This Is About Sex, Right?

No, this isn't a story about sex trafficking. This is a story about immigrant women working in factories in fields all across the country. And [Southern Poverty Law Center's] response is not to criminalize their work, thus penalizing the victims, but rather to help them file lawsuits against their employers and attackers. You can read about one such case, U.S. EEOC, et al. vs. Tuscarora Yarns, here.

It struck me as a stark and important contrast to the antiprostitution activists who claim to be working to help victims of exploitation but who are really further victimizing them by criminalizing their livelihood instead of prosecuting abusers. SPLC's strategy makes it clear that they understand the issues: All people have a right to earn a living. No person should be subject to abuse, violence, or exploitation at work. Workers in many industries put their bodies at risk to do their work, but those risks should be minimized and worker safety is everybody's concern.

This is a lesson that feminists who claim they want to protect women in the sex industry ought to learn.

If you're not already reading Sex in the Public Square, you really should, and articles like the one quoted above are why. In a society that can't seem to refer to sex without heaping loads of shame, it's good to have people who expose that shame to the bleaching power of a little sunlight. Even I--whose circle includes burlesque artists, former strippers, sex-shop owners, erotica writers, nude models and photographers, customers of all the above and prostitutes as well, and people who have engaged in sexual relationships that one would have to stretch to call something other than prostitution--even I find challenges to my understanding of sex work at SitPS.

Here's a recent example: Did you know that "indoor" (non-street) prostitution is currently legal in Rhode Island? I had no idea until SitPS started covering efforts to make it illegal, efforts which in turn shed some light on the people who claimed they were trying to protect women from exploitation by making criminalizing their jobs. The longer this process goes on, the harder it is to believe the most vocal supporters of criminalization are anything but deeply disturbed by the very notion of sex.

In this piece on myths of the sex trade:

Despite what some activists claim, most of those working indoors in the U.S. have not been trafficked against their will.

Many indoor workers made conscious decisions to enter the trade, and a significant number actually like their work. A recent New York City study found that indoor workers expressed “a surprisingly high degree of enjoyment” of their work, and several other studies also find that indoor workers have fairly high job satisfaction and believe they provide a valuable service. This is not an exceptional finding; it is confirmed by a growing body of research. The media often ignore it, and prefer to do feature stories on the abused and exploited.

This is not to romanticize indoor prostitution. Some indoor workers work under oppressive conditions or dislike their work for other reasons. At the same time, there is plenty of evidence to challenge the myths that most prostitutes are coerced into the sex trade, experience frequent abuse and want to be rescued. This syndrome is more characteristic of street workers, but it’s important to point out that the vast majority of American sex providers work indoors.

SitPS included a link to an opinion piece by Donna Hughes of Citizens Against Trafficking, one of the main forces pushing for criminalization. She described the testimony of those who willingly work in the sex industry (i.e., those who would be made criminals under the new law) as "a sordid circus, with pimps and prostitutes coming forward to oppose the legislation." She complained about hearing testimony from a smoker and from people who were camera-shy. And she used scare quotes wherever the topic of sex came up.

Then a man reeking of cigarette smoke and other odors came forward. He was identified to me by Hurley as a pimp. He claimed credit for the growth of the spa-brothels in Rhode Island for his now-deceased wife. Another Korean woman came forward and said she did “it” for depressed, shy guys who needed stress relief. She implicated construction workers, judges and lawyers. She proudly exclaimed that she does “it” to make money.

Then a tattooed woman, calling herself a “sexologist and sex educator,” spoke against the bill. She is also a reporter for a prostitutes’ magazine called $pread. (I couldn’t make this stuff up!)

But don't forget, her goal is to help those in the industry. She isn't doing this because talking about sex gives her the squeems. Not her. It's everybody else who's working from a place of irrationality.

The State Senate’s obstructionism has been aided by the silence of many who should be speaking out. Some local and national anti-trafficking organizations have actually worked behind the scenes to oppose the desperately needed reforms. They blame the lack of trafficking prosecutions on lack of political will and inadequate police training. In reality, trafficking laws work only where law enforcement is empowered to fight prostitution.

