Releasing the Prop 8 Videos

April 16, 2011 Ashley F. MillerBlankenhorn, california, catholics, children, christian right, christians, church and state, civil rights, dadt, doma, Gay Rights, LDS, lgbt, mormons, prop 8, secular, vaughn walkerLeave a comment

People in an open society do not demand infallibility in their institutions, but it is difficult for them to accept what they are prohibited from observing – Chief Justice Berger

Former Chief Judge Vaughn Walker, who presided over the Prop 8 trial, recently used some of the video that was taken during the case as part of a lecture. The Proponents, aka supporters of Prop 8/opposers of gay marriage, immediately took great offense and sent what was essentially a cease and desist order that demanded the return of all the copies of the tapes, Walker's and anyone else who had them.

In response, Ted Olson and David Boies, the legal tour de force trying to lift the gay marriage ban, filed a request that the tapes be unsealed and released to the public. After all, the trial is a matter of public record and the transcripts are freely available.

Originally, the trial was going to be broadcast live, but the Proponents felt like this might scare some of their witnesses away, and so they demanded that it not be broadcast. Judge Walker taped it, but didn't release the tapes, to the great disappointment of the men and women across the country who wanted to see the greatest trial of the greatest civil rights battle of our time.

No one can really blame the Proponents for not wanting to have video footage of just how appallingly awful their defense of Prop 8 was. They want to continue to play the victim here — they want to sell the idea that gay marriage is somehow a violation of religious liberty, rather than being completely the other way round. The video of their disastrous performance would only reveal that they are driven solely by religion and bigotry — and that they aren't even capable of hiding that fact.

Some things that they don't want you to see on television, things that their own anti-equality witnesses did: a witness saying that DADT and DOMA were "Official Discrimination"; that same witness then saying Prop 8 was also discriminatory; Mr. Blankenhorn, their chief witness saying, "I believe that adoption of same sex marriage would be likely to improve the well-being of gay and lesbian households and their children"; Blankenhorn also saying, "We would be more American on the day we legalized gay marriage than the day before".

Well, I mean, no wonder, right? But that's exactly why these things need to be released. People need the opportunity to see how feeble the defense was and to really understand how motivated by religion the campaign against equality was. Not everyone is as nerdy as me and reads trial transcripts because they find them so compelling — video is the medium of our lives, and well do the religious know that since it is the medium through which they sold their hate.

The vast majority of the money and on-the-ground support for the Prop 8 campaign came from the Mormon church, supplemented by the Catholic church. This isn't even money from California, and it's certainly money that ought to take away their tax exempt status. People need to be shown the kind of lies they were telling to get people to vote against marriage equality, the emotional manipulation about children and families, things so blatantly false they might be defended with the disclaimer: "not intended to be a factual statement."

Gay marriage doesn't destroy families, it doesn't destroy children, it really doesn't do much except make some people very happy and give them access to rights that the rest of us take for granted. The trial provided an overwhelming amount of evidence that refusing marriage rights not only hurt gay people, but also hurt the thousands of children of LGBT parents. It hurts these children irreparably, immeasurably, forever. This wasn't in question, gay marriage opponents agreed.

These tapes shouldn't just be released, they should be broadcast on every news channel for weeks to expose just how rotten the argument is against gay marriage. If you've ever questioned why church-state separation is so important, this is why. If conservative Christians (and I include the LDS) hadn't funded the gay marriage ban, it wouldn't be in place, and even they couldn't create enough money to make credible witnesses or a real argument against gay marriage. The monstrous unfairness of the church taking over, infiltrating, and outright buying the political process only to then lie to the public to get their way has got to stop. Not only is it immoral, it is un-American.

Proponents motion for return of videos http://www.scribd.com/doc/52945974/CA9Doc-338
Vaughn Walker's response: http://www.scribd.com/doc/53041973/CA9Doc-339-Letter-from-Vaughn-R-Walker
Olson and Boies request for unsealing of videos: http://www.scribd.com/doc/52945974/CA9Doc-340
San Francisco's feisty response: http://www.scribd.com/doc/52945974/CA9Doc-341

Trial Re-enactments: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDmA_n5ygS4

Transcripts: http://www.afer.org/our-work/hearing-transcripts/

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Busy!

