Hey there moms and dads pulling out your hair and swearing you’ll sell your soul to god or the devil if your toddler will just go the eff to sleep, there’s no need to draw up that contract with Jesus (or the Prince of Darkness) just yet…

New research shows U.S. parents are now more than ever raising children without religion in the home — and, spoiler alert: they may be raising more moral children than those raising children in dogmatic, traditionally religious environments. (You may still pull your hair out, though, because KIDS SUCK.)

The research supports what many parents already know—religion isn’t necessary, caffeine and alcohol are. And in many cases, religion, unlike coffee, is a barrier from getting shit done. That’s not to say Christmas is going anywhere anytime soon, so don’t spend that tax return just yet– but according to Phil Zuckerman,  professor of sociology and secular studies at Pitzer College and author of “Living the Secular Life: New Answers to Old Questions,” there are more religious-less children in the U.S. than at any time in our history. And that’s a pretty big deal, particularly in the current political climate.

“The number of American children raised without religion has grown significantly since the 1950s, when fewer than 4% of Americans reported growing up in a nonreligious household, according to several recent national studies,” Zuckerman wrote in the Los Angeles Times in 2015. “That figure entered the double digits when a 2012 study showed that 11% of people born after 1970 said they had been raised in secular homes. This may help explain why 23% of adults in the U.S. claim to have no religion, and more than 30% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 say the same.”

According to the research Zuckerman points to, the “Longitudinal Study of Generations,” the largest multi-generation study of religion and family life in the U.S., families that don’t adhere to any religious dogmas exhibit “high levels of family solidarity and emotional closeness between parents and nonreligious youth, and strong ethical standards and moral values that had been clearly articulated as they were imparted to the next generation.”

In other words, religion may not only lead to moral quandaries (and rebellions), but it may also be a confounding pursuit. And that’s even with the likes of the semi-progressive leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, articulating his leniency for abortion, same-sex marriage, and most recently, married men becoming priests, or synagogues and mosques shaking things up with Beatles nights, and Scientology…okay, never mind about Scientology.

Maintaining a regular religious practice for kids, and many parents, can often feel like a chore—a tick on the to-do list that can distract from things that earnestly make us better people, namely pursuing our passions, spending time in nature, relaxing, or just having some chilled-out uninterrupted family time discussing things like why religions shouldn’t dictate ethics.

“Many nonreligious parents were more coherent and passionate about their ethical principles than some of the ‘religious’ parents in our study,” study author Vern Bengston, a USC professor of gerontology and sociology told Zuckerman. “The vast majority appeared to live goal-filled lives characterized by moral direction and sense of life having a purpose.”

It’s the same argument well-known atheist and author Sam Harris has been making for years—that the absence of religion doesn’t make people inherently antagonistic or void of a moral compass. It’s more often quite the contrary.

“For secular people, morality is predicated on one simple principle: empathetic reciprocity, widely known as the Golden Rule. Treating other people as you would like to be treated. It is an ancient, universal ethical imperative,” notes Zuckerman.

And for many parents, religion is doing the opposite: imposing rigid belief systems that don’t allow for treating others as “the same” but rather, marginalizing entire groups  because of their religion, skin color, sexual preference, or gender identity. These outdated belief systems erode the very fabric of our culture; they’re myopic and self-serving, and in too many cases, organized to make (more) money for churches, temples, or synagogues than to allow for our forward progress as a society guided by principle instead of outdated dogmas.

Zuckerman also points out that kids raised in secular environments are less likely to succumb to peer pressure than religious children, and that air of self-confidence lasts through to adulthood in most cases.

“When these teens mature into ‘godless’ adults, they exhibit less racism than their religious counterparts, according to a 2010 Duke University study,” Zuckerman explains. “Many psychological studies show that secular grownups tend to be less vengeful, less nationalistic, less militaristic, less authoritarian and more tolerant, on average, than religious adults.”

And another startling fact was the absence of atheism from prisons: less than half of one percent of prisoners in the late 1990s identified as atheist, which correlates with crime rates around the world in democratic countries with low levels of religion.

“Sweden, Denmark, Japan, Belgium and New Zealand — have among the lowest violent crime rates in the world and enjoy remarkably high levels of societal well-being,” Zuckerman explains. “If secular people couldn’t raise well-functioning, moral children, then a preponderance of them in a given society would spell societal disaster. Yet quite the opposite is the case.”

For any secular parent raising a (mostly) human child, you know the only real religions worthy of your time are the mop and bucket, babysitters, coffee, and maybe a little shrine to the boxed wine gods. And, of course, a solid night’s sleep is infinitely better than any concept of heaven.

Find Jill on Twitter and Instagram

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ColumnSome people experience overwhelming awe in church, some on magnificent mountaintops, some in elegant equations. But some of us tend to get “it” when witnessing stunning examples of our human footprint. If that sounds like you, you just might be a humanist—something with very down-to-earth implications.  