Other groups, such as the Rhode Island chapter of the ACLU and Rhode Island NOW, have opposed passage of a prostitution law for ideological reasons. They support the decriminalization of prostitution and mistakenly believe that good trafficking laws make prostitution laws unnecessary. The Rhode Island experience demonstrates that it is long past time to lay that utopian hope aside. The truth is that these very groups are to blame for obstructing efforts to equip police to protect victims of trafficking.

But it's Citizens Against Trafficking's most recent salvo that really lays their anti-sex opinions wide open for everyone to see. It came in response to a letter signed by 50 academics don't believe the evidence supports the assertion that criminalization of prostitution is a solution to the problem of human trafficking. Citizens Against Trafficking responded, not to the substance of the letter, but by, well, the title of their letter is "International Sex Radicals Campaign to Keep Prostitution Decriminalized in Rhode Island." Some highlights:

Citizens Against Trafficking has learned that their letter is not an isolated action, but part of a larger “Rhode Island Campaign.” Citizens Against Trafficking is working on a multi-part analysis of the authors and signers of the letter, the statements they make in the letter, and their campaign methods.

Part 1 focuses on initial discoveries made by Citizens Against Trafficking researchers about some of the authors and signers of the letter. We found shocking information about what they stand for and the goals of their international campaign. We will describe how members of this group are using sophisticated communications technologies to rapidly mobilize other sex radicals from around the world and how they are targeting Rhode Island legislators and media.

Translation: We're going after them personally, and not only are they sex-positive, but they blog. And Tweet!

The leading signers of the letter call themselves “sex radicals,” meaning they oppose any limits on any sexual behavior as long as it has the superficial appearance of being consensual.

Translation: People don't really know what kind(s) of sex they want to have.

For years, Wood has struggled with feeling “invisible.” During her sabbatical leave she started to feel “more like herself, more free,” which led her to start acting out her latent exhibitionism. “During my sabbatical I had some … exhibitionistic urges that I allowed myself to explore.” Earlier this summer, she stripped on a dock and swam naked in the Mystic River, within sight of a restaurant and boats passing by. She said she wanted to declare her independence from society’s rules, but she also wondered if anyone saw her and might complain.5 The exhibitionist’s intention is to shock and force unsuspecting people to view their nudity. Citizens Against Trafficking wonders if the administration at SUNY is aware that one of their faculty members is crossing the line into sex offender territory.

Translation: Eeeeek, skinny-dipping!!!! Lock her up!

The sex radicals have now moved on to the second phase of their campaign; they are organizing a second letter, written by the same people, but to be presented as coming from “sex workers.”

Translation: Prostitutes and strippers aren't competent to decide which petitions to sign.

The sex radicals think their letter has had a persuasive impact on Rhode Islanders’ views. Citizens Against Trafficking thinks the letter has got an inordinate amount of attention considering what these sex radicals advocate and defend. Their supporters on the Mix Tapes for Hookers web site are planning a party in Providence for late September. They’re inviting “hookers, strippers, rentboys, sex educators, porn stars, burlesque performers, dominatrices, go-go boys, and more.”

Translation: They're listening to those people?

If you want to help those in the sex industry, who else would you listen to? Well, besides the academics who have actually studied problems, solutions and the status quo? Answer: Not the people who are trying to turn all the "victims" into criminals.

Instead, I recommend the following reading:

Don't let personal attacks distract us
Letter from Norma Jean Almodovar to RI Lawmakers
Finding common ground for rational discussion
Being a Powerful Advocate: The Rhode Island Case
Stop, Look, Listen - what is really being done to stop human trafficking? (petition)

ScienceOnline2010

W00t!

Pretty in Pink

It is a day to go and play, but apropos of the discussion at Quiche Moraine, I thought I'd leave you with this lovely cover.


The one who insists he was first in the line is the last to remember her name.

