Gay Marriage, God Willing

Even so recent as ten years ago, the gay marriage debate was not nearly so prevalent in the public sphere, let alone was it gaining success. At the time, one of the arguments used against the "gay lifestyle" by bigots with enough tact to try to avoid citing god was that "they" are so promiscuous. The gays, you know, they just sleep with every one. AIDS, it serves them right, no?

In the wake of the gay marriage tidal wave, this argument of promiscuity evaporated. Poof. And the bigots all lost their tact. Poof. After all, if the gays can be proud, why can't the Christians? (Besides the whole persecution-complex, that is.) So they are proud, and they argue strictly from their religious texts for the same type of society that Islamic states have. 

Care to dispute that? Here is my challenge to anyone arguing against gay marriage: You must answer the following question, "Why not?" The moment you mention a god that those whose rights are in question may or may not believe in, and that they are in no obligation to respect, your argument is dismissed. 

There will be no argument. None. Nothing. 

So let's play their game for a bit. Pretend there's a sky-daddy to throw curveballs into the design that he himself created. Because of this concession, we'll go ahead and pretend that homosexuality is unnatural (a claim for which there is [like the sky-daddy claim] no evidence.) Further, in this world, the act of homosexuality is sinful. Sounds like a pretty compelling case against gay marriage, yeah? Don't suppose we could shoot that down...

Free will.

Done. Argument won. Otherwise the act of murder is less egregious to Christians than two men marrying. 

But, the argument can be made, that murder is against the law. So how can I say that?

Because the state (a secular institution, mind you) is not required to authorize the legitimacy of a murder. The question of murder is proven as a matter of fact, or it is not. 

Under god's design (plot hole?) of free will, the Christian who tampers with an individual's ability to sin without victim is, simply, doing it wrong. 

So we are left where we started-- with the naked act of bigotry. 

I just hope they are sure not to lay with each other while naked-bigoting. It would be an abomination to see them getting their irony all over one another.


ADRIAN FORT is a writer, blogger, and essayist from Kansas City, Missouri. Follow him on twitter @adriananyway. His work has appeared in Existere, decomP magazinE, The Bluest Aye, Bareback Magazine, Gadfly Online, Chrome Baby, The Eunoia Review, Linguistic Erosion, and Smashed Cat Magazine. His Master's Degree is from Lindenwood University. 

United under Art

Often, what happens when the newest video from ISIS pops up, is a simple thing. We see acts of brutality committed by half-wits and full-of-shits and we are able to judge them for their actions. This includes feeling sympathy for the victims, vindication that our own beliefs don't lead us to barbarous acts, and anger that these events continue to occur and ISIS has found a vein on the internet which allows them to enjoy a Kardashian-like popularity (though they send fewer obvious ripples through the fashion industry.) But these emotions are normally brief before we return to the lives that we have chosen to live.

But one of the more recent ISIS videos caused me more pause than a routine beheading. And instead of pass judgment on cretins for being cretins, I was forced to judge myself for not reacting how I thought a proper humanist should react. Why had this video caused revile in a way that someone losing their life had ceased to do?

The video showed men acting, with the sort of aggression that can only come as a result of sexual non-to-do, by taking sledgehammers to ancient statues. I was offended at a depth that one of their videos (videos of senseless murder) had not offended me since, well, I can't remember when. These goons were destroying art.

Even the fucking Nazis collected art.

But, perhaps, therein lies the rub. For as truly disgusting as the Nazis actions were, their motivations were forward. They had goals. Ridiculous goals, sure, but even they were working towards something.

I guess so long as the thugs with ISIS were forcing people to praise allah before executing them, I allowed myself the convenience of imagining that their motivation was world domination in the name of a child rapist.

Like a bad episode of G.I. Joe.

But it seems they truly have no endgame. Even a child crying in the night has a purpose, even if that purpose is simply to gain attention. But these acts are sub-toddler in their nature. One is tempted to say sub-human, but their justification of "god" is far too human. It seems ISIS is simply acting with no drive, goals or motivation except for the destruction of everything humankind has heretofore constructed.

Do not confuse this for Nihilism, which often gets its point muted when shouted in accusatory tones by someone with a pop-culture education (see: "its just a theory.) Said Russian Nihilist Dmitri Pisarev of the philosophy, "Here is the ultimatum of our camp- What can be smashed must be smashed, whatever will withstand the blow is sound. What flies into smithereens is rubbish. At any rate, hit out right and hit out left, no harm will or can come of it."

