We now interrupt your regularly scheduled flame war for this important announcement.

As everyone has no doubt heard, Haiti was hit by a colossal earthquake last night; the city of Port-au-Prince is in ruins, and tens of thousands of people may be dead. If you're able to help, please consider making a donation to the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders. And if simple human compassion doesn't move you, consider it doing it to spite that wicked, heartless old fraud Pat Robertson, who said that the people of Haiti got what they deserved for rebelling against slavery. His religion made him evil; now, for Haiti's sake, I hope that our atheism makes us good.

UPDATE: I'm proud to see that atheist organizations are joining the effort. As commenters have mentioned, there's the Foundation Beyond Belief. The American Humanist Association also has a relief fund, and the FFRF has made a donation to Doctors Without Borders.

Since I wrote about the Center for Inquiry's Blasphemy Day last week, this is a fitting followup. By participating in events like those, we demonstrate our commitment to defending the right of free speech. But we can also show that commitment in a more tangible way: by taking action on behalf of the prisoners of conscience around the world who've been imprisoned and punished for exercising that right.

In this case, I'm speaking of Kareem Amer, an Egyptian blogger and law student who in 2007 was sentenced to four years in prison for writing posts that criticized Islam and the repressive Egyptian government and defended secularism and women's rights. Naturally, these were judged intolerable crimes in the authoritarian, theocratic dictatorship that modern Egypt has become. Even his own parents disowned him, although this may (or may not) have been the result of coercion.

You can read Kareem's writings for yourself, translated into English, on the site that's been set up to lobby for his freedom. Some of them are astounding in their boldness and courage, especially "There Is No Deity but the Human Being", a ringing endorsement of secular humanism:

Verily, we must return to the beginning and define the function of the law in our lives. And before that, we must convince the human being of his individual sanctity, and that nothing surpasses him in importance and standing besides himself. Following that, the law is a follower, protector, and organizer of his life. It is not a tool of suppression with which whoever is behind it aims to create a new deity the human being will prostrate to and sanctify.

If you're willing to help, the Free Kareem website has an action center with a list of what you can do. As I'm not familiar with the people behind this site, I can't say whether donating money will go to a good cause, so I'd advise some skepticism on that. Instead, of all the actions listed, I think the most effective is sending letters and faxes to the Egyptian government (their link to Amnesty International's webpage for this purpose is broken, so here's a new one).

This may seem like an unlikely way to bring about change in a corrupt theocracy, but Western pressure can have an effect. For instance, Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, the Afghan student sentenced to death for the great crime of downloading writings on women's rights from the internet, was pardoned by President Hamid Karzai after heavy international pressure and safely escaped the country.

To support this brave and unjustly imprisoned ally of free speech, writing a letter is the least we can do. This is why we have events like Blasphemy Day, to let oppressive religions and tyrannical governments know that they can't escape criticism no matter how they try. But while blasphemy laws are useless in the long run, in the short run they destroy innocent lives. By taking action on this cause, we have a chance to mitigate at least some of that harm.

The last few months have been a rollercoaster ride for advocates of marriage equality in the United States. There was the bitter disappointment of Prop 8 passing in California in the 2008 elections, but soon after, it was assuaged in part by victories for marriage equality in Iowa and Vermont. Soon thereafter, Maine and New Hampshire joined the ranks of the states that offer full civil marriage rights to same-sex couples.

The momentum is unquestionably on our side. Every poll ever conducted has found that support for same-sex marriage commands a decisive majority among the younger generation, and grows nationally year by year. The shrill, hateful bigots who use religion as a justification for taking away other people's human rights, in the long run, are on the losing side of history. There is no doubt that this is true.

But this is no excuse for complacency. Like every successful civil rights movement, we can't sit back and wait for victory to come to us - we have to work for it, we have to earn it. The harder we work, and the more we give to defend a worthy cause, the sooner the day will come when said religious bigots get the comeuppance they so richly deserve, and when gay and lesbian couples get the full legal equality they so richly deserve.

That's why I'm calling on every Daylight Atheism reader to support the cause of marriage equality in Maine. Just like in California, religious fundamentalists have put a question on the ballot - Proposition 1 - which, if approved by voters this November, would overturn the legislature's decision and take away same-sex couples' right to marry. This initiative is principally sponsored and funded by the Roman Catholic Church and the National Organization for Marriage, a homophobic religious-right group.

