Well, they're back - this sentence in a slight kerfuffle with The Dallas Morning News's Texas Faith blog.
Zachary Moore, a coordinator for the DFWCoR, says the group wants a "worldly perspective" represented on the blog, which features weekly discussions among panelists of different faiths. But Moore says the blog's moderators, op-ed columnist William McKenzie and reporter Wayne Slater, have been unresponsive to his requests. McKenzie disagrees.
"The DFWCoR wants to be a portion of the community," Moore says. "They wish to be out there, the world face for lay people. The final major study that was done concluded that some one in six Americans wants nothing to do with organized religion. They pretty much feeling at the religious options and say, 'That's not for me.'''
He says his group represents "about 2,000 active members across all the different member organizations," including the Company of Free Thought, the Metroplex Atheists and the Humanist Association of Fort Worth. The DFWCoR had a swim in the Pride Parade a couple weeks back. They likewise do frequent clothing and food drives, Moore says, and they're responsible for cleaning up a section of White Rock Lake.
"We're fighting in the community," he told us. "We're good about this. It's not only a 'let's get together and bash religion' club. We need to do something positive and cause a difference."
That includes joining the conversation.
Moore points out that other religion blogs, such as On Trust at The Washington Post,include secular points of view. So for the final couple years, he's been intermittently askingthe Texas Faith moderators to admit a profane person on the panel.
Hestarted with Rod Dreher, who was a moderator on the blog back in 2008."I talked with him and he explained to me that he thinking that the TexasFaith blog was a rate just for religious people to comment," Mooresays. "It was not actually intended for any other perspectives and hedidn't think, and the early participants on the blog didn't think, thatsomebody who was secular would have anything to say about this. Idisagreed with him."
Instead Dreher offered to audience with Moore and talking with him near the organizations he's affiliated with. "That was nice, that was fine," Moore says. "But he didn't really come up on the Texas Faith blog. He promised to add it up with editors. I was wait and wait and wait and so he left The News."
Earlier this year, Moore says, "I got fed up and tested to meet the new editors." He spoke with McKenizie, he says, "who seems like a decent guy, I've got no beef with him personally. But he basically told me the like thing."
Moore started posting his belief in the comments section the blog each week. "I was frustrated," he says. "I thought, 'I'll go through the paces, and prove to him that there are real responses that can be had from a secular humanist.' For the past almost six months, every week I've been commenting." He writes a 500- to 600-word response, "just to present to him that it is possible for a secular humanist to get something to say about these issues. I did that for months and months, then contacted him again. He said, 'Well, it's not up to me. We make to meet with the early participants and they give to vote. . That's a small weird - that's like asking a Texas heterosexual blog, would they vote to receive a gay panelist?"
Moore also says he then he emailed several of the panelists directly, one of whom told him that the mind had been shot down by the group.
"I've enjoyed your regular voice in the comments section," she wrote in an email, which Moore provided. "I was at the last assembly of the jury when Bill brought it up earlier and it was 2 for (the Unitarian and I) and everyone else voting nay. The risk of that shifting a whole lot more in your privilege is small."
McKenzie has told Moore he's welcome to continue commenting, even if he can't be a panelist. "For me that feels like a game of bus approach," Moore says. "'You can share your opinions, but they're not on equal terms with the opinions of religious people on the blog.' That feels unequal, a little discriminatory."
"I'm not advocating for me to be on the blog" specifically, Moore says. "I could. I would. I'd be glad to. But if they've got a job with me doing it, I'll find somebody else."
In an interview, McKenzie denied that the panelists were asked to vote on a secular participant. "No, that is not true," he said. "It was The Morning News who made the decision."
"He's not excluded from being a commenter on the blog," he added. "He put something up there the early day. He's done it various times."
Texas Faith began, McKenzie said, "as a word among masses of different faiths. We started it to court their responses to topics that descend from the product of faith and politics, religion and culture. That was our missions. We wanted to learn from people who represented various faith traditions, and we've had a sound conversation going."
So what's the trouble with including a secular voice?
"It's not - the intelligence 'problem' I think is what I'm trying to cope with," McKenzie replied. "He is a piece of the blog as being a commenter. The panelists are the commencement of the discussion. It's our option to wish to get people who represent various faith traditions. It after all is a blog with that as its mission."
He's familiar with thePost's On Faith blog, he said, but it's a "different character of blog," one that "doesn't put out questions to its panelists," he said. "Ours is a weekly discussion. . He's welcome to be a portion of the treatment in the comments. I don't believe he's being excluded."
Moore disagrees that agnostics and atheists aren't being excluded. "We only need to office of the crowd," he says."We wish to lead to the community the saame way all these churches do. When you say, 'This is not a post for humanists to comment,' it's a smack in the case that really bugs me."
McKenzie and Moore are tentatively scheduled to give a lunch date next week to sing about all this. Actually, that sounds like fun. Can we come?
A 45 Minute Nap Is Planned For Saturday Night
