debate, then guess what: Christians as a whole will be defined by their homophobia.
To gay-friendly Christians offended by the above picture and conversation: Don’t get in my or anyone else’s face when people say “Christianity is homophobic” because your silence is a reason itself for this view. You don’t confront the church leaders and public figures, but then you’re upset when something like this happens?
Bluntly: fuck you. You don’t get to be offended by people having a view of Christianity (or religion in general) that you haven’t worked to challenge or undo.
I think it’s important to mention that the opposite of love isn’t hatred. It’s apathy. Silent, gay-friendly Christians are apathetic, and through that they’ve allowed the outright hatred to take its place at the debate.
Now I understand when it comes to gay marriage/gay rights you’re facing an uphill battle trying to change Christianity’s public image, because, as I said, the Bible is explicitly homophobic. No amount of lying or creative interpretation will change this. If you are honest you need to face the choice between taking the Bible as totally, completely literal truth, or taking the Bible as some truth and some archaic views that need to be rejected as society progresses. But you don’t get to claim what is or is not in the Bible to begin with. Leviticus 18:22 is there. It’s in every version. You can’t white it out, and you don’t get to be angry at the people who point out it’s there and they or their friends and loved ones are denied rights because of it.
But I don’t believe anyone who identifies as Christian must follow an explicitly literal interpretation of the Bible, cover to cover. There are plenty of Christians who reject a literal reading of Genesis and accept the evidence supporting the theory of evolution, and neither I nor anyone else has the right or power to say they aren’t Real, True Christians. It’s something I’ve noticed among certain circles of atheism, the idea that “real” believers need to be of the most fundamentalist, literal-minded stock, and progressives are just wishy-washy frauds. Maybe it’s because, as I mentioned, the most fundamentalist are often the most vocal and thus get the most attention, or maybe it’s just because some atheists find it easier to dismiss religion when it’s at its most obstinate and base.
But atheists don’t get to declare who is or is not a Real, True Christian, any more than any Christian gets to. Religions, like all complex memes, change over time the way complex organisms do. This doesn’t mean the pro-slavery, racist, sexist, or homophobic aspects of a religion retroactively disappear when a religion moves on from its Iron Age views - again, progressive Christians don’t get to lie and claim the Bible is not homophobic - but Christians don’t have to be bound by such vestigial views.
BUT THEY DO NEED TO CHALLENGE AND EXPLICITLY REJECT THE VIEWS IF THEY WANT TO DISTANCE THEMSELVES FROM THEM!
I’m not writing all this because I expect to change anyone’s mind about anything. Many progressive Christians will continue to claim offense whenever they see something like this picture, whining “Not all Christians are homophobic!” while ignoring that they’ve stood by and allowed the bigotry and homophobia to be spewed forth for so long.
But I wanted to say this because, as I said above, it’s not so much a prediction as a sure outcome that in another generation the dominant Christian argument will be “Christianity has always supported gay marriage,” and I want to be able to say ‘I told you so.’
Widespread support for gay marriage is a powerful weapon against bigotry and spells potential suicide for the GOP. A good cartoon.
Now that that’s out of the way, cartoonist Michael Ramirez wrote the following to accompany this cartoon:To listen to the mainstream media, the issue of same-sex marriage is now resolved because popular culture endorses it, Hollywood advocates it, the general public narrowly favors it (except in state elections) and 70% of “Millennials” (18-32 year olds) support it.
A majority of “Millennials” probably love Justin Bieber and listen to rap music, watch reality shows and care what Snooki does on a Friday afternoon. It doesn’t mean the Federal Government should endorse them.
Putting aside the long term consequences of a decision to have government sanction issues of private sexuality, and the impact these important decisions have on society’s structural longevity and success, since when is the Supreme Court’s job to rule by national consensus rather than by weighing an issue’s constitutionality?
More often these days, you’re better off listening to Justin Bieber than listening to the mainstream media.
So SA forum user FaradayCage hopped into his time machine to bring back this rendition, which puts it all into perspective:1960’s Ramirez posted:
To listen to the mainstream media, the issue of desegregation is now resolved because popular culture endorses it, Hollywood advocates it, the general public narrowly favors it (except in Mississippi elections) and 70% of “African Americans” (niggers) support it.
A majority of “African Americans” probably love Malcolm X and listen to rap music, watch Star Trek on stolen televisions and don’t wake up before noon. It doesn’t mean the Federal Government should endorse them.
Putting aside the long term consequences of a decision to have federal government trample over state’s rights, and the impact these important decisions have on society’s structural longevity and success, since when is the Supreme Court’s job to rule by national consensus rather than by weighing an issue’s constitutionality?
The way he slips in ‘rap music’ as an apparently modern trend supports the idea that Ramirez doesn’t follow pop culture.
And he thinks people in their 20’s listen to Justin Bieber? Really? College students are clamoring for a musician younger than they are? Is he unaware of the rise of the ‘tween’ market?
A Bizzaro World Good Cartoon.
Thanks to cartoonist Mike Lester for the guest commentary.
Now here’s a level of denial most people never reach. Plenty of anti-gay bigots are acknowledging that gay marriage is inevitable - hell, even Maggie Gallagher is conceding the fight - but here’s Mike Lester trying to deny that support for gay marriage is rising. It’s the Unskewed Polls of social issues.
That denial of reality takes commitment.
