We can solve our own problems without the help of a make believe celestrial dictator. Since when did we decide, as actual policy, to throw our hands off the wheel of state and shout "Save us Jesus!!".

Have I said today how totally fucked we are as a nation?

The guy in the gray shirt and tie needs to come over to the dark side. Also too, moral relativism! It will destroy us all!

All I can say is "Jesus Christ"! But not in a good way.

Yes, little girl, if you pray hard enough your daddy will love you.

Unbelievable.

Can someone please make a response video inviting the governor of Texas to get back to work and do something useful to help solve his state's problems? Nobody's paying you to talk to yourself, Rick.

That's terrifying.

Also, it's a bad idea to elevate people from Texas to the Presidency.

There are a couple of girls in that video I'd let get on their knees.

I'm sitting here wondering what in what kind of person does a non-denomination call to prayer raise this level of hatred and bigotry and fear.

In what twisted dark stunted kind of mind does this sort of thing represent any kind of threat?

Oh yeah. Whiny Danny Boy the Savage and his tame followers are that type. It really must suck to be so at odds with decency and integrity and basic reality. Good luck with that.

That lady has a nasty ass shitwig. She don't give a fuck.

EVERYTHING is about Dan Savage with you.

I'm a Paul Constant fan myself.

Bush II. Bullshit! And they use fear, as usual.

Abdicating personal responsibility to a magic sky daddy is a mark of laziness, not decency. Selectively reading your holy book, skipping over the passages on slavery, shellfish, clothes of different cloths, choosing instead to focus on homosexuals is the opposite of integrity. And while it is the case that more people believe in magic than not, reality itself isn't decided by majority vote. It actually matters if you can prove what you say is true, something no cult of the supernatural has ever done.

It's a threat in the sort of mind that remembers that these are the people who burn uppity women at the stake based on spectral evidence when you take your eyes off them for too long.

@11

Goldstein hates everything about this country with the same abiding passion Savage does and the very thin veneer of studiousness. Mudede is apparently an escapee from one of the higher security lunatic assylums. (Seriously, working in an office with this guy, BAD idea.) Constant uses left wing partisan sites to analyse the interior political workings of the Republican party, which is funny in a pathetic kind of way. Then there are the fluff writers like West and the Indian woman who I rarely bother to read. And Savages tame little boy toys like Frizzelle and the other kid, who just parrot his talking points.

But Savage is the one leading the charge for the Stranger and elsewhere on honor, integrity, morality, decency and everything that made this nation what it was before the left started ruining it under FDR. He particularly offends me with his toddler-esque temper tantrums and constant wails of the Homosexual Anthem 'It's not FAAAIIIIR!!!.'

Did you guys ever get around to embroidering the crying diapered baby on the rainbow flag with those words yet?

@14

Matthew 18:20
"For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."

Now what?

Let me see if I have this right:
"This country has serious problems. We need to DO something; And by do something, I mean do nothing. Well, not exactly nothing -- what I'm proposing is that we all close our eyes and beg extra hard for God to come down and fix all our problems for us, using magic. Amen."

@13

Logic and reason and scientific method are very valuable tools for understanding the world around us. Most of what makes life not the 'short, nasty and brutal' thing it was only a few centuries ago are owed to these tools. I wouldn't for a moment doubt that, nor question those who use them.

But logic and reason are by definition incapable of fully understanding the infinite universe we inhabit. There are in fact "more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy" or your science, and far far more than are dreamt of in your atheism.

And for the things science is simply unfit to examine faith has a role. It doesn't and shouldn't supplant reason, nor should reason supplant faith. A person using both tools has a better shot at understanding than one confining himself to one or the other.

Nor does Christianity advocate the abdication of personal responsibility. Quite the opposite, in fact. It is the secular hedonism of many on the left that preaches this abdication, placing personal pleasure ahead of personal responsibility every time.

@17

Have you ever looked at a problem in a contract or design or personnel issue on your desk all morning, thinking of any way to resolve the difficulty?