However, unlike in California, where defenders of marriage equality were unprepared and disorganized, there's every sign this time that the good guys are taking this seriously and have geared up to fight back against the forces of religious hate. Groups like Protect Maine Equality are leading the fight against this unjust and malicious proposal.

But victory is far from assured - with the election just weeks away, polls still show the two sides in a statistical dead heat. There's still a chance for either side to win this. And the cause of equality needs your help!

No matter who you are or where you live, if you're an American citizen, you can help. If you live in or near Maine, you can volunteer. If you don't, you can still donate money. And if you can't afford that, you can talk about it, you can blog about it, you can write letters to the editor or your representatives in office. (These tips for activism courtesy of Greta Christina, who has an eloquent explanation of why this is such a big deal.) Massachusetts, which has had same-sex marriage for years, has the lowest divorce rate in the nation - and falling. Iowans overwhelmingly say that same-sex marriage has made no difference in their lives. These are facts we need to publicize. Stand up, speak out, and make your voice heard!

If we win this fight - if, for the first time ever, same-sex marriage wins in a public referendum - it could be a decisive blow to fundamentalist religious bigots, one that would stop their movement in its tracks once and for all. Maine could be the turning point where we'll one day be able to say, "That's where the tide was turned; that's where the battle for equality was won." But it will only happen if atheists, freethinkers, and people of conscience band together to oppose the grasping, malevolent theocrats who think their religion gives them the right to force us to live by their rules. We can beat them, but we need your help. Volunteer today and do your part!

Under pressure from the ACLU, the Obama administration has finally released a set of four Bush-era memos from the White House Office of Legal Counsel. Written by assistant attorney general Jay Bybee and acting assistant attorney general Steven Bradbury, these memos detailed the torture techniques which the Bush administration believed could be used on captured terrorists and terror suspects.

These techniques included "walling" (slamming a prisoner into a wall by swinging them from a collar around their neck), enforced nudity and cold water dousing, shackling in stress positions, sleep deprivation (not to be used "for more than eleven days at a time"), and locking detainees in "confinement boxes" that weren't large enough to stand up in. Worst of all, the memos argue for the permissibility of waterboarding, a well-known torture method used by the Spanish Inquisition, by Nazi Germany, by the Khmer Rouge, and by the Pinochet regime in Chile. That's the kind of company America has been keeping, these past few years.

As an American citizen, when I read these memos, I feel my blood boiling in anger. This was done in our names - sweeping up people from foreign battlefields, imprisoning them for years on end without charges or trial, and eventually releasing them only on condition that they never speak about what was done to them. Worst of all is this - the clinical, lawyerly detachment in these memos, approving torture methods reviled by the civilized world while seeking to bury their evil under dispassionate language. As Andrew Sullivan notes, some of them explicitly adopt the tactics of totalitarianism - tactics that even these memos admit are condemned by the State Department when used by foreign dictatorships, tactics straight out of our darkest dystopias. Here's from Bybee's memo:

"You would like to place Zubaydah in a cramped confinement box with an insect. You have informed us that he appears to have a fear of insects. In particular, you would like to tell Zubaydah that you intend to place a stinging insect into the box with him."

And from George Orwell's novel 1984:

"'The worst thing in the world,' said O'Brien, 'varies from individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by impalement, or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing, not even fatal.'"

President Obama has already issued an executive order banning the future use of these techniques and requiring interrogations to comply with the Army Field Manual, and that's a major step forward, but it doesn't go far enough. Torturing prisoners isn't just unethical or a bad idea: in the United States, it is a federal crime. Those who tortured, and those who ordered torture, committed criminal acts, and it's not good enough to say that there will be no future violations. Justice demands that those who broke the law be held to account; that is the only way to restore our moral standing and make a clean break with the lawless past of the Bush administration.

This moral necessity makes it all the more disappointing that President Obama, upon releasing these memos, also promised that those who followed the advice in them would not be prosecuted. However, short of issuing a presidential pardon, he doesn't truly have the power to make that promise. The ultimate decision lies with Attorney General Eric Holder, whom we know was an advocate for disclosing these OLC memos, and who can appoint a special prosecutor to look into this. We need to apply pressure on him to do the right thing. Firedoglake and the ACLU both have petitions to this end; I've signed them and I strongly urge my American readers to do likewise. If other courses of action come to my attention, I'll update this post.

The major unanswered question, to my mind, is why the Obama administration has so tenaciously resisted the idea of holding Bush's torturers accountable for their crimes. I don't believe they genuinely agree with the doctrines advanced in these memos; if that were so, they would not have released them, or would have done so only with extensive redaction. But if they believed that these actions were unequivocally illegal, they could have started prosecutions already without being pressured to do so.

