More on Marital-Status Discrimination

Recently, a gay friend on Facebook denied that marriage as an institution is discriminatory. This seems laughable to me, especially since gay couples are routinely-excluded from marriage in most American states. Interracial marriage used to be illegal before the landmark Loving vs. Virginia case which ended miscegenation laws in 1965.

Here was my response:

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If marital status is held as a preferred status over being unmarried (like religious over non-religious), then yes, it's inherently discriminatory—especially when there are benefits to be had from marriage including tax benefits, motor insurance discounts, health-insurance benefit sharing, hospital visitation, etc. The real kicker here for me, and which affects me every single day I am a freelancer is the lack of health insurance benefit sharing. My girlfriend of 14 years is not allowed to share her health insurance with me, someone she owns a house with, because there's discrimination at the *Federal level*. This has been verified by a lawyer.

Gay couples enjoy domestic partner benefits (despite the discrimination against them with marriage) and there is a state mandate for companies to allow gay domestic partners of 6 months or more with commingled finances to share health insurance. Again, this is denied to me and my girlfriend of 14 years, because we are of opposite sex.

Marriage creates discrimination directly and indirectly. It's directly discriminatory because gay people are excluded from marriage, and polyamorous groups are barred as well. The effect it has on heterosexual couples is that they are railroaded into the preferred institution of marriage and punished for being unmarried.

This is nothing less than marital-status discrimination, and it's one of the frontiers of equality still basically lacking legal challenge because too many people still get married. Still, the way health-insurance works, there are many ways to be a 'protected class' and it takes almost a perfect storm of variables for someone to find themselves in an opposite-sex relationship, without health insurance and seeing the CLEAR discrimination that happens as punishment for refraining from the institution of marriage.

People still use the facile logic that I should 'just get married' but this totally misses the point. Marriage is a personal decision and should not be validated or endorsed by government (any more than religion). Since it is endorsed by government, it shouldn't be held as a favored status over unmarried couples who for ideological reasons refuse to marry. This is NO different than favoring religion over non-religion. Would you tell an atheist to join a church to get married? No. Can atheists get married without religion? Of course. Should we be punished for not being able to or not *wanting* to marry? NO.

The fact that you don't understand this belies the pervasive and endemic nature of the problem. I support gay marriage...so please re-consider your views on marriage vs. those who for any reason choose not to marry but still deserve to enjoy domestic partner benefits. Believe me, I've been trying to get domestic partner health-insurance benefits from my girlfriend's company since 2004....and it's been NO every time, with no state protections here. For you to deny that it's discrimination is madness to me, but maybe you're just not educated about this stuff yet.

Here's hoping I shed some light on the topic.

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The way to undermine the inherent discrimination related to marriage is simple: Don't get married. It's exactly the same as believers leaving their churches in droves, or the exponential growth of secularism around the world. It does pain me a bit to think that I am such a vocal advocate for gay rights (and gay marriage), and yet when I complain about discrimination so many people don't even acknowledge that this discrimination exists. Ironically, once gay people can get married, more people who choose to stay unmarried will see the clearer discrimination against unmarried couples...especially with regard to health-insurance benefits. Marriage is not the answer. Equality under the law is the answer. 

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Smart Cars: A New Forum

I've started a new smart-car forum at http://www.smartforums.info/, and I encourage everyone who's interested in these little cars to come join us.

After I was banned from a larger smart-forum (and I use the term smart specifically about the cars here), I decided to strike out on my own. Forums are like mini-governments...sometimes you run into a hapless dictator with no sense of reason or fairness, or those who let their underlings (moderators) stomp on everyone else with their personal biases.

While I have my biases and strong opinions as evidenced from my blog-history, free-speech and free-inquiry are vitally important to me both as an American and an atheist. I may disagree with some people and their posts, lifestyles, etc., but I recognize that everyone is different and that merely censoring certain 'controversial' issues does nothing to change that fact.

As one of my ancestors, Patrick Henry, once said: 'Give me liberty or give me death'. While I don't want to invite death, I can't abide anyone messing with my liberty, yes, even some silly moderator on a smart-car forum.

I would rather have a site with 10 people than be on a large-site plagued with Lockerators™ who lock any thread which tweaks their personal biases. As an atheist moderator on a motorcycle site, I've had long debates with Creationists in the off-topic section, and I never had to lock or delete threads or censor their posts.