Sure, this sounds right after watching the video of these buffoons, no? But Nihilism is a philosophy, and the "blow" to be sustained is philosophizing. Not sledgehammering. In this way, ISIS acts less under the banner of Nihilism and more under the banner of Annihilationism. Which may be where the initial rebuke comes from when watching that video. It is sad when someone loses their life. But art is symbolic of civilization itself, for and under which every Homo sapien sapien has the duty to protect and the right to live. So when these things are destroyed in such mindless acts, it is an attack on everyone who has ever lived.

Also, the ISIS stooges have put their precious, third-hand, mostly plagiarized, babble-book in a hermetic box before the job of delivering the blow was executed. Hence, there are no blow jobs in Islam. And any ideology which is not subject to or accepting of the proposition of blow jobs, is an ideology which I clearly wish to be free from.

Those ideologies tend to leave their followers with more daily frustrations than I'm willing to deal with.



ADRIAN FORT is a writer, blogger, and essayist from Kansas City, Missouri. Follow him on twitter @adriananyway. His work has appeared in Existere, decomP magazinE, The Bluest Aye, Bareback Magazine, Gadfly Online, Chrome Baby, The Eunoia Review, Linguistic Erosion, and Smashed Cat Magazine. His Master's Degree is from Lindenwood University.

ISIS, The Day Jake Hollow Walked By

I used to know a kid named Bobby, Bobby Movar. Bobby Movar was a little asshole. But he was second only to Jake Hollow in terms of bullying.

That's not fair. Jake was a decent kid, so long as you didn't look at him. Or speak to him. Or step on his shoe. Look, as long as there was nothing left open for interpretation, Jake couldn't take it wrong, right? That was the word in the hall, anyway.

Bobby was a spoiled rich kid with a loud mother and an absent father. He'd sit in the back of the class and throw pencils at people. He'd flick rubber bands. He'd tie people's shoe laces to their desks. All the regular assholish behaviors that you spent the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade hoping you'd manage to dodge.

Bobby used to brag about his mom, and how when teachers would call home, she would yell at them. They were discriminating, she'd say. Bobby had ADD, she'd tell them. She'd sue, you the teacher right out of her job, nay, right out of her whole damned house. For discrimination, you know?

Bobby was in my math class one year. American children aren't good at math anyway, right? And when you spend an entire period nervous about the acid content of Bobby's spitwads (known to burn a hole straight through the lacquer on the desks) well, you pay a little less attention to the great gift of algebra.

When Bobby failed, there was no real hubbub. When maybe Bobby and a couple other kids starting failing, well, it was math after all. When the class as a whole became devoid of passing grades, something had to be done. The teacher called home.

No result.

Bobby, newly empowered by his status as completely impervious to repercussion strutted in the hall during our introduction to roots and radicals, and started throwing the contents of his locker all willy-nilly over his shoulder. History had told him that there was basically nothing to fear.

Bobby nailed Jake Hollow in the temple with his Ethics book.

There probably wasn't a teacher in that building that could have pulled big Jake off of Bobby. Still, none of them even tried. Eventually, by the time the halls were lined with students and teachers and other faculty, Jake got tired and walked straight into the In-School-Suspension room and took the same chair he normally sat in. Maybe it was because of the dislocated shoulder, but I never saw Bobby throw another pencil. Or Ethics book.

What I'm saying is that ISIS is Bobby Movar. And Jordan's King Abdullah II might just be Jake Hollow. Abdullah, a 35 year military vet, was beyond shocked when ISIS released a video of themselves caging a Jordanian airman and then setting him on fire.

Abdullah has sworn vengeful retribution against ISIS until his forces run "out of fuel and bullets."

I'm not normally the type to cheer on an asswhooping in the hallway, but the way my neck still burned from Bobby's venom-spitwad, I might have silently hoped Jake got a couple good ones in for me too.

(More Religious Satire from this blog Here)


ADRIAN FORT is a writer, blogger, and essayist from Kansas City, Missouri. Follow him on twitter @adriananyway. His work has appeared in Existere, decomP magazinE, The Bluest Aye, Bareback Magazine, Gadfly Online, Chrome Baby, The Eunoia Review, Linguistic Erosion, and Smashed Cat Magazine. His Master's Degree is from Lindenwood University. 

Loons Versus Pokeys and the Bumpeys

Please, invest a couple minutes in something underwhelming: I'm sure you've seen this floating around the Facebook and Twitter machines.

