In the U.S., the cause of gay and lesbian rights has made major advances in the last few decades. Anti-discrimination laws are in wide effect, including a recently passed federal hate-crime law; marriage equality is already an established reality in several states; and despite setbacks, the now overwhelming tolerance and acceptance of gays and lesbians among younger generations heralds further progress in the future.

But in spite of these hopeful signs, the hatemongers and bigots of the religious right aren't giving up. As their cause slowly, but inexorably dries up at home, they're spreading their poisonous seed to foreign countries where it takes root in more welcoming soil.

Such is the state of affairs in the country of Uganda, where American evangelicals have long enjoyed a disproportionate degree of influence over the government. Homosexuality was already illegal in Uganda and has been for a long time, but Ugandan religious conservatives have learned from their American counterparts that even an oppressed and politically powerless group can easily be depicted as a menacing enemy in propaganda campaigns intended to stir up fear and hate among their followers. Just such a campaign has led to a proposed "Anti-Homosexuality Bill", which threatens to open the floodgates for the state-sanctioned mass murder of gay and lesbian people.

As previously discussed on Daylight Atheism, this bill would imprison homosexuals for life, and in some cases, would establish a crime of "aggravated homosexuality", which is punishable by death. But what I haven't discussed as much is the shockingly large role that American evangelicals played, both in the propaganda campaign that led up to it, as well as in the actual drafting of the bill itself. An article from the New York Times from earlier this month has the details, including the names of several key figures:

Scott Lively, a missionary who has written several books against homosexuality, including "7 Steps to Recruit-Proof Your Child"; Caleb Lee Brundidge, a self-described former gay man who leads "healing seminars"; and Don Schmierer, a board member of Exodus International, whose mission is "mobilizing the body of Christ to minister grace and truth to a world impacted by homosexuality"...

As the article explains, these missionaries visited Uganda in March 2009, giving a series of talks about how "the gay movement is an evil institution" which seeks to prey on boys, eliminate marriage and replace it with "a culture of sexual promiscuity". And just a month later, a Ugandan politician introduced the bill, which threatens to punish gays and lesbians with death.

Naturally, these American evangelicals claim they never wanted this outcome and profess shock that anyone could have misconstrued them in this way. But before Western media picked up on it, they were far less reticent:

But the Ugandan organizers of the conference admit helping draft the bill, and Mr. Lively has acknowledged meeting with Ugandan lawmakers to discuss it. He even wrote on his blog in March that someone had likened their campaign to "a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda."

Whether Lively and the others knew specifically about the death penalty provision is uncertain - but to claim that they were entirely ignorant of what the government was planning is a claim that strains credulity.

In the face of Western threats to withdraw millions of foreign aid, the Ugandan government has backed down slightly - offering to change the death penalty provision to life imprisonment, as if that was an improvement - but whether the bill will pass, and what its final form will be, are still very much open questions. A hint of the attitude that still prevails comes from the Ugandan minister of ethics and integrity, who recently said, "Homosexuals can forget about human rights."

If this bill passes, the evangelicals who played a role in its creation will have bloody hands. All their pious pleas of naivete and innocence cannot change what their actions have wrought. They chose to travel to an extremely anti-gay country and try to whip the populace up into a frenzy of hatred and fear. And they profess shock at the outcome, but they shouldn't be surprised: all that's happened is that the Ugandan government has taken them at their word and proposed a policy that's the logical conclusion of their starting premises.

How else did they expect the government to react to claims, like these ones made by Lively, that the gay movement is raping and preying on children, that they're recruiting and bribing young boys to engage in sexual relationships with older men, that they're importing pornography "to weaken the moral fiber of the people", that they want to abolish marriage and replace it with a culture that embraces "sexual anarchy"? They've systematically portrayed gays and lesbians as evil deviants defying the law and engaging in a malevolent conspiracy to destroy Ugandan society. Did they really think the Ugandan government would do nothing more than build some Christian therapy centers?

To be absolutely fair, I don't doubt that Lively and the others are sincere when they claim they weren't seeking the execution of homosexuals. It's just that their brand of shrill, hysterical rhetoric is what they're accustomed to using; in America, it often gets them their way. But in America, this intemperate language is counterbalanced by a strong feminist movement and an effective system of constitutional rights. In Uganda, neither of those things exist; and again, the Ugandan government didn't treat their speeches as rally-the-troops political posturing, as American politicians and media usually do. Instead, they treated them as literal truth and acted accordingly. This potential theocratic horror is the result.

