The cowardice of being an "oppressed" majority.

Today I learned on Twitter, through @tauriqmoosa (thanks, Tauriq), about an intriguing group of UK campaigners.  Depending upon your viewpoint, you might find them controversial, challenging, psychologically and anthropologically fascinating, hilarious, infuriating... or embarrassing.  Or possibly all of these things, actually.  Check them out: http://straightprideuk.com/

Now, if you react as I did you're probably going to spend ten minutes convinced this has to be a parody.  Part of me still hopes that might prove to be the case (and if so, I will confess myself taken in but take comfort in the fact that I have not been the only one), but I don't really think it's likely.  Based on the balance of what they're saying on their site, combined with their Twitter feed, I think they're serious.

The group's aims, as laid out on their page, are informative:

Personally I can't help finding this immensely funny at the same time as being revolted by it (and as I reread this I find myself unsure again that I don't think it's a deliberate joke), but I'm amused rather against my will and I can certainly understand it if other people are not.

I think my favourite bit may be that these lunatics reckon there is a need to "raise awareness of the heterosexual part of society and make sure ... their views are heard".  This in a world where the default assumption of heterosexuality is so ingrained that a US basketball player made international headlines when he came out as gay earlier this year.  It's funny, but it's also sort of scary.  There are straight people out there who actually believe their voices are drowned out by those of gay people; this is the sort of self-deception of which humans are capable when we try to reconcile nasty, bigoted views with our wish to think well of ourselves.

More than anything, I am reminded by this of the ludicrous complaints of oppression so frequently made by members of the powerful religions.  Christians in the USA whose rights to practise their faith is protected by law but who complain bitterly that they are persecuted while their collective voice is enough to keep gay people from marrying in all but 12* states, and to make it practically impossible for a non-Christian to become President; Muslims who complain that they are victimised when the right they think they have to treat women like livestock is opposed.

There is one sense in which people like those behind the "Straight Pride" movement (I still can't quite believe this is a thing, but it seems to be sincere) could be said to be helping.  Gay people seeking equality already have the support of many straight people, a fact that regularly makes me proud to think that - however far we still have to go in many areas - we humans are, in the broad sweep of things, becoming more compassionate, more given to choosing compassionate secular values over superstitious dogma, and more ethical.  I think people like the members of "Straight Pride" can serve to remind us that the fight against homophobic bigotry is not yet over - in fact, if this does eventually prove to be a hoax, I suspect it will be one perpetrated with precisely this aim in mind.  It may also sting more straight people into openly, actively supporting gay rights - I know I for one would never want anybody to imagine for a moment that the Straight Rights campaigners represent anything I want any part of.

I've been tweeting about this today, and more than one person has said they're reluctant to give such a loathsome movement a platform by publicly opposing it.  People have every right to make that decision for themselves, of course, but for what it's worth my own opinion is that this group's claims to being oppressed are so transparently nonsensical that I don't see much reason to fear we might inadvertently give them legitimacy.  They're not only bigots, they're cowards and hypocrites too; I could allow a tiny, grudging measure of respect for these people if they were at least honest about their obvious homophobia (terms like "heterosexualy [sic] normal" are a dead giveaway, guys).  But by hiding behind this ludicrous façade of oppression they make themselves contemptible not only for their views but also for their cowardice.  I think they can only galvanise the GLBT movement, so far as they can have any effect at all on a societal change that has gained such momentum over the last couple of decades - and for that I thank them.



*Actually not quite that simple, but I don't think my point is affected.

Why marriage equality will make the institution of marriage MORE, not less, meaningful - and in a far better way.

Yesterday I had a long conversation with a friend, stemming from the ongoing debate in the UK and elsewhere about marriage equality, about marriage as an institution.  He and I both support the right of gay couples to marry if they wish, but we both confessed that we couldn't really understand why anybody - of any sexuality - would wish to marry.

