The Early Internet - An Ode to Prodigy

Mental Floss recently posted a bunch of old ads for the Prodigy internet service on their Facebook page and I took a trip down memory lane by watching them.

We bought our first computer in 1990 - it had something like 40 MB of hard disk space and used 5" floppy disks. It was some kind of IBM PC clone and we had debated for awhile whether to buy a Mac or a PC, deciding ultimately to go with the PC because it was cheaper; and even then we shelled out about $2000 for a computer that couldn't hold a candle to the computing power in any of our smartphones.

I don't even know what we used that computer for when we first got it - maybe spreadsheets? We weren't early adopter types, like those who used CompuServe in the 80s; we were internet virgins. But then we heard about Prodigy because there were commercials on TV constantly. So we became early subscribers to their internet service. Of course back then we only had dial-up modems to access the internet. But in those DOS-based days, even though Prodigy had a graphical user interface, accessing the service was not a problem since the graphics were so much more primitive back then.

My first non-work email address was through Prodigy, and my first online shopping experiences were through Prodigy. From the beginning I saw the advantage of shopping online - and now I do almost all of my shopping that way, even for groceries! But it was thanks to Prodigy that I first got hooked on it.

I remember getting up every morning during the first Iraq war and getting online to see the latest headlines from the night before. It was through Prodigy that I started to be addicted to getting the latest news without waiting for a newspaper.

My favorite aspect of the service was their message boards, which they called bulletin boards. They were organized by topic and subtopic. So, for instance, there was a Pets topic, a Dogs subtopic, and then individual subjects under that. You could either create your own heading or get involved in a discussion under another heading, such as, in my case, Pit Bulls. In 1995 we had just adopted a pittie mix, our dog Alice, from the local shelter, and I got into discussions with other lovers of the breed on that bulletin board. We had a great community there and I got to know one of the members well enough that we started exchanging snail mail Christmas cards each year. She lived in Fresno, California. Unfortunately, we eventually lost touch. I am hoping she and her husband and pets are still doing well.

By the mid-90s AOL was overtaking Prodigy as the more popular service, but I never liked their format. I tried their service a few times, using one of the free floppy disks they sent to our house, but ended up sticking with Prodigy.

However, as time went by, we eventually dropped Prodigy because the costs were going up - and by then there were so many other ways to access the Internet. We tried Juno for awhile, and then Earthlink, all still using dial-up. Then we finally succumbed and got Comcast cable, which gave us high speed internet access as well as cable television. Believe it or not, we did not have cable TV until then.

By this time - maybe it was 1999 or so? - the Internet was much more established. I was in touch with many old friends through email and went on various forums from time to time, but I missed the interaction with other people that I got in a more organized format.

In the early 2000s I found that kind of interaction on the online forums on our New Jersey site, NJ.com. There were forums about our town of Bloomfield, for our county - Essex - and for various subjects, including religion, politics, and pets.

Once again I found myself part of a community of likeminded (or not so likeminded) people, and delved into deep conversations with people I had never met. We all had "handles" to disguise our real identities. I went with Uhuru, which means "freedom" in Swahili. Uhura from Star Trek was also based on the word, which is where I got the idea, but I just took the generic Swahili word without the feminized ending, just to be more mysterious.

I used to get into heated arguments with a poster named Greylady, who rescued greyhounds but was not a fan of pit bulls. We used to argue incessantly about the issue of breed-specific legislation, in which certain breeds of dogs, particularly pit bulls, are restricted or banned.

I also had a lot of fun on the Religion forum, where atheists and believers clashed on a daily basis. I made a lot of good friends there, including a poster named Friday. I wonder what happened to her...

Then came blogging. In 2006 I started hearing more and more about blogs, and found out that a neighbor of mine at the time was a blogger - a well-known and prolific blogger. She wrote about her family, her son, her dog  and many other subjects. Some of her posts would make you laugh; others would make you cry. She has since become a published writer and she teamed up with another blogger and wrote a whole book. At that time I was simply impressed that she actually had a blog; it seemed so interesting and trendy. I thought to myself, hmmm. I wonder if I could do that?

My inspiration came after writing a long post on our hyperlocal news site, Baristanet - yet another location where people exchange comments and opinions. I had posted, along with others, an account of where I was on 9/11, on the fifth anniversary of the attack. I figured, here I had my first blog post all ready to go. So I got on Blogger and started this blog, and plonked down the remembrance of 9/11 as my first post.