But this outcome was completely predictable, which is why the American evangelicals will have bloody hands if this bill does pass. If they haven't acted with malice aforethought, they've shown reckless indifference at the very least. Like the right-wing pundits whose deranged rhetoric pushes some of their more unstable followers over the edge, they will bear moral responsibility for whatever may result. (A little more credit, but only a very little, goes to Rick Warren, who after weeks of silence and an onslaught of bad press was finally shamed into offering a grudging condemnation of the bill.)

So, the next time the gay-bashing evangelicals claim to know what's best - the next time they claim to have moral authority over the rest of us - remember this moment. Remember their bloody hands. Remember their guilt and their responsibility. They'd clearly love for this whole sordid story to be forgotten. That's an opportunity we should be certain to deny them.

By Sarah Braasch

I leaned over to one of my teammates. "Why are there so many fat, white people on the plane? We're going to Ethiopia. We're flying Ethiopian Airlines."

"They're missionaries," she responded, completely uninterested.

"What?" I gasped. It had never occurred to me. I was not pleased.

Everything became so obvious. The Texas drawls. The recitations of Bible verses. The prayers. The seasoned braggarts recounting their prior trips to the Horn of Africa. The newbies airing out their nerves. They couldn't wait to get to Africa to start saving souls for Jesus. I wasn't sure I could take a full day of travel with a cabin full of bombastic Texas Christian missionaries, giddy with evangelical fervor. I tried to force myself to sleep.

As I slept on the plane, I dreamt of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics Opening Ceremonies. The fifty or so pick-up trucks circling hundreds of cheerleaders as they moved into formation, spelling out the words, "How Y'all Doin'?" The firecrackers exploding over the international crowd of tens of thousands. Then-President Clinton's pasted on smile, which looked more like a grimace of pain and mortification.

When I awoke, I felt troubled. I didn't want to be a missionary or an apostle. The very thought conjured up excruciating childhood memories of door-to-door witnessing as a Jehovah's Witness. I didn't want to be an imperialistic colonizing Westerner, bringing the good news to a nation of Godforsaken heathen hordes. I wasn't bringing them a religious message, but I was bringing them a universal human rights message. I was bringing them the good news of individualism and democracy and rule of law. I was bringing them the light of women's rights and constitutionalism and secularism. Wasn't I?

I leaned over to my teammate again. "We're not like them, are we? I mean, the missionaries. We're not like the missionaries, are we?"

"Yes, I'm afraid we are," she replied with the world-weary wisdom of a millennia-old sage.

"But, we're not going there to impose our beliefs on them. We're going there to learn, to study their political and legal systems. I mean, yes, ultimately we intend to make policy suggestions in a report, but it's not the same thing, is it?"

"Hmmm. Well, ultimately, we think we know better than they do how they should be running their country, so, really, it is the same thing," she said with tenderness and as little condescension as possible.

"Really?" I looked at her plaintively, as if I expected her to grant me absolution.

"Really." And, she shrugged her shoulders as if to say it wasn't hers to give.

"Then why do you do it?" I asked her in all seriousness.

"Because I can't do nothing, you know?"

"Yes, I do know."

"I think it's good to constantly question your own motives, to have that interior monologue, to struggle constantly with that ugly truth of human rights work, that, ultimately, we are going to a land not our own and telling a people whom we do not know how they should be living their lives," she said encouragingly.

"I like to think of it as liberating the oppressed. We're not telling them how to live their lives. We're saying that they have the right to decide for themselves how to live their lives."

"But, they're already doing that. They just don't place the same value on individualism that we do."

"I don't buy that. I just don't. I think that that cultural relativist stance is very convenient for those in power who wish to maintain the status quo. And, everywhere I've been people are struggling desperately for their individual rights. And, anyway, groups don't have rights. People do."

I spent the rest of the trip ruminating on this conversation. As soon as we were in the hotel shuttle van, I was thrilled to be rid of the missionaries. I didn't want to see another American, let alone another Texan, for the rest of our stay. Then we arrived at the Ghion Hotel.

