• About
    • Family Pictures
    • Meadow Flowers
  • Books
  • Contrarianisms
  • Quotations
  • Words of Inspiration
  • Our Ideology

Existential Ennui

~ Searching for Meaning Amid the Chaos

Existential Ennui

Tag Archives: religious freedom

Exactly How DO You Manage to Walk and Chew Gum at the Same Time?

20 Friday Dec 2013

Posted by Sherry in 1st Amendment, An Island in the Storm, Editorials, Gay Rights, Humor, Individual Rights, racism, Satire, teabaggers

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

1st Amendment, free speech, religious freedom

duck-dyansty-cover-ftrThe Extremist Right has its panties in a twist once again.

Just once I wish they would actually think through their objections and place them side by side their other objections and make sure all that shit lines up. Cuz it never does you see, for the Extreme Right have brains that are rather odd. Cognitive Dissonance is well, their best friend.

See in the Extreme Right mind, beliefs and ideas are fairly free-floating. They may bump into each other, but they are like tea cozy meetings–a blind teapot meeting a blind tea-pot. They politely say “S’cuse me” and careen off to bump into another idea, unaware that these two ideas are in grave conflict and by rights they should throw off the cozies and fight it out. And this would be a war to the death, since both cannot co-exist in the same mind without craziness creepin’ into the skull and reducing the occupied persona to a pile of whimpering snot.

Since having some thirty million or so folks collapse into whimpering piles of snot would be messy, unattractive and a huge drain on the psychiatric community, happily such realizations do not often happen to the Extreme Right brain. Lucky for them. Unlucky for the rest of us folks who have to contend with people WHO MAKE NO FREAKIN’ SENSE.

Case in point.

The Duck Dynasty. I won’t bore you with the history. Suffice it to say there are four relatives of some sort or other, who designed a duck caller that swept the nation and resulted in them becoming millionaires. Never heard of it? Well in fairness, it seemed to have only swept those establishments that cater to duck hunters. How that could give rise to anyone being a millionaire is beyond my comprehension, but apparently there are more nasty quacker shooters that I thought.

Any the ways, one of the relatives, the so-called patriarch of the family (such things being amusingly relevant to these types of folk), one Phil Robertson, was interviewed by GQ, a magazine you wouldn’t immediately think of when you think of duck hunters to be sure. But they did. And Phil talked his little sad brain off. And he talked about things having zero to do with duck callin’ which was a sure mistake if he had the brains to think of it.

But he talked about things he has no familiarity with, by his own admission: gay folks and Black folks. And well, he said things like this:

When asked what he thought was sinful, Robertson replied: “Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men.”

But homosexuals aren’t alone, Robertson said. “Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers — they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.”

“I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once,” he told GQ. “Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. We’re going across the field. … They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’ — not a word!

“Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues,” GQ quoted Robertson as saying.

Now, A & E, the network that shows Duck Dynasty, replied by puttin’ old Phil “on leave”, claiming that Phil’s remarks are not at all in line with A & E’s corporate morality.

Well the old Extremist Right blew a teabag, screechin’ at the top of Sarah perky lungs: How DARE they do that. Why they are discriminating against Phil’s religious rights and that free speech thing too!

“Free speech is an endangered species. Those ‘intolerants’ hatin’ and taking on the Duck Dynasty patriarch for voicing his personal opinion are taking on all of us, . . .”

So, what we have here is a dilemma, at least to this brain of mine which regularly alerts me when two of my ideas collide in a nuclear explosion of contradiction.

Let me put it this way.

Ms. Palin and others of her ilk deny the right of the corporation A & E to register its moral shock at an employee of theirs by placing him on suspension, whereas the corporation Hobby Lobby is perfectly within its right to register its moral shock at employees of their by imposing a financial burden upon them. In both cases, the corporation has moral views dissimilar to the employee.

But Ms. Palin and other Extremist Right think it just terrible that corporations like Hobby Lobby should be forced to allow their insurance carrier to do what it wishes (cover contraceptive care) and demands it be stripped out of the policies because Hobby Lobby is offended by this for religious reasons.

According to the Extreme Right, the corporate sensibilities of A & E do not count, while those of Hobby Lobby do.

I can but scratch my head in confusion.

Now, that is not to say that I agree with A & E here. And that should make even the most hardened of Extreme Right folk pass out from the vapors. I’m not alone in claiming that A & E are wrong.