This has long been the case for me.  Although I understand that marriage is important to many people, and therefore support the right of any couple to enter into it regardless of their respective sexes or genders on principles of basic equality, it's not an impulse that seems to exist in me.  I'm twenty-nine now, and many of my friends and contemporaries are married... but I don't really understand why they've bothered.  I've lived with my partner for nearly six years now, and virtually nothing would change if we decided to marry; I wouldn't even need a new passport since I wouldn't change my name.  If we wanted to have kids that would make being married a more sensible financial and legal choice for us, but even that, I think, is more an argument in favour of amending the UK's rather outdated laws than in favour of marriage.

Many opponents to marriage equality argue that allowing gay people to marry will render the institution of marriage meaningless.  In fact, I suspect that the opposite might be true.  I think marriage - at least in the UK and  other parts of Europe - already IS pretty meaningless; certainly it's no longer necessary for purposes of respectability, or for recognition as a couple.  And I consider that loss of meaning to be a good thing; it's good that I am not the property of my partner, that our sex life does not require a stamp of approval from the church, that my legal rights are not different to those of my (male) partner.  But when true equality is achieved in the UK (and it will be, although I predict it'll take us a while to work out all the kinks resulting from the current, rather strange, laws) I can see marriage regaining some of its lost meaning - but in an entirely new and positive way.

Marriage could be reborn as a TRUE symbol of love - and also of acceptance, equality and freedom.  Purified of the taints of religious bigotry, of outmoded notions of respectability surrounding sex, and of the hangover of gender inequality that cannot but be present in an institution requiring that participants be of particular sexes, it could become meaningful in a positive way for the first time, arguably, ever.  As marriage in the UK currently exists, I feel not the smallest desire to enter into it; in fact, the more I think about its history, its archaic, exclusionary and arbitrary messages about what is and is not "acceptable" to society, and its ongoing, inbuilt homophobia and sexism, the more actively opposed I become to the idea.

But when any consenting adult can marry any other consenting adult, and when the only motivation to do so is love, then I will consider that an institution I can support, and perhaps even want to be a part of.  Then it will carry meaning that is truly deserving of our protection.

Secular cowardice in the face of name-calling.

Since taking part in International Day to Defend Amina earlier this month I've come in for heavy criticism for being "Islamophobic", "culturally imperialist", even plain racist for opposing the human rights violations that stem from Islam.  You may or may not agree with these labels; I don't myself, but as the days went by I heard the same accusations repeated so many times I did start to wonder if I might be missing something.  I also reflected that even IF the criticisms were in themselves unjustified it was still possible for the misperception to be so widespread as to render my actions counterproductive, even on mistaken grounds.

With this in mind, I emailed one of the administrators at the Council of Ex-Muslims Forum to ask his advice on how people like me - who have never been Muslims -  can best support ex-Muslims and other victims of the more vicious doctrines of Islam, and oppose threats arising from Islam to secular values.

He wrote back to me very swiftly, and acknowledged the difficulty that can arise both from supporting ex-Muslims and from criticising Islam:

(I hope my distaste for organisations like the EDL goes without saying, but just in case; no, I absolutely do not want to ally myself with such groups.)

Having acknowledged the delicate balancing act, however, my correspondent went on to say the following, which I think is crucial:

On first reading my response to this was to think "I don't even have to be public and outspoken?  What can that possibly achieve?"

But I've thought about it a little more since I received the email, and actually I think a very valid point is made.  So often I say to religious people - most often to Catholics, but the principle can be generalised - that their personal acceptance of the fact that (for example) the use of condoms is beneficial in preventing the spread of HIV is meaningless if they continue to lend tacit support to the power base of the Catholic church.  The Vatican is able to campaign against condom use in Africa and other places plagued by HIV because it is able to bring to bear the political weight of over a billion Catholics - if a significant number of those people stood up to oppose this monstrous policy (or, better yet, left the church - although I accept that this is not easily done), it could not continue.

The point is that numbers do matter.

I've written before on the duty I think atheists have to speak out against the evils of religion, and I don't think there's any excuse to shirk this duty when it comes to Islam - we must oppose such atrocities as "honour" killings, FGM, forced marriage, the oppression of women.  We who have never been Muslims are in some senses better positioned to argue against Islam than those who have been because - generally speaking - the risks we take in doing so are less than those taken by former Muslims.  Islam punishes apostasy harshly; the consequences of being known to have abandoned the faith range from ostracism and abuse to death.  The worst I can reasonably expect to get for denouncing Islam as one of the greatest evils we face in this century is name-calling - mostly from others who have never been Muslims.

