When equality hurts

Found at Gap.com.

The American "Family" Association (I have to put it in quotes because it hardly represents every family in America) has issued what the LA Times rightfully calls a fatwa* against Gap, Inc, calling for a boycott against Gap stores (Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic) for "not mentioning Christmas in their advertising."

Well, more specifically -

Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic, the three stores owned by San Francisco-based Gap Inc., are being targeted by AFA in a limited two-month boycott over the company's failure to use the word "Christmas" in its advertising to Christmas shoppers.

Gap has refused to use the word Christmas in its television commercials, newspaper ads and in-store promotions despite tens of thousands of consumer requests to recognize Christmas as well as repeated requests from AFA to do the same.

From the AFA boycott website here

I present this evidence:



Now the above commercial is a bit hard to hear, so let me provide a transcript

Two, Four, Six, Eight, tis the time to liberate
Go Christmas, Go Hanukkah, Go Kwanza, Go Solstice.
Go classic tree, go plastic tree, go plant a tree, go without a tree,
You 86 the rules, you do what just feels right.
Happy do whatever you wanna, and to all a cheery night.

In case you didn't notice, the second line, second word - yea, that one - that would be Christmas. Right there. So, you know, it is mentioned.

However it is given equal weight with the other three holidays around that time of year, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and the Solsitce (which, according to Wikipedia, covers just about every other winter celebration). As the Gap puts is

Gap recognizes that many traditions are celebrated throughout this season and we feel it is important to display holiday signage that is inclusive to everyone.

Inclusivity. Equality. A retailer not wanting to alienate potential customers. Horrors.

AFA has this to say about that:

AFA believes this ad to be completely dismissive and disrespectful to those who celebrate the meaning and spirit of Christmas.

(also found here)

Because putting Christianity on equal footing with, say, Judaism is disrespectful, after all. Christianity has to be special.

Dan Neil in the LA Times makes a very good point -

Why not go after Gap and other retailers for trading in Chinese-made goods, since the Chinese government actively oppresses the Christian faith? Seems like building a case on religious tolerance would have more resonance.

But that misses the point, Dan. When they say "oppression" they mean "Not having an elevated, special, privileged position anymore." If people actually compared religious oppression in places like China to the US these people would be outed for the power-hungry whiners they are. In fact it might even look like the Christians were trying to oppress other religions like they themselves were being oppressed in other countries, but the rational among us were having none of it.

Spare me, please.

Now I would deliberately go to the local Old Navy and buy all my Christmas gifts but I was already boycotting the Gap for oppressing women by dropping plus-sized from their stores while creating sizes 0 and 00, so sadly that's a no go. BUT, on their "Naughty or Nice" list they also complain about Barnes & Noble, for using the inclusive word "Holiday" in their advertising, instead of just Christmas.

So I suggest we all go to B&N and give books for whatever holiday you want to celebrate. Give the gift of knoweldge and piss off the AFA in one fell swoop.

* (Granted it's a Christian leader, not an Islamic one, but the idea of a religious edict is the same)

Photograph of corpses at the Nordhausen concentration camp. Taken from a tribute to the men of the Co. F., 405th Regiment, 102nd Division (2nd Battalion). Please go read the page here.


This is why I'm not a Christian. This, right here:

According to Bodie Hodge at Answers In Genesis:

If we love God, we should obey Him (John 14:15). To love God first means to obey Him first--before looking at our neighbor. So, is the greater good trusting God when He says not to lie or trusting in our fallible, sinful minds about the uncertain future?

Consider this carefully. In the situation of a Nazi beating on the door, we have assumed a lie would save a life, but really we don't know. So, one would be opting to lie and disobey God without the certainty of saving a life--keeping in mind that all are ultimately condemned to die physically. Besides, whether one lied or not may not have stopped the Nazi solders from searching the house anyway.

As Christians, we need to keep in mind that Jesus Christ reigns. All authority has been given to Him (Matthew 28:18), and He sits on the throne of God at the right hand of the Father (Acts 2:33; Hebrews 8:1). Nothing can happen without His say. Even Satan could not touch Peter without Christ's approval (Luke 22:31). Regardless, if one were to lie or not, Jesus Christ is in control of timing every person's life and able to discern our motives. It is not for us to worry over what might become, but rather to place our faith and obedience in Christ and to let Him do the reigning. For we do not know the future, whereas God has been telling the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10).

