Atheist group at odds with ethnic festivals

[rug]

Aug. 25, 2012 9:36 p.m.
By Dave Umhoefer and Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

An atheist group is complaining that Mexican Fiesta's discounted admission for attending its Sunday Mass on the Summerfest grounds violates laws barring discrimination based on religious affiliation.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Madison-based organization, says it will file a bias allegation with the state if Mexican Fiesta declines to alter its policy.

But the festival's president says that no one is required to attend Sunday's 10:15 a.m. Mass to get the $5 discounted admission ($13 is the price at the gates, which open at noon).

"Our policy has always been that patrons may enter the grounds and, if they wish, wait until the gates are open to Mexican Fiesta," Antonio Guajardo wrote to Patrick Elliott, an attorney with the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

http://www.jsonline.com/features/religion/atheist-group-at-odds-with-ethnic-festivals-q56kdjk-167452485.html

[Goblinmonger]

1. So

I'm doing a 70-mile bike ride today. Can't wait to come back for supper and read all the apologists explaining why atheists suck. And explaining how this is just as stupid as the church bulletins. And to suck it up.

Oh, one thing you can't complain about is some evil Wisconsin organization picking on people in another state.

[Starboard Tack]

8. No, just some atheists suck. The whiners, intolerants, exclusionists, haters, mockers, extremists

The rest of us don't. We enjoy life, along with our christian and muslim and jewish brothers and sisters. Enjoy your bike ride.

[cleanhippie]

11. "No, just some atheists suck...The rest of us don't."

Did you REALLY just say that?

[2ndAmForComputers]

21. "I'm a lifelong atheist but..."

[Starboard Tack]

25. You edited the middle part. Which group do you belong to?

Do you hang out with the whiners, baiters, smearers, mockers and other intolerants in the basement, or are you an inclusionist who loves life and people, regardless of their faiths and beliefs?

[Goblinmonger]

27. Wow. You are a real piece of work aren't you.

I bet you get along swimmingly with Charles.

[Starboard Tack]

28. Love the guy. Very giving, very open, very tolerant.

84 years old and still living life to the full. We don't share the same religious beliefs, but we share the same values and we all stand up to bullies, bigots and intolerance, wherever we encounter it.

[eqfan592]

44. That's right, ST stands up against those awful, bigoted, intolerant "New Atheists."

Whos greatest crime is depicted here:

[Starboard Tack]

46. Nonsense! He stands up to bigotry and intolerance from wherever it emanates, as do I.

It is possible to stand up to the bullies and intolerants of this world without becoming one. I have Israeli friends who feel the same way.

[trotsky]

45. I did not know that being "tolerant" meant...

that one could openly state that no one would want to live in a society that did not have a religious ethical foundation.

But considering you DON'T see that as intolerant, it helps explain why you choose to slander and malign the people you do.

[Starboard Tack]

49. I don't know what that has to do with tolerance. Maybe you'd care to explain.

I have had that discussion with him and it was a discussion of opinion. An opinion I do not agree with, but I understand the logic behind it. You really should try to get beyond your own prejudice. I know it's hard when friends say things, based on their faith, that seem so absurd, but there is no productive conversation if it is peppered with ridicule from either side.

What do you think of someone who claims "The only way forward is secularism"? Do you think that person is tolerant and inclusive, or rigid and exclusive. To my ear, it sounds no better than someone saying "The only way is through Jesus." Charles and I both believe that the only way forward is by being inclusive and being open to people of all faiths and beliefs, or lack thereof. We share a disdain for extremism and bigotry.

[trotsky]

50. Are you capable of arguing a point without accusing your opponent...

of "prejudice" or "extremism" or "bigotry" or whatever other nasty word you want to associate with them?

And for the record, there was no ridicule - dozens of people have asked him to clarify, perhaps apologize, for a very insensitive thing to say. But he has steadfastly refused.

But I'm the enemy, to you. Whatever. I already know where to classify your judgment.