“I was blown away.” The phrase is used so often it’s a wonder we’re all not aloft. “Awesome!” A term so ubiquitous, you might find yourself yearning for the run of the mill. Indeed, if every OMG! were an honest-to-god conjure of what’s holy, His/Her/Its omnipresence would be completely and finally undeniable.

Of course it’s easy to pick on our culture’s most overused overstatements. (OMG aside, the above are certainly part of my vocabulary). But if we dial down the hyperbole for a moment and honestly think about the things that make us dizzily reach for the nearest handrail, we’re likely to learn a lot about who we are and what makes us tick.

Consider that second glance, the super serious one, that says, “No, really! I was blown away!” This usually features earnest and pleading eye contact that begs you to believe and embrace the gravity of what the speaker is gushing about. The subtext: “I’ve experienced something beyond words.” (So to speak.)

For most of us, the varieties of religious experience are evidenced as many. (I use the term “religious” advisedly, requesting some latitude from my fellow nonbelievers.) We know this because, hopefully, we know a variety of people. I, for one, have dear and respected friends who have been knocked off their horses by the Judeo-Christian King of Kings, both with and without the help of his also-divine son. Other believers I know have experienced more creedless, less-moderated Big Moments with what they perceive to be supernatural forces. Alas, such supernatural events have never happened to me.

Others tend to have their wow episodes in or considering nature, sitting on a mountaintop, watching the ocean’s waves or simply staring up at the vastness of the cosmos on a starry night. These happenings reportedly include a number of overwhelming sensations (smallness, bigness, existence, nonexistence, self, non-self) and a feeling of oneness with the universe. For a range of folks, from Buddhists to Gaians to Newtonians, our natural world offers up awe like candy, if we only take the time to look, pay attention and feel.

Unlike being touched by the supernatural, these natural episodes have happened to me. It would be something if they didn’t, living as I do in Northern California where a four-hour radius from my front door offers up glories like Yosemite and the shores of the Pacific. Over my lifetime, too, I’ve had the great fortune of experiencing marvels ranging from the Arctic Circle to the Gobi Desert. I’d have to be pretty thickheaded not to have been occasionally swept away. I, too, can be floored by the awe and joy of being a part of the universe and it’s clockwork workings, whether known, yet to be known or forever unknown. Yet despite its power, nature, per se, is not my biggest mind blower.

To Each His Swoon

The name of this column, HyperKulture, refers to a psychosomatic phenomenon that presents “rapid heartbeat, dizziness, fainting, confusion and even hallucinations when an individual is exposed to an experience of great personal significance, particularly viewing art.” In its debut, “In Swoon’s Way,” I wrote about a recent trip to Europe during which I had experienced a number of such events (healthily upright though I remained). Today, looking back at those moments and holding them up alongside similar events throughout my life, a pattern has emerged.

What sends my mind off its rails are the awesome things we humans do. (Yep. Awed. For real.) This goes back to what prompted my first swoon—Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon (though this is probably a swoon-after memory of a memory given the fact that I was only 5 when it happened). In fact, I remain blown away by that historic feat; just conjuring it in my mind for more than few moments can make me dizzy and if I really push it, even a little teary. I mean, the dude left the earth and walked on the moon. WTF?!

Over the course of my lifetime, I’ve had a number of these man-made experiences. Visiting Atelier Brancusi, listening to the Beatles’ “Dear Prudence,” reading Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina,” enjoying a dinner once prepared for me by Chef Paul Prudhomme—all head-spinning. Even imagining indirect experiences—Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, MLK’s Dream, the idea of Amelia Earhart taking off into the ether—can totally spin me out when I give them more than just passing thought.

Don’t get me wrong. It takes a lot for someone or some deed to set me off—and sometimes it’s unpredictable. Why did that Caravaggio at the Met that one day spike my BP and send me running out to the street for air when all the other masterpieces I saw before it left me relatively unshaken? And what was it about that one time at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington? Why was that visit so different than all the other times I stood inside its colonnade? Who knows what kind of perfect brainstorm has to occur to rock my world?

In any case, to my religious friends: Some of your prophets. Holy shit! The idea that actual people have had that kind of impact on the world? That their ideas would hold such power and sway? Wow, man. It still baffles me that the Buddha came up with what he came up with. And to my science-focused friends, about those elegant equations that so turn you on? Given that the math is way above my pay grade, it’s the scientists themselves who suffered and slaved to arrive at such beautiful truths who ignite my wonder. Newton. Einstein. Hawking. When I think about what these people accomplished and the impact they’ve had on how we live every day—oh my!

Yep. For me it’s the humans. How about you? Have you been set asunder by Homo sapien heroics? World-renowned feats of wonder aside, are there people in your life who have done the unimaginably awesome? Your grandfather’s charity? Your mother’s unconditional love? Your aunt who lived gracefully with disease and died with strength and dignity? Maybe the person with whom you shared your first kiss? For those of us who have this mortal-creature-based swoon pattern, may I suggest that perhaps we have—heaven forbid!—an ism.