The Ghion was a sea of entitled whiteness. The only dark faces were those of the employees and the babies. Throngs of white couples and families were milling around with their newly adopted Ethiopian newborns and toddlers. Even the youngest of these infants had huge, terrified eyes, as if they understood that they were being severed from their kindred irreconcilably. And, the missionaries were there. Many of the same faces that I had had the misfortune to encounter on the plane were there. They attacked the front desk with the same self-important hubris with which they attacked the un-baptized.

There was something about the entire scene that turned my stomach. The reek of colonialism sickened me: Ethiopia as baby and soul factory. I would have been more than happy to forego any creature comforts to not be staying in the same hotel as every other overfed Westerner in Addis Ababa. I was starting to hate myself by association.

We took refuge in the sanctum of our hotel room. My roommate immediately fell into a deep slumber. I decided to soak in the tub for a little ablution.

After my bath, my cigarettes were calling to me. I headed out to the lobby. I ordered a Coke from the bar and sat myself at the most isolated table in the room. There was a family with school-aged children watching the television at the opposite end of the room. They were obviously missionaries. They wore the telltale earnest expressions, sensible footwear and frumpy clothing. I didn't pay them any heed. I was concentrating on enjoying the novelty of my indoor cigarette.

Why can missionaries and evangelicals and proselytizers sense a former believer like sharks detect blood in the water, like rapists and child molesters can smell the lingering odor of victimization emanating from the pores of the abused?

"Are you in our group?" she asked me.

I tried to maintain a benign expression. "No, I'm here with my human rights clinic from my law school."

She sat herself down beside me. "Oh, wow. That's so interesting. Did you know that this is a Muslim country?" She looked like she could barely contain herself, she was so excited to get past the small talk and begin her theocratic spiel.

"Well, actually, it's a secular country. I mean they have a secular Constitution with freedom of religion. On paper, anyway." I can never bring myself to be really cruel or rude to someone, even if they are being obnoxious themselves. It's just not in my nature.

"Did you know that they chop people's hands off for stealing here?" Ugh.

"Actually, Ethiopia has had a large Christian population almost from the advent of Christianity. They're Coptic. Have you heard of the Solomonic line of kings?"

"That doesn't sound Christian," she responded. I was so not in the mood. I stared blankly off into the distance and blew smoke in her direction. It didn't seem to help.

"Are you Christian?" she asked me. She was eager to get a head start on her conversions to show off to her companions, and I'm sure I cut a far less intimidating figure, what with my white skin and Western demeanor.

"I was raised Christian, as a Jehovah's Witness."

She winced, "They're not Christian."

"But now I'm an atheist. And, a human rights activist."

She winced again. She looked a bit fearful, like she had bitten off more than she knew how to chew. This was an unanticipated challenge that had not been addressed in her preparatory apologetics and theocratic ministry education. She bit her lip. She decided to try again.

"Our church does human rights work too. Especially for women and children. Of course, we don't call it human rights work. We just call it God's work."

Both my cigarette and my patience were finished. I bade her good night and headed off to bed.

I couldn't sleep. My mind was racing. Why had I allowed her to upset me so much? Why was I so indignant? Of course the missionaries are obnoxious and ignorant and embarrassing. Of course they are doing more harm than good. Of course their barely disguised self-interest belies any superficial attempts at philanthropy. But, I couldn't quite put my finger on why I was so personally offended. Was it simply a matter of being forced to grapple with the morality of human rights work?

I couldn't turn my brain off. I was incensed. I replayed the conversation over and over again in my mind, and each time I came up with wittier, more acerbic and more biting comebacks. I wished that I had screamed or yelled. I wished that I had shamed her into packing up and going home. How did she not understand the harm she was causing?

Spreading the gospel is not human rights work. Missionaries spread ignorance, hatred, death, disease, famine, overpopulation and war. They spread AIDS. They propagate the sexual slavery of women and girls. They encourage the torture of witches. They are the apocalypse.

