Latest Revision to UUA "Principles and Purposes" Document Now Available

Update: There is no provision for absenstee voting on the proposed Article II revision. Here's the info that UUA Pacific Southwest District Trustee Tom Loughrey sent to me:

Well, after some research by the UUA Secretary, Paul Rickter, he has determined that there is no provision in the by-laws for an absentee vote on Article II. Everyone seems to acknowledge that the logic of an unamendable by-law would allow it but it is not the case and would itself take a by-law amendment.

Note: I have added the changed text from the January 2008 UUA Board of Trustees Meeting to the latest draft of Article II.

The changed text can be found in Section C-2.2 and is written in blue bold italic text to distinguish it from the Commission on Appraisal's December 2008 draft.

According to Tom Loughrey (Pacific Southwest District UUA Board Representative), the type of motion from the UUA Board to put this on the 2009 General Assembly Agenda is a motion that doesn't allow for General Assembly delegates to amend the Article II text. All they can do is vote for or against it.

This seems reasonable to me given that their process allowed individuals and groups from across the nation to provide their inputs to the Commission on Appraisal and the UUA Board.

The UUA Commission on Appraisal has released their latest proposed revision to the UUA "Principles and Purposes" section of the UUA Bylaws.

Below is the text of the latest revision (copied from the COA's 15 page report to the UUA Board and pasted into this blog post for easy reading):

Proposed Revision of Article II
ARTICLE II: Covenant
Section C-2.1 Purposes.
This association of free yet interdependent congregations devotes its resources to and exercises its corporate powers for religious, educational, and humanitarian purposes. It supports the creation, vitality, and growth of congregations that aspire to live out the Unitarian Universalist Principles. Through public witness and advocacy, it advances the Principles in the world.

Section C 2.2. Sources.
Unitarian Universalism is rooted in two religious heritages. Both are grounded on thousands of years of Jewish and Christian teachings, traditions, and experiences. The Unitarian heritage has affirmed that we need not think alike to love alike and that God is one. The Universalist heritage has preached not hell but hope and courage, and the kindness and love of God. Contemporary Unitarian Universalists have reaped the benefits of a legacy of prophetic words and deeds.

Unitarian Universalism is not contained in any single book or creed. Its religious authority lies in the individual, nurtured and tested in the congregation and the wider world. As an evolving religion, it draws from the teachings, practices, and wisdom of the world’s religions. Humanism, earth-centered spiritual traditions, and Eastern religions have served as vital sources. Unitarian Universalism has been influenced by mysticism, theism, skepticism, naturalism, and process thought as well as feminist and liberation theologies. It is informed by direct experiences of mystery and wonder, beauty and joy. It is enriched by the creative power of the arts, the guidance of reason, and the lessons of the sciences.

Grateful for the traditions that have strengthened our own, we seek to engage cultural and religious practices in ways that call us into right relationship with all.

Section C-2.3 Principles.
Grateful for the gift of life, we commit ourselves as member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association to embody together the transforming power of love as we covenant to honor and uphold:

• The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
• Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations;
• Acceptance of one another and encouragement of spiritual growth;
• A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
• The right of conscience and the use of democratic processes;
• The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
• Reverence for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

As free yet interdependent congregations, we enter into this covenant, pledging to one another our mutual trust and support. Capable of both good and evil, at times we are in need of forgiveness and reconciliation. When we fall short of living up to this covenant, we will begin again in love, repair the relationship, and recommit to the promises we have made.

Section C-2.4 Inclusion.
Systems of power, privilege, and oppression have traditionally created barriers for persons and groups with particular identities, ages, abilities, and histories. We pledge to do all we can to replace such barriers with ever-widening circles of solidarity and mutual respect. We strive to be an association of congregations that truly welcome all persons and commit to structuring congregational and associational life in ways that empower and enhance everyone’s participation.

Section C-2.5 Freedom of Belief.
Congregational freedom is central to the Unitarian Universalist heritage.

Congregations may establish statements of purpose, covenants, and bonds of union so long as they do not require a statement of belief as a creedal test for membership; nor may the Association employ such a test for congregational affiliation.