I was glad I named the blog Mauigirl's Meanderings, because after that I had no idea what to write about. I meandered.... a lot. I was nervous about actually speaking my mind and having people who know me figure out who Mauigirl was and know what my thoughts were about various subjects, especially if they were people from work.

In the early days I made a few blog friends - one of the first was my friend Ruth from England, who wrote the blog Me, My Life, My Garden. A few others joined in commenting on my blog, but not as many as would eventually become part of my little circle of blog friends.

Finally came the first Blog Against Theocracy event and I decided to participate for the first time in 2007. I wrote a fairly scathing post about the evils of mixing religion and politics (sadly in some ways even more pertinent now than it was then), and after that the gloves were off. Although I still write about anything I feel like writing about, and I still meander, I have long since given up the idea of keeping my liberal politics - or my real name - a secret. I met a lot of great blog friends in the liberal blogging community and am happy that many are still commenting even after all my gaps in posting here.

Then in 2008, I joined Facebook. A friend of mine had joined and said 'You have to join, it's perfect for us - it gives instant gratification!" Sure enough, I became hooked. I ended up being Facebook friends with many of my blog friends, and then friends of theirs, and friends of their friends... At the same time I got to know a lot of people in my own community, some of whom I'd met in person and some not; and on top of that I got back in touch with childhood friends I hadn't been in contact with for, in one case, 40 years!

Looking back, I see my online involvement has been most focused on finding a community or number of communities in which to exchange ideas, find likeminded people who are interested in the same things I am, and keep in touch with distant friends and even relatives. Facebook is the ultimate when it comes to this function. I love reading blog posts and making the effort to write well-thought-out posts of my own, for when I want to do some serious thinking, or even not so serious thinking. But in terms of carrying on a conversation and providing the opportunity for give-and-take that builds a relationship, I find Facebook to be a great resource.

My Facebook friends tend to post links to thought-provoking and informative articles that I might not have ever read otherwise. They post points of view that invite intelligent discussion. We commiserate on one another's losses and share in our successes. Some people complain that their Facebook feeds are full of silly things and are a waste of time - I am happy that is not the case with mine.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good joke or meme as much as the next person, and my friends and I are certainly guilty of posting pictures of our dinners from time to time. But I like seeing people's dinners! They inspire me to want to cook something good for my own dinner! Often a post like that leads to a request for a recipe, or a restaurant recommendation. So it's all good.

So many people criticize Facebook and other means of online communication as leading to people being more lonely and less social than when they were confined to interacting "in real life." I disagree.

Between blogging and Facebook, although I am often by myself at home now that I retired from the Big Corporation, I am never lonely. I can always find someone out there who is online at the same time I am and we can talk. Some of the people I talk to may not be people I know "in real life," but I feel I know them nonetheless and they are no less "real" than other friends.

When you think about it, ever since people went online, what they have always been looking for is what is now called "social networking."

So, looking back on how it all started, in my own case, I have to thank Prodigy for having sucked me into the world of the Internet and changing my life forever. For others it may have been one of the earlier services, or a slightly later one like America Online. But in the end, we were all looking for the same thing. Connectivity with other human beings.

It's Too Late Baby - But I'll Blog Against Theocracy Anyway

I just revisited the Blog Against Theocracy site and realized it says that no posts will be accepted after April 5th. Unfortunately I was unable to get to writing about this important subject until today. I will try to link to it anyway.

As some of you know, I have become the caretaker of my 91-year-old mother, Marge. She's a great lady and is doing much better since she's been home rather than in an instutional setting. However, her frailty does make her care a fairly time-consuming and and relatively exhausting job. Thank goodness for the aides that come to keep an eye on her at night. During the day she is pretty with-it and we have a good time chatting. Her sense of humor is still there and we are doing well. But it doesn't allow me much time or energy to blog.

Where shall I begin about the issue of theocracy in this country? I've written about this before but it seems as if the situation is getting worse. What with the Texas School Board trying to change the textbooks to go along with their version of reality, which is based on religious beliefs rather than science, and those who refuse to vote for the health care bill if the insurance companies cover abortion, "theocracy" is everywhere these days. Where do people get the nerve to say they won't let their taxes fund an abortion paid for through a private insurance company? After all, my taxes pay for wars, and I don't believe in them either. If everyone got to choose exactly what their taxes pay for I don't think much would get done.

