GOP candidate: Stoning Homosexuals, No Problem It’s In The Bible

Tea Party state House candidate Scott Esk clarified his thinking recently when asked why he felt homosexuality was worthy of capital punishment:

That was done in the Old Testament under a law that came directly from God and in that time there it was totally just. It came directly from God. I have no plans to reinstitute that in Oklahoma law. I do have some very huge moral misgivings about those kinds of sins.

His original posts on a Facebook last year were:

That [stoning gay people to death] goes against some parts of libertarianism, I realize, and I’m largely libertarian, but ignoring as a nation things that are worthy of death is very remiss.

At the time stating:

I never said I would author legislation to put homosexuals to death, but I didn’t have a problem with it.

 

On his campaign website he states:

I am running for HD91 because I believe in the principles that made our state and nation great and unique in history – and I want to protect those principles. I believe that rights come from God – not from government – and that it should be limited, its taxes and spending should be low, its regulations few, and its protection of our liberties constant.

Our rights are not dependent on the writings, whether holy or constitutional, of people long since dead. They depend on the thinking of the living.

Dear Oklahoma please do not vote for a brain dead candidate.

Source of Facebook quotes Slate

Article written by John Sargeant on Homo economicus’ Weblog

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Pope Francis Is Not The Person of The Year

It seems you can get away with saying homosexuals should not be judged for being gay, while stating secular governments that try to allow gay couples to adopt are allowing child abuse, and in league with the devil. That (only) having gay sex is wrong, while actively campaigning to prevent equal marriage being law. That life is sacred, while preventing the widespread availability of contraceptives means people end up dying of sexually transmitted diseases. Denying abortions in life threatening situations to women – let alone the audacity that the church should tell women to listen when it will not even empower women to speak with authority in the clergy. Check your privilege, that you dare to lecture on family values with the thousands of children abused under your auspices.

A picture paints a thousand words. So photos of Pope Francis kissing disfigured people, kissing prisoner’s feet, make him a harder target. Leaks that he goes out at night to help the homeless anonymously, make him so much softer compared to his predecessor. Even some of my fellow atheists, wooed that he says we can do good and should join with the faithful to find world peace, are in awe of a man that Time called Person of the Year 2013.

Pope Francis is hailed as a reformer – but disfellowships a priest who was pro women being ordained in the church and gay marriage should dispel this notion. Atheists may be able to do good, as if we took seriously those who say we cannot, but without that sprinkle of water and accepting of the church we are still dammed. No good shall save us for rejecting the Vatican.

Pope Francis has made himself, rather than the Vatican and the Catholic Church, the story. We do not have to question his sincerity, the source of his influence in the media age, which makes him not just the ultimate public relations man and salesman, but the right man at the right time for the papacy. He inspires, he says the right words, and it is lapped up by people who would look up to other mammals for motivation to be good, rather than think for themselves that maybe what is actually being promoted by the Vatican is killing and harming millions.

Regarding asking atheists to join in the pursuit of peace with the religious – as if we were all too busy watching Christopher Hitchens on youtube to play a part – an answer comes from fifth grader Zachary Golob-Drake:

The world’s major religions all have messages about coexisting. But oftentimes people have found a way to bend that rule; sometimes people even use religion as an excuse to take each other’s lives. The three major religions on the earth include the Eastern religions, Islam, and Christianity. About one billion people live by the Eastern religions; about 1.4 billion are Muslim; and about 2.3 billion are Christians. Religious differences have always sparked conflict, even leading to warfare and mass murder. [Source]

Zachary was very nearly denied the prize his speech was awarded because it was contentious to suggest that religion fails to live up to the rhetoric of peace, but seems more concerned with telling people how to live – and to hell with the suffering that ensues.

Hence the meme I created in response to the Pope’s invitation to join him in finding peace:

The issues are too serious, and the suffering too widespread, to bury the hatchet because someone says nice things, posing piously while it is business as usual as people die because of the doctrines of the Vatican. For the sake of humanity, leave the world free from your doctrines to reach the best medical decisions, women to make their own choices and the voice to speak out, and for consenting adults to be able to practise safer sex.

Then I assure you, the world will be more peaceful.

Article written by John Sargeant on Homo economicus’ Weblog

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Being born a Lesbian

Sappho expressed her love for women via poetry while on the island of Lesbos – though she committed suicide over a man in the 7th century BC. People from Lesbos are called Lesbians – and want to continue to do so without the rest of us chuckling.

Hence have some of the modern day inhabitants gone to the Greek courts to demand that the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece go and change their name. No doubt a refusal will lead to new poems being written, in anger rather than love about the global same love of modern women.

They claim that the Greek government now refers to the island after it’s capital of Mytilini. These proud people want to be happy (do not call them gay) Lesbians, and wish their human rights protected against the sexual definition that we all use the world over.
Of all the social problems a community of 100,000 could be suffering from, I cannot believe that this is a real issue. It seems that their response is like trying to lay leather around the whole world so they feel comfortable travelling rather than the obvious answer of wearing leather on their feet – i.e. change the name of the island to Mytilini. Or else just accept that there is a double meaning, and be proud of a love that for much of history dared not speak its name for fear of a genuine social ill – repression of people based on sexual orientation. That really is a breach of human rights.

There is also the Gay tourist market that they could embrace. But this could be a balance of payments issue for the island. Maybe they want to be the only country that can export Lesbians. They already have a comparative advantage in terms of the history and island name.

Inspired by the people of Lesbos I am trying to have homosexuality defined as a none sexual term as it confuses people over Homo sapiens, and causes me distress as people think my pseudo name of Homo econonomicus is a reference to my own sexual orientation, rather than a homage to economics and biology. It causes much distress when women (and more so men) mistakenly think this is my orientation and even when countered prevents any hopes of congress due to existing preconceptions – a clear breach of my human rights.

Hopefully this nonsense will soon be put to rest, and maybe the thing that really matters will come into focus – the poetry of Sappho herself and love that in many cases dare not speak its name. To close here is her poem “Please”.

Please

Come back to me, Gongyla, here tonight,
You, my rose, with your Lydian lyre.
There hovers forever around you delight:
A beauty desired.

Even your garment plunders my eyes.
I am enchanted: I who once
Complained to the Cyprus-born goddess,
Whom I now beseech

Never to let this lose me grace
But rather bring you back to me:
Amongst all mortal women the one
I most wish to see.

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