Midwest Chick's Place

Apparently the Freedom from Religion organization has hitched its wagon to a quasi-religion of sorts and, as converts do, will not allow any dissenting opinions to their belief system.

The quasi-religion–transgenderism of course. The organization published a post on their website by someone named Kat Grant that posited that a woman is ‘whoever she says she is’ They also published a rebuttal post by Jerry Coyne entitled ‘Biology is not Bigotry’ indicating (properly IMO) that gamete types are the basis for what a woman is or isn’t.

The rebuttal paper was, of course, later pulled. The reason given for removing it is so full of irony that my eyes clacked because I rolled them so hard:

“Despite our best efforts to champion reason and equality, mistakes can happen, and this incident is a reminder of the importance of constant reflection and growth,” co-presidents Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor wrote.

“Publishing this post was an error of judgment, and we have decided to remove it as it does not reflect our values and principles. We regret any distress caused by this post and are committed to ensuring it doesn’t happen again,” they added.

The organization has now lost three prominent members including Richard Dawkins, who is (was) arguably the organizations most well-known member.

Coyne, the author of the article that was removed commented in his resignation letter:

“That is a censorious behavior I cannot abide,” he wrote in an email, according to the publication. “I was simply promoting a biological rather than a psychological definition of sex, and I do not understand why you would consider that ‘distressing’ and also an attempt to hurt LGBTQIA+ people, which I would never do.”

“The gender ideology which caused you to take down my article is itself quasi-religious,” Coyne said, “having many aspects of religions and cults, including dogma, blasphemy, belief in what is palpably untrue (‘a woman is whoever she says she is’), apostasy, and a tendency to ignore science when it contradicts a preferred ideology.”

Steven Pinker, a psychologist, who also resigned noted:

that the FFRF is “no longer a defender of freedom from religion but the imposer of a new religion, complete with dogma, blasphemy, and heretics.”

Dawkins himself was apparently not a fan of the original paper, calling it ‘silly and unscientific’ and was not happy with the ‘discourtesy’ of just removing the article without discussion or notification to the author. He resigned from the board of the organization.

Dawkins has previously spoken out against the proliferation of gender ideology in science, once slamming woke efforts to scrap “binary” terms like “female” in favor of “inclusive” terms like “egg-producing.” He has also lashed out at the woke “bullying” of women such as Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling for her feminist critique of the transgender movement in the West. In 2021, the American Humanist Association (AHA) revoked an award it had given Dawkins 25 years before over his critical comments about transgenderism.

Of course we can all see the quasi-religious overtones and aspects of transgenderism and its acolytes. The fact that the president of an organization like the Freedom from Religion group has been brought into the fold and can’t recognize it is really quite interesting.

We’ll see if anyone else follows Dawkins out the door.