We have moved from the silliness of lawsuits over whether or not to allow religious statues on public property or plaques of the Ten Commandments to be displayed in front of a town hall, to more important issues. Now it's coming down to whether our children will be educated properly or not; it's come down to arguing over what someone's taxes cover or not. The religious people in this country are overwhelming the secular side of our society.

What really gets me is, it is the Christians, who outnumber any other religion in this country by a huge majority, that claim their rights are being trampled every time something isn't done their way. They don't understand that freedom of speech and religion means that you are free to practice your own religion without infringement. It does not mean that you have the right to force YOUR religion on other people.

The whole issue of gay marriage is a good example of why we need separation of church and state. There is no logical reason why gay couples shouldn't benefit from the blessings of the government in terms of joint property, laws of inheritance, visiting privileges at hospitals, and all of the other rights that heterosexual married couples take for granted.

The only reason to deny same-sex couples these rights is found in the Bible, where believers claim that "God" doesn't approve of same-sex couples. This is a religious context, not a civic context.

The solution would be to allow any couple of consenting adults to marry in a civic ceremony. If religion comes into it, then they are welcome to also be married in the church of their choice. Some churches may choose to marry same-sex couples, some may not. But that is a private, religious context. The civic context should not be consigned to the same rules.

Interestingly, just today I had a chat with one of my mother's aides who comes in to help out for two hours twice a week. She is of Mexican descent and I had assumed she was Catholic. However, we got into a discussion of religion and it turned out she had been "saved" in a Protestant religion in 2001 before 9/11. As a result, she believes the Bible is the word of God and everything in it is true.

She brought up the idea of gay marriage and I said I was in favor of it since I believe God would want people who love each other to be able to pledge their lives to each other. She said that the Bible doesn't allow for that, it's not natural and that with God, all things are possible, so anyone who is gay could change if they believed.

Naturally I didn't get into a big argument about this (I do need her to take care of my mother), but it made me think. There are a lot of people out there who really believe that the Bible actually is the word-for-word "Word of God" and because of that they are willing to consign a whole group of people to second-class status. If these people continue to gain power in our government and our civic organizations such as school boards, our country is going to fall further and further behind, what with rejecting evolution, believing gay people are "unnatural" and many other beliefs that are not consistent with science or good sense.

Organized religion in general has a tendency to become corrupt, or at the very least, the participants tend to protect the organization rather than the beliefs on which it is founded. Look at the scandals in the Catholic Church. I'm sure none of those in charge feel good about the terrible things that some priests have done to young children. But rather than expose those priests and the church to public scrutiny, they hid this behavior and just transferred the priests elsewhere. As a result, there is now a sitting Pope who may have conspired in this cover-up and the church is in crisis.

If even a church cannot stay pure, how could incorporating religion into government have any better result?

Don't Forget to Blog Against Theocracy

This weekend, April 2-4, is the Blog Against Theocracy blogswarm. Go to Blue Gal or Tengrain's place for more information. You can click on the badge on my sidebar, to the right, for instructions on how to participate.

The purpose of the blogswarm is to write anything at all about why there must be a separation of church and state in this country. I'm sure most of us, whether religious or not, can understand why it is best to keep religion out of government, if you want to keep government out of religion.

Will look forward to reading the many insightful posts that I expect will be written on this subject!

Theocracy and Why It's Not Christian

Although I'm a couple of days late with this, I didn't want to miss the opportunity to participate in the Blog Against Theocracy.

I thought I'd take a different tack this year and explain why embedding "Christianity" into our government is not a Christian thing to do. There are several reasons for this, straight out of the Bible.

First of all, Jesus said His kingdom "is not of this world." He also told His disciples to "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's." To me, these statements mean that the teachings of Jesus were separate from what the government was doing; He never expected people to revise the government's laws to reflect His teachings, but instead wanted His followers to live by them in their personal lives.

The other reason theocracy isn't a Christian idea is that it shows a lack of empathy for others. Jesus' teachings also include "love thy neighbor as thyself" and "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." This means having empathy with people who are different from you and trying to see things from their point of view. Obviously people who have rigid beliefs that they want to enforce on everyone in the country are not thinking of the other person's point of view at all.

