Bottom line: If you live in an area where earthquakes are likely, you live in an area where earthquakes are likely. Unfortunately, that’s not very useful, so the best thing is to be always prepared, at least a little. Know what to do, know where to go. Have food, water, and medication supplies for at least 72 hours. And then stop worrying about it! If it gets humid, put on a t-shirt. I’ve heard rumors that they sell those even in San Francisco…

Congress would bestow the status of federal civil unions on same-sex marriages and civil unions granted at the state level, thereby conferring upon them most or all of the federal benefits and rights of marriage. But there would be a condition: Washington would recognize only those unions licensed in states with robust religious-conscience exceptions, which provide that religious organizations need not recognize same-sex unions against their will. The federal government would also enact religious-conscience protections of its own. All of these changes would be enacted in the same bill.

So, instead of fighting against religion-based discrimination, let’s validate it by accepting it through secular law.

In support of their idea, the authors suggest that similar exemptions already exist for Catholic hospitals regarding abortion. I have a problem with that, too: Why should a hospital (or a church) be exempt from following the law? “Religious freedom” doesn’t cut it. Religious freedom means that you and I are free to choose whatever religion we’d like. It should not give us the freedom to break the law! Now, with abortion, I suppose you could argue, it’s a service and not every hospital would have to offer every service imaginable. I can buy that. Maybe they don’t offer plastic surgery either. Plus, abortion is a complicated ethical issue, which same-sex marriage/civil unions are not, so I don’t think it’s comparable. (Sorry, if you think gays are not human, that’s not an ethical issue, that’s religion-based discrimination. Abortion ends the potential of a human life, that makes it an ethical issue, which is argued very convincingly in Lake of Fire.)

Not recognizing a particular union seems just absurd. What if a church has something against interracial marriages? Should they have the religious freedom to not recognize those? Of course not. So why should same-sex unions be any different?

Of course, the overarching issue is that neither marriage nor civil unions will end discrimination based on relationship status. As Nicky Grist from AtMP argues so eloquently in her rebuttal to the NYT op-ed:

Eventually, there will still be about as many un-unioned as unioned households in the United States, there will still be over 90 million un-unioned adults, and about one or two in every 10 un-unioned individuals will still be cohabiting with an intimate partner with whom, for a variety of reasons, they haven’t unioned.

At that point, will it be any more fair that unioning raises or lowers your taxes? Will it be OK that people must union or divorce, or can’t union, in order to get affordable health care? Will any more people exercise their rights around medical decision-making? Will there be any fewer green-card unions? Will judges know how to help un-unioned families divide their property after a breakup? Will caretakers who aren’t unioned to their dependents get any relief? Will surviving dependents have any more access to benefits if they weren’t unioned to their deceased providers? Will health clubs, travel agents, and employers stop basing rates and rewards on union status? Will parents let un-unioned partners share bedrooms?

No. This compromise should not satisfy anyone who is looking forward to the end of discrimination on the basis of marital or relationship status.

Neither same-sex marriage nor civil unions address the underlying inequality: That between the married/unioned and the unmarried/ununioned. Only when couples – whether married or unioned – no longer receive rights, privileges, and benefits that single people don’t get will we have achieved equality for all.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

While we could quibble that non-believers shouldn’t really be listed with believers, mentioning us is a big step forward!

And did you hear that the Inaugural Poet, Elizabeth Alexander, called for us to move beyond equating martial status with love? She said:

Some live by “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

Maybe I am making too much out of this. But maybe both are signs of a new era where nonbelievers are not invisible and love is celebrated as much broader than marriage.

D.J. Grothe and Tom Flynn also commented on Obama’s inclusion of non-believers. Flynn, though, also expresses his disappointment, which I share, about the number of times Obama invoked God.

And someone at the Alternatives to Marriage Project also noticed the line in the poem. AtMP is the only organization that is truly fighting for equality for all by advocating for the removal of the dividing line between married and unmarried people, rather than just moving it.

I had argued that Christmas is religious because its essence is religious. AR Cline, the Atheism Guide, makes the following claim:

Christmas, like any holiday has absolutely no “essence” aside from what we assign it. Christmas means exactly what meaning we impart to it — no more, no less.