(You can read the entire exchange here. H/T to PZ)

Now most of the "Christians" I know are decent people who would never agree with this claptrap. But I firmly believe that they are decent despite their religious beliefs, not because of them. Because from the Pope condemning a mother who kept her 9 year old daughter from having to bear twins while letting the daughter's rapist get off without so much as an angry word, to the FLDS raping and impregnating girls in the name of God while forcing the boys out onto the street so they don't compete with the old men, to now this? I can only believe that the more religious an organization is, the more evil and corrupt they become, which just shows how evil the entire belief system must be.

Why I cannot take this bible thing seriously, #2376

(click on the image to see the whole thing)

http://conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project

http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2009/10/conservatizing-the-bible.html

The top ten net rules

Internet map from Bar Ilan University, via the Guardian

The Top 10 Net Rules (restated)

1) Godwin’s Law - Eventually every argument degenerates into someone claiming his/her opponent is likened to/as bad as/would have been supported by Hitler. Examples:

• The term "Feminazi"
• Comparing any US President to Hitler
• Calling any form of national US health care/legalized abortion the next holocoust
• Saying that Hitler was an atheist, that means atheists are BAD

Crossing Godwin's law means the argument is over and you automatically lose, unless you are invoking Quirk's Exception and trying to win by shutting down the debate.

2) Poe's Law - “Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humour, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing.” Examples:

• Heliocentrism is an Atheist Doctrine
• Christian Domestic Discipline (adult content)
• What God Has To Say About Sex (adult content)
• Christian Nymphos (adult content)
• The Conservative Bible Project

I have no clue which, if any, of those are serious.

3) Rules 34 & 35 - “If it exists, there is porn of it.” and“If no such porn exists, it will be made.”

Does this one really need explanation? Moving on...

4) Skitt’s Law - "Any post correcting an error in another post will contain at least one error itself"

This ususaly applies to grammar, math and politics

5) Scopie’s Law - "In any discussion involving science or medicine, citing Whale.to as a credible source loses the argument immediately, and gets you laughed out of the room.”

It helps to know that Whale.to is a conspiracy listing. I vote we expand that to include not checking Snopes before opening your mouth as well.

6) Danth’s Law / Parker’s Law - "If you have to insist that you've won an internet argument, you've probably lost badly.”

Danth’s Law was most famously declared in “The Lenski Affair”, between microbiologist Richard Lenski and the editor of Conservapedia.com, Andrew Schlafly, who cast doubt upon Prof Lenski’s elegant experimental demonstration of evolution.

After what is widely held to be one of the greatest and most comprehensive put-downs in scientific argument from Prof Lenski, Mr Schlafly declared himself the winner.

7) Pommer’s Law - "A person's mind can be changed by reading information on the internet. The nature of this change will be from having no opinion to having a wrong opinion.”

Look for examples of this during all Presidential election years

8) DeMyer's Third Law - "Anyone who posts an argument on the internet which is largely quotations can be very safely ignored, and is deemed to have lost the argument before it has begun.”

This is the law of Do Your Own Thinking

9) Cohen’s Law - “Whoever resorts to the argument that ‘whoever resorts to the argument that... …has automatically lost the debate’ has automatically lost the debate.”

Please note some of the above laws for examples. ;)

10) Robertson's Law of Exclamation - "The more exclamation points used in an email (or other posting), the more likely it is a complete lie. This is also true for excessive capital letters."

For an example, check your email

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Taken from, quoted from, and h/t to the UK Telegraph

What a nice thing to wake up to

They finally apologized to Alan Turing. Here's the full text:

2009 has been a year of deep reflection - a chance for Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred in us that sense of pride and gratitude which characterise the British experience. Earlier this year I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take up arms against Fascism and declared the outbreak of World War Two. So I am both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britain's fight against the darkness of dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing.

Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of 'gross indecency' - in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence - and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison - was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later.

Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.

I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan's status as one of Britain's most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long overdue.