Congratulations, Doctor

Betül has successfully survived, researched, survived, written, survived, defended and survived. Congratulations, Dr. Arslan!

Now you can get back to that all important blogging. (You left it over here, by the way.)

Destroy Ferris

He didn't flinch from geekdom. It wasn't prettied up, Hollywood geekdom in his movies, or at least, not all of it. Hughes's geekdom was awkward and painful. It was played for laughs, but they were always at least half-sympathetic laughs, which was rare at the time.

He didn't do issue films or bright, fluffy teen romances. He captured the pain of trivialities and the lack of perspective of teenagers. His parents weren't monsters, just caught up in their own lives. Still and all, I never watched a John Hughes film that didn't make me uncomfortable for all the wrong reasons.

Find out why at Quiche Moraine.

Bring Bing Back Home!

Bing Haubrich has made new friends in Japan, but they want to keep him there. In fact, they have threatened to hold him for ransom unless his American friends and family do two things:

1. Answer questions about Japan/Nippon culture and cuisine.

2. Donate money to help his mother pay the plane fare for his trip.

It's tempting for a young man to stay in Japan, because so far he has found the food to be awesome and the shopping (even in vending machines) to be, let's say, "unique." In fact, the Japanese students think that if he stays long enough he could use his ninja powers to be Emperor someday. I don't think that this would be a good thing for world peace, as Bing has not worked out his "megalomania" issues and bad things could happen.

In a Japanese restaurant which serves "family style" what is the polite way to move the food from your platter to the plate when dining with close friends?

a. Using your fingers after washing them in the finger bowl.
b. Using a scoop.
c. Using the back end of your chopsticks.
d. Using the front, sharp end of your chopsticks.

Not the Dolphins!!!

I know they're bad. You know they're bad. But try explaining to your friends who make more emotion-based decisions why they shouldn't use antibacterial products for normal, daily applications.

Actually, now you can.

Dolphins are swimming in waters tainted with germ-killing soaps, but they aren't winding up squeaky clean.

Triclosan, an antibacterial chemical found in everyday bathroom and kitchen products, is accumulating in dolphins at concentrations known to disrupt the hormones and growth and development of other animals.

Scientists have found that one-third of the bottlenose dolphins tested off South Carolina and almost one-quarter of those tested off Florida carried traces of triclosan in their blood. It is the first time the chemical has been reported in a wild marine mammal – a worrisome finding, researchers say, because it shows it is building up in the ocean’s food web.

Thanks to Ana for the link.

Reality-Based Politics

Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Johnson has no quarrel with publicly funded treatment for alcoholics. But he said he struggles with taxpayer money going to housing for chronic alcoholics that offer no treatment at all.

Not only that, he was surprised to learn, the so-called "wet houses" don't even require their homeless residents to stay sober.

"I understand these people are very sick, but I don't think that means you should expect absolutely nothing out of them," Johnson said. "If we're going to provide you housing, you should figure out how to stop being drunk all the time."

[sigh]

Jeff is a nice guy, generally. I used to work with his wife, so I've met him and the kids, and a cuter family you're not likely to meet. But this....

According to the American Indian Community Development Corp., which operates the home with Project for Pride in Living, Wakiagun saves taxpayers more than $500,000 a year by reducing detox admissions, emergency room visits and jail bookings.

In the JAMA study, published in April, University of Washington public health researchers monitored 95 homeless chronic alcoholics before and after they moved into a wet house, and compared them with 39 others waiting to get in.

Before the wet house, the median cost of each of the 95 was $4,000 a month. After a year in the wet house the cost per person dropped to $960, mostly for housing.

This works. It cuts down on crime, both those perpetrated by the residents and those with the residents as victims. It cuts down on drinking. Several of the people interviewed for the story had quit while residents, even though sobriety wasn't a requirement of residence.

Still, Johnson isn't persuaded. "If what you're doing isn't right, the fact that it might be cheaper in the long run doesn't mean it's the best outcome. ... It seems to be spending money to help people give up on themselves," he says. That would indeed be terrible--if it were true.

