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UPDATE: Vacula has resigned.
As most of you are no doubt aware, the atheist and skeptic movements have had just a teensy bit of a problem with misogyny in their ranks. You may recall the unholy shitstorm that erupted last year when Rebecca Watson of Skepchick casually mentioned in a YouTube video that it might not be such a good idea for dudes to try to hit on women in elevators at 4 AM. The assholes of the internet still haven’t forgiven Watson for her assault on the sacred right of creepy dudes to creep women out 24 hours a day, every day.
Watson is hardly the only skeptic to face vicious misogynist harassment for the crime of blogging while feminist. Last month, Jen McCreight of Blag Hag announced that near constant harassment from online bullies was wearing her down to such a degree that she felt it necessary to shut down her blog – hopefully only temporarily.
I can no longer write anything without my words getting twisted, misrepresented, and quotemined. I wake up every morning to abusive comments, tweets, and emails about how I’m a slut, prude, ugly, fat, feminazi, retard, bitch, and cunt (just to name a few). If I block people who are twisting my words or sending verbal abuse, I receive an even larger wave of nonsensical hate about how I’m a slut, prude, feminazi, retard, bitch, cunt who hates freedom of speech (because the Constitution forces me to listen to people on Twitter). This morning I had to delete dozens of comments of people imitating my identity making graphic, lewd, degrading sexual comments about my personal life. In the past, multiple people have threatened to contact my employer with “evidence” that I’m a bad scientist (because I’m a feminist) to try to destroy my job. I’m constantly worried that the abuse will soon spread to my loved ones.
I just can’t take it anymore.
McCreight’s harassers and their enablers were delighted in this “victory,” taking to Twitter to give McCreight some final kicks on the way out the door. “Good riddance, #jennifurret , you simple minded dolt,” wrote @skepticaljoe. “I couldn’t be happier,” added @SUICIDEBOMBS. “Eat shit you rape-faking scum.”
One of the celebrators that day was an atheist activist named Justin Vacula, who joked that “Jen’s allegedly finished blogging…and this time it’s not her boyfriend who kicked her off the internet.”
So here’s the latest twist:
Justin Vacula has just been given a leadership position in the Pennsylvania chapter of the Secular Coalition for America, a lobbying group for secular Americans whose advisory board includes such big names as Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Susan Jacoby, Wendy Kaminer, Steven Pinker, Salman Rushdie and Julia Sweeney.
It’s an astonishing choice. In addition to gloating that bullies had led McCreight to shut down her blog, Vacula has harassed atheist blogger and activist Surly Amy, including writing a post on A Voice for Men (yes, that A Voice for Men) cataloging all the sordid details of his supposed case against her. At one point he even posted her address, and a photo of her apartment building, on a site devoted to hating on feminist atheist bloggers.
Blogger Stephanie Zvan has set up a petition on Change.org urging the Secular Coalition of America to reconsider its choice. You can find further examples of Vacula’s questionable behavior there.
As Watson notes in a post on Skepchick, Vacula’s position with the SCA is likely to “drive progressive women away from the secular cause.” She adds,
I will never, ever get involved with SCA so long as someone like him holds a position of power anywhere, let alone in a state I live in. So Vacula is actively driving people away from SCA. …
It’s all a real shame, because SCA fills an important role in our movement and I’d like to give them my support. … I don’t believe secular organizations should reward bullies and bigots with high-level positions, even if those positions are volunteer-only.
I recommend that everyone here take a look at the petition.
Speaking of Ayn Rand, I recently read the The Fountainhead after being told by a reliably progressive and social-justice-aware friend that it was actually a pretty good book and much better than stuff like Atlas Shrugged. I didn’t think I would agree, but I decided it would be worth it to read the book and find out for myself, so at the very least my future mockery would be well-informed.
Spoiler alert: It was not worth it. It was so very not worth it.
I find many other personal beliefs held by others to be problematic besides religious ones. But I only take actual issue with beliefs that are used to act in ways that harm, kill or remove protections and rights for those deemed “unworthy” of them based on beliefs.
As I like to say, “I do not actually have to respect your beliefs as much as I respect your right TO your personal beliefs.”
It is a subtle difference, but the implications are much clearer in this stance. You can believe that your deity sends homosexuals to a fiery doom even if I find that belief awful. I do not have the right to come over and tell you that you are not allowed to believe that. However, if you begin trying to pass laws to make burning people at the stake legal if they are homosexuals, I will wholely fight that action because that goes beyond mere belief into a harmful action.
And my second to last post was ninja’d by Falconer. Ignore me then.
I think that oppression of atheists is extremely dependent on location. From the perspective of a US citizen, if you’re in, say, California, well okay, it’s probably not such a big deal. On the other hand, if you live in the Bible belt, maybe it is. But even in more liberal areas, Christian privilege is a thing; of course, there’s a difference between that and being “persecuted”.