I think the missionaries are right. They are doing God's work. And exactly what kind of work is God doing in Africa? Apparently, he instructs parents to pour acid onto their children's faces to rid them of demons at the behest of church leaders. He leads parents to abandon their albino children, because they have been condemned as witches by their churches. He sends missionaries into communities that practice sorcery to teach them to torture one another for so doing as the Bible demands. And the American churches that established these Christian communities in Africa? They disclaim any responsibility for these atrocities. But, what happened to God? Apparently, God left when the missionaries did.

And, then, it hit me. Christian missionaries are undermining our ability to advocate on behalf of universal human rights. Undermining it to such an extent, that most of the world rejects international human rights as a strictly Western, and explicitly Christian, ideology. To the majority of the world, it is tantamount to the venom and vitriol spewed forth by the Christian ignoramuses imposing themselves upon the heathen Third World nations.

This phenomenon threatens not only the credibility and viability of international human rights organizations and activists from the West, but also of homegrown, grass roots movements within developing nations. Their governments attribute a Christian (i.e. Western) agenda to all human rights activists. This has become a particularly virulent epidemic in Muslim nations, especially for women's rights activists.

This problem is further exacerbated by the fact that, for most of the world, state and church are one and the same. There is no separation between religion and government. Thus, not only are Christian missionaries undermining human rights activism around the world, they are undermining the US government's ability to advocate on behalf of universal human rights. (This wasn't made any better by the previous US administration's explicitly Christian agenda.) Christian missionaries, unfortunately, are viewed as an aspect of US foreign policy. I shudder to think. Throw in some overt Christian proselytization by the US military, and you have a recipe for disaster.

We don't need anyone to think that the US military or government is doing God's work. I think we need a campaign to educate the international community that Christian missionaries represent only themselves and not very well at that. We need to start reminding the rest of the world that we are indeed a secular state, just like France. And, not like Texas.

Back in January, I alluded briefly to the events in Uganda, where Christian abstinence-only programs have reversed the success of comprehensive sex ed and led to a rise in HIV infection rates. At the time, I mentioned Martin Ssempa, a pastor in the country's booming Pentecostal Christian movement, and his involvement in a campaign to criminalize homosexuality.

But this news has taken an even more ominous turn. Homosexuality was already illegal in Uganda, but a bill currently being discussed in that country's Parliament - and staunchly advocated by Ssempa and other Ugandan religious leaders - is even more draconian than the country's current repressive laws.

Under the bill, a person who was convicted of gay sex would receive life imprisonment. But if that person was found to be HIV-positive, this would result in a charge of "aggravated homosexuality", which carries the death penalty. Equally horribly, a person who was merely aware of homosexual activity but failed to report it to the police within 24 hours would themselves face a prison term - an extraordinarily evil measure that seems designed to deny gays and lesbians the right of shelter even among their own family and friends. Advocating for any increased rights for gays and lesbians, which would presumably include advocating a rollback of this bill, would also result in imprisonment.

This story is directly relevant to American readers because Uganda, in many ways, is the darling and the success story of the American religious right. As Kathryn Joyce explains in a Religion Dispatches interview with Rev. Kapya Kaoma, American evangelicals have been exporting their brand of conservative, homophobic culture-war politics to Africa for some time, and have had direct access to government officials in many African countries. (See also this commentary by Michelle Goldberg.)

Rick Warren in particular is held in high esteem there, and Martin Ssempa, the man who's pushing for the mass execution of homosexuals, is a friend and protege of Warren's. He's made multiple appearances at Warren's Saddleback Church in the past. And most shockingly, while Warren claims to have severed ties with Ssempa, he initially refused to denounce this proposed law! As Lisa Miller of Newsweek notes:

But Warren won't go so far as to condemn the legislation itself. A request for a broader reaction to the proposed Ugandan antihomosexual laws generated this response: "The fundamental dignity of every person, our right to be free, and the freedom to make moral choices are gifts endowed by God, our creator. However, it is not my personal calling as a pastor in America to comment or interfere in the political process of other nations."

When Warren was pressed on this point, his second response was to post a petulant reply to Twitter, claiming that because no one ever says anything about Christians being martyred for their faith, he shouldn't have to care about legislation that would kill gays and lesbians. The fact that one of the backers of this legislation was his protege is something that he doesn't seem to feel any guilt or moral responsibility at all for.

