PZ Raises the White Flag!

I think you should offer to be rude to an unpleasant person.

It’ll be tough for you, but think of the children!

I’m not familiar with Magic: The Gathering, so I have to ask: does “they may tap Hemant Mehta” have some meaning in the context of the game?

Or is it the same meaning as in “I’d tap that ass”?

I’m not familiar with Magic: The Gathering, so I have to ask: does “they may tap Hemant Mehta” have some meaning in the context of the game?

In the context of the game, tapping is roughly analogous to “exhausting”. Many abilities or spells require tapping as part of the costs associated to play them, and since things only become untapped at the beginning of your turn, it acts as an additional in-game resource. Since the card has a power/toughness, Hemant is creature, and tapped creatures are “too tired” to attack or block.

Do with that what you will 🙂

Shouldn’t that be:

legendary creature – Friendly Atheist

it seems to cost a lot to come out.

Hemant:

I love you! You’re adorable and smart and funny and a great asset to The Cause. You’re also very cute. If I were not an old married lady….well, never mind. Just keep doing what you’re doing. 😉 And thanks.

oh right the PC police… you sound like a tea bagger. If you want to justify slights to marginalized populations at least have the stones to just come out and say it. It’s easy to toss off tired platitudes complaining about the “pc police” because you want to be on the side of bald faced bigotry while keeping your distance at the same time. The pc police bit is transparent at best, often used by bigots that want to carry on doing the same bullshit they have gotten away with in the past because no one dared to call them out on it. If people want to continue on slagging off marginalized groups they can, but to insist that others chill out, (sit down and shut up) is another matter all together. Point and yell cop at me till you are blue in the face but guess what, I will not sit down and shut up.

Come on, Vas. It isn’t in any way an insult to women OR transgender people. He’s not saying that there’s anything wrong with it, it’s just that it’s humiliating BECAUSE he’s not transgender or a woman. Think of it this way: I don’t know whether you’re gay or straight, but just assuming you’re straight, wouldn’t you find it humiliating to have sex with another person of the same sex as you? I think most people would – not because they think there’s anything wrong with being gay, but because they themselves are not.

Well screw me, it appears many people are still happy to buy a ticket to the minstrel show.

NotYou007 I’m not at all surprised at your reaction sadly enough. In as much as you self identify as bi-sexual and a cross-dresser you should know all too well the common indignities bi-sexuals suffer at the hands of the straight community not to mention the even greater ration of shit dished out by the lesbian and gay communities. Have you never been told that bi-sexuals don’t even really exist? Did you somehow miss statements like you are just greedy, can never maintain a stable relationship, it’s just a phase, one day you’ll just accept the fact that you are gay, you’re really gay but have relationships with woman so you can enjoy straight privilege, you’re just a slut, and on and on. Have you not noticed that almost zero dollars of grant money go to NOPs that serve bi-sexuals despite the fact that bi-sexual people have always been at the forefront of the gay rights movement all the way back to Stonewall, ( I think there may have been a few drag queens involved in there somewhere as well) and beyond and even to this day continue to be leaders in LGBT organizations. All this grief despite the fact that bi-sexuals may well be the biggest single group in the LGBT community, an uncounted and invisible majority without a voice many claim. And how do you as a bi-sexual react? With a sit down shut up dismissal i.e. “chill and relax a bit”. This is not the road to social change, this is not the road equal treatment. For a while now atheists have been all too happy to point to surveys that place them as the least trusted group in America, I’m guessing that, as usual, bi-sexuals where excluded from the list… invisible. This is what happens when people always let shit slide and chill out. Bi-sexuals have no political power at all and are used as sacrificial lambs by their so called allies, back burner for you pal, “we’ll get to it later”.

Gabe, thanks for the assumptions, I guess straight is the “default” position huh.
Screw it, I’m done with this thread. Go ahead and paint on the black face, take a knee and sing mammy, I’m sure it will be a hoot.

@vas: Dude, seriously, chill the fark out. You could have made your point without the GWoT, and flipping out on people who tell you to calm down is only gonna get your BP up so high it’ll start to boil.

As for the rest of the article, when PZ made that statement, he was actually pretty far ahead…I’m thinking he did this more for the humiliation factor than the bragging factor: after all, he is the “number one evil atheist” 🙂

santiago- on further reflection i’m afraid i still deeply disagree with you and vas. he has a legitimate complaint about the treatment of bisexuals & transgendered individuals, but a vehement attack was not warranted in this situation. and monty python is still really fucking funny.

Yeah so I slept on it and I’m back…
Stellaluna, first things first, I did not call you a tea bagger, I said you sound like a tea bagger, in as much as when someone is being called out on bigoted behavior, that folks feel they have the right to engage in, (and indeed they do have the right) their response is word for word exactly the same as your response, an off the shelf platitude designed to shut down dialogue. The emotional response that seems appropriate is not getting pissed off at me, but rather a bit of introspection and examination of why you support actions that further marginalize an already marginalized population. These are people who are murdered right here in America for simply having the unmitigated audacity to be seen in public.

I’m not going to have an aneurism, my blood pressure is not up nor boiling. To me these personal attacks seem like a reworking of telling women they are hysterical, it’s a tactic to divert attention from the issue at hand by belittling the opposition.

Santiago is correct this kind of stuff should sound alarm bells and it would be a good thing to closely examine why such things are found to be acceptable.