[Starboard Tack]

52. Absolutely. Especially if I have a point to argue.

You are not the "enemy". Being intolerant does not make you my enemy. We agree on most things, probably more than most people. It is not you as a person, but your behavior in this forum, that I find both distasteful and unnecessary, and certainly not conducive to civil discourse. Shame on me for defending those I love and know from those who put them down.

[trotsky]

53. Nor does being intolerant make you my enemy.

We disagree on many issues, and even though I find your behavior on this forum to be both distasteful and unnecessary, I will welcome you here despite that.

[eqfan592]

43. Yeah, with every post I don't imagine it can get any worse.

And then he posts again...

[Goblinmonger]

23. Your comment alone made the wait worthwhile.

My bike ride went great, thanks.

[Starboard Tack]

26. Excellent, on both counts. I try and bike riding is good for body and soul. I do it every day.

[Goblinmonger]

29. I just started "real" bike riding this year.

Just an occasional ride once a month or so before. I'm training for a 100-mile ride in two weeks. Today was my longest ride (70 miles) before it.

[Starboard Tack]

31. Good for you. Cycling is an excellent way to keep in shape.

The only thing I prefer is swimming, but even here in Socal the water is only warm enough for 4-5 months in the year. Perfect right now though. I used to run daily (4-5 miles) but it's rough on the joints, especially the knees. Cycling is very low impact, good aerobic/cardio effect and efficient eco-friendly form of transportation.

[LARED]

2. Lets get this straight

I can buy a discounted ticket before mass starts whether or not I go to mass and enter the grounds. The gate to the Mexican Fiesta within the grounds opens at noon so no one can enter no matter when you bought a ticket even if you attended mass.

In essence the Atheist group is complaining because if they buy a ticket early they have to wait an hour and a half. If you go to mass you are waiting to enter the festival while at mass. Neither the mass attendee or the non mass attendee can enter before noon, and both get a discounted ticket if they buy before the mass. Both are required to wait to enter the Mexican Fiesta just in different ways.

Did I miss an important piece of information? Is this suit really that dumb?

[cordelia]

3. That's the way I read it.

This is even dumber than the ruckus FFRF created over the gentleman who didn't want to present a church bulletin to get a discount at a restaurant he'd never patronized.

Petty.

[eqfan592]

4. Mmm, that's some tasty Christian privilege. (nt)

[LARED]

5. How is this policy a Christian privilege?

I missed it. Please don't tell me of course I would because I am a Christian.

[cbayer]

6. Aw, c'mon, this is utterly ridiculous.

Basically, anyone who shows up at 10:30 can buy a discounted ticket. There is a mass a 10:30 which anyone can attend. If you don't want to go to the mass, you have to wait until the general admission gates open at noon.

How in the world is this christian privilege? It's privilege to choose to go to a mass?

I hear all the time around here about the serious discrimination against and persecution of atheists. Why is it that I only generally hear about FFRF intervening in incredibly petty bullshit like this?

[cleanhippie]

13. "If we all lived in the radiant love of Christ, these fights would cease."

"We lovingly invite the atheists to attend the Mass and experience the profound love of God," said Milwaukee Archdiocese Auxiliary Bishop Donald J. Hying. "If we all lived in the radiant love of Christ, these fights would cease."

IOW, if the stupid atheists would just believe what we do, everything would be peaches and cream.



Do you really not see the problem here?

[Goblinmonger]

32. Gee, the media only tells you things you think are ridiculous.

Who'd have thunk that atheists don't get a lot of air time.

You can read for yourself. http://ffrf.org/legal/challenges/

[okasha]

47. So what this boils down to is that:

1. A Catholic can buy a discounted ticket early and go to Mass.
2. A Protestant, a Jew, an atheist, a Buddhist, a Taoist, or a Pagan (et. alia), can buy a discounted ticket early and go to breakfast.

That's persecution, all right.

