Separation of church and state's topics - tribe.net

Somali man, '112', weds girl, 17

timrayborn — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:46:46 GMT

Hundreds of people have attended a wedding in central Somalia between a man who says he is 112 years old, and his teenage wife.

Mr Dore said he and his bride - who is young enough to be his great-great-grand-daughter - were from the same village in Somalia and that he had waited for her to grow up to propose.

"I didn't force her, but used my experience to convince her of my love; and then we agreed to marry," the groom said.

Some people said while it was allowed under Islamic law, they were concerned about the age gap, but others were happy that age was not a barrier to love.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8331136.stm

Yes, I'm sure she is just thrilled to be married to him.

posted in Separation of church and state - 4 replies

TAX THE CHURCHES

Rocky — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:48:38 GMT

TAX THE CHURCHES

http://www.taxthechurches.org/index.html

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Left And Right Oppose ‘Defamation Of Religion’ Laws

Rocky — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:26:41 GMT

Common Ground?: Both Left And Right Oppose ‘Defamation Of Religion’ Laws

"October 27, 2009

Here is an issue that for once we may all agree on.

When it comes to “defamation of religion” policies, civil liberties groups and the Religious Right seem to fall on the same side. And now, the Obama administration has also voiced its opposition.

“Some claim that the best way to protect the freedom of religion is to implement so-called anti-defamation policies…. I strongly disagree,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said as she unveiled the State Department’s Annual Report on International Religious Freedom.

“The protection of speech about religion is particularly important since persons of different faiths will inevitably hold divergent views on religious questions,” she continued. “These differences should be met with tolerance, not with the suppression of discourse.”"

http://blog.au.org/2009/10/27/common-ground-both-left-and-right-oppose-defamation-of-religion-laws/

posted in Separation of church and state - 1 reply

FFRF Sues over "Minister of Gospel" Tax Benefits

Rocky — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:31:50 GMT

FFRF Sues IRS, Geithner & California State over "Minister of Gospel" Tax Benefits

"October 19, 2009

The national Freedom From Religion Foundation, along with 21 of its California members, has filed a nationally-significant federal lawsuit in Sacramento, challenging tax benefits for "ministers of the gospel," commonly known as "the parsonage exemption."

Ministers, who are paid in tax-free dollars, also may deduct their mortgage interest and property tax payments. Under both Federal and California law, allowances paid to "ministers of the gospel" are not treated as taxable income, unlike the situation for other taxpayers. Only "ministers of the gospel" may claim these benefits, so the statutes convey a governmental message of endorsement, unconstitutionally favoring religious employees and institutions over all others, the Foundation maintains.

The lawsuit was filed on Friday, Oct. 16 in California Eastern District Court, Sacramento office. Judge William B. Shubb will preside over the case. Attorney Richard Bolton, Madison, Wis., with local counsel Michael Newdow, Sacramento, represent the Foundation and its plaintiff members. The Madison, Wis.-based state/church watchdog serves as a national association for freethinkers (atheists and agnostics), and is the largest such association in the United States, with more than 14,000 members.

The Foundation seeks a declaration that, on their face and as administered, provisions allowing tax benefits for "ministers of the gospel," provided for by the IRS and Treasury Department, violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. FFRF requests that the Court enjoin any allowance or grant of tax benefits for ministers of the gospel under §§107 and 265(a)(6) of the Tax Code. Similarly, the Foundation challenges Sections 17131.6 and 17280(d)(2) of the California Revenue and Taxation Code, which correspond to the IRS codes, and "have the same constitutional defects and infirmities."

Defendants are Timothy Geithner, Secretary of Treasury, Douglas Shulman, Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, and Selvi Stanislaus, executive officer of the California Franchise Tax Board, who are all providing tax benefits only to "ministers of the gospel," rather than to a broad class of taxpayers..........."

please read the full article

http://www.ffrf.org/news/2009/parishallowancesuit.php

posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

House Excludes Spiritual Care from Health Care Reform Bill

Rocky — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 16:04:11 GMT

House Excludes Spiritual Care from Health Care Reform Bill

"The Secular Coalition for America is thrilled that the House of Representatives has decided to remove language found in all three draft bills that would require private and public plans to cover the spiritual care of individuals with religious objections to medical care.

Today the House released their version of the health care reform bill that did not include language requiring private and public health plans to cover spiritual care for any person. This "spiritual care" includes reimbursements for payments that Christian Scientists make to members of the Church who pray for them when they are ill.

"Requiring American taxpayers to reimburse Christian Scientists and other religious sects that deny themselves and their children necessary medical care would have been incredibly unethical in addition to a violation of church state separation," said Sean Faircloth, Executive Director of the Secular Coalition. "I am thrilled that the House of Representatives has chosen to remove language that would have required Americans to foot the bill for religion-based care. Their actions demonstrate that common sense secular values are being heard in the halls of Congress."

If this language had been included, tax payers would be forced to help foot the bill for this religion-based "care" -- "care" offering no scientific evidence of effectiveness. "Care" which, in fact, endangers lives by placing government approval on non-scientific practices."

http://www.secular.org/news/health_reform_bill_excludes_spiritual_care091028.html

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Belief and the Brain study by Sam Harris

Rocky — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 16:57:29 GMT

Belief and the Brain study by Sam Harris

Belief and the Brain
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0007272

Fact Impact
"New study of the brain shows that facts and beliefs are processed in exactly the same way."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/216551

I thought the last two paragraphs had particular significance:

"Harris proves what is self-evident from observing countless faith-versus-reason debates: each side believes firmly in its own truth claims; each side believes that the other's truth claims are absurd. If Harris is saying that Christians and atheists regard their beliefs the same way they regard uncontested facts ("tables and chairs"), it's no wonder that few conceptual bridges are ever built or crossed. (He even noted, with asterisks as to its significance, what he called the "blasphemy reaction": that when atheists disagreed with a Christian belief, or when Christians affirmed one, their pleasure centers lit up—proof that the combatants in the faith-versus-reason wars really do enjoy the fight, equally.)

But for those of us who yearn for resolution, Harris's experiments offer a glimmer of hope. While the brains of believers and nonbelievers do not differentiate between beliefs about God and about mathematics, the believers themselves do, a little. Participants retrieved their religious beliefs and their historical facts from the same place and in the same way, but they showed less certainty when thinking about the religious statements. It took them a little longer to push the button, and a part of the brain having to do with uncertainty, or cognitive dissonance, lit up. If even the strongest believers are a little unsure about God, and the strongest atheists are a teeny bit anxious that they might be wrong, there's room, perhaps, for one person to begin to try to imagine the world view of another, no matter what the brain sees as true. "

I thought this was really interesting. The study makes sense to me because in my own experience the theist vs. atheist debate really does seem endless. Common sense, facts & evidence that actually exist seem to have no effect. That's why I think the mythicist position may do well as a bridge between theism vs. atheism.

What is a Mythicist?
http://www.stellarhousepublishing.com/mythicist.html

I'm also reminded of this study which is NOT the same:

God on the Brain
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/godonbrain.shtml

* Join the "Solar Mythology ~ Astrotheology" tribe
http://tribes.tribe.net/solarmythologynastrotheology

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posted in Separation of church and state - 3 replies

Sharia Law and the US Constitution

Rocky — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:39:48 GMT

Sharia Law and the US Constitution

http://www.annaqed.com/en/content/show.aspx?aid=16242

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Supreme Court challenge to Church & State separation?

Rocky — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 15:02:00 GMT

Supreme Court challenge to Church & State separation?

"One of the great things about the United States is the legal system of checks and balances designed to protect the innocent and render fair judgment. If the system has failed at one level, it may work at another, and so on, "all the way to the Supreme Court," as it is often said.

The United States Supreme Court is, well, supreme in this land, and it too functions under a system of checks and balances so that no one individual should be able to gain undue and unfair influence.

While I do not generally engage in criticism of individuals, I have to say that one of my least favorite Supreme Court Justices during the many years I have been a sentient adult is Antonin Scalia. Justice Scalia may be a very nice man in person, and he may be very bright, but he brings with him some unseemly baggage not appropriate for the bench: To wit, Scalia is a devout Catholic, and in many instances he seems to be attempting to inject his personal faith into American jurisprudence above and beyond what is normal and acceptable. Although I have not studied his record in depth, Scalia has at times struck me as waving around his Catholicism as true, while using his position to be critical of other faiths.

Oddly enough, among the nine current Supreme Court Justices, six are Catholic, one is Protestant and two are Jewish. To my knowledge, no self-declared atheist or freethinker has ever sat on the Supreme Court. Apparently only one Justice, David Davis (d. 1877), has been unaffiliated with a church, temple or other religious organization.................."

Please read the full article here -
http://www.examiner.com/x-17009-Freethought-Examiner~y2009m9d25-Supreme-Court-challenge-to-Church--State-separation

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posted in Separation of church and state - 1 reply

Federal Appeals Court Made Correct Call

Rocky — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:14:32 GMT

"Federal Appeals Court Made Correct Call On Religion At School Graduation, Says Americans United
Court Rules That Washington State School Officials Had Right To Omit ‘Ave Maria’ From Graduation Ceremony

September 8, 2009

A federal appeals court ruled today that officials at an Everett, Wash., school district were within their rights to omit religious music from a graduation ceremony.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case siding with the school district, hailed the ruling.

“This is a good decision,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “Public schools serve students from diverse backgrounds, so it’s vitally important that commencement ceremonies be inclusive."

http://www.au.org/media/press-releases/archives/2009/09/federal-appeals-court-made.html

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posted in Separation of church and state - 2 replies

Appeals Court Decision Upholding Separation Of Church

Rocky — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:08:19 GMT

Appeals Court Decision Upholding Separation Of Church

"Americans United for Separation of Church and State today commended a federal appeals court decision requiring a church to separate its religious outreach from the activities at a church-run postal unit.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Full Gospel Interdenominational Church must separate its preaching and proselytizing from the work it does on a contract basis for the U.S. Postal Service.

Said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, “Americans look to houses of worship if they need religious counsel, not post offices. We expect Uncle Sam, and those he contracts with, to deliver the mail, not preach or pass the plate.”

In the dispute in question, the church operates a contract postal unit in Manchester, Conn. Community residents objected to the religious advertisements and pamphlets, prayer cards, ministry videos, a donation box and other religious items displayed in the same space where the post office is maintained.

The residents sued, represented by the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union Foundation, and a federal district court ruled in Cooper’s favor.

The appeals court has now done so as well, requiring the church to clear its postal counter of religious materials and divide the church’s private property from the space used as a post office.

Said Americans United Senior Litigation Counsel Alex J. Luchenitser, “This decision upholds the important constitutional principle that religious proselytizing must not be injected into the delivery of public services.”

Americans United filed a brief in the Cooper v. U.S. Postal Service case on the residents’ behalf in October 2008. The brief was joined by the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Social Policy Action Network.

“When the state contracts with a private entity to fulfill a governmental obligation in the government’s name and under the government’s banner, the state has a special burden to ensure that its power and identity are not used to advance constitutionally impermissible purposes,” said the AU brief.

The brief was drafted pro bono by attorney Murad Hussain, who was then with the national law firm Arnold & Porter LLP, in consultation with Arnold & Porter attorney Ronald L. Johnston, AU Legal Director Ayesha N. Khan, and Luchenitser.