The only way Johnson's point of view would be valid is if alcoholism were the vice the Victorians and Edwardians thought it was instead of the disease we now know it to be. Like any disease, what the JAMA study shows is that treating the symptoms of alcoholism, the homelessness and victimization, leads to a better outcome for the patient. Acting as though those symptoms are a visitation from God for a life of sin does not. It just adds a burden of stress for a patient whose disease is worsened by stress.

This is why I want my politics to be reality-based.

To My Conservative Friends and Colleagues

Who needs to die before you speak?

We've already had one death arguably attributable to this insanity of refusing to recognize the authority of a duly elected president and Congress. How many more will it take?

Sure, the guy was a raving loon, but there are a lot of people out there right now who are being told insane things and believing them. They believe a man could be elected president without anyone verifying his citizenship. They believe Congress could and would pass a bill that mandates euthanasia. They believe they're about to be rounded up and shipped to gulags or concentration camps for disagreeing with the administration's policies. It doesn't matter that those things are insane. These people have been whipped into a fine state of paranoia.

It's easy to tell yourself you're not like them, that you merely disagree with the changes that are happening. After all, you're not insane, just conservative.

Will that matter when the next person dies over this? Representative David Scott has had a swastika painted on his office sign. Another representative was hung in effigy. Representative Brad Miller received a death threat. Senator Arlen Specter invited people to tell him what they thought about health care reform--held back the police who were concerned about violence and disruption--and still people screamed in his face and called him a tyrant. A man showed up to protest the president's town hall meeting today wearing a gun and carrying a sign that said, "It is time to water the tree of liberty" (referencing Jefferson's "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.").

Those are just some of the politicians who are on the receiving end of violent anger. Fights are breaking out outside these meetings on health care. My husband was accused earlier this week, by someone who should know better, of planning to turn an old friend in for an "incorrect" political position. I can't buy ammunition right now to go target shooting because it's all sold out and has been for months. This whole thing is teetering on the edge. Someone else is going to die soon. Maybe lots of someone elses.

It will be your fault.

"Why?" you ask, "I'm not the one feeding their paranoia." No, you're not, but you're the only people who can stop it.


They're not going to listen to us. We liberals are already traitors and, somehow, simultaneously Nazis and communists. They believe we're going to round them up and put them to sleep. They believe that if they listen to us, they die.

Some of them will listen to you because they know you're on the same side. Some won't listen, exactly, but will find their first reasons to doubt the lies because you speak against them. Some won't listen to anyone but Rush and the rest of talk radio and their friends at Fox.

That's where you need to do your most talking. Talk to the stations and tell them you won't watch or listen while they refuse to speak against the violence. Tell them you can see how they're dividing the country and they have a responsibility to do better. Tell them the same thing I've told you: Unless they speak against it, they who have so much influence, they are complicit in the violence. They condone with their silence.

Then tell their advertisers the same thing. Then the conservative politicians.

Unless you want the violence, you have to tell those in a leadership position to lead their people in a different direction. They represent you, and you haven't argued up to this point that they don't. If they lead us into more violence and death, they are doing it in your name.

If you don't speak now, the next death will be your fault.

"Thank God for PZ Myers"

One more follow-up on civil atheism, with a somewhat unexpected conclusion.

To put it differently, thank God for PZ Myers. That man chaps my behind. He and I have no reasonable hope of ever coming to a perfect agreement on the social good, though we might achieve overlapping consensus. But he usually takes the issues of belief and reason seriously, and even when he doesn't, he forces me to do so. For that, he is "good health to me nevertheless." I am a better man and a better citizen for having to consider his perspective, even if I do wish he'd go jump in the lake more than just occasionally.

Loving Local Media

Big newspapers may be dying, but I'm loving what I'm getting in their place. We've got three donor-supported online news sources in the Cities that I read regularly. All of them also rely on the community for tips or for covering events. Not one of them is the combined police blotter and traffic fatality feed that my local big, bankrupt paper is (yes, there's more than that, but it does tend to get buried).

