Why I No Longer Vociferously Support Gay Marriage.

For a couple of years now, I've joined my local atheist/skeptic group in a number of events in support of gay marriage, usually as part of a larger gay rights event. I shall no longer do so.

I've spent most of my life indifferent to the issue. Later, I became ambivalent to it—it joining my ambivalence about the state being involved in anyone’s marriage, but that isn't germane to this discussion. I reasoned that as long as the state was involved, the law should be applied equally, and I still see things that way.

I argued that the only reason to oppose gay marriage was religious, and as far as I know, that's still true. A secular argument against gay marriage could conceivably be made. I doubt it would be a good one but it is not outside the realm of possibility.

Ultimately, my reasons were self serving.

I saw as it as a possible means to acquire allies for other secular issues and this made me feel uncomfortable. It struck me as being Dale Carnegie-ish, which despite what his followers will tell you, is fundamentally dishonest. When secularist march in gay parades and support gay causes they are largely doing so to tell those groups that religion is the motivator of the policies they oppose, which is simply false. It is just the excuse used in western democracies and the third world. There have been plenty of anti-theistic states than imprisoned gays, Cuba to name one, for all you Che shirt wearing dipshits. It is also an argument from consequences. In this case arguing that since Christian doctrine opposes homosexuality, Christianity must be false, which is, of course, bullshit.

I've come to the conclusion that my motivations were somewhat perverse. I enjoyed rubbing it in the believers faces that a straight man was standing up for a cause in which he was completely disinterested. I enjoyed a smug sense of superiority about being more enlightened than those retarded faith heads. That is what I am the most ashamed about.

What motivated this change of heart was the attempted feminist takeover of the skeptosphere. A bunch of people who are feminists or trendy leftists primarily and skeptics secondarily, thirdly or some ordinal number greater than one-ly, decided that it would be handy to marshal the resources and audience of various skeptical organizations to their causes.

They wrongly assumed that because they take an interest in skeptical issues that all who do so would share their beliefs and yet not turn a skeptical eye to their claims and arguments. This hasn't turned out well. When challenged they have reacted with vitriol comparable to to the most rabid Scientologist and rhetoric right out of the creationist playbook. Adding gay issues, regardless of their validity, only invites more of the same.

I am pro-freedom. In U.S. politics this is best represented by the Libertarian party, to whom I give money. I would argue that this stems from my skepticism. In recognizing the bounds of human knowledge, I recognize that I know what's best for my neighbor about as well as he knows what is best for me. I also recognize that in all the trade-offs people have to make in life, each of us places different values on different aspects.  These include things such as immediate enjoyment vs. long term gain, comfort vs. security and opportunity, and a whole host of other things.  Because of this, even if I had perfect knowledge of my neighbors situation, I still am not in a position to make decisions that best lead to his happiness, which is the most important part of any notion of well being.

There are those who claim that their "social justice" (whatever that is) positions come from their skepticism, although they never explain how. But that is an argument to be had. The point being is that as long as there is diversity of opinion within a group on tangential issues, those issues should be kept out of the groups public activities. It results in wasted energy, both that of those who wish to take over and of those who wish to stay on point.

So, my level of support of gay marriage is going back to "sure, whatever, I'll sign your petition".  Should I engage in any debate on the matter, it will be as me, not me-the-skeptic nor me-the-atheist, but I'll probably be silent on the issue until I resolve my position on the states involvement in marriage at all.

A New Bit of Feminist Newspeak

Again, no links to ad revenue generating sites.

For years the feminists have been using the term 'misogyny' as a piece of cheap silencing and shaming rhetoric. They have chosen to brand anyone who disagrees with them as a 'misogynist', whether or not the individual in question has any animosity towards women. They have basically been just saying "Prove you don't hate women by agreeing with me." or "You don't have to listen to such and such, he has these secret dark motives.".

Like a lot of cheap rhetoric it has eventually become transparent, and now once the term is thrown out the person using it is rightfully dismissed. They have come to realize that this was a bad ploy.

There are several possible responses to this.

They could have simply admitted to what they were up to, apologized and moved on. This would be honorable.