According to media reports, there are some 5,000 contract postal units around the country, serving small communities where the U.S. Postal Service does not find a full-time post office financially viable."

* Americans United is a religious liberty watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, the organization educates Americans about the importance of church-state separation in safeguarding religious freedom.

http://www.au.org/media/press-releases/archives/2009/08/au-praises-appeals-court-1.html

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posted in Separation of church and state - 2 replies

Secular Coalition Opposes Amendments to Baucus' Health Care Reform bill

Rocky — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:56:49 GMT

Secular Coalition Opposes Amendments to Baucus' Health Care Reform bill

September 22nd- The Secular Coalition for America is actively lobbying in opposition to two amendments proposed to the Senate Finance Committee's health care reform bill which will be voted on this week.

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has submitted an amendment requesting that funding for Title V abstinence-only-until-marriage be restored. Senator Mike Enzi (R-Wyoming) has submitted an amendment to ensure that conscience protections are applied in the healthcare reform bill. Both of these amendments privilege religious values over patients' and students’ rights to ethical treatment and medically-accurate information.

The letter to the members of the Senate Finance Committee that details why the Secular Coalition opposes these amendments is below.

September 22, 2009

Hon. Senator
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Senator,

On behalf of the Secular Coalition for America and the thousands of nontheistic Americans who support our organization, I write to urge you to vote against two amendments to the Senate Finance health care reform bill that will be offered in committee this week.

Senator Orrin Hatch has submitted amendment #C10 requesting that funding for Title V abstinence-only-until-marriage be restored. Senator Michael Enzi has submitted amendment #C15 to ensure that conscience protections are applied in the healthcare reform bill. Please oppose these two amendments. Both of these amendments privilege religious values over patients and students’ rights to ethical treatment and medically-accurate information.

Congress has already provided $ 1.5 billion for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs since 1996 despite the fact that there is no evidence that abstinence-only programs have been effective in stopping or even delaying teen sex. Numerous studies, including a 10-year government funded evaluation of the Title V abstinence-only program, found that these programs do not delay sexual initiation and have no beneficial impact on young people’s sexual behavior. Please oppose Hatch Amendment #C10.

The Enzi Amendment inappropriately places the religious beliefs of medical professionals above the medical needs of their patients, and undermines patients’ access to contraception, end-of-life care, HIV care, and any other care to which a health care provider may object. In addition, this amendment would allow health care providers and entities to withhold information from patients about their health care status and their treatment options in violation of informed consent and ethical standards.

Medical professionals (whether they are doctors, pharmacists, technicians, or emergency medical technicians) are employed in the field of medicine, not spirituality. They have the right to consider their own religious beliefs in determining what medical decisions they make for their own care, but their personal religion should never infringe on the right of a patient to seek products or procedures that they have a legal right to obtain. Moreover, health care workers or volunteers who have responsibilities for federally funded research or other programs should never undermine a program for which they work because they have religious objections to the program. Please oppose Enzi Amendment #C15.

Please maintain your strong church-state record by opposing these amendments.

Sincerely,

Sasha Bartolf
Legislative Director

http://www.secular.org/news/Senate_finance_healthcare090921.html

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

New Film about Hypatia: Agora

Rocky — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:47:30 GMT

Hypatia - new film 2009
http://www.freethoughtnation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2835

New Film coming out - "Agora"
(with Rachel Weisz as Hypatia) - Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSTkMYECxX4&feature=channel

This film could be significant because it describes the barbaric history of Christianity"

The synopsis:

"4th century AD Egypt under the Roman Empire...Violent religious upheaval in the streets of Alexandria spills over into the city's famous Library. Trapped inside its walls, the brilliant astronomer Hypatia and her disciples fight to save the wisdom of the Ancient World... Among them, the two men competing for her heart: the witty, privileged Orestes and Davus, Hypatia's young slave, who is torn between his secret love for her and the freedom he knows can be his if he chooses to join the unstoppable surge of the Christians."

The death of the beautiful Hypatia marked the end of the Greek Philosophy and Science. After her murder Europe entered the Dark Ages.

Pagan Destruction Chronology (314-870 C.E)

"415 A.D.:

In Alexandria, Egypt, the mob urged by the bishop Cyrillus, attacks a few days before the judaeo-christian Pascha (Pesach-Easter) and hacks to pieces the famous and beautiful philosopher Hypatia. Pieces of her body are paraded by the christian mob through the streets of Alexandria, and are finally burned together with her books in a place called Cynaron. On 30th August, new persecutions start against all the Pagan priests of North Africa, who end their lives either crucified or burned alive. "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLzbxJ0RNFY

Official Web Site http://agorathemovie.com

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Bible scholar takes Jesus mythicist position

Rocky — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 02:13:03 GMT

Bible scholar takes Jesus mythicist position

Here's an examiner article about Dr. Robert Eisenman, a well-known Bible scholar, who has summarized 'The Christ Conspiracy' in the Huffington Post.

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-17009-Freethought-Examiner~y2009m9d14-The-Christ-Conspiracy-in-the-Huffington-Post?#commentswww.yahoo.com

So here's a biblical scholar acknowledging that Jesus is a myth i.e. the Mythicist Position.

* What is a Mythicist?
http://www.stellarhousepublishing.com/mythicist.html

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posted in Separation of church and state - 1 reply

"Blackwater Offers Training to 'Faith Based Organizations"

PaulaC — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:05:28 GMT

http://rebelreports.com/post/189642197/blackwater-offers-training-to-faith-based

By Jeremy Scahill

In its ever-evolving re-branding campaign, Blackwater has created a new alter-ego for part of the company’s business. Meet the “Personal Security Awareness” program, which appears to be an off-shoot of Erik Prince’s Greystone, Ltd., a classic mercenary operation registered offshore in Barbados. On its website, which was registered on February 20, 2009 and went live recently, the “program” is described as “a multi-phase course which is designed to assist Non-Government Organizations, Faith Based Organizations and Commercial Businesses by providing individual personal awareness and driver training for their personnel when deployed to unfamiliar environments.” It adds: “Greystone recognizes the importance of “preparation by doing” and looks forward to you joining us for this exciting training!”

Blackwater, of course, works for such organizations as the International Republican Institute, but “Faith Based Organizations?” Are they serious? I’m sure there are just scores of Islamic aid groups just lining up to take courses from Blackwater, Xe, US Training Center, Greystone, Personal Security Awareness. Moreover, any legitimate “faith based organization” that wants harmony with other faiths would be insane to work with this company. One of the courses offered is described as teaching “persons traveling to foreign environments how to remain safe during their travels in a vehicle.” This truly is surreal. What would seem more appropriate would be a company offering courses on how to “remain safe” in a vehicle when going anywhere near Blackwater forces. Remember how those unarmed Iraqi civilians were blown up in their car by Blackwater operatives at Nisour Square? Or the Afghan civilians allegedly killed in their car by Blackwater operatives in Afghanistan in May?

Also, lets remember that Blackwater—headed by a man described in a sworn statement by a former employee as “view[ing] himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe”— is itself a twisted faith-based organization—and a very violent one at that.

Then there is this course in Session III: “Teaches rules of the road and includes specific driving techniques for a specific region.” I can just imagine what goes on during this course: If you are trying to convert Muslims in a Muslim country and some Muslims happen to come near you, “‘lay [the] Hajiis out on cardboard’ as ‘payback for 9/11.’”

In Session I there is a course that purportedly “Describes the criminal mindset.” Well, that’s something Blackwater knows a lot about. I hope they assign, as part of the curriculum, the US Justice Department’s 34-count indictment of Blackwater forces for the Nisour Square massacre.

posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

The Religious Right In 2009: Less Pious, More Partisan

Rocky — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 19:04:26 GMT

The Religious Right In 2009: Less Pious, More Partisan

"An Americans United Special Report Fundamentalist Political Movement Focuses On Defeating Obama Health-Care Proposals; Electing Republicans To Congress, White House

September 15, 2009

Religious Right leaders and activists will meet in Washington, D.C., at the end of the week for their first major gathering since President Barack Obama took office. These fundamentalist forces have an ambitious - and highly partisan - political agenda that ultimately seeks to merge religion and government."

http://www.au.org/homepage/features/archive/2009/less-pious-more-partisan/

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

AU Denounces Arizona Preacher’s Death Prayers Against Obama

Rocky — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:59:00 GMT

AU Denounces Arizona Preacher’s Death Prayers Against Obama

"Americans United for Separation of Church and State today denounced the violent rhetoric of an Arizona preacher who is praying for the death of President Barack Obama and called on Religious Right leaders to repudiate such extremism.

The Rev. Steven Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church told his Tempe, Ariz., congregation he prays that Obama “dies and goes to hell.” In an Aug. 16 sermon that recently came to public attention, Anderson said, “If you want to know how I’d like to see Obama die, I’d like him to die of natural causes. I don’t want him to be a martyr, we don't need another holiday. I'd like to see him die, like Ted Kennedy, of brain cancer.”

http://www.au.org/media/press-releases/archives/2009/09/au-denounces-arizona.html

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Illinois May Not Fund Religion

Rocky — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:56:59 GMT

Illinois May Not Fund Religion

"Americans United for Separation of Church and State today challenged Illinois state government’s plan to distribute millions of dollars in state funds to religious organizations.

In a letter to the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, Americans United insisted that the Constitution clearly forbids the use of public funds to subsidize religion.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn recently signed an infrastructure-improvement bill allocating $40 million in grants to at least 97 religious organizations within the state. The bill fails to place any restrictions on these organizations’ use of the funds. "

http://www.au.org/media/press-releases/archives/2009/08/illinois-may-not-fund.html

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Texas public schools required to teach Bible this year

Rocky — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 19:23:19 GMT

Texas public schools required to teach Bible this year
http://www.kltv.com/global/story.asp?s=10933571

Jeff Sharlet guess on the Freedom From Religion Foundation radio show

http://cdn2.libsyn.com/ffrf/FTradio_173_081509.mp3?nvb=20090818191152&nva=20090819192152&t=02d3fc8a45700db2b8ae2

http://www.ffrf.org/radio/

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posted in Separation of church and state - 1 reply

"The ABCs of C Street"

Rocky — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 19:26:34 GMT

"The ABCs of C Street"

All in the family Behind the scandal-tainted C Street house is an organization big on protecting its own and small on church ties and theology | Emily Belz, Edward Lee Pitts

"WASHINGTON, D.C.—The national press for the past two months has roasted "hypocritical" Christians who live in or meet in a ministry-owned house on C Street two blocks from the U.S. Capitol. Nevada Sen. John Ensign and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, both talked about this spring as potential GOP presidential candidates in 2012, have acknowledged adulterous relationships. Last month a lawsuit in Jackson, Miss., served notice that former Rep. Chip Pickering, also a Republican, may have carried on in the C Street house an illicit affair with a former college love interest (see "Alienation of affection").

Sustained media attention has focused on whether the C Street house conclaves had contributed to or condoned the breaking of marital vows: Just what was in the water at C Street to prompt the three—all GOP political and social conservatives who a decade ago called for former President Bill Clinton's resignation—to fall into similar scandals of their own?