Source document for this draft revision:
January 2009 Report From the UUA Commission on Appraisal to the UUA Board

The UUA Board met on 14-19 January 2009 and made one minor change to the COA's draft.

The full report provides background information on the decisions made by the COA in gathering and using inputs from Unitarian Universalist across the country.

How Can Atheists Be Good Allies?

Greta Christina asks on her blog "How can atheists be good allies?"

Here's a brief quote from her blog explaining why this is important:

I think it behooves the atheist movement to make alliances with other groups that we have affinities with: groups that aren't atheist- specific and that are made up of both believers and non-believers, but that have goals we support ... and in some cases, progressive ecumenical religious groups who recognize the validity of atheism.

I think it behooves us for a number of reasons. Partly because our movement is too small and too stigmatized right now to accomplish what we want on our own: we'll get more visibility and more work done if we have other people speaking for us and working with us. Partly because it shows the world that we don't just care about how we want to be treated and what we think we deserve: we care about what we have to offer and how we want to participate in the world.

And partly because it's, you know, the right thing to do. Because we're not just atheists, but people, citizens of our communities and our countries and our world. Because we do care about what we have to offer and how we want to participate in the world.

So how can we be good allies? I've already written about what atheists are asking for from people who want to support us. What should we be doing to be good allies with people we want to support?

A brief outline of her suggestions is listed below:

1. Treat other groups the way you want to be treated.
2. Don't assume that religious believers are stupid -- and don't talk to them or treat them as if they're stupid.
3. Don't be quick to assume malice or willful ignorance.
4. If you're going to talk about religion, tread carefully.
5. Be careful about making analogies.
6. Remember that it's not always about us.
7. Support other atheists whose methods are different from yours.

The expanded explanation of Greta's suggestions can be found online here.

Not only are these suggestions useful for atheists -- they would also be useful for Unitarian Universalists (of all theological stripes) as well when working with others.

The end of Hillary's campaign and "PUMA" meet "Godwin's Law"

Playing with Wubi and Improved Broadcom Wireless Support in Ubuntu Linux

Since I had didn't have to work for most of New Year's Eve, I got a chance to install Ubuntu Linux using Wubi on my April 2004-vintage Dell Windows XP desktop PC (which is now a dual-boot system with Windows XP and Ubuntu 8.10 on it).

Wubi comes with Ubuntu Linux as a built-in feature on the Live CD installation disk since Ubuntu 8.04 and is useful for anyone who wants to try out Ubuntu Linux while also using Windows for the following reasons:

1. Current Windows setup remains unchanged (Wubi only adds an extra option to boot into Ubuntu during system startup and Windows remains the default operating system).
   
2. Wubi does not require you to modify the partitions of your PC or to use a different bootloader. It does not install special drivers.
3. Wubi installs from the Ubunti "Live CD" disk just like any other Windows-based application.
4. Wubi is spyware and malware free, and being open source, anyone can verify that.
5. Wubi keeps most of the files in one folder (doesn't clutter the hard drive with software "debris") and can be easily uninstalled like any other Windows-based application.

This means that Wubi is a very easy way for a Windows user to experiment with Ubuntu Linux with very little risk. All one needs to do is log into Windows, insert the Ubuntu Live CD, and following the on-screen instructions for installing Wubi and Ubuntu Linux.

All you need is to run Ubuntu with Wubi is 256 megs of RAM, 5 gigabytes of available hard drive space, and a computer currently running Windows (Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista supported). Additionally, you have total access to your Windows-created documents -- the rest of the "C" hard drive is available in the "/host" directory for browsing. User documents are available in the "/host/Documents and Settings" folder.

If you don't like using Ubuntu Linux through Wubi, just reboot into Windows and uninstall Wubi. Everything is back to normal.

Here's a brief description of what Wubi is from Wikipedia:

Wubi (Windows-based Ubuntu Installer) is an official Windows-based free software installer for Ubuntu.
---
The goal of the project is to assist a Windows user unacquainted with Linux in trying Ubuntu without risking any loss of information due to disk formatting or partitioning. Wubi can also uninstall Ubuntu from within Windows.

