It’s always a little dispiriting to call and talk to dozens of people whose only rationale for voting against same-sex marriage is “I’m a Christian and this is what the Bible says”.

The surrender of critical thinking to disputed interpretations of texts that are thousands of years older than our understanding of the universe, the picking and choosing of what passages to follow and which ones to ignore, the astonishing surrender to doing what you are TOLD despite what is right, instead of doing what is RIGHT despite what you are told…

It makes me so angry, but more than anything else it makes me sad. Because in a call today, a mother in Minnesota told me she no longer speaks to her son since he came out as gay. And she has the Bible quotes to show why she still thinks that was the right decision to make. This is a woman who has caused and experienced so much pain, for nothing more than misguided words set down on paper by people who didn’t know any better; misinterpreted myths and fables that should NEVER have had that kind of power over her (now destroyed) relationship with her own child.

Her OWN CHILD.

Bronze Age-era superstitions.

How many times over has that same story been repeated over the last few hundreds of years? Any how many more times will it repeat? And how many more dispiriting conversations do we need to have?

I’m in an angry, sad mood today. Next time someone asks why some atheists seem to be angry, think about this: I’m angry, I’m FUCKING FURIOUS that superstition caused this family so much pain, and I’m even ANGRIER that some now want to embed that same hateful superstition into the laws that govern my life, and my friends’, and my family’s, and my loved ones.

If you’re not angry for the same reasons, I truly don’t understand you.