Please read the full article - http://www.worldmag.com/articles/15778

"C Street House" Republican house run by weird, secretive Christian fellowship " ... Jeff Sharlett, author of "The Family" and Rachel Maddow discuss the secretive Republican "C Street House" run by bizarre conservative Christian group."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGWu-kBLDu8

The Christian Mafia - American Theocracy?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3npWdChcGo

Jeff Sharlet on the Daily Show
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-august-12-2009/jeff-sharlet

Jeff Sharlet on Democracy Now!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq4i9MCT-ms

Jeff Sharlet guess on the Freedom From Religion Foundation radio show

http://cdn2.libsyn.com/ffrf/FTradio_173_081509.mp3?nvb=20090818191152&nva=20090819192152&t=02d3fc8a45700db2b8ae2

http://www.ffrf.org/radio/

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Islam in Action

Rocky — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 17:19:20 GMT

Islam in Action
http://islamreality.wordpress.com

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Chuck Norris Takes on FFRF & “In God We Trust”

Rocky — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:33:17 GMT

Chuck Norris Takes on FFRF
http://friendlyatheist.com/2009/07/21/chuck-norris-takes-on-ffrf/

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=104477

The House approved engraving “In God We Trust” in the Capitol Visitors Center. The Freedom From Religion Foundation is suing to prevent the engraving of the new $621 million taxpayer-provided Capitol Visitors Center, or CVC, in Washington, D.C.

Chuck Norris, however, is pissed off.

Atheists sue to keep 'In God We Trust' off Capitol Visitor Center
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/309/v-print/story/72058.html

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posted in Separation of church and state - 3 replies

Lying for Jesus

Erik — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 08:57:36 GMT

Washington's 'C Street House' provides cheap rent, is registered as a church, and is run by a shadowy Washington based association known as "The Family" or "The Fellowship." The group and its activities, the subject of a 2008 book by journalist Jeff Sharlet, has over the summer of 2009 become notorious as a string of sex scandals has enveloped three national politicians who have lived at the C Street House or gone to Bible study classes there: South Carolina Republican Governor Mark Sanford, Nevada GOP Senator John Ensign, and former Republican Congressman Charles "Chip" Pickering.

According to a July 20th story from Politico.com, Virginia Congressman James "Randy" Forbes (R-VA) attends Bible study groups at the C Street House. But Forbes is less preoccupied with extramarital sex, it would so far seem, than with a crusade to turn America into a "Christian nation" by overwriting and falsifying the US historical record.

While high-profile mass media journalists such as MSNBC's Rachel Maddow have recently begun giving The Family, the C Street House, and Jeff Sharlet's research some long overdue scrutiny, another aspect of The Family's activities has been almost entirely overlooked; its promotion of fake American history, falsified to justify claims that the United States was originally founded as a Christian nation.

Symbolic of that is a fabricated George Washington quote, known as "Washington's Prayer", that for decades has been incorporated into the program of the National Prayer Breakfast, an event held by The Family every year since President Dwight D. Eisenhower attended the first National Prayer Breakfast event in 1953.

On December 8, 2007, Randy Forbes introduced a House resolution, H. Res. 888, that purported to promote "education on America's history of religious faith." In fact, the resolution was packed with 75 assertions, most of which amounted to lies and distortions of the American historical record.

www.dailykos.com/storyonly...Resolution

Family men are more than hypocritical. They're followers of a political religion that embraces elitism, disdains democracy, and pursues power for its members the better to "advance the Kingdom." They say they're working for Jesus, but their Christ is a power-hungry, inside-the-Beltway savior not many churchgoers would recognize. Sexual peccadilloes aside, the Family acts today like the most powerful lobby in America that isn't registered as a lobby -- and is thus immune from the scrutiny attending the other powerful organizations like Big Pharma and Big Insurance that exert pressure on public policy.

The Family likes to call itself a "Christian Mafia," but it began 74 years ago as an anti-New Deal coalition of businessmen convinced that organized labor was under the sway of Satan. The Great Depression, they believed, was a punishment from God for what they viewed as FDR's socialism. The Family's goal was the "consecration" of America to God, first through the repeal of New Deal reforms, then through the aggressive expansion of American power during the Cold War. They called this a "Worldwide Spiritual Offensive," but in Washington, it amounted to the nation's first fundamentalist lobby. Early participants included Southern Sens. Strom Thurmond, Herman Talmadge and Absalom Willis Robertson -- Pat Robertson's father. Membership lists stored in the Family's archive at the Billy Graham Center at evangelical Wheaton College in Illinois show active participation at any given time over the years by dozens of congressmen.

Today's roll call is just as impressive: Men under the Family's religio-political counsel include, in addition to Ensign, Coburn and Pickering, Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham, both R-S.C.; James Inhofe, R-Okla., John Thune, R-S.D., and recent senators and high officials such as John Ashcroft, Ed Meese, Pete Domenici and Don Nickles. Over in the House there's Joe Pitts, R-Penn., Frank Wolf, R-Va., Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., Ander Crenshaw, R-Fla., Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., and John R. Carter, R-Texas. Historically, the Family has been strongly Republican, but it includes Democrats, too. There's Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, for instance, a vocal defender of putting the Ten Commandments in public places, and Sen. Mark Pryor, the pro-war Arkansas Democrat responsible for scuttling Obama's labor agenda. Sen. Pryor explained to me the meaning of bipartisanship he'd learned through the Family: "Jesus didn't come to take sides. He came to take over." And by Jesus, the Family means the Family.

Family leaders consider their political network to be Christ's avant garde, an elite that transcends not just conventional morality but also earthly laws regulating lobbying. In the Family's early days, they debated registering as "a lobby for God's Kingdom." Instead, founder Abraham Vereide decided that the group could be more effective by working personally with politicians. "The more invisible you can make your organization," Vereide's successor, current leader Doug Coe preaches, "the more influence you can have." That's true -- which is why we have laws requiring lobbyists to identify themselves as such.

www.salon.com/news/featur...t/index.html

posted in Separation of church and state - 2 replies

Freethought Examiner Articles

Rocky — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:08:59 GMT

Freethought Examiner Articles

http://www.examiner.com/x-17009-Freethought-Examiner

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Islamist Assault on the U.S. Constitution

Rocky — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:02:59 GMT

Islamist Assault on the U.S. Constitution

"This past weekend, a fanatical Islamist group, Hizb ut Tahrir, which calls itself a "Global Islamic Political Party," convened at the Hilton Hotel in Chicago in order to rally the jihadi troups to overthrow the U.S. Constitution and to impose Islamic sharia law, with all its oppression, brutality and censorship........"

Read the full article:

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-17009-Freethought-Examiner~y2009m7d22-Islamist-Asault-on-the-US-Constitution

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posted in Separation of church and state - 5 replies

President Includes Nonbelievers in Vision of America

Hummingbird — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 12:20:17 GMT

This will give those delusional people called the birthers more fits of maddness:

"I think that the right might worry a bit more about the dangers of sectarianism. Whatever we once were, we're no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers. We should acknowledge this and realize that when we're formulating policies from the state house to the Senate floor to the White House, we've got to work to translate our reasoning into values that are accessible to every one of our citizens, not just members of our own faith community."

www.cbn.com/CBNnews/204016.aspx

posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Freethought Gear

Rocky — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 23:11:42 GMT

Here's some pretty cool T-shirts, hats, mugs etc.

Freethought Gear

http://www.cafepress.com/freethoughtgear

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Islamo-Fascism and Nonie Darwish Come to Purdue

Rocky — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:51:21 GMT

Islamo-Fascism and Nonie Darwish Come to Purdue

"Purdue University flirts with the limits of Free Speech rights on campus. Nonie Darwish speaks out against obviously hate-filled and oppressive ideas of Sharia law. Her audience does a better job of showing the hate-filled nature of Islamo-fascim than she does. "

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ9yqHV5I-M

What's scary is that this is happen all across the country and the net.

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posted in Separation of church and state - 3 replies

Marriage tribe - open to all.

Stew — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:32:56 GMT

http://tribes.tribe.net/65ca4bde-0272-47ba-9837-297a41b8d9dd?_click_path=Application%5Btribe%5D.Tribe%5B65ca4bde-0272-47ba-9837-297a41b8d9dd%5D

Feel free to join to discuss marriage.

posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Secular Coalition: Sean Faircloth new executive director

Rocky — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 02:57:17 GMT

Secular Coalition: Sean Faircloth new executive director

"June 4 - The Secular Coalition for America, the nation's leading nontheistic advocacy group, proudly announced the selection of Sean Faircloth as its new executive director today. Faircloth has been a vocal champion for the separation of church and state throughout his decade of service as an elected official in the Maine Legislature.

"It's a privilege to work for an organization so in line with my beliefs," said Faircloth. "I've witnessed the very real harm that can occur when Enlightenment principles of reason are abandoned and secular government is undermined. I look forward to representing the Secular Coalition in standing up for the rights of the millions of nontheists in America."

Secular Coalition for America Hires Sean Faircloth as Executive Director
http://www.secular.org/news/Secular_Coalition_Hires_Faircloth.html

A message from Executive Director Sean Faircloth
http://www.secular.org/news/1st_message_from_Sean_Faircloth.html

http://www.secular.org/news/Secular_Coalition_Hires_Faircloth.html

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

New Rules: A Religious Test with Bill Maher

Rocky — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:10:36 GMT

New Rules: A Religious Test with Bill Maher

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tVwiGzJq2k&feature=related

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

White House: New Milestone for Nontheists

Rocky — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:33:09 GMT

White House Meeting Marks New Milestone for Nontheists

"June 1, 2009 - The nontheist movement reached a new milestone when the Secular Coalition for America had its first individual meeting with White House officials last week. Although the Secular Coalition had met with White House officials before, this meeting was significant as it was the first private meeting focused solely on nontheists' interests.

The discussion, held with White House Associate Director of Public Engagement Paul Monteiro, gave Secular Coalition representatives the opportunity to highlight what policy issues concern nontheists most. Specifics topics addressed were coercive religious proselytizing in the military, the faith-based initiatives, and employment discrimination.

As the broadest and most diverse advocacy group for nontheists, the Secular Coalition has the credibility to provide our nation’s leaders with an understanding of nontheists' political and cultural interests. More importantly, this meeting is evidence that nontheists are becoming an influential and increasingly organized constituency, and that elected officials want to take our concerns into account.

The goal of the Secular Coalition has always been to increase the visibility of and respect for nontheists in America. This meeting was one small step for the Secular Coalition, but it was a significant leap for nontheists everywhere."

http://www.secular.org/news/WhiteHouseMay09.html

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posted in Separation of church and state - 3 replies

Motion to dismiss AIG-Shariah lawsuit DENIED

Rocky — Sat, 30 May 2009 14:34:46 GMT

Motion to dismiss AIG-Shariah lawsuit DENIED

US District Ct of Michigan denies USG's motion to dismiss AIG-Shariah lawsuit

May 26, 2009

"In an extremely well-written and soundly analyzed opinion, Judge Lawrence P. Zatkoff of the US District Court for the Eastern District Court of Michigan, has denied the U.S. government's motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed by Kevin Murray. (The full opinion may be downloaded above from this entry's unique url.) Mr. Murray, who is represented by legal counsel David Yerushalmi and the Thomas More Law Center (Richard Thompson and Robert Muise), filed a federal complaint against the Treasury Secretary, representing the U.S. Treasury, and the Federal Reserve Board alleging that AIG's promotion of Shariah in its Shariah-compliant insurance products violates the Establishment Clause because the federal government owns and controls 80% of AIG and AIG's actions have become the government's.

