Let's Talk About The FRC Shooting

I let this topic lie a while ago, so it's far from topical, but I don't care because I like it and am finishing it.

Let's just say, I'm more than a little infuriated right now.  The first reason is, of course, that somebody decided to respond to the FRC by shooting somebody involved with it.  But I'll talk about that later.  The thing that infuriates me the most about it is how many people are blaming this on the fact that the "Family Research Council" has been labeled a hate group.

I'm not going to comment on why somebody would shoot another human being.  With very few exceptions, it is a deplorable act.  But there's something that is being left out of this discourse, and that's that the FRC directly and knowingly supports the killing of LGBT people.  Their president, Tony Perkins, gave glowing praise to the bill in Uganda that would have ordered the death penalty for homosexuality.

No, seriously, let that sink in.  This group is headed by a guy who gave praise to a law with provisions meant to kill gay people, and while they try doing "damage control" over stuff like this, it's pretty clear that this organization exists to antagonize LGBT people, deny us the rights we're entitled to, and criminalize consensual behaviors which are not uniquely harmful outside of a religious context.  So, uh, yeah, you're a hate group.

These people made the case that the SPLC labeling them a "hate group" was a catalyst for the whole thing.  Was it?  I don't know.  The reality is, it doesn't matter.

Going up to the Grand Dragon or whatever the fuck label they use of a KKK chapter and shooting him is also deplorable.  That doesn't mean we shouldn't call the KKK a hate group.  It is.

Punching a neo-Nazi in the face could be rather cathartic, but it's still assault and rightfully prosecuted as such.  That doesn't make that neo-Nazi somehow not a member of a hate group.

But here's the part that is really gross to me.  These assholes got a lot of positive press over this guy being shot, and there are even people spouting bullshit like that somehow it's a massive trend among LGBT people to assault homophobes.  What they wind up pushing under the rug is that the opposite is far more true.  LGBT people are regularly assaulted, murdered, have our property vandalized, and have all of it minimized by other people.  Trans women, especially, are not only vulnerable to assault, but they're vulnerable to people blaming them for their assaults, like a recent case where a guy tried to rape a trans woman, found out she was trans, beat her up, and then claimed he wasn't guilty because assaulting her was apparently a totally normal reaction and he wouldn't have raped her when he found out anyway.

Then there's Uganda.  Remember that law, again?  The one that makes homosexuality punishable by death?  The one the president of the FRC apparently gets a boner over?

Why are we giving a pity party to an organization over one guy when the same organization supports making it legal to kill thousands of people?

A Personal List of Reasons My Sterility Is Awesome

I'm sterile... mostly.  Which isn't a problem because I'm childfree (no, not because I'm already barren and trying to rationalize it).  But people always seem sooo sorry for me when they find out.  Here's why that's all bullshit.

1. I can keep my money.
   I mean, duh.  This one is so oversaid that it probably isn't worth mentioning it, but too late.
2. I don't have to feel guilty about leaving somebody over kids.
   How many unhappy couples stay together just because they don't want to depress their kids?  I'll never have to deal with that shit.  I might have to deal with other shit, but it's not that bad.
3. There is less of a chance my stuff's going to be wrecked.
   When I was little I remember destroying a lot of my parents' things just because.  I don't even know why.  In retrospect, what the fuck.  And I have had some stuff destroyed by other peoples' kids, but that doesn't happen often because I don't have them myself.  Huzzah!
4. I don't have to deal with my kids' political or religious beliefs.
   This is a rather foresight-based one, but my father and I have had the stupidest political arguments and my mother and I have different religions now, as I converted.  If I had kids and they wound up being Republicans or religious nutbags, I don't know what the hell I'd do.  At least if a partner does that shit you can break up with them if it gets too unbearable.
5. I don't have to deal with stupid parent-politics, either.
   I have opinions on how to raise kids... but never will I have to take other peoples' blather about it personally.  I will never have to deal with some high-and-mighty mother telling me I'm a shitty parent for not breastfeeding or having my kid circumcised or sending them to public school or raising them into my faith.
6. I have less of an ecological impact.
   I'm not childfree for the eco cred, but it does give me solace to know that not bringing another first-world child into the world is good for the planet.
7. I have the opportunity to make my sex life awesome.
   Not that parents can't have sex lives, but they certainly can't have the kind I like.

"All Things In Moderation" Is Bullshit.