Since my wireless card was an Linksys 802.11b/g card (Linksys WMP 54G PCI card) with a Broadcom chip set, I knew that the wireless internet on this computer would not work initially and I would need to connect this PC to the internet using a wired connection to get the Ubuntu side of this PC on the internet.

Broadcom has been reluctant to assist the open-source community with hardware drivers and this can make setting up wireless internet a real chore on a Linux PC. This has changed with the recent release of linux drivers for Broadcom wireless chipsets.

Borrowing 50 feet of 10/100Base-T ethernet cable from work (left in my office from a co-worker's project), I was able to install Ubuntu Linux through Wubi, patch my system with the latest updates, and (most importantly) install the restricted drivers for using my wireless card with very little effort. Getting wireless working was easier than installing multimedia drivers during this installation.

Given the large number of laptop and desktop PCs using Broadcom wireless chipsets, this improved Broadcom wireless support is very useful. This means that churches and other non-profits will be able to better use older computer hardware donated to them - the old laptop that was donated may now be usable for a staff person or volunteer who needs a laptop for word processing, email, web surfing, etc using wi-fi.

The only hardware hiccup that I had to deal with was the Dell OEM Soundblaster Live audio card. I couldn't get this sound card to work using Ubuntu Linux but I can get sound out of the integrated audio on the computer motherboard which is good enough sound for my purposes.

Update: After rebooting into Windows XP, I discovered that I was getting no sound in Windows. To fix this, I downloaded the integrated audio hardware driver from Dell's web site, installed this software, removed the Soundblaster software, and disabled the Dell OEM Soundblaster hardware.

Since the integrated audio hardware works for both Ubuntu Linux and Windows XP, I will use the integrated audio hardware instead of the Soundblaster hardware.

So what's so wrong with a "WYSIWYG" world?

On a recent post on my blog ("Humanist Parents Recreating Religious Community"), some of the reader comments touched on a variety of questions:

• Are words like "bright" that some use to describe people with a naturalistic worldview useful?
• Are words like "super" used to describe people with a supernatural worldview useful?
• Are "bright" and "super" worldviews are mutually exclusive (this is the assumption voiced by The Brights organization)?
• Do the assumptions behind the words "bright" and "super" impose a literalism that allows no room figurative understanding?

Here is Fausto's comment on this because it provides an excellent summary of these concerns:

The positions they [the terms "bright" and "super"] attempt to describe are not either-or, but fall within a varying range. There are "supers" who find truth primarily through empirical means, there are "brights" who do not deny the possible value to others of mystical experience even if they themselves have not found it helpful, there are "supers" who do deny the value of mysticism, there are naturalistic mystics who deny supernaturalism, and so on. Moreover, it sounds as though both "bright" and "super" as defined may allow only for literal understanding and exclude the validity of figurative expression.

Personally, I disagree with the assumption that a naturalistic "bright" worldview is somehow incompatible with valuing figurative expression.

Humans are a part of the interdependent web -- the fingerprints of our biological roots that we share with the rest of creation are all over us. For example, the Hox genes in humans show our biological connection with jellyfish and fruit flies -- not to mention all bilaterally symmetrical animals.

If we are a part of the web of creation, then I consider it reasonable to view our behavior and the things we create as natural phenomena (the same way we view the dancing of bees and bee honeycombs as "natural phenomena").

I think the amazing creation that we live is a "WYSIWYG" place - "what you see is what you get." I think that this physical plane of existence is all that we can really can know is and it's wonderful.

Given the amazingness of the natural world, do we need to "gild the lily" by adding a supernatural layer to this world we live in?

The stories and religions that we create are valuable not because they contain "literal truths" or even "figurative truths."

These human-created figurative expressions are natural phenomena and they are valuable because they tell us something about what it means to be human and perhaps lead us to a better understanding of ourselves.

At least Barack Obama didn't ask this religious leader to speak at the Inauguration ...

With all the blog commentary about Rick Warren being selected give the invocation at President-Elect Obama's Inauguration, it's a good thing that he didn't ask for Pope Benedict XVI to speak.