March 20, 2011 Ashley F. Millerallergies, conference, freelance, freethought, I need a drink, march madness, ncaa, nicholl, sca, secular coalition of america, social axcess, social media, tam, the west wing, tutoring, washington, WritingLeave a comment

Have you ever had one of those weeks where there was just too much going on? That’s the sort of week I’ve been having. It’s been good, great even, I’ve just had a lot on my plate. I love the freelance writing I’m doing but, between working full-time and tutoring and trying to attend local freethought events, my weeks are already too full. Then I got a special assignment from Social Axcess to cover NCAA Social Media for March Madness — so that required a lot of research, because I don’t know much about American sports, and I know even less about college sports. This is because I resented being forced to go to prep rallies when I was in high school — I have a block when it comes to school sports.

Then I was learning a courier route at work, meaning I spent all day in a car driving, so I was working overtime and not in front of a computer. And I had a 1500 word piece due. And I got laryngitis. And it’s spring, so my allergies are in full bloom. And someone wanted to consult with me about an editing project, which I just can’t take on right now, but it’s interesting.

Exciting news! I’m going to the SCA Conference in Washington, DC right before my birthday. Which reminds me that I need to put together some information on Social Media Strategy for them in the next day or two. I hope I get the chance to see a little of DC, I went when I was in 8th grade and that was before I’d seen The West Wing and thought that there was something worth seeing in Washington.

And the world is apparently falling apart, but I haven’t really had time to absorb that. CNN has just had one too many “Where is God in Japan” headlines for me to stomach trying to follow the daily news cycle. And the Nicholl opened, and TAM registration opened.

So it’s Sunday and I still feel on edge, like I should be working, and there’s still plenty on my plate, but I’m taking a day off. Of course, my brain is still going a million miles a minute — I don’t really drink, but maybe I just need a drink.

Nothing to do with the rest of this post

Emotions Are Not The Enemy

February 28, 2011 Ashley F. Milleremotional health, emotions, friendly atheist, hemant mehta, illogical, logic, rational, Religion, religious trauma, spock10 Comments

When I was an adolescent, I really wanted to be Mr. Spock. I thought that being hyper-logical and unemotional would be far better than being hyper-logical and hyper-emotional. I think there is a particular kind of self-loathing that kids develop when they’re far more intellectually developed than they are emotionally developed, like I was, and it can result in an extreme distrust of emotions and things that are not strictly logical. It took me going through and coming out of an extreme depression to realize that treating emotions as the enemy wasn’t only kind of stupid, but it was also really unhealthy.

I think that there is a lot of this in the atheist/skeptic community. I don’t want to fall into the fallacy that women are more compassionate than men, but I do think that the lack of large numbers of women doesn’t help. The association of emotions with women is so strong that it seems many people are uncomfortable with thinking of emotions as important empirically, or important in comparison with logic. It’s not just men who don’t want to be seen as weak, women are also afraid of being seen as stereotypically female and not as rational as men.

Today, Hemant at The Friendly Atheist posted about a woman who, at the hands of her religious upbringing, was taught to be so ashamed of her body that she was unable to breastfeed because she was so uncomfortable with her breasts. Hemant made a real effort to give a feminist response – women have the right to choose what to do with their bodies and it’s not his place to make those decisions for someone else – but he also said “It’s ultimately her choice, but I think I’d feel more comfortable about her decision (as if it matters what I think) if there was a more scientific rationale behind it.”

I recognize in blogging you often say things off the cuff that, given a little more thought, you probably would have worded differently, but I have to say I was a bit flabbergasted that Hemant would dismiss dealing with trauma as lacking in “scientific rationale”, as though any decision made based on emotion is necessarily irrational and therefore bad. And I should say I’ve no reason to think that he wants to change the language, but I’m trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. I love Hemant, I love his blog, I can only assume the best of him, so I hope that the way he worded it wasn’t the way he meant it.