The UpTake is one of the better-known local media outlets, as it provided the full coverage of the various Coleman-Franken hearings. Video is their big thing, and while they're a little slow at the moment with the state legislature not in session, they're still updating with features like Kyle's iPhone interviews as he hitchhikes across America and asks people about the economy. They're also hosting the White House videos debunking the anti-health care reform lies. Those videos come in handy far more often than I'd like.



The Minnesota Independent is part of the Center for Independent Media, so they cover national issues more, but they keep an eye on the local slant. For example, their Religious Right Watch covers the political actions of local and national groups.

Jan Markell of Maple Grove–based Olive Tree Ministries called on her radio listeners to attend congressional town hall meetings in August. “Here’s what you can do, your congressmen and senators are coming home for much of August,” she said on last week’s program. “They are going to have town hall meetings all over the place. You need to go there and give them an earful. The ideal thing to do is to go to their town hall and read them the riot act — in Christian love — but read them the riot act on this issue of health care.”

But she implied Rep. Michele Bachmann should be spared, heaping praises upon her: “[Michele Bachmann] is one of my favorite people. She is doing just an outstanding job in Congress standing up for what is right. She’s got a target on her back. You need to pray for her and her family.”

They do still cover solely local issues, such as how instant runoff voting will change our Minneapolis city elections this fall.

This year, Hofstede (now the incumbent, again the DFL endorsee) must contend for three more months with all four of her challengers: Libertarian Raymond Wilson Rolfe, Republican Jeffrey Cobia, DFLer Allen Kathir, and Melissa Hill, who is running under the banner of “Civil Disobedience.”

Due to personal circumstances, Hill isn’t able to run the full-bore campaign she had planned on earlier in the year — when, she says, she was courted by several political parties, including the Greens.

But thanks to IRV and the lack of a primary election, Hill is guaranteed time to get out her message about the value of political protest and civil liberties.

The MinnPost is my favorite of the three sites. Why? Well, they do a bit more analysis in addition to the straight reportage, but I don't think that's all of it. Maybe because they do a better job of looking critically at the behavior of both political parties, not in some kind of false dichotomy, but simply in the sense of keeping everyone on the straight and narrow.

They've already started talking to Michele Bachmann's DFL challengers for next year to get a sense of where they stand on the big, controversial issues. Sen. Tarryl Clark is pretty comfortably standard for a DFL endorsee, which could be a problem in the general election but makes me fairly happy with her. Dr. Maureen Reed is either coy on the big topics or a poor communicator with fairly nuanced positions.

The MinnPost is also tracking Minnesota's big national Republican hopeful, Governor Pawlenty. He's expected to try for a national leadership position in the party and for the Republican nomination for president in 2012. By the time either of those come around, the MinnPost will have documented his stances (and veracity) on, well, just about everything he decides to talk about. Last week, it was health care reform.

Here's what Pawlenty said:

"…many Democrats in Washington want a government-run plan that would require states to comply with dozens of new mandates and regulations. One study by the Lewin Group recently concluded that an estimated 114 million Americans could be displaced from their current coverage under such a plan…"

Truthfulness rating:

Half true. There was indeed such a study, but the governor's statement oversimplifies the study and is misleading.

I have to admit, I don't necessarily know a lot about the details of individual crimes in my city, and I have to go looking if I'm concerned about weekend road closures, but these sites are going a long way toward keeping me from missing the papers that look to be drying up and blowing away.

More Reading on Civil Atheism

It all started with a little lament that we atheists allow people to convince us that pointing out unequal (and even illegal) treatment is being strident. It went from there to an elaboration of the social pressures used (even by our friends) that make us think that. And then it exploded into a classic example of the consequences of telling an articulate minority to pipe down.

Lou didn't care much for having a Christian step in to tell him he was the person being too uncivil.

