Only YOU Can Save The World (If Not You, Who Else?)

I was most fortunate to have two friends who were Methodist ministers, both very open-minded and very loving people. 

They frequently took heavy fire for being welcoming of gay folks, and even people of other faiths, and for standing up against haters in their own ranks. 

The fact that I left Christianity to follow a Pagan path never meant that they weren't my friends any more, or that they suddenly would try to change me. Instead, they continued to be good friends. It's always a pleasure to count Christians like that among my friends. But what about the others?

Book Review: 'The Pink Agenda' by Christine Mc Cafferty & Peter Hammond

I read this item a number of years ago. Twice. Seeing it listed on Goodreads.com made me see red, and prompted me to write a review on it. 

The lies and hatred contained within it's pages made me so angry that I had to keep putting it down and take regular breaks to avoid ripping this disgusting item into itty-bitty pieces and burning each one while singing something energetic involving a lot of hand-actions and expletives. 

St Marks 'Is Gay Okay?' - A Rebuttal

This past Monday I reported on the "Sex in the City" discussion which was advertised in the Weekend Post by St Marks Congregational church, being on the question "Is Gay Okay?" The elusive answer was buried among layers of propaganda and subterfuge, masked by verbose tap-dancing, foot-shuffling and showmanship - and turned out to be a somewhat muffled "no". 

I'm not normally given to re-posting private conversations, but I thought that this occasion warranted it. First, to show that there were no ill-feelings between myself and St Marks - or at least, between myself and Reverend Claassen; and second, to show, post facto, that civil dialog had indeed taken place. The intensity - and to borrow a word from the good reverend - the conviction I felt while writing my response to him - and in writing this article, I felt, swayed me to post it here. I feel it reflects in my words, and I hope they penetrate - not just by getting through to the reverend - but to Christians, churches and their related groups everywhere which continue to separate and to isolate and denigrate people based on a self-defined need to be "right", judgmental and self-righteous - and where this results in hardship, cruelty and harm to others.

Read Between The Lies

In a somewhat unusual move for me, I went to a church service on Sunday 18 Aug - unusual because I am not a Christian and haven't been since I renounced the religion and all its tenets in 2010, and have affiliated with Pagan religion in the meantime. 

On the bright side, at least I didn't actually burst into flames.

I didn't go there because I had a sudden change of heart, nor because I needed to take my mother to her church. No, I went because this church, St Marks Congregational, had placed an advertisement in a public newspaper, the Weekend Post, headlined "Is Gay Okay?" 

Knowing the conservative right-wing nature of most evangelical charismatic churches in Port Elizabeth, I decided to go and see what they were about, and what they meant by their question - and the placement of something that should not even be questioned any more in my view, given the modern scientific and human rights rationale.

Uganda Again Set To Pass 'Kill The Gays Bill' - Followed by Nigeria

What can I say about this, folks - except "I told you so"? 

I've warned about it since I first started this activist blog, after all. 

SAPS 'Occult Related Crimes Unit': A Christo-fascist Threat To Religious Minorities In South Africa

Over the past week a serious issue has come to light over the reformation of the SA Police's "Occult Related Crime" units. In a press release last week, the South African Pagan Rights Alliance, representing the Pagan community of South Africa, revealed that the SAPS is forming these units to address so-called "occult related crimes", based on information obtained from a SAPS internal memo. 

The Right Fundamentals?

The question often arises in my mind, when dealing with biblical literalists and fundamentalists, exactly WHAT their fundamentals are? What is it that makes them stand at the head of a crowd and whip them into a frenzy, spitting hatred for others - and doing so in the name of a god they claim is a god of love, and who is the personification of this all too cheap, commercialized emotion?

Self-Hatred Is Not Therapy

My good friend Tanya and I were having a chat yesterday. She's a straight Christian friend to a pan-romantic transsexual dark Pagan - me. Our chat took the direction of discussing Christian gay people who believe they are condemned to Hell because of their inborn sexuality. I thought I would add my two cents using some information I have been collecting over a number of years, pretty much because I have been fighting a war of words with people who seek to condemn gays, lesbians, bi's and transgender people to "Hell" from a "Christian" perspective.

Down Memory Lane

The following is an article I wrote back in 2010, and which was published by the National Secular Society (UK). 

I was reminded of it again this past week in an email, and thought as it didn't appear on my blog "Sour Grapes: The Fruit of Ignorance" the first time, now would be a good time to look back at how we got to this place in South African history, with conservatives vying to be the first to rip and tear human rights protection clauses out of the Constitution. 

Of course, since I have been writing and distributing my articles and warnings since 2008, there is a certain amount of "I told you so" in re-posting this article. Nevertheless, here it is, for your reading pleasure:

The Burning Question

A general look at similarities between some persecuted minority groups in SA, based upon differences in  race, sexual orientation, and religion or spiritual beliefs - and the similarities in the methodology of their persecution.

In this article I will broadly discuss my perception of the current situation in South Africa, in conjunction with general reference to "the Stanton Report", a model which assesses the make-up of a genocide, and to which the UN also refers. Broadly, the Stanton Report, developed and presented to the UN in 1996, demonstrates the different stages of the development of social discrimination into a full-blown genocide. There are 8 of these stages in the model, and these show how the removal of civil rights and legal protections of a social minority group is usually followed by vilification and persecution of that group, and that the persecution of the group is the real intended goal of removing such legal protections in the first place. 