I feel like the atheist/skeptic community does a lot of dismissing of people’s feelings. It happens whenever a woman brings up feeling uncomfortable, underrepresented, or underserved by the community. It happens whenever people point out the small number of minorities, or being uncomfortable by perceived racism. There’s something about emotions that seems to really bother people. If nothing else, I think it isn’t useful to dismiss someone’s feelings as invalid, no matter how wrong you’re sure they are. Perhaps it’s too difficult a line to walk, but treating people’s emotions as something they should be embarrassed by isn’t only cruel, it doesn’t serve any useful purpose. Ideas and behavior are things worth critiquing, but someone’s emotions cannot be invalid, you cannot argue with someone that they can’t feel something, that’s not how it works. How they respond to their feelings? Yes, that’s fair game, but that they have feelings at all isn’t something you get to say is bad.

I can’t help but look at the traditional associations of emotion with women and children and logic with men and be a bit bothered by all this from a feminist perspective. I don’t think it’s conscious, but it seems like because emotions are seen as girly they are also seen as unimportant and weak. And if something is logical or rational, it is manly and strong and important. It’s not limited to this community, but also a lot of my friends who are interested in film, a group that is dominated by men as well. When a movie is technically impressive, it is important, but if a movie relies on emotions, it is not. The King’s Speech shouldn’t have won the Oscar because it’s just a story about emotions, not a technical feat like Inception or The Social Network, because emotions aren’t important. That’s why some movies go to Lifetime and some go to Spike TV.

I ultimately decided that Spock was more irrational than people because he treated the emotional experience as invalid. Although dedicated to logic, Spock never took the extra step and accepted that human emotion was rational, and existed for rational reasons, and that to dismiss it was very limiting. Ignoring the importance of emotion and emotional health isn’t actually a rational way to deal with people. To pretend that human emotions don’t matter or aren’t important, to dismiss mental health as a non-scientific reason for pursuing a course of action… it is most illogical.

I don’t understand religion part 923

February 26, 2011 Ashley F. Milleratheism, belief, christianity, creation, creationism, god, logic, Religion9 Comments

How can a person hold these two thoughts in their head?

1. The universe is too complex to simply exist, it must have been created

2. God, something so complex it can create and control universes, doesn’t require a creator

It seems to me that you can have two viewpoints that are internally consistent. You can believe either:

1. Complicated things can exist without a creator, allowing the possibility of a universe without a creator and the possibility of God or

2. Everything complicated requires a creator, demanding a creator of the universe but denying the possibility of God at the same time

I just had this question with someone who is not a stupid person. I know that atheist readers sometimes have difficulty grasping that not stupid people can believe in God, I myself have that difficulty at times, but I just cannot understand the complete lack of logic there. Not only that, but the inability of the person in question to grasp the logic fail of saying that “everything must have a cause, except God” which means that not everything must have a cause, which means there’s no need for God.

Here is a place where it is laid out in much fuller detail, but if anyone can explain to me how those two thoughts exist inside the head of a not stupid person, please do, because he sure couldn’t.

11-15 75 Book Challenge – Lemony Snicket and Werleman

February 20, 2011 Ashley F. Miller75 books, atheism, carnivorous carnival, cj werleman, daniel handler, don't be a dick, god hates you hate him back, hostile hospital, Lemony Snicket, slippery slope, vile villageLeave a comment

11. God Hates You, Hate Him Back – CJ Werleman

There’s a lot of interesting stuff in this book, but I can’t say that I really enjoyed it that mut tch. I’m a big fan of snark and well-worded contempt — I’m pretty sure that’s generally considered a failing, particularly by the DBAD crowd, but I found myself really turned off by the tone of this book. I suppose I should have known based on the title, buhe lack of restraint or particular cleverness in some of the commentary just bored me. Perhaps because I was reading Jason Long’s book at the same time or perhaps because I had read most of the other sources he uses. It does a very thorough job, chapter by chapter through the Bible, which is its greatest strength, and I certainly learned some interesting things, particularly about the New Testament, which I’ve never managed to absorb very thoroughly. Werleman leans very heavily on Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris in this book, which I found tedious at times. There were also some fairly basic grammatical and spelling errors. It does heartily support my opinion that the judeochristianislamomormon god is a huge asshole. If hell is the absence of that god’s capricious loathsome presence, sign me up. C

