I’m still hearing a lot of McCain supporters claiming that Barack Obama is not qualified to be president, because he lacks experience. As we all know, experience is such a reliable indicator of the quality of the presidency.

Speaking of Nixon, he was probably the first modern president to suck up to the current incarnation of the religious right. He did it for purely cynical reasons, of course. He was not an especially religious person. He saw the political value. As did the fundies.

This isn’t symbiosis. It’s mutual parasitism. Which parasite will destroy its host first? James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Pat Robertson, et al only seem to be slightly weakened this election. The Republican party looks like it’s about to topple. What will the fundies do without a host organism?

I am opposed to torture. How sad that we’ve come to a time in history when that needs to be stated.

I also strongly believe that being free to choose your own religion (including choosing none, of course) is a fundamental human right that must be guaranteed throughout the world.

I also believe that being left alone and not being pestered by fundies is one of my rights. Freedom from religion includes not having them knock on my door or call me on the phone. The fact that I might occasionally agree with them is overshadowed by the entertainment value of annoying them right back.

The American Center for Law and Justice is Pat Robertson’s anti-ACLU. Where the ACLU fights to protect your rights, the ACLJ fights to remove them. Just have a look at their positions on your civil rights.

Somehow they got ahold of my phone number. I think they got my address from the Fundie Research Council. That’s the only fundie group who has it (They were giving away a book or DVD or something once, and I wanted to cost them money, so I ordered it.). I’ve never given them my phone number, so they must have used a reverse directory. Roughly every six months or so, I get a call from the ACLJ.

So today, I was sitting at my desk when the phone rang. Ironically, I was working on this blog. Bad timing, fundie! Don’t call an anti-fundie when he’s already busy writing things about you!

I answered the phone and was met with a long silence. This is the sign of a telemarketer. Their dialing robots place a zillion calls simultaneously, then only transfer to a live operator those calls that are answered . That saves the poor schlub who has to talk to you from having to make the calls herself and then sitting there while most of them go unanswered. This is much more efficient. With the dialing robot, as soon as she has finished getting yelled at by one person who is pissed at her for calling, she immediately gets to be yelled at by another person who is pissed at her for calling. She can probably get yelled at 120 times per hour. It’s a much better use of her time.

As I’m sitting there listening to the long silence, I’m trying to guess which lucky organization has earned my wrath today. With the Federal Do Not Call Registry, I no longer get calls from commercial con-men. Now I only get calls from non-profit con-men, who are exempt from the law.

After a good 20 seconds, a woman with a young, perky voice (who, I am sure, is also very hot!) tells me that she’s calling from the ACLJ with an urgent recorded message for all Christians from Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow. She tells me to wait on the line after the recording, so I can talk about the horrors I’ve just heard. I’m always curious to find out the latest perceived insult that has the fundies upset, so I decide to listen.

The next thing I hear is the recording of Jay Sekulow telling me that Christians in Muslim countries are being tortured for being Christian! He gives a couple of examples, then he tells me that the evil Islamic countries are trying to get the United Nations to adopt the “Defamation of Religions” resolution. If enacted into international law, it would make it illegal to spread Christianity!

The recording ended, and I was looking forward to talking to that hot babe again. Hot babes stopped calling me about 20 years ago, so I wanted to remember what it felt like. Imagine my disappointment when the next voice on the line is some other operator! She sounded like she was at least 90. I’m sure she’s very nice, but it was still a major disappointment. Oh well. Now I have no reason not to have a little amusement at their expense. They did call me, after all, and it was to talk about Christianity. I was willing to overlook this offense if they let me talk to the hot babe again, but by this time I’m sure she was already talking to some other guy! How was I supposed to feel?

Anyway, Granny came on the line and said: “So would you like to join the thousands of other Christians and put your name on our petition to stop the resolution to ban the spread of Christianity?”

I said: “No. I think banning the spread of Christianity is a great idea.”

“But do you think it’s a good idea that Muslims are torturing Christians?”

“Considering that you Christians think it’s a great idea for the US government to torture Muslims that you think are terrorists, I’d say turnabout is fair play.”

“Well thank you for your time.”

I haven’t been able to find out much about this “Defamation of Religions” resolution. Apparently it is real and being pushed by some of the Islamic countries. It would make it illegal to defame a religion. This, of course, goes against everything I stand for. There goes my whole shtick! If they ban defaming religion, I’ll have to blog about lawn bowling or something. Save the Bay of Fundie! Oppose the Defamation of Religions resolution!

One of the commenters on Pharyngula mentioned this video:

PZ is hosting the latest installment of Carnival of the Liberals. It’s an especially good one this time around. You’re going to want to go over there and read every article.

