Please join me in welcoming VT to the new millennium — the first state to allow gay marriage by vote. I hope you’re all seeing this as a victory for the secular people, because is sure as hell is!

(yes, pun intended)

I am very excited to announce that a life member has offered to match any donations received in April up to $100,000! This incredible generous offer doubles your donations — just in time for tax-rebate time! Please make your tax-deductible contribution today and make it a double!

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/setbacks-for-women-in-israel-pakistan-and-afghanistan/

Jews erase pictures of women from THEIR OWN CABINET!
Moslems Beat a 17-year-old girl in the streets!
Pope — amazingly losing credibility!
Yes, religion is modern, hip, and completely logical. I just want to go run out and be like them! Yeah God!

Here’s a good example of atheists being offered a place at the table — literally.

Every year I write a blog entry about secular Judaism (“Jewish Atheism”), and how Passover is the one Jewish holiday I willingly observe. This invariably starts a long debate thread about how this is hypocritical, or completely logical, and I am fully aware that this thread may be no different. I’m going to try anyway.

This year I found something interesting here:

The question: “Why is there an orange on the Seder plate?”

The answer, in a new rite written by Rabbi Peter Schweitzer of New York, will please many unorthodox Jews.

“To remind us that all people have a legitimate place in Jewish life, no less than an orange on the Seder plate, regardless of gender or sexual identity,” states “The Liberated Haggadah,” a rite for “cultural, secular and humanistic” Jews. “And to teach us, too, how absurd it is to exclude anyone who wants to sit at our table, partake of our meal, and celebrate with us the gift of life and the gift of freedom.”

The goal is to provide an enjoyable and educational Passover for Jews who are united by culture, art, music, literature, foods and folkways — but not faith. Nearly half of American Jews, said Schweitzer, consider themselves “secular” or “cultural” Jews, as opposed to “religious” Jews.

“This is not some small offshoot; it is half of our Jewish world,” stressed the rabbi, who leads the City Congregation for Humanistic Judaism, part of a network of 30 “secular Jewish communities” in North America.

Here’s some meat about which to write. I’ve always been interested in how Judaism survives despite a cultural allowance for discussion on any topic, including the existence of God (Yahweh). Compared to the other Abrahamic faiths of Islam and Christianity, Judaism is very forgiving of doubters (didn’t used to be, but it is now). I’ve often wondered how a mythology could survive with free exchange of ideas in the long term.

Now, I have my answer: it can’t. The Christians and Muslims are right — in order to preserve the faith, one must stymie freedom of thought, or else you wind up like the Jews — half-secular.

So here we are, with the religious Jews reaching out to the secular, asking “please don’t go away” because they don’t want the truth to come out. They don’t want the Secular Jews to do what I do — call myself an atheist instead of a Jew. They don’t want their numbers to dwindle more than they already have.

In the face of growing atheism, and tolerance thereof, more and more secular Jews are coming out as atheists. As an atheist activist, I am on the complete opposite side of the fence from the rabbis who want to include me in their fold — quite desperately so. I want the secular Jews (and Moslems, and Christians, and everyone else) to use the A-word when asked, for the simple reason that it’s true.

Yes, it is true that secular Jews are also Jews, but not in the context of the question “what is your religion?” For that question, the religious Jews want secular Jews to call themselves Jews, when it isn’t true. They’re atheists, and they should (need to) say so, with pride.

On the other hand, there is no such thing as too much tolerance. So thanks for the gesture, Rabbi. You can’t include me in your numbers, but I’ll take you up on the Matzo-brei.

READ MORE

DES MOINES, Iowa – The Iowa Supreme Court says the state’s same-sex marriage ban violates the constitutional rights of gay and lesbian couples, making it the third state where gay marriage is legal.

In a unanimous ruling issued Friday, the court upheld a 2007 Polk County District Court judge’s ruling that the law was unconstitutional.

Those crazy Iowans! Imagine good Red-Staters going to Hell because some of the gay people in the state are going to get married. MARRIED! I can use my psychic abilities and my personal connection with god to predict that some time in the future, a storm will strike Iowa, or someone from Iowa in some other state, as a penalty from the all-loving god for allowing two people who love each other to marry without the consent of the Christian church.