Spells for sale

Today I learned that you can buy magical spells on Etsy.

When I found out about this, I thought, of course you can.  Everything else is for sale, so why not this?  So out of curiosity, I went to the Etsy site of the particular witch I heard about, one Victoria Zasikowski of Cardiff, Wales, to take a look around.

I clicked on the first one on the site, which was "Love and Relationship Spells."  (And for the curious, no, it wasn't because I need any particular help in that department myself.)  There's a description of what we get for our $22.64, and it includes the following:

• The lighting of a handmade candle that has been consecrated in our honor
• The use of "spellvelopes," small envelopes of a particular color depending on what sort of spell we'd like cast; the envelopes are burned in a cauldron
• Messages written in magickal [sic] "Dove's Blood Ink"
• Chants of spells done in our honor
• Photographs of the spell casting, sent to us via email; one will be of the burned-down candle, to prove that she let it burn all the way down

As far as what she'll cast a spell for, it can be for any of a number of things; attracting a significant other, separating from someone you've decided you don't like, making sure your lover stays faithful, having more sex, having better sex, attracting back an ex-lover, or finding out about your future lover.

And this is just scratching the surface.  She also does psychic readings of photographs, tarot cards readings, pendulum readings, and past life readings.  And for a cool $188 she will do five days worth of "Black Magick Spells" that will really heat things up in the bedroom for you.

The Magic Circle (1886) by John William Waterhouse [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

As you might guess, this site had me caveat emptor-ing like mad.  Especially when I read the disclaimer that's on each of the pages for specific spells:

PLEASE NOTE THAT NO DECENT SPELLCASTER WILL EVER GUARANTEE A SPELL WILL WORK. If it were oh so simple, we spell casters would all be filthy rich ! YES, there is a very high effectiveness rate for properly-performed magick, but sometimes things don't quite work out. This could be for the following reasons : 

1. A single casting was not suffice [sic], as the situation was too complex or deep rooted
2. Spell castings alone were not enough - the situation might benefit from you yourself working with a range of physical products to pour your own energy into things
3. You have an excessive amount of negative energy about it all, or about it's [sic] chances of working, which poison's [sic] the magick
4. You are being unrealistic, for example trying to win an ex back after 3 years of being without him
5. It might not have been "meant to be". The universe has other plans for you.

Which all sounds mighty convenient.  It boils down to spending 22 bucks for something that might or might not work, and if it doesn't work, it could be the spell's fault, your fault, or the universe's fault.

But before you laugh too hard, how different is this from the practice of petitionary prayer?  The devout are always asking god for things, from the banal ("please lord let me not get in a traffic jam on the way to work this morning") to the catastrophic ("cure my father of terminal cancer").  And of course, sometimes these prayers seem to work, and sometimes nothing happens.  If they don't work -- well "god works in mysterious ways" or "god has something better planned" or "you didn't pray hard enough" or "it was god's will that it happened this way."  If it does work, then hey!  Praise the lord!  He is so wonderful!

And I was going to say that the difference between the Etsy spell-caster and conventional petitionary prayer was that in prayer, no one's asking you for money.  But then I remembered that just a couple of days ago, the aptly-named American televangelist Creflo Dollar asked his faithful followers to give him $60 million so that he could buy a new luxury jet with which to Spread the Holy Word.

So maybe there's no difference after all, except one of scale.

And interestingly, there's a contingent amongst the witching community that actually thinks it ruins things to ask for money.  Somehow, being associated with profit will damage the energy, or some such.  Zasikowski, predictably, disagrees.  "There is a belief among some that ‘spiritual’ gifts should be given free of charge,= because they are spiritual," Zasikowski said.  "Time and effort spent should apparently be given free of charge, whereas if you are a hairdresser or nurse, etc, it is your right to be paid.  This double standard is ludicrous."

Except that when you're a hairdresser or nurse, your clients have the right to expect that their hair will end up looking nice and their health care needs will be addressed, respectively.  Here, it seems, you stand a good chance of spending $22 and getting absolutely nothing in return but a photo of a burned-out candle.