Well, I can live with being called an Islamophobe and I can even live with being called racist - if the alternative is to sit back and allow people who face far greater threats to stand alone.  It's fairly clear why the accusations of bigotry flow so freely when Islam is criticised - they work.  But ask yourself; when a Christian accuses you of being a bigot, of "persecuting" them when you oppose their (assumed) right to stop gay people marrying, do you accept the criticism and shut up?  Does their accusation of bigotry prevent you from arguing against Christianity, or do you explain why you're not a bigot and keep arguing?

Why, then, does being called an Islamophobe shut you up?  Why do you adopt the term and throw it at people like me?  Would you call me a bigot, or culturally insensitive, when I tell Christians their religion doesn't give them the right to stop people getting married?

People who oppose Islam do so in the face of great adversity and even danger; to refuse to lend them your support out of fear of being called a nasty name is simply cowardice.

So visit the CEMB Forum, follow them on Twitter, lend the weight of your numbers even if you don't want to take a more active role in helping their work.  Every person who supports those who fight Islam makes their task a little easier.

The importance of arguing about things that don't matter

It occurred to me today, in the course of trying to explain to a friend my occasional reluctance to describe myself as a feminist, that the life of an atheist concerned with social issues is spent largely in arguing about things that don't matter.

The most obvious example of this is the whole "God" issue itself.  Gods do not exist, meaning they are in themselves almost axiomatically irrelevant... yet I, like millions of atheists all over the world, find myself talking about them all the bleeding time.  How many times have you been taunted about the time and energy you devote to arguing about God X, or to trying to prove it doesn't exist?  Why do we do it?  Because other people believe gods matter.  And because the rest of us have been too damn complacent for too long about letting them justify nastinesses on that supremely nonsensical basis.

But it's not only gods.  The life of a liberal is FULL of arguments about things that don't matter.

Look at sexuality.  I don't give a toss about the sex or gender of the person or people you find attractive, and if you're reading this blog you probably feel much the same about me.  Whether you're straight, gay, bi, asexual or undecided doesn't matter in the slightest to me... but I'm forced to argue about it, to blog and sign petitions and generally get angry about it because for reasons I will never understand it matters to other people.

Precisely the same can be said of arguments against sexism.  When I took part in International Day to Defend Amina earlier this month, I didn't do it because she's a woman.  In principle I don't care that she is a woman, don't consider it relevant to anything... but I care that she is abused, and the fact is that the abuse has happened because she is a woman.  In a sense, I am forced to take a stance on something I consider a complete non-issue... because too many other people, powerful people, think it matters.  If you're not up-to-date with what's happening in Amina's life after the protest, both Maryam Namazie and Ophelia Benson have blogged on the subject.

Incidentally, those who've taken an anti-FEMEN stance on this matter - who feel that we who protested Amina's treatment are (to quote one tweeter) "imposing white, Western feminism" on people against their will - might find it helps to stop thinking of Amina and others as "brown, Eastern women" and think of them instead simply as "people who are being treated really badly by other people for no good reason".

The same is true of arguments against racism, against xenophobia, against the various forms of prejudice based on the circumstances of birth, against a thousand other forms of bigotry and injustice.  It's a little strange to reflect that those of us who don't care about race, sex, social class, gender, sexuality etc. are so often the people most engaged in arguing about such matters.

And that, I suppose, is why despite being entirely in favour of equality between men and women I'm often uncomfortable with the label "feminist".  I'm not "pro-women" as the term has come (rightly or wrongly is a separate question) to suggest, in the same way I'm not "pro-gay" or "pro-transgender" or "pro-black people".  I don't defend women because they're women, I defend people who are oppressed because they are people who are oppressed.  I'm not in favour of gay people any more than I'm in favour of straight people, because I simply don't think the difference matters.  I support the rights of gay people only because others oppose them, which makes me not "pro-gay" but something like "anti-anti-gay".

