Who remembers the Ragstory editorial suggesting that atheists be purged from the party?

[beam me up scottie]

Who can forget how many of our friends and allies told us we were upset over nothing?

How our outrage was mocked?

How we were called liars after rs changed the text and wouldn't admit it?

How many had to take a break after that? I know I did.



Here's one of my posts from that lovely part of DU history:

The people who couldn't wait to use this issue to accuse and malign atheists and to justify their bias against us, are the same type of people who repeatedly use the illegal immigration issue to accuse and malign racial minorities and to justify their bias against them.

They're called bigots.

And I find their behaviour repulsive, unethical and contrary to liberal principles no matter who they are targeting.



I want to thank all of the believers on DU who spoke up for us.

I know from personal experience it's not exactly easy to take a stand when you're not the one who's being held responsible for driving away moderates and costing us elections.

It's always easier, especially during an election year, to look away and pretend you didn't notice that minorities with unpopular causes were being purged by the self-appointed ringmasters in the big tent.



As for the rest of the people who think we are overreacting to business as usual, fuck you.

I hope when you're being told to sit down and shut up, there's nobody left to stand up for you.

I will never forget, I will never treat GLBT DUers the way we were treated, and I will not stay silent.

[NMMNG]

1. I do

Sadly what we experienced then, and what we LGBT people are being put through yet again is par for the course. It reminds me why I don't spend much time at DU any more. I'm tired of scrubbing tire tracks off my body.

It's nice to see you again though...

[charlie]

2. Oh no

Is that what's kept you away? That sucks... I'm really sorry you've had a hard time. The chuckleheads are far outnumbered, don't let them harsh your day.

I'm happy to see both of you here. I hope you and Scottie will come around more often.

[NMMNG]

12. Yeah

I could only take being called a racist, traitor, whiny, self-centered such and such so many times before I'd had enough. Then I come back and it isn't long before I see one of those "your rights just aren't that important because (there are starving children in China/there's a war going on/the economy sucks/the Superbowl is on/whatever) so STFU and wait until we decide you should get yours" posts that make me wonder what I was thinking.

[WhollyHeretic]

14. C'mon Buffy. If you just shut up and stop complaining about the bus until the election everything

will be roses.

Oh wait...


:yoiks:

[NMMNG]

18. Yeah, but there's the re-election to worry about

We can't go farking that up for him, can we? And what about the Congressional elections? We don't want Teh Gay Agenda interfering with those. Perhaps after we get a 98% majority in Congress and another Dem president! :sarcasm:

[Strong Atheist]

27. "there are starving children in China/there's a war going

on/the economy sucks/the Superbowl is on/whatever)"

I have a great reply planned for that this weekend and will invite you along!

[Joe the Liberal]

3. Bwahahahahahaha......

your user name is hilarious :rofl:

[moggie]

5. It's been ugly

As a white guy, if I read dozens or hundreds of black writers claiming that a particular piece of behaviour is racist, I don't think that my first reaction would be to tell them that they're all wrong. As a straight guy, I'm not ready to totally give up on Obama, despite being greatly offended by the Warren affair. But I'm not going to twist the knife for LGBT DUers by telling them, from my lofty privileged straight white male and-therefore-correct viewpoint, how they should feel. I'm going to listen, and empathise, and maybe learn about things which they experience daily but which are normally invisible to me.

Before the election, I thought: if McSame wins, I'll need to take an immediate and long break from DU, because the place will be crazy (not that this was high on my "oh shit the world is so fucked" list of priorities). And if Obama wins, I'll probably need to take a break sometime in late January or early February, because he'll do something which shows he's not the progressive messiah so many DUers want to believe he is, and it'll get ugly. I never expected it to happen so early!

[NMMNG]

13. Sadly some of us rather expected it would happen immediately

We hoped to be proven wrong, but we held very low hopes for Obama given his trends and he lived right down to them. Oh well, we lived through 8 years of Bush I suppose we can live through this....

[beam me up scottie]

6. I'm sorry Buffy, I can only imagine how betrayed you must feel.

The Ragstory issue was pretty much confined to R/T, but we can't go anywhere on DU without running into the "I Got Mine" brigade.