After several weeks of solid negative coverage, Warren finally issued a condemnation of the bill. Yet, as Archy points out, most of his stated reasons boil down to a claim that it would make the church's mission more difficult, and he tries to dodge some inconvenient connections between himself and influential figures of the Ugandan government (see also). In the end, Warren did the right thing - but only just barely, and again, it's extremely telling how much heat he had to take before he could be shamed into speaking out.

The theocratic terror state proposed in Uganda is the logical endpoint of the religious right's anti-gay agenda and its inflammatory, homophobic rhetoric. Having nurtured and fostered this movement for so long, it's much too late for them to wash their hands clean of it now. If they had any conscience, they would recognize the horrible evil they've created and would repent and devote themselves to opposing this bill before it comes to pass. But instead, their response has been noncommittal, tepid, even mildly supportive. That speaks worlds about what their true intentions are, what they hope to do in Uganda, and what they would do in America and the rest of the world if they have the chance.

I've got plenty of goodies in the bag for this post. Frankly, more has been happening lately than I can write about - but that's okay, because there are lots of other fantastic atheist bloggers who've said it all!

• First, there's this outrageous story out of Washington, D.C., where the Catholic church has threatened to completely shut down all the social services they provide to local homeless people if they're forced to obey laws forbidding discrimination against same-sex couples.

I may write more about this later, but for now, I'm happy to send you to She Who Chatters, whose eloquent anger sums up everything I feel when I read this.

• On a related note, Atheist Revolution tells the story of a Cincinnati atheist billboard - bearing only the peaceful and non-confrontational message, "Don't believe in God? You are not alone" - that had to be moved after the billboard company was deluged with violent threats. Remind me again, what do we stand to gain by being civil and respectful and tiptoeing around so as not to offend anyone's superstitions?

• In the Washington Post, Jonathan Turley asks the cogent question of why the courts let parents off so lightly when their religious beliefs result in the painful and unnecessary deaths of their children from treatable medical conditions.

• On a less somber note, I'm happy to endorse Young Freethought, a new blog focusing on the work of atheists and freethinkers between the ages of 16 and 21. Every new generation shows a greater and greater willingness to think for themselves and challenge the old religious orthodoxies, and I'm very glad to see more young people step up to voice their convictions and add to this groundswell of free thinking. From what I've seen so far, this blog has some very promising, well-written essays already, and I'll be watching them closely to see what else they come up with. You should too!

• Finally, a reader turned me on to this wonderful website, Symphony of Science. Its creator has taken the words of famous scientists speaking about the discoveries that make us shiver in awe, then remixed them with his own brand of ambient, trip-hop music. The effect is eerie and surreal at first, but also hauntingly beautiful. It may not be for everyone, but I enjoyed it immensely. Combined with the lyrics, it spoke to me in a way that almost no other music does. (It reminds me a lot of Forest for the Trees, a band I used to listen to in high school and college.) If this interests you, I highly recommend checking it out.

If you encountered any technical difficulties with the site earlier today, my apologies. There was a database issue I had to work with my host to clear up. It should be fixed now, so send me an e-mail if you're still having any problems (or if you can't see this message).

2 girl 1 cup

In the meantime, I wanted to post some photos I took at a rally I attended in Union Square last night: Lighting the Way to Equality, a candlelight vigil on behalf of same-sex marriage rights sponsored by Marriage Equality New York. We haven't yet gotten the vote we're pressing for in the New York state senate, but this fight isn't over yet.

This past Tuesday, marriage equality suffered another setback at the hands of bigotry in the state of Maine. This defeat is especially disappointing because, from all accounts, the No on 1 campaign did everything right: running a well-organized, well-financed campaign with powerful advertising and a dedicated get-out-the-vote effort. But even the smartest and most well-crafted effort of persuasion can't succeed if people aren't willing to be persuaded, and this was evidently one of those times. The defeat was a narrow one, but I know that's small consolation for the citizens of Maine who've had their civil rights stripped from them by another prejudiced, religious majority.

This result is a demonstration, if another was needed, of the folly of making human rights just another question at the ballot box. This is why we have a constitutional republic in the first place - to protect the rights of minorities by putting them beyond a majority vote. I have no doubt that there are still plenty of places in the U.S. where interracial or interreligious marriage would fail if it were put to a referendum.

