This is one of the many reasons I left Catholicism behind. The insistence that the most fantastic and miraculous things about humans are actually horrid sins is just insane. It's a viewpoint whose only advantage is the control it gives the hierarchy over church members. That's it. There's no other possible way these beliefs can benefit ANYONE. Self-hatred is never conducive to anything but pain and misery.

Personally, I can't see the need for ANY prayer before or after sex, because I happen to believe that sex ITSELF is an act of worship, of delight and ecstasy in the fact of all the gifts the Divine Universe has manifested in itself. What god could possible put any words above the whispers, moans, and cries induced by this most amazing of human instincts? What poetry can possibly compete with the sounds and movements humans make instinctively when in the throes of that which we are compelled by our very natures to celebrate? The very idea is silly, a childish avoidance of the truth of our own bodies.

To sum up: DAMN, am I glad I'm a pagan!

...why won't Glenn Back deny raping and killing a young girl in 1990?

http://gb1990.com/

Really, what's the big secret? Why won't he come clean and tell the public the truth? Has he got something to hide? Seems to me if he's innocent, he'd have no problem letting everyone know!

But NOOOOO. He's keeping his mouth shut, so he MUST BE GUILTY OMGWTFBBQ!!!11!!11!!

COME OUT WITH THE TRUTH, BECK! WE'RE WATCHING YOU!!!

/snark

See, this is the kind of crap that gives feminists the reputation of being frowning prudes who won't let anyone have a good time. I've seen it so many times. Remember a guy named Andrew Dice Clay? He was exactly the same kind of crass, raunchy comedian, and his jokes got exactly the same kind of reaction. Did it hurt his career? No. The people who liked him still liked him, except when the protesting started they had a reason to dig in their heels.

There will always be someone making a living off crude jokes. You know why? Because people will always make crude jokes. What the pinched prisses want is for everyone to HIDE their jokes, never tell them in public, never admit to laughing at them. Funnily enough, this DOES NOT WORK. Those jokes will still be around, the people making them will still think they're funny, and the attitudes that spark the jokes will have even more fuel because this kind of humor thrives on exactly the sort of reaction being trumpeted here.

Have you ever noticed how telling a teenager NO will guarantee that the kid goes out and does exactly what you forbade? That's the mentality you're talking about here, and that's why hectoring and lecturing and finger-shaking not only won't work, it'll backfire.

But hey, knock yourselves out if that's your idea of a good time. Just don't get too many calluses patting yourselves on the back, because when Tucker Max fades away, another raunchy comedian will take his place, making exactly the same jokes to exactly the same people. And you'll twist yourselves into pretzels yet again, and wonder why this cycle never ends.

Me, I'll be over here. With the popcorn.

Homosexuals in Iraq may be faced with an exceptionally dangerous situation, but they are ostracized almost everywhere in the Muslim world.

Homosexuals in Iraq may be faced with an exceptionally dangerous situation, but they are ostracized almost everywhere in the world.

Fixed that for you.

This is not a specific problem of any one religion or region. It's a sickness that is endemic to fundamentalism, that idea that there is "one way" to live and any other way is sinful or anathema. The idea that "God" wants us to be ONE kind of person, and not a member of an infinitely variegated human race, and that it's okay to subject anyone who doesn't tread a narrow path to whatever abuse we choose, including murder. It's akin to the idea that only ONE skin color is really human, and any other is animalistic and subhuman, or that only ONE gender is worth paying attention to, and anyone who falls outside of those narrow definitions deserves to die.

It's the tyranny of ONE. Well, we don't live in a world of ONE, not in any sense. The world we live in is composed of innumerable variations on innumerable themes. As long as there is clinging to this idea of ONE WAY, there will be violence, hatred and murder for the crime of not being a part of it.

That's a joke, right?

No personal animosity towards Obama? So all those placards depicting him as Hitler, the claims that he is a Nazi and/or a Communist, the claims that he is a racist and "hates white people", that he wants to kill the elderly, all that isn't personal?

Uh-huh. Really, dude, you should work the Improv. You are COMEDY GOLD.

The right-wing ridicule directed at Nancy Pelosi for her emotional reaction to the memory of hatred, violence, and two slain leaders who fought for the rights of people is beyond crazy - it borders on complete parody. Given that their Head Klown Beck drops a bucket of crocodile tears at the slightest excuse, their jeers are incredibly jejune, not to mention hypocritical and downright comedic.

These people are so utterly thickheaded and stupid, such complete troglodytes, that the concept of irony is not comprehensible to them in the slightest. And that, of course, is what makes them so much fun to mock.

I browse almost exclusively on Firefox. The only time I open IE is when I hit a website that will not work on FF. Some newsite videos, for instance, will not play on Firefox. Other than that, I NEVER use IE. It's far too dangerous. I've had all the viruses I care to have on my computer, thank you.