Check out the recent news story from England with the Benedict's comments on how we need to "save the world" from homosexuality:

"Pope: Saving world from homosexuality like saving rainforests"
In comments at the Vatican that are likely to provoke a furious reaction from homosexual groups, Benedict also warned that blurring the distinction between male and female could lead to the "self-destruction" of the human race.

In his address to the Curia, the Vatican's central administration, he described behaviour beyond traditional heterosexual relations as "a destruction of God's work" and said that the Roman Catholic Church had a duty to "protect man from the destruction of himself".

It is not "outmoded metaphysics" to urge respect for the "nature of the human being as man and woman," he added.

"The tropical forests do deserve our protection. But man, as a creature, does not deserve any less."

The Catholic Church teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are. It opposes gay marriage and, in October, a leading Vatican official described homosexuality as "a deviation, an irregularity, a wound".

The Pope said humanity needed to "listen to the language of creation" to understand the intended roles of man and woman.

He also defended the Church's right to "speak of human nature as man and woman, and ask that this order of creation be respected".

Humanist Parents Recreating Religious Community

I saw a link to this Washington Post news story on Hemant Mehta's "Friendly Atheist" blog -- "Humanist Parents Seek Communion Outside Church."

It reminds me of the Time magazine article about "Atheist Sunday Schools" that I blogged on back in November 2007.

Here's the introductory part of the recent Washington Post story:

They are not religious, so they don't go to church. But they are searching for values and rituals with which to raise their children, as well as a community of like-minded people to offer support.

Dozens of parents came together on a recent Saturday to participate in a seminar on humanist parenting and to meet others interested in organizing a kind of nonreligious congregation, complete with regular family activities and ceremonies for births and deaths.

The news story gives the following background on humanism:

Humanism is both a formal movement and an informal identification of people who promote values of reason, compassion and human dignity. Although most humanists are atheists, atheism is defined by what is absent -- belief in God -- and humanists emphasize a positive philosophy of ethical living for the human good.

And here's the rationale behind this conference:

The seminar's organizers wanted to reach out to people like the Proctors -- first-time parents scrambling for guidance as they improvise how to raise their daughter without the religion of their childhood.

"I'm often told that when people have kids, they go back to religion," said John Figdor, a humanist master's of divinity student who helped organize the seminar. "Are we really not tending our own people?"

Regarding the idea of re-creating a church environment (community, values, ritual) without traditional religion, the interesting thing on Hemant's blog was that two readers recommended Unitarian Universalism instead of "reinventing the wheel" for humanist parents (blog comments found here and here).

In fact, one reader described Unitarian Universalism as "community without the religiousness."

The news story describes this conference happening in Boston at Harvard University. Boston is the home of the Unitarian Universalist Association and Harvard University has ties to Unitarian Universalism.

I wonder if these humanist families don't know about our congregations (as unlikely as that would be in New England) or if our congregations are not meeting their family needs.

Even if these families do not want to join Unitarian Universalist congregations, I wonder if we can find ways to collaborate with humanist groups with programs like the Our Whole Lives lifespan sexuality education programs and other family support ministries that could be used by these families.

Supporting Atheists As Anti-Oppression Work

Greta Christina has recently posted on her blog a list with nine suggestions for traditionally religious folks who want to be supportive allies for atheists and other non-believers.

Greta has more details on her blog about this but I have copied the main points from her blog for your consideration:

1. Familiarize yourself with the common myths and misconceptions about atheists -- and don't perpetuate them.

2. Familiarize yourself with what it's like to be an atheist, both in the U.S. and in the rest of the world.

3. Find common ground.

4. Speak out against anti-atheist bigotry and other forms of religious intolerance.

5. Be inclusive of atheists.

6. Don't divide and conquer, and don't try to take away our anger.

7. If you're going to accuse an atheist or an atheist group of being intolerant -- be careful, and make sure that's really what they're being.

8. Do not -- repeat, DO NOT -- talk about "fundamentalist atheists."

9. Be aware of how religious belief gives you a place of mainstream and privilege.

You can read Greta's detailed exploration of each suggestion for allies on her blog here.