[cbayer]

48. And even the Catholic can go to breakfast and skip mass, lol!

[okasha]

74. Very true.

And a non-Catholic who's so inclined can attend the Mass. I'm a Pagan, and I have never been asked for a religious ID at Catholic baptisms, weddings or funerals.

[cbayer]

75. If I recall correctly, the only rule is that you can't participate in communion.

[okasha]

81. That's the official rule.

But I've seen it bent, and outright broken, a number of times.

[cleanhippie]

76. No, that's what YOU have boiled it down to.

I can understand how hard it must be to taste the privilege, especially when it's in everything you eat.

[okasha]

82. Except that as a non-Christian

my "Christian privilege" exists only in your overactive imagination.

[Silent3]

51. This is clearly aimed at encouraging attendance at the religious service.

Otherwise why would there be a price difference at all, a difference that just so happens to involve waiting the duration of the mass, even if you don't attend the mass?

If the price was the same no matter when you show up, not too many people would show up 90 minutes early and wait to get in. They'd go about their lives using that time more productively or enjoyably and show up when the festival actually started. Even if many people can perhaps structure their time and travel such that they use that 90 minutes for breakfast or something else they might have done anyway, that's still be a forced contrivance that obviously favors, even if just a little, using that time for attending the mass.

When you see quotes like this, the attempt to privilege religion becomes more clear:

"'We lovingly invite the atheists to attend the Mass and experience the profound love of God,' said Milwaukee Archdiocese Auxiliary Bishop Donald J. Hying. 'If we all lived in the radiant love of Christ, these fights would cease.'"

[cbayer]

54. So what if it encourages attendance at the mass?

Who's rights does that infringe on.

Many see attending mass as both productive and enjoyable. They will attend. Everyone else who wants the discount will get their tickets, then go do something else. There is nothing forced about this at all.

Where is the privilege in going to mass? You have to buy your tickets 90 minutes before the event opens to get a discount. A mass is offered during that time for anyone who wants to attend. Anyone who doesn't want to attend can do whatever they want.

[Silent3]

56. It privileges those who really want to attend the mass...

...over those who have to find some other way of killing time for 90 minutes, or otherwise forego the discount that's a much better deal for the people who really want to go to mass, who get a double benefit from arriving 90 minutes early.

Privileging a group based on religion is, indirectly, and infringement on those who don't gain that religiously based privilege. Sure it a small privilege, and it's deliberately subtle, but it's there nonetheless.

[cbayer]

58. It's not a privilege. It's a choice.

Buy a ticket and go to mass or not.

To equate this with real issues of discrimination is not just silly, it minimizes the entire cause.

[Silent3]

60. There's discrimination great and small.

Recognizing the small is not equating it with the large.

And if you don't see the privilege, one that I've clearly explained, that's the blindness of privilege.

[cbayer]

63. I strongly suspect that your position of privilege is looking squarely down on me.

So does that make you the blind one?

[Silent3]

64. Which position of privilege would be mine?

Yours is clear. Christian privilege. Mine would be... ?

[cbayer]

66. You assume much and reveal little.

It's been nice talking to you, Silent3. I try to avoid taking this personal and we are perilously close.

[Silent3]

72. Go ahead and take it personally if you wish.

I accused you of having your perspective skewed by Christian privilege. If I'm wrong about that, you could have told me how and why I'm wrong.

Instead you simply tried to pull a "Yeah, and so are you!" by implying some sort of unspecified privilege on my part, but that accusation was pretty clearly just petulantly pulled out of your ass, with no context to make it make any sense.

So I called you on it, and apparently you've got nothin' to respond with on that point.

[cbayer]

73. Why do you think I have christian privilege?

Is everyone who defends believer a defacto believer in your view? Or are they just not on your team? Similar to Godwin's law, I am going to start calling this the Privilege law. Once someone accuses you of having a privilege that you don't necessarily have, they have lost the argument.

Other than being a non-believer, are you the member of any marginalized group? What exactly are your points of privilege?