The explanation that seems most plausible to me is they fear that, if they were to commence prosecutions, it would ignite a bitter partisan battle that would consume the country's attention and sidetrack the rest of President Obama's policy agenda. But if that's their reasoning, I'm still disappointed. First of all, the die-hard remnants of the Republican party are already bitterly opposed to the Obama administration and are, as Rush Limbaugh famously advocated, doing everything they can to make sure he fails. Less than 100 days into the Obama presidency, conservative politicians - not just garden-variety right-wing crazies, but actual elected officials - are talking openly about secession, rebellion, and revolution. The Republican party is a movement wholly in thrall to its most extreme and deranged elements, and they will never cease their effort to obstruct and destroy Obama and the Democrats by any means available. There is nothing to be gained by trying to appease them.

But even more importantly: Even if prosecutions would be controversial, so what? Is serving justice merely one more political goal to be weighed against others? Is lawbreaking to be ignored when punishing it would be inconvenient?

America was created as a nation of laws, not of men. If we allow the well-connected or the politically powerful to violate the law with impunity, that founding guarantee will be rendered null and void. We must uphold justice, whatever the consequences. Nothing else is more important. Now that we know what was done in our name, we must show the world that we will not let it go unpunished. Even more so than with the President or the Attorney General, the decision and the responsibility rests with us, the people. We must speak out, loud and clear, to demand that justice be done.

If we're going to create a world more friendly to reason, we need to raise our voices and speak out for the atheist viewpoint. This week, there are several ways in which you can help:

• Two Texas state legislators have been courageously fighting back against creationism by proposing legislation to increase oversight and disclosure of the creationist-dominated State Board of Education. Take a moment to sign this petition and thank them.

• The city of Ottawa has rejected the pro-atheist bus ads that have been catching London by storm. City Councillor Alex Cullen is moving to repeal this decision at the council's March 11 meeting, and he's asking for people to help out by contacting the rest of Ottawa's city councillors and pressuring them to do the right thing. Tell Ottawa to stand up for atheists' free speech!

Here is a link to the Councillors' contact information:
http://www.ottawa.ca/city_hall/mayor_council/councillors/index_en.html

To make things really easy, reader Marlowe Fillipov has pulled together all their e-mail addresses:
Georges.Bedard@ottawa.ca, Michel.Bellemare@ottawa.ca, Rainer.Bloess@ottawa.ca, Glenn.Brooks@ottawa.ca, rick.chiarelli@ottawa.ca, Diane.Deans@ottawa.ca, Steve.Desroches@ottawa.ca, Clive.Doucet@ottawa.ca, Eli.El-Chantiry@ottawa.ca, Peggy.Feltmate@ottawa.ca, Jan.Harder@ottawa.ca, Diane.Holmes@ottawa.ca, Peter.Hume@ottawa.ca, Gord.Hunter@ottawa.ca, Rob.Jellett@ottawa.ca, Kitchissippi@ottawa.ca, Jacques.Legendre@ottawa.ca, Maria.Mcrae@ottawa.ca, Bob.Monette@ottawa.ca, Shad.Qadri@ottawa.ca, Doug.Thompson@ottawa.ca, Marianne.Wilkinson@ottawa.ca, Alex.Cullen@ottawa.ca

Please send them an e-mail today.

• Finally, atheists should stand together against religiously motivated, ineffective and dangerous "abstinence-only" sex ed classes in public schools, most of which are just thinly disguised vehicles for Christian proselytizing. The No More Money campaign has been founded to oppose these programs (HT: Marty Klein). Please take action at their site and send a message to President Obama telling him that Americans deserve secular, reality-based sex ed in their public schools.

Last week, in "Getting Our Message Out", I wrote about the winter solstice sign that the FFRF posted in Washington state's capitol building. The sign was put up after the state had legally obliged itself to create an open forum by allowing the placement of other privately sponsored displays carrying specifically Christian-themed messages, including a nativity scene. The FFRF's sign bears the following message:

At this season of the Winter Solstice, may reason prevail.

There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell.

There is only our natural world.

Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.

An identical sign has been posted in the Wisconsin state capitol for the past 13 years without causing any great fuss, but the one in Olympia seems destined to be different. At first it was stolen, then later recovered. Then local Christian groups started putting up opposing signs. But now the dam has burst:

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Hundreds of demonstrators rallied in front of the Washington state Capitol Sunday, outraged over an atheist display inside.