Remarkably, even though they've won this round, the enemies of equality are still trying to portray themselves as the victims. Take this column by Rod Dreher, which expresses a self-pitying lament that someone might call people like him nasty names because of how they voted:

...unless you're prepared to call more than half the country bigots -- and I have no doubt that many, perhaps most, gay marriage supporters are, and let that self-serving explanation suffice -- maybe, just maybe, you ought to ask yourself if there's something else going on here.

What that "something else" might be, he doesn't say, but to answer his implicit question: Do I think that people who vote against same-sex marriage are bigoted? Yes! People who would deny equal rights to their fellow human beings, even if they cast their ballot with the most sincere intentions in the world, are still bigots. Why on earth does he imagine that the number of people who vote one way or the other would change our answer to this question? Is he saying that the majority can't be prejudiced?

Even a cursory look back at history ought to disabuse him of this notion. Every prejudice that we've fought and overcome was popular and accepted in its day - from the belief that Africans' natural role was as slaves, to the belief that women lacked the judgment and discernment needed to vote, to the belief that atheists are unqualified to hold elective office, to the belief that the races should not mix. Every civil rights movement began as a small minority of dedicated activists who battled to win people's hearts and minds, who struggled, faced setbacks, met with widespread scorn and demonization, and were ultimately victorious. There is no reason to believe that this movement will be different - and very good reason to believe that those who stood on the wrong side of this fight will, one day, be regarded much the same way as we now regard people who defended those past prejudices.

Martin Luther King said that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. But for those of us who are still on the wrong side of that bend, it can be agonizingly slow. To my GLBT friends and allies, who've already waited so long and suffered through so much, I can't in good conscience ask you to wait any longer. But nevertheless, I say: have patience. I ask this of you not for political or tactical reasons, but out of the simple recognition that time is on our side. Just a few years ago, the idea that same-sex marriage would lose at the polls by only a few points would have been astounding; and more change is already visible on the horizon.

As with many social and scientific revolutions, the biggest obstacle to change comes from those in the older generations who have grown up with their prejudices and are too entrenched in them now to ever give them up. And, to be blunt, they will not be around forever. They will be replaced by younger generations, people who've grown up knowing gays and lesbians not as despised and stigmatized outcasts, but as their relatives, their neighbors, their friends - human beings just like everyone else, who want for themselves the same things that straight people want. If you want to see the future, we got a glimpse of it on Tuesday (see also):

At University of Maine's Orono campus, 81 percent of students voted against taking away equal marriage rights, also showing the generation gap that persists on this question.

That is the generation that will be voting the next time this question comes up on the ballot. The bigots can fight as hard as they want, but their era is ending. They have only a short time left.

And this week's news wasn't all negative. In Washington state, the "everything but marriage" initiative Referendum 71 - which grants same-sex couples all the rights of marriage without using that term - won a slim, but nevertheless historic, victory. Although separate-but-equal isn't the best outcome possible, it's far better than nothing, and a clear sign of the progress that the gay-rights movement continues to achieve. (And for Rod Dreher's sake, note that this initiative, despite not using the emotionally charged word "marriage", was still fought tooth and nail by Christianist bigots. What better evidence could you ask for that the true goal of the religious right is to persecute gay people and deny them their rights?)

As long as that arc is, it's still bending. The question isn't whether we will eventually win - it's only a question of when. The progress of equality can be slowed, but it can't be denied. I know many of you are saddened and angry and frustrated, and I am as well. But if it means anything, remember: We know who we are, and we know what we stand for. No vote can take that away from us.

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!

It's a sad day when you read stories like this from the city where the renowned Library of Alexandria once stood:

Along the miles of crowded beachfront in Egypt's second city, women in bathing suits are nowhere in sight.

On Alexandria's breeze-blown shores, they all wear long-sleeve shirts and ankle-length black caftans topped by head scarves. Awkwardly afloat in the rough seas, the bathers look like wads of kelp loosened from the sandy bottom.

In Alexandria, a city once renowned for its culture and its cosmopolitanism, those secular values are having to contend with a rigid and increasingly aggressive strain of Islam exported from Saudi Arabia, here constituted by a political party called the Muslim Brotherhood. As is always the case, this movement takes no heed of the city's rich and diverse history:

"At the end of the day, that's all history," said Sobhi Saleh, a Brotherhood member of Parliament.

