The Center for Moral Clarity, at http://cmc.rodparsley.com/ has been 
sending out a set of questions to candidates.  I never got these asked 
of me, but I thought they would like to know my answers anyways.  I'm 
running for Secretary of State of Oregon on the Pacific Green Party 
ticket.

1.) At what point does a baby get human rights?

Gradually.  Even spermatazoa had rights when Onan spilled his seed, 
however, the Bible's position is clear, it's pro-choice:

http://www.ffrf.org/nontracts/abortion.php

Babies become babies when they are born.  Did you mean to ask when a 
foetus may attain human rights?

In the secular world, the consensus is that rights are attained as 
self-awareness begins.  Self-awareness occurs when higher-order thinking 
generally found in the neocortex becomes coherent enough to recognize 
the self as well as any actions that could create an anticipation of 
one's own death.  Between 1 to 3 years from birth is the typical time 
range when this happens.

But really, the question isn't really about those who died, it's about 
those who live to experience the death of another.

Were it not for economic fascists pulling strings of ignorant 
Bible-know-nothings to falsely differentiate two otherwise identical 
parties, those who die of old age, die to erase the pain of a terminal 
illness, or are aborted in the first trimester would not be so mourned 
as they are today.  Indeed, the amount of mourning is relative to the 
value of investment times the remaining potential to contribute back to 
society.  If either are low, the mourning is little.  If both are 
high, the mourning is high.

As far as the remaining potential, here in Oregon, we've recognized the 
right to death with dignity.  We realized that a life of ceaseless pain 
is not worth a few more days or months here on earth to people who are 
terminally ill.  A true act of humanity is that we, as self-cognizant 
beings, should choose the manner of our own death.  Note that even this 
law recognizes that only those capable of self-awareness can make this 
decision for themselves, and that they must take the physical action 
necessary to initiate the assisted suicide.

As far as the cost of investment: the cost is borne by the female and it 
should forever be in her right to determine, before self-awareness, 
whether or not to continue the cost of that investment begun, or to 
abort it and divert their own investment elsewhere.  It is no other's 
decision until it becomes self-aware.  In as much as a male contributes 
to the investment, the male should be able to contribute to the 
decision.  Ultimately though, nothing compares to the investment a 
female makes into a baby.

So, really, it's an ethological question, related to self-awareness and 
the awareness of those invested in our life, that has been subverted by 
arbitrary application (or misapplication) of age-old hallucinogenic or 
empire-backed, power-grabbing screeds.  Christianity has tried on both 
fronts to attack reason and humaneness.

Martin Luther understood this very well and scolded that, "To be a 
Christian, you must 'pluck out the eye of reason.'", further elaborating:

    Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid
    of spiritual things, but -- more frequently than not -- struggles 
    against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates 
    from God.

2.) How do you define marriage?

Marriage is a contract, recognized by the state, between two (or more) 
people, for the purpose of symbiotic sharing of state-regulated personal 
equity and state-observed representative powers.

Let's define it by what it's used for, not other arbitrary criteria.

The whole "civil union" thing is a joke.  Let's just call it marriage.  
I got married in front of a judge.  Am I not married since it wasn't 
ordained by a delusional prophet of a fictitious god?

3.) Does evil exist?  And if it does, what should we do to counter it?

Good and Bad are subjective labels applied to actions and intentions 
that individual people approve of or disapprove of.  There's no such 
thing as a universal good or a universal evil.  The misunderstanding of 
the nature of good and evil has led to mass atrocities through using 
dogma as a mental prison to alienate other humans.  Indeed, only dogma 
can create atrocities -- convictions create the environment necessary to 
override one's personal conscience.  Nietzsche, author of "Beyond Good 
and Evil", summarized it well:

    Men of fixed convictions do not count when it comes to determining 
    what is fundamental in values and lack of values.  Men of conviction 
    are prisoners.

Should disapproving behavior be countered?  Of course it should.  We 
should provide one's freedom of speech and communication to express 
one's desires and volitions.  When society comes to consensus that 
certain conditions necessitate a prohibition on certain conditioned 
actions, it should make rules that create disincentives, from 
pronouncements and resolutions, to fines for misdimeanors, to 
restrictions and programs for felonies, and to life restraint for those 
unable to correct grave behaviors.  I do not believe the death penalty 
makes any sense in a rational society, for it heals nobody, not even the 
victim.  It's merely another form of violence.  The only time violence 
is acceptable is when it is used to directly defend against an impending 
act of similar violence and no other options were reasonably available.

4.) Should all citizens have the right to publicly profess and 
observe their religious faith?

Yes and No.  Everybody has the right to publicly profess their religious 
faiths, to help determine the extent to which they are incapable of 
reason.  Should they have the right to observe it?  Yes, as far as those 
observations never impede the implementation of the law.  No religion 
should ever be allowed to observe illegal homicide, for example, or 
interfere with our secular education system.

