Teacher here. It's made-up-nonsense. I don't give a shit what gender or sexual orientation a kid is and im CERTAINLY not going to try to convince anyone to change anything about themselves.

That said, I'm going to acknowledge that gay/trans people exist in authorship and literature as it arises. You can't read someone like Whitman (Leaves of Grass, arguably America's greatest poet) and not come across references to sexuality either implicit or explicit. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45472/i-sing-the-body-electric

It becomes relevant in passages like this:

5
This is the female form,
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor, all falls aside but myself and it,
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed,
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response likewise ungovernable,
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all diffused, mine too diffused,
Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling and deliciously aching,
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-blow and delirious juice,
Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn,
Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day.

----------------------------------
Maybe a conversation like:

"'Love flesh swelling' like he's in love with some woman and they...he...?"

"Probably not, he didn't have any serious female relationships as far as I am aware."

"But the title is 'The female form'"

"Well, it's possible, but it's not likely the case that he was talking about himself being in love with a woman. This poem is in the text but he wrote many other pieces about he-himself falling into and out of love with various men and we have letters documenting those relationships with his male significant others. Although, I'm not sure what to call them because gay marriage would have been illegal at the time. He's likely writing the poem in a way where he appreciates the female form and sees men who are drawn to it like the way I appreciate watching bees act obsessively driven to the middle of flowers. I like watching Bees in action, but that doesn't mean I'm going all pollen crazy, still I appreciate it for what it is."
-------------------

This is an example of how discussion of sexuality would come up in my classroom as I imagine it. Note how I'm not trying to convince the kid I'm talking to to turn gay like it's a big game of rainbow-red-rover or something. Nevertheless, knowing the author's sexual preference in this instance informs our understanding of the piece.


My own personal theory?
The people railing against things like this are the same shitheads that can't be bothered to read ANYTHING and instead giggle and guffaw at "hurhurhurhur he hadd'a boner" where I get to live an early stage of Idocracy.

Also, I agree that the "funky stuff" shouldn't be just avoided altogether. For goodness sake, just let teachers have the difficult conversation that everyone is avoiding. Reminds me of when Peggy Hill was struggling to say "Penis" when she was assigned sex ed.

He is, but he is clear that he thinks Islam is the worst, most violent misogynistic and intolerant. I say that’s equally true of all religions at different times.

While I do like that he can see when his team goes off the deep end, where that line lies has steadily moved to the right as he aged. I’ve been watching him since before he had a tv show. I live in CA, and I don’t have the issues he complains most about….of course I don’t live in the most expensive, most regulated county in CA like he does. He complained for years about getting permits for his solar system and blamed the liberal government, I got my permits in one day with no issue at all.

My biggest peeve is that, even though he’s been a professional comedian for over 40 years, he still doesn’t understand that a groan/clap is approval for a joke in bad taste or particularly pointed. It bugs the shit out of me when he gets mad his crowd groaned while applauding and laughing.

We actually started HBO to watch him there…but he’s changed so much we often don’t bother anymore. I rarely recognize his panel anymore too. New Rules is definitely the highlight of the show these days.

I think he's against all religions, hence making Religulous.

I like him because he's old-school liberal, and not afraid to call out some of the extreme-left insanity of new-school liberals. Probably he sees it more because he lives in CA.

But I don't subscribe to HBO, and only watch his "New Rules" or monolog clips on YouTube (when they're not already 'sifted, of course)

No less reasonable than the rest of the religion.

Adding video to channels (Anatomy, Parody, Religion, Wtf) - requested by ant.

*religion *anatomy *parody *wtf

@bcglorf
Reading bible passages in class as “something we can all agree on” is the definition of proselytizing to a captive audience….and outside of private religious schools is totally inappropriate.

It’s not “fun” to be ostracized in public because you believe different mythology or are smart enough to ignore all stone aged mythology…..really only disbelieving one more myth than the believers.

Getting the season completely wrong because you don’t know it was chosen to make it easier to use religion as a political tool is a bit different from “the exact date being inaccurate”. It’s an outright, bold faced, well documented lie, created as a political ploy from the 4th century used to degrade and absorb Zoasterism/Mithraism in order to control the masses politically. That is absolutely a “credibility” issue, and if you don’t get it, that’s an education and/or ethics issue. Christianity has many major credibility issues, being “created” (codified) as a political tool is just one of them. Stealing almost every bit of the mythology from previous religions and denying it is another.

Yes, the misuse of Fauci clips out of context is another issue of truthfulness here, but those who are intentionally ignorant of the reality they just lived through are lost and not worth wasting my breath on. As anyone with two brain cells knows, the first, “you don’t need to wear a mask in public” was recommended at that time because a massive mask shortage meant health care workers had to reuse paper masks sometimes for months during a major pandemic, (and clearly they needed priority on the limited supply) not because we had information saying they weren’t useful….but that’s a minor detail of history I feel only brain dead ignoramuses consider in question, relevant, or factual, and they have discarded fact, truth, reason, and logic in favor of their cult of personality….so there’s no real point arguing with them. Just let them get Covid and hope for EIA.

Preaching one religion in a public class room and claiming “we all agree” is a continuation of a much more pernicious, long term, continuing battle for the religious freedom our country was founded on, and I find it outrageous and anti American that you dismiss it as nothing. I can only hope your children’s teachers aren’t a vastly different, contradictory religion than you and they don’t teach your children that everyone agrees with their religion, not yours, and don’t use proveable fallacies to make their point….but if they do I’ll be here to dismiss your concerns.
🤦‍♂️

Hey! No proselytizing in the classroom! 😉

Besides, the passage he read indicates that Christ’s birth would not be mid winter or the shepherds would likely not have been in the fields at night, it’s pretty cold and wet in Bethlehem (a 1/2 mile high city) in late December.
Any professor should know December 25th was Mithra’s birthday, a popular religious holiday, and emperor Constantine usurped it for Christianity as a way to consolidate religions to make it easier to use against the masses as a political tool.
You’re celebrating a dishonest political plot and an Iranian/Roman Pagan God’s birth, not the birth of Jesus.

