Posted by Hemant Mehta in Pope Benedict XVI is going to be visiting the United States in a couple weeks.
American Atheists have has something to say about that (at least in DC and NYC):
AMERICAN ATHEISTS will be hosting peaceful demonstrations in both cities to protest the papal agenda for cultural, social and political hegemony. We invite all Atheist, Freethought, Secular Humanists and other nonbelievers to join us in speaking out. Whatever label you use to describe your nonbelief and opposition to clerical authoritarianism of all denominations – whether you’re a Rational, a Bright, a Humanist, Agnostic, Atheist, or a strict Separationist – we welcome you!
The big event seems to be the one in Washington, D.C. taking place on April 16th:
The Pope will join Bush for a reception on the south lawn of the White House. Join us beginning at 10:00 AM across the street from the White House in Lafayette Park. Bring signs and banners conveying a polite but firm message in opposition to the Vatican/Ratzinger agenda. There will be a brief program of speakers including:
- ELLEN JOHNSON, President of American Atheists
- ARLENE-MARIE, President of Michigan Atheists and State Director, AA
- MARGARET DOWNEY, President of Atheist Alliance
- FRED EDWORDS, Director of Communications, American Humanist Association
- CHRISTOPHER ARNTZEN, President, Gay and Lesbian Atheists and Humanists
- RICK WINGROVE, Capitol Hill Representative, Virginia Director, American Atheists
A second event will take place in New York City a couple days later but details are not available yet.
Personally, I disagree with just about everything the Pope does and stands for, but I’m not sure what value there is in protesting his visit. I think it’ll just backfire on us.
If there is any media about this, most people are just going to see it as atheists angry about religion (What’s new?, they’ll say) as opposed to angry with the Pope’s specific policies.
Maybe I’m wrong.
Would you protest the Pope’s visit? On what grounds?
[tags]atheist, atheism[/tags]
No.
Because I have better things to do with my time and worse enemies than the pope to tackle.
I agree, protesting his visit itself is not likely to be useful or productive. In fact, it’s nonsensical. We may not like the idea of a theocracy, but he is a legally appointed, legitimate leader of a country, so receiving him as a guest of state is entirely appropriate, every bit as much as receiving the Prime Minister of Great Britain. I don’t even know of any human rights abuses to be held against him, whereas I know of quite a few such blots on our own record lately.
However, I think it would be entirely valid to use inevitable news coverage of his visit to protest specific policies that the pope promotes (e.g., stances against birth control, abortion, and stem-cell research). These actually would be effectively directed at our own administration, obviously, since there’s no way a few Americans waving signs would sway the pope, but the pope’s visit would make a valid venue for the display of support for birth control, abortion on demand, and tax-funded stem-cell research (as just my own examples).
~David D.G.
I highly doubt that.
The Pope has spoken against the War in Iraq since the beginning
The Pope has been outspoken in support of economic justice for the developing world and overseas massive levels of charity and relief work globally.
The Pope supports the human rights of immigrants regardless of the status of of their documentation.
The Pope affirms scientific views of evolution and cosmology.
There are many things I disagree with the Pope on as well, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the areas where our views do overlap. I don’t know all your political views Hemant, but I suspect that on issues of peace and social justice there are probably many opinions you and the Pope share in common.
Depends on the venue. The current pope is certainly very strongly anti-science, and he’s been called on it in the past and forced to cancel academic appearances as a result, which I would argue is a very good thing. (See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7188860.stm for example.)
But in this particular case, I don’t see any specific reason to do so and I would doubt its effectiveness anyway.
Unfortunately I agree. It’s just going to feed into the stereotype of “angry atheists” i.e. “oh look, the peacful pope is hear and those angry atheists want to destroy that too”. There are bigger, more important things to go after that won’t feed into the stereotype. And protesting the pope won’t change anything. This is kind of silly I think.
I don’t feel those people are protesting against the pope’s visit. This would have (and recently had) a sens in an Italian university, because the society there is still so much under the influence of the Catholic Church. But what I understand is that the demonstrations are intended against some of the most shocking positions of this Church. That’s not the same thing.
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To be completely serious, I don’t think I could protest the Pope because … well.. he scares the frickin bejeezus out of me.
Ya see, my second girl was born at Good Samaratin Hospital here in Cincinnati, the same joint i was squeezed out at. And so after I check my wife in I run back down to the car to grab a suitcase, run back, hop on the elevator out of breath, and when the doors open…boom… there’s a 13″x19″ glossy of his popeness staring straight at me with what I can only classify as vampiric glee. Really, scary lookin dude. Straight out of James Bond Villain school. He’s the Anti John Paul II. Run away… just run away!
I would protest, but the emphasis would have to be on having it be entirely peaceful, and eloquently spoken. Specific signs and banners would help pass the message (against certain policies), rather than just a large group shouting.
If media exposure is given make sure that the emphasis is on the policies being pushed, not the religion itself.
I wouldn’t, for the same reasons as above.
Benedict scares me as well. Talk about giving nightmares to the kids he “protects”. *shudders*
Also, once he goes home, back to Vatican City, back to Italy, it won’t matter at all whether people protested his visit or not. I doubt it’d get reported on over there like it does here when our President is protested when he visits certain countries.
We have better things to do, like making it much, much easier for an Atheist to be elected into the White House sometime this century.
Once that is done, then we can definitely protest the RCC by banning the current Pope from even entering this country. Wait… did I just say that out loud?
I plan on being part of this protest.
The Beltway Atheists meetup group is very inter-twined with AA in DC, and you might be surprised at the heated debate that went on in their mailing list over this.
All of the points mentioned here have been excruciatingly beaten about for more than a month.
In the end it is going to get some press and thus is a consciousness raising event. The goal of many of us is to have some legitimate soundbites regarding policies of the vatican such as sheltering pedophile priests, denying the use of condoms in AIDs crippled countries, etc.
The papal visit is a good venue to protest the papal policies, particularly the papal efforts to affect US laws promoting christian goals.
Of course there is reason enough to protest the Pope’s visit alone, because the President should not be recognizing a religious leader in a formal white-house visit. Contrary to what David D.G. said in the second post, the Pope is not the legitimate leader of a country, because the Vatican is not a country. According to the supreme law of this nation*, a country must have a permanent population**, which the Vatican does not. The residents are continually being imported to fill space. How many people are born in the Vatican each year?
* Article VI, Clause 2 of the Constitution says treaties are the supreme law of the land along with the Constitution and laws in support thereof.
** the 1933 Montevideo Convention is a treaty which the US is party to
he scares the frickin bejeezus out of me… Really, scary lookin dude.
Louis, a lot of people have noticed the resemblance between Benedict and Senator Palpatine/Darth Sidious:
http://simianfarmer.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/lackoffaith.jpg
[...] yesterday’s Papal Protest (sponsored by American Atheists), several people gathered to hold “peaceful [...]
and why is it that no one on here had issues when Bush sponsored the Dali Lama in the white house? Oh I forgot, Eastern religions get a free pass in the secular community.