Some ugliness that makes me happy

Sometimes, ugly things can make you happy.

Two cases in point, recent events wise:

1)A girl scout takes to Youtube to say that people should boycott the Girl Scouts cookie sales to protest their evil, nefarious ways. Those evil, nefarious ways, of course, being that stuff about being open and inclusive of transgendered children. Her, and the people supporting her, have the usual vapors that can be summed up with the phrase “BUT WHO WILL PROTECT THE CHILDREN?!” You know, the usual mixture of fear and hate-mongering mixed with a boneheadedness that makes ignorance look like bloody Socrates.

This does not make me happy, other than in the way I joked on Facebook, to wit: they have made it so it’s a moral imperative for all good people to eat girl scout cookies. I plan to do so. I mean, I get to support transgendered kids, and eat cookies. There is nothing but win there.

No, what really makes me happy is that the internet is in an uproar, and people are organizing counter measures. I really hope that in a few months we see an announcement that the Girl Scouts broke some cookie-sellin’ records. Let the bigots choke on a few metaphorical tagalongs.

2)Jessica Ahlquist, a sixteen year old with more chutzpah than whole platoons of older folk, won her ACLU backed case to have an explicitly religious banner taken down at her school. This banner, hung in a public school, was so unconstitutional that it beggars the imagination. Such a violation of church/state separation should even have religious folk up in arms. Alas, not so — most seem to be condemning her as some kind of terrible demonic atheist, and in the aftermath of the judge’s damning summation against the school district, many took to twitter to, you guessed it, rip in to the 16 year old. Including with some messages that look an awful lot like threats of violence. And, of course, because where you find religious bigotry you can be sure other bigotries aren’t far behind, and you get things like this:

Oh my gosh http://t.co/Ra3UdelL—
Jessica Ahlquist (@jessicaahlquist) January 12, 2012

It’s 2012, and that’s downright depressing. It’s downright depressing that a 16 year old who stood up for the constitution is being treated so shamefully by so many. It’s downright depressing that so many Americans really don’t support the constitution, and that so many Christians still expect special privileges.

What isn’t depressing is Jessica, who is standing up to all that bile and bigotry with what can only be described as pluck, a sense of humor, and incredible composure. We can all learn a lesson from her, and it makes me ashamed to think how often I’ve kept quiet in the face of all those little barbs against atheists. Another wonderful thing is the number of people who waded in and did Twitter battle with the hordes on her behalf. A bunch of bigots learned something today: atheists may quarrel amongst ourselves a lot (herding cats and all that), but damn it, we will protect our own.

So yeah, some ugliness that makes me happy, because so many are standing up to counter it with beauty. We have a chance, folks, we crazy humans.