[NMMNG]

15. They are some nasty, hateful ones

I never expected to find them among the Dems but lately it's getting harder and harder to tell Dems and Rethugs apart. Maybe it's all that "reaching out" that's causing it. We spent 7 years denouncing the RRRW and suddenly we're supposed to embrace them and form coalitions with them. :wtf:

[beam me up scottie]

17. At least in 2004 they could claim that we lost the election because of teh gays and atheists.

This time we fucking won and they're still telling us to stfu and get off the bus.

[NMMNG]

19. Just like in 2006

Supposedly the NJ Domestic Partnerships decision was going to lose the Congressional majority deal for the Dems and even when it didn't the asshats didn't let up on us. We're always under the bus and told we don't matter whether or not they win. That's just one of their excuses so as to not feel guilty ignoring our rights.

[awoke_in_2003]

20. From Animal Farm...

"No question now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

[Evoman]

8. Honestly, I've been shitloads angrier about this anti-gay bullshit than the anti-atheist shit.

I'm thinking of taking a break too...you can only say fuck you so many times before you start wondering if there is any point staying. With people like you coming here less and less, it makes taking a break all that much easier.

Even above all the anti-gay, anti-atheist bullshit, what really gets my goat is the fucking hero worship. We spent long enough being told by authoritarian fuck-heads to "trust our leaders"...I don't need to hear that shit from the left too. I don't fucking trust any politcian, and a person who follows a leader, scrapping and bowing, as he fucks over his supporters, is no friend of mine.

[moggie]

9. The hero worship can be hard to take

Obama's the latest, and most extreme, recipient of that, but there have been others. Kerry in 2004 was a hero up to the moment he conceded, and it always seemed disproportionate to his qualities. In 2006, Pelosi was on the pedestal: that didn't last too long! Is the American left just less cynical about their party than those of us elsewhere? Here in the UK, I associate this kind of worship with the right: think of the cult of Thatcher, for example. Us lefties are harder to please. How about Canadians?

[Evoman]

21. Canadians are cynical as fuck. It's easy when your "leaders" are fucking tools.

The problem with the U.S. system, that you don't see as much with the parliamentary system, is that the President has both POWER and is a FIGUREHEAD. Not really the same in a parliamentary system, where the joker who gets to be PM is the one that a bunch of other jack-asses chose to lead their bullshit party.

I'm cynical as fuck....when people get gooey over politicians, I feel like hitting them over the head with a Clue by four. People who WANT to be president, by the fact that they want power and have done all sorts of unsavoury things to get it, are automatically douchebags.

I'll support a guy who makes decision I agree with, but I'll be damned if I let anyone "lead" me or ask me for their loyalty. My loyalty is reserved for my family and friends.

[enlightenment]

22. It is a fascinating bit of social psychology, isn't it?

Sometimes I think Hamilton was right - America needed a king to serve as that figurehead (asking Charles Stewart probably wasn't the best choice, though).

Where a figurehead exists, it's easier to dismiss them as irrelevant; there seems to be a human need for one though, because where we don't have one, we try to create one.

[NMMNG]

16. Me too

Mainly because I encounter it far more than the anti-atheist stuff and it invades my life to a much greater extent. It's so hideously well-developed and pervasive the way people have talking points memorized and lists of BS rhetoric to pass out (or cut/paste) on a whim.

Sadly I wouldn't be surprised if after they wiped out rights for LGBTs they came after the atheists. After all, we're against God and this is "one nation under God" blah blah blah.

[varkam]

23. Hey Buffy, long time no see.

:pals:

[trotsky]

4. Yup, there's been plenty o' shit around here lately.

The Warren incident, the McClurkin one, the "purge the atheists" one - how many times do we get to re-experience the intolerance from our fellow liberals?

[beam me up scottie]

7. The Obama fan boys, shit stirrers and closet homophobes are out in force.

We served our purpose in November and now we're expected to shut up and get off the bus.

Again.

[WhollyHeretic]

10. I'm sickened by some of the stuff I've seen here recently

I think I'm pretty close to done with this site between the homophobes and the people who pitch a fit if you dare to criticize Obama. I can't imagine what GLBT DUers must be feeling.

[Lost-in-FL]

11. It seems that there is no end to it.

People keep feeding into this like a corpse thrown into a pool full of sharks.

This is the worse I have seen this place so far.