The government filed its motion to dismiss making two arguments. One, Mr. Murray, as a former combat Marine, practicing Catholic, and tax payer, did not have standing to even bring this lawsuit. Two, even if he did have standing, the government acted in buying AIG without any intent to promote or become involved in religious questions.

The Court spent much of its opinion reciting the law on the narrow exception to the no-tax-payer-standing rule. That exception is triggered in a claim of a violation of the Establishment Clause and when there is a specific legislative grant for spending that implicates the First Amendment. The Court carefully reviewed all of the relevant case law and found the argument made by Messrs. Yerushalmi and Muise in their brief persuasive.

On the second issue, the Court put together all of the facts as presented by the Plaintiff's brief and concluded:

Quote:
"In this case, the fact that AIG is largely a secular entity is not dispositive: “The question in an as-applied challenge is not whether the entity is of a religious character, but how it spends its grant.” Kendrick, 487 U.S. at 624–25 (Kennedy J., concurring). The circumstances of this case are historic, and the pressure upon the government to navigate this financial crisis is unfathomable. Times of crisis, however, do not justify departure from the Constitution. In this case, the United States government has a majority interest in AIG. AIG utilizes consolidated financing whereby all funds flow through a single port to support all of its activities, including Sharia-compliant financing. Pursuant to the EESA, the government has injected AIG with tens of billions of dollars, without restricting or tracking how this considerable sum of money is spent. At least two of AIG’s subsidiary companies practice Sharia-compliant financing, one of which was unveiled after the influx of government cash. After using the $40 billion from the government to pay down the $85 billion credit facility, the credit facility retained $60 billion in available credit, suggesting that AIG did not use all $40 billion consistent with its press release. Finally, after the government acquired a majority interest in AIG and contributed substantial funds to AIG for operational purposes, the government co-sponsored a forum entitled “Islamic Finance 101.” These facts, taken together, raise a question of whether the government’s involvement with AIG has created the effect of promoting religion and sufficiently raise Plaintiff’s claim beyond the speculative level, warranting dismissal inappropriate at this stage in the proceedings."
end quote

We reached out to Messrs. Yerushalmi and Muise in a conference call. They both were quite obviously pleased by the well-reasoned opinion. They also said, almost in perfect unison: "There is not a fact in the complaint we cannot prove." Mr. Yerushalmi added, "This case is going to send a loud and reverberating alarm in Washington and in the financial world which is now running full speed and blindly to embrace Shariah-compliant finance."

When the case was first filed, arm-chair First Amendment lawyers (meaning law professors who opine while gathering wood splinters writing arcane law review articles and shotgun blog entries) almost unanimously concluded this case had zero chance to survive a motion to dismiss. Turns out they were wrong. Way wrong.

Indeed, Thomas C. Baxter, Jr., the legal counsel to the New York Federal Reserve, was a participant in a day-long conference at Fordham University's law school entitled, "Islamic Law and Financial Symposium," on February 23, 2009. After he gave the standard rah-rah Shariah finance is a win-win, someone from the audience asked him about the lawsuit. His answer: "While I will not comment on pending litigation, what I can say is that we are absolutely certain that the court will dispense with it very expeditiously."

Ooops!

Maybe it is time for Mr. Baxter and the other government lawyers to enroll in Mr. Yerushalmi's newly published on line continuing legal education (CLE) course designed for financial institution compliance officers, SEC lawyers, Treasury officials, and investors, on the civil liability and criminal exposure risks associated with Shariah-compliant finance (available here.) Maybe then the Baxters of the world could offer their learned opinions rather than just the standard arrogant hot air of a government bureaucrat who insists the government can do no wrong."

http://www.saneworks.us/US-District-Ct-of-Michigan-denies-USGs-motion-to-dismiss-AIGShariah-lawsuit-newsblog-2628.htm

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posted in Separation of church and state - 1 reply

IRS Should Review Liberty University’s Tax-Exempt Status

Rocky — Thu, 28 May 2009 17:40:48 GMT

IRS Should Review Liberty University’s Tax-Exempt Status For Partisan Politicking, Says Americans United

Watchdog Group Tells Tax Agency Falwell-Founded School Is Showing Preference For Republicans By Curbing Student Democratic Club

May 27, 2009

Americans United for Separation of Church and State today asked the Internal Revenue Service to review the tax-exempt status of Liberty University in the wake of the school’s decision to yank official recognition of a student-run Democratic club.

Last week, Liberty officials informed the president of the Democratic club that it is no longer eligible for university recognition, including funding through student activity fees. The goals of the Democratic Party, school officials insisted, are contrary to Liberty’s evangelical Christian outlook."

http://www.au.org/media/press-releases/archives/2009/05/irs-should-review-liberty.html

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posted in Separation of church and state - 1 reply

FFRF National Day of Prayer Case Proceeds

Rocky — Sat, 30 May 2009 14:19:12 GMT

May 29, 2009

"Although the Freedom From Religion Foundation membership doesn't believe in prayer, especially government prayer, its federal lawsuit against the National Day of Prayer now "has a prayer."javascript:document.postTopicForm.submit()

U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb of the western district of Wisconsin, in an opinion and order issued on Tuesday, denied motions to dismiss the Freedom From Religion Foundation's far-reaching legal challenge of National Day of Prayer proclamations. Denied were motions to dismiss filed by defendants Pres. Barack Obama, press secretary Robert Gibbs and Shirley Dobson, of the National Day of Prayer Taskforce.

"We are absolutely delighted that the courthouse door has not been slammed on the Foundation, and that we will be permitted to plead our significant case," said Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, Foundation co-presidents.

Also seeking dismissal of the Foundation challenge was Pat Robertson's legal arm, the American Center for Law & Justice, which filed an amicus brief on behalf of 31 members of Congress.*

The federal government claimed that the "National Day of Prayer has a secular purpose." The U.S. Attorney General's office "trotted out everything but the kitchen sink in attempting to rationalize this union between government and religion," Gaylor said.

"Most insulting was the government's patently false claim that 'the tradition of a National Day of Prayer dates to the founding of our country,' " added Barker.

Congress enacted a law in 1952, at the behest of Rev. Billy Graham, requiring the president to issue an annual prayer proclamation. Congress claimed in the legislative record that the founders prayed during the Constitutional Convention that adopted the secular Constitution.

"This is absolutely untrue, and the White House brief perpetuates this myth, and makes many other claims based on bad history," said Gaylor. "We're going to set the record straight." ................

FFRF Legal Complaint & initial press release

http://www.ffrf.org/news/2009/NDPcaseproceeds.php

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Obama's Supreme Court Nominee why not a FREETHINKER

Rocky — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:24:34 GMT

Obama's Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor

Bio - http://www.fjc.gov/servlet/tGetInfo?jid=2243

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Sotomayor#Abortion

The New Republic
The Case Against Sotomayor by Jeffrey Rosen
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=45d56e6f-f497-4b19-9c63-04e10199a085

So she's certainly qualified but she's another Catholic (she would be the 6th Catholic), so she's totally against abortion but where is she on ILLEGAL immigration, amnesty and religion?

Why do we need another Catholic - why not a Freethinker? We haven't had a Freethinker on the Supreme Court since 1877.

Justice Affiliation
John Roberts (Chief Justice) Catholic
Stephen G. Breyer Jewish
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Jewish
Anthony M. Kennedy Catholic
Antonin Scalia Catholic
David H. Souter Episcopalian
John Paul Stevens Protestant
Clarence Thomas Catholic
Samuel Alito Catholic

http://www.adherents.com/adh_sc.html

The Supreme Court needs an atheist
http://www.examiner.com/x-8928-Philadelphia-Atheism-Examiner~y2009m5d1-The-Supreme-Court-needs-an-atheist

Religious Affiliation of the U.S. Supreme Court

In the chart at the bottom about half way down:

"David Davis, Ill. 1862-1877 14 Md. 1815 1886 Not a member of any church"

http://www.adherents.com/adh_sc.html

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posted in Separation of church and state - 3 replies

U.S. Supreme Court Religious Affiliation

Rocky — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 15:37:52 GMT

Religious Affiliation of the U.S. Supreme Court

Justice / Affiliation

William H. Rehnquist - Lutheran
Stephen G. Breyer - Jewish
Ruth Bader Ginsburg - Jewish
Anthony M. Kennedy - Catholic
Sandra Day O'Connor - Episcopalian
Antonin Scalia - Catholic
David H. Souter - Episcopalian
John Paul Stevens - Protestant
Clarence Thomas - Catholic

( John Roberts, if nominated is Catholic )

http://www.adherents.com/adh_sc.html

p.s.

Scroll down to the very bottom to get the religious affiliation on every Supreme Justice throughout US history (Take note that there has only been ONE non-believer & that was in 1862-1877 ) & ...

* Religious Affiliation of U.S. Congress
* Religious Affiliation of U.S. Presidents
* Religious Affiliation of U.S. Vice-Presidents
* Religious Affiliation of U.S. Governors

-----

Where are the Freethinkers on the Supreme Court?

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posted in Separation of church and state - 10 replies

US is 'battling Satan' says general

Rocky — Tue, 26 May 2009 01:36:27 GMT

Remember this from October, 2003?

US is 'battling Satan' says general

"US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has declined to criticise a senior army officer who told audiences the war on terrorism is a battle with Satan. Evangelical Christian Lieutenant-General William G Boykin was also quoted as saying a Muslim warlord in Somalia had an "idol" for a God. "
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3199212.stm

Here's his Wicked pedia page:

Lt. General William Boykin

"He has gained notoriety for his Christian Fundamentalist views over the last few years and some public remarks. Boykin is a born-again Christian, who has cast the "War on Terror" in Biblical terms. A Pentagon investigation concluded in 2004 that he had violated regulations by failing to explain these remarks were not made in an official capacity."

"Boykin achieved wide-spread media coverage for his statements that appeared to frame the War on Terror in religious terms, first broadcast on NBC News, October 15, 2003 [12]. William Arkin,[13] military analyst for NBC-TV News, was the source of the video and audiotapes of Boykin. The following day the Los Angeles Times ran a piece on Boykin. Amongst several quotes, the LA Times article revealed Boykin giving a speech about hunting down Osman Atto in Mogadishu: "He went on CNN and he laughed at us, and he said, 'They'll never get me because Allah will protect me. Allah will protect me.' Well, you know what? I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol." [14] Boykin later clarified this statement, saying that he was implying that Atto's true "god" was money."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_G._Boykin#Religious_views_and_comments

"Ladies and gentleman, this is your enemy," Boykin said to the congregation as he flashed his pictures on a screen. "It is the principalities of darkness It is a demonic presence in that city that God revealed to me as the enemy."

That's an unusual message for a high-ranking U.S. military official to deliver. But Boykin does it frequently.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1016-08.htm

What has he been up to lately? Well, check it out ...

"Lt. General William G. Boykin" Testimony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn2S94CsGIE

As you see, nothing has changed a bit

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posted in Separation of church and state - 1 reply

Bill Erecting A Religious Monument At The State Capitol

Rocky — Tue, 12 May 2009 19:34:25 GMT

Bill Erecting A Religious Monument At The State Capitol

Americans United Urges Oklahoma Governor To Veto Ten Commandments Bill Erecting A Religious Monument At The State Capitol Would Violate The Constitution, AU’s Lynn Warns

May 11, 2009

"Americans United for Separation of Church and State today advised Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry to veto a legislative measure that would authorize a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the state Capitol.