[LARED]

55. Yes, it seems it does.

Which is not a bad thing.

[Silent3]

57. It is a bad thing...

...when it's an abuse of the use of public land in a small, subtle, but nevertheless real privileging and promotion of religion.

[LARED]

59. Abuse of public lands? Seriously?

Please explain.

[Silent3]

61. Abuse of the right to use public lands by using them...

...in a religious, sectarian way the privileges believers, in however small a way, above all other citizens to whom the public land also belongs. That's in addition to the small and subtle violation of the stated Wisconsin statute and similar provisions of the Civil Rights Act.

[LARED]

62. Perhaps you mean misuse rather than abuse?

Pretty strong language given the circumstances.

Just to be clear I disagree using either word as I think the whole premise that there is a misuse/abuse of the right to use publc lands is silly.

This is sort of like demanding someone get a speeding ticket for going 0.2 miles per hour over the speed limit.

[Silent3]

65. So you do see the problem...

...you just trying to dismiss it as too small (in your opinion) to worry about, not claiming that it's non existent.

[cleanhippie]

67. Yes, he realizes that there IS discrimination here...

but he feels that it is so trivial that it does not merit a response...

Because of his privilege.

[LARED]

69. Whoa, wrong again. shocking. nt

[cleanhippie]

70. Whatever you say, LaRed.

Pay no attention to reality, just continue making up your own as you go.

Bravo!

[LARED]

77. You broke my irony meter. nt

[cleanhippie]

80. I don't think you are using that word correctly.

No surprise there.

[LARED]

83. Oh, I am and you know it.

[LARED]

68. What I see is there may be a few that

believe this is a problem even though none exists. Just like I'm sure some would beleive that speeding 0.2 MPH over the speed limit is a problem.

[Silent3]

71. Your analogy sucks because this isn't at all like going a very tiny amount...

...over some arbitrary limit. It's more like someone using a questionable tax dodge or finding a debatable loophole in a law to circumvent the intended purpose of the law.

There's a law against charging people different amounts of money for the same thing based on religion. With the clear intent of the discount structure being to "encourage" attendance at religious services, there mere fact that it's technically possible to kill time some other way doesn't change the fact that the need to kill time some other way if you want that discount exists only because someone is trying to skirt the edges of the law (we'll see what the court thinks about how successful they've been) and provide a bonus for believers, and encouragement for non-believers to do what the believers do.

You'd recognize the touch of sleaziness here if you weren't inclined to see getting people into church as a wonderful, wholesome, helpful thing -- regardless of the tactics used.

[LARED]

78. Sorry you don't like my analogy, but it makes no difference.

There's a law against charging people different amounts of money for the same thing based on religion

Wisconsin statute 106.52(3)(a) makes it illegal to "deny to another or charge another a higher price than the regular rate for the full and equal enjoyment of any public place of accommodation or amusement because of sex, race, color, creed, disability, sexual orientation, national origin or ancestry." The federal Civil Rights Act has similar language.

True, except no one is doing this in this case

With the clear intent of the discount structure being to "encourage" attendance at religious services, there mere fact that it's technically possible to kill time some other way doesn't change the fact that the need to kill time some other way if you want that discount exists only because someone is trying to skirt the edges of the law (we'll see what the court thinks about how successful they've been) and provide a bonus for believers, and encouragement for non-believers to do what the believers do.

I see no where in the law that disallows an encouragement (your words) to attend a religious service. The law is about access, pricing, and equal enjoyment of the public place. An encoragement (again your words) of itself denies not one those things protected by this law.

You'd recognize the touch of sleaziness here if you weren't inclined to see getting people into church as a wonderful, wholesome, helpful thing -- regardless of the tactics used.

You are wrong about this. I would never encourage anyone to attend a Catholic mass. I disagree with the RC church on many levels, but recongnize it is not my business to tell people how to worship, only to ensure people are free to worship as they see fit without unneeded government interferance.

