Propaganda machine attacking UT, Richard Leshin, San Antonio Express-News, June 11, 2014

On one hand, you have a world-ranked university with Nobel-prize winning faculty and graduates, such as Adm. William McRaven, who are literally and figuratively changing the world.

On the other you have a web of extremist special-interest groups who blanket their grassroots organizations and the lawmakers beholden to them with false information, innuendo and cherry-picked facts to paint a picture of a university that is purportedly rampant with corruption and fiscal mismanagement. Their fliers, mailers and “news” outlets feverishly churn out hyperbolic content intended to support their narrative and persuade voters and lawmakers that there is something “illegal” “rotten” and “corrupt” happening at UT.

But just because they say so, doesn’t make it true. Unfortunately, if it keeps getting reprinted, retweeted, reposted and repeated, people start believing it. But let’s look at the facts.

Sex Is Complicated, Jillian Keenan, Slate, June 4, 2014

A correspondent for the conservative website National Review recently declared that Laverne Cox, the transgender actress gracing the cover of Time magazine, “is not a woman.” Kevin D. Williamson went on to argue that transgender identities are a “delusion … that transcends the biological facts in question,” and referred to Cox throughout with male pronouns, despite her expressed preference for female ones. Williamson wrote that the “subjective impressions” of gender should not supersede the “biological fact” of sex, which, according to him, is simple science.

Now, my biological education peaked at age 3, when the boy next door and I played doctor and discovered that the differences in our hair length weren’t our only physical differences. Based on a 3-year-old’s understanding of science, Williamson’s confident claims about “biological fact” seem logical.

But some people are real doctors. So when Williamson’s article provoked outrage from the transgender community and its allies, I called some experts. When it comes to sex, is it true that biology is simple?

That answer, resoundingly, was no.

Please, let’s not start with the #NotAllChristians foolishness, Ryan Bell, Year Without God, June 11, 2014

I don’t need to rehearse all the ways Christians are privileged in the United States. All I really need to do is point to the recent reports that show that non-christians and especially atheists, are the most feared and distrusted people in our society. So it’s interesting to me when Christians complain about “angry atheists” or the way in which Christians get abused by secularists and non-believers. Suddenly, in a moment of irony, Christians are pleading for tolerance and understanding. I’m all for tolerance. In fact, I think tolerance is the least we can do when we’re talking about people. (Ideas are altogether different. Ideas deserve, not tolerance, but examination and testing).

Photo credit: RG2 (Own work) [GFDL, CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.