Ever then gone to lunch, thought about the oil change your car needs or the shoes your kid needs for basketball or just the lovely woman walking past the window of the deli, and come to the solution concentrated thought didn't produce all morning?

In some eastern traditions meditation is the means for finding solutions concentrated thought didn't. In Christian traditions seeking answers through prayer can be. Why does this offend you on such a basic level?

someone got a house flipped on their head!

Separation. Of church. And state.
Beware any political leader who actively employs religion to lead.

I'm going to pray really hard on that day for God to cancel out Rick Perry's prayers. Take that Perry - hoisted by your own petard!

Someone fix Perry's collar. I can't listen to what he's saying until his tie is centered.

@15 sealed it for me. Seattleblues is definitely A. Birch Steen.

Seattleblues,
Yes, there's power in praying together. That's why Jews believe in a minyan of ten for certain prayers.

Matthew 6:5, New International Version:
"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full."

This verse, to me, refers to people that show off their religiosity. This video is, obviously, an advertisement for the event. But it also has a bunch of people saying coded, snarky, self-righteous things. That's why it's annoying to me, at least.

@21

Actually, that phrase doesn't occur in the Constitution, left wing enthusiasts of the notion notwithstanding.

What is written is- "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Rick Perry isn't using government resources for this free exercise of his or others religion. He isn't telling his staff they must attend or using his office to force anyone else to do so either. He isn't even saying to what God the prayer ought to be addressed. He's exercising the right he has as a citizen to the free exercise both of speech and his faith.

@16- Why does that mean you have to pray in public and publicize it? It means you hang out together, maybe eat some pizza in the church basement or something.

@8-Non-denominational? He manages to exclude all multi-theists.

@19: There are a couple things going on in this video that grate on me. First, there is all this ominous talk of a "crisis" which, coupled with everybody's grave expressions and the dust-bowl color palate, seems to be implying a political message while carefully avoiding saying anything. What crisis? What problem, specifically, needs to be addressed? Second, there is an implication that whatever this crisis is, it's somehow a result of our nation's unwillingness to submit to the will of God -- "Our knees are buckling. Maybe that's the point." So there's the theme of submission and an accompanying declaration of hostilities against those who demonstrate insufficient piety, and the added implication that our problems (such as "natural disasters" ) are some form of punishment. Third, there's the idea that holding giant Nuremberg-sized tent revivals in sports stadiums will somehow lead to solutions to these as-yet-unnamed problems. Because they're going to make a noise "loud enough to be heard in heaven."

To my ear this has nothing to do with meditation or the sort of inner reflection you are talking about and everything to do with cementing group identity and adoption of uncritically-accepted shared opinions. All the call-to-arms language, all the apocalyptic warnings, all the appeal to groupthink and submission to authority, I find them worrisome. And repellent.

People who really care about something, even religious people, don't just stand around waving their arms in the air and asking for God to fix it for them. And they certainly don't wait for the approval of a stadium full of people to act according to the dictates of conscience.

Maybe it's the way he alienates his fellow athiests and non-Christians that makes me nervous. Now, if he'd said, "Citizens of Texas, let's take Friday off from work as a state to perform a day of volunteer service, to clean up Houston, make food for the hungry, build ramps, plant trees, and celebrate freedom", now that's something I could get behind. I just don't think it's appropriate or respectful to ask God for stuff like he's Santa and I don't think it's cool to alienate citizens of other faiths, or no faith, when you're doing your elected-public-official job. Sure, sure, everyone's allowed to via the 1st Amendment, but public officials should aim higher than just abiding the Constitution.

@19- You don't know anything about meditation. You also are intentionally ignoring that Rick Perry is clearly calling for some high-quality Sky Daddy begging.

You continue to be a disgusting human being.

@18- Faith isn't a tool. It's pretending you know something you when you just need to admit you know nothing.

The phrase "President Perry" makes me vomit blood.

Sb, you realize that he is literally, no-bullshit asking people to come together and cast a magic spell to fix the enormous, hateful mess that he himself plunged Texas into, right? You know this?

@33

Perry has been governer since 2000. You seem to believe him single handedly responsible for all that states putative problems.