Anyway.  I'm unlikely to ask Ms. Zasikowski (or anyone else) to cast a spell for me.  For one thing, I'm pretty good with my life as it is.  For another, there are better uses for twenty bucks, which include, in my opinion, using it to start a campfire.  But if you're interested, might I suggest the "Angel Messages Reading?"  In it, she will get in touch with some angels, who will then relay to her messages that they feel "have the most important meaning for you at this time in your life."  However, you are advised that these messages "may not necessarily have anything to do with something directly bothering you."

You'd think angels could be a little more specific than that, wouldn't you?  Oh, well.  Maybe they "work in mysterious ways," too.

Signs in the skies

This Friday is the Vernal Equinox, known colloquially as the "First Day of Spring," a designation we here in upstate New York find grimly amusing, given that we can still get snow in mid-May.  Be that as it may, the day does seem like a turning point, a Day of Significance, a step toward shorter nights and warmer weather.

This year, it's also the day some of us will get to see another landmark natural phenomenon: a total solar eclipse.  Unfortunately, it will only be visible in areas even further north than I am.  The path of totality will spiral counterclockwise from the southern tip of Greenland, heading between Iceland and Scotland, passing over the Faeroe Islands and Svalbard, and finally ending near the North Pole.

[image courtesy of photographer Luc Viatour and the Creative Commons]

And there's nothing like a coincidence to get the apocalyptoids babbling away like mad.  Over at the hyper-religious wacko website World Net Daily, we find out that this is a sign of the End Times.  How many signs that The End Is Near does this make, now?  I haven't kept track.  Probably better that I didn't waste my time counting, because they keep coming even though the Earth is showing no sign of ending.

But they don't let a little thing like a 0% success rate slow them down at all.  "The North Pole can’t really be called the territory of any particular nation or people," [Root Source Ltd.'s co-founder Bob] O’Dell said.  "This is likely a message from God to the entire world."  The article puts a particular emphasis on the fact that this confluence of events only happens once every 100,000 years, which is kind of funny because World Net Daily keeps telling us that the Earth is (1) only 6,000 years old, and (2) is going to end soon, so you'd think that they wouldn't worry much about the timing of the event either way.

But they go on to tell us how significant this all is anyhow:

Pastor Mark Biltz, author of “Blood Moons: Decoding the Imminent Heavenly Signs,” sees a heavenly warning in the consequences of the eclipse, especially for the northern Europeans, who will be most affected. 

In an exclusive interview with WND, Biltz explained, “In Jewish tradition, a total solar eclipse is a warning to the Gentiles and a sign of judgment on the nations. When we look at where the darkness will be, it will be in northern European countries like England and Sweden where we see the rise of Islam and anti-Israel sentiment. Europeans especially should take heed.” 

Biltz also sees significance in the timing of the solar eclipse. 

“An event of this magnitude at the very beginning of the religious new year demands attention. As the Bible tells us, there will be signs in the heavens on the feast days, and this is a very significant sign on a critical day.

Given that the "very significant sign" is mostly going to be visible to polar bears, you have to wonder who god was trying to send a message to.  But He Works In Mysterious Ways, and all that sort of stuff.

And of course, it's not the only sign we're going to be given this year.  There's also the whole "blood moon" thing, better known to sane people as a "lunar eclipse:"

"Only a few weeks after this total solar eclipse, there with be a blood moon over Passover," [Biltz] said. "If the total solar eclipse is a sign to the gentiles, this will be a sign to the Jewish people.

"This comes at a time when American aid for Israel has become an important political issue in the United States. But Israelis know they cannot put their survival in the hands of one who wishes their demise."

So there you are, then.  Two celestial omens and a pot shot at President Obama, all in the same article.

What makes me wonder even more about this worldview, however, is how they can think eclipses are a portent in the first place.  We now can predict eclipses centuries into the future; they occur regularly, often several a year (although extended total solar eclipses are less common).  They're no more mysterious than all three of a clock's hands landing simultaneously on the 12 twice a day.

So the whole apocalyptic prophecy thing implies that if god wanted to, he could make the eclipses happen on a different day, that somehow the timing is a warning of imminent catastrophe, not a purely mechanical outcome of the movements of the Earth and Moon.  Or is it the other way around, that god is required to begin the End Times right after Friday's solar eclipse, that he's been sitting up there twiddling his thumbs until the planets all align?