12. The Vile Village – Lemony Snicket

Back in the dark days of thesis pre-pro at film school, a traumatic time I’ve almost succeeded in erasing from my memory, I started listening to the Lemony Snicket books on tape because I’d really enjoyed the film. I only got through the sixth in the 13 book long series before film school ate my brains. I never went back to finish them, but I found the kindle copies for free, so I thought I’d pick them back up and hopefully I remembered what I’d listened to three years ago. Surprisingly, I remembered it like I’d just finished the books yesterday, which makes me worry about my actual ability to scrub the horrors of film school from my brain. If you’ve been under a rock, the series follows the Baudelaire orphans who stand to inherit a large fortune but are constantly hunted by the evil Count Olaf, who wants to steal it. They have a lot of dark adventures which inevitably lead to tragedy and loss. They also slowly uncover evidence of a massive conspiracy that they are somehow at the center of. In The Vile Village they’ve escaped from Olaf at a horrible boarding school, but he’s kidnamed their only friends, the Quagmire triplets, two welathy orphans who lost their parents and third triplet in a mysterious fire. The Baudelaire’s are adopted by an entire village which is filled with crows and which proceeds to turn them into chore slaves. They get messages from the triplets and proceed to rescue them and nearly escape on a balloon — the Quagmire’s make it to freedom, but the Baudelaire’s do not, and are forced to run across a great nothingness to escape Olaf and the village. These books are hard to review — they’re gothic mystery books for kids, fast-paced, full of adventure, and very dark — if that sounds appealing then you’ll love them. A

A cloud of dust is not a beautiful thing to look at. Very few painters have done portraits of huge clouds of dust or included them in their landscapes or still lifes. Film directors rarely choose huge clouds of dust to play the lead roles in romantic comedies, and as far as my research has shown, a huge cloud of dust has never placed higher than twenty-fifth in a beauty pageant.

13. The Hostile Hospital – Lemony Snicket

In this episode, the orphans end up at a hospital trying to learn more about VFD, the mysterious organization it seems both Olaf and their parents were a part of. Olaf finds them and tries to cut off Violet’s head, but the orphans discover that someone survived the fire and end up escaping by getting into the trunk of Olaf’s car. THis isn’t quite as riveting and the extras not as colorful or lovable as in the other books. B+

There are many things in this world I do not know. I do not know how butterflies get out of their cocoons without damaging their wings. I do not know why anyone would boil vegetables when roasting them is much tastier. I do not know how to make olive oil, and I do not know why dogs bark before an earthquake, and I do not know why some people voluntarily choose to climb mountains where it is freezing and difficult to breathe, or live in the suburbs, where the coffee is watery and all of the houses look alike.

14. The Carnivorous Carnival – Lemony Snicket

The kids end up at a carnival with freaks and a fortune teller. They disguise themselves as freaks and find an alley who ends up turning on them and then getting eaten by lions. They are kidnapped by Olaf and stolen away after being forced to set fire to the carnival and to a room which may have answers to many of their questions. THis book introduces some moral ambiguity, which becomes a key theme for the rest of the series, and the characters in the books therefore become a lot more interesting, complex and confusing. A

The sad truth is that the truth is sad.

Miracles are like meatballs because nobody knows what they are made of, where they came from or how often they should appear.

15. The Slippery Slope – Lemony Snicket

This is my favorite of the series. It introduces Quigley, the previously thought dead Quagmire triplet and survivor of the fire, and the kids learn a lot about the VFD organization. There’s a little young romance, plenty of adventure and mystery, and more moral questions about the backgrounds and fates of the characters. The kids escape Olaf, but get separated from Quigley at the end. A

Having an aura of menace is like having a pet weasel, because you rarely meet someone who has one, and when you do it makes you want to hide under the coffee table.

Response to a ‘Correction’

February 16, 2011 Ashley F. Millerapps, catholic, confessions, iphone, priesthood, social axcess, social media4 Comments

As you all know, I’ve been reporting on Social Media for a website called Social Axcess. I reported on the iPhone confession app, which allows you to figure out which sins you need to confess, and I got a somewhat heated reply from one of the founders of GSMI, the company that owns the blog. His name is Luke Vince and he felt the need to ‘correct’ my article, call me myopic, and spell my name without my middle initial. Perhaps it is madness to argue with company higher ups, but I’m afraid I’m terrible at resisting the temptation to get into a good online discussion.

Usually when I see the word correction, I must confess, I think that there has been some sort of editorial or factual error in another article, but it seems that what this actually is is simply a difference of perspective.