Us and (Just) Us

There’s no simple, all-purpose definition of humanism. Its many facets include historical, academic and philosophical angles dating back to well before the term came into use during the early Renaissance. But for these purposes, let’s use one that seems to be recurring and general enough to get the job done: “A system of thought that focuses on humans and their values, capacities and worth.”

Of course, there’s nothing in those words about the type of “religious” experiences I’m speaking of here. In fact, most definitions of the philosophy (or worldview or whatever you choose to call it) allude to it being distinctly rationalist and secular (big draws for me). But if we can agree with the idea that there are instances of experience in our lives that at least seem to be transcendental, then perhaps it’s okay to go ahead and give humanism its religiousy due.

Einstein here: “The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man.”

The great scientist was speaking broadly and, of course, addressing rapture emanating from far beyond our actions on the ground. And let’s be clear: No one would go so far as to call humanism a religion. But for those of us who ascribe to this philosophy in its secular form, we can indeed point to our very own swoons and appreciate our awesomeness in what some might go so far as to describe as a spiritual way.

However you characterize the idea of humanist rapture, if you’re going to go ahead and claim the ism there are ramifications of such a throw-down—there is no doubt a yang for this yin. While most definitions of the philosophy speak to our ability (and even inclination) to make the world a better place, there is another side of the equation that speaks to something darker about our ability to achieve.

Yes, our capacity for evil is awesome too. While there are heroes who can truly make us swoon, just watch and listen and know about the bullies, as well. The beheaders, the fundamentalists, the reactionaries—know that the visceral shudder you get when you see their “achievements” is just rapture turned upside down. We humanists can’t offload the sublimely destructive on a less-than-benevolent god, the weather or the downside of an equation. If you’re anything like me, this dark side of our awesomeness can be as mind-blowing as the brilliant side. Oh, the humanity—and the voodoo that we do.

Scott Adelson is EcoSalon’s Senior Editor of HyperKulture, a column that explores opening cultural doors to initiate personal change. He is also the author of InPRINT, which reviews and discusses books, new and old. You can reach him at scott at adelson dot org and follow him @scottadelson on Twitter.

Related on EcoSalon

HyperKulture: Beyond the Algorithms – Don’t Look Now, But You Are What You Click

HyperKulture: Multiple Personality Order – Embracing Your Inner Yous

HyperKulture: Living in the Past – You Can’t Go Back… Why Would You Want To?

HyperKulture: Making Space for Your Inner Homebody – A Case for the Great Indoors

HyperKulture: You May Ask Yourself, ‘How Did I Get Here?’ – The Pitfalls of Passion Drift

Images: Aldrin Apollo/Public Domain (top), Smithsonian Institution (middle), Footsteps on the sand from Shutterstock (bottom).

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The best of the week at EcoSalon, hand-quoted for your perusing pleasure.

“What to make of news that the Saudis are building a women-only industrial city in the Eastern Province of Hofuf – with similar plans for four more cities elsewhere?”

“It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM.”

“With that, I vowed to concoct my own variety (and acquire an ice cream maker to get the consistency just right). So, here we are, nearly 730 days later.”

“The seaside city is still dotted with my French Canadian relatives who must still believe that religious statues bleed and cry when we sin and masturbate.”

“Hummus is grey and tan and dull; it is the color of hopelessness.”

The post The Friday 5: Say What? Edition appeared first on EcoSalon.

An American writer’s trip to Kuala Lumpur and her first hand experience with wearing a veil.

The formidable Margaret Thatcher once said that if you want something done, you should give it to a woman. I would argue that if you want something done in extreme heat, give it to a particular group of women who, each and every day, provide a tremendous testament to the adaptability and resilience of females.

Walking through Masjid Jamek, the oldest mosque in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (a country that is approximately 60 percent Muslim), I had a tiny taste of what females of the Islamic faith do on a daily basis. It was a scorching 95 degrees and, in my borrowed navy blue polyester robe and orange headscarf, I wasn’t nearly as clothed as most women I see walking through the streets. However, I could hardly think of anything other than the relief of taking it off.

There are many ethical and feminist arguments surrounding the wearing of the veil in the Islamic faith. Feminist author Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali refugee who has publicly denounced her former Muslim faith through her writings, views the veil as a “visible symptom of [Muslim females’] more comprehensive subjection.” She believes that Western feminists must take up the cause of the veil as a human right, and not allow the practice to continue under a guise of religious freedom.

Others, such as Columbia University professor Lila Abu Lughold thinks that the Western world’s fixation on the veil as a symbol of oppression is misplaced. In her widely cited article The Muslim Woman, she says westerners must “resist the reductive interpretation of veiling as the quintessential sign of women’s un-freedom.”

During my experience at the mosque, I decided to put all those ethical and feminist judgments about wearing the veil aside, at least temporarily. Once I did that, I realized that regardless of one’s viewpoint, these women make being shrouded in five yards of fabric from head to toe in triple digit heat look easy, even chic. No sweat, no wilting, no sitting in shade avoiding work. One could argue that they don’t have a choice, that they’ve never known anything different, and therefore have grown used to this by necessity. This may be true, but it doesn’t make it any less impressive.