I am a paleo-dieter.  I went on this after veganism and vegetarianism left me over a hundred pounds overweight (which sounds like a wonderful subject to write about later, actually).  So far I have lost fifty pounds on it, still trying to knock off the next fifty.  There was a period during this diet that I decided paleo wasn't inherently better for me and went on a brief "all things in moderation" 1,800 calorie diet rich in whole grains and vegetables and eating lean meat rather than the fatty meat I eat on paleo... and promptly gained weight.  So let's just say, I do not believe moderation is a virtue.

I'm marginally active in the online paleo community, and today found one of my comments about how moderation isn't the best policy being responded to with an "in my opinion" sort of comment about how we all need to be happy and sometimes eating pizza once a month is just fine and dandy.

I don't actually disagree with this person.  If "moderation" means pizza once a month or eating Apfelkuchen on Christmas then by all means do so.  I cheat, too.  Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving, specifically... largely because by the time I finish eating the hunk of dead animal they always serve, I don't have that much room left for sugar.  Not even Jell-O.

Anything other than that, though, is a recipe for disaster.  Yesterday I ate three bear claws from a vending machine at work.  I usually fast during the work day, but had a thought process that went something like "Well, just one isn't going to hurt me."  Upon eating it, something clicked in my head, I promptly went and bought two more, and scarfed them down.  It resulted in a headache, the urge to vomit, and gastrointestinal problems that continue today.

Did it sidetrack my diet?  Probably not.  One binge eating episode probably isn't going to kill me.  But the fact of the matter is, when I cheat, I binge eat.  Psychologically I just can't handle the flour and the sugar in moderation.  It won't work.  I'll be triggered into eating more of it.  And if I'd had more money, it'd probably have been worse.  I have been known to sit down and eat a whole box of Bismarcks just because I had them and decided one wouldn't kill me.  There's a reason I don't even drink soda on cheat days... a soda today for me will mean a soda tomorrow, if not a twelve pack of them.

The thing is, I at least recognize that this isn't moderation.  There are plenty of people out there who absolutely don't understand what moderation is.  The biggest culprit is that insufferably "80/20" rule.  80/20 is fine if 80% of your diet is pure paleo and 20% isn't 100% paleo but a relatively close equivalent... apple pie made with almond flour instead of wheat, a good dark chocolate bar, some storebought jerky, green beans, stuff like that... that's the original spirit of 80/20.  A diet made up 20% of shitty, sugary, wheat-laden food is not a proper diet.  It's not "moderation."  That's 1/5th of your diet, people.

The amounts people propose when they say "in moderation" are just... laughable.  There was one guy who asked if it was OK to drink an energy drink once a day considering it gives him vitamins and said it was natural.  A can of energy drink is often two or even three servings big!

I mean, just think about all the people you've known who aren't paleo dieters and who say "all things in moderation."  My dad will talk about moderation while eating an entire bag of chocolate covered peanuts, and he'll do things like this every day.  And it isn't because we're stupid, it's because we are experts at deluding ourselves in order to facilitate our unhealthy behavior.

Deluding ourselves is something that is probably going to continue, but let's not delude others by bringing up moderation when people eat shitty food.  Tell them it's shitty food.

Dan Piraro is Full of Shit

That's a comic from Bizarro, written by Dan Piraro and which is basically being plastered all over my Facebook feed by every vegan and person who wishes they were vegan.

The comments were even funnier than the comic, although I already made a vow I wouldn't plaster this blog with Facebook comments.  I'll just say there was a lot of references to the China Study.

Whatever the case, it's full of shit.

Seriously, though.  What kind of mentality does it take to look at the way we eat and say, "Hmmm... well, we are clearly suffering from a large number of diet-related illnesses.  Let's look at our diet... hmmm... we're eating loads of processed foods, loads of sugar, bloating ourselves on wheat, corn, and soy, and have largely switched animal fat out for plant fats... IT MUST BE THE ANIMAL FAT THAT'S KILLING US."

The answer is a vegan mentality.  When you're a vegan, it doesn't matter how idiotic what you're stating is when you actually think about it... if it promotes veganism, it's The Truth^TM.

Silly Bumper Sticker Slogans

I hate bumper sticker slogans.  They're not all made for bumper stickers... it includes any attempt to summarize an entire political, spiritual, or social belief into a succinct word or phrase.  In addition to being unreasonably minimalist, they're often wrong or don't really describe what the person is really trying to get at.