Either way, it seems like they're implying that god doesn't have much choice in the matter, that either (1) he couldn't make the eclipse occur on a different day even if he wanted to, or (2) he is being forced to bring the world to an end by the position of some random astronomical objects.  Which kind of makes you question how almighty these people think he is.

Of course, I realize that this is not about logic.  It's about putting the fear of the lord into the hearts of the true believers.  And it's also about money; the main promoter of the whole "blood moon" thing is our old pal John Hagee, the multi-millionaire pastor of the Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas.  Shut off your brains and open your pocketbooks, that's Reverend Hagee's motto.

So anyway.  Don't cancel your plans for April, because I'm pretty damn sure that the solar eclipse isn't warning us of anything but the fact that the Moon goes around the Earth and sometimes blocks the light from the Sun, which we knew anyway.  And the Spring Equinox isn't about anything but axial tilt and the Earth going around the Sun, which most of us also knew, and which will eventually bring warmer weather even to the "four-season climates" like upstate New York.  I hear that this year, summer is scheduled for the second Thursday in July.  I can't wait.

The partisan brain

I tend to avoid politics, both here on Skeptophilia and also in my personal life.  There are two reasons for this: first, I find most political issues such a snarled Gordian knot that I have no idea how anyone could be smart enough to solve them; and second, even on the issues about which I have strong opinions, I've found that arguing with people seldom changes minds on either side.  So entering into an argument that basically is "I think so because I think so," and is unlikely to convince anyone of anything, might be the very definition of the word "pointless."

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

I do find it interesting, however, to consider why people so seldom shift their political views, even when presented with facts and data to the contrary.  It's like we're stuck in our worldview, unable to move away from the narrow little window we're looking out of.  And now, some scientific research might have an answer for why that is.

Darren Schreiber et al. of the University of Exeter published a fascinating paper last month called "Red Brain, Blue Brain: Evaluative Processes Differ in Democrats and Republicans" in the online journal PLOS-ONE, which has as its main claim that there are fundamental differences in brain function between liberals and conservatives.  Studies had already shown that there is a brain structure difference; liberals tend to have more gray matter in the anterior cingulate cortex, conservatives in the amygdala.  But suggestive as that is, differences in structure don't always imply differences in function, so it was premature to conclude that these structural differences caused individuals to adopt particular political stances.

In this case, however, it appears that the earlier researchers were on to something.  In particular, there seemed to be a biological underpinning to the well-demonstrated tendency of conservatives to be risk-averse and liberals to be risk-seeking.  The authors write:

(C)onservatives demonstrate stronger attitudinal reactions to situations of threat and conflict. In contrast, liberals tend to be seek out novelty and uncertainty.  Moreover, Democrats, who are well known to be more politically liberal, are more risk accepting than Republicans, who are more politically conservative.  While ideology appears to drive reactions to the environment, environmental cues also influence political attitudes.  For instance, external threats prime more conservative attitudes among liberals, moderates, and conservatives.

Schreiber et al. set out to see if the different attitudes toward risk would show up on a fMRI, which would indicate that there was a functional difference between the brains of liberals and conservatives:

To test a conjecture that ideological differences between partisans reflect distinctive neural processes, we matched publicly available party registration records with the names of participants (35 males, 47 females) who had previously taken part in an experiment designed to examine risk-taking behavior during functional brain imaging...  Individuals completed a simple risk-taking decision-making task during which participants were presented with three numbers in ascending order (20, 40, and 80) for one second each.  While pressing a button during the presentation of the number 20 on the screen always resulted in a gain of 20 cents, waiting to select 40 or 80 was associated with a pre-determined possibility of either gaining or losing 40 or 80 cents.  Therefore, participants chose between a lower “safe” payoff and a higher risky payoff.  The probabilities of losing 40 or 80 cents were calibrated so that there was no expected value advantage to choosing 20, 40 or 80 during the task, i.e. the overall pay-off would have been the same for each pure strategy.

They found that the two groups did, indeed, show different levels of activity in the two parts of the brain that earlier research had shown to differ:

Consistent with the findings of structural differences by Kanai et al, significantly greater activation was observed in the right amygdala for Republicans and in the left posterior insula (near the temporal-parietal junction) in Democrats when making winning risky versus winning safe decisions. No significant differences were observed in the entorhinal cortex or anterior cingulate cortex. All attempts to use behavior to distinguish Republicans from Democrats were unsuccessful, suggesting that different neural mechanisms may underlie apparently similar patterns of behavior.