What I love/hate about the CotL is that it only takes the ten best articles submitted. This makes it easier to read, and it’s much more likely that any article you click on is going to be worth your time. What I dislike is that my submissions are sometimes rejected. Those other carnivals will take any old crap I give them. Go read the crap-free Carnival of the Liberals.

Here are a few that I thought were especially noteworthy:

Dee Dee, the sexy kitten, has a story about Poverty and Choice that will remove any misconceptions you might have. She relates that way back when she was on welfare, her case worker told her:

No, I don’t think you want to return to school; your baby is getting near to a year and it’s time to pop out another one.

Go read the rest of her article.

Ames, at Submitted to a Candid World, tells us of “McCain’s Legal Errors at the Debate, and Why They Matter”:

While conservative disrespect for, and fear of, medical judgment is nothing new, to impute to doctors and women a desire to end fetal lives “just because” crosses the border into tin foil hat land.

Greg Laden has an article about a museum exhibit on “race”:

[E]ven efforts to use race in a “positive” way such as in medicine or forensics are doomed to failure because of the lack of biological validity of the concept….

Although that’s a good article (this whole concept of “race” has always galled me), I read a few other articles on his site and found an even better one. Back in June, he wrote about “Gay Marriage Across the Border”:

Allowing and even encouraging gay marriage is not the first step towards the decline of civilization. It is one of the last steps in the formulation of civilization.

Read that quote again. Then memorize it. Never forget it. If the rights of any of our citizens are infringed, then the rights of all of us are infringed.

If you live in California, be sure to vote No on Proposition Hate.

Finally, I want to direct your attention to a video that was mentioned in the comments to that last article. The video was made a couple of years ago, and it discusses gay marriage in Massachusetts. It does an excellent job of showing how gay marriage isn’t the big scary deal that fundies make it out to be. I couldn’t figure out how to embed it here, so you’ll have to go to Outtake Online, then click on View Trailer.

Expelled came out on DVD Tuesday. Supposedly the filmmakers managed to get a good distribution deal, so it will be widely available in places such as Wal-Mart, Target, etc. That will make it all too easy for the mouth-breathers to find a copy to take home to the trailer to set next to their Jesus air freshener.

A lot of the major fundie sites are pushing the DVD onto their flocks. Some of them are putting it into bundles with other anti-evolution, anti-intellect products. Over at Access Research Network (whose motto is “Just as stupid as the Discovery Institute, but we do it for free!”), they’ve bundled it with Kevin Wirth’s crayon scribble, Slaughter of the Dissidents, and some creationist DVDs.

Until last week, a lot of the fundie sites were pushing it with this ad:

In case you can’t read that, it says “Thank you America for making Expelled the #1 documentary of 2008”. Shocking, I know, but it was true Of course, the filmmakers have a very loose definition of “documentary”, here, but that goes along with their very loose grasp of facts and intellectual honesty. Just for fun, let’s take a look at Box Office Mojo and see what the top documentaries are (there are only two from 2008 in this excerpt):

Oh, darn! Expelled is no longer the top documentary of 2008! It was beaten by Religulous. And Religulous managed to do that in only its third week of release. And it did that without subsidized ticket sales. Once again, rationality trumps religion.

Here’s another ad the fundies have been using lately:

It would be more accurate to say “The movie that the critics don’t want you to see!” It was universally panned by every critic who didn’t have a vested interest in pushing ID creationism.

We can go to Amazon for some amusement. Here’s the breakdown of the customer reviews:

This is an amusing little war that’s currently waging. All of those five-star reviews are by fundies desperately trying to raise the film’s average rating, and most of the one-star reviews are by “evolutionists” who are trying to “suppress” the “truth” about “Darwinism”!

Lastly, we know there are a lot of fundies out there, so the fact that this is selling well is not surprising. After all, one of the most horrible books of all time is a perennial best seller. What’s troubling is how Amazon (and presumably other retailers) has this festering stinkpile categorized:

I don’t know where they got the idea this was a comedy. Expelled isn’t so bad it’s funny. It’s so bad it’s tragic. And what’s the deal on “Kids and Family”? Yeah. Sure. Concentration camps and eugenics are perfect babysitters for the kids. Put it on right after Veggie Tales!

This isn’t the bumper sticker I was looking for, but it’s the only one I could find. This one came along a little later in the Clinton administration, because it specifically references Hillary. I was looking for one specifically about Bill.

I saw the first “Impeach Clinton” bumper sticker in December of 1992. If you remember your history, Clinton didn’t take office until January of 1993. That’s right. The extreme right was already trying to figure out how to destroy the Clinton presidency before he even took office. The next eight years were a non-stop smearfest and constant series of lawsuits and investigations. Anything to damage the President and impair his ability to govern.

