"Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach. . . ." -- Sean Russell, from Gatherer of Clouds

"If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." -- Helyn D. Goldenberg

"I love you and I'm not afraid." -- Evanescence, "My Last Breath"

“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Saturday, June 02, 2007

On The Uses of Bias

Bush now wants to follow up his ludicrous nomination of an anti-woman head of women's health issues for HHA with an equally ludicrous nomination of a faith-based Surgeon General.

Here's a report from Sportin' Life at Pam's House Blend:

[David] Calhoun, a United Methodist pastor, noted that Holsinger and his wife, Barbara, were members of Lexington's First United Methodist Church, which asked them to set out and start a new congregation.

They founded Hope Springs Community Church in a warehouse at 1109 Versailles Road. Calhoun called it a socially diverse congregation with a "very vital recovery ministry." It serves the homeless and those with addictions to drugs, alcohol and sex; and it has a Spanish-language Hispanic congregation with its own pastor.

"It's built around compassion for people who struggle with a lot of issues," he said.

Hope Springs also ministers to people who no longer wish to be gay or lesbian, Calhoun said.

"We see that as an issue not of orientation but of lifestyle," he said. "We have people who seek to walk out of that lifestyle."


Say what you want about freedom of religion, but I want some contact with reality in the Surgeon General's office. I don't care that a bunch of loons think gay is a "lifestyle" (and you've read exactly what I think of that particular semantic nullity). This whole idea that opinion takes equal footing with fact is getting a little out of hand. As I've said before, your beliefs may make you a bigot. That doesn't mean being a bigot is OK.

For more on this whole idea, see the next post.

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