The Bible, and sadly, Christianity itself, have been used as an excuse for everything from outright war (the Crusades), to bigotry (saying the Bible forbade interracial marriage, for instance, in the past - and gay marriage now). Jesus never talked about any of this. He said "turn the other cheek." If He were here today He would be horrified at much of what is done in His name.

There is a distinct lack of imagination on the part of those who want to make THEIR "Christian" beliefs part of our federal laws. They perceive that their way is the "right" way and that all other beliefs are wrong. They are unable to imagine being in the other person's shoes, the person who is the minority, who has a different belief.

They don't realize that the separation of Church and State was created to protect the minority believers. If these good "Christians" lived in a Muslim country, their beliefs would be the minority beliefs and their freedom to believe would be threatened. But they can't imagine themselves in that same place so they are unable and unwilling to understand.

The founders of our nation separated Church and State for good reasons. They realized you can't have freedom OF religion without freedom FROM religion. Only when religion is not part of the governing body can religious people, of all kinds, thrive and believe (or not believe) as they wish.

The Troubling Rick Warren Controversy

It's all over the blogosphere - condemnations of President-Elect Obama's choice of Rev. Rick Warren to give the invocation at Obama's inauguration. Not only are members of the LGBT community upset by this choice, but so are many others who support their civil rights and believe in equality for all. I am among the latter, and certainly agree Warren represents all that is evil about the religious right and their ignorant, bigoted views of the gay community, hiding behind a smarmy smile and a veneer of civilization just because he has supported helping AIDS victims in Africa.

My hopes for the Obama Administration are in a battle with my revulsion about Warren. I have been reading so many excellent posts about the controversy I thought rather than say something myself that has been said better elsewhere, I'd round up some of the comments I've been reading.

There have been many outcries of hurt and anger from some of my favorite bloggers - FranIAm has expressed her dismay in her recent posts, as has Christopher at From the Left. In one of his posts, he stated:

"The liberal and progressive community looked the other way and gave you the benefit of the doubt when you voted for the FISA bill and hired a series of retreads from the Clinton administration but dragging Rick Warren to Washington DC on January [20], 2009, goes too far and is unforgivable."

Godless Liberal Homo is saying that attendees at the inauguration should boo Warren when he takes the stage.

"Rick Warren should not be playing a major role in a Barack Obama's inauguration. Warren has devoted a major portion of his life promoting oppression, bigotry, and violence against women and queers. Obama is following the Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush policy of pandering to heterosexist and misogynistic religious extremists. So much for "Change You Can Believe In."

Obama's invitation to Warren is a vicious, personal attack against every woman in this country.

Obama's invitation to Warren is a vicious, personal attack against every queer in this country.

One thing that people in DC for this disgraced inauguration should do is to boo that bigoted extremist the minute he starts spewing his bullshit until he shuts his hateful mouth. America needs to send a message that bigotry and militant fundamentalism have no legitimate role to play in politics or society as a whole."

DCup posted an excellent clip of Keith Olbermann talking to Rob Boston of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State on Countdown, and pointed out that the separation of church and state issue has to be straightened out, as well as linking to some other great posts on the subject.

Obama has defended his choice of Warren, saying:

"'I was invited to Rick Warren's church to speak despite his awareness that I held views that are entirely contrary to his when it came to gay and lesbian rights and issues like abortion,' Obama said. 'Nevertheless, I had an opportunity to speak. And that dialogue, I think, is part of what my campaign is all about: that we're not going to agree on every single issue, but what we have to do is be able to create an atmosphere where we can disagree without being disagreeable and then focus on those things that we hold in common as Americans.'"

Many feel this explanation doesn't cut it, that "tolerating the intolerant" is going too far when it comes to inclusiveness.

However, there are other perspectives out there, and I think it's important to consider them.

James Joiner over at An Average American Patriot has another point of view.

"I just love it! It is vintage Obama reaching out to both sides, i think this is great! While gay rights groups were busy objecting to the selection of Southern Baptist pastor Rick Warren, who opposes same-sex marriage, to give the invocation at the inauguration, they may have failed to notice who is giving the benediction.

The Rev. Joseph Lowery, 87, is best known as a civil rights icon and co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He also comes from a liberal Christian mainline religious tradition, the United Methodist Church.

In 2000, Lowery, gave what was described as an electrifying speech calling for gay clergy, to the dinner during the general convention of the United Methodist Church, the nation's second largest Protestant denomination....