“The Ten Commandments are a sacred text in the Jewish and Christian faiths, but not for all Oklahomans,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “The government cannot endorse one religious belief over others, nor can it prefer religion over non-religion. The legislature did exactly that when it approved this monument, and it’s begging for a legal challenge.

“Moreover, there are significant differences in the text and meaning of the Commandments even for Christians and Jews,” Lynn continued. “Should the state really be in the business of debating these theological differences? I don’t think so.”

If you live in Oklahoma, Urge Gov. Henry to VETO HB 1330! "

http://www.au.org/media/press-releases/archives/2009/05/au-urges-oklahoma-governor-to.html

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Senate approves bill to mark 'Islam Day'

Rocky — Fri, 08 May 2009 23:52:55 GMT

Senate approves bill to mark 'Islam Day'

"HONOLULU — Hawaii's state Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Wednesday to celebrate "Islam Day" — over the objections of a few lawmakers who said they didn't want to honor a religion connected to Sept. 11, 2001. The Senate's two Republicans argued that a minority of Islamic extremists have killed many innocents in terrorist attacks.

"I recall radical Islamists around the world cheering the horrors of 9/11. That is the day all civilized people of all religions should remember," said Republican Sen. Fred Hemmings to the applause of more than 100 people gathered in the Senate to oppose a separate issue — same-sex civil unions. The resolution to proclaim Sept. 24, 2009, as Islam Day passed the Senate on a 22-3 vote. It had previously passed the House."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jVdzTzS1jB4Ub5CxvFnH0Jnma9aAD9813Q8G0

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posted in Separation of church and state - 2 replies

Saudi Judge: Slapping Your Spendthrift Wife Is OK

timrayborn — Mon, 11 May 2009 22:05:28 GMT

More fun and games from everybody's favorite theocracy, er, "ally."

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — A Saudi judge told a conference on domestic violence that a man has the right to slap a wife who spends money wastefully and said women were as much to blame as men for increased spousal abuse, a Saudi newspaper reported.

The remarks do not carry the weight of law, as they were made out of court. But such public pronouncements by Saudi judges _ who are also Islamic clerics _ are often widely respected.

A rights activist decried the remarks and said she and other campaigners viewed them as the latest setback in women's efforts to gain the right to vote, drive, freely participate in politics and be protected from violence. Activists have become more vocal in recent years in their criticism of cases involving women's rights, including what many see as the religious police's harsh enforcement of the segregation of sexes.

"If a person gives 1,200 Saudi riyals ($320) to his wife and she spends 900 riyals ($240) to purchase an abaya (head-to-toe robe) from a brand shop and if her husband slaps her on the face as a reaction to her action, she deserves that punishment," Judge Hamad Al-Razine was quoted as saying by the English-language Arab News newspaper on Sunday.

The comments at a recent conference were given as part of an explanation for an increase in domestic violence in the country. The judge said women were equally responsible for the increase, the newspaper quoted him as saying.

The paper did not say exactly when the conference was held. The judge could not be reached for comment on Monday.

Women in the audience loudly protested the judge's remarks, the newspaper said.

Saudi Arabia bars women from voting, except for chamber of commerce elections in two cities in recent years, and no woman can sit in the kingdom's Cabinet. Women also cannot drive or travel without permission from a male guardian.

Sohaila Zenelabideen Hammad, spokeswoman of the Saudi National Center for Human Rights, told the Associated Press on Monday that the judge's remarks are reason for concern for being "too extreme."

"It is not acceptable, it is even forbidden in Islam to beat a woman on her face. ... No matter what the woman does, the man has no right whatsoever and under any circumstances to beat his wife on the face," said Hammad, who was not at the conference.

"Regrettably, there is a common understanding in the Arab and Islamic world that man is the master who looks down on the woman and has the right to do whatever he wants to her. This is wrong," Hammad said.

She said she was to attend a meeting later Monday with members of UNICEF, the U.N. agency for children, to discuss the issue.

___

Associated Press Writer Omar Sinan contributed to this report from Cairo.

posted in Separation of church and state - 2 replies

More Right Wing Fail And, They Are Getting Called On It.

Enrika — Fri, 08 May 2009 08:10:34 GMT

I thought this was really interesting.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/5/7/728896/-More-Right-Wing-Fail-And,-They-Are-Getting-Called-On-It.

posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

40 Million Nonbelievers in the U.S.?--Article

Hummingbird — Wed, 06 May 2009 01:25:27 GMT

http://www.alternet.org/rights/139788/

posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

An Alarming Attack on Free Speech

Hummingbird — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:31:05 GMT

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/corbett-religion-court-2387684-farnan-selna

posted in Separation of church and state - 2 replies

Proposed 'Christian' License Plates In Florida May Spark Lawsuit

Rocky — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:43:44 GMT

Proposed 'Christian' License Plates In Florida May Spark Lawsuit

April 27, 2009

"Americans United for Separation of Church and State has urged the Florida Senate to reject a bill creating two “Christian” license plates for state motorists and warned that a lawsuit may result if the measure becomes law.

SB 642 mandates issuance of a plate depicting the crucified head of Jesus complete with a crown of thorns. It also mandates a second plate featuring a large cross, a stained-glass church window and the words “I Believe.”

“These plates clearly violate the Constitution and basic fairness,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director. “It’s wrong for the legislature to favor one faith over others. If this bill passes, it is almost certain to provoke a lawsuit.

http://www.au.org/site/DocServer/2009-04-26_-_FL_Crucifix_Plate.pdf?docID=4141

http://www.au.org/site/News2?abbr=pr&page=NewsArticle&id=10417

posted in Separation of church and state - 1 reply

Silencing criticsim of religion around the world

timrayborn — Fri, 01 May 2009 16:45:24 GMT

The Free World Bars Free Speech

By Jonathan Turley
Sunday, April 12, 2009; B03

For years, the Western world has listened aghast to stories out of Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations of citizens being imprisoned or executed for questioning or offending Islam. Even the most seemingly minor infractions elicit draconian punishments. Late last year, two Afghan journalists were sentenced to prison for blasphemy because they translated the Koran into a Farsi dialect that Afghans can read. In Jordan, a poet was arrested for incorporating Koranic verses into his work. And last week, an Egyptian court banned a magazine for running a similar poem.

But now an equally troubling trend is developing in the West. Ever since 2006, when Muslims worldwide rioted over newspaper cartoons picturing the prophet Muhammad, Western countries, too, have been prosecuting more individuals for criticizing religion. The "Free World," it appears, may be losing faith in free speech.

Among the new blasphemers is legendary French actress Brigitte Bardot, who was convicted last June of "inciting religious hatred" for a letter she wrote in 2006 to then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, saying that Muslims were ruining France. It was her fourth criminal citation for expressing intolerant views of Muslims and homosexuals. Other Western countries, including Canada and Britain, are also cracking down on religious critics.

Emblematic of the assault is the effort to pass an international ban on religious defamation supported by United Nations General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann. Brockmann is a suspended Roman Catholic priest who served as Nicaragua's foreign minister in the 1980s under the Sandinista regime, the socialist government that had a penchant for crushing civil liberties before it was tossed out of power in 1990. Since then, Brockmann has literally embraced such free-speech-loving figures as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whom he wrapped in a bear hug at the U.N. last year.

The U.N. resolution, which has been introduced for the past couple of years, is backed by countries such as Saudi Arabia, one of the most repressive nations when it comes to the free exercise of religion. Blasphemers there are frequently executed. Most recently, the government arrested author Hamoud Bin Saleh simply for writing about his conversion to Christianity.

While it hasn't gone so far as to support the U.N. resolution, the West is prosecuting "religious hatred" cases under anti-discrimination and hate-crime laws. British citizens can be arrested and prosecuted under the 2006 Racial and Religious Hatred Act, which makes it a crime to "abuse" religion. In 2008, a 15-year-old boy was arrested for holding up a sign reading "Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult" outside the organization's London headquarters. Earlier this year, the British police issued a public warning that insulting Scientology would now be treated as a crime.

No question, the subjects of such prosecutions are often anti-religious -- especially anti-Muslim -- and intolerant. Consider far-right Austrian legislator Susanne Winter. She recently denounced Mohammad as a pedophile for his marriage to 6-year-old Aisha, which was consummated when she was 9. Winter also suggested that Muslim men should commit bestiality rather than have sex with children. Under an Austrian law criminalizing "degradation of religious doctrines," the 51-year-old politician was sentenced in January to a fine of 24,000 euros ($31,000) and a three-month suspended prison term.

But it is the speech, not the speaker, that's at issue. As insulting and misinformed as views like Winter's may be, free speech is not limited to non-offensive subjects. The purpose of free speech is to be able to challenge widely held views.

Yet there is a stream of cases similar to Winter's coming out of various countries:

In May 2008, Dutch prosecutors arrested cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot for insulting Christians and Muslims with a cartoon that caricatured a Christian fundamentalist and a Muslim fundamentalist as zombies who meet at an anti-gay rally and want to marry.

Last September, Italian prosecutors launched an investigation of comedian Sabina Guzzanti for joking about Pope Benedict VXI. "In 20 years, [he] will be dead and will end up in hell, tormented by queer demons, and very active ones," she said at a rally.

In February, Rowan Laxton, an aide to British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, was arrested for "inciting religious hatred" when, watching news reports of Israel's bombardment of Gaza while exercising at his gym, he allegedly shouted obscenities about Israelis and Jews at the television.

Also in February, Britain barred controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders from entry because of his film "Fitna," which describes the Koran as a "fascist" book and Islam as a violent religion. Wilders was declared a "threat to public policy, public security or public health."

And in India, authorities arrested the editor and publisher of the newspaper the Statesman for running an article by British journalist Johann Hari in which he wrote, "I don't respect the idea that we should follow a 'Prophet' who at the age of 53 had sex with a 9-year-old girl, and ordered the murder of whole villages of Jews because they wouldn't follow him." In India, it is a crime to "outrage religious feelings."

History has shown that once governments begin to police speech, they find ever more of it to combat. Countries such as Canada, England and France have prosecuted speakers and journalists for criticizing homosexuals and other groups. It's the ultimate irony: free speech curtailed for the sake of a pluralistic society.

Even countries that the United States has helped liberate have joined the assault on free speech, rejecting the core values of our First Amendment. Afghan journalist Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh was sentenced to death under Sharia law last year just for downloading Internet material on the role of women in Islamic societies that authorities judged to be blasphemous. The provincial deputy attorney general, Hafizullah Khaliqyar, has been quoted as saying: "Journalists are supporting Kambakhsh. I will arrest any journalist trying to support him after this."

Not only does this trend threaten free speech, freedom of association and a free press, it even undermines free exercise of religion. Challenging the beliefs of other faiths can be part of that exercise. Countries such as Saudi Arabia don't prosecute blasphemers to protect the exercise of all religions but to protect one religion.

Religious orthodoxy has always lived in tension with free speech. Yet Western ideals are based on the premise that free speech contains its own protection: Good speech ultimately prevails over bad. There's no blasphemy among free nations, only orthodoxy and those who seek to challenge it.