The non-delusional have been trying for a couple of centuries now to have a quiet, rational discussion with the religious and what’s it’s gotten us is more, not less, marginalization. What it’s gotten us is a society hell-bent on theocracy and longing for the dark ages. What it’s gotten us is suffering of innocents and willful ignorance that is cartoonish and nearly unparodiable.

Phil debated whether Lou's post meant he should just give up on us atheists.

So, rolling all this around, what should I do? I’ve stayed in the fight thus far, in part because I do believe that America as a nation can benefit from a lot more discussion, and a lot less internal warfare. I am also of the belief, based on what I was taught in church, that my response as a Christian needs to be acceptance of everyone, and the extension of as much understanding, compassion, forgiveness and tolerance as I can to those who do not share my beliefs. And, if they are being discriminated against, in any way, I have to stand with them against that discrimination.

(Still no recognition, though, that I woke up Friday morning to being told I should die as soon as possible. Just for the record, Phil, when one of my atheist friends sees that and doesn't say anything, I know they've gotten similar treatment. When you don't say anything, as part of that majority, but instead talk about your feelings, I don't even know that you've seen it, much less whether you care about it.)

Jason put together a nice summary of the different issues at play in the discussion.

Thirdly, not every theist is as irrational as the people who are actively trying to abridge our rights, however they are also not stepping up to the plate when people say things like “atheists are worthless fuck stains and should die”. However, they do get the vapors when someone dares to suggest that all religious folks feel the same way. In the thread over at Almost Diamonds, you’ll see a so-called reasonable theist jump as soon as he realizes Lou gets paint on him in his characterization of religion as a whole as damaging to human rights. I know a number of very reasonable theists who are able to reconcile their belief systems with the universe as it exists and as science has come to understand it; and this is fine. As an agnostic atheist I do allow for the sliver of possibility that something “caused” all this; I just don’t feel the evidence as presented at the moment by theists is compelling (or even truly amounts to anything worth considering in fact). So, to those that do not directly attempt to abridge the rights of gays, the faithless, women, or any other group that is not WASPy enough for their liking, I apologize in advance when you get tarred with the same brush as the whackjobs, but if that’s the case, then you’re obviously not doing enough to distance yourself from said whackjobs. Get in the fight or get out of the way!

Skeptigirl points out to the moderate Christians that they can do more good by actions other than telling atheists to "play nice."

Many don’t understand, or won’t, that when we try to get Christianity out of school, we’re not attacking Christianity. If they want to believe that Jesus was awesome, great. But they should do it at home or in church where it belongs — they should not force kids in public school to have to sit through revised science and history classes for the sake of Christianity. This isn’t only about atheists — it’s about every single other religion that’s marginalized by this practice. And I don’t for one second believe that if they were in our position, they wouldn’t fight buildings being adorned with Muslim scriptures or Greek/Roman mythology being taught as literal interpretations of creation.

Rystefn tells them what we hear when moderate Christians think they're being so reasonable.

Every day, I hear some asshole say we’re alienating potential allies by being so vocal. Really? There are people out there whose willingness to see us get the freedoms that are our right hinges on how polite we are? You know what I say to that? Fuck those people! I’m not interested in trading angry oppressors for kinder, gentler oppressors. I will not allow my rights to hang on the whim of another, whether that other wants to deny them as a matter of course, or simply because I said the word “fuck.”

And finally, Dan does his gentle best to explain what civil is all about.

You see, I’ve been missing the fact that the moderates have been out there all along, and they do have the majority over the fundamentalists. I was just confused about the name. You see, the other members of the church have a name that they’ve used for the moderates all along, but I had failed to make the connection. Not to worry, though, as I’ve got it now.

Anybody I missed?

Votes Needed

I love it when the talented people I know get together and make something cool happen. In this case, my husband, Ben, and our friend Analiese set up a vintage-look photo shoot at a St. Paul landmark. In Ben's case, it was an opportunity to get a beautiful shot he's been wanting to do for a while. For Ana, it was an entry in a contest for a walk-on part on Mad Men, and for that, the shot couldn't be more perfect.