You further so misunderstand Christianity as to liken prayer to casting a spell. (But my sincere thanks for not using the very very tired 'Sky Daddy.' Not on religious grounds, you understand, but out of sheer fatigue of an overused and never particularly witty insult.)

And you're concerned about the irrational behavior of others? Physician, heal thyself.

Speaking of which, vomiting blood is a good reason for consulting a physician. I find the notion of President Obama terrifying for his sheer incapacity at the job, but I'm suffering no adverse physical effects from my loathing of the man.

What stupid fucking definition of the universe are you using that eliminates the possibility that the universe can be understood with logic and reason? And how do you KNOW that that definition is correct? Seems like a giant fucking assumption to me. Science is about discovery, it’s about learning new things. Faith is about believing things without any good reason to do so, it’s about clinging to dogma in the face of opposing evidence. My atheism only means I have yet to see good evidence to believe in the supernatural, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I haven’t arrogantly already convinced myself of the theory that a god created us when there’s no good evidence to support that.

And what is this mysterious category that science is unfit to examine? If there’s anything to actually examine, using the scientific method to examine it makes infinitely more sense than waiting for revelation to bestow upon thy unverifiable hallucinations. Faith isn’t a tool, it is a crutch.

“Nor does Christianity advocate the abdication of personal responsibility.” LOL. Yeah, my atheism doesn’t let me commit any act of cruelty, then as long as I say “my bad” sincerely enough to my imaginary friend, allows me to go to paradise forever. My humanist morality, is quite a bit more demanding than that.

Btw, her name is Riya Bhattacharjee.

so texans think the nation is screwed because of progressives & progressives think the nation is screwed because of well... texans and people like them. the texans (& people like them) have god to back them up. the progressives have the historical record. i'm going to go w/ the historical record on this one.

Leni Reifenstahl's decaying withered frame is spinning at the sadness of missing this Grand Event in Houston.

@36

The 'stupid fucking definition' that assumes the universe is infinite and the intelligence of man isn't seems a good working one to me.

I'm curious. Do you go into the kitchen each morning and subject your wife/husband to a series of experiments proving the hypothesis that she/he loves you? How would you structure these experiments. I mean, the scientific method can prove anything worth proving, right?

In fact it can't. The most important parts of the human experience fall under the 'more than the sum of their parts' category. Pride in a job well done, satisfaction at watching your children mature into thinking adults, the ache of grief and the exhilaration of love are none of them subject to logical testing. We can understand some of the biochemical processes that accompany them. We can build a life that fosters the positive aspects of our humanity while minimizing the negative ones. But to be fully human we have, sometimes, to forget our rational selves.

We can use science to craft a better understanding of our world, to create a better life through technological advances, even to feel the pride of a job well done or a life dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge.

But to assume that anything worth knowing or experiencing is subject to logic or reason or the scientific method isn't just wrong, it's terribly limiting.

As for morality, I heartily congratulate you on being the kind of superman with full control of his or her actions at all times. The rest of us fallible humans must just watch in awe as you navigate the world without error or transgression.

What happens if you are Jewish? Or follow Islam and come in with a headscarf? And if you are a non-believer apparently you are nothing in Texas.

Oh, and to the little girl asking for daddy's love, I wish you the best but don't get your hopes up. Way too many of us have made that prayer with no response.

@41

Yeah. Because a governer speaking in an ad on his own time exercising his freedom of religion is JUST like the Taliban.

More meds, dude. More meds.

Just more of the same tired and stupidly conceived dominionist propaganda. Ick.

@16: Clearly, the only righteous thing to do is to have private prayer sessions in relatively small groups.
Do Christians need a minyan or something, or can they pray with any number of people present?
@26: #21 never said it was explicitly in the Constitution, your delusional mindset notwithstanding.
@28: Well, all multi-theists except for Christians. YES I WENT THERE.