First off, when the leading thrust of your argument is that, "sure, there are now children suffering from unnecessary and dangerous ailments, but look at the terrible Oreos," you've exposed yourself. And when the culmination of your argument is, "yeah, since vaccinations started, child mortality rates have plummeted, and quality of life has skyrocketed, but, like, did you ever even ask what was in them?" you lose, boychik.

(An atheist comes out)

While we're talking about losing, I'd  like to pluck a direct quote, "In short, The Society Against Injecting Our Kids With Chemicals (TSAIOKWC for short) has a lot of followers." Surely there are more useless sentences to be constructed in the English language, but I can't imagine they would ever be deployed in effort to prove any provable point (especially by someone so proud of their Dr title.) And how is it that wackjobs and their organizations never understand acronyms? By the by, you know who else had "a lot of followers"? Hitler. That's right, god forbid an atheist call the Hitler-did-it argument to his defense, but that should be evidence enough to validate the impotence of the seminal argument.

Perhaps a bit on theatrics since there's no science or credible argument to attack? ALL CAPS RARELY PROVES ANYTHING OTHER THAN THAT YOU ARE AN ANGRY LOON. The same is true for exclamation points! So why use them when trying to call other people angry loons?

And here's an observation about arguments in general- they require opposition. Who is arguing for fast food? Who is arguing for pollution? What about radiation or cocktails or (extra-marital?) affairs? No one. At that point, your attack becomes ad hominem. And that's unfortunate because it makes you stupid and lazy and ugly. And a hipster.

Unfortunately there are always people willing to listen to someone who claims authority strictly because said faux-authority thinks they know a thing (note the TCHAIKOVSKY group listed above.) This phenomenon wouldn't in itself be so bad if it didn't effect anything appreciable. Unfortunately, in this case, children are suffering.

Huh, maybe this post does belong on an atheist blog after all.


ADRIAN FORT is a writer, blogger, and essayist from Kansas City, Missouri. Follow him on twitter @adriananyway. His work has appeared in Existere, decomP magazinE, The Bluest Aye, Bareback Magazine, Gadfly Online, Chrome Baby, The Eunoia Review, Linguistic Erosion, and Smashed Cat Magazine. His Master's Degree is from Lindenwood University. 

Holy Books and Holey Socks

The problem with religious extremists is they're right.

According to their ancient texts, anyway. After all, when stepping into a Church, you barely have time to admire the crucifix before being assailed with the Christian catch phrase "God, family, and (insert priority.) In that order!"

It's hard to imagine any of the Abrahamic religions, or divisions of those religions, having much different of a hierarchy. Once you've claimed a dusty book as more precious than a blood-bond, well, what's the blood of a few hundred strangers?

After that concession, the fact that the Abrahamic religions do condone slavery, do necessitate the subjugation of women, do force people to abhor homosexuals, etc. barely even needs to be raised except to point out what group is conspicuously absent in the subset of alright to abuse (hint: the heteronormative ruling class males [in other words, the guys who wrote the books...])

Fortunately, we live in a time where most people wear their religion in the same way they wear a sock that has a hole in it. When you actually take the time to look at the sock, you can see there's a hole right in the heel. But in your morning grog, you rarely investigate socks before slipping them on your feet. So you do put them on and once we get to walking around in it, your mind is on other things, and you stop worrying about the hole in one of the heels. During those times, it's a sock just like anyone else's. In fact, you imagine, it's probably pretty normal to have a hole in your heel. Everyone wears socks, right? Surely some of them have worn through as well. Someone's probably walking next to you right then, just thinking about their own holey sock.

But sometimes life happens and you have to take a corner sharply. And when that happens, your naked heel farts against the sole of your shoe and you have to look at the people around you and tell them that it's not how it sounded. But, sort of, it is how it sounded.

We live in a pretty amazing world where it is not considered wasteful to toss out a defective sock. It will probably save you a good deal of embarrassment when life happens.

But maybe you feel like you can't afford new socks. Have you ever tried life sans-socks? Even for a little bit? What are your socks, especially the bad ones, really worth to you? More than your mother? Your children? Your neighbors?

I think what I'm trying to say is don't pretend holey socks are more important than your mother. And don't kill people because of them either.

Just throw the damned things away.


ADRIAN FORT is a writer, blogger, and essayist from Kansas City, Missouri. Follow him on twitter @adriananyway. His work has appeared in Existere, decomP magazinE, The Bluest Aye, Bareback Magazine, Gadfly Online, Chrome Baby, The Eunoia Review, Linguistic Erosion, and Smashed Cat Magazine. His Master's Degree is from Lindenwood University.