After years of international scorn, the United States can claim the high ground by supporting the right of all to speak openly about religion. Otherwise, free speech in the West could die with hope of little more than a requiem Mass.

jturley@law.gwu.edu

Jonathan Turley is a law professor at George Washington University.

posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Convert Arrested For Marrying Christian in Egypt

timrayborn — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:20:11 GMT

ISTANBUL, April 23 (Compass Direct News) –

Christian convert Raheal Henen Mussa and her Coptic husband are hiding from police and her Muslim family for violating an article of Islamic law (sharia) that doesn’t exist in the Egyptian penal code. Police arrested Mussa, 22, on April 13 for marrying Sarwat George Ryiad in a customary marriage (zawag al ‘urfi), an unregistered form of matrimony in Egypt made without witnesses. Mussa’s family took her from police custody on Sunday (April 19), but she escaped from them on Tuesday (April 21). She and her husband fled Cairo and are in hiding.

According to a strict interpretation of sharia, Muslim women are not permitted to marry non-Muslim men, although the opposite is allowed, and Article 2 of the Egyptian Constitution stipulates that sharia is the basis for legislation. The two have not committed a crime according to Egyptian law since they didn’t seek official marriage status, but police and Mussa’s family are pursuing them because they violated Islamic law, advocacy groups say. “They have not violated the law, but the family and the police are applying their own unwritten law,” said Helmy Guirguis, president of the U.K. Coptic Association.

posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

The Christian Right Does Not Want You to See This Video

Hummingbird — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 22:36:56 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0dKMhYSX20&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fslog%2Ethestranger%2Ecom%2Fblogs%2Fslog%2F&feature=player_embedded

posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Obama's Top Legal Pick Supports Sharia

Rocky — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:21:14 GMT

Obama's Top Legal Pick Supports Sharia

"The Islamic catering, America destroying Obama is at it again. He has announced his pick for the State Department's top legal advisor. His pick is radical Harol Koh, who has stated that he has no problem allowing Sharia law into our US courts."

http://islaminaction08.blogspot.com/2009/03/obama-top-legal-pick-supports-sharia.html

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posted in Separation of church and state - 3 replies

RELIGULOUS on DVD Feb 17th

Rocky — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 02:03:14 GMT

RELIGULOUS will be out on DVD Feb 17th for around $20 US.

http://lionsgate.com/religulous/

http://www.religulousmovie.net/index2.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gxc0XEoQpQ

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posted in Separation of church and state - 3 replies

Tony Dungy Appointment To Obama Faith Council

Rocky — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:15:04 GMT

Americans United Issues Statement On Tony Dungy Appointment To Obama Faith Council Church-State Watchdog Group Expresses Disappointment At Selection

March 31, 2009

Americans United for Separation of Church and State today expressed disappointment at the Obama administration’s decision to ask former football coach Tony Dungy to serve on the president’s Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

“God & Country,” the religion blog of U.S. News & World Report, said today that Dungy has been asked to serve on the council, but he has not yet decided whether to do so.

Dungy, former coach of the Indianapolis Colts football team, has well-known ties with intolerant Religious Right groups. In 2007, for example, he spoke at a fund-raising dinner for the Indiana Family Institute, a James Dobson-affiliated group that opposes gay rights, reproductive rights and separation of church and state.

Said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United’s executive director, “I am surprised and disappointed that Dungy has been asked to serve on the council. His view that civil-marriage law should reflect religious doctrine is not in keeping with the Constitution.”

http://www.au.org/site/News2?abbr=pr&page=NewsArticle&id=10369

posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

"Flock of Dodos" - The Evolution vs. Intelligent Design Circus

Cush — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 01:11:43 GMT

Just got done watching a nifty little documentary titled, "Flock of Dodos." In just 80 minutes, it does a pretty great job of examining the current state of evolution and intelligent design. It reminded me quite a bit of Morgon Spurlock's stuff in its juxtaposition of serious topic and comedic tone.

It's definitely worth the rental:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800334/

http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Flock_of_Dodos/70076348?trkid=226870

posted in Separation of church and state - 1 reply

UN "Blasphemy Resolution"

Rocky — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 06:12:44 GMT

UN "Blasphemy Resolution"

UN Sets Dangerous Precedent with "Defamation of Religions" Resolutions

February 13,2009

"The basic human right to freedom of expression is increasingly under threat as countries introduce and enforce laws that have been wrongfully legitimized by numerous United Nations resolutions on "defamation of religions." In a statement sent to the UN Human Rights Council today, Freedom House and the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty strongly urged members of the council to reject any further resolutions when they meet in Geneva for the upcoming 10th Session March 2-27, and to further reject any attempts to create international instruments or mechanisms that would prohibit "defamation of religions."

The statement explains how such resolutions directly violate international law and can encourage countries to increase the repression of religious minorities, political dissidents and human rights advocates. It points to a 2008 joint report by two UN special rapporteurs that soundly rejects the premise that the rights of religious believers are violated by merely hearing statements critical of their faith: "Defamation of religions may offend people and hurt their religious feelings but it does not necessarily or at least directly result in a violation of their rights."

Several recent high-profile cases have highlighted the growing conflict between freedom of expression and so-called religious "defamation." This month, Indian authorities arrested the editor and the publisher of the Statesman, after Muslims protested the newspaper reprinting an article from the United Kingdom's Independent titled, "Why should I respect these oppressive religions?" The article decried the erosion of the right to criticize religions, including Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

In another case, Random House backed out of a deal last year to publish "The Jewel of Medina," a fictional novel about one of the wives of Muhammad citing concerns that "the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community" and that it could "incite acts of violence." In September, Gibson Books announced it would publish the book in the United Kingdom, but the publisher's home and office were fire bombed three weeks later. The book was eventually published in the United States by Beaufort Books.

"Although we are sympathetic to the stated goals of the resolutions of combating intolerance, racism, and religious hatred, we believe that such resolutions do not serve to achieve these goals but rather limit the ability of individuals to raise questions, concerns, and even criticisms at a time when people of all faiths need to engage in more, not less, dialogue," said Freedom House and the Becket Fund.

The full text of the statement follows:

Concern over UN Resolutions on "Combating Defamation of Religions"

1. On the occasion of the 10th Session of the Human Rights Council, Freedom House and the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty express concern over the resolutions on "combating defamation of religions" adopted by the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly since 1999[1]. We urge members of the Council to reject such resolutions in the future and further urge them to reject attempts to create international instruments or mechanisms that would prohibit "defamation of religions."

2. Although we are sympathetic to the stated goals of the resolutions of combating intolerance, racism, and religious hatred, we believe that such resolutions do not serve to achieve these goals but rather limit the ability of individuals to raise questions, concerns, and even criticisms at a time when people of all faiths need to engage in more, not less, dialogue. Moreover, we believe these resolutions directly violate existing international law regarding the fundamental freedoms of expression, thought, conscience and religion.

3. In particular, the resolutions should be rejected on the grounds that 1) the term "defamation of religions" is overly vague, open to abuse, and inconsistent with traditional defamation legislation; 2) the resolutions attempt to provide rights to a belief or idea rather than an individual or group of individuals in contradiction of existing international law; 3) the concept of "defamation of religions" restricts freedom of expression beyond accepted limitations defined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; 4) the concept of "defamation of religions" violates the universal right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; and 5) the concept of "defamation of religions" falsely equates religious belief with race.

Problems with the definition of "defamation of religions"

4. The term "defamation of religions" has not been clearly defined and is therefore subject to misuse and abuse. The legal term "defamation" is typically defined as the spreading of mistruths intended to harm an individual's reputation and livelihood. However, by attempting to apply such a definition to ideas or religious beliefs, which by their very nature conflict with opposing ideas or religious beliefs, it is impossible to evaluate whether ideas or religious beliefs represent truths or mistruths. As was noted in the Becket Fund's "Issues Brief for the OHCHR" of June 2008, "religions make conflicting truth claims and indeed the diversity of truth claims is something that religious freedom as a concept is designed to protect."[2] Thus, the concept of "defamation of religions" can be defined as the expression of ideas or beliefs that simply conflict with or offend the ideas of others.

5. Further, because the resolutions call on States to enact necessary legislation to prohibit the advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred, it would be left up to governments to define whether ideas expressed are offensive or, in the language of the resolution, "defame" a religious belief. Governments would thus be forced to pick and choose among competing faith claims.

6. In countries with domestic laws that use equally vague or poorly defined language to restrict individuals from "defaming" or "defiling" religions, the government often "picks" the majority religion over minority religions. These laws are frequently applied to punish individuals from expressing questions, concerns and criticisms of the majority religion.[3] The application of similar legal mechanisms at the international level would not only legitimate such existing problematic domestic legislation, but would result in a greater proliferation of such legislation to other countries.
Problems with providing rights to a belief or idea rather than individuals

7. International law regarding freedom of religion and expression, as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), has been established to protect individuals and in some case groups of individuals from the violation of their rights. Thus, Articles 18 of both the UDHR and the ICCPR states, "Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion." (Emphasis added.) Articles 19 of both documents define the right of "everyone" to freedom of opinion and expression free from interference. (Emphasis added.)

8. These documents lay out the right of individuals to hold and express beliefs and ideas and are designed to protect them from discrimination based on their beliefs. However, these documents are not intended to protect the beliefs themselves from criticism or even attack.

9. As the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief together with the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, xenophobia and related intolerance wrote in a joint report presented at a special seminar on this topic held by the OHCHR in October, 2008.

"Defamation of religions may offend people and hurt their religious feelings but it does not necessarily or at least directly result in a violation of their rights, including their right to freedom of religion. Freedom of religion primarily confers a right to act in accordance with one's religion but does not bestow a right for believers to have their religion itself protected from all adverse comment."[4]

Violations of freedom of expression

10. Article 19 of the ICCPR states that, "Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice."

11. The right to free expression and the right to impart information and ideas of all kinds is not intended to be absolute, but rather is restricted by Article 20 of the ICCPR, which calls on signatories to create law prohibiting the "advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence." While this language of the ICCPR is itself overly vague and could be better defined, it is our belief that the term "defamation"-because it can be interpreted so broadly-does not necessarily cross the line of inciting discrimination, hostility or violence.

12. In other words, because the definition of "defamation" can be interpreted to include ideas or beliefs that simply conflict with or offend the ideas of others, the term oversteps the restrictions on free expression laid out in international law and places unnecessary and dangerous restrictions on the ability of individuals to freely express conflicting beliefs or to address disagreements through peaceful public debate. Such restrictions will have the opposite effect of increasing religious intolerance and hatred than what the resolutions on "combating defamation of religions" are purportedly designed to combat.

Violations of freedom of thought, conscience, and religion

13. Article 18 of the ICCPR protects not only the freedom to have or adopt a particular religion or belief, but also protects an individual's freedom to manifest his religion or belief.[5] As stated in General Comment No. 22, the freedom to manifest religion includes the sharing of beliefs, thoughts, and ideas.[6] It is this right to manifest belief that allows for inter-religious dialogue efforts to occur within the walls of the UN and around the world. Initiatives like the UN's Alliance of Civilizations[7] and the Saudi Culture of Peace initiative rely upon the free exchange of ideas and beliefs. Yet such initiatives are in direct contradiction to the concept of "defamation of religions."