I just wanted to remind you what we will be in for in case the Republicans are unable to steal this election.

For the past two days, I’ve been trying to write an article about a certain crappy movie that just came out on DVD, but I’m also trying to cure my sleep disorder. Actually, that movie probably would cure my sleep disorder. Anyway, there is an inverse correlation between my frequency of posting and how much sleep I’m getting. Maybe tonight I’ll finish the article and post it before midnight.

In the meantime, go watch Fox news or listen to Rush and play Obama bingo! Better yet, turn them both on and see who can score a bingo first!

To give you an idea of the tactics of the people who want to strip Californians of their rights, here are a few YouTube videos, along with a few of my comments.

First up is one of the TV commercials. I have seen this one myself, so I know it is getting airplay on mainstream stations:

The commercial lies. Although there are state education standards, the classroom content is partially controlled by the local school board. Teaching second-graders that “boys can marry boys” will not be imposed upon a community from on high.

Also, I want you to look at who paid for this ad:

First listed is the Knights of Columbus, an international Catholic organization. These are the same people who successfully lobbied Congress in 1954 to add “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. They describe themselves as “being dedicated to the principles of Charity, Unity, Fraternity, and Patriotism.”

You can scratch Unity. It’s clearly a divisive group. First, they made all non-theists second-class citizens by adulterating the Pledge. Now they’re making gays second-class citizens by trying to take away their civil rights.

You can also scratch Patriotism. The Knights of Columbus are anything but. A true patriot supports and defends the Constitution. These people have nothing but contempt for it.

The second sponsor is the “National Organization for Marriage California Committee”. The National Organization for Marriage is a small religious political action committee with (in their own words):

…a focus on developing new strategies for increasing influence in the Northeast and West Coast, where marriage is most under threat.

So their goal is to impose outside values upon communities that don’t share those beliefs. That’s funny. Isn’t that exactly what the above commercial is trying to imply about gay marriage supporters?

The third sponsor is James Dobson’s Colorado-based Focus on the Fundie, one of the most repressive of all fundie groups.

What’s missing from this list? Californians!

Here’s another video. I don’t know if this runs on television, because it’s a bit longer than the typical commercial. It’s very slick, so it’s obviously intended for wide distribution. It stars that stellar example of family values, Newt Gingrich:

So by Newt’s logic, all judges are bad because they’re just lawyers. OK. So let’s get rid of the courts. That’s what he’s advocating. Let’s start with the activist judges on the U.S. Supreme Court. Oh wait. Newt wouldn’t want to do that, because his side is in control of those judges. In fact nothing was more activist than the judicial intervention in the 2000 presidential election. The U.S. Supreme Court installed King George upon the throne, despite the fact that Al Gore won both the popular and electoral vote.

So which is it, Newt? Do we need courts or don’t we? Is “judicial activism” good or bad? Who decides? I have a radical idea to fix things. Appoint judges who follow the Constitution! That’s what the California Supreme Court did when it overturned laws banning gay marriage. That’s what the U.S. Supreme Court did not do when it intervened in the 2000 election.

Newt, of course, is another outsider trying to tell Californians how to vote. In fact, let’s look at that issue a little closer. One of the groups trying to defeat the initiative is Californians Against Hate. They list the top donors who are trying to get the proposition passed:

• Knights of Columbus, New Haven, CT ($1,275,000)
• National Organization for Marriage, Princeton, NJ ($941,135)
• John Templeton, Bryn Mawr, PA ($900,000)
• Howard Ahmanson, Jr., Irvine, CA ($900,000)
• American Family Association, Tupelo, MS ($500,000)
• Elsa Prince, Holland, MI ($450,000)
• Focus On the Family, Colorado Springs, CO, ($439,644)
• plus many more

Of the top seven donors, six of them are out of state!

Now let’s drop the level of discourse down a notch or two and look at a couple of YouTube videos produced by individual bigots who haven’t aligned themselves with one of the national hate groups. Both of these videos reveal much about the people who are in favor of Proposition 8.

First up is “The Hidden Agenda of GARRIAGE (a.k.a. Gay ‘Marriage’)”:

One thing the marriage bigots have never made a secret about is that they are motivated entirely by religious doctrine. That video just underscores that apparently this is their only reason. But this justification is a total non-starter. We cannot base our laws upon the Bible. It’s prohibited by the Constitution. That’s the problem with fundies today. They’ve gotten so powerful they don’t even bother to hide their motives.

This last video claims that there are lots of good non-religious reasons to ban gay marriage. It lists three, all of which are disputable. Then it goes on to make its entire case solely on religious grounds. And this argument is supposed to convince me to abandon our Constitution? Do these people even understand the purpose of government?