Fucking morons. They act as if there was never war, terrorism, famine, natural disasters, etc. prior to their presence on this planet. And you know what? If "god" was really there and gave a shit, why would it be necessary to pray to get him to fix things? Sounds like their vision of god is as petty a being as humans are, who need a selfish reason/bribe etc. to do something nice for someone else. Pfft.

@44- You are correct about the Christians being polytheists.

@42- You think the Taliban started out running the whole government? They started with big meetings of like-minded zealots in tents and sporting arenas.

@39- You don't understand science. You are one of the most smug ignoramuses I've ever encountered. You've embraced ignorance with a genuine thoroughness. You are defending the idea that when something is kinda hard to figure out, you just make an assumption and believe it really hard and that's as good as knowledge. It's truly frightening to think that you are allowed authority over children. "As for morality, I heartily congratulate you on being the kind of superman with full control of his or her actions at all times. " DUDE YOU ARE IN CONTROL. Do you just say "your devils made you do it" when you do the wrong thing?

Dwight Moody forgot a LOT of things this time.

Well, that's assuming you ever knew anything. Talk about a leap of faith!

Got any tissues, Dwight old pal? Your hurtful opinions of me are making me weep uncontrollably in sheer unmitigated misery. Don't know if I can go on in this world knowing a half wit liberal who can't do anything but parrot the talking points of MSNBC and Huffington Post and Air America doesn't LIKE me. Oops. I forgot, Air America doesn't exist anymore since no-one actually listenened to their inane leftist blatherings.

Still, I'm pleased that like Cow you're a superhuman being of moral superiority who's never done ANYTHING he regretted. Congratulations oh great and powerful Dwight!

@44

You can 'go there' all you like. In a similar way, I could say that Islam worships Isis. I could say I subscribe to the Southern Baptist sect of Buddhism. I could write of that most evangelical, fanatic and dogmatic religion of atheism that they believe in Vishnu instead of worshipping only themselves. (On a related note, atheists should adopt Narcissus as their patron saint.) It wouldn't make any sense or bear any relation to those faiths. But I could say it, if I wanted to look foolish.

And after all these posts I still ponder- Why are a group of like-minded people espousing their faith at a privately organized event in a different state so very terrifying to the likes of some of the far left nutjobs writing for the Stranger?

@49: Christianity is monotheistic, you say?
Christians pray to a trinity of deities. They also pray to the mother of one member of that trinity. They also pray before idols. Not exactly in the tradition of Abrahamic monotheism, or that of any monotheistic faith.
I'd say that we've got problems with Perry's little shindig because the organization hosting qualifies as a hate group, and because the GOVERNOR of a state, who is ostensibly the Texan head of government, is using his clout as a public official to endorse one religion at the expense of all others.

"Christianity is monotheistic you say?" Yes. Christians believe in 3 aspects of 1 god, not 3 gods. You seem an intelligent young man to make such an foolish error.

I don't happen to buy into the whole saints system, in which Mary figures so largely. But Catholics don't worship her, fyi.

Ooooh, they're a HATE group! In whose minds? The loony left fringe nutbars? Yeah, not impressed.

Perry's 'little shindig' is a man exercising his right to religious expression without using government funds or resources. If a decent man asks his fellow believers to prayer that's the devil at work in your twisted minds wholly divorced from reality.

But if a public official uses his clout and his actual office of the president of the United States to push the 'homosexuals are citizens who should have more rights than others' agenda, that's fine with you right? If a governer chooses to use his taxpayer paid time and resources in dismantling a social structure for the convenience of a tiny minority at the expense of the majority that's to be celebrated, yes?

What a warped twisted world view you folks do have!

@51: Hindus also worship three aspects of one god, but you'd hardly call their faith monotheistic. In the New Testament, there is recorded a good deal of conversation between Jesus and God, indicating that for the purposes of Christian theology, they are separate entities. (Notice that in the Old Testament, God doesn't talk to Himself; He talks to angels, He talks to prophets, and He occasionally talks to nobody in particular, but He is always talking to someone else.) I see you don't contest the idolatry issue.