At least try and put yourself in the place of a transgendered person on this issue for just a moment. Someone says that if they lose a bet they will dress up as someone from your community as their punishment. Or even flip it around, if people help me win a bet I’ll humiliate myself by dressing up as member of your community, because I couldn’t think of anything more humiliating off the top of my head, than appearing publically as a transvestite. Oh just think of all the crap I’m going to take over this, my friends will tease me and call me unkind names, someone might even be so bold as to grab my ass or make mocking sexual comments. But at the end of the mistrial show I can take off my makeup and settle back safely into my place of privilege, the teasing will stop for the most part, although some will bring it up from time to time to get my goat, but hey no harm done, at least not to me anyway. It’s all just good fun and I never have to face the consequences of keeping negative stereotypes and open hostility alive and socially sanctioned. But let’s have a quick look and some of the people who do have to pick up the tab on this type of thing…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unlawfully_killed_transgender_people

Go ahead and have a good long look at this list of dead people, yep real dead people. People who were persecuted in life, called “it” and worse, people who were systematically dehumanized making it all too easy to slaughter them in cold blood and leave them to rot in some out of the way place.

The type of thing Matt proposes doing is a part of the problem that leads to the devaluing of these people, it makes it seem alright to mock them and sends the message that being transgendered is a humiliation. Matt my well be a good guy, perhaps he didn’t even think of the ramifications of his proposal. But alas the ramifications are real and the result is all too often a horrible death. Go back to the link and read the names again, think about the families and their grief, then tell me again how I’m over reacting and how this is no big deal.

Hey guys, I’m hoping we can continue a civil discussion here, I’d just like to add my 2 cents:

– Stellaluna: accusing Vas on being on a ‘PC police trip’ was not a good idea. It reeks of what sexist/homophobic/racist people respond with when called out on their prejudices (please note I’m NOT calling you any of the above, I only intend to highlight why using the ‘PC Police’ card is often not the wisest choice.) There may be cases when one can criticize someone for being too PC but as you’ve said yourself Vas has a legitimate point and so should not have been dismissed in that way.
– Gabe: I’m sorry to say your comment above is unbelievably cringe-worthy. I am straight but no, I would *NOT* consider it a humiliation to sleep with someone of the same sex (as long as there is consent of both parties, of course). I don’t believe a straight woman dressing in drag would ever feel like being in a “humiliating” position so there’s no reason why a man should.

– In general: cut Vas some slack, he highlighted an egregious double standard that is incredibly insulting to trans-gendered people and what he got in reply was people ignoring his point and criticizing his tone. I personally would not have realized how insulting the “drag-as-humiliation” concept could be had he not used such outrage in his first comment.

JRS – I’m not saying drag in and of its self is an insult to trans* people. I am well familiar with the rich history of drag. But the idea of straight guys crossdressing as a form of public humiliation still sits wrong with me in a big way. Just to be 100% clear I don’t think drag is an insult to transgendered people, but it certainly can be used as a tool of the privileged to attack transgendered people i.e the SNL sketch about Estro-Maxx. That wasn’t even humor, there was no joke, just sneering, mocking, thinly veiled bigotry. It should be easy enough for Matt to find a different humiliation for himself, one that does not marginalize and mock others, not that anyone has asked him to, I imagine this discussion may still be off his radar. Perhaps the most useful thing to do would be to get his take on this and see if he feels like changing course. I’m not attacking Matt I’m questioning the wisdom of his idea. I just don’t see why it would be important to follow through with this particular stunt when you consider the cost to others. Wouldn’t any stunt do?
I’m willing to cut Matt some slack, after all, for all I know he may be using this as an excuse to come out as transgendered. If that’s the case then he should just be clear about it, if it’s just a case of mocking and marginalizing then maybe it’s just best to move on to another idea. What makes it important for him to do this? Why on earth would it be important for someone to use the lives of transgendered people as a punch line?

So, Vas e-mails me to point me to his comments here – promising “nothing I said there is a personal attack on you but I do think the whole concept of the drag thig may be ill advised,”

Vas,

You’re an idiot and a liar…I have no idea how you think there’s no personal attack there with the “asshole move”, calls for Hemant to disassociate himself from me and the raging FU comments.

So read VERY carefully, this is the only response you’re getting:

There is no implication that this is humiliating – in any way. My intent, by the way, has been to do the show in drag for a long time – specifically to raise the point that the arguments don’t lose any merit based on who is making them or what they’re wearing. I’m a FIRM supporter of the LGBT community and I’ve done drag on many occasions. The purpose here is to do something that people might find INTRIGUING or AMUSING (because I’m not as sexy as the typical drag queen) and that not everyone is brave enough to do – in order to raise money.

Whatever little chip you’ve got on your shoulder, you might want to get it the fuck off – because you’re stupidly alienating people who are, otherwise, allies.

If you think I just opted to do drag as a way of poking fun at the TG community – you’re a moron who doesn’t know the first thing about me, and you’ve wasted far too much of my time on this.

Actually, you get one more response – because I hadn’t yet read your last post:

“I’m willing to cut Matt some slack, after all, for all I know he may be using this as an excuse to come out as transgendered. If that’s the case then he should just be clear about it, if it’s just a case of mocking and marginalizing then maybe it’s just best to move on to another idea. ”

Or maybe it’s a way to come out in support of the transgendered or maybe it’s any number of things that aren’t what you assumed. Before you start complaining about potential prejudice, you should avoid the irony of pre-judging and simply ask.

Fair enough…watch the episode and if you have a problem with it, we can always discuss it.

So we get to see Matt in drag. Can’t wait to see it and laugh.