Ruh roe….Trump said vaccines are good.
The far right lunatic league has decided their conspiracy theories are correct, so Trump must be a libtard moron or part of the plan to force mind control drugs and microchips into them, and are quickly abandoning him! Lol…too good.
For instance, Owens has now said he’s a very very old man who only watches main stream news and no longer participates in their alternate facts/alternate reality. Not a ringing endorsement. Jones says something similar, Trump’s either ignorant or one of the most evil men.
So, thinking Republicans are fleeing the party in droves, and Q nuts are abandoning Trump in droves. Trump has abandoned McConnel, and McConnel is abandoning Trump.

This coming 2 weeks after Trump’s sad rally became such a super spreader event that his anti vax nutters decided they were attacked with anthrax, because Covid isn’t real so they couldn’t have it. If only there was a test to find out which one they have….

And don’t forget that cokehead Trump Jr just told conservatives to abandon Christianity…saying “the teachings of Jesus has gotten us nothing.”….abandoning both religion and grammar in one fell swoop.

I love it when a plan comes together. The self destruction of the Republican Party is a thing of beauty.

Every single Republican voted against tracking or countering Islamophobia like we do anti semitism.

Indeed Green ranted her support for Islamophobia, again publicly claiming all Muslims are terrorists and saying fear of any and all Muslims is reasonable. Not a single Republican disagreed. Many publicly agreed, accusing Omar of being a member of multiple terrorist organizations such as her religion.

Damn you people are so childishly ignorant and hypocritical it’s shocking.

I love the idea, echoed by the Supreme Court, that if this methodology is found to be legal, there’s nothing at all stopping states from using it to outlaw things protected by the constitution, like arms, religions, hate speech, anything the state legislature decides is unwanted, and using cash prizes to incentivize citizens into enforcing them. One can only hope Republicans see the truth in that prognostication and quickly move to make these laws constitutionally invalid….otherwise these laws will quickly invalidate the constitution.

Edit: If California decides the bounty on anyone owning an “assault style weapon” is $1000000, what’s to stop them? What’s to stop Austonians and Houstonians voting for the same thing in Texas? Suddenly it doesn’t sound like such a great idea…..right? Republicans only love the constitution when it’s convenient….so we have to make it convenient (or make end running around it unthinkable).

Congratulations! Your video, Religion, in a nutshell, has reached the #1 spot in the current Top 15 New Videos listing. This is a very difficult thing to accomplish but you managed to pull it off. For your contribution you have been awarded 2 Power Points.

This achievement has earned you your "Golden One" Level 17 Badge!

It's fanatism that leads to these crazy conflicts & posturing. Nationalism, Patriotism, Fascism, Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, etc... basically absolutism to any kind of theories & religious practices that disregard moderation & common sense and human's selfish tendencies all leads to unnecessary conflict, suffering, and especially for religions, hypocrisy.

Your video, Religion, in a nutshell, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

I'm from Texas. I support Abortion. No contraceptive is 100% effective, not even if you combine them. If you don't understand that, study how percentages work.

Secondly, kids are hormonally driven creatures. They are literally under the influence of natural chemicals driving them to procreate.

Not every school or parent teaches them about contraceptives. In fact, you will find most 'Christians" only support abstinence. This is the equivalent of telling a chemically dependent addict to "Just Say No!" How well did that work in the drug war back in the day? (Hint: However, despite DARE's bold claims, research has shown that the program has failed spectacularly.)

Third, the people who are most affected by this new law are the people that can least afford the better contraceptives or having a child in a non-stable family environment. This won't bother a middle class or rich family at all, they can just send the kid off to an "aunt" in another state until the issue is resolved. Those kids from poor families will just be forced to have the kid and likely it will ruin their lives. This doesn't even take into account that the new law doesn't have ANY exceptions for rape or incest.

Fourth, the USA was founded on religious freedom. In other words, you get to believe what you want and others get to do the same. This means that if a religious person tells another person that something they are doing is forbidden due to morality contained in their religion, that other person can tell you to fuck right off. Church and State are supposed to be separate, but the Christian right think they should be able to legislate their religious ideas on others. Do you not see the hypocrisy here?

I'm nominally a conservative. Sadly that means that I get lumped in with you ultra far right wackos that want to turn the USA into a religious state like Iran or Afghanistan. I'm not leaving my home state because some religious nut jobs think it is OK to kill adults by lethal injection but that it is BAD to kill some cells that are multiplying.

Btw, the cardiac activity detected on ultrasound at six weeks is not a true heartbeat. It results from electrical activity, but the valves of the heart have not yet formed. And the sound does not indicate the pregnancy is viable. Women typically don't notice they are pregnant until they miss a period. So if they are unlucky, they may already be close to four weeks pregnant. That leaves them two weeks to confirm it with a doctor, since home tests are not 100%, get together money for the abortion, find a clinic, and schedule an appointment that falls within the remaining time period. Since this law will cause even more clinics to close in Texas, you can add travel and patient backlog to the time. A teen could do everything right and still miss out on the lottery for an appointment, dramatically changing their life for years.

But at least some smug religious person can sip their coffee and be proud they enforced their morality on some evil women that dared sleep around out of wedlock.