There’s also the fact that your atheism isn’t going to be apparent unless you make it so, which means that there’s a lot of passing privilege going on here. And I think, Cassandra, that’s where you’re mistaken. Because even in liberal areas, being an outspoken, confrontational atheist gets you attacked, hated, blacklisted. I think there may be one single admitted (note the word “admitted”, since he was basically hounded until he gave them an answer) atheist senator in the US. Less than 70% of people would vote for an atheist Presidential candidate under any circumstances. Atheists are definitely an outgroup, again, speaking specifically from the perspective of an American.
falconer: If I understand correctly you are saying that people who say Ayn Rand is an atheist, ergo you are an asshole with no empathy are dickheads, and engaging in guilt by association, I agree.
I also think you aren’t saying I did that.
Mind you, I also think that people who do the reverse to theists are being dickheads.
It’s not what people hold in their heads that makes them douchnozzles, it’s what they do to others because of it.
I want to stress that. It’s the doing, not the thinking. Someone said that someone’s “sin” was saying something out loud. There is a grain of truth to that, sticks and stone make break my bones, but that heals a lot better than the wounds that abusive words can do.
This is always a touchy subject, because (on all sides, and there are at least four in play that I can see here; I’d guess there are at least as many sides as there are people observing the discussion) it’s touching core issues of people’s self.
It’s also touching on subjects which have history; often painful. Some of the most hateful things I’ve had to deal with are from asshole theists who tell me what’s wrong with how I see the numinous.
Often it’s done with malice; the lawyer who pretended an aspect of Roman Catholic doctrine was other than it was, in the hope I didn’t know better: when I handed him his ass (with less restraint than I used with Otis; because there was some longer history), he said he knew the truth of it, but he was trying to score points with the ignorant in the audience (which was stupid, he’d have better served himself by pretending to be ignorant, but his pride was wounded by the way the person who asked phrased it).
I figure Pascal had it backwards. If there is a God, we can’t really apprehend it. So the thing to do is make the world as good as it can be, and trust that God will understand. If that’s not good enough, well there’s no way to sort one God out from all the rest, and we’re fucked anyhow.
I don’t expect an afterlife, and I don’t live my life to get a good one. Heaven (and Hell) are what we make them; here on earth.
I think that this is also where people fall into problematic thinking regarding religion. Many religious people do not understand that religious persecution is NOT what happens when a religious group is barred from enacting homophobic legislation or doing illegal things in the name of their religious beliefs.
Belief is a personal, internal thing. Actions based on beliefs are subject to laws and rules in your country of residence. Using religion as a shield against bejng called out for hurting or oppressing people is just as bad as using the appearance of rationality to hurt and oppress people.
So, on the first page of comments, I made a quick note about how people tend to see the prejudice they face as the dominant one and then get mad if and when other people point out other (generally objectively worse) prejudices. Apparently the Troll Without A Name decided to troll me instead of y’all I hope no one minds me sharing his comment here, because I don’t really want to leave it languishing on my unused blog.
Have at. I need to go find some cute sloth videos now.
“What the hell is so wrong with people having faith because it gives them “the warm fuzzies” anyway?”
I’m sure that amway doesn’t ruin the life of every person who joins, but I won’t respect amway or the special warm fuzzies members get from their faith that they will be millionaires someday. You are forgetting that religion isn’t just about individual people and their feelings, it is also about sociopathic monsters preying on other people for wealth (and sometimes sex/power/whatever). People deserve all the facts before making a decision and religions themselves will never give it to them honestly.
Have you ever talked with someone who had to choose between paying their tithing and diapering their babies? I have. They chose tithing. Its some ugly shit.
Very, very true. One of those most frustrating things for me in observing the reaction to Akin and his comments is that a lot of people appear to be brushing him off as someone outside of the norm when it comes to politically active religious conservatives. But, the attitudes he espouses are not outside of the norm in certain conservative circles. In fact, the attitude that there is “real rape” and “not real rape” is something that feminists immediately recognize as being sadly mainstream. Our current VP pick even drafted legislation with Akin last year that attempted to redefine “forcible rape.” There’s some scary Handmaid’s Tale level stuff going on right now.
Isn’t a lot of this about behaviour rather than attitudes? For example, If someone is a Xtian and they are pro-gay marriage, anti-racism, recycle, volunteer at rest homes, etc, then surely they’re a nice person?
It’s not the belief, it’s what you do with it that counts. If a person is nice, then it doesn’t matter whether they are theist or not, anyone who is concerned with that one aspect is missing the wider picture.
I like that. One thing I point out if someone whips out a version of Pascal’s Wager at me is to point out that God would probably be smart enough to figure out if someone is believing in Him “just in case,” and considering all the wrathiness of the Old Testament, I’m not sure He’d really be so down with it.
I may never eat roast duck again.
I once knew someone who chose not to have enough food in order to donate to the Red Cross. That doesn’t make the Red Cross evil or that nobody should donate to them. I’ve known plenty of people who have chosen relatively unessential things like alcohol, concerts, video games or movies over more essential things like groceries, rent and bills. That doesn’t mean everyone who plays video games is a deluded idiot who shouldn’t exist.