[Leontius]

7. The problem for atheists is becoming

when the real wolf comes will anybody be listening to them cry anymore.

[onager]

9. When the real wolf comes, the atheists will already be long gone.

And the believers/Faitheists will be too busy "enjoying life with their Xian, Muslim and Jewish brothers and sisters" to even recognize what's happened.

"Remember those whiny militant atheists? What a bunch of tools! Whatever happened to those idiots, anyway?

Now let's all sit back and enjoy our nice train ride to Camp Ecumenical. Can't wait for the bonfires and the manda...er, optional singing of 'Kum-ba-yah.'"

Wait a minute, why is there a stake in the middle of our bonfire...?"

[Leontius]

10. Then maybe if you quit pissing away all credibility over bs like this

you won't get eaten because everybody stopped listening.

[cleanhippie]

14. "If we all lived in the radiant love of Christ, these fights would cease."

[Leontius]

22. Speaking of credibility

you have none. You have pissed it all away by your evasions, distortion of facts and attempts to smear other posters.

[cleanhippie]

24. .

[cleanhippie]

12. "If we all lived in the radiant love of Christ, these fights would cease."

Well, there ya go.

[LARED]

15. What does that have to do with the allegation of breaking a law? nt

[rug]

16. Lol, he's either the most sarcastic bishop to ever wear a miter or he's a blithering idiot.

Still, this complaint is one of the feeblest yet.

[cleanhippie]

17. Perhaps, but the denial of christian privilege in this thread

certainly makes the Bishop look like a genius.

[rug]

18. Meh. It's a lot more about selective outrage than it is about privilege.

As to the Bishop, my bet is sarcasm.

Besides, this quote summarizes the issue best:

'"As victims of ongoing discrimination throughout the United States, Mexican Americans are acutely sensitive to issues of this nature and would not consider discriminating against others for any reason," Guajardo wrote in a letter released by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.'

[cleanhippie]

19. Sarcasm? Really?

If so, these he is just an asshole, who is using faith as a cover, and has lost all credibility. How can a person be a Bishop and not really believe that "If we all lived in the radiant love of Christ, these fights would cease."?

[rug]

20. It's one of two possibilities.

YMMV.

[WolverineDG]

30. let's see: Mass usually clocks in about 1 hour to 90 minutes

the atheists are complaining that they have to stand around & wait 90 minutes....if everyone gets the same discount & has to kill the same amount of time, what's the problem?

[trotsky]

33. Fuck Christian privilege.

Even liberal Christians can't see it.

[rug]

34. Fuck red herrings.

[trotsky]

35. Yeah, those too.

But even those who claim to be liberal, tolerant Christians are unable to recognize Christian privilege and turn into nasty, bitter, judgmental assholes.

[rug]

36. "nasty, bitter, judgmental assholes"

No comment.

[trotsky]

37. Yup.

I see them in this thread.

[rug]

38. Me too.

Although we're probably looking at different posts.

[trotsky]

39. I dunno, I'm still waiting for an apology on another thread...

from someone who made a false accusation against me.

I think I can spot people who are assholes pretty well.

[rug]

40. Me too.

And it's not false.

Keep kicking it though.

[trotsky]

41. What isn't false?

The person who made the accusation won't even explain what I did to be accused.

I don't think he can - and he clearly knows it. Thus, he also knows it's a false accusation. So I'm happy to kick it and expose him!

[rug]

42. Lol, kick away!

[ButterflyBlood]

79. How is this any different from movie theaters charging different prices for different times?

Because that's all they're doing. Buy a ticket before noon when the gates open, and you get a discount. You can then attend Mass or go do something else in the meantime. It's just a discount based on time of day. At the closest theater to me matinees typically cost $7.50 and it's $10 for movies after 7PM or so. That's basically the same thing.

For the record as someone who is not a Catholic and would never attend Mass and would have to go do something else before noon instead of going to Mass I too would be "discriminated" against here.