Phil has every right to spout his odious ideas publicly and GQ has every right to print them.  However, the proper (IMO) way for A & E to respond is to put out a statement that Mr. Robertson’s beliefs and opinions are not reflective of A & E, and in fact are contrary to their moral position. However, A & E recognizes the right of people to believe what they choose, and they will be motivated by their customers desires in watching the show or not in determining future contractual obligations with the Duck folk.

In the same vein, Hobby Lobby “corporate feelings” can be whatever they are, but they are not allowed to force them on their employees. They do not extend making their employees live under their religious strictures.

That’s the way I see it.

And you?

<

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Well It’s Still Relevant!

16 Monday Aug 2010

Posted by Sherry in 1st Amendment, Barack Obama, Constitution, Essays, Evolution, Gay Rights, Humor, Individual Rights, Iowa, Judiciary, Literature, Muslim, Newt Gingrich, Psychology, Sarah Palin, Satire, SCOTUS, Sociology, teabaggers, Uncategorized, What's Up?

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

ADL, Constitution, courts, evolution, gay rights, Ground Zero, Iowa, Islamic Center, judges, moral choice, morality, Muslims, Newt Gingrich, Obama, psychology, religious freedom, separation of powers

I confess this news is a tad old, but only in some cases a few days. I’ve had other issues I wanted to attend to, and frankly I’ve been preoccupied.

We are not getting DSL. We live in some kind of hell zone which cannot be reached. Truthfully, I expected it, and only let in the tiniest glimmer of hope that I too could watch UTube and play some of the more fun games on the net.

So, I am unbloodied by this one, having some days/weeks ago realized that life must be accepted as is, rather than as I would have it be.

I haven’t been to church in a month now, have pretty much separated from all but one responsibility there and don’t forecast much change. I cannot make appointments for anything, half of them have to be cancelled “due to weather.” THAT is reality, quite simply.

So, here’s a few things you might be interested in today:

A good deal is going on about the Islamic Center in NYC. President Obama suggested the obvious–Muslims stand in no different place than any other religious group, and have the right to build wherever local ordinances permit. He is accused by some of walking back the next day, but he really did not. He quite purposefully did not give any personal opinion, as indeed he should not. Separation of church and state demands that, much as the right wing foolery would ignore the Constitution, once again for political reasons.

I was proud of the fact that Fareed Zakaria returned his award from the Anti-Defamation League after they came out in opposition to the Islamic Center.

Of course the buffoons who make these stupid arguments against the Center only aid recruitment by the Islamic fundamentalist movement, no doubt al qaeda cheers at Newt and Sarah and couldn’t be happier.

Speaking of Newt, his rhetoric is such bull. He arrogantly claims he will not be “preached” to by Muslims about tolerance when Saudi Arabia has no synagogues or churches allowed. So I guess Newt concedes that America is no bastion of freedom, but actually has no standards above that of the lowest common denominator. Some admission Newt, you political opportunist!

Jerrold Nadler, (D-NY) answers the silly Peter King (R-NY) and makes the clear point that religious freedom means exactly what it says and that Congress and the Executive branch have no place in this debate. This post is especially good, and worth your while to read in full.

Meanwhile Newt (slippery) Gingrich will be joining the 911 rally against the Center. Joining him are those wonders of slime, John Bolton (so wretched he couldn’t get confirmed at UN ambassador) and that worst of all truth assaulters: Andrew Breitbart who tried to destroy Shirley Sherrod. All these slimy people should get along nicely. They will also be hosting Geert Wilders, Dutch Parliamentarian (even that enlighted country apparently has its asshats!), who calls Islam “the ideology of a retarded culture.” Billy Kristol and Charles Krauthammer have condemned him in the past, and even Beck calls him a fascist. So you see, Newt is really nothing but a salamander, and that no doubt does disservice to that poor creature.

After a shower, we can go on.

Some of the best stuff seems to arise from the Boston Globe. This one is particularly interesting. Religionists would argue (some at least) that morality comes from God. Atheists claim that it most certainly does not. We come to it by reasoning. But there is another choice and you’ll have to read the article to see. How disgusting is it? There is my compass! 

