Plonkers on parades

Courtesy of the ever excellent Ophelia Benson’s Butterflies and Wheels site (see sidebar) I was guided to a P.Z. Myers demolition of the newest witterings by Madeline Bunting and Julian Baggini.
If you haven’t been following the debates on the Guardian ‘Comment Is Free’ section, this sad pair of hacks are being wheeled out to try and convince liberals that the New Atheism (whatever that means) is just the teensy weensiest bit too strident, and Bunting in particular, rants on a lot about ‘foghorn voices’. Pot, kettle, black in her case from a frequent apologist for the worst kind of faith-based bigotry.
P.Z’s satirical piece has Bunkum and Bagpuss tutting away like two old biddies as an Atheist Pride parade goes past. Tittering at their ‘sorrowful cluckings’, he goes on to say ‘the image that keeps coming to mind is of two old prunes reassuring each other that their wizened ways are the only path to reason, all the while they sit alone, ignored. It would be amusing if it weren't also a bit sad and pathetic.’
See http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/04/mr_b_and_miz_b_savor_their_suc.php
for more.
And as befits one of the best atheist blogs in the world, even the comments section on P.Z.'s site, Pharyngula, is a source of wonder and inspiration.
I was particularly encouraged by Pareidolius, who said:

‘I love my varied group of friends and day to day life, but I also know that my sense of self-approval grew out of a youth spent in the heart of the Gay community in San Francisco. It was a revelation to find a loud, proud, accepting community that helped wipe away the years of being called a faggot and a geek in highschool. Being different was okay, hell, it was encouraged. There was love and acceptance and yes, it was noisy and obnoxious and certainly turned off the fundies and some of the old "lets just live quietly and get along" types (gay uncle Toms).
When I sometimes feel like Hitchens or Dawkins are too hard and polemic, I remember my coming-out years, and that as god-free folk, we are still awash in the hatred of magical-thinking. Awful violence is committed daily in the name of gawd. Women still get clitorectomies in the name of Allah and some kids in rural towns are in danger of being bashed by their own parents should they come out as queer. In our own way atheists are queer. Queer in every sense of the word as we are perceived by "good", polite, religious society. Maybe a few float laden parades wouldn't be such a bad idea after all.’

I have also had a busy, varied and eventful past in urban, activist communities elsewhere, and am now trying to get by in a quieter place. Sadly, the Isle of Man is still a racist, superstition-riddled backwater everywhere outside our finance sector, and that’s the worst paradox. Our public sector, our small business community, the euphemistically named ‘third sector’ which throttles all attempts at true community in favour of a Stepford alternative fit only for braindead rednecks – all dull little pools of incest and bigotry closed to gays, foreigners and other ‘subversives’.
Only in the finance sector can you, for example, be assured of BUPA coverage or retirement benefits for a gay or common law partner, or know that you will be employed or promoted based on your ability, hard work and determination, not your nationality, family links with toytown Rotarians or membership of a cretinous evangelical cult.
Even funnier, some local finance sector critics conveniently forget that the main inspiration and backing for their self-important ‘community ventures’ is right wing religious organisations who used offshore structures to contribute to the Bush, and now even Obama, campaign funds via a network of trusts set up specifically to (1) evade US regulations limiting political funding and lobbying and (2) close down professional US public services in favour of amateurish ‘faith based’ charities ultimately controlled by evangelical ‘megachurches’. If they took time out from vacuous sermonising and begging for a chance to throw away public money they might have noticed a Manx court case involving the IRS less than two years ago – the international financial community certainly did.
…and they wonder why nobody who works for a living takes them too seriously!

Gay & Lesbian Humanist online mag is out - read it!

I've been slow to acknowledge a compliment recently paid to me, so want to put that right now.
The November issue of Gay & Lesbian Humanist came out recently and you can find it at http://www.gayandlesbianhumanist.org/. I must admit a special interest - they have a new blogwatch feature, and the first one is very kind about this blog. There - interest declared to appease the critics.
G & LH was always my favourite humanist mag. It actually wasn't being produced for a while because of controversy over a Diesel Balaam article. Now it's back in an online version, bigger and badder than ever.
I read the other humanist mags dutifully but..............................
I don't know, there's always something a bit like Secular Methodism about them. I have a sense of folk who are members of the Rotary Club, drive Volvos, polite middle of the road opinions about most things but don't happen to be religious - if you see what I mean.
I suppose gay humanists are always going to be a bit edgier than that, from necessity,and it shows in the mag. The articles, the subject matter, the opinion, the attention to detail always goes that bit farther.
There's more urgency because, let's face it, it matters more. This isn't some polite academic discussion - the humanist equivalent of theologians arguing over how many angels on the head of a pin. People rarely lose jobs, get beaten up or killed in the UK for not being religious; but if you're openly gay as well as an atheist?
Though I'm not gay I relate to that. I grew up on a council estate in a conformist Midlands town, went to a class-prejudiced grammar school and couldn't wait to get out at 16. In my case the route out and rebellion came through punk - the music, the clothes, the fanzines, the anarchist politics and the attitude. It was a little community of other outsiders - like the gay one -in which we had some respite from a mainstream society whose inability to question or experiment with anything disgusted us.
One of the first punk films was Jubilee, via which I discovered Derek Jarman's writing, and in turn learnt of Outrage and Queer Theory. Actually met Jarman at the premiere of Edward II , which with his mixture of luck and obstinacy was held in a Leeds fleapit, not a flash London venue, and at a time when the effects of his HIV status were very plain. Absolutely magic night, and I'll never forget his mix of wit, charm, principled anger and total refusal to compromise with Thatcherite Britain.
It may sound strange but the gay attitude - and more particularly the queer attitude (there's a difference - think Stonewall and Outrage as rough benchmarks) is an inspiration to someone like me. I'm just trying to get by in a community where everything revolves around the church. I didn't seek arguments with churchgoers, but they don't notice anyone or anything good outside their little world, so I had little choice but to resist.
When I got interested in humanism enough to want to contribute to humanist mags I hesitated - that Secular Methodism again. What had I to say to these folk? When I discovered G&LH that changed. People I could relate to, felt at ease with, who spoke my language.
Look -I can't explain it any better. Just go and read the damn thing. You'll see what I mean, and you won't want to miss an issue - ever!