The American Family Association qualifies as a hate group because it deliberately and maliciously propagates unsupported, discredited, and outright fabricated claims and statistics concerning homosexuals. They present the long-debunked boogeyman of equating homosexuality with pedophilia, promote ex-gay "therapies" (which have been shown to be ineffectual and downright harmful), and push invented statistics painting homosexuals as disease-ridden animals.
If a group purported to tell the true story of race relations, but rather disseminated misinformation claiming (without supporting evidence) that African-Americans are unintelligent, violent, and inferior, wouldn't you call that a hate group? Apparently it's not a hate group in your eyes so long as they're attacking people you don't like.

Rick Perry is using his position as Governor to promote a singularly Christian event. Whether or not he is using public funds to finance the event is immaterial in this regard.
Please give me ONE example of a proposed law that would give gays more rights than straights. Just ONE, you assclown.

I know next to nothing about the Hindu faith, so I won't comment on your statement about it.

Now if only you'd realize you suffer from the same lack of knowledge with regard to Christianity...

The AFA blah blah unsupported opinion blah blah Dan Savage says blah blah Huff Po says blah blah more unsupported opinion. And this makes them a 'hate group?' Really, VL, you can do better than that.

Rick Perry is promoting on his own time an event for people who happen to agree with him. Because he's governer he can't have his first amendment rights to free religious expression or speech in your eyes? Good. I eagerly await your condemnation of the bastard Cuomo for pushing his ideology on the poor citizens of New York using taxpayer resources to do so. How about your condemnation of your home town boy Obama for doing the same? I'll wait. Still waiting. Yep, still waiting.

Oh. I get it. The only expression government officials aren't allowed, even on their own time, is one of Christian faith?

Which brings me to your question. I can go and hit my neighbor while shouting out epithets about lawyers, and what will the outcome be? An assault charge. If he were gay and I shouted out some anti-gay epithet what would then be the result? Assault and hate crimes charges. Apparently our gay fellow citizens are the special children of fortune, entitled to claim greater punishment for crimes comitted against them. A printer refuses to print a flyer on ambiguous terms, and is threatened with the law from a lot of hypersensitive gay activists trying their best to mirror the maturity of the average 7th grade girl. A New Yorkers gay neighbor, representing 3% of the population gets to determine social policy for the remaining 97%.

Apparently on the same principle this 3% has more rights than the vast majority. On this basis we're supposed to bow to their dictate that the whining gay anthem 'It's not FAAIIR!!!' outweighs stupid concepts like democracy.

Sb, are you familiar with the phrase "tu quoque fallacy"?

@53: "I know next to nothing about the Hindu faith, so I won't comment on your statement about it."
Good, good. Now if you'd stop commenting on other things you know next to nothing about, maybe we'd be getting somewhere.

It's telling that whenever I bring actual FACTS into a discussion, you immediately write them off as...actually, I'm not sure what you're trying to write them off as in this case. I just don't have a fucking clue. Nothing listed in my condemnation of the AFA was in any way derived from Dan Savage or the Huffington Post. Just to humor you, though, I'll cite evidence backing up my assertions; I suppose if I set an example for you, you might get over your apparent allergy to supporting evidence.
"They present the long-debunked boogeyman of equating homosexuality with pedophilia"
From the horse's mouth. And here is an explanation as to why what they said is false.
"They...promote ex-gay 'therapies' (which have been shown to be ineffectual and downright harmful)"
At this URL, the AFA endorses Exodus International, an organization dedicated to turning gay people into straight people. At this URL, the American Psychological Association rejects such therapy, based on the dearth of reliable information as to its effects. (Basically, there is little trustworthy information, and what data there are suggest that it does not have any lasting effect, and may even be directly harmful.) I'll quote the article to save you the trouble of scrolling.

The limited number of rigorous early studies and complete lack of rigorous recent prospective research on SOCE limits claims for the efficacy and safety of SOCE. Within the early group of studies, there are a small number of rigorous studies of SOCE, and those focus on the use of aversive treatments. These studies show that enduring change to an individual’s sexual orientation is uncommon and that a very small minority of people in these studies showed any credible evidence of reduced same-sex sexual attraction, though some show lessened physiological arousal
to all sexual stimuli.