Also, yes, some people do use religion to justify doing horrible things. Some people use all kinds of things to justify doing horrible things. Some people will always want to do horrible things, and if religion is taken away from them, they’ll find something else. Look at all the atheist evo psych proponents who advocate for the exact same shit as “Patriarchy” Christians, only under the guise of “science sez” instead of “God sez.”
Have you ever talked with someone who had to choose between paying their tithing and diapering their babies? I have. They chose tithing. Its some ugly shit.
Literally, I would imagine. 🙂
I have known disabled people on SSI who tithe and then go hungry for part of the month as a result. Their pastor urged them to continue tithing in spite of their obvious poverty. That’s just so fucking irresponsible I can’t even find words to describe it.
Also, it wasn’t one of those churches that have soup kitchens or do other charity work, so these indigent parishioners weren’t getting anything back in terms of assistance from the church. But they go door-to-door doing “soul winning” every week, since that’s more important apparently than feeding the hungry.
@Pecunium: I’m sorry, I brought up the guilt by association and poisoning the well because the troll was screaming about them earlier, and I guess I didn’t make it clear I was being a bit snarky.
Yeah, people should have … not a right, per se … the ability to be assholes without other people thinking third parties are also assholes because they go to the same church.
Maybe I should turn that around and say, one shouldn’t think someone who shares trait X with someone else is an asshole because that other person is an asshole.
But if that other person gets up in front of a lot of people and flashes his ass and says assholish things, and gets cheered for it, and other people pay good money to go listen to him say assholish things, then generally I’m all for allowing as those cheering people are assholes.
Except, again, the problem there is with actions, not beliefs. The reason caring for one’s child should take precedence over giving needed money away is not “because believing in God is stupid!” but rather “because children require care.” That child is just as un-cared-for regardless of whether the money needed for its care was given to a church or to the Museum of Natural History or to its father’s uncle’s friend’s new business venture.
Who’s “we”? I mean, I am with you 100% but I daresay that at least 80% of the world is not going to follow this principle in practice(no matter what they may say). Religion is much more complex and multifaceted than most of the commenters to this particular blog post seem to realize. Faith is only the tip of the iceberg. Religion is an institution that has served a crucial function since the dawn of civilization: Justifying the status quo and maintaining the social order.
EXACTLY!
The desire to assert that you and those who think like you are superior to those who don’t is all part of social competition. And in a society like Amurca which was founded on the spirit of competition, this kind of behavior is to be expected and even encouraged.
Hah! I hardly ever ninja anyone. Sorry if I stepped on your toes.
So doesn’t the issue then become dealing with the sociopathic monsters directly? Since when did it become appropriate or rational to criticise an entire group on the basis of some members of that group? If one wants to go down that path, then atheists as a group can be described as misogynistic, feminists as a group can be described as misandrist.
There is no group, ever, that will been seen in a positive light if the actions of a minority are used to paint the majority. And that’s the key: are the behaviour/attitudes relating to a minority or a majority? This is how one tells the difference, for example, between a hate group and an activist group with some problematic members.
@mordsithJ: farmed duck should be safe.
Falconer: no worries. Discussions about religion/atheism/scepticism/agnosticism are full of people using those fallacies.
Manboobz has not been immune from it.
And when someone cheers an asshole, or lends his assholishness to some other assholes cause (as Vacula did) then they are assholes. And those who cheer them for it, are assholes.
And the specific movement they belong to is probably got assholes in it. The smaller the group the more likely it is that all of them are assholes. The larger the group (and the more complex the issues that group is involved in), the more likely that not all members are assholes; make the two areas large enough (tens of thousands of people, lots of areas of interest) and some will even be completely non-assholes (e.g. the Republican Party).
Which is a problem, because the aims of the Republican Party are, IMO, pretty much inseperable, from a lot of asshole shit. The non-assholes have a problem. They can leave, and it gets worse, they can work to change it, and vote their conscience, or they can be apathetic, and “go-along to get along”.
Religion (as opposed to faith) is even more problematic when it tells people to oppress others, for the good of the “soul” of the devout.
That’s evil.
But it’s not inherently an aspect of either religion, or faith. It’s not even the sole purview of religion; as it’s a tenet of lots of political movements (and I’ve seen aspects of the, “x must be supported, even if we, as individuals suffer, in [what I see as] extremist political movements, many of which use the same tools of faith to exploit their members).
@kakanian:
“Seems like he did it to prove a point.”
Aha. Thank you for the explanation.
Of course, as I expected, it’s bullshit. If he merely wished to prove a point, he could have done so innocuously, in a way that would not be seen as an invitation to harass.
But he did it this way. At minimum, he was counting coup … but it’s more likely that he wanted it to be a real threat.
This.
Also this.
I’m not talking about judging religions. I’m talking about the idea of judging people as flawed for belief, not actions, religious or secular.
I don’t think it’s just a matter of majority vs. minority; I think disproportionate influence and power structures are important, too. If only a small minority of a group are assholes, but those assholes are the ones calling the shots for the organization as a whole, then I think it does make sense to judge the organization based on those few. Of course, it probably makes even more sense to distinguish between those in power and those lacking it, although that might vary based on situation and context.