Why is the Secular Coalition for America giving Justin Vacula — online bully, A Voice for Men contributor — a leadership position? [UPDATE: He’s resigned.]

Thomas, the fun thing about the internet is that nothing ever disappears! Vacula’s misdeeds are available for the whole world to see if they bother to look.

Now, why don’t you share with us why a person who has published an article on a hate site that targets a key demographic for an advocacy organization should be in a leadership role of said advocacy organization? And also why a person who has published private information about his ideological opponents online should have access to the membership roles (and thus to private data) of a large organization.

Thank you for bringing this issue to a wider audience. I just told my husband to make a donation. It’s heartening to know there are men out there fighting against misogyny.

@Ugh: Silly Ugh, don’t you realize that the people who call other people out on saying something stupid are the real hateful persons who deserve to have their careers cut short?

Is ftpansy B_n or Pell? I’m not sure.

… published private information about his ideological opponents

He didn’t publish private information. He published information everyone can find via google in a couple of minutes. Futrulle is distorting the truth.

Here’s his own account of the incident. http://www.justinvacula.com/2012/08/a-clarification-surly-amy.html

Personal responsibility, how does it work?

Only those people need to be personally responsible. The right kind of people just made a mistake and so stop trying to insist they face the music for their actions.

That is some seriously silly justification for him to post not only personal information about someone but photos of her actual home.

And all because the woman had the nerve, the NERVE I TELLS YA! to not kowtow to him.

@Thomas: Even if the data was publicly available, there’s no reason to post the name, address and photo. That’s the behavior of people who do want their readers to target the person they’re pointing at.

Intent — Is It Fucking Magic?

Whatever his intentions in posting the data, it created a threat because it made Surly Amy feel threatened. And his reaction to people telling him not to do things like that reads very much like “Jesus! Who pissed in y’all’s corn flakes?” And there is no word of apology there. He doesn’t admit he was wrong to make someone else feel threatened, it’s just a defense of his actions.

He doesn’t seem very likely to learn from the past.

All of that, on top of the fact that he joined in the crowing when Jen McCreight hung up her keyboard.

Thanks everybody! *high fives the other atheists 4 lyfe*

My theory, and I have only several years of observing parts of the atheist blogosphere to back it but not any hard data, is that the atheist movement tends to attract a) people who were formerly religious, for whom atheism is a big deal, who b) don’t have much else going on in their lives. I mean, there’s many non-White people and women and sexual minorities etc. who also have discovered atheism and presumably would benefit from the movement, but more of them would have more pressing oppressions to deal with than the often merely symbolic stuff that the atheist movement deals with.

This makes a lot of sense to me. Maybe it’s the same reason why a lot of vegetarians and vegans can be assholes about food and consumption in general. (We can be. I should know!)

I don’t have any answers for what to do about it, though.

Is ftpansy B_n or Pell? I’m not sure.

It’s not quite Pelly’s mo, I think. He pretends to be some awesome medical or legal expert usually, not somebody who can’t even click a Paypal button for themself. I can’t tell if it’s Bn or not.

At one time I considered getting involved in the atheist/skeptic community. That was right when the elevator meltdown started. Needless to say, I dropped that idea.

Rebecca is an idiotic, entitled, feminist, bitch. Which is why she was treated like like one. She choose to act like that so of course she was treated like what she is. If a man said something so stupid he would rightfully be ridiculed as well. Basically, she’s appauled at being treated like an equal for once in her life.

Women like Rebecca have an infantile mentality. She want’s to be treated like an infant. No one can criticize the poor, spoiled, little infant because she doesn’t know any better that the world doesn’t revolve around her precious whims. And then, just like the spoiled infant she is, she throws a temper tantrum and demands consolation while crying big ole crocodile tears.

Can you imagine having to listen to whatever tripe falls from her mouth and not being able to tell her to just shut up? Because if anyone dares to say anything to her now, a fresh temper tantrum will ensue, and the whole damned thing will start over again. Worst of all, now that people are forced to quitely listen to her ramblings. She’s even more obnoxious and spoiled than ever. This is what happens when you fail to disipline spoiled children, they become spoiled adults.

A couple of observations about atheist misogyny, not meant to be exhaustive but, I think, fairly sound that I haven’t seen mentioned already:

1. There is a contingent, small but very vocal, of right wing atheists. The Randian kind, usually. They tend to be the kind of libertarian we all knew in high school, a middle class and up white dude who was convinced of his own superiority to an astounding degree, sure that he alone was endowed with the wisdom the entire rest of human history had missed. It’s a type, and it exists within atheism.

2. Atheism is an expanding subculture/school of thought experiencing growing pains exacerbated by the internet. Any once tight-knit group that’s getting a new generation of interested participants is getting shaken up demographically and being introduced to new ideas, and there will always be a contingent of hardliners who resist change of the kind. Feminism has radfems and old-school second wavers who object to trans-inclusivity and intersectionality and are Naomi Wolf and other such sins, but they have power only in their own corners. In atheism, a lot of the core people with a lot of power (within the group) and can use that entrenched position to protest a growing movement where they aren’t the only important people anymore.

The exact same thing happens in nerd culture, which also shares traits like the belief that your having been picked on means no one else can ever accuse you of being mean and that you’re smarter than everyone else. There was, in fact, a recent blowup on the convention circuit about a guy with multiple harassment complaints being protected by the board of the con, even though some of the people he was harassing were female guest speakers. (Not that it would be any different morally to harass random female convention-goers. I just wanted to illustrate that these entrenched power structures are intimidating enough to keep the convention board from acting in its own self-interest to keep the actual celebrity guests happy.)

I bring up that specific story because it had a happy ending. Boycotts and resignations in protest eventually got the creep banned and those responsible for shielding him stepped down. There’s nothing unique about atheism’s issues, and eventually the bad guys lose when enough newcomers don’t accept their premise of being special and in charge.