The authors are clear in their conclusion that they, too, have established correlation, but are yet to show causation; "One might infer that the differing brain structures identified by Kanai et al. suggest genetic foundations for the differences in ideology," they write, in their discussion of results.  "However, recent work has shown that changes in cognitive function can lead to changes in brain structure."  So how much of the difference they and others have shown is genetic in origin, and how much due to remodeling of the brain's circuitry because of the environment, is still uncertain.

It does support, however, the fruitlessness of political argument.  If there is a biological underpinning to political stance, it's to be expected that it's not going to be easy to change.  There are cases, of course, where it's important to try -- in issues of social justice and care for the environment, for example.  But this research shows pretty clearly that such battles aren't going to be easy to win.

And you have to wonder what a fMRI would show for a generally apolitical person like myself.  No brain activity whatsoever?

Maybe I'm better off not knowing.

Science-friendly illogic

I usually don't blog about what other people put in their blogs.  This kind of thing can rapidly devolve into a bunch of shouted opinions, rather than a reasoned set of arguments that are actually based upon evidence.

But just yesterday I ran into a blog that (1) cited real research, and (2) drew conclusions from that research that were so off the rails that I had to comment.  I'm referring to the piece over at Religion News Service by Cathy Lynn Grossman entitled, "God Knows, Evangelicals Are More Science-Friendly Than You Think."  Grossman was part of a panel at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's yearly Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion, and commented upon research presented at that event by Elaine Howard Ecklund, sociologist at Rice University.

Ecklund's research surrounded the attitudes by evangelicals toward science.  She described the following data from her study:

• 48% of the evangelicals in her study viewed science and religion as complementary.
• 21% saw the two worldviews as entirely independent of one another (which I am interpreting to be a version of Stephen Jay Gould's "non-overlapping magisteria" idea).
• A little over 30% saw the two views as in opposition to each other.

84% of evangelicals, Grossman said, "say modern science is going good [sic] in the world."  And she interprets this as meaning that evangelicals are actually, contrary to appearances, "science friendly."  Grossman writes:

Now, the myth that bites the data dust, is one that proclaims evangelicals are a monolithic group of young-earth creationists opposed to theories of human evolution... 

(M)edia... sometimes incorrectly conflate the conservative evangelical view with all Christians’ views under the general “religion” terminology. 

I said this may allow a small subset to dictate the terms of the national science-and-religion conversation although they are not representative in numbers -– or point of view. This could lead to a great deal of energy devoted to winning the approval of the shrinking group and aging group that believes the Bible trumps science on critical issues.

Well, here's the problem with all of this.

This seems to me to be the inherent bias that makes everyone think they're an above-average driver.  Called the Dunning-Kruger effect, it is described by psychologist David Dunning, whose team first described the phenomenon, thusly:

Incompetent people do not recognize—scratch that, cannot recognize—just how incompetent they are...  What’s curious is that, in many cases, incompetence does not leave people disoriented, perplexed, or cautious. Instead, the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, buoyed by something that feels to them like knowledge. 

An ignorant mind is precisely not a spotless, empty vessel, but one that’s filled with the clutter of irrelevant or misleading life experiences, theories, facts, intuitions, strategies, algorithms, heuristics, metaphors, and hunches that regrettably have the look and feel of useful and accurate knowledge.

Now, allow me to say right away that I'm not calling evangelicals incompetent and/or ignorant as a group.  I have a friend who is a diehard evangelical, and he's one of the best-read, most thoughtful (in both senses of the word) people I know.  But what I am pointing out is that people are poor judges of their own understanding and attitudes -- and on that level, Dunning's second paragraph is referring to all of us.

So Ecklund's data, and Grossman's conclusions from it, are not so much wrong as they are irrelevant. It doesn't matter if evangelicals think they're supportive of science, just like my opinion of my own driving ability isn't necessarily reflective of reality.  I'm much more likely to take the evangelicals' wholesale rejection of evolution and climate science as an indication of their lack of support and/or understanding of science than I would their opinions regarding their own attitudes toward it.