...Even the library — with its museum that includes pharaonic, Greek, Roman, Coptic and Islamic relics — is misguided, Mr. Saleh said.

"There, Islam is just one topic among many. We don't like those naked Greek statues. Anyway, that's over. Islam should have a special status at the library," he said. "This is a Muslim city in a Muslim country; that is our identity."

As the article notes, the Muslim Brotherhood has won support by handing out food and social services to Egypt's millions of poor. But in exchange for that help, it's seeking - and winning - more and more restrictions on people's freedom: enforced Islamic attire for women, the disappearance of alcohol from restaurants, and growing tension and violence with Egypt's Coptic Christian minority. This is a point worth remembering when people praise religion for the good it's done for the world's poor and needy. Too often, the price of that help is much steeper than it first appears.

But while the spread of Islamic fundamentalism is worrying, there are good ways and bad ways to oppose it. France hasn't chosen a good way:

France's struggle with Islamic dress has moved into the swimming pool after a 35-year-old woman was banned from bathing in her "burkini", a head-to-toe swimsuit.

...a 32-member parliamentary inquiry... opened last month to review the possibility of a law to bar Muslim women from wearing the face-covering niqab in public. President Sarkozy stirred fundamentalist anger in June when he sided with the review, saying that such dress was not a symbol of faith, but a sign of women's subservience and that it had "no place in France". (source)

The stated reason for banning this woman from the public pool was hygiene, but since her dress is basically a wetsuit, that seems unlikely to be the real reason. France has been moving in the direction of restricting public displays of religious attire since 2004, when it banned headscarves in state-run schools. As the above quote shows, they're now considering outlawing many kinds of religious dress altogether.

I understand France's desire to maintain a secular state and prevent the religious oppression of women, but this isn't the way to do it. The woman in this case isn't even from a Muslim family, but was an adult convert from Christianity - it's absurd to argue that she was being coerced. And banning religious attire in schools and public places isn't going to free women from Islamic families. If anything, it's likely to result in them being even more restricted and less able to leave their homes.

Forcing women to wear Muslim garb, or banning them from wearing it, are wrong for the same reasons. When it comes to people expressing themselves, dress is second only to speech. Any restriction on freedom of expression should be justified by only the most compelling reasons, and the mere desire to maintain an outwardly secular state isn't one of those. Fighting imposed religious oppression is a worthy goal, but this is a battle of ideas and persuasion, not one that can be won by the force of law. If the values and freedoms offered by the Western world - or the Islamic world, for that matter - are superior, people will come to adopt them of their own free will. If they're not superior, trying to impose them anyway is an effort that's bound to end only in failure and worsened division.

Shorter John Ensign: Gay marriage is going to take away my sacred, God-given right to cheat on my wife.

While some freethinkers have made contributions to science, the arts or the humanities, others are best known for exemplifying a sea change in human history - showing, by their lives, that one age was passing and another would soon dawn. Just so is today's post on the life of an American freethinker who has the unique distinction of being the last man imprisoned in America for blasphemy: a courageous reformer and patriot by the name of Abner Kneeland.

Kneeland was born in Massachusetts in 1774, the sixth of ten children and the son of a carpenter. In 1801, he became a convert to the Baptist church, underwent immersion baptism and began to preach. But he soon got embroiled in doctrinal clashes with fellow believers, and his flirtation with Baptism didn't last long. By 1803, he had decided he was no longer a Baptist, but a Universalist - an early liberal Christian denomination that didn't believe in Hell. He continued his work as a lay preacher, but now in the service of Universalism.

Kneeland continued as a traveling preacher for several years, but eventually settled down at a Universalist church in New Hampshire. He served as an officer of the New England Universalist General Convention and helped to compile a new hymnal, though some of his verses, like this one, met with a lukewarm reception:

As ancient bigots disagree,
The Stoic and the Pharisee,
So is the modern Christian world
In superstitious error hurl'd.

He moved around over the next several years, from Massachusetts to Philadelphia to New York, and though he continued his work as a Universalist minister, his skeptical side was beginning to assert itself. He read the writings of some of the era's most prominent religious skeptics, including the famous chemist Joseph Priestley and the Scottish utopian Robert Owen, and preached from the pulpit that he reserved the right to interpret the principles of Universalism in his own way. Slowly but surely, he began drifting away from Christianity entirely.