His first ‘correction’, in response to my claim that it’s been a rough couple of years for the church, is that the current assaults (really?) by the “new atheist” (his quotes) movement are nothing new, the church is growing in some places, and always emerges stronger from strife. These are non-sequiturs, he is arguing against a point I never made. Regardless of the history of the church or its ability to bounce back, it has been a rough couple of years for it.

The church is shrinking in the West where the majority of its funds come from, and growing in the East, South America and Africa. It is losing members of the priesthood and interest in joining the priesthood, facing a major shortage of priests. It is facing constant negative media pressure because of the sex scandals. I nowhere claimed that the current problems it’s facing are the worst in its history or impossible to recover from, but it would be myopic indeed to pretend that they didn’t exist.

He also says, in response to my claim that the church is slow to respond to things like changing moral opinions and the AIDS crisis, that it is because the church doesn’t succumb to whims or move quickly and that this has served them well. Obviously, we also disagree on whether slowness to respond to current problems is an admirable devotion to tradition or a dangerous resolution to keep its head in the sand. But we don’t disagree on the actual fact, which is that the church is slow to change. The glacial response time in condemning nazis, condemning the inquisition, and addressing the complaints of Martin Luther seem to me to show a devotion to slowness that is neither good for the church nor moral.

His final complaint, excuse me, ‘correction’, is that the confession app doesn’t replace any sacraments but rather is an aide to helping Catholics figure out how they’ve sinned. Nowhere did I say the confession app replaced anything and we agree on the fact that it is a good move for the church, we simply disagree on how laughable it is. I can’t imagine belonging to an organization that has so many silly rules that I need assistance in figuring out if I’ve broken them or not.

Perhaps I am most disappointed, however, that the writer felt the need to personalize his defense as an attack on me but proceeded not to make one point in response to anything I actually wrote.

Forgive me iPhone, for I have sinned

February 8, 2011 Ashley F. Millerapp, catholic, confession, iphone, pope, ridiculous, vatican1 Comment

The Catholic Church has had a rough time lately, between sex scandals and dwindling interest in church and the constant onslaught of the New Atheist movement, they haven’t had much good PR in the last decade. Always a relic from older, simpler times, the Catholic Church is usually half a century behind the rest of the world in adopting any sort of new technology or public opinion. Despite the AIDS crisis, it took them thirty years to decide that condoms were OK for preventing the spread of HIV, so I was shocked to find that they are trying to keep it real with a new iPhone app for confessions.

I admit that I laughed when I read that. I did. I’m not a Catholic, and I’m not sure how mundane one can make the sacred and profound, but from the perspective of marketing the church to younger members, which is what they so desperately need, making it easier to participate on social media platforms is a smart move. Earlier this year, the Pope said he wanted to reach out with new media, and I think this has to be a step in the right direction. Although they have a YouTube channel and a Facebook page that lets users send online postcards, this is a major step to creating an interactive relationship through social media.

There are already several apps available that are religious, most of them centered around quotes and full copies of the Bible, but this is thought to be the first app officially approved by the Vatican. It is, of course, not free, but costs $1.99 to download. I think it speaks volumes about the importance of social media as a marketing tool that even the Holy See is getting in on the act. Here’s hoping the Pope starts tweeting.

I seriously can’t believe they’re charging for it, I feel like that’s the most crass thing about it.

David Kato Slain

January 28, 2011 Ashley F. Millerdavid kato, evangelicals, Gay Rights, lgbt, murder, rick warren, scott lively, uganda1 Comment

Since I’ve been talking about civil discourse, I think I really need to talk about the tragic death of David Kato. David Kato was an LGBT activist in Uganda, where homosexuality is illegal and where a bill was introduced in 2009 suggesting the death penalty for anyone convicted of committing homosexual acts. Much of the international community made a stand against it, and the evangelicals from America, like Scott Lively and Rick Warren, who had pushed a very strong anti-homosexual agenda in Uganda got a lot of negative press attention because of it.

A tabloid in Uganda called “Rolling Stone” (no relation) published Kato’s picture along with other suspected homosexuals with a tagline that read “Hang Them”. Kato and a few other’s pictured led a successful lawsuit against the magazine, but only a few weeks after that victory Kato was bludgeoned to death in his home.