However, taking time to get that perfect shot means that there's very little time for Ana to accumulate votes in the contest. So, please, now and for the next four days, click over to Ana's contest page and vote her up. Five stars, once a day per unique IP. Ben and Ana would appreciate your votes, and I would too.

Let's not see such a beautiful collaboration go to waste.

Physics Graduate School

I encounter the second year grad students. The ones who earned their class the name “The Class From Hell”. They had a poster up in the TA office the previous year with a running total of how many female students came to see each TA. These amazing specimens move from dirty looks or come-on looks to comments: “You wear that just to show off your legs, don’t you?” “Not many skirts around this place.”

The thought that I would dress to show off my legs is so funny it takes my breath away. I’m in grad school, struggling and trying to stay sane, and I’m going to wake up and say “I think I’ll wear those tights that make my legs look good. Maybe that asshole second year will notice.” I didn’t even brush my hair every day. I washed it, braided it, and only rebraided after it got too messy by the third or fourth day. I had custom wrist braces which limited my hand mobility. (Keys on a carabiner clipped to my belt loop, since I couldn’t stick my hand in my pocket.) Obviously my only purpose for being there was to tempt him.

Today's post at Quiche Moraine is a little different. This is something a friend of mine, chair of her physics department, posted somewhere else. I told her more people needed to see it, and she agreed. Go read.

Atheism and Alienation

How polite do atheists need to be? There's always a current of this particular conversation going on in the atheist blogosphere, but Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum's attack on PZ Myers' actions in Crackergate seems to have thrown it into high relief. A bunch of people are popping up in various places to suggest that PZ's actions "just didn't help."

Even this blog isn't immune. Philip H. from DC Dispatches started it by praising Jeff Wagg's tactics.

I would also add that the dialogue you posted was, at least in print, civil, even cordial. I detected no hint of explative throwing, no threats to dessicrate a Denny's Apply Strudel, and thus no reason that Denny's shouldn't tkae the threat seriously. I know many atheists will disagree, but tactics matter. And in this case, the tactics, as reported, were probably very effective.

He got a response from me that I don't think he was expecting.

Phil, define desecrate. Do you mean like two guys kissing on the front steps? There are good reasons to be very leery of that word, not the least of which is the fact that my continued existence and happiness is desecration by some people's definition.

With some later elaboration.

The thing is, Jeff's is a very reasonable response to a meal costing a dollar more for a non-churchgoer. Complaining to the manager is not a reasonable response to death threats.

In fact, what PZ did in Crackergate was pretty merciful. It had no real-world repercussions. He could have turned over all the threats of violence to the FBI. They have jurisdiction for terroristic threats made electronically. Instead he hurt their feelings. Badly, maybe. Still feelings.

I know you appreciate that I'm fairly polite and reasonable about these things. You may not notice it, but I never forget that it's the people who take a stronger, more "outrageous" stand who give me the space to do this. Without them, it wouldn't matter how nice I am on the subject. I'd be in the same position as the Jews PZ talked about in his cracker-piercing post: different, therefore suspect, therefore game, therefore dead.

I may reach out more than they do, but I can only do that as long as I'm alive and free to speak.

There are a few things that Phil and I don't agree on, but one of the things I like about him is that he argues fairly. He tries to understand what's going on on "the other side." In fact, the first time I really became aware of him was in the middle of an argument, and he ended up by reading my blog. (He's not the only one that happened with. Is that weird? Anyway.) So, when Phil asks for more information, I'm more than happy to give it, and he's asked for more on this.

Wow. Perhaps I've been in too many academic communities in my life, where this sort of freedom is taken for granted. Perhaps its my forgiving nature, where I labor against all evidence to look for good intent. But reading my words my first reaction was that you had personnally been threatened due to your atheism. As in threatened with death. If that's so, I am sorry to have touched a nerve. If not, perhaps you can elaborate, so the simple verbal literalist in me can get where you are going.