But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united, democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once the theatre of mankind's darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in living memory, people could become so consumed by hate - by anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices - that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls which had marked out the European civilisation for hundreds of years. It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe's history and not Europe's present.

So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work I am very proud to say: we're sorry, you deserved so much better.

h/t to Pharyngula

Through the week in Feminine Dress

Well, three days into it and the Week in Feminine Dress is already out in the wash. I owe you all four days, but you might not get them until next week. Too much going on around here to keep up. You will get them though, promise.

Through the week in Feminine Dress

Tuesday is Laundry Day. Among other things.


Thinking...About projects and goals and what I want to do with this coming week.

Thankful for...For having wonderful, amazing, insightful friends.

Cooking...Nothing. We have to either eat those leftovers or toss them, so tonight is leftover buffet

Baking...Nothing. Wednesday morning the husband makes pancakes, so we don't need bread for breakfast.

Wearing...


I can hear you all thinking Ummm...feminine...Well, what would you wear to the gym? A tank top and shorts are utterly appropriate. These cover everything that needs covering, and don't stand out. Being so covered as to be inappropriate can be just as immodest as being uncovered.

However, when not in class I do add a batik skirt, which makes for a very feminine outfit


No, the cat did not go to class with us.

Creating...I'm still working on my nightgowns. This one will be done as soon as I finish this.

Going...To a Tai-chi class this morning, at the YMCA. I don't know about Tai-chi, it seems rather hard on the knees. But I need to do something to shake up the workout routine and get more flexible.

Reading... The Quest for the Holy Grail. Sigh

Hoping...I can get all the laundry folded tonight, and that the movie is a good one.

Hearing... A podcast of Merlin Mann interviewing David Allen. You can listen here

Around the house...Laundry day, always fun. And we're working out the kinks of the pantry system tonight.

One of my favorite things...Long, white, lace trimmed cotton nightgowns in the summertime.

Through the week in Feminine Dress

Not a clue what I'm wearing yet. Odds are a skirt and shirt, as it's going to be over 90° today.



Thinking...Quite a lot after my morning appointment. It went an unusually long two hours, but was remarkably helpful

Thankful for...Finally having an absolutely excellent therapist to help me sort out the ideas in my head that are just not helping at all.

Cooking...Nothing. We went out to our favorite restaurant for dinner.

Baking...See above. Every other Monday I get a day off from the kitchen. My husband cooks breakfast on his days off, which he enjoys, but every other Monday I don't have to do dinner either. And we always have leftovers for lunch.

Wearing...Yes, I ended up in a skirt and tank top



(This is what 20+ years of PCOD and psuedo-Cushing's looks like. It has nothing to do with sin or vice or even lazy living, as you will see.)

Creating...It was knitting night, so I spent several hours at Starbuck's visiting with the ladies and working on my sweater. It's a kimono style, in a dark red wool.

Yes, there is fellowshipping outside of church. Sadly V had to go to work, she's an emergency room nurse and was called in at the last minute, but she did stop by to bring us all some chocolate from her recent trip to Europe. M was there, still concerned about her brother's upcoming wedding. As usual she brought E, who is our youngest member at 12, and whom we once again had to remind that she is far too young for R-rated movies. L is working on a remarkable new project, a stole-type thing that can be folded and buttoned and tied into a remarkable number of different items. And A is hoping to be expecting...well, we're keeping our finger's crossed.

Going...and going and going. We found treasures at Goodwill, I stopped to poke about in a sales rack at a favorite store and found something...unmentionable that had been $25 and was now $5, so it came home and then our usual running around.

Reading... The Quest for the Holy Grail, still. I keep falling asleep on it.

Hoping...After therapy, a lot

Hearing... The laughter of friends. And a background of Alice Di Micele, one of our favorite local musicians



Around the house...Nothing on a Monday

One of my favorite things...Finding treasures at Goodwill. Including a set of knitting needles in the perfect size and material, for all of $0.50

Through the week in Feminine Dress

Graphic from The Graphics Fairy. So is the one up top.

I decided to do a week of posts because a lot of you might be wondering what does an atheist "rebel" homemaker do with her time. How does it differ from those good Titus 2 mentors anyway? How does it look? How does it feel? What can you expect?