...Outside, the protest included an opposing sign that portrays Governor Christine Gregoire as the Grinch. It also shows a balloon featuring Bill O'Reilly punching the governor.

...A spokesman at the Capitol said they were getting calls from across the country at a rate of about 200 an hour.

This circus began when professional right-wing bloviator Bill O'Reilly made the FFRF's sign the latest target of his perpetual outrage on his nightly TV show, calling it "political correctness gone mad". Apparently, "political correctness" (along with "falafel", of course) is another word O'Reilly doesn't know the meaning of. For the record, political correctness means language specifically tailored to offend no one; and whatever else one might say about the FFRF's sign, we can safely assume that was not one of its goals. If the FFRF's sign is anything, it's "politically incorrect" - but the brave culture warriors on the right usually reserve that term for themselves, as a badge of pride for surviving the liberal inquisitions they imagine that they endure.

In any case, O'Reilly's jeremiad led to hundreds of religious fanatics, none of whom evidently had anything better to do, descending on the courthouse to demand... actually, it's not clear what they're demanding, unless it's the revocation of the First Amendment. Governor Christine Gregoire, a Democrat, and the state's Republican attorney general issued a joint statement pointing out that the state, having chosen to allow one religious display, cannot legally discriminate against others. One would not expect this perfectly accurate and reasonable legal point to make any impression on the protestors, which it didn't. Judging by his blustering, even O'Reilly didn't grasp this simple point (or else didn't let it interfere with an opportunity to demagogue):

"Washington state is ground zero for just about every nutty secular cause on Earth," O'Reilly said. "She is a weak and confused leader who allows a fanatical group parody in Christmas displays. I mean, how crazy is this?"

That one word - "allows" - speaks volumes about O'Reilly's worldview. He seems to think that the government's role is to decide which religious messages are acceptable, and then use its power to promote those while denying access to all the rest. Fortunately for all of us, he was born several hundred years too late for that. We live in the United States of America, a secular nation founded on human reason and not revelation, and one where petty, loudmouthed bullies do not get to decide which views may or may not be expressed. The infuriated reaction among bigots just goes to show why the FFRF's message needs to be more widely broadcasted. I, for one, hope identical signs are posted next year in every state capitol or public park that chooses to allow nativity scenes.

Despite appearances, this whole fiasco is a good thing for atheists. The religious right will use it to stoke their perpetual offense, I'm sure, but they would have done that anyway. We, however, can use it to boost our message and our visibility - just think how much free publicity the FFRF is likely to reap from all this national attention - and to reinforce our message about the wisdom of separating church and state. The headache this has no doubt caused for the Washington state government is almost certainly going to cause a lot of other local governments nationwide to reassess whether putting religious symbols on state land is really a good idea.

With that said, being the right's enemy of the moment can't be fun for Governor Gregoire. I note that she could have taken the politically safe route of posting only the Christian symbol and then choosing to stand and fight the inevitable lawsuit, earning pandering points with religious voters even as she wastes the state's money. This is exactly what many other politicians have done in this circumstance, but she chose to uphold the rule of law, and we ought to thank her for that. I can guarantee that any positive message we send her and her staff, expressing our gratitude for their willingness to defend the Constitution, will go a long way toward counteracting the tsunami of hate from the rabid O'Reillyites.

Here's Governor Gregoire's contact information. If you want to stand up for atheism and fight back against the religious right, please send her office an e-mail or a phone call, and let them know that you're an American who appreciates politicians that understand separation of church and state. If you contact her office, please leave a comment and let us know about any response you receive.

I've written in the past that atheists and freethinkers, if we ever want to truly compete with religion on its own terms, have to create a secular community that offers the same kind of social support network which believers are accustomed to finding in church. I hope we can put that principle into action tonight.

The atheist blogger Possummomma, happily married and mother of four children, is going through a difficult time due to health problems. She suffers from severe light sensitivity as a result of lupus, which limits her movement both inside and outside the house and makes it difficult for her to spend time with her kids. Berlzebub's Inferno has put together a fund-raising drive to help her out, which thanks to the attention of some prominent atheist bloggers has already collected over $3000. (The most promising course of action is to help her buy and install a UV-blocking window film that should let her move freely within her house.)

I've spoken extensively to Possummomma over e-mail, and I'm convinced that this is a wholly genuine and legitimate need. I plan on donating to her cause (instructions here), and I hope some of you will choose to do so as well. As atheists, we should understand why it's so important for human beings to help and care for each other. Please consider it!