I think this shows nicely how we end up with the claim that Christmas is a secular holiday: It’s the influence of relativism. There’s no “essence” to anything beyond the meaning I give it. Everything is the way I define it. If I claim that Christmas is secular, it is so. It doesn’t matter what the origin of the holiday is, nor what the majority of people think it is.

AR referred me to a couple of his articles. The key arguments seem to be presented here. The argument seems to go somewhat like this: Because the US has the separation of church and state, because Christmas is a government sponsored holiday, Christmas must be either violating that separation (as I argue) or Christmas must be a secular holiday (as AR argues). He proposes that the Supreme Court should simply declare Christmas to be a secular holiday. Surely that would make it so, right? Just like “In God We Trust” is clearly a secular statement since it is on our coins and the Supreme Court has said this doesn’t violate the separation of religion and state. Sure. Right. Just because we’d like Christmas to be secular, so that we can claim it, doesn’t make it secular. I love Bach’s music. But I can listen to it without pretending that it has nothing to do with religion. I don’t need to claim that Bach’s music is secular to enjoy it; I simply ignore references to God. Why do atheists feel this desperate need to claim that Christmas is a secular holiday in order to celebrate it? If you want to celebrate, do so! There are atheists who go to church or synagogue because they enjoy it. They don’t claim that the services are secular because they attend them (although, I am sure, people on the forum would).

The whole claim that Christmas is secular seems to stem from the need of some atheists to continue to celebrate Christmas. Most of us grew up with Christmas. The religious overtones have become meaningless to us. So for us, it is a secular holiday. But to claim that this makes it so for the 80% of USAmerican who are Christian is dangerous because it waters down the separation of religion and state. I have not heard anything in the arguments for viewing Christmas as a secular holiday other than: I say so and therefore it is. Fine, that makes it secular for you. But that’s a long way from redefining it as secular, which I would argue is not possible. Maybe, we will be able to replace Christmas with a secular holiday, just like Christmas replaced holidays from other religions. Notice, though, that Christians were largely successful in doing that because they created a new basis for it, a new story around the holiday. They didn’t simply say that Winter Solstice is a Christian holiday because Christians celebrate it. Christmas will not become a secular holiday simply because atheists and other secularist celebrate it. If we want to hijack the holiday, we’ll need to come up with something else to celebrate around this time of year. Something other than the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.

Aside from the absurd claim that we can change something religious to something secular simply by declaring it so, I also find it dangerous. Christians have imposed their value-systems onto the US and many other countries. Granted, the US is not a Christian nation in the sense that Christianity is not the official national religion but if we ignore that “the status quo has traditionally been one of privileging Christians at the expense of other religions,” as AR puts it, is not a thing of the past, we will not be able to truly establish a secular society. Rather than ignoring this influence, we need to question it. Why should Christmas be a day off? Why should “In God We Trust” be imprinted on our money? Why should marriage be a more valued form of relationship than anything else? All of this stems from the Christian influence on this country. If we can find secular reasons, I think it would be valid to continue these traditions. If not, separation of religion and state requires that we come up with new traditions.

It is difficult to not do what “everybody else does.” When just about everyone around me celebrates Christmas, I wonder what’s wrong with me. When just about everyone around me is married or at least coupled, I wonder what’s wrong with me. But just because everybody else does it doesn’t mean I have to do it. Nor do I claim that Christmas is meaningless to everybody because it’s meaningless to me.

(Note: I am proud to say that at least one prominent secular humanist agrees with me. Tom Flynn suggests that we should sit out Christmas in a dialogue with Ron Lindsay. Flynn also wrote about our bedfellows explaining the “paradox of Christmas” further.)

In addition to the open attacks on the Declaration, the document itself is dated. As I have pointed out before, I have my doubts about declaring that marriage is a human right. Forming relationships in whatever form with whomever we want to should be a human right. Marriage, however, is just one way of doing that – and a very privileged form to boot. As Michael Warner points out, giving marriage this privileged status creates a hierarchy of relationships that without evidence value some forms more than others. If marriage is a “normal” human right, then – by definition – other forms of relating are not normal, are abnormal, and not a human right. This enshrines matrimanic thinking into one of the world’s most important documents.

So, while the 60th anniversary is certainly grounds for celebration, it will be a bittersweet celebration at best.