Censorship in most cases is just not necessary and eventually, everyone who wanted to say something said it. People come and go and they move on. Real life is the same way. If your friends can't bear your opinions then they're not really your friends. If someone's opinion can't be swayed by solid argumentation, then that person is unreasonable. Bottom line is, if you've got an opinion that's worth anything, it will stand to scrutiny. But as forums go, people are free to ignore conversations they don't enjoy just as they might in real-life.

As long as the discourse is civil and reasonable, I prefer to let people 'talk it out' and thus, my new site was inevitable in-light of the heavy-handed thread-locking and outright censorship which existed on the forum I was booted from. It's no wonder one of their moderators stepped down, and I can't say I blame him.

My new site is smartforums.info and although it's under construction (adding content and adjusting graphics), it's very much open for business and there's no charge or fee for vendors who want to advertise smart-related products and services.

On a lighter note, I'm selling smart-car decals through a great local aftermarket company called Smart Madness here in sunny SoCal. The decals are printed by a wide-format Roland printer with Max-brand eco-solvent inks. All decals have an over-laminate for maximum outdoor life, which is about 3-5 years.

This decal was inspired by wow, but was all hand-drawn by yours-truly. It's a funny acknowledgement of the tiny-size of the smart with a nod to Gnomish Engineering. World-of-Warcraft (wow) fans will be quite familiar with the concept, and the rest will still understand it too. 'The Power of Small' is something I've heard to describe the gnomes in wow and I've always loved this phrase. It's funny on many different levels, but it acknowledges what many non-smart drivers think we don't know, 'OMG THAT CAR IS SO TEENY!'. ;)





The decal below is a pumpkinized smart-car, part of a new set of decals I've made called Punkinheads™. The Punkinheads™ are a Mix-and-Match family (like the stick-figure familes you've seen on car windows) that are intended for cars but can stick almost anywhere.

Not-So-Smart Discrimination

I am a smart-car owner. The smart brand is referred to as 'smart', lowercase by design, one-word, as you might say 'Honda' or 'Mini'. This is a great little car, and the only micro-sub compact sold on American shores. It's a one-liter, 70 horsepower, mid-engine car which is easy to park and gets 41 mph highway...that's the best MPG of any gas-using car in America, right behind the hybrids but at about 10K less to buy. Available in the U.S. since early 2008, the smart has been making inroads through Roger Penske's smart dealers into the American consciousness.

As a member of the Smart Car of America Forums (SCOA), I participate with other enthusiastic owners about all things smart.....the questions we're asked, aftermarket accessories, everything regarding dealers, maintenance, perks and quirks with the car, etc.

Who buys smarts? My answer to this question might have be: 'progressive, out-of-the-box thinkers with a penchant for embracing new ideas, with a tendency toward size-economy and the green movement'. It ain't necessarily so.

Sadly, this blog is about discrimination, which is something atheists face every day. See if you agree.

On the SCOA forum, I happened to be browsing the off-topic threads and saw that some smart-owners had started threads about who among them might be gay, with another thread asking who their fellow vegetarians/vegans were. Reading the threads myself, it seemed people were playing nicely and simply voicing another common interest among a receptive, progressive audience of other forum members clearly open to new ideas.

That was, until I started the 'Who here is an atheist smart-owner' thread. Here's what I wrote:

'Ok, I've seen the separate Gay and Vegan smart-owner threads, very interesting!

Here's my question: How many atheists drive smarts?

Is there any correlation between our maverick embrace of a new automotive paradigm and those who self-describe as atheists/agnostics/secularists/non-religious or non-believers of some sort?

The car itself represents a lot in my opinion: a willingness to be different, a witting/unwitting embrace of the green-movement and less oil-dependence, some-degree of environmental conscience, a willingness to favor economy of size over the 'bigger is better' mentality (even with threat of derision), and a more liberal/progressive political population (I realize there will be exceptions).

My hypothesis is that atheists would be over-represented by smart-car owners (per-capita).

This is by no means a scientific poll, but I am curious to see the responses.

Thanks in advance'.

Reasonable enough, wouldn't you say? Just like the gay and vegan threads, it's natural to ask who among other out-of-the-box thinkers might have left traditional ideas like religion, right?

Wrong. The thread was immediately closed by an admin with this comment.

'Forget it.“The following topics and links are prohibited on Smart Car of America Forums: Religion, Death Penalty, and Politics”

Ok, since when does identifying as an atheist necessarily constitute a religious argument or even religion? Atheism by definition is the *rejection* of religion as it literally means 'without theism' from the Greek form, 'theos'. A-theos is literally 'without god or belief in god'.