No, Phil, I haven't been directly threatened personally. I have seen others threatened for doing something I might do.

Webster Cook was threatened and assaulted and removed from office for mistaking the conventions of one Catholic service for another. I've spent time in Catholic churches to admire the art and architecture. They're open to the public for that purpose as well as for worship, but they don't come with guides. Even being respectful by my definition, I'm in an alien culture there. If a kid walking back to his seat without swallowing is worthy of assault and death threats, how difficult would it be for me to cross someone unknown line and become subject to the same?

PZ received death threats for mocking people's sense of proportion. I don't think I need to explain how this one is directly relevant to my life. Do I get to die now?

There are things that are said directly in conversations I'm a part of that tell me there are religious people who think that because I'm an atheist, I'm less than human.

• I can't love.
• I have no morals.
• I can't find any meaning or joy in life.

How big a step is it from that last one to "it doesn't matter if I live"? How big a step from the first two to deciding that it's better for the world if I'm not here?

Me being visibly atheist, polite or no, offends people, even when I'm talking to other atheists. See the bus ads that were just pulled in Iowa. They literally tell atheists they're not alone, but they were pulled because of complaints. "DART claims it received numerous phone calls from people who were offended by the ads".

This is something I do have direct experience with. I'm involved in a number of activities designed to raise the profile of atheists, precisely so people feel less alone. I'm not as active as I could be, but I don't keep silent either. Someone I know posted this in a discussion at Greg's.

I'm a Christian who chooses not to preach to others. I have an incredibly devout Catholic friend who doesn't preach to me. However, I'm finding some of my other friends are very irritating with all their atheist proselytizing.

Let's live and let live, already.

Now, that looks pretty simple on the face of it, but as I said, I know this person. I know what kind of "proselytizing" they're exposed to. My response:

I post about atheism on Facebook and on my blog because I find the topic interesting, because I want people to know they do know an atheist, and because a large number of the people who read my stuff in both places are atheists. I don't do it because I'm trying to change anyone else's mind about their religion. Maybe their assumptions about mine, but that's somewhat different.

If you mention a sermon you found interesting, are you trying to convert me? If you mention a TSA agent you found annoying, are you trying to get me to rebel against the government? If you wax enthusiastic about knitting, are you suggesting I need to take up needles? No, you're just talking about your life.

That's exactly the problem that an atheist faces in a situation like this. As far as society in general (in the U.S.) is concerned, mentioning religion is just talking about your life. Mentioning atheism is somehow encroaching on someone else's. Do you do it anyway, or do you hang out in the closet?

My behaviors are interpreted differently, even by people who know me, because they involve atheism. Being nonreligious is seen as a direct challenge to religion. I'm annoying because I address other atheists, publicly, on the topic of atheism.

So, I'm annoying, offensive, subhuman. Other people in situations similar to mine have been threatened and assaulted. They've been silenced. People not that much further away have been killed.

Do I expect PZ's actions to reach moderates and make them feel warm and fuzzy about atheists? No, of course not. I expect his actions in Crackergate did two things. I saw that it gave Catholic extremists someone to focus their hate on in a very public, educational way. I suspect that, for a number of people, it deflated some of the drama of desecration. After all the build-up, the reality was downright prosaic. Secular even. And, well, look at that, that blog post had some interesting points.

What PZ has done is make it harder for people to look at me, minding my own business with a bunch of my atheist buddies and a few people who don't hold anything sacred, even if they think its sacred, chatting about what we've got in common, and think I'm doing something wrong. What PZ did? Well, you know, that wasn't very nice, but that well-spoken little atheist chick over there is much more reasonable. People will--and do--reserve their arguing for him and talk to me. Or to plenty of other people who sound much more moderate.

We get to be good cops, but we couldn't do it without the "bad" ones. That is why we need atheists who are less than polite.

Update: And the very first comment....

Update 2: Quite a ways down in the comments, Steve apologizes and blames the whole thing on a prank by a friend. The apology has been accepted.