Some of the LGBT activists are placing the blame on the American evangelicals for stirring up the hatred originally, some are blaming the magazine, and many are blaming Uganda for being religiously intolerant. I can only say that this is the danger of talking about gay people as though they aren’t human.

I cannot help but see some similarities between the “Hang Them” tagline and the rifle sites on Sarah Palin’s target list. Both Giffords and Kato noted that that rhetoric was going to lead to violence against them. At what point does violent rhetoric become the equivalent of shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theatre? I’m not sure, myself. It’s difficult, these things are so upsetting it’s almost impossible to find the rational response to them.

Dearth of Posting

December 13, 2010 Ashley F. Millerbernie sanders, egypt, elizabeth edwards, Harry Potter, israel, republicans, salvation army, scientists, sharks, stackhouse filibuster, Star Wars, that was the week that was, the west wing, westboro baptist church, wikileaks, Writing1 Comment

I do try to update this regularly, and even with quality content when I can manage it. I’ve just started a new job and I had to work today, which is Sunday, for about 8 hours. And I have to get up early, which means I can’t stay up late, which is when I do most of my writing. It’s tough.

I’m also doing some freelance writing (for money!) as well as the NaNo writing, so it just turns out that blogging isn’t the highest priority thing on my plate. Also, the thing I’m most focused on is how I feel about my current job and that’s not public blog fodder.

And so much interesting and/or horrific things have happened that I want to talk about and I’ve got an excellent feature idea for SheThought that I’m finding impossible to write because it involves way too many ideas and is going to be a short novel by the time I work through all the issues I’m dealing with in it. When half your article is about how difficult it was to write your article, you’ve got to start rethinking some structural issues there.

Anyway, I want to do a quick rundown of things that happened this week that pissed me off and/or impressed me.

This made me cry happy tears: Little girl bullied for liking Star Wars gets hundreds of e-mails and toys in support.

This made me scream in rage: The Westboro Baptist Church (aka the scum of the earth) protested Elizabeth Edwards funeral because she used IVF.

This made Wayne Brady want to chock a bitch: The Salvation Army won’t give kids Harry Potter or Twilight toys. They will, on the other hand, give them guns.

This made me snark: Egypt thinks that Israel is using attack sharks against them. I repeat, EGYPT, as in a real country in the real world, thinks ISRAEL, also a real country and not a Bond Villain, is using SHARKS as WEAPONS. Seriously.

This made me go Hmm… wha?: Only 6% of scientists identify as Republican, which is even less than how many College Professors identify as Republican (14%), and we know what pinko commies professors are. The author and I agree that this is the problem, but our opinions diverge very quickly when he seems to think the problem is with Science and not with the Republican Party. Between with the uber religious and illogical ideas the religious right clings to along with the anti-science agenda of the GOP, it’s not surprising that few scientist would admit to being supportive of the party. The problem isn’t science, the problem is that the GOP needs to get its elephant head out of its elephant ass and start supporting science and intelligent thinking, instead of psuedoscience and intelligent design.

And finally, the last two things that have been impressing and depressing me: Wikileaks and Bernie “GIANT BALLS” Sanders.

Here’s an interesting documentary about Wikileaks. Here’s a useful timeline of events. And here’s an opinion piece that pretty much sums up my own feelings on the subject.

A balance must be struck between transparent democracy and diplomatic need, but calls for hunting down Assange and hyperbole regarding the cables do not further this important debate and seem designed only for media sensationalism.

From 1996 to 2009, the number of documents labeled classified has increased about 1,000 percent, according to an Information Security Oversight Office report. It’s as if the U.S. government thinks it must guide us rather than allow we-the-people to guide it. And it’s as if the government — and seemingly much of the media — thinks we can’t handle the truth.

And finally, Bernie Sanders, gotta love that man. I have spent hours searching to try to find clips from the Stackhouse Filibuster episode of the West Wing. I can’t, but I will link to a video of Bernie and leave you with a quote.

‎Tonight, I’ve seen a man with no legs stay standing, Dad, and a guy with no voice keep shouting. And if politics brings out the worst in people, maybe people bring out the best. Because I’m looking at the TV right now, and damn if 28 U.S. senators haven’t just walked onto the floor to help.