Ostensibly, the forum admins are trying to avoid controversy which might lead to pages of in-fighting (which people can choose to ignore), but what good is a forum moderator if they can't even be bothered to moderate potentially volatile threads? Again, this was in the 'off-topic' section which should mean smart-owners are free to discuss issues, as long as it doesn't devolve into pure name-calling and threats, and these threads can be moderated.

Instead, the powers-that-be at SCOA seem to feel more comfortable with outright censorship based on the 'rules', but I would think censorship is far more volatile than moderating a 'potentially' controversial thread. Those who find these threads offensive always have the choice of ignoring them.

My post was merely an informal poll, like the vegan and gay threads, and was specifically posed to see who among my fellow-smart drivers shared my lack of belief in god(s). This rule, as applied, would necessarily mean that nobody could ever identify as any religion on the forum, ever.

Look what another admin said when I complained about censorship. Quoted in relevant part:

By agreeing to these rules, you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually-oriented, hateful, threatening, or otherwise violative of any laws.

Ok, so the identifying as an atheist clearly doesn't fall into these categories, yet the thread about which smart-owners might be gay certainly *does*. Talk about selective application of rules. The reader will note that she had nothing to say in her defense after she was called out on this. Of course not. There is a clear double-standard at work.

My friends, this is a clear case of censorship, even if it's in the 'rules'. Sometimes, rules are wrong or too-broadly applied. After all, there used to be little rules about minorities being segregated from the majority, or women not being allowed to vote.

In this day and age, it's shocking that this still happens, but sadly not surprising. What's even more distressing is the lack of visible protests from other members who might be atheists or know agnostics, or understand the injustice that's happening. There were a few on that forum in support, but mostly....silence and thus, a form of complicity.

Here's what the smug admin had to say when I complained about the thread closure in a private message:

Whatever flood of protests you are hoping for is going the other way (by PM) – it has been positive for the action taken. You are, so far, alone in this.If you are in need of the support of atheists owning smarts, you are free to participate in atheist sites elsewhere, and ask the same question. As a start you might try something at groups.yahoo or groups.google*

* Full URL omitted to avoid linking.

I see. So it's ok for a smart-owner to ask, in an off-topic section, about who in the forum might be gay or vegan (controversial for many), even though talking about 'sexually-oriented' content is in clear violation of the forum rules. Why is it not permissible to ask who might be atheist even though by itself it's not a religious argument? Add to that the smug way in which the admin tries to convince me I am 'alone in this' which is probably why he thought he could get away with such a thing. You see, fellow non-believers...this is exactly why some theists feel they can abuse non-believers.. We seek fair treatment, but we still get abuse and discrimination because some feel that we're such an insignificant or silent minority that we just don't matter. This is exactly why we need to be out of that 'other closet' en-masse as we've seen with the success of the gay-movement.

Tell someone they can't talk about being 'African' or 'Italian' and there would be hell to pay. Tell someone they can't mention that they are a Christian or Jew and you'd see a backlash. Why is the mere mention of identification with 'atheism' seen as a 'religious' statement? By this logic, mentioning that you're abstinent would be sexual harassment?

This may all seem trivial, but it's still discrimination, and it's a reflection of the 'majority rules' scenario which has historically trampled on the rights of the minority, simply because it was smugly thought that the majority could get away with it. As long as people are cowed into silence, we will never have a collective voice, and this is why it's so important for minorities, especially the most-hated minority (atheists) all over the world to speak out, be heard, be seen.

When people realize how populous this abused minority is, they might think twice about being so cavalier with discrimination, even in the small, annoying ways which happen every day.

Sure, most of us on the SCOA drive 'smart' cars, but by no means should anyone assume that all of us are logical, forward-thinking, progressive or even smart. It makes me very glad I didn't 'become a member' and give them my hard-earned money....but apparently they think atheists are such a tiny, insignificant minority that our opinions and support just don't matter. ...even in such a tiny-sub group known as 'Smart-Car Owners of America'.

This is more than just discrimination on an obscure forum. It's a reflection of the world we all still live in, and a small core-sample of daily abuses.

I recommend that all of you who identify with labels such as atheist, agnostic, freethinker, secularist, rationalist, non-theist, etc. make yourselves known. The sooner people realize that they can't get away with blatant discrimination and abuse, the sooner we'll get the fair-treatment we're asking for.


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