In closing, in my freedom from religion, I will quote the preamble to 
the 1961 lawsuit brought by American Atheist leader Madalyn Murray 
O'Hair:

    YOUR PETITIONERS ARE ATHEISTS and they define their life-style as
    follows.  An Atheist loves himself and his fellowman instead of a 
    god.  An Atheist knows that heaven is something for which we should 
    work now -- here on earth -- for all men together to enjoy.  An 
    Atheist thinks that he can get no help through prayer but that he 
    must find in himself the inner conviction and strength to meet life, 
    to grapple with it, to subdue, and enjoy it.  An Atheist thinks that 
    only in a knowledge of himself and a knowledge of his fellowman can 
    he find the understanding that will help to a life of fulfillment.

    Therefore, he seeks to know himself and his fellowman rather than to 
    know a god.  An Atheist knows that a hospital should be built 
    instead of a church.  An Atheist knows that a deed must be done 
    instead of a prayer said.  An Atheist strives for involvement in 
    life and not escape into death.

    He wants disease conquered, poverty vanquished, war eliminated.  He 
    wants man to understand and love man.  He wants an ethical way of 
    life.  He knows that we cannot rely on a god nor channel action into 
    prayer nor hope for an end to troubles in the hereafter.  He knows 
    that we are our brother's keeper and keepers of our lives; that we 
    are responsibile persons, that the job is here and the time is now.

If we are ever going to have true, moral clarity, it will come not from 
religions of dogma, but through studying the human condition and 
learning more about the world.  Indeed, religious tomes are so unclear 
on moral and ethical behavior that it's impossible to gain moral clarity 
from them.  That some people feel that they can turn off their reason 
and wait for feelings they think they can interpret into unwavering 
calls to a certain behavior is an affront to reasonable people the world 
over.

It is time reasonable people stopped accepting arbitrary commandments 
and circular self-rationalization through waiting for a diet-induced 
hallucination, manufacturing a superstitious interpretation of some mere 
coincidences as moral guidance, or, worst of all, exegizing from a set 
of divergent texts scrapped together into a dischordant authority.  That 
is not true Moral Clarity.  The fewer people fall into this trap, the 
better our future will be as human beings, working together for a better 
world.

== Appendix for Progressive Christians ==

A socialist friend suggested that I shouldn't insult all Christians -- 
just the right-wingers, since supposedly the left has Christians too.

I don't believe any statement made by a Christian from their faith has
any legitimacy, so why would I support a Christian deciding to oppose
corruption on the basis of their religion?  That would be rather
presumptuous of me.  I don't think a religious left is better than a
religious right.  My goal is not the ends, but the means to a better
ends.

Any belief that requires a fiction to advance itself is illegitimate.

Christians need to confront the fact that there are those who consider
their beliefs delusional and have just as much a right to say it as they
express their delusions.  A society where people who make delusional
statements that go without question is not a healthy society.  If they
disagree with me, I welcome them to confront me in a public square and
see how well their beliefs stack up to criticism.

I've acknowledged the fact that my sheer existence is already a threat
to their dogma and they already would not vote for me if they knew the
truth of my opinion, and they would love to have me squelch my own
thoughts in subservience to their loud and public pronouncements that
atheists are immoral bastards destined for a fictional hell.

If there are so-called "progressive Christians" that think I should be
free to think, then they too should think I should be free to speak,
otherwise they are not truly progressive.  I do not risk losing their 
vote.

I think it's absurd that at the same time I criticize the right for 
using religion for their own ends I can't criticize the left at the same 
time, even if they might think their book agrees with me.  I also wish 
socialists would realize Greens are too radical to be "left".  There are 
a lot of things on the "left" I cannot ally with -- centralization for 
example.  The Greens have gone so far as to encode decentralization and 
sustainability into its Ten Key Values.  We're too libertarian for the 
far left.  If a "left" Christian from liberation theology uses his 
religion to justify a dictatorship over capitalists, for example, I am 
forced to remind him that, instead, we have to work to find peaceful and 
democratic ways forward that recognize that everybody is a stakeholder, 
not just techniques that highlight charismatic leaders, be they bishops 
or presidents, that run our lives.  We need to be the masters of our own 
personal destinies.  We can cooperate in that power, or we can cede our 
power to a religion for our salvation as the Christian "left" desires.

Don't make the mistake that the Latin American upheaval and move to the 
left is truly the best way forward.  The people might win out, but in 
the long run, expect the further entrenchment of religion to simply lead 
to another government of the right, when it's able to overtake the 
reigns of power, casually centralized by the priests and bishops of 
Catholicism who reflexively never will cede true power back to the 
people.  The leftist FARC in Colombia kidnapped the Green Oxygen
presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt.  I am no ally to just any
leftist group in Latin America.

Ultimately, one can hope that those Christians who read this all the way 
to the end understand the benefit a secular government is and realize 
that atheists can be moral as well.  It's not much to hope for, though, 
because their religion simply does not leave open that possibility.  My 
best hope, is rather, that they learn to live without the unstable 
foundation of Christianity as an authority for deciding their vote.