Greta's suggestions are related to the past suggestions that I have made on my blog about supporting non-Christian Unitarian Universalists in our congregations:

• Christian and Non-Christian Unitarian Universalists -- Anti-Oppression Implications
• Viewing Anti-Christian Anger Through an Anti-Oppression Lens -- Greta Christina's Defense of the "Blasphemy Challenge"

Note: by late Sunday night (21 December 2008), this blog post has 106 comments on it. The conversation has gone into a non-productive rut and I'm closing off comments on this thread.

Strangely enough, a similar thing happened on Greta's blog. She has closed off comments on the original post and has created a new post to comment on her list here. Greta does say that any attempts to use this thread to revive the original shut-down comment thread will result in being banned from her blog.

I'm ready to move on to a new subject like the recent news coverage on humanist and atheist Sunday Schools.

"Tiktaalik (Your Inner Fish)" Music Video

The music video at the beginning of this clip describes the fossil discovery that Dr. Neil Shubin is most famous for -- Tiktaalik. The video is from the 2008 Penn Reading Project at the University of Pennsylvania.

Tiktaalik is a transitional fossil illustrating the evolutionary development between lobe-finned fishes and tetrapods (four-legged animals like us who are really just a highly specialized form of lobe-finned fish).

Dr. Neil Shubin is a paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, popular science writer, and the author of Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into the 3.5 Billion-Year History of the Human Body.

This book is a fascinating read and it explains many of the oddities in human anatomy are due to our several million year transition from fish to land-dwelling warm-blooded tetrapod.

For example, the convoluted path that the vas deferens takes in the human body makes sense when one realizes that the path of the vas deferens made sense in our fishy ancestors (their testes were inside the abdominal cavity and not in an external scrotum that is now required in warm-blooded mammals for sperm production at slightly cooler than body temperature).

I'm guessing that museums gift shops would profit from selling Tiktaalik plush toys -- they certainly are very cute looking.

And here is a video clip describing how artists create 3-D reconstructions for museums based on fossil evidence and artistic guess-work from observing living creatures:

Free Video Resource on Critical Thinking

Here's a free video resource on critical thinking that one can watch online or download for free non-commercial use through a Creative Commons license. In addition to YouTube and Google Video format, you can download the movie in various video formats and in .iso image files for burning your own DVDs.

Here's the description from the movie's web site:

Here Be Dragons is a free 40 minute video introduction to critical thinking. It is suitable for general audiences and is licensed for free distribution and public display.

Most people fully accept paranormal and pseudoscientific claims without critique as they are promoted by the mass media. Here Be Dragons offers a toolbox for recognizing and understanding the dangers of pseudoscience, and appreciation for the reality-based benefits offered by real science.

Here Be Dragons is written and presented by Brian Dunning, host and producer of the Skeptoid podcast, author of Skeptoid: Critical Analysis of Pop Phenomena, and Executive Producer of The Skeptologists.

National Republican Congressional Committee Does a "Willie Horton" Mail Ad

The National Republican Congressional Committee sent a postcard attack ad to my house today complaining that Paul Carmouche (the Democratic candidate for Louisiana House District Four is soft on crime and just "too liberal."

They have more attack ad stuff on their web site and the special web site they set up for these attack ads intended to influence the vote in the runoff election happening this Saturday.

Given that the recent Republican history of using racially charged imagery in political ads, it's no surprise that the postcard ad has a mug shot of a black criminal defendant -- it's just a repeat of the racially charged "Willie Horton" ads that the Republicans used in 1988.

Why Atheist Advertising is Important

Hemant Mehta (author of the Friendly Atheist blog) received an email from a Washington DC area high school student giving her positive response to the American Humanist Association's bus ads. Here's a short quote from her email:

The American Humanist Association mentioned that one of the reasons they wanted to do this ad campaign was because some atheists feel alone over the holidays. Well, this morning when I had to listen to a Creationist try to convert everyone in earshot while I was heading to a Catholic school where I am one of only a handful of atheists, I felt alone. That ad on the bus reminded me that even when I feel like I am the only one standing up for truth, there are others out there who are doing the same thing.