I suppose "anti-arsehole" might be the best term for the general principle here, if for no other reason than that "anti-anti-black people", "anti-anti-women" etc. gets confusing quickly.

Another challenge we meet over and over again - most commonly from other non-believers in my own case - is "why can't you just live and let live?".  The truth is that I would love to stop arguing about all this stuff that is, at bottom, irrelevant to me.  But the hard fact is that the world is full of people to whom such matters are not irrelevant, and those people collectively have the power to make miserable - or even to end - the lives of others.  If those people could learn to live and let live, to stop caring about non-issues that are none of their business anyway, we would see an end to all sorts of injustices and abuses.  If we are ever persuaded to live and let live, those same injustices and abuses will go unprotested, and their victims will have even less defence against them.

So if you ever catch yourself thinking "I wish these bleeding atheists and liberals would shut up and let people get on with it"... reflect on what the consequences would be if you got your wish, and think on.

International Day to Defend Amina

Yesterday I, along with thousands of others, took part in the International Day to Defend Amina.  I was honoured to be painted by talented body artist Victoria Gugenheim (@quirkathon), who also painted herself and the extraordinary Maryam Namazie (@MaryamNamazie) - follow both if you don't already!

We each started with our individual paintings:

... and later in the day Victoria amalgamated the three into a single image:

I don't know about either Maryam or Victoria, but for me the prospect of being seen topless by potentially thousands of people was nerve-wracking.  I'll admit that when I received the photos I did consider chickening out of posting them, but reminding myself that - unlike Amina - I faced no danger in doing so was enough to make me do it.

If you're not well up on Amina's story, I recommend Maryam's blog.

Amina represents millions of women all over the world who do not share the basic freedoms I - and probably you - take for granted.  Posting these images made me nervous, but not because I imagined for a moment that anybody might lock me away, beat me or threaten to kill me - as has happened to Amina for having the temerity to treat her body as her own property.  As a woman lucky enough to live in a country where my rights are protected, I wanted to use my body both to show Islamists that their scare-tactics will not work and to remind other liberals, secularists and feminists that the fight is not over yet.

If you haven't already, please sign and share this petition to the Tunisian government to ensure Amina's safety.

The dangers of unnecessary defence.

A few days ago I retweeted this meme about sexuality tweeted by @secularbloke:

Now, I should say that I think this image has a good point to make; it's pretty clear that sexuality is not a matter of choice, and it can be worth pointing out to people that nobody is ever accused of "choosing" to be straight.

However, I've written before about the dangers we run into when we miss the point on various controversial issues; for example, when we attempt to defend abortion with the "what if she was raped?" argument (as though there weren't plenty of other defences), or when we defend a person's actions, when they didn't do anything wrong anyway, by suggesting they may not have understood what they were doing.

I begin to think one or two of the arguments we make against homophobia may fall into the same trap.  The meme above makes a good point, in response to the common (often, I suspect, rather disingenuous) misconception that being gay is a choice.  Well, OK... but the question I think we're forgetting to ask ourselves is why would my sexuality be anything to do with you if it WERE a choice?  The suggestion seems to be that if homophobes could be convinced that sexuality is not a choice they'll decide it's none of their business; I think this rather misses the more important point that, actually, it just is none of their business.

Although it's slightly less clear-cut, I think one might make a similar case for the common argument that homosexuality is "unnatural".  It isn't, there's good evidence for that fact, and very arguably the pernicious myth that being gay is unnatural ought to be challenged... but I think we might make a parallel argument that actually, why would it matter if it were unnatural?  Who cares whether it's natural?

Humans do all sorts of things that are "unnatural" and against our biological purposes. Never mind the arguments about gay marriage, marriage doesn't happen in nature; my condition of shackedupness is more "natural" than the marriages of religious people who disapprove of me.  I use birth control which is not natural (as do the majority of people), but nobody seems to want to tell me that means I'm not allowed to have sex, or that I wouldn't be allowed to get married if I happened to want to.