And in 2004, he told ABC News he supported same sex marriage..."

Dusty at It's My Right to be Left of the Center has this response to the controversy:

"Warren is saying the opening prayer people, that is all. He isn't part of the cabinet and he won't be setting policy..so if all this yahoo is doing is saying a friggin prayer..how does that affect the fight for LGBT equality? Obama picked a pro-gay rights man, Joseph Lowery to give the benediction, which is another prayer right?"

She goes on to point out:

"My point in this whole mess is that we must choose our battles carefully. Rick the fuckwit Warren isn't worth our time and energy. No one is ever going to convince him that the LGBT community deserves the same rights as everyone else....I will say that Warren is less offensive than the vast majority of Theocratic wingnuts. He doesn't call AIDS God's revenge on gays and he believes climate change is real and churches have a responsibility to deal with it.

That means we have some common ground with Warren. That means we, the universal we, should find a way to make Warren and his sheep part of the equation on climate change and AIDS. It also means we can take our talking points to him on the subject of gay equality, but do it in a respectful way. If we use the Rush Limbaugh method, we won't get far...correct?

Obama wants to unite us all around our common beliefs. I think he purposefully picked Warren to show he is reaching out to all sides....

Obama is going to piss off the right, the left and the centrist folks many more times before his term comes to an end. Lets not allow Warren's prayer to divide those of us that believe in the fight for gay rights ok? If we are going to pick our battles wisely...this ain't one of them that will do us any good in the long or short run."

Comrade Kevin talks about why he shifted from the radical left to a more moderate stance:

"When I was in my early twenties, I flirted with radical activist politics....In short, it was too much, it was draining, and I never got any resolution for all of my lofty goals and aspirations. Furthermore, the strident voices of the radical left, while they aim to win converts, end up isolating themselves...and instead of informing the masses, they instead turn off the average Jane or Joe....

It was at that point that I shifted more to the middle. Not because I was actively surrendering my ideals, but mostly because as a moderate it was highly plausible to occasionally see some reforms I favored passed into action. The life of a radical is a life of feeling supremely isolated....Even the biggest success gets parsed, analyzed, and transformed into something else to be angry about---mostly because the change enacted didn't go far enough. Being that radicals almost never get anything they want, I couldn't function for long as one of them.

Now we're in the part of the political season whereby we are called to collectively second-guess the cabinet selections and tentative decisions of the President-Elect. I have a totally different perspective, since Obama's election in and of itself is joyous to me. I think perhaps we must think we're somehow obligated to get everything we want exactly the way we want it, which subsequently reminds me of my radical days. Even if the most liberal political candidate ever was elected, I don't know if he or she would make every decision more or less in line with the whims of the left-wing base. I'm not sure if we're a nation of whiners as much as we are a nation which claims to want a diversity of ideas, that is, as long as they're the same are ours."

In her comment on Dusty's blog post, Karen Zipdrive also echoed this point of view:

"As a bonafide queer for 40 years now, I think I've earned the right to have an opinion on this.

My opinion, which I've scattered throughout blogworld, is that a two minute prayer given by a slobby evangelista is not worth fretting.

Obama said he planned to be inclusive, and as a die-hard liberal I have to accept that he's being more inclusive than I ever would.

But we saw how sickening it was to watch Bush exclude everyone with whom he differed, and we saw what hatred that behavior fomented.

If that's not enough to salve the wounds of my fellow homos and our supporters, consider these points:
1. The evangelical colleagues of Warren are outraged that he accepted the invitation.
2. The sight of Shakira shaking her considerable assets on the same night cancels out 2 minutes of Jesusian mumbo-jumbo.
3. The sound of Aretha belting out a tune double cancels Rev. Slobbo.
4. The sound of YoYo Ma's cello will soothe the eardrums of anyone who were offended by hearing the prayer.
5. The short prayer gives all of us ample opportunity to go to the bathroom, then to the kitchen for a little snack.

So keep your powder dry, my friends. All this righteous indignation makes us look like the sour prunes on the right.

Let's roll with it, I say."

The Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group, has put forth a list of agenda items they want Obama to pledge to support, in order to help them get past the slap in the face he has offered by choosing Warren. This is probably a good idea for Obama to consider in order to heal the rift this choice has opened.

We have to keep in mind that Obama has already said he would support a number of policies favorable to the LGBT community.

