Mick Arran of the Early Warning Frog (formerly Omnium) tells us about a new group blog devoted to watching the religious far right. It's called Talk to Action and it's a group written blog with diaries, like DailyKos or MyDD. Their statement of purpose elaborates on their approach.
Talk to Action is a platform for reporting on, learning about, and analyzing and discussing the religious right -- and what to do about it.
We are pro-religious equality and pro-separation of church and state. We are prochoice, and we support gay and lesbian civil rights -- including marriage equality. Therefore, debates about the validity of abortion and gay rights are off topic. We understand that some people who share our general concern about the politics of the Christian Right may not agree on all of these matters. That's fine. Anyone who agrees with the general mission of this site is welcome to participate -- but bearing this in mind. It is our intention to take the conversation forward, and not let it be held back by debating what, in our view are or should be, settled matters of human, civil and constitutional rights. Similarly, religious debates are off topic, especially debates between theism and atheism. Finally, we are nonpartisan. While political discussions are welcome, -- even central to the purpose of this site -- we do not wish the site itself to be a platform that is necessarily for or opposed to any particular party.
Their aim is to have discussions that are deep and substantial rather than news-cycle driven. This is something I've been looking for.
In his post, Mick hints at the fatigue of trying to say something useful about all of the topics that are important to us. At times, we've both been tempted to transform our blogs into single-issue sites. But how could I pick just one? Church and state issues are close to the top of my list of hot-button issues, but I couldn't bring myself to write about just that while the rest of the Bill of Rights is also in danger. I couldn't bring myself to write about just our imperiled rights when there are important issues of war and peace and cultural politics being decided. I can't stick to just politics when there are important and powerful people in all walks of live in need of mocking. Finally, I need to take a break from serious things from time to time to write about history, science, cockroaches, life as a gadget-challenged geezer, and my lawn. Some times I feel streched so thin that I can't write about anything.
Talk to Action looks like a good pressure valve for that kind of frustration. Maybe if I write one monograph on church and state issues each week or so I can get out it of my system and write about something else. The blogosphere seems to reinvent itself every year or so. The explosion of carnivals over the last year was a very positive development in my view. I'm less enthused about semi-commercial super-sites like The Huffington Post and Pajama Media (or whatever their name is today). Narrow topic community sites could be a good development.
In any case, I've signed up for Talk to Action. I hope to see you over there.
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