Lest you think being shrouded in fabric is an excuse to look dowdy, think again. The markets of Kuala Lumpur, or “KL” as the locals call it, are filled with colorful and decorative dress options as well as stylish Muslim women going about their daily work – selling goods, cooking, shopping, sweeping, and child rearing.

The customs and requirements of the Islamic faith are often, and in many cases justly criticized for their subjugation of women and suppression of female expression. To be sure, countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran would certainly not allow the variety of dress styles that are worn by women in more liberal Muslim nations; doing so would be against the law and likely result in severe punishment. However in Kuala Lumpur, it’s hard not to notice the many women who seem to embrace the dress customs of their faith and make it their own with intricate makeup, adornments on their clothes, and ornate jewelry, all of which were openly for sale on the streets of KL.

I’ve often wondered what a Muslim woman might think of someone like me, walking down the street in denim cutoffs and a sleeve-less top on a hot and steamy day. I’ve wondered if they feel resentful of my ostensible freedom, ambivalent because I’m simply not one of them, or perhaps sorry for me for blithely exposing so much of myself to the world. I only know the feeling that I have in return, which after my polyester experience, is one of heightened respect.

While many people try to do so, it would be foolish to generalize about how Muslim women feel about the clothing requirements of their faith. While it’s possible that many females view it as a daily struggle, it’s likely that many others do not. But for someone like me, who dreads taking the underground when it’s hot enough to break even a minor sweat, it’s a good reminder that struggle is relative. And that humans, especially women, are incredibly adaptable to the circumstances they’re given.

Images: United Nations and Brett Jefferson Stott

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Gay rights, gay marriage, and Rick Perry’s war.

Rick Perry’s recent campaign ad, which makes an inexplicable connection between gay rights and religion, has tapped into the soul of the internet with over 660,000 “dislikes” on his YouTube video and a scant 21,000 “likes.” With Perry blaming Obama for a “war on religion” and promising to “fight against liberal attacks on our religious heritage,” campaign followers can’t help but take note. Are there really so many sex-crazed gay men enabled by liberal pagans anxious to destroy life as we know it? Just who, exactly, is Rick Perry trying to unite? Certainly not every American.

We caught up with author and photographer Scott Pasfield, whose photographic survey of gay men in America, Gay in America, documents the lives of 140 gay men from all walks of life. According to the Gay in America site, the book is “joyful and somber, reflective and celebratory, each narrative and image is an enlightening look into the variety of gay life in the United States.”

Here’s what Pasfield had to say about the recent happenings with the Republican politico.

Perry’s ad criticizes Obama for reversing the ban on gays in the military. Do you think this ad helps him in any way with voters or just made him look ridiculous?

He certainly thinks that it will help him with voters. The sad fact is that he’ll probably get some to come out and vote for him based on this ideology. If his people did the research, they would see that the numbers just don’t add up, that overwhelmingly, by two to one in most polls, Americans support gays serving in the military. But a lot of closeted gays preferred the system the way it was; the military and church are two places that allow for men to exist, and flourish actually, outside of a normal heterosexual relationship.

As far as I’m concerned, him looking ridiculous is a fringe benefit to this all. It actually brings to light the absurdity of comparing gay rights and school prayer.

With gay right’s groups circulating a petition asking that the ad on YouTube get the “dislike” button, do you think this sends a message to Perry that he might need a new game plan with connecting to voters?

You know, I am not sure how this will affect him. He’ll try anything to climb back to the top of the heap. And I’ve found that often, one’s beliefs about gay rights are generally viewed along party lines. The problem however, is that historically those that shout the loudest against gays usually understand sexual attraction to the same sex all too well. After watching Perry’s new ad, it doesn’t seem that far fetched that he himself could be gay, as many people have noted.  I mean, he is wearing the “Brokeback” jacket that is very similar to the one worn by a couple of the guys in the book and used music inspired by a gay composer.

In your book Gay in America, you feature gay men of all ages, financial brackets, lifestyles and (the cover), a gay man in the military. Why do you think a man like Rick Perry sees an openly gay man serving in the military as wrong?

I can only imagine his reasoning. To me, Perry seems to indicate that he believes that having gays serve in the military is an immoral issue as a country. And since he compares it to prayer in schools it becomes clear his beliefs against gays are religion-based. We all know the religion-based arguments against homosexuals, no need to repeat them here. One can turn on the TV and see the hatred being served up daily if you have enough cable channels. The reality is that gays and lesbians are part of society. We are here for a reason. In an overpopulated world gays make perfect sense. It’s like Mother Nature checking herself a little, no?

And we make the world a much more beautiful place, especially considering we don’t usually have a family to take care of. We contribute a tremendous amount and just want to live with the freedoms that everyone has, and that should include defending the country.

Religion is a hot topic between Republicans and Democrats. Do you think it has any place in a presidential campaign? Should we be praying in schools?