What's "natural" about wearing clothes, or doing calculus, or playing rugby?

To feel hurt and to defend oneself when called "unnatural" is very... well, natural.  But perhaps another point we should be just as keen to make is "what's so great about being natural anyway?".

By arguing that sexuality is not a choice, however rightly, we risk implying that if it WERE a choice we would be doing something wrong by being gay or bisexual.  By arguing that being gay or bi is natural, however rightly, we risk implying that if it WERE unnatural we would be as guilty and repellent as our detractors suggest.  The fact is that sexuality is nobody else's business, and would not be even if it were a matter of choice.  People's sex lives are their own concern, and that is true whether what they want to do is considered "natural" or not.  I'm not saying we should stop making the arguments we already do, I'm just saying there is a danger when we defend ourselves against one point that we might unconsciously be conceding another.

You might be a religious hypocrite if...

We're all familiar with the logical contradictions of religious belief; people being certain they've picked the one right god out of thousands, thinking the idea of an omnipotent being makes sense, calling Islam a religion of peace without falling over laughing...

But recently the hypocrisy has been bothering me more than the illogicality.  A couple of days ago I asked people on Twitter for their most hated examples of religious hypocrisy.  Many people replied, and I'd like to thank them for their help in compiling the following (far from exhaustive!) list for religious believers to think about.

You might just be a religious hypocrite if:

You don't accept evolution but you take antibiotics.

You believe in the Young-Earth creation story but use petrol.

You credit an omnipotent, omniscient being with all the good stuff, but blame him for none of the bad stuff.

You believe in your god on the grounds that it can't be disproved, but think invisible unicorns, the Flying Spaghetti Monster and other deities are silly.

You've had life-saving medical treatment and then thanked God for your recovery.

You think you're exercising your right to free speech when you tell us we're going to hell and then scream persecution when we tell you your religion's a crock of shit.

You believe your magic book is the work of an infallible god, but think you're allowed to overlook the bits on slavery and genocide.

You call yourself "pro-life" while supporting war and the death penalty, and opposing gun control, state-funded healthcare and stem-cell research.

You claim to believe that God looks after you but you still lock your doors, use seatbelts and take medicines.

You tell your congregation homosexuality is an abomination and then turn out to be gay.

You think the idea of a loving God who'll torture you for eternity makes sense. (Actually, that one makes you not so much a hypocrite as a moron.)

You categorically disavow evolution despite not understanding its most basic principles.

You say the Old Testament is not to be taken literally... apart from the bits that are.

You use Leviticus to argue against marriage equality, while ignoring all the bits about tattoos and trimming your beard.

You believe in heaven, but oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide.

You believe you'll go to heaven when you die, but you'll fight tooth and nail for that heart surgery.

You tell us science is a hoax or doesn't work ON FUCKING TWITTER!!!

You think God's rules are set in stone and must be obeyed on pain of being sent to hell, but you drive on Sundays and have kids out of wedlock.

You think a human foetus has more rights than a human adult.

You think other people need God's rules to be moral, but you ignore them yourself.

You thank God for saving one life in a disaster that kills dozens or hundreds or thousands.

You think people need the threat of hell to be moral, and think that makes YOU more moral than us.

You accept evolution but still believe in the original sin of two people who categorically never existed.

You accept all the benefits and perks handed to you on a plate by modern science, but cry like a little bitch when it shows up the ridiculousness of your religious beliefs.

You tell us that God is beyond human comprehension, then give us a list of his pet hates and tell us in detail what'll happen to us if we disobey the rules.



...I'm certain there are many, many more - if I've missed any that bug you, please add them in the comments.

(My thanks to @PaulADennett, @Cull58, @paulsellick, @adamwt1978, @danielsilas, @Dianora_1, @590409, @LolloJames, @DJCSouthport, @WCHamilton, @yanquetino, @Graham_Gowland, @richardsweet, @billyrunaway, @hookstonecol, @MrMRM513, @OgreMkV, @BobPowellUK, @westhamfool, @BrianBuchbinder, @ZEN_racer, and @LJ_Graey.)