And, of course, there's that troubling 30% of evangelicals who do see religion and science as opposed, a group that Grossman glides right past.  She does, however, admit that scientists would probably find it "troubling" that 60% of evangelicals say that "scientists should be open to considering miracles in their theories."

Troubling doesn't begin to describe it, lady.

That doesn't stop Grossman from painting the Religious Right as one big happy science-loving family, and she can't resist ending by giving us secular rationalists a little cautionary kick in the ass:

[S]cientists who want to write off evangelical views as inconsequential may not want to celebrate those trends [that young people are leaving the church in record numbers]. The trend to emphasize personal experience and individualized spirituality over the authority of Scripture or religious denominational theology is part of a larger cultural trend toward rejecting authority. 

The next group to fall victim to that trend could well be the voices of science.

Which may be the most obvious evidence of all that Grossman herself doesn't understand science.  Science doesn't proceed by authority; it proceeds by hard evidence.  Stephen Hawking, one of the most widely respected authorities in physics, altered his position on information loss in black holes when another scientist, John Preskill, demonstrated that he was wrong.  The theoretical refutation of Hawking's position was later confirmed by data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe.  Significantly, no one -- including Hawking himself -- said, "you have to listen to me, I'm an authority."

If anything, the trend of rejection of authority and "personal experience" works entirely in science's favor.  The less personal bias a scientist has, the less dependence on the word of authority, the more (s)he can think critically about how the world works.

So all in all, I'd like to thank Grossman and Ecklund for the good news, however they delivered it in odd packaging.  Given my own set of biases, I'm not going to be likely to see the data they so lauded in anything but an optimistic light.

Just like I do my own ability to drive.  Because whatever else you might say about me, I have mad driving skills.

Pi à la mode

Well, it's Pi Day -- 3/14 -- at least if you live in the United States, where we put the month first.  Otherwise, it's 14/3, which is much less momentous.  But we can do what we want, rest of the world be damned, because, you know, we're 'Murica and all.

But if you accept that the month comes first, this is actually a really special Pi Day, because at a little before 9:30 AM, it will be 3/14/15 9:26:53, which is pretty cool.  And pi, you have to admit, is an awesome number.  It's the first number most of us run into in school that's irrational -- that cannot be expressed as the ratio of two integers, and whose decimal expansion never terminates or repeats.

Pi is formally defined as the ratio between the circumference of a circle and its diameter.  Its approximate value was known to Chinese, Indian, and Greek mathematicians as far back as 2,500 years ago; a more precise method for determining the value of pi was discovered by the extraordinary Indian mathematician Madhava of Sangamagrama in the 14th century, and rediscovered by Gottfried Leibniz of Germany three hundred years later.  Both of them had uncovered the peculiar relationship now called the Madhava-Leibniz formula:

This was just the first of many appearances of pi in unusual places -- it's a number that crops up over and over in physics, for example.

All of which has made it important that we know pi to a great degree of accuracy.  Computers have now been used to calculate pi to 13.3 trillion digits, which is pretty damned impressive, and which makes what a wingnut who calls himself "Jain108" is claiming even crazier.

Jain108 says we've got pi wrong. Pi, he says, is actually 3.144.  Give or take.  Which, I think we can all agree, is far less than accurate to within 13.3 trillion digits. But this doesn't dissuade Jain108 at all.   He says if we just accept his value, we'll find our pipes fitting together better:

(A)n ex-Engineer from NASA, "Smokey” admitted (via email) that when he was making metal cylinders for this same Mooncraft, finished parts just did not fit perfectly, so an adjusted value for Pi was also implemented.  At the time, he thought nothing about it, but after reading an internet article called The True Value of Pi, by Jain 108, he made contact.

Because that couldn't have anything to do with inaccuracies of construction, or anything.

