More pictures from Chamberlain

We're at it today, with facilitator Michael Mitchell. We're talking about the political landscape of South Dakota, what our strengths are, what our weaknesses are, and also got a quick history of GLBT activism in South Dakota (nicely summarized by Lawrence Novotny, who has been there all along).






Cait Collier has given us a great summary of 501c3s, c4s and PACs. We also talked about boards of directors and how they function. This is ground zero and square one and really exciting (unlike actually being on a board!)



Here is my sweet bride, talking with Jon Hoadley, formerly director of the No on C Campaign with South Dakotans Against Discrimination, now with the Gill fund. It is great to have him here to provide some national perspective. (Mike Mitchell has been helpful on that too, as he has done a lot of GLBT related political work in other states.)

This is square one and and ground zero. Pretty heady stuff.

Good stuff happening in Chamberlain this weekend

We find ourselves at the AmericInn in Chamberlain this weekend, at the organizational meeting of a new "follow-on" organization to South Dakotans Against Discrimination... on the heels of an extremely successful effort to block Amendment C. (Well, we lost, but by a very small margin, against all expectations... and built a new community in the process! It's pretty thrilling to be here at the beginning of a new thing. In this shot, you can see the group being welcomed and encouraged by Jennifer Ring of the SD-ACLU.

Here I am (at left) chatting with the excellent Todd Epp, who was one of the people that made SDAD a success in 2006, and a very active member of the SD blogosphere. It was a thrill to finally meet Todd in person!





Well, big day tomorrow, we'll send some updates...

Creationists are the losers

Bob Ellis said, in response to a recent post:

...there are a multitude of theories that are scientifically plausible that still harmonize with the biblical account of creation.

Depends on what you mean by "harmonize." A lot.

True, science presents a big challenge to ancient and medieval ideas about philosophy and spirituality.

I'm pretty sure the reason you and others choose to reject the wonderful things we've learned about the universe is because of an elephant in the room: the Copernican theory's logical conclusion that our planet and our species aren't the most important thing in the universe, merely an extremely wonderful example and lesson of God's creative imagination.

As I'm sure my dear Mom would have said, if the universe seems indifferent maybe it's because, just perhaps, it's not all about you.

That's the crux of all this, really. The facts require a huge paradigm shift when reading the Bible and still accept it as the Word of God, (not the Words of God) which I do. Galileo was immediately bludgeoned with Scriptural literalists in the 17th century, and even today many people of faith are on the defensive, 500 years later.

Truly, it's really unfortunate Ellis and other friends of "creation science" are missing out on the wonder and excitement of it all, both from a scientific *and* spiritual point of view.

I can accept that the Enlightenment is a long process and will not happen overnight -- or even in 500 years. It continues to bear wonderful fruit however. I am pretty thrilled to live in the age of antibiotics and vaccines, among other things. The benefits will continue to fuel its progress.

Just don't cross the line of trying to teach children to reject a 4 billion-year-old-earth because "the Bible says," or, worse, attempting to hide the facts from them -- especially my kids. That's where I draw the line.

For Episcopalians only

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Oh, Bob, you are just sweet

Bob Ellis sounds off this week in the RCJ with warm fuzzies for the Black Hills Institute for Creation Science. Bob sez:

Creationists aren’t anti-science as some claim, but they do reject the doctrine of naturalism which contends that all things in the universe came about solely by the “natural” laws we are able to observe, denying the possibility of any supernatural influence.

Thank you for printing this siliness, RCJ. Way to get us points with all those high-level physicists that are thinking about moving to the Black Hills to work on our nifty science lab. What a great place to raise your kids so they will learn from their neighbors how wrong science is about everything.

Bob, you're showing your extreme ignorance again. A scientist that doesn't start his inquiry from Biblical "facts" isn't a "naturalist." A scientist that DOES start his hypotheses from the Bible, is simply a very bad scientist, in that he doesn't understand what the basis and goals of science is. "Naturalism" is a philosophical idea. Science is about making *repeatable* observations, and thinking up new ideas and testing them with inquiry until they fail so you can think up better ideas.

Naturalism is a philosophical idea, not science. Science does not study the supernatural world or even concerns it self with ideas like naturalism, or any other isms.

If these Christians are as I was until about 10 years ago, they may not have considered these contradictions.

I guess I'm one of these Christians. I'm flattered.

We wonder, what happened to you in 1997, Bob? A crisis of faith? A chemical imbalance caused by Clintonism? A bad bike accident? Inquiring minds want to know!

Gene Abdallah gets it right

Sen. Abdallah, we couldn't agree with this more. Sort of like the stopped clock that's right twice a day, or the ten thousand monkeys trying to write Shakespeare?

He is quoted in the RCJ yesterday in an Associated Press piece by Joe Kafka (what a GREAT surname for a reporter assigned to the SD Legislature eh?) about the Legislature trying enforce their tax on the smoking poor.

Talk about the charred pot calling the kettle black:

Sen. Gene Abdallah, R-Sioux Falls, said the bill would impose prison sentences [on tobacco smugglers] almost as severe as those given armed robbers. "Are we crazy?" Abdallah asked.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we're out of control," Abdallah told his colleagues.

Ya think?

The State Legislature needs some more new people in 2008. Let's push it a little further into the reality-based world... yes, more Dems would help. Every additional seat we get will be well worth the effort.

Faithfulness, for real

Fr. Frank Alagna, in an open letter to Presiding Bishop Jefforts-Schori (+Katharine has been recommending a "pause" in inclusion of GLBT folks, to placate the so-called "orthodox" in the worldwide Anglican Communion):

... [A] commitment to the requirements of justice and inclusion represent no less a strict understanding of the biblical tradition and the main stream of its ethical tradition. Justice is, in fact, the overarching ethic of the Judeo-Christian tradition. We are biblically taught, and similarly schooled by the best of the church's tradition, that there is no love without justice, there is no peace without justice, and there can be no real union or communion without justice. The fact that Jesus had much to say about justice and inclusion and was relatively silent about sexuality should always give us pause as we presume to articulate the gospel's non-negotiables.

I am of course thinking about "pro-lifers" and Republicans in the South Dakota State Legislature being so sure-footed on their particular moral pedestals. An honest political processes that promotes good values simply doesn't happen without dialogue and respectful disagreement. You don't have a monopoly on faithfulness just because your faith led you there and you proudly close your ears once you've arrived. After all, you may even be, well, wrong.