From Change.gov:

"'While we have come a long way since the Stonewall riots in 1969, we still have a lot of work to do. Too often, the issue of LGBT rights is exploited by those seeking to divide us. But at its core, this issue is about who we are as Americans. It's about whether this nation is going to live up to its founding promise of equality by treating all its citizens with dignity and respect.'
-- Barack Obama, June 1, 2007

The Obama-Biden Plan
Expand Hate Crimes Statutes: In 2004, crimes against LGBT Americans constituted the third-highest category of hate crime reported and made up more than 15 percent of such crimes. Barack Obama cosponsored legislation that would expand federal jurisdiction to include violent hate crimes perpetrated because of race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, or physical disability. As a state senator, Obama passed tough legislation that made hate crimes and conspiracy to commit them against the law.

Fight Workplace Discrimination: Barack Obama supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and believes that our anti-discrimination employment laws should be expanded to include sexual orientation and gender identity. While an increasing number of employers have extended benefits to their employees' domestic partners, discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workplace occurs with no federal legal remedy. Obama also sponsored legislation in the Illinois State Senate that would ban employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Support Full Civil Unions and Federal Rights for LGBT Couples: Barack Obama supports full civil unions that give same-sex couples legal rights and privileges equal to those of married couples. Obama also believes we need to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions. These rights and benefits include the right to assist a loved one in times of emergency, the right to equal health insurance and other employment benefits, and property rights.

Oppose a Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage: Barack Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2006 which would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman and prevented judicial extension of marriage-like rights to same-sex or other unmarried couples.

Repeal Don't Ask-Don't Tell: Barack Obama agrees with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili and other military experts that we need to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The key test for military service should be patriotism, a sense of duty, and a willingness to serve. Discrimination should be prohibited. The U.S. government has spent millions of dollars replacing troops kicked out of the military because of their sexual orientation. Additionally, more than 300 language experts have been fired under this policy, including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic. Obama will work with military leaders to repeal the current policy and ensure it helps accomplish our national defense goals.

Expand Adoption Rights: Barack Obama believes that we must ensure adoption rights for all couples and individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation. He thinks that a child will benefit from a healthy and loving home, whether the parents are gay or not."

OK, so where does that leave me? You have to "stand for something or you fall for anything," as the saying goes.

Here's the way I see it.

President-Elect Obama, whatever decisions he makes in terms of picking his cabinet or his inauguration speakers, still offers a WAY better future for all of us than the McCain-Palin duo would have if they had been elected, and not just on this issue but on most issues near and dear to progressive hearts.

Besides, he has a few other items on his plate that are going to need a lot of thought, effort and focus:

1. Closing Gitmo
2. Getting out of Iraq
3. Fixing the worst economy since the Depression
4. Establishing universal healthcare

And that's only four things, just to get him started. There are plenty of others. We need to remember we elected Barack Obama to solve a lot of serious things that have been wrong with this country for eight long years.

We can't let his choice of Warren sidetrack us and once again cause us to self-destruct through divisions among our ranks, as Democrats often do.

For once, let's stay together and support this President. He is going to need all the help he can get and he is only human.

He has a belief in inclusion which is welcome after eight long years of exclusion. If he overdoes it and invites someone like Warren to the table, he needs to be told it was hurtful to many of his supporters. But we shouldn't "rip our shirts" and say he is dead to us. That is self-defeating.

Perhaps when he says he doesn't believe in gay marriage, he means it. But he does support a lot of initiatives that favor the gay community. And, he has an open mind, which means he may realize at some point, if communications remain open with the gay community, that civil unions are just another example of "separate" being inherently unequal.

If we condemn him and no longer support him during the next four years, this education may not happen and, as Comrade Kevin points out, we don't get what we want.

Am I happy that President-Elect Obama chose Warren? No, of course not. I feel it was very hurtful and what concerns me is he doesn't seem to have the sensitivity to understand why it was so hurtful. But we must remember that he does support a very progressive agenda and it will benefit all of us and the entire country if he is able to carry it out successfully.

And, because of Warren, he owes the LGBT community BIG. He will need to do something pretty dramatic early in his administration, such as repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell, to prove which side he is on.

In closing, I'd like to reiterate something many have already pointed out about this whole debacle. If we had true separation of church and state, this whole controversy would be moot, because there would be no inaugural prayer. But that is a problem for another day. (When is the next Blog Against Theocracy?)

