Wednesday 7 March 2012

Reason Rally (because it matters)

People will forgive me, I hope, to blog about something serious for a change, but I want my readership, especially my American readership, to notice that the Reason Rally will be held on the 24th of March. Attend in great numbers, spread the word. Because we need it.

I tackled on this blog controversial subjects, fairly early on (an example here). I never intended Vraie Fiction to be a polemist blog, I always wanted it to be a blog about stories (true ones, false ones, tales, semi-biographic chronicle, etc.). But sometimes I have to be a polemist, as I am touched deeply by something. What has been happening in America recently has angered me. The Catholic Church in the US, stupidly heralded by Rick Santorum, the new Catholic fundie cheerleader who is also a presidential candidate, has declared a war on contraceptives, on sex, and pretty much on the separation of Church and State (a heresy that yet used to be defended by the very Catholic Kennedy). Rush Limbaugh, this uneducated loud mouth retard (yes, he is), cowardly and disgustingly attacked a student whose only crime was that she said women in college should have access to contraceptive. That America, and with it the whole Western world (we have our share of religious idiots in England and in my native Québec), can be one day lead by such obscurantist, repressive ideology, is a very serious matter.

And this is why the Reason Rally matters. Because the United States of America is a secular nation, because the ideal society the fundies dream about is nothing less than a Christian labeled Islamist republic. Because there are dangerous idiots in the Western world who think people like me should shut up, who thinks that women should be dominated by rules set by elderly virgin men and puritan devouts, who thinks that gays and lesbians should be third class citizens. Because they want to preach ignorance and superstition. Because it matters that we secularists remind those people that we exist, that we have a voice and actually something to say. Okay, I rambled a lot in this post. I merely wanted to give some modest exposure to an event that I think is not merely necessary, but essential. So please pass the word.

5 comments:

PJ said...

Le catholicisme américain a été influencé par la myriade de confessions protestantes qui se partagent le territoire des États-Unis. Et pour tous les défauts du catholicisme ordinaire, me semble que celui américain en a quelques un de plus...

Ils en discutaient au Daily Show un peu la semaine passée, mais je me suis rendu compte de cette influence il y a fort longtemps, par hasard, en regardant Unsolved Mysteries, une histoire d'une madame dont la religion lui dictait trop son comportement... je me demandais de quelle religion il s'agissait, j'imaginais les témoins de Jéhovah, et finalement, elle était catholique! Ce fût, je crois, mon premier vrai choc avec la culture américaine.

tao.owl said...

Thank you!!!! I feel like I am living in bizarro land sometimes, with these hypocritical politicians who preach less government but continue to interject their so called "values" on whom they feel to be "third class" citizens, it's absurd. Wish I could physically be in D.C.; I will be there in spirit.

Chris 'Frog Queen' Davis said...

That was a great post. I have to agree that I am becoming worried....and a bit scared at what is happening. I feel like we are going backward (on human rights) and not forward.

It is a scary time right now, thanks for sharing your voice.

Cheers!

Anonymous said...

It is a recurring theme that happens the world over. We all need to remain vigilant, that the hard won freedoms that we in democratic nations enjoy, are not threatened by fundamentalists of any kind.It is not only America that these mad people inhabit as the news shows us on a daily basis...and I go to church, and believe in God (shock horror:-), and science, and common sense too.

Louise said...

To say the least, your amphibian highness! Le monde regarde sourit, est abasourdi, inquiet... Malheureusement, chez nous, ‘’cause’’ le premier ministre qui a été élu par ????, on commence à avoir un portrait clair et épeurant.