Religion is a hot topic for so many Americans. And so many people in the world. It is the basis for so much love and hatred at the same time. It’s sad, really. I absolutely do not think it has a place in a presidential campaign. Our country was founded and exists today because church and state are separate. It certainly should continue that way. In my opinion, we should not be praying in public schools – let people pray at home. Let them be the religion their parents want them to be and hopefully become educated enough to question that religion at some point in their lives and come to terms with their own beliefs.

What about your book. How can it help people understand gay culture better?

The book serves up American gay men from all walks of life, with amazing stories, written in the first person. They are incredibly honest and revealing of what it means to be gay in this country today, especially outside of the urban areas most people think all gays want to live. Stereotypes are certainly put to the test and laid to rest at the same time. I learned an incredible amount from all these men and in turn learned a lot about myself, which anyone can do, straight or gay.

Times have certainly changed since the Bush years, but big business has only gotten stronger and would love another like-minded president that would favor the rich. I fear that they will stop at nothing to make that happen.

I just read this comment online about Perry’s ad:

“In a political system which is so corrupted by corporate cash, that a presidential candidate needs $1,000,000,000 to stand a realistic chance of getting elected, I hardly think Rick Perry’s absurdly offensive advert really matters. LGBT rights are a polarizing issue in the US. They take the spotlight away from the grim reality that democracy is dying in the U.S. The USA – a government of the people, by the people, for the corporations.”

In my opinion, that hits the nail on the head – that the government has basically been bought by corporations. And diverting attention away from that is key for the system as it exists today. Politicians know that using current decisive social issues is an easy way to swing voters to one side of the fence or the other. Perry is no exception.

From Gay in America by Scott Pasfield, published by Welcome Books. © 2011 Scott Pasfield. www.gayinamerica.us

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American culture circa 2011: Land of the partisans, home of the tribes.

We are a nation divided – by religion, by politics, by sexual mores, by attitudes toward food, climate change, science, land ownership and business, and so much more. We gravitate toward those who share most, if not all, of our views and opinions, and away from those who are different from us. Our nation really began as a collection of tribes (the basis of our federal system), and we have returned to this state ideologically.

On its face, finding like-minded people is a good thing. It allows us to feel like we belong. Being with people who share our taste in books, agree with us on health care legislation, go to the same church, live in our neighborhood, or work in our profession is comforting. People unite for causes and rally together for change. But, they also band together to inflict harm and dispense hate.

Seth Godin says that people thought the internet would be a great homogenizing influence, yet it has done more to help people form silos and band together with others of similar thinking than any other technology or tool in recent memory.

When we can understand opposing beliefs, even if we don’t embrace them, we can still function as a group, while our tribes form supportive, yet minor, internal cliques. Managing this balance is what makes a tolerant and unified society, but on many significant topics, our beliefs are so unyielding, so far from the middle, that our tribes clash furiously. As warring tribes, we can’t function as a group to solve our society’s problems and move forward.

In the Name of God…

Religion permeates everyday life in a multitude of ways, causing tension and strife between those who embrace its influence in every aspect of their lives, and those who believe it doesn’t belong in schools, government or the workplace. Religious and political lines divide us over many issues, including abortion rights and birth control, gay rights and same sex marriage, education, science, medicine and even climate change.

Although legislation has kept them separate for years, religion is creeping into public schools. Religious student groups are forming on campuses and handing out Bibles. The law says that students can express religious beliefs as long as they do not disrupt class or school activities, however schools must remain neutral, neither endorsing nor interfering with religious practices.

Religion can be deeply embedded in family culture. The range of religious involvement spans the spectrum from students spearheading religious groups on campus, to students who have faith, but keep it out of school, to students who simply don’t believe and just want to attend school without religious undertones.

One tribe believes in an entity that is all-knowing and all-forgiving, while the other believes that there is no heaven, everyone is accountable for their own actions and no deity will confer forgiveness. Children brought up to have faith often can’t comprehend children whose families do not, and ostracize those children due to their nonbelief. At the same time, students who are devoutly religious can also experience ridicule.

An extreme example of religious intolerance is the recent mass shooting in Oslo, Norway, where Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik bombed a federal building in Oslo, killing seven people, before traveling to a youth camp that espoused multiculturalism principles and shooting 86 adults and teenagers, resulting in 93 dead and 96 injured. Breivik wrote a 1,500 page manifesto about his Christian views and values, and viciously denounced multiculturalism in Europe. He also traversed the internet raging against Muslims and Islam. Breivik has confessed to carrying out the bombing and shooting, but maintains that he was absolutely justified in his actions to save Europe from encroaching Islam. Although European leaders condemned his actions, The New York Times reports that there has been a steady increase in extreme right-wing groups and sentiment in Europe. Here at home, media outlets like Fox News and conservative radio foment further resentment and division.

No, You Are Not Allowed to Make Decisions About Your Body

Abortion and birth control have been two of the most divisive issues in our culture for several decades, with the tide turning against abortion rights with the recent wave of state legislation limiting, abusing and nearly abolishing them in many states. This might be the most precarious time for Roe v. Wade since it was passed in 1973, and the battles are heating up.