You can read the rest of her response with Hemant's comments here.

Part II -- When Did Expressing Doubt About God Become a "Negative" Attack Message?

I saw a blog post tonight on Hemant Mehta's "Friendly Atheist" blog titled "Questioning God is Apparently Hate Speech." Hemant is the author of I Sold My Soul on eBay (a book that describes his visits to a variety of Christian churches. These visits initially occurred as a result of an eBay auction and the media reaction was the Mehta "sold his soul on eBay").

His blog post is related to my recent blog post on recent American Humanist Association bus ads (When Did Expressing Doubt About God Become a "Negative" Attack Message?).

Apparently, the atheist billboard ad is at the top of this blog post is considered offensive "hate speech" but other billboards in Colorado expressing religious views like the one below are OK:


Here's the news coverage from the Rocky Mountain News about this billboard dispute:

The message is but eight words divided into two short sentences set against puffy white clouds on a blue and black background.

One of the men behind the billboard message says his life has been threatened because of it, which seems an odd thing since those doing the threatening all profess to be Christians.

Just eight words:

"Don't believe in God?" the upper left of the billboard reads. "You are not alone," the lower right says.

---

The sole purpose of the ads, the group maintains, is what it says: to let other freethinkers, atheists and humanists know there is a group out there for them.

Two of the 11 signs were supposed to go up in Fort Collins and Greeley, the group said. This was so until the moment the media company that owns the two billboards read the message.

The hate mail and nasty, threatening phone messages began almost immediately.

Much of it has been directed at Joel Guttormson, who mostly has been serving as a spokesman for COCORE, as they call it.

Twenty-two and a Metro State junior majoring in theoretical mathematics, Guttormson also is president of the Metro State Atheists, one of the 11 groups that make up COCORE.

"It's been kind of wild, kind of outrageous," he says of days since the billboards went up.

"It has been mostly Christians who've been calling and e-mailing," Joel Guttormson said, "which is strange since the message is not directed at Christians or anyone from any religion.

"You know, if you see an ad for migraine medicine and you don't have a migraine, why would you care?"

Almost all of the feedback, he said, has been from people who say the billboards denigrate Christians. He says he still has no idea how that is possible.

"We are not out to anger people," Joel Guttormson said. "I don't know why people think that. So much of it says we are evil and that we hate everybody.

"Have you seen the billboard? Tell me where any of them mentions evil or hate. Why is everyone so mad?"

---

There is some good news out of this -- Joel Guttormson reports:

"The cool thing is we've even had some Christians step up and defend us. They know our message is no more offensive than one that reads:

"Believe in God? You're not alone."

It's Amazing Where Religion Leads Some Folks ...

It's amazing to find where religion leads some folks.

Imagine a British woman of Sub-Saharan African descent who became a "born-again Christian" and is now defending the institution of slavery because "slavery is not wrong."

Apparently if it were wrong, God would have condemned it in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures - here's the money quote from this blogger:

The bible does not condemn slavery. So Christians try to act like Job's friends and try to defend God in a rather foolish way by condemning slavery, as if God forgot to do it Himself in the bible. I think this is a very unwise thing for a Christian to do because if slavery was wrong, God would have said so himself. But He doesn't say its wrong. As John MacArthur says in his study bible, " The New Testament nowhere directly attacks slavery; had it done so, the resulting slave insurrections would have been brutally suppressed and the message of the gospel hopelessly confused with that of social reform.

Of course another possibility is that the authors of the slavery-supporting Bible verses are simply wrong for defending slavery.

The funny thing is that I've heard folks speak against the Welcoming Congregation Program and other Unitarian Universalist social justice programs using a similar logic -- they should be discouraged because they interfere with spreading our Unitarian Universalist "gospel" in our congregations and our communities.

[Hat tip to Evolved and Rat/i/onal (Religion exploits unpatched vulnerabilities in the human mind) and Pharyngula (PZ Myers' blog) for finding this unusual perspective on slavery and the Bible for us.]