[skepticscott]

24. I must have missed that

But seeing what's gone on lately, I can imagine. Makes me realize more and more that the average, typical DUer just isn't someone I'd like to be good buddies with. Too much naivete and intellectual shallowness, too much cluelessness about free speech and "toleration" and not enough simply standing up for what's right, as opposed to what seems expedient. Guess I just have trouble making friends and playing nice with others...

BTW, nice to see you Buffy :-)

[Odin2005]

25. My reaction to this BS comes from me being both an Atheist and a high functioning Autistic.

I'm used to otherwise good people telling me I'm going to Hell and have "no right to celebrate Christmas" because I'm an Atheist, or that I've been "poisoned by vaccines" and can be "cured" from my Asperger's Syndrome (the latter bigotry comes from many posters here on DU). It's not because such people are evil monsters, it's because they are well-meaning people that are very, very misguided. I don't call the anti-vaccine nuts evil monsters, so why should I call a misguided fool that things homosexuality can be "cured" a monster?

Attack the meme, don't let hate take over and start attacking the person who is a mere host for the meme instead. Instead wee should keep a dialogue with such people. the chance of changing those people's opinions is slim, but they are not the main target, the main target should be the children, so the meme doesn't get a chance to replicate and jump to the next generation. If you shun such people they will insulate themselves, and therefore insulate their kids from the outside, making it more likely those kids will grow up to be homophobes.

[Strong Atheist]

26. "Who remembers the Ragstory editorial"

A-heh.
Aha.


BWA HA HA HA HA Hiccup Sob


.... ah, that would be funny if it wasn't so painful:


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1027369


BTW, I am going to rock the boat on the GLBT issue over this weekend in GD. I will will invite you along when I do.

[beam me up scottie]

28. I am sorry, I'm still bitter and I know how much it sucks to dredge up those memories.

But I believe we have an obligation to remember, just like all veterans. Atheists can't turn our backs on our glbt friends.

I love it when you rock the boat but do be careful, the mods have been enforcing the 'no rallying the troops' rule.

I still have issues with authority but I've redeemed myself on DU and would hate to see you repeat my mistakes, SA, we need you too much.

[Strong Atheist]

29. Ok, won't "rally the troops". Will just post Saturday. However,

look for a PM then. ;-)

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

35. I'm trying to steal your thunder in GD. It's because I'm envious.

I want a raging psycho lashing out at me too.

[Strong Atheist]

36. Sorry. Did not see this till now. Kicked it! nt.

[Starry Messenger]

37. Whoops.

Sorry, then. Because I totally agreed with you. :)

[Strong Atheist]

30. One kick deserves another.

;-)

[LeftishBrit]

31. Did someone actually say...

that atheists need to be purged from the Dem party???

[beam me up scottie]

33. You've seen it here.

The codeword "secular extremist" is a dead giveaway. Teh gays have an "agenda" and are part of the problem too.

We are supposed to stfu and stop embarrassing the Dems or we'll be blamed for any future losses, just like we were blamed for the past.

Believe me, the last thing I want to think about is that hateful time, but if we don't remember and learn, aren't we complicit?

I was going to post links to those threads and blog entries but I'm sorry I brought it up, I thought enough time had passed, obviously that's not true.

And I don't need to remind you guys to stand up for minorities, do I? :)

[salvorhardin]

34. In so many words

Quoting:

...in a nation comprised predominantly of those who believe in some sort of supreme being, our success as a movement depends on disavowing the secular extremist as a legitimate voice of the left. Finally, our commitment to truth demands we counter the fallacies being perpetuated in our name.

The article was later, after a huge expression of outrage by godless bloggers, edited:

...in a nation comprised predominantly of those who believe in some sort of supreme being, our success as a movement depends on disavowing the atheist extremist as a legitimate voice of the left. Finally, our commitment to truth demands we counter the fallacies being perpetuated in our name.

The author, and editor, then claimed that all us mean bloggers were lying. Then they accused PZ Myers of plagiarism for quoting the author.

Oh, and in what I thought was a funny moment, the author ended up voting for McCain:

So, I'm voting McCain/Palin. With a balanced government and two leaders with a strong history of moderate, bipartisan rule, our country will be a lot better off and that's what matters.
http://liberalsinexile.blogspot.com/2008/11/putting-country-first.html

If you're interested, the sordid affair is chronicled in the archives of my site.
http://archives.neuralgourmet.com/2006/04/23/et_tu_brute

[Deep13]

32. +1