Recently legislation has been proposed that requires women to wait three days and submit to counseling from a biased, unlicensed counselor before getting an abortion, prove that her miscarriage was organic vs. induced, and get abortion insurance in case she is impregnated during a rape, to name a few bills on the landscape attacking a woman’s right to have an abortion. The divide goes nearly straight down the political aisle, pitting Democrats against Republicans in an ongoing feud.

The battle doesn’t stop at abortion. Birth control is under fire, too. Recently, in the context of talking about climate change, Al Gore said,

“One of the things we could do about it is to change the technologies, to put out less of this pollution, to stabilize the population, and one of the principal ways of doing that is to empower and educate girls and women. You have to have ubiquitous availability of fertility management so women can choose how many children to have, the spacing of the children. You have to lift child-survival rates so that parents feel comfortable having small families. And most important, you have to educate girls and empower women. And that’s the most powerful leveraging factor, and when that happens, then the population begins to stabilize and societies begin to make better choices and more balanced choices.” (h/t Grist)

Conservative writers immediately characterized Gore’s speech as instructing families to have fewer children to help the environment, and used it to underline extreme conservative agendas against birth control. In a video clip in Grist’s article, Texas State Rep. Wayne Christian states, “Well of course it’s a war on birth control.”

This is an issue that clashing tribes will never come to a consensus on. Whichever viewpoint is currently legally right will always be hammered on by the opposing one. The fight will go on indefinitely.

Same Sex Marriages are Not Real

The battle over same sex marriage and gay rights, including health benefits, medical power of attorney, and equal treatment with heterosexual unions has been ongoing. Individual states have granted legality to same sex marriages and then taken it away, while the measure comes to ballot in other states and is voted down. Some corporations offer same sex benefits, while state and federal governments take it away.

The very definition of marriage is at stake, and until recently, neither side wanted to concede. However, New York passed a same-sex marriage law in 2011 (which was previously voted down), becoming the largest state to do so, to date.  Republican Senator Mark J. Grisanti, who campaigned on the promise to oppose same sex marriages, made a surprising about-face, admitted he had been wrong and changed his vote to support the same-sex marriage legislation.

Grisanti told The New York Times, “I apologize for those who feel offended,” Mr. Grisanti said, adding, “I cannot deny a person, a human being, a taxpayer, a worker, the people of my district and across this state, the State of New York, and those people who make this the great state that it is the same rights that I have with my wife.” Although only five states currently allow same-sex marriages, perhaps this marks a shift toward the middle on this issue.

There is No Such Thing as Climate Change

Scientists have been cautioning us for years that our current state of energy consumption and carbon emissions were irreparably damaging our environment. Climate deniers have long scoffed at this idea on little more than ideological grounds, but recently several have changed their viewpoints and admitted that climate change is a real danger.

However, members of the Republican party have denounced climate concerns, reigniting fierce debate. In March 2011, the GOP voted down an amendment to legislation they were attempting to pass that overruled the EPA’s assertion that global temperatures were rising and humans were the likely reason. Democrats suggested putting in language that simply explained climate change, but Republicans quashed it. Three times.

The Kyoto Protocol spurred countries to cut their carbon emissions, but the 2009 Copenhagen summit failed to continue the momentum, leaving the issue more up in the air than before with no set guidelines or penalties.

Will We Ever Be One Nation? Indivisible? With Liberty and Justice for All?

As a nation, are we moving forward, or back? Some days, it’s hard to tell. We’ve drawn lines crisscrossing our nation, our society, our towns, our friends and families. As members of many tribes, we are fractured, facing opposition on many fronts.

Our tribes have again become isolating and divisive, as they were at the start of our country and our culture, bringing us full circle. Religion and politics have driven wedges between people that are so divisive that it’s hard to see where we could come together as a society again. Lawrence Brown believes that tribal politics “threaten to roll back the hard-won progress of centuries.” Political gridlock in recent months – from holding up federal budget passage over Planned Parenthood funding to the current Congressional impasse over the debt ceiling – makes the depth of the division all too clear.

As we stay within our tribes, many times, so does the next generation. Although in many ways, we need the comfort of our tribes, our society can only move forward if we can see past our own small groups and their mindsets. Perhaps our fitful social landscape is a sign of a breakthrough pending – but perhaps we are headed straight for a wall.

Brown said, “We can’t depend on catastrophes and terrorists to bring us together. Love is a better social adhesive than grief. No one can claim to love their country if they hate half the people in it.”

Images: ginnerobot, szeke, andi.vs.zf, jonmatthew photography, Balaji.b, ^riza^

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After days spent racking my brain to choose nine things you don’t need to be happy, now I can’t keep more from surfacing. If this list keeps growing, it might mean that happiness is attainable without anything at all. What a concept!

But just for fun, let’s continue counting. Here are 9 more things you don’t need to be happy. Really.

1. Optimism. There’s nothing more annoying than all the self-help mumbo jumbo that preaches “think positive” – and implies (explicitly or not) that by doing so, you will get what you want. This theory leaves us in the lurch and in fear of having even a speck of a negative thought. The universe is not directing the traffic of our lives according to our thoughts. We earth folk, although blessed with free will, are not more powerful than the randomness of life.