When Are Your "Privately Held Religious Beliefs" Not So Private Anymore?

Here is Dan Savage's answer to the question proposed in the title of this blog post and in Dan's original online article:

When you donate $1500 to a political campaign to strip other people -- people who are not your co-religionists -- of their civil rights. Richard Raddon is, or was, the director of the Los Angeles Film Festival. All hell broke loose after it emerged that Raddon, who is Mormon, had donated $1500 to the "Yes on 8" campaign.

Dan writes about how making a large donation to a political campaign isn't a private expression of religion any more:

Bill Condon, the gay guy who directed of Dreamgirls, attempted to get Raddon's back: "Someone has lost his job and possibly his livelihood because of privately held religious beliefs."

No. No. No. Raddon lost his job due to criticism of his public political actions, not his private religious beliefs, and his public political actions were a part of the public record. If Raddon wanted to go to church and pray his little heart out against same-sex marriage, or proselytize on street corners against gay marriage, or counsel gay men to leave their husbands and marry nice Mormon girls instead, that could be viewed as an expression of his "privately held religious beliefs." Instead he helped fund a political campaign to strip a vulnerable minority group of its civil rights.

"Millions of Californians definitely lost their civil rights," says John Aravosis. "But I'm not hearing a lot of concern about any of those victims, only sympathy for their attacker. When you use the power of the state to rip away my civil rights, and force me to live by your 'values,' you are no longer practicing your religion. You're practicing politics."

In the wake of Prop 8 millions of gays and lesbians all over the country have decided that we're no longer going to play by the old rules. We're not going to let people kick our teeth down our throats and then run and hide behind "Nothing personal—just my private religious beliefs!" That game's over.

When Did Expressing Doubt About God Become a "Negative" Attack Message?

This blog post is in response to another blogger's article on the American Humanist Association's recent ad campaign.

For the life of me, I cannot see why an ad campaign that suggests there is no need to believe in god or gods is somehow a negative attack message.

When did an honest expression of doubt and skepticism become an expression of religious intolerance in the eyes of some believers?

This ad is critical of traditional religious belief. But we should not live in a society where we engage in religious "idolatry" where honest questioning is discouraged.

Any idea (religious or non-religious) must be able to withstand criticism.

Any idea that cannot withstand critical analysis should be rejected or modified.

Unitarian Universalism as a "Safe Place" for Atheist "Deconverting"?

Greta Christina - a favorite blogger of mine who writes on "sex, atheism, politics, dreams, and whatever" - writes in her blog today about "How can we make people who are questioning their faith feel that atheism is okay?"

She mentions Unitarian Universalism as a place for "people who have left religion but still miss its ritual and community" and a "non-denominational religion without the need for all that pesky God stuff."

You can read the rest of her article here.

I guessing that the changing social norms surrounding church attendance and changes in religious demographics may affect how "atheist-friendly" our Unitarian Universalist congregations are to those who are "deconverting" in the future.

The social expectation that one must attend church is no longer enforced in the United States - in my "Bible Belt" town, most of my neighbors do not attend church regularly (based on the numbers of folks observed doing yard work and other stuff on Sunday mornings).

Christianity is currently the majority religion but it's shrinking. The "atheist/agnostic/unchurched "demographic is growing. Check out the "American Religious Identification Survey" findings for more details about these demographic changes.

Both of these demographic trends and the non-mandatory nature of church in our society will affect our future demographics and future growth. I suspect that our atheist, agnostic, and unchurched neighbors will stop joining us and create their own institutions for supporting their families like the "Atheist Sunday School" mentioned on my blog and in Time Magazine.

Easy Web Site Tool -- Google Sites

If your congregation or other community organization needs to set up a low-cost web site, I would check out the Google Sites web site building tools.

Our community's PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) chapter web site's domain name registration had expired and it was taken by poachers.

To create a temporary web site while we decide where we want to do next on the web for our group, I used Google Sites -- here's the new Shreveport PFLAG web site.

With tools that are this easy to use, there is no excuse for a church not having a web site today.

Two Campaign-Related Videos

Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan.

A "Morning After Pill" for Political Mistakes?