Conflation of Race and Religion

14. The conflation of race and religion diminishes the uniqueness of both race and religion. Unlike immutable race, religion involves the freedom to follow one's conscience, and implies dialogue and debate with others about the truth claims involved. Treating racial and religious discrimination as the same thing thus confuses racist hate speech with debate about (sometimes controversial) competing truth claims. Whereas one can easily identify and narrowly define racist hate speech, it is not nearly so simple to define what falls into the category of "defamation of religion," which as currently characterized can include any controversial truth claim about someone's religion. Race-based speech restrictions have never been used to cut off discussion about racial identity, whereas the "defamation of religion" measures by definition prohibit controversial discussion of religious belief.

Notes:

1. Commission on Human Rights Res. 1999/82, 2000/84, 2001/4, 2002/9, 2003/4, 2004/6, 2005/3; Human Rights Council Res. 4/9, 7/19; General Assembly Res. 60/150, 61/164, 62/154, 63/3.

2. "Combating Defamation of Religions," Becket Fund for Religious Liberty Issues Brief, p. 5 (submitted June 2, 2008).

3. In Egypt, bloggers, such as Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, have been arrested for posting criticisms of Islam. In Pakistan, defiling Islam is punishable by death and insulting another's religious feelings can result in a ten-year prison sentence. In Saudi Arabia, all Saudis are required by law to be Muslim. Source: Freedom in the World 2008, Freedom House (2008).
In Russia, television stations of have been sued for blasphemous content in the popular television show "South Park." Source: "Russian prosecutors in bid to ban South Park" The Times, September 8, 2008. Available at
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4704089.ece (February 1, 2009).

4. Asma Jahangir, Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief and Doudou Diene, Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, "Conference Room Paper #4," presented at the Expert seminar on the links between articles 19 and 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR): Freedom of expression and advocacy of religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (October 2-3, 2008).

5. ICCPR Article 18: "Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching."

6. CCPR General Comment 22: 30/07/93 on ICCPR Article 18: "The freedom to manifest religion or belief may be exercised 'either individually or in community with others and in public or private'. The freedom to manifest religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching encompasses a broad range of acts."

7. http://www.unaoc.org/content/view/63/79/lang,english/

http://newsblaze.com/story/20090213150511zzzz.nb/topstory.html

U.N. Anti-Blasphemy Resolution Curtails Free Speech, Critics Say http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,432502,00.html

posted in Separation of church and state - 13 replies

Christian Apologist: "ZEITGEIST is Right"

Rocky — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 18:58:43 GMT

A new blog:

Christian Apologist: "ZEITGEIST is Right"

http://tbknews.blogspot.com/2009/03/christian-apologist-zeitgeist-is-right.html

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Americans United Praises Arizona Supreme Court Ruling Against School Vouchers

Rocky — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:22:07 GMT

Americans United Praises Arizona Supreme Court Ruling Against School Vouchers
Church-State Watchdog Group Applauds State High Court For Blocking Tax Aid To Religious And Other Private Schools

March 25, 2009

Today’s Arizona Supreme Court decision striking down two school voucher programs is a welcome action that protects religious liberty and public education, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

The Arizona high court, ruling unanimously, said the voucher subsidies violate a provision of the Arizona Constitution barring tax funding of religious and other private schools.

“This important decision reflects our best traditions,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “It upholds the right of taxpayers to support only the religious institutions of their choice. Public funds should be spent at public schools.”

http://www.au.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=34561.0&dlv_id=22761

posted in Separation of church and state - 2 replies

Defeat and Some Success for Texas Evolution Foes

Adam — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 06:24:36 GMT

Rocky this is a followup on your post about Texas schools.

AUSTIN, Tex. — In an evenly split vote, the State Board of Education on Thursday upheld teaching evolution as accepted mainstream science.

But social conservatives on the board, using a series of amendments tailored to particular school subjects, succeeded in requiring teachers to evaluate critically a variety of scientific principles like cell formation and the Big Bang.

The debate over new curriculum requirements, to take effect in 2010, stands to influence educational standards nationwide. Once every decade, major textbook publishers revise their offerings to match the requirements newly set forth by Texas, which is one of their largest bulk customers.

More than 80 years after the biology teacher John Scopes was tried on charges of illegally teaching evolution in Tennessee, the controversy here has played out with more subtlety, involving political code words and efforts to undermine the theory itself.

The debate has centered on a longstanding clause that requires teachers to address the “strengths and weaknesses” of scientific theories, including Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Teachers quietly ignored the requirements for decades.

The board tentatively decided in January to drop the “strengths and weaknesses” language. On Thursday, Democrats and moderate Republicans on the board blocked a proposal by social conservatives to reinstate it. Even with one moderate board member missing, the measure was blocked with a preliminary 7-to-7 vote.

The full board is set to take a final vote on Friday.

Failing to overhaul the curriculum broadly, conservatives instead attached a series of measures specific to subjects like biology, where teachers would be newly required to “analyze and evaluate the sufficiency or insufficiency of natural selection to explain the complexity of the cell.”

In the earth-science curriculum, conservatives weakened language concerning “the concept of an expanding universe” to address instead “current theories of the evolution of the universe including estimates for the age of the universe.”

With protesters on both sides of the issue carrying signs outside its meetings, the board has heard impassioned testimony from science teachers, parents and others.

A conservative board member, Bob Craig of Lubbock, expressed satisfaction with the overall changes.

“I personally believe that language is good language,” Mr. Craig said in an interview. “It allows for full discussion of all sides of the issue.”

Dan Quinn, a spokesman for the Texas Freedom Network, a nonprofit group that promotes the teaching of evolution, said the vote would not end the debate.

“If they don’t get the political strategy, they’ll go piecemeal,” Mr. Quinn said. “The State Board of Education pretty much slammed the door on ‘strengths and weaknesses,’ but then went around and opened all the windows in the house.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/education/27texas.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Pope's gaffes spook Vatican

Enrika — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 07:23:28 GMT

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25216429-2703,00.html

posted in Separation of church and state - 1 reply

Texas Religious Indoctrination In Science Classes

Rocky — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:38:38 GMT

Americans United Urges Texas School Board To Reject Religious Indoctrination In Science Classes
Tuesday, March 24, 2009

New Science Standards May Spark Litigation If Creationism Is Taught In Schools, Church-State Watchdog Group Says

The Texas Board of Education should remove language from proposed science standards that opens the door to teaching religious concepts in public schools, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

“Texas can either have world-class science standards or allow fundamentalists to sneak religion into classrooms through the back door,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “It can’t do both.”

http://www.au.org/site/News2?abbr=pr&page=NewsArticle&id=10347&security=1002&news_iv_ctrl=1241

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Double-Crossed by the Bishop

Rocky — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:07:28 GMT

Double-Crossed by the Bishop

On March 4th 2009, Acharya S (D.M. Murdock) was a guest on "The Sacred Division" radio show, hosted by Bishop James Long. She was asked by them to be on the show to discuss her new book titled "Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection" and they told her that they had 1.2 million listeners. She wasn't feeling well but she did the show anyway.

However, it soon became clear that Bishop Long had another agenda. Here are a couple excerpts spliced together in a short youtube video. One is towards the beginning of the show around 10 minutes into the show & the other starting at 5:15 on the youtube version is from around 1 hour into the full version show - where the Bishop gets pissed-off and disrespectfully hangs up on the guest and continues to insult her after he hangs up on her. Later, he incites hatred and violence against the makers of Zeitgeist and all those who had any part in it.

You can listen to the full version by clicking on the link in the information box on the right.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP3g66IdSVQ

"Acharya on The Sacred Division" - blog
http://spacemanjupiter.blogspot.com

posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Skeptic Mangles ZEITGEIST

Rocky — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 03:52:12 GMT

Acharya has responded to Callahan's article -

Skeptic Mangles ZEITGEIST
(and Religious History)
http://stellarhousepublishing.com/skeptic-zeitgeist.html

She mops the floor with him demonstrating that when it comes to the facts surrounding Zeitgeist part 1 he doesn't know what he's talking about after all.

posted in Separation of church and state - 4 replies

"Victory through Daughters" KTB exerpt of New Book on Pronatalism

PaulaC — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 17:15:06 GMT

http://killingthebuddha.com/mag/hunger/victory-through-daughters/

The book Quiverfull is a study of the Pronatalist self identified 'Patriarchy Movement' and their agenda to keep women pumping out as many babies as 'God gives them' and homeschooling their daughters to do the same. Yikes.

posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

David Mills author of "Atheist Universe"

Rocky — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 19:35:35 GMT

Best-selling author David Mills of "Atheist Universe" has recently written a review of D.M. Murdock's book titled "Who Was Jesus? Fingerprints of The Christ." Folks here may appreciate his review:

Here are a few of his comments:

"Ms. Murdock is one of only a tiny number of scholars with the richly diverse academic background (and the necessary courage) to adequately address the question of whether Jesus Christ truly existed as a walking-talking figure in first-century Palestine. This question, and many others related to New Testament reliability, are directly confronted and satisfyingly answered in 'Who Was Jesus?' I loved this book. It is absolutely superb in every way, from the eloquence of the writing to the integrity of the scholarship. This book should be required reading in every American classroom....

"My personal recommendation is that 'Who Was Jesus?' should be the first book purchased and studied by anyone, atheist or true believer, who wants to debate Jesus' existence and the Bible's veracity.... You should therefore make this book priority reading even over 'The God Delusion,' 'God is Not Great' and other excellent but, in my opinion, less important books than Murdock's....

"To summarize: D.M. Murdock's 'Who Was Jesus? Fingerprints of The Christ' is unquestionably one of the finest and most enjoyable books I've ever read."

Check out the full review here -
http://stellarhousepublishing.com/david-mills-wwj.html

and here http://www.stellarhousepublishing.com/whowasjesus1.html

Here is Davids website - http://davidmills.net

posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Help Support Geert Wilders Civil Rights

Rocky — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 02:29:55 GMT

Dutch MP refused entry to Britain
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7885918.stm?lss

"Lord Ahmed's comment: When Lord Ahmed recently threatened to advance to Westminster with 10,000 Muslims, the number was not “just” a number. In fact he referred to the advance of Mohammed in 630 to Mecca with 10,000 followers, and with whom he conquered that stubborn city once and for all. And what’s more, this encouraged them to conquer the rest Arabian Peninsula and beyond as well."

"A Muslim lord, Nazir Ahmed, and other Muslim leaders had vigorously protested Wilders’ visit, causing an initial invitation to be rescinded. It was reported that Ahmed had even threatened to mobilize 10,000 fellow Muslims to block Wilders from entering Westminster..."

"...What disturbs Wilders supporters even more is the hypocrisy surrounding the Dutch filmmaker’s expulsion. In the past, Great Britain has allowed in true preachers of hate like Muslim Brotherhood personage Yusuf al-Qaradawi, invited by London mayor Ken Livingstone in 2004. Al-Qaradawi has justified suicide bombings and condoned the killing of Israeli women and children because they are “militarised.” A more recent example is Ibrahim Moussawi, who was allowed to enter England last November despite his describing suicide bombers as martyrs and his having broadcast a 30-part series on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion on the television station he heads."