This is good news. If you happen to be a cynic or wake up on the wrong side of the bed once in a while, don’t fret. Having a positive outlook 24/7 is not required for happiness.

2. Caffeine. I’m actually sitting in Starbucks as I type this and it’s occurred to me that I could be a lot happier if there were fewer coffee shops serving rocket fuel to every human on the planet. Fewer Starbucks means fewer caffeinated people – and no landfill droves of millions of paper cups.

I was perfectly content for the six months I gave up coffee. Life was fine. But I can tell you this. The moment I took my first sip of a non-fat triple shot cappuccino after those six months, I was indeed rocketed into another dimension. I don’t need caffeine, but I like it. So there. Just don’t make me go to Coffee Bean. That’s where I draw the line.

3. God. Religion and anything related is a topic fraught with tension, but we shouldn’t ignore the obvious, which is that many people all over the world live life happily and successfully without worshiping or praying to any being. Organized religion is not the only road to salvation. Why is it that only the non-religious realize this?

4. Intelligence. I adamantly agree that women can be both smart and pretty, but if for some reason I had to choose, I think today I’d prefer pretty. Why? Because it gets tiring being smart. And I’m exhausted!

Most days I can’t watch the news, much less have an intelligent conversation about current events. Between the stock market, natural disasters, unstable psychopaths wreaking havoc on innocent people, world hunger, violence against women – I’m upset too often. What’s so horrible about a slight dose of ignorance? Call me stupid, but sometimes I’d prefer to be stupid.

5. Crystal Ball. The less I know about the future, the better. It used to be that I was riddled with fear if I couldn’t see how it all turned out; whether you’d stay or go, love me or leave me. So I would leave you first or better yet, never stay in the first place, because not knowing how and when it would end was too scary. Today I’m a different creature. I find comfort in the unknown and practice letting the future alone and being present for love and my life today.

6. Chanel handbag. Oops, how did this one get in here? I mean, really. No one needs a Chanel bag, period. And to be completely candid, I once purchased such a bag. It was at a time when my work was very lucrative and I thought (or hoped) a sophisticated, exquisitely made black bag would satisfy a deep yearning within me.

This morning I caught a glance of that particular Chanel hanging in my closet. Did it make me happy? When I first bought it, yes for about five minutes, but now…not so much. Actually, it makes me a little bit annoyed.

7. Resolved “issues“. I have no qualms telling you I go to therapy once a week. I’m one of those humans that grew up crooked and needed a little correcting. So be it. In fact, I think more people should be in therapy, especially married people.

Yes, a weekly appointment on my calendar means there is unfinished business, more “stuff” yet to come up and discuss. I continue to dig, deeper and wider and with more gusto. Why? Because the more I uncover, confront, grieve, accept, release, the better and happier I become. Everything need not be packaged up perfectly in a box with a bow, stored away in the basement in order for one to feel relief and some semblance of happiness.

8. Approval. We can’t control what other people think of us. People who don’t know you well will have perceptions and come to their own conclusions. The important thing is not to change yourself in order to get someone to like you. The key is not to care if they like you or not.

Of course, it would be ideal if everyone everywhere liked you, but if you love yourself and just one other person thinks you’re awesome, then you are. Quit trying to gain the adoration of people who don’t matter, and focus on the ones that do.

9. A reason. Did you predict we would end up here? If so, you win. It took me 17 reasons to realize 1) one might be happy and not care why or 2) one isn’t happy (or is) but doesn’t particularly appreciate someone feeding them reasons how or why or when one could or should be. Therefore, my last reason is a reason. It is possible to be happy for no reason at all.

So there, I said it. Now go and be happy, just because.

Image: con Costanza

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Green. Recently, the mere mention of the word has started to make me cringe. In an attempt to market a multifaceted issue – climate change, ocean acidification, forest degradation, pollution, food politics – we’ve oversimplified. Scratch that. We’ve lost our collective heads. We’ve turned a complex web of questions and possible answers into something as simple as a preschooler’s crayon selection.

So when the words “religious amusement park” and “green” show up in the same sentence, I flinch. Have you heard about this? A 160-acre Christian-themed park called The Ark Encounter is being planned for lucky Northern Kentucky. According to the website, “In an entertaining, educational, and immersive way, it presents a number of historical events centered on a full-size, all-wood Ark, which should become the largest timber-frame structure in the USA.”

Historical. Okay. Let’s take a look.

The park is the brainchild of Answers in Genesis, the same group that’s responsible for the Creation Musuem in Petersberg, KY. Science is a guiding force when it comes to dealing with environmental issues, so it elicits some serious questions when the same group that denies one of the most well-supported theories of science attempts to jump on the green bandwagon. (And you thought the hybrid Chevy Tahoe was complex logical ground.)

Yes, they’ll be using solar, geothermal, wind and water technologies in the park’s mechanical systems, but what environmental message are we sending to our children when they have to visit a 160-acre amusement park to get it? Caged animals that are trained to perform in a live show? Wasteful amusement park concessions?