They could have simply ceased to doing it. People would have eventually forgotton it. Sometimes just letting overly harsh words used in an argument go is the best way to move forward. This would be respectable.

Instead of taking the honorable or respectable routs they chose the Orwellian. Suddenly, 'misogyny' has a new meaning. Instead of its historical and current common usage as "hatred of women". They are now claiming that it means a preference for men in various aspects of life such as political power, employment and family decision making. And yet, there is already a term for this, "male chauvinism". They abandoned this term because it didn't pathologize dissenters enough. They dialed the rhetoric up and adopted 'misogyny'. Now that it has bitten them on the ass they are trying to shoe-horn the definition of "male chauvinism" into 'misogyny' and trying to claim that is what they meant all along.

They'll probably get away with it. Now, when someone points out that some feminist accused a dissenter of hating women, no matter how long ago it was, she will claim that she meant 'misogyny' with this new definition, and people will let it slide.

Edit: I forgot to mention Surly Amy's Skpechick series "Speaking Out Against Hate Directed at Women:"whoever posts. Is she now going to try to claim that "hate" doesn't really mean "hate"?

Selective application of A+ rules.

From the A+ forum rules:

Single Identity: One person may only use one forum account. Sockpuppets, when detected, will be banned alongside the main

Yet, as of the time of this writing, Matt Dillahunty's account is still active.

Of course this is their double standards biting them on the ass.  He has established himself as one who agrees with them.  Yet he had the temarity to test their claims about fair moderation by using a sock account and the honesty to not hide the results.

So, A+ people, do the rules apply to everyone, or are there exceptions for your friends?

Well, that was a useless project.

It turns out that Matt Dillahunty beat me to it.  It will be interesting to see if he acknowledges that the A+ detractors have been correct all along.

A+ Fora Examination Dates.

I will start 12-10-02, morningish an do so for a week.  It is now 12-09-29 20:05 PDT.

A+ Examination: Day 1.

It turns out that A+ fora are more active than I expected.  So I'm not going to be able to examine each one.  They don't have a sort by thread start date feature, which would have made what I originally intended to do easier.  So I'll just root around the threads that are on the front pages of the sub-fora.

Some of what I found:

Under Atheism and skepticism was the thread: Why Are Women More Religious Than Men?
    The initial post refers to an article in Psychology Today, but it's not reportage.  It's an editorial.  It offers no research primary research or data.  This is fine, but it is also fine to dismiss it.
    The last paragraph is the most interesting.  It makes an argument from Evolutionary Psychology.  Unfortunately, in EvoPsych, one doesn't have the luxury of doing controlled experiments, leaving one with data that is all kinds of noisy, so their conclusions are always going to be more speculative than those of a chemist or physicist.  So what.  Geologist and astronomers suffer this, only to a lesser degree.
    A lot of the arguments made in the thread are valid.  That makes them uninteresting.  Let's get to the bad ones.
    Andrew G. — "Kanazawa. 'nuff said."  That's about as definitive as an ad homenim can get.
    NMLevesque — "Battered-wife syndrome, but with religion instead of a husband?"  It's the partriarchies fault.
    Stephen T — He points to a Rationalwiki page that trashes the guy.  But since Rationalwiki isn't a real wiki, edits only being allowed by select insiders, I have no idea how valid the trashing is.
    RINCF — "I'm not comfortable with the term crackpot because of its relationship with mental illness.", referring to someone earlier calling the guy one.  What is is with these people and whining about terms?  This one actually generated a follow-up discussion which lead someone to start a new thread, which I haven't read.

The next thread I read was started by Greta Christina.  She wants people to sing a petition to remove someone called Justin Vacula from the Secular Coalition of America (Does she spend her spare time knitting little red toques?). She claims that he is an MRA and has done some doc dropping.  Apparently he did post Surly Amy's address.  It also appears that it is public information, which mitigates it.  But it was still a mistake and he has apologized for it.

She claims that he wrote for A Voice for Men.  I guess in her mind, ones opinions on one subject taint all all that persons opinions on every other subject.  What's worse, it isn't even true.  AVM reposted a blog post of his that was falsely DMCAed. 

What did A+ mods when this information was put forth?  They banned the user.

That's an example of their tolerance of dissent.

That's enough for one day.