Priorities

As skeptics it’s very easy to become bogged down with certain things. For example, the entire debacle over Ray Comfort and his version of Origin of the Species was probably taken more seriously by skeptics than by the general public or even the college students Comfort was trying to reach. We, myself included, spent a lot of energy worrying and trying to act against something that most likely had very little impact.

Two days ago, New York state became yet another state to reject gay marriage, and I know personally I had no idea a vote was even happening. Brian Thompson (a.k.a. the Amateur Scientist) discusses this in his latest blog entry. In it he puts forth the idea that while the reasons against gay marriage are typically religious, there has been a history of middle-of-the-road religious people who are willing to put aside ideology in support of the things they believe to be “right:”

Last year, California voters struck down marriage equality by passing Proposition 8. This would seem like a damning statement about the harmfulness of religion, but the numbers tell a different story. 47.76% of voters chose to preserve the civil rights of gay people by voting against the measure, according to the official election results. But only about 20% of California’s population identifies as non-religious. This means that a large percentage of voters who fought for gay rights at the ballot box were religious people. Like the scriptural ban on eating shellfish, they were able to put their compassion and reason above dogma. If this means reinterpreting scripture, so be it. The effect is the same.

Continue after the break:

Thompson goes on to propose a three tier system for classifying religious people, which I won’t quote entirely here (go read the blog entry, it’s good). He makes some really good points, the most important I think being:

Skeptical blogs, podcasts, and journals similarly have been buzzing about Comfort and Cameron passing out copies of “On the Origin of Species” with their added introduction chock full of creationist lies. Even more than “Expelled”, the effect of this publicity stunt on the popular culture was negligible. The best way to influence a busy college student is never to hand them a dense Victorian science tome, regardless of what you’ve printed in the front. Someone at that age who has enough science education to accept evolution as a fact isn’t going to be swayed by reading an essay from the banana guys. It’s insulting to the intelligence of college students to pretend otherwise. Ultimately, this was another case of preaching to the choir on Comfort and Cameron’s part. And once again, they were given more attention from skeptics than from the larger media. This was a topic worth addressing, but nothing worth any kind of serious fuss.

I know that I personally was a part of that skeptical furor, and maybe shouldn’t have been so up in arms over it. Why fight a battle that neither side is probably going win (they won’t change our minds, we won’t change theirs), and instead fight against something we could influence, namely the civil rights of other human beings. While Georgia is not a gay marriage battleground state, it’s not a subject we should ignore. In the past Atlanta Skeptics have been a part of protests and such on the debate, which is good. But, there has to be more we as a group and individually can do to educate those that will listen and are open to changing their ideas. As Thompson concludes:

this fight is not one of atheists versus the religious. Though the arguments against reason are based on religious belief, I’ve shown that the religious are willing to go against the scriptural teachings of their faith when reason wins out. But for every skeptical article on gay marriage, there seems to be a dozen or more on Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron. Kirk and Ray may have invaded college campuses, but anti-equality laws are currently invading the homes of every gay person in America and the consciences of everyone concerned about equal treatment under the law.

It’s time we re-prioritized and divided the inaccurate from the insufferable or the irrelevant. It’s time we stopped equating atheism with reason. It’s time we showed kindness and understanding to those religious beliefs that deserve it and vigorously attacked only those that truly don’t. But in everything, we should act with a generous heart, a sense of humor, and a respect for the only thing that unites all of us: our humanity.