But that's not his only argument.  We should accept his higher value for pi because, I dunno, mysticism or something:

For reasons that will be soon explained, traditional Pi is deficient because historically it has awkwardly used logical straight lines to measure illogical curvature.  Thus, by using the highest level of mathematics known as Intuitive Maths, the True Value of Pi must be a bit more than anticipated to compensate for the mysterious "Area Under The Curve”.  When this is done, the value, currently known as JainPi, = 3.144… can be derived, by knowing the precise Height of the Cheops Pyramid which is based on the Divine Phi Proportion (1.618…).  Instead of setting our diameter at 1 unit or 1 square, something magical happens when we set the diameter at the diagonal length of a Double Square = 2.236… which is the Square Root of 5 (meaning 2.236… x 2.236… = 5). This is the critical part of the formula that derives Phi (1+√5)÷2, and was used by ancient vedic seers as their starting point to construct their most important diagram or ‘Yantra’ or power-art called the Sri Yantra.  With a Root 5 diameter, the translation of the Phi’s formula into a geometric construct derives the royal Maltese Cross symbol, concluding that Phi is Pi, that Phi generates Pi, and that Pi must be derived with a knowledge of the Harmonics of Phi.  When this is understood and utilized, we will collectively enter into a veritable Space Age.

Oh! Okay! I mean, my only question would be, "What?"  This is about as lucid as when people like Diane Tessman start to babble about using quantum physics to explain astrology.

But I thought I'd soldier on, so I kept reading.  And then I ran into a section where Jain108 claims that his ideas are proven because Queen Elizabeth and "Pope Benedictine XVI" both have worn robes with Maltese crosses, and something about the Ark of the Covenant.  So despite my earlier objections, I think we can all agree that what we have here is an "air-tight case."

Other fun stuff abounds in this website, such as when he calls 3.144 "the PIN number of the universe."  But my favorite part of what Jain108 calls "3.144ology" is when he starts talking about a guy named Billy Meier, who is "one of the most controversial members of the UFO community:"

Billy Meier is a Swiss farmer in contact with Plearjen people (humans like you and me) since the age of 6.  In Contact 251 it is stated :
"In the process they will discover that the base for pi was miscalculated.  By eliminating the error in pi, and correcting future computations based on pi, scientists and their amazing, highly developed technology will have the capability to make unimaginable energies accessible to the people of Earth”.

So if the "Plearjen people" are "humans like you and me," what makes them "Plearjen people?"  And how could changing the value of pi make us access "unimaginable energies?"

The only thing in the way is the pride and arrogance of mathematicians who cannot conceive of such a notion that Pi could be anything else than what their books have instructed them to believe.  It is their lack of understanding of Fractal Harmonics (based on the cascading proportions of the Fibonacci Sequence) which hinders them to comprehend the elegance of the geometric solution known as the Fairywand Method identical to Saint Germain’s Maltese Cross.  Fractal Harmonics allows us to zoom forever into the Area Under The Curve and detect more infinitesimal Areas Under The Curve, concluding that old Pi is only an approximation, a limit of millions or billions of straight lines, that it is deficient, that the True Value of Pi must be a fraction more than we estimated, and that it must be based on Phi, The Golden Mean Harmonics.  Thus 4 divided by the Square Root of Phi (1.272…) gives the correct frequency of 3.144… its really very simple. 

True Pi is like a crystalline seal or a Recoding ready to unlock, to override the old genetic imprint of degeneration, of lack and sickness.  It will, in effect, spark a Process of Purification.

The "Fairywand Method" allows you to "zoom forever into the Area Under The Curve."  So there you are, then.

In any case, I'm sorry if you thought you were going to be able to celebrate the extra-special Pi Day today.  Since Jain108's version of pi is, more exactly, 3.14460551..., you'll have to wait until March 14, 2046, at five minutes and 51 seconds past midnight, to be able to celebrate your Pi Moment.

I hope the thousands of pies people have purchased to celebrate the occasion will keep until then.

Privilege blindness

I've been slow to realize how blind privilege can make you.  I'm sure a lot of this comes from being a white heterosexual middle-class male; white heterosexual middle-class males in the United States enjoy a tremendous amount of privilege (exceeded only by changing "middle-class" to "wealthy").  The tragic part is that being born to privilege, I haven't had to think about it.  It just comes with the territory.

I haven't had forced upon my consciousness the constant undertow members of other groups feel.  The necessity of having to prove oneself constantly in order to be taken seriously at work.  The fear of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and being under suspicion just because of your skin color or mode of dress.  The demand that you always be able to justify yourself, prove why you have a right to be treated with dignity.  The fact of being unsafe demonstrating affection to the person you love in public.