SA Govt Discusses Removal Of Sexual Orientation From Constitution

An article in the Beeld newspaper yesterday explains that there is a move in government encouraging the removal of sexual orientation protection clauses from the SA Constitution. 

Not to say "I told you so", but I've been warning about this eventuality for the past 5 years.

...So, "I fucking told you so!" 

The takeaway from this fact is this: A) There is a government body actually spending official time, money and resources to entertain a band of religious fundamentalist fanatics who have for years been pressuring government to remove constitutional human rights protections from the SA Constitution. B) a body which falls under the mandate of the SA Constitution and has a duty to DEFEND it, is ostensibly giving government support and serious consideration to what amounts to un-Constitutional efforts which would not only violate the human rights of a significant portion of SA citizens - but would also stand in contradiction to several important UN mandates on human right as well

 

This is cause for significant concern indeed. 

 

Should this farcical business deliver any rotten fruit, it would set in motion a cascade-effect that would collapse the culture of human rights protections for numerous communities.

So You Think You're A Good Person?

Self-acceptance -  the acceptance of the person we are, with whatever defects and flaws - imperfections - and even our perfections, determines who we are and who we become. How can we work towards becoming anything else if we don't even know who we are now? How can you chart a course from A to B if you don't even know where A is, or where B is in relation to you? If you don't even know what your own strengths and weaknesses - and character flaws are - how can you know what to work on, and where to improve, and what to leave behind?

Whatever we are now, we all began as something else. Personally, I'm far more partial to the view that "I am what I choose to accept I am", and "I am what I want to be". 

I am what I am. Nice sentiment that. But is it that simple? 

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

WARNING - contains honest opinion of the author about ChristianISM (i.e. Christian terrorism), righteous indignation, and some good, down to earth home truths. 

The willfully ignorant may be offended.

Traditional Hatred

What an interesting holiday season this has been! 

Three weeks went by so fast that I once again find myself writing the first article for the new year! 

I hope you all had a wonderful time, and whether or not the silly season held any special or even religious significance for you, I hope it was peaceful and filled with love and the company of not just family and friends - but people you really wanted to spend time with, and hopefully, enjoyed their company.

Challenges of Life

I believe where it is SAFE to do so, transgender people should be out and proud. And where it isn't safe, they should be proud if not out - and they should still work for equality, dignity and human rights so that they - and the generations that are to come - one day can be out. Nobody cares about people they don't know about, folks. 

When people don't remind folks that they really do exist, the haters, purists and bigots like to believe and pretend that they don't.

Kicking The Crutch

The world around us is filled with people who are selfish, cocky and arrogant about their own religious beliefs. I say not these things because I resent the pride others take in their religion, but because the pride some of them take in their choice of beliefs boils over into a hatred of the religious choices of others who choose differently to them, and into persecution of those who dare to do so.

Will Somebody Please Think Of The Children?

I regularly meet a friend of mine, who is a Christian reverend, for drinks at a local coffee shop. We enjoy casual chats about religion, persecution and human needs and frailties. He mentioned to me that there is no ONE Christianity, but many, and that today there are more than 200 different formally identified "mainstream" denominations - or "churches" around the world. Ironically, each one considers itself to be the ONE TRUE Christianity, or at least, the face of it.

It Makes Sense, Doesn't It?

If you look at all the weird and wonderful new Bills being tabled in South Africa these days - there is little doubt in my mind that the Constitution and the freedoms contained within it - are clearly under assault. 

And those of us whose civil rights and equality are protected by those very clauses in the Constitution which are under assault, somehow seem unaware that we fill the sights and scopes on the weapons being directed against us by those who would chip away at our equality.

We Make Hate Great

Tolerance. Equality. Individual freedom. The right to self-expression. These are the things that make democracy great. These are the things that make life worth living.

And yet many people who claim to support these ideals, really do not. While they claim to, they see equality as something they are deserving of, while simultaneously they view anyone they do not personally approve of trying to gain equality with them as an attack on their own superior and privileged social positions. 

 

They distort facts and ideologies to serve their elitist and supremacist ideals, and hijack democracy in order to preserve a social order where words like "love" and concepts like "good" and "evil", and even terms like "family" and "marriage" become tools to exclude fellow human beings from equal, decent and humane treatment - and as weapons to destroy them.

Yes, Wiccan

I drive a Mazda, but I still know what a Mercedes Benz looks like. 

 

I have had Beetles, a Kombi, a Renault, a Toyota and a Golf as well. I realize they are all cars, and I at least have an idea of what makes each of them different from the other, and about the thing that makes them go. I also know that cars make traveling from one place easier and better. It doesn't mean I have to hate the other makes, or refuse to drive in whatever car my neighbor drives.

What I'm trying to put across in my own rather quizzical way, is religion. Yes, that. You may wonder what cars have to do with religion - but let me clear it up for you: I have been finding out the hard way how ignorant some people are about religions other than their own. 

Let's take Christianity as a prime example.