Just a snippet:

By telling a story in which morality grows out of the vagaries of human evolution, the new moral psychologists threaten the claim of universality on which most moral systems depend — the idea that certain things are simply right, others simply wrong. If the evolutionary story about the moral emotions is correct, then human beings, by being a less social species or even having a significantly different prehistoric diet, might have ended up today with an entirely different set of religions and ethical codes. Or we might never have evolved the concept of morals at all.

One of the things that is rubbing me the wrong way these days revolves around Prop 8 and the response from the rabid right. They, who argue all the time about “activist” judges, seem to be going it one further. Now it’s not limited to activism so much as a challenge that judges have the right to over-turn the “public” will.

There is a movement afoot to send SCOTUS a petition stating the “public” will, according to a minority. And true to form good old Newt (slippery) Gingrich and Tim( hey I wanna be relevant) Pawlenty, are urging Iowa voters to vote out the Justices in our fair state who found refusal to issue marriage licenses to gays and lesbians unconstitutional under our state’s constitution.

Apparently it’s business as usual. Trash the constitution when it doesn’t suit your agenda. There are THREE  arms of government Mr.’s Ginghole and Pawpuppy PRECISELY to insulate decision making from the fury of the MOB.  Their job is PRECISELY to stack up the law of the populace AGAINST the CONSTITUTION and declare it square or not.

I can but pray that some middle majority can see through these pretenses. What the ragged-maturity of children riff raff of the far right will fall for, let’s hope sensible people can still reason through.

Bookmark and Share

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

What’s Up? 07/20/10

20 Tuesday Jul 2010

Posted by Sherry in Art, Essays, Evolution, fundamentalism, Humor, Individual Rights, Judiciary, Media, Photography, racism, Sarah Palin, Satire, SCOTUS, social concerns, The Wackos, What's Up?

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Darwin, David Barton, Elena Kagan, evolution, Glenn Beck, Harriet Miers, Obama, Photography, Plato, racism, religious freedom, religious right, right wing wackos, Sarah Palin, SCOTUS

Here I come to save the day. . .That means that Mighty Mouse is on the way! Oh, ‘scuse me, I get carried away with childhood memories sometimes. You gotta be OLD to remember that cartoon.

Anyways, here I am to give you the scoop on what ya oughta be readin’ today. How’s that for chutzpah? I KNOW what you NEED to read!

I suffer from delusions of grandeur once in a while. Actually I’m very humble. You know that. I want you to believe that–it’s my blog persona. Humility. Yep.

I have others. I’m sybileen in that respect. I can call out the “others.” But don’t make me. I can be not so pretty. A very nice lady at our church said I was a “sweet person.” God love her, but she ain’t talked to the Contrarian–who would give her a different take. I am sweet, but well, let’s not go there okay?

If the wacko right doesn’t like being called racist, they oughta pay more attention to what they are critical of. I mean, Obama was in office a minute and one half when they started making it sound positively EVIL that he used a teleprompter. Like that was something new in politics. I mean they had nothing more but they HAD to criticize. When you criticize EVERYTHING down to the whether he’s a boxer versus briefs kinda guy, it’s pretty obvious you got something else  going on  in your pea brain see?

And just go and refudiate that Ms. Sarah (that woman is an Idiot!) Palin. And Pluleeeeez don’t refer to yourself and the Bard in the same breath. If you have actually read or attended a Shakespearean play, well I’ll eat my left ear.  Steve Benen has some choice words to drop on the Grizzly Mama. It’s delicious!

And don’t miss Sarah Posner’s great lament at the lunatic boy, Glenny Beck who would not, I swear, know the truth if it arrived at his front porch in letters twelve feet high and identified itself as God Almighty come to give revelation directly to the Becky one. David Barton, lap dog, who is usually on his leash when he appears with the padded cell bound Glenn, is also treated for his usual maladjustments of history.

More moaning from Andrea Lafferty of Traditional Values Coalition. She claims that Elena Kagan got a pass where similarly situated Harriet Miers got crucified. She claims the left is unfair. Except of course the truth is available and the main thrust of anti-Mier ranting is documented as coming from the right itself who thought her not conservative enough. It’s just the usual say it and it will be so to the drooling NASCAR/WWF/TRAILER TRASH who read? have it read to them.

Similarly, Family Research Council finds something sinister in Obama’s use of the term freedom to worship on a couple of occasions. It’s the beginning of the end of religion in Merika they squeak. Yeah, except that Obama has used the term freedom of religion 124 versus 9 times for freedom to worship and  Dubya numbers on the two are 124 and  33 respectively. As I said, lying comes as second nature to these RELIGIOUS  claimers.