It’s a monument to irony. Remember, those who rail against the most basic (and verifiable) tenets of evolution, climate science and the earth’s age will frequently cite the story of Noah’s Ark as Exhibit A.

The questions go on and on.

Talking about the environment and our impact on it is of the utmost importance, and we must package the discussion in a way that’s approachable to all, but not at the current cost. It’s become too easy to slap the word “green” onto any product or project and immediately fall into a marketing world that has quickly come to mean very little.

Those $150 million dollars could be better used to protect natural habitats and support environmental education classes that actually take children out into the woods and encourage them to explore their natural surroundings, rather than play Noah’s little first mate in a real life version of a legendary story. Inspire children to pursue the kind of careers that will make positive change and hopefully build a future where we live more in balance with the environment.

Are we being Grinch to everyone’s green and calling in the fun police? Perhaps. I’m sure a 160-acre complex can be all kinds of entertaining – but there’s a long list of things those 160 acres could be used for that might better promote a truly “green” calling. With respect to individual beliefs, and acknowledgment of the value of religious story traditions for community, we’re calling Beige.

– with additional reporting by Sara Ost

Editor’s note: The Beige Report features news and products of green gone wrong. If green is to grow up and go mainstream, it cannot be coddled nor supported uncritically. We owe it to ourselves and our future generations to insist upon good standards and good products in green. If you disagree, we’d love to hear why.

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So the joke goes that there’s a guy stranded on the roof of his house. Flood waters are rising and he’s praying to God for help. A couple of kids come by in a canoe and say, “Hey Mister! Jump in!” Preoccupied with prayer, he ignores them and they paddle away. Soon the water level is higher and the local sheriff comes by in a dinghy, “Get in, pal! It’s gonna get worse!” The man says, “Please, officer, not now, I must focus on the Lord!” Before long the waterline breaks over the roof of the house and a helicopter comes by, dangling a rope ladder. “Climb up!,” the pilot shouts above the roar of his engine. With the water raging and chopper wind blowing fiercely around him, the man screams, “Leave me! The Lord will save me!” Finally, the flood overcomes the man. As he’s being swept to his doom he looks to sky and asks, “Oh Lord, why have you left me to die?!” “Left you to die?!,” booms the Almighty, “I sent you a canoe, a dinghy and a helicopter, you idiot!”

I couldn’t help but think of this joke when I heard the infamous and honorable Representative from Illinois, John Shimkus (who is currently seeking the chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce panel in the next Congress), tell us that we don’t have to worry about global warming. Only God, says Shimkus, can destroy this earth, not man, and after all, He made a deal with Noah not to flood us out any more. I feel like shaking this guy and saying, “your Guy’s sending you data and science and smart people, you moron! He’s speaking to you and he’s saying: ‘Save thyself!'”

The War on Science is on and some people are telling us that He/She/It doesn’t believe in global warming and neither should you. By way of background, here’s a right-on quote from a blogger on About.com: “One of the principle driving forces behind all this [science] denial is a desire to get around the conclusions of science when they conflict with some preferred ideology – political, economic, religious, whatever.”

The political and economic issues behind climate change denial seem clear. As my father used to say, it’s always about two things: money and dollars. Corporate polluters have a record of funding efforts to portray good science as bad, promoting the notion of “science impotence” (portraying science as a  failure based on the fact that certain phenomena remain “unexplained”), and of course funding the campaigns of science deniers (take a guess where BP put its money this last election cycle). But what’s with the religious attacks? I mean, if you’re looking for something apocalyptic, global warming experts are offering up some crash and burn on a silver platter.

Of course there’s a thesis to be written here and we can go back to Descartes gumming up Church works with his thinking therefore am-ing, and then, of course, there’s our man Darwin who really queered the deal. But while portraying evolution as a theory as opposed to fact might be harmless enough (if ignorance can ever be harmless), denying changes in the weather puts people at risk. I don’t want to question Rep. Shimkus’ sincerity of motives; let’s not presume that his beliefs are really a front for corporate-backed efforts to derail climate change legislation. But his (and other policymakers‘) anti-science stance is dangerous and is based on antiquated thinking that precludes the coexistence of science and biblical creationism, something our greatest theologians would find ignorant, at best.

The truth is, there’s plenty of room for theology to exist alongside science and even support its conclusions as perhaps information coming straight from God’s workshop – tools “delivered” to us so that we might better love and protect ourselves and our neighbors. Whether or not one believes in creationism as the genesis of life, analysis of facts on the ground is just that – and a method to help preserve that life, wherever it comes from. Who knows? Maybe, just maybe, alternative energy technology is a gift from, well, just ask the folks at the Evangelical Climate Initiative.

You know, whatever one believes (or doesn’t believe), it’s important to have enough sense to come in out of the rain. You might even consider such a logical maneuver as taking refuge in God’s house. In any case, most of us can agree to this: finding a port in a storm beats going down with the ship.

Image: radiant guy

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