We found that there was some evidence to indicate that individuals experienced harm from SOCE. Early studies do document iatrogenic effects of aversive forms of SOCE. High dropout rates characterize early aversive treatment studies and may be an indicator that research participants experience these treatments as harmful.

"They...push invented statistics painting homosexuals as disease-ridden animals."
This blogpost claims that "'Heterosexual AIDS' is a myth", the nearly 200,000 cases of AIDS attributable ONLY to heterosexual relations (this is roughly 1/5 of the total number of cases) notwithstanding.
Who's tossing unsupported opinion around now? (PROTIP: the same person who's been doing so for as long as anyone can remember.)

Now, where was I? Ah yes, Rick Perry. See, you can bitch about Cuomo all you want, but Cuomo was doing his job, and Perry is doing what is clearly not his job.
The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States holds that no governmental agency is to be closely affiliated with any religious organization. I quote Justice Hugo Black: "The 'establishment of religion' clause of the First Amendment means at least this:...Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa." By that reading of the Establishment Clause, Rick Perry is overstepping his bounds by participating in a religious event with a religious organization in his position as governor of Texas.
Perry is pushing a religious agenda. Cuomo, and Obama for that matter, are pushing political agendas. One is explicitly forbidden by the Constitution, and the other is implicitly required. Even considering the illogical and closed-minded arguments you often present, I'm surprised that you would try to make such a bizarre comparison.

@53: Now, I figure I better put my response to your pathetic example in its own post, because I've made this rebuttal umpteen times before, and you've been determined to ignore it possibly because you get all buttfrustrated when you can't argue against something. But here it is:

There are no hate crime laws specifically protecting homosexuals from homophobic harassment. If there were any, they would be unconstitutional due to their conflict with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. Rather, hate crime laws ban discrimination based on sexual orientation, regardless of what the orientation in question is. That's important, so I'll say it again in big shouty letters.

Hate crime laws ban discrimination based on sexual orientation, regardless of what the orientation in question is.

That's right! Fudge packers, rug munchers, breeders, and bisexuals all get the EXACT SAME PROTECTION! (Technically asexuals do too, but hey, asexuals can go fuck themsel...no, they can't.)
Care to rebut anything I've said here? Or are you suddenly going to have a lot of stuff to do and slink off with your tail between your legs in order to hide your tiny balls from the world?

Also, my sincere apologies to any asexuals who may be reading this.

@39 I just wanted to say that, while I certainly have never formally performed a "series of experiments" with someone I love, dating is actually very much like the scientific method in a lot of ways. When I make a joke, I am (unconsciously or not) checking to see if the person responds in a manner that is consistent with my expectations. Did he laugh? Add to the joke? When I touch him, does he respond positively to it? When I am sick, does he buy me soup and deal with my bitching? And does he do these things consistently (as you would want in any scientific finding)?

I'm not saying that love is just a series of scientific experiments, but I am saying that comparing it to blind faith is absurd. With a partner, I have physical, concrete proof that that person treats me the way I want and expect to be treated, and therefore it is logical for me to love them and assume they love me. With God, I have a book that was written 2,000 years ago with some allegories about how God loves me, and from there I just have to take it on faaaiiith! I'll take the practical over the magical any day.

A While back, Rick Perry called for folks to pray for rain to help with the wild fires. Now, Texas is dryer, and there are more fires than ever.

Seattleblues: it would appear you believe all Christian activities are created equally. As someone who was raised, baptized, baked, steeped, steamed, fricasseed and deep-fried in Christian fundamentalism, I chose to leave that acid-bath of hatred, exclusion, and exceptionalism and become a more rational human being. Before defending Gov. Rick Perry's so-called Christian prayer-fest, take another gander at the "nondenominational" speaker's list. It's a hit parade of the right-wing fundegelical garbage I walked away from. In my youth, these spiritual miscreants kept the fuck out of politics.

Would they would do the same today.

@55 & 56

I get such an erection every time he skittles away like a cockroach when the lights turn on =)