Bush's Faith-Based Initiative: Insidious Path to Theocracy

This is my contribution to the Blog Against Theocracy blogswarm. (Note: Bold blue italics are quotations, anything in red is emphasis I have added to the quotes).

It's been seven years since President Bush announced his "faith-based initiative" to allow public money to fund nonprofit organizations sponsored by religious groups.

The purpose of the initiative was to establish "a White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives that will have lead responsibility to:

"Establish policies, priorities, and objectives to enlist, equip, enable, empower, and expand the work of faith-based and other community organizations to the extent permitted by law.

-Ensure that policy decisions and programs are consistent with the President's stated goals with respect to faith-based and other community initiatives.

-Integrate the agenda affecting faith-based and other community organizations across the Federal Government.

-Coordinate public education to mobilize public support for faith-based and community nonprofit initiatives.

-Eliminate unnecessary legislative, regulatory, and other bureaucratic barriers that impede effective faith-based and other community efforts to solve social problems.

-Ensure that the efforts of faith-based and other community organizations meet high standards of excellence and accountability."

In addition, the executive order:

"Establishes a Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives within each of the Departments of Justice, Education, Labor, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development, to:

-Coordinate efforts to eliminate regulatory, contracting, and other programmatic obstacles to the participation of faith-based and other community organizations in the provision of social services.

-Incorporate faith-based and other community organizations in department programs and initiatives to the greatest extent possible.

-Increase the participation of faith-based and other community organizations in Federal as well as State and local initiatives."

Although money would now be funneled from the government to groups whose main purpose is a religious one, there supposedly would be "safeguards" put in place to ensure church and state remained separate:

"Secular helping agencies must be available in the same areas as faith-based helping agencies, so that people who need help do not have to accept the religious aspect in order to get the help.

-No government funds can be used for proselytizing or other inherently religious activities

-Government should be neutral, providing funds based on the program results and not on the specific program structure (religious vs. nonreligious).

-Funding for faith-based and secular helping agencies is provided from the same source. There is no "set-aside" strictly for religious organizations."

Now, seven years later, a document called "The Quiet Revolution: The President's Faith-Based and Community Initiative: A Seven-Year Progress Report Letter From President Bush" sums up the progress against his mission:

"The first Presidential initiative launched by the Bush Administration, the FBCI has grown each year and adapted to emerging challenges and expanded its influence at home and abroad. The framework of this activity includes:

-Five Executive Orders expanding the FBCI reach across the Federal Government;

-Sixteen agency-level rule changes and a myriad of smaller scale policy reforms to level the playing field for faith-based and community organizations;

-More than a dozen presidential initiatives aimed at some of society's most stubborn social problems;

-Provision of in-person training to build capacity for more than 100,000 social entrepreneurs;

-Measurement of the FBCI's progress, and ongoing improvement of program components as necessary;

-Replication at the State- and local-government level.

The FBCI initiated a profound cultural change resulting in wider acceptance of faith-based organizations in community problem-solving, as well as a heightened understanding of results-driven collaborations between government and the nonprofit sector. As this report shows, the FBCI has been a quiet revolution in how government engages community partners to address human need and how public and private interests combine for the common good."

The question is, how much of this "profound cultural change" has led us down the slippery slope toward theocracy? This initiative has been largely flying under the radar, and many Americans may not be aware of the profound changes it has wrought.

According to Americans United for Separation of Church and State,
"The law governing the separation of church and state has been shaped by dozens of U.S. Supreme Court decisions and thousands of decisions by lower federal courts and state courts."

Nevertheless, there are watchdog groups that are on top of this and are trying to roll back these changes. There have been a number of lawsuits attempting to thwart some of the provisions of the Faith-Based Initiative.The link above provides summaries of a number of recent court decisions.

One recent success story was a case entitled Americans United v. Prison Fellowship Ministries, when in 2006, Americans United won a lawsuit in federal court challenging the Iowa Corrections Department's support for Charles Colson's InnerChange, a prison program that trains inmates in evangelical Christianity.

Another group that has spearheaded a number of successful lawsuits defending the separation of church and state is the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

Throughout the Bush administration's tenure, there has been opposition to the Faith Based Initiative programs.