Being who I am has made it hard not to take those things for granted.  Not that I earned a single one of the privileges I enjoy; coming from the family I did, and receiving the genetics I did, automatically dropped that manna from the sky into my upturned hands.

So the gradual realization that other groups don't have the same automatic entrée into the country club has been painful.  I was also born with a fair share of empathy, so watching the struggles that my African American, Jewish, and LGBT friends go through -- hell, hearing from a female former student that she never puts out of her mind the fear that she might one day be raped -- makes my heart ache.

And it also makes me angry.  Which is why I reacted to an article a friend sent me yesterday with a string of language that I won't print here.

The story, from the site Addicting Info, is called, "Student Group Says Gays Need 'Sensitivity Training' to Be More Tolerant of Bigotry."  In it, we find out about a student group called the Young Americans Foundation at George Washington University, who wants a religious exemption for taking LGBT sensitivity training workshops.

We hear quotes from two spokespeople from YAF, the first one YAF President Emily Jashinsky:

Mandated training is not really being very tolerant of all religious beliefs.  The way that people who are deeply Christian behave is for a reason, and if you’re training them to change that behavior, there’s obviously a problem with that. There's honestly no need for further 'diversity training;' everything here is pretty harmonious.

Which is bad enough, but wait until you hear what the Vice President, Patrick X. Coyle, said:

Why is there not sensitivity training for gay and liberal groups to respect the free speech rights of other groups on campus?  Why has the student association not considered similar training to teach students to respect those who believe in traditional marriage?  The hateful atmosphere that currently exists at The George Washington University will remain as long as the university allows liberal bullies to intimidate and attack students or clubs that dare to express opinions different from their own.

Let me get this straight; you're asking a group whose members can't walk down the street hand in hand with the person they love, who are the subject of legislation targeted specifically at denying them rights that other people enjoy, who are heckled and bullied and subjected to hate speech on a daily basis, to engage in sensitivity training so they can learn how to interact appropriately with wealthy heterosexual white people?

What's next, reinstituting the Jim Crow laws so that people of other races don't get uppity?

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

This represents a level of "I don't get it" that boggles my mind.  But it's the same thing that caused more than one person to comment during February (which was Black History Month) and on March 8 (International Women's Day) how terrible it was that we never have a day to celebrate the accomplishments of white males.

You know why that is, you insensitive clods?  Because every single day of the year, we celebrate the accomplishment of white males.  White males never have to fight to be recognized.  We're never asked, "Wow, how did you manage to become an engineer?"  We never hear people comment about how forward-thinking our society is at having a white male President, Governor, Congressperson, Supreme Court Justice.  We never have to prove our right to be in the running, to justify our position in the world.

Because the biggest privilege of all is not having to think about how privileged you are.

People make a big deal about how we should alter public school textbooks to be inclusive, to make sure that history texts aren't just about Dead White Men, that science textbooks laud the accomplishments of women and minorities.  But the enculturation of privilege still underlies the whole enterprise, doesn't it?  The white men are already there in force; the rest have to be inserted, almost as an afterthought, to give us the nice glow of appearing broad-minded.

I'm not saying that such inclusion is wrong, mind you; only that it's the first step, and we're fooling ourselves to believe that by such actions, we're done, that we've counteracted the damage from centuries of unquestioned hegemony.  The fact that people like Jashinsky and Coyle could even ask the question of why sensitivity training was necessary, and their suggestion that LGBT individuals take sensitivity training so that they'll know their place, are particularly offensive reminders of the fact that we have a long way to go.

So maybe it's good that they revealed their attitudes, that they came right out and said what they did.  Maybe we more empathetic privileged people needed a kick in the ass to remind us that however far we've come in the past hundred years, we've still not won this battle.

Maybe it was time for someone to say, "Hey, don't forget, it's still White Heterosexual Male month."

The devil went down to Georgia

In a move that many are characterizing as the latest end-run past anti-discrimination laws by the extremely religious, Georgia's Senate has passed Bill 129, the "Religious Freedom Restoration Act," by a vote of 37-15.

The legislation would "prevent the government from intruding or abridging faith-based beliefs," stating explicitly that "laws neutral toward religion may burden religious exercise as surely as laws intended to interfere with religious exercise."

Opponents of the bill were well aware of its hidden agenda.