Okay, I know that music and math are related. How, I don’t know, but some really smarty guy says that he has cracked Plato’s “codes” and well, there was, like a whole lot of new information called symbolic messages. It explains why Aristotle called Plato a student of Pythagoras when scholars can find no reason to agree. And it seems he forecast that the universe would be found to be governed by mathematical principles and not Zeus. Interesting little article.

Someone is suggesting that Darwin did not gather by happenstance a lot of material and then see a pattern which he deduced or inducted into natural selection. Rather, he may have had the hypothesis all along and gathered material in view of that belief. Hey a doctoral thesis has to come from somewhere, here you go.  Heavy reading here.

Just leaving a comment over at Blisterinas. Have you seen here photography? You really should. I was telling her I collect animal skulls. Ones from animals our dogs murder and bring home and deposit. I really like my raccoon skull. The jaw works and everything. I would collect mouse skulls but Spencer the Impaler Cat loves the heads, he leaves the rest of the body for me. I warn them about wrinkles and toss them out.

Speaking of which, why the hell are some people not making their full feeds available? I have a tough time downloading sites as it is. It would surprise you no doubt to know that I READ most of you guys blogs pretty thoroughly, though I don’t comment as much, but I read most of all you write since it’s in my READER. I thought the point of writing was to be read? Yet some folks only give titles and I have to go there just to see if it’s something I wanna read. So I don’t go as often sad to say. Some sites take me a good five minutes to download. Can’t do too many at that rate. Rant complete.

Well I’m pooped. See ya tomorrow.

Bookmark and Share

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Shaddup and Pass the Gravy

23 Monday Nov 2009

Posted by Sherry in 1st Amendment, American History, Church/State, Constitution, Founding Fathers, God, History, religion, Sociology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

American folklore, myths, Pilgrims, religious freedom, separation of Church and state, Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is frankly a uniquely American holiday. Not to say that there are not other harvest celebrations in many parts of the world. There are. And no doubt they have their own unique qualities.

We are not talking better best, but different. Get it?

Thanksgiving to children is part of that delicious march toward the big day when presents are piled under a evergreen tree decorated with tinsel and balls of glass. It is a day to eat lots of things we don’t ordinarily see. Pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, and that ubiquitous turkey with stuffing and plenty of gravy for the mashed taters.

To adults, it is the beginning of the big rush for Christmas, meaning shopping and cleaning and baking and wrapping and suddenly realizing that you don’t have enough days left to do all you need to do to make this the all time most perfect Christmas ever to be had by anyone in your entire family, and they will all thank you forevermore. Whew! And it never happens, so there is always next year!

The day itself is an amalgamation of American folklore, religion, secular hedonism,  and excitement. There are parades, football, specials galore, movies opening, and the grand opportunity to chat with Aunt Ethel about Uncle Pete’s bunions and carbuncles. Can you hardly wait?

As children, we are victimized by lying school districts who are intent upon making sure that we understand that this holiday arose at Plymouth Rock to celebrate the fine land offered so kindly by friendly Indians. At the end of that first season, the pilgrims (who are famous for coming to Merika for religious freedom) and the American Indians who for reasons unknown were happy to see the palefaces take over and strip their living and hunting lands, sit down at a outdoor feast in the pleasant late fall. Thanks Paleface! I was always wantin’ to move West ya know, to visit the kids and grand kids.

The truth of the matter is that folks in St. Augustine Florida actually claim the first Thanksgiving on September 8, 1565. But then the Dutch in Leiden claim that the Pilgrims left their shores for the “New World” taking with them the holiday of Thanksgiving as well as civil marriage (shocked?).

In any case, we as rather tabla rasa humans, soak up all this nonsense, and get all warm and fuzzy as we draw turkeys, and make pilgrim hats to celebrate. My, so nice that we have religious freedom because of Pilgrims. Technically correct since it was the Pilgrim propensity for demanding adherence to “our” religious practices or get out of Dodge, that caused our “founding fathers” to adopt ever more stringent rules separating the two institutions of state and said religions.

Although Thanksgiving is certainly a very secular holiday for most, it still carries (even sans the Pilgrim angle) a fairly religious message. Give thanks. And when we give thanks its usually to someone or something. And for most of us, we sit at the table one of about three times a year and turn our thoughts to God in however we define him, and “give thanks.” Then we attack the food.