I plan to follow a specific format every day, and put in pictures where I can. The idea for the format was taken from The Simple Woman's Daybook (which is another lovely place to visit, for views into lots of other lives). No day is actually finished until I start the next one, as I may add pictures through the day.

Well, I'm getting a late start in the day with this, so I may do Sunday twice. Hopefully an average week here or there might give you an idea of what to expect from one variation of a life of "rebellion". There are lots more. In fact, it could be everything you ever dreamed of.

But we have to start somewhere. So, we shall start here.

Today I am...

Thinking...That if this helps one young woman find freedom and happiness it's worth the effort.

Thankful for...My wonderful and supportive husband

Cooking...Chicken and dumplings for dinner

Baking...A loaf of whole wheat bread in the bread machine

Wearing...My first jumper


It's McCall's #2316 and is the first I made after I married, so it's about 9 years old. I used to wear it teaching, but now it's rather old and worn so it's become a cottage dress. Under it I'm wearing a plain white t-shirt. And over it


My pink calico apron. The pattern for this used to be on the Martha Stewart website, and was called Aprons with Cindy, but it has since been taken down. I have a few apron patterns I plan to try in the future as well.

Creating...some new nightgowns. This one was finished yesterday...

It's Simplicity #7944, made without sleeves for the summer. I used quilt binding around the arm holes instead, and eyelet material for the front of the top. I also put a band of eyelet lace where the top met the skirt, and the same eyelet lace around the hem.

I'm hoping to finish another tonight. If so I'll post a picture.

Going...nowhere. Which sounds horrible, but today is one of my husband's work days, when we don't usually go out. He was out of the house before I got up this morning, but will be home for supper by 6:30.

Reading... The Quest for the Holy Grail

Hoping...I finish that book tonight

Hearing... The Illiad by Homer. A Librivox podcast while I sew

Around the house...I have laundry to fold tonight after supper

One of my favorite things...Lace, lace and more lace. At least today

A few plans for the rest of the week: To finish this project. Also to finish setting up the pantry system and finish these nightgowns.

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Tomorrow is our errand day, which ought to mean lots of pictures. Then later in the week I'll share what happens on a usual stay-home day as well.

You might ask, "It's Sunday, what about church?" Well, if my husband wasn't working we might go down to the UU church for services, mostly to visit friends. But he works week-ends, both because it frees up his weekdays for school and because he gets extra pay for working on "The Lord's" day, so we just don't bother. And our lives are the slightest bit the worse off for it.

Lady Lydia speaks...kind of

Image of "The Standard Victorian" from Homeplace Structures.

Or something.

"Lady" Lydia Sherman over at Home Living and Guard The Home decided to lock her Guard The Home blog, more than likely because she couldn't take the criticism.

I am not surprised.

For those "rebels" out there who are being hurt at home, you are not alone. You do not deserve to be beaten, at any age, for any reason. Not even if they don't leave bruises. You do not deserve to be scorned just because you're not male. Being a "helpmeet" does not mean being a surrogate wife. Training up a daughter does not mean anything sexual. Ever. *

Your parents are wrong. Parents can be wrong.

But who so shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
- Matthew 18:6

If you need help, call the nineline.

1-800-999-9999

This will get you to the Covenant House nineline. They have a Christian mission to help abused children.

We who recognize God's providence and fidelity to His people are dedicated to living out His covenant among ourselves and those children we serve, with absolute respect and unconditional love. That commitment calls us to serve suffering children of the street, and to protect and safeguard all children. Just as Christ in His humanity is the visible sign of God's presence among His people, so our efforts together in the covenant community are a visible sign that effects the presence of God, working through the Holy Spirit among ourselves and our kids.

- The Covenant House Mission Statement. (Found here)

You are not a rebel. It's not your fault. You are not, not ever to blame.

I was...am a "rebel" as well. If you want to talk, reach me at TheUrbanFarmhouse@gmail.com.

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* And while we're at it, you also deserve to choose your own spouse, earn and keep your own money, have your own friends, and have as much education as you like. Just to be clear on that too.