Senator Curt Thomas, who voted against the bill, said that he believed that the measure was a direct response to the spread of marriage equality laws in the United States.  "There’s no way anyone’s going to convince me that that’s not what’s happening now," Thomas said.   He made reference to similar measures that have been instituted in Alabama, where the state Supreme Court just ordered judges to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. "We don’t want to be the next Alabama and be the next circus that they are becoming."

He was not the only one who recognized the law's subtext.  Marty Rouse, National Field Director of the Human Rights Campaign, was even more blunt than Thomas.  "This bill is a reprehensible attack on LGBT people and their families in Georgia," Rouse said, in a statement released last Thursday. "It does not address any legitimate problem with current law and creates harmful consequences for businesses throughout the state.  It threatens not just the LGBT community, but women, members of minority faiths and other minority classes.  All Georgians deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and we need all fair-minded people in the state to help stop this bill."

It now goes to the Georgia House of Representatives, where it is expected to pass, and then be signed into law by Governor Nathan Deal.

The whole thing has LGBT advocates seething, for understandable reasons.  Religious rights have been cited more than once in the past few months as reasonable justification for denial of services to LGBT individuals, and the RFRA is expected to give the anti-LGBT crowd legal standing in doing so.  But given the wide support the bill has in the Georgia legislature, what can be done?

Just ask the Aquarian Tabernacle Wiccan Church.

In a statement that should go down in the Annals of the History of Bluff-Calling, the Aquarian Tabernacle Church thanked the Georgia policymakers for their "forward-thinking... dedication to religious freedom."  They then outlined their practices that would be protected under the RFRA, citing which lines of the legislation covered each of them.  These practices included:

• Polyamory.  "Marriage is a religious institution," the statement reads.  "A uniting of souls before the almighty...  Many Wiccans live in multi-partner households, and until now have been unable to realize their religious right to marry the partners they are in love with.  Many of these partnerships have children from multiple partners all living under the same roof.  SB 129 has now opened the way for those children to all be under family insurance/health plans, as outlined in lines [22-23].  And if lines [34-35] hold true to their intent, then the least restrictive means of enforcing this change, is a simple revision to existing policy."

• Ingestion of psychotropic plants.  "With the passing of GRFRA," says the statement, "the ATC will be informing all Wiccans within the state of GA that there are no longer restrictions on which plants they may grow, own, harvest, ingest, distribute, or refine into compounds that the practitioner finds need to use within their religious practice, so long as no other laws besides substance abuse are broken...  As Government's definition also includes lines [82-83] “authorities; [...] or other person acting under color of law” it should be a matter of course to inform all officials to begin their refrain from detaining the practitioners for, and impeding the lawful use of said plants and animal parts.  This includes, but is no way limited to this non-comprehensive list, all plants currently residing upon any list of banned substances, plus any and all animal parts that may be found on the property or in the possession of anyone practicing the faith of Wicca within Georgia State limits."

• Drug screening by employers, and other restrictions based on "bodily sanctity."  "[The RFRA] means that all Wiccans are to be free to choose to be exempt, at the individual’s discretion regarding the sanctity of their essence, with no repercussions from Government bodies [77-83] upon an employer adhering to these inalienable religious rights, from urinalysis, blood tests, hair follicle tests, breathalyzers, tattooing, rfid chipping, or anything else that adds to or removes parts of our essence."

To which I have only one thing to say:  BA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA *falls off chair*

Man.  This should be good.  How many times do the clowns in elected office have to be shown that "freedom of religion" doesn't mean "freedom for the majority religion to do whatever it damn well pleases, and to hell with everyone else?"  Perhaps this will finally get it through their thick skulls that religious freedom (1) doesn't trump anti-discrimination laws, and (2) works best when the government just keeps its grimy paws off of religion entirely.  People should be free to practice whatever religion they want, in whatever way they want, unless such practice contravenes existing federal or state laws.  And that includes laws against discrimination.

How hard is that?

I certainly hope that the Aquarian Tabernacle Church pushes this as far as they can.  They seem to have done their homework, and although I can't say I buy their worldview, I applaud what they're doing, here.  And I don't know about you, but I'm really looking forward to seeing the legislators in Georgia backpedaling like mad to undo what they've done once they realize its implications.