For example, whenever I go to work I wind up parking next to a person living next door who has this hilarious bumper sticker:

Well, depending on where you are, I'd say the seal.  Wait, did you think seal hunting like, stopped?  Why do you think there's a yearly campaign to end the seal hunt?  Because people still hunt seals.  I mean, the very young ones are protected, but those are the little cuddly white ones.  This is clearly not that kind of seal.

The child on the left is a fully born, conscious, cognizant human baby... not a zygote, embryo, or fetus.  Those are not protected because they are not conscious, cognizant human babies.

Oh, believe me, I'm not just going to pick on nutjob right-wingers:

This is a pro-LGBT bumper sticker that is not actually pro-LGBT.  There are plenty of children doing fine with no fathers... in addition to the fact that there are successful single mothers out there, there are also, you know, lesbian mothers.

But back to the pro-lifers, shall we?

This plays on peoples' fear of, I guess, never having existed.  If I'd never existed, I wouldn't know that I had never existed, which for me would be no problem.

I'd like a bumper sticker that says "If you can read this, half of you wasn't left on a Kleenex in a hotel room after your father was given a handjob by a sex worker."  There have been billions upon billions upon billions of potential human lives that have been tossed away on Kleenex.  Or have died in the race-to-conception.  Or tossed away on a maxi pad.

I may as well call my parents and thank them for having drunk sex in the tavern one night 28 years ago.  My existence now may have depended on it, but so what?  If I hadn't happened, I wouldn't be here to worry about it.

Next, we need to remember that everybody who has ever loved anybody is bisexual:

It actually really annoys me when exclusive gays and lesbians use this.  Gays and lesbians have a very clear gender preference... for them, love does know a gender, it's just not the one society tells them it should be.

Which is OK, but don't use hokey slogans that don't apply to you to get that across.  If love really knew no gender for you, you could be happy pretending to be straight like NARTH thinks you should.

Childfree Leisure Time is Still Valuable

So I am childfree.  That means I do not currently have kids, nor do I ever want to have kids, which includes marrying somebody who already has kids as well as adopting kids.

When I have leisure time, it's often like my friends and relatives who have kids try setting it up as the perfect opportunity for me to babysit for them so that they can go have some leisure time themselves.  Now, being requested to babysit doesn't bother me (I generally like kids), but the assumption that my time is not valuable enough to me because I don't have kids... well, it abounds.  It's as if my lack of kids means any time I spend not at work is automatically idle time that must be filled with kids. Meanwhile, any leisure time spent by a parent is automatically well-deserved free time*.


My free time is perfectly valuable to me.  My lack of kids does not make it petty idle time any more than your free time is petty idle time.

But there's more to it than just "free time = free time."  You have to also recognize that, tiresome or not, having kids in this society is a choice, with very few exceptions.  If you didn't want kids, you could have used birth control, had an abortion, or given the baby away.  The only reasonable excuse for having and keeping kids is because you either wanted them or have some religious motivation--also a choice in our culture--for having them.

Likewise, not having kids was my choice, and there was a reason I made that choice, and that's that I want to occupy my time with other things:  Intellectual pursuits, my career, relationships, activism, animal care, and hobbies all occupy my time.  The time I spend outside of work is not "idle."  It is filled with things that are very important to me.

"Well, I had a lot of things I loved doing, too, but now that I have kids..."

Yeah, I know that, we all know that, and you knew that before you had kids.  There are even jokes about it.  Jokes that are actually kind of sad.

Having kids doesn't inherently mean you won't or even shouldn't have time for anything else, but expecting your childfree friends and relatives to pick up the slack on your choice just because we chose not to have kids is missing the point of us being childfree.

But OK, like I already said, I don't mind babysitting... or housesitting, or dogsitting, or anything else... provided my own needs and preferences fall into the situation.  Like, expecting that it's OK for me to be paid in "food and board" without recognizing that your pantry is full of Cheetos and other things I can't eat, and also that I already have a house that I rather enjoy sleeping in.  If you're not the kind of person who will readily help me move if I ask, in which case there is the agreement that we are just going to help when we need each other, that just doesn't fly.

It also doesn't fly when you whine to your other friends and relatives that I decided to, say, go on a birding trip I had planned in advance rather than babysit your kids at the last minute because I "had nothing to do."

I do have things to do.  They just don't involve kids.


*I know that due to stereotypes about certain kinds of parents this isn't always the case, such as low-income single mothers who are derided as "lazy," but in the context of my friends and relatives and their perceptions of themselves it is.