According to the Boston Globe, in 2006 two leading Democrats on the House International Relations Committee said they want to investigate President Bush's faith-based initiative...

"...to determine whether taxpayer funds are being used to reward Bush's Christian conservative supporters and whether the faith-based groups are using the funds to help gain converts.

...to follow up on an October report by the Globe that the Bush administration has given 98.3 percent of the faith-based foreign-aid money to Christian groups and to examine whether faith-based groups are using taxpayer funds to help their proselytizing efforts.

...The Globe reported that Bush has doubled the percentage of US foreign aid dollars going to faith-based groups and that the president systematically eliminated or weakened rules designed to enforce the separation of church and state.

As a result, some faith-based providers attempted to recruit members immediately before or after providing government services, and others favored Christians over Muslims.

...The Globe also reported on cases in which secular groups said they were denied funding because they emphasized the distribution of condoms or worked with prostitutes in an effort to stop the spread of the AIDS virus.

...Bush was unable to win congressional approval for the faith-based program even with Republicans in control of Congress, so he used executive orders to implement the program."

Concern has been raised in many quarters about these faith-based initiatives; Former President Jimmy Carter was very outspoken in his criticism of the program, according to an article published by The Associated Press last May:

"Carter offered his harshest assessment for the White House’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, which helped religious charities receive $2.15 billion in federal grants in fiscal year 2005 alone.

'The policy from the White House has been to allocate funds to religious institutions, even those that channel those funds exclusively to their own particular group of believers in a particular religion. Those things in my opinion are quite disturbing,' Carter said. 'As a traditional Baptist, I’ve always believed in separation of church and state and honored that premise when I was president, and so have all other presidents, I might say, except this one.' "

The various ways this initiative violates the separation of church and state are detailed in the "Americans United for Separation of Church and State" website. As the site explains...

"Charitable choice became part of the welfare law in 1996, but the federal government was hesitant to implement the policy due to constitutional concerns. Moreover, only a handful of states have altered their programs to allow for government funding of religious ministries.

Now, however, the Bush administration is working to apply charitable choice to nearly every aspect of government funding."

The site includes a comprehensive list of the reasons this initiative is bad for the country:

- By using government funds to support religious organizations, the initiative in effect forces taxpayers to subsidize religion they may not believe in.

-Charitable choice raises the specter of federally funded employment discrimination. Under Bush's proposal, churches would be legally permitted to discriminate on the basis of religion when hiring, despite receiving a massive infusion of public dollars.

-Religious institutions would receive taxpayer support while seeking to convert people seeking assistance. Disadvantaged people would be vulnerable to coertion while receiving needed services and benefits.

- Religious institutions themselves do not necessarily benefit from this initiative, and could face unwelcome interference by the government. The government always regulates what it finances...Once churches, temples, mosques and synagogues are being financed by public funds, some of their own freedom to run their organizations as they see fit could be at risk.

-Another risk to the religious organizations involved could be a diminution of voluntary contributions from members and other contributors, due to the perception that the government would now be taking care of these needs.

- The faith-based initiative pits religious groups against each other in competition for public funds.

- Some faith traditions could be favored over others when it comes to doling out money from the public treasury.

Interestingly, according to "Americans United," "opposition to faith-based public funding spans the ideological spectrum. Americans have raised complaints about these proposals regardless of their party affiliation, religious belief or political ideology. In fact, in recent years, a large number of religious and public policy groups have joined together in coalition to oppose charitable choice plans.

... Some clergy expressed concern about government funds threatening the prophetic voice of their faith community while others were troubled by an unhealthy intermingling of religion and government.

...In the political arena, reservations surrounding faith-based schemes are not limited to a traditional "Democrat v. Republican" argument.

Since the public policy debate was announced, criticism has been levied against charitable choice from the right, left and center.

All of these fears over unhealthy cooperation between church and state have done little to dissuade charitable choice's advocates. After years of debate, the crusade to expand the policy continues unabated, with billions of tax dollars at stake.

...Ultimately, public funding of faith-based institutions is one of those rare proposals that harms virtually everyone affected by it. The initiative promotes publicly funded employment discrimination, it threatens the religious liberties of beneficiaries, it jeopardizes the freedom of our faith communities and it undermines the rights of all taxpayers."

Please be sure to check out the other information on the websites linked above, as well as First Freedom First and all of the other posts on the Blog Against Theocracy blogswarm.