Our usual course is to gather in family units, the bigger the better. Grandma and aunties, and plenty of cousins. So in that sense its a giving of thanks for families and our shared heritage. It is in some sense the best of table hospitality, the sharing of food. Many are off to their once a year stint at the local soup kitchen for serving food to the “less fortunate.” This is designed to “teach” lessons to our children, and to pat ourselves a bit on the back for our “givingness.”

I don’t ascribe to the nonsense of Plymouth Plantation and its harvest of “plenty” sharing with the natives. While it seems clear that the Indians did help the woe begotten settlers to survive that first year, I’m sure that there were tensions about this interloper and what it’s intentions might be in the longer run.

But, I do subscribe to the day as being one of general thanksgiving. It is a time to remember and think about how awfully lucky most of us are, most of the time.

Through personal crises of various types, we manage to keep on keepin’ on. The mortgage gets paid, the lights are on, there is food in the fridge. We are even willing to suffer a bit in the winter and early spring as we indulge just a bit during the build up to winter and it’s snow and cold.

We think about our blessings, large and small. We ponder the lives of so many others, so much less fortunate. We ponder the hard lives of most of our predecessors in time. We smile softly and think that we can remember this day as one of the good ones.

I frankly don’t know if American Indians celebrate this day or not. I’d be inclined to think not, but again, independent of pilgrims, they too have as much reason to recall blessings as anyone else. Unlike the celebration of Columbus’s day, they are not called to herald the very one who brought them disease, loss of home, and the death of the better parts of their nations.

So our harvest festival is unique, but as I said, it’s not better than that of any other country. We just make a big to do about it. It gets our juices running as we start that sprint toward Kris Kringle and the whole split personality of baby Jesus and Santa crammed together on the same side board in the dining room. It’s just that we don’t get confused at the combination of religion and secular joy as we do at Christmas time.

So get out the turkey platter, and find the gravy boat. The kitchen holds center stage, and kids are shooed out about 1200 times a day. Bring on the stuffing and save that wishbone for making a wish on Friday when it has nicely dried and will snap! And don’t forget, don’t eat much on Wednesday. You will be needing the room!

Bookmark and Share

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Who We Are

Thinking non-stop since April 15, 1950. We search for meaning amid the chaos.

Giggles

Laugh as Long as You Can

Subscribe

Subscribe in a reader

Donations Joyfully Accepted

Calendar

June 2022
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
27282930  
« Nov    

Follow Me!

Follow afeatheradrift on Twitter

Facebook

Sherry Peyton
Sherry Peyton
Create Your Badge

Words of Wisdom

The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die. ~~Sen. Edward M. Kennedy~~

Recent Posts

  • We moved to Blogger
  • Moving to Blogger
  • Christianist Doublespeak
  • Next Week I’m Gonna Start Biting People
  • Time to Report for Retirement
  • The Best Little Whorehouse in Boulder? Or How I Loved to Learn Republicanese Gangsta Style
  • The Power of the Post
  • The Exceptionalism of the United States of America
  • Can We Stop With the Illegals Shit?
  • I Laughed, I Cried, I Spat Epithets, I Chewed the Rug
  • *Temporarily Asphyxiated With Stupid
  • Are You Having Trouble Hearing? Or is That Gum in Your Ear?
  • Collecting Dust Bunnies Among the Stars
  • Millennial Falcon Returning From Hyperbole
  • Opening a Box of Spiders

A Second Blog

  • Extraordinary Words
  • What's on the Stove?

History Sources

  • Encyclopedia Romana

The Subjects of My Interest

Drop the I Word

We Support OWS

Archives

The Hobo Jesus

Jesushobo With much thanks to Tim
Site Meter

Integrity

Twitter Updates

  • @realDonaldTrump #YOUREFIRED 1 year ago
  • Tales From the Pandemic acrazyladyblog.wordpress.com/2020/05/09/tal… 2 years ago
  • @MarshaBlackburn Stop the racism trumpish cultist 2 years ago
  • @realDonaldTrump NEVER you asshat. We await your removal via straight jacket and handcuffs. 3 years ago
  • Melanie says women's claim of sexual assault not suff evidence,. Women's voices minimized. She's as sick as tRump.… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 3 years ago

World Visitors

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Existential Ennui
    • Join 2,850 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Existential Ennui
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: