Saturday, December 25, 2010

Steve Martin’s Song About the Lack of Atheist Songs

Last night, Amanda Marcotte tweeted a link to a pretty fantastic video of Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers performing an original song, ‘Atheists Don’t Have No Songs.’ I retweeted the link, posted the video on my Facebook, but also wanted to post it here because I think the majority of the people who read this site would find it equally as fantastic. Awesome enough, the song itself is actually pretty good.

So, take a look at the video below. Lyrics are after the jump. You’re welcome.

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Monday, December 13, 2010

Salvation Army Refuses to Distribute Harry Potter and Twilight Toys and Other Things You Should Know About the Christian Organization

Salvation Army The Salvation Army and their bell ringers and big red kettles have been out in front of popular stores and malls since immediately after Thanksgiving, as they are every year, collecting funds that are assumed to go to people in need during the holiday season. Additionally, they have also been collecting toys at malls, schools, police stations, and other locations and again, these toys are assumed to go to underprivileged children for the holidays. Except for the toys the organization deems “inappropriate”–those toys are stocked in warehouses and left undonated, only to collect dust, and then disposed of, as reported by the Toronto Sun who recently uncovered that the Salvation Army refuses to distribute Harry Potter and Twilight toys.

A man in Calgary who admired the amount of toys collected by the Salvation Army had volunteered to sift through a southeast warehouse that housed unused, donated items. This volunteer learned that toys depicting Harry Potter and Twilight were left undonated due to the themes of wizardry, vampires, and werewolves that are “incompatible” with the Christian beliefs the organization holds. The volunteer said he was told by Salvation Army officials that these toys are “disposed of” and are not given to other charities, which Capt. Pam Goodyear refuted in an interview with the Toronto Sun, saying that the toys are given to other agencies and are “distributed in another manner where parents can choose.” An odd statement to make when she then was unable to provide even the name of one of these “other agencies.” Not surprisingly at all, the Calgary volunteer asked an official what was to be done with a donated plastic M-16, in which he was told, “That’s for the 10-year-olds.”

So to recap, toys that are linked to stories, figments of their author’s imagination (with added Mormon ideology mixed in for fun in Twilight’s case), are ungodly and immoral enough to be banned from being given to underprivileged children during the holiday season, yet plastic depictions of very real weapons used in war in which countless innocent people are left for dead are just fine and dandy. That is some stellar logic!

I know of several people who buy brand new toys every year just to put them in collection boxes of the Salvation Army’s toy drives. Considering the popularity of Harry Potter and Twilight over the recent years, I would be willing to bet that several people have bought these toys for the sole purpose of donating them only to, unbeknown to them, have their money completely wasted by this “charity” organization by the decision to dispose of these toys.

This isn’t the only thing the Salvation Army has done to make people question the authenticity of the word “charity” in conjunction with their name. No, they have been doing some pretty horrific and utterly sickening things for quite some time now, including getting into bed with politics.

Another issue that is “incompatible” with Christian beliefs are the rights of GLBTQ people. Among the Salvation Army’s list of invested interests, along with quite literally throwing away money by disposing of donated toys they don’t agree with for one reason or another, is actively denying GLBTQ people help, support, and rights.

The Bilerico Project wrote about how the Salvation Army insisted that they and their partner break up and leave the “sinful homosexual lifestyle” in order to receive assistance while homeless. When they refused, the Salvation Army turned these two homeless people away and they were left to sleep on the streets.

In 2001 it was found out that the Bush Administration had made a “firm commitment” to the Salvation Army that would have allowed them to disobey state and local laws that prohibit discrimination against gay people when administering programs with federal funds. When this secret deal was made public, that firm commitment didn’t hold up very well and the Salvation Army was held to the same law everyone else was; as it should be. Not wanting to grant domestic partner benefits to their staff, in 2004 the Salvation Army threatened to close soup kitchens, homeless shelters, foster care programs, and HIV services in New York City if they were to be expected to follow the law that insists city contractors must extend benefits to domestic partners.

You can find out more about the Salvation Army’s list of anti-gay stances in the video below:

When I mentioned on Twitter that I was writing a post about the Salvation Army, a friend of mine tweeted back with a link to a post he wrote about how he was personally attacked by the Initiative Against Sexual Trafficking, a branch of the Salvation Army.

maymay talks openly, honestly and intelligently about sex and is the creator of Kink On Tap. In his own words, he works to “[empower] sex-positive activists and educators to put together low-cost, high-value, fast-paced, user-generated sexuality conferences called KinkForAll unconferences.” These conferences (or unconferences) operate on the belief that sexuality affects all aspects of life; they are open to anyone who has an interest in learning or contributing to an open and safe discussion about sexuality. The Initiative Against Sexual Trafficking, which is a tremendously misleading title when you really just begin to dig into the ideology that surrounds this group, sent out an email to their mailing list subscribers painting maymay as a child molester, a sex slaver, and a “nightmarish creature.” They described the KinkForAll unconferences and thus sex-positivity as a whole as “slimy, putrid, decaying, nasty, trash.” This is seriously wrong.

So when you’re walking in or out of a store and a Salvation Army bell ringer starts calling after you and asking you to donate, feel good about declining and walking away, knowing that your money is not being used to forward a bigoted and shamelessly discriminatory agenda.

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