The last straw came in 1829 when Kneeland willingly loaned out his church as a platform for a controversial guest speaker, someone we've met before - the trailblazing freethinker and feminist Frances Wright. No one else in New York City would give Wright a place to speak, and the appearance of the "Red Harlot of Infidelity" in a church was too much even for the liberal Universalists. Kneeland was disfellowshipped by them and soon renounced Christianity altogether. He published a book that same year, A Review of the Evidences of Christianity, which made it clear just how far his theological position had shifted:

Like many others, I once thought that a belief in future existence was absolutely necessary to present happiness. I have discovered my mistake. Time, a thousand years hence, is no more to me now, than time a thousand years past. As no event could have harmed me, when I existed not, so no event can possibly harm me when I am no more. By anticipating and calculating too much on future felicity, and dreading, or at least fearing, future misery, man often loses sight of present enjoyments, and neglects present duties. When men shall discover that nothing can be known beyond this life, and that there is no rational ground for any such belief, they will begin to think more of improving the condition of the human species. Their whole thoughts will then be turned upon what man has done, and what he can still do, for the benefit of man.

In 1831 Kneeland moved to Boston, where he became a lecturer at the newly formed First Society of Free Enquirers and started his own newspaper, the Boston Investigator, whose motto was: "Truth, perseverence, union, justice - the means; happiness - the end. Hear all sides - then decide." His weekly lectures, which drew as many as two thousand people, denounced the influence of religion on society and advocated the full equality of women, arguing that they should be permitted to use birth control, obtain a divorce, be paid equally for equal work, and be allowed to vote. He also argued for the equality of the races and, most shockingly, in favor of interracial marriage.

He also made the acquaintance of some influential people, most notably the radical abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison had just arrived in Boston and was searching for a church or hall to rent to deliver lectures against slavery, but as with Frances Wright, seemingly no one was willing to give him the space. Kneeland again came to the rescue, offering Garrison the use of Julien Hall, where he delivered his own lectures. Garrison would later write, "It was left for a society of avowed infidels to save the city from the shame of sealing all its doors against the slave's advocate."

But despite its political and philosophical ferment, Massachusetts in this era was no friend to freethinkers. A still-enforced anti-blasphemy law from 1782 outlawed "denying, cursing, or contumeliously reproaching God", and it was under this law that Abner Kneeland was arrested and charged for making statements like this:

1. Universalists believe in a god which I do not: but believe that their god, with all his moral attributes is nothing more than a chimera of their own imagination.
2. Universalists believe in Christ, which I do not: but believe that the whole story concerning him is as much a fable and fiction, as that of the god Prometheus...
3. Universalists believe in miracles, which I do not; but believe that every pretension to them can either be accounted for on natural principles or else is to be attributed to mere trick and imposture.
4. Universalists believe in the resurrection of the dead, in immortality and eternal life, which I do not; but believe that all life is mortal, that death is an eternal extinction of life to the individual who possesses it, and that no individual life is, ever was, or ever will be eternal.

Kneeland argued, unsuccessfully, in court that he was not an atheist but a pantheist. The prosecuting attorney, meanwhile, argued that if he were not punished for his opinions, "marriages [will be] dissolved, prostitution made easy and safe, moral and religious restraints removed, property invaded, and the foundations of society broken up". (See any parallels?) In 1838, he was found guilty and sentenced to sixty days in jail.

After serving his prison term, Kneeland moved to Iowa with the intent of forming a utopian community similar to Owen's and Wright's, but it did not survive after his own death in 1844. Nevertheless, his life had left its mark. The uproar in Boston over his conviction, including numerous newspaper editorials defending the First Amendment and a petition to the governor signed by over a hundred prominent citizens, made such an impact that never again, in Massachusetts or anywhere else in America, was a freethinker imprisoned for violating blasphemy laws. Although there were a few more sporadic trials (most notably the 1886 Reynolds trial defended by Robert Ingersoll), Abner Kneeland's greatest accomplishment was to show clearly that laws protecting religious feelings were archaic and incompatible with an increasingly modern and enlightened society.

Other posts in this series:

• The Contributions of Freethinkers