A Chamberlain Moment
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=F4BF2126-0D78-48E0-B463-5F7D645E19B6

"Re Lord Ahmed's comment: When Lord Ahmed recently threatened to advance to Westminster with 10,000 Muslims, the number was not “just” a number. In fact, he referred to the advance of Mohammed in 630 to Mecca with 10,000 followers, and with whom he conquered that stubborn city once and for all. And what’s more, this encouraged them to conquer the rest Arabian Peninsula and beyond as well."

Help Support Geert Wilders Civil Rights
http://www.geertwilders.nl/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

Geert Wilders's "Fitna: The Movie" A Review
http://truthbeknown.com/fitnareview.html

posted in Separation of church and state - 1 reply

Founder of Islamic TV station accused of beheading wife

Enrika — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 21:52:27 GMT

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/16/buffalo.beheading/

"The founder of an Islamic television station in upstate New York aimed at countering Muslim stereotypes has confessed to beheading his wife, authorities said."

Think he's succeeding with the whole "stereotype" thing?

posted in Separation of church and state - 4 replies

Darwin Billboard Stolen

Rocky — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:52:58 GMT

FFRF's "Praise Darwin" Billboard Stolen in Whitehall, Ohio, on Darwin Bicentennial

"Feb. 17, 2009

A billboard placed in suburban Columbus, Ohio, by the Freedom From Religion Foundation commemorating the Feb. 12 bicentennial of Charles Darwin's birth was stolen only two days after it went up, sometime after nightfall on Thursday, Feb. 12.

A local resident of Whitehall noticed the billboard was missing on Friday, and reported its absence to the Foundation over the weekend.

The Foundation had placed the "Praise Darwin: Evolve Beyond Belief" billboard on East Main and Fountain Lane, Columbus, on Feb. 11, in response to the refusal of the White Hall City Council to adopt a Darwin Day proclamation proposed by city council representative Jacqueline Thompson.

The billboard site is technically in Columbus, so the theft was reported to Columbus police yesterday. The theft is a misdemeanor. Police will be checking videos by local businesses.

The Foundation has been tangling with Whitehall Mayor John Wolfe over the city's unlawful Christian display every December. The mayor had dismissed state/church critics as "atheists, antagonists and a minority," and in public comments had proclaimed that the United States is a "Christian nation."

"It appears the mayor's attitude has encouraged a license against free speech and free thought," said Foundation co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor. "It took a lot of gall--and a very long ladder--in order for a lawbreaker to climb up and rip off our fully-illuminated banner," she noted.

"Our pro-Darwin billboard will be back in Whitehall sometime next week," said Dan Barker, Foundation co-president........"

http://www.ffrf.org/news/2009/whitehall_stolen.php

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posted in Separation of church and state - 4 replies

The Origin Of Evil

Adam — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 01:34:12 GMT

Among the many problems I have with GOD creating all things, one of them is the creation of EVIL. And I get all manner of flotsam from Christian Occultists on the subject. They always want to wiggle things around and change the meanings of words and phrases to support their precious notions of the SUPREME CREATOR. Well okay, let us examine the facts and get to the bottom of evil...

I asked a tribe member in another tribe to explain to me the creation by GOD of Lucifer, the wicked angel that turned on its wonderful creator to begin a career as SATAN, the epitome of evil that has control and influence over man in matters EVIL. Now it seems to me that an omnipotent CREATOR would have known this particular angel was going to go bad, therefore it KNOWINGLY created something evil. Being perfect means free from defect or flaw. GOD is professed as being perfect. Which implies the creation of this wicked little bastard was part of the overall plan. But wait, that would also imply that GOD has an evil side. Tsk tsk tsk, so much for the Almighty being the poster child for all that is GOOD and pure and reverent.

But then I get explanations such as this:
<<<I'll try Adam. Evil is not a material thing. Basically, evil is simply rebellion against God. So evil is not created, it is chosen by volitional beings, whether they be angels or people. I suppose God could have created a universe where the possiblity of evil existing would be zero, and many fault the biblical God for the existance of it. But I am not among them. God gave us free will, the ability to choose, he told us the consequences of making the wrong choice and we chose it anyway. We are responsible. Furthermore, from the very first sin God provided redemption (gen. 3:15) which was fulfilled in Jesus. Hey, if God loves me that much, my only reasonable response is to love him back. This may seem like an unsatisfactory answer to some, but it suits me just fine.>>>

Well okay, that only means GOD IS NOT IN TOTAL CONTROL. See this leaves a little gap in this magical creation thing. You have to pick one, either it created ALL THINGS, or it is conducting an experiment with random results. OR, perhaps GOD was created to perpetuate evil through its creations....Hmm, GOD "The Big Satan", EVILS TOOL...

So if GOD did not create evil and incorporate it in the grand scheme of things, WHO OR WHAT did? For something to be in control with an omnipotent PLAN and it knows every outcome and consequence but cant control evil, that implies that evil existed BEFORE GOD and was created by something just as powerful as GOD. Well okay, this has MANY implications because nothing just exists without being created from a zero origin according to the Christian Occult.

If evil existed before GOD, perhaps it created GOD. And if it is as powerful as GOD, maybe it was the EVIL entity whispering in the towelheads ear to write scripture. HOW CAN ANYONE KNOW? It sure explains the fucked up shit, killing and hatred caused as a result of those scriptures being compiled into the ancient book of hearsay they call "THE HOLY BIBLE". Perhaps the whole GOD thing is a ruse that gives man a reason to follow blindly into the abyss of evil.

Personally I dont believe ANY of the bullshit in the ancient book of hearsay, and the whole magical mystical supreme omnipotent creator theory is loaded with too many flaws for it to be considered to be so perfect. I have knowledge, not faith in an invisible friend that loves me but will set me on fire for eternity for not loving it in return and ciphering through all of the cryptic texts to determine the correct way to behave. If this thing is so fucking perfect, it could communicate with me through a more normal understandable medium. Not through some cryptic texts written by ancestors of a terrorist society.

posted in Separation of church and state - 3 replies

Norway criminalizes blasphemy

Rocky — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 22:56:50 GMT

"The Norwegian parliament has amended the Penal Code to criminalize blasphemy in the wake of the republication of Danish cartoons that lampooned Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) by a Norwegian magazine, Christian and Muslim leaders in Norway said on Tuesday..."

Norway criminalizes blasphemy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5pI-y2t1BM

Norway Criminalizes Blasphemy
http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/26014/norway-criminalizes-blasphemy.html

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posted in Separation of church and state - 2 replies

Theist intolerance toward non-believers

Rocky — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 01:30:50 GMT

Be aware of Theist intolerance toward non-believers -

billboard campaign: "Pull the plug on Atheism"
http://www.pulltheplugonatheism.com/00billboard.shtml

http://www.livingwaters.com

I hope these guys keep doing what they're doing - they're advertising their biases, bigotry and utter intolerance towards non-believers every time they make a video, put up a sign etc.

If you're aware of more theist intolerance news, links or websites share it here. Theists could put an end to the debate by providing valid evidence that can substantiate their supernatural religious claims.

posted in Separation of church and state - 8 replies

Islamic Sharia Banking

Rocky — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 17:39:27 GMT

Islamic Sharia Banking:

Britain's a world-leader in sharia banking - but we haven't grasped the sinister and dangerous implications
10th February 2009
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1141087/Britains-world-leader-sharia-banking--havent-grasped-sinister-dangerous-implications.html

Replace capitalism with Islamic financial system: cleric
Oct 12, 2008

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j1s7DBg5yOxW-z3j5Oo3ldO84wng

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=081012151913.899p7n58&show_article=1&lst=1

"Global Banks Embrace Islam"
http://www.augustreview.com/issues/global_banking/global_banks_embrace_islam_2007121282/

"Islam: Shari'a-Compliant Finance Becoming Viable Part Of Global Banking"
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2008/06/00f1c90c-2293-4fe5-a753-b5bee16eb1c8.html

Shariah Finance Watch: Exposing the Risks of Shariah Finance
http://shariahfinancewatch.wordpress.com

Islamic Banking Links section
http://www.islamic-banking.com/links/index.php

http://muslim-investor.com (pro Shariah Investment site, this should be watched and studied to be able to fight shariah finance)

"Jihad comes to Wall Street"
http://www.news.faithfreedom.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1862

"Harvard Goes Halal"

"With $800 billion already in Shariah assets — and $1 trillion to $2 trillion in Arab petrodollars annually looking for an investment home — the potential for billions being siphoned off for terrorism is real."

http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=293411200915489

Shariah Compliant Banks
http://www.shariahfinancewatch.org/blog/shariah-compliant-banks/

GAFFNEY: Treasury submits to Shariah

"The U.S. Treasury Department is submitting to Shariah - the seditious religio-political-legal code authoritative Islam seeks to impose worldwide under a global theocracy.

As reported in this space last week, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Robert Kimmitt set the stage with his recent visit to Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Persian Gulf states. His stated purpose was to promote the recycling of petrodollars in the form of foreign investment here.

Evidently, the price demanded by his hosts is that the U.S. government get with the Islamist financial program. While in Riyadh, Mr. Kimmitt announced: "The U.S. government is currently studying the salient features of Islamic banking to ascertain how far it could be useful in fighting the ongoing world economic crisis."

"Islamic banking" is a euphemism for a practice better known as "Shariah-Compliant Finance (SFC)." And it turns out that this week the Treasury will be taking officials from various federal agencies literally to school on SFC.

The department is hosting a half-day course entitled "Islamic Finance 101" on Thursday at its headquarters building. Treasury's self-described "seminar for the policy community" is co-sponsored with the leading academic promoters of Shariah and SCF in the United States: Harvard University Law School's Project on Islamic Finance. At the very least, the U.S. government evidently hopes to emulate Harvard's success in securing immense amounts of Wahhabi money in exchange for conforming to the Islamists' agenda. Like Harvard, Treasury seems utterly disinterested in what Shariah actually is, and portends.

Unfortunately, such submission - the literal meaning of "Islam" - is not likely to remain confined long to the Treasury or its sister agencies. Thanks to the extraordinary authority conferred on Treasury since September, backed by the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the department is now in a position to impose its embrace of Shariah on the U.S. financial sector. The nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Treasury's purchase of - at last count - 17 banks and the ability to provide, or withhold, funds from its new slush-fund can translate into unprecedented coercive power....

... After all, the object of Shariah is the supplanting of our government and Constitution, through violent means if possible and, until then, through stealthy ones. Islamists, having secured footholds via their parallel societies, inevitably use those to extend their influence over Muslims who have no more interest in living under authoritative Islam's Shariah than the rest of us do. Inexorably, it becomes the turn of non-Muslims to accommodate themselves to ever more intrusive demands from the Islamists...

It is known as submission, or dhimmitude."
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/nov/04/treasury-submits-to-shariah/

* Please, check with your own banks & financial institutions to see if they are funding Islamic charities that are for MUSLIMS ONLY and are designed to increase Islamist influence and domination in the world. It may be best to put your money into a local credit union that helps your local community.

Yes, this should give most everyone the weebie-geebies. Now, it is all coming together - why the need to create a financial & economic CRISIS - it looks like the agenda is headed towards the creation of a global Islamic State. We *MUST* become aware of this quickly - before it's too late. Once this happens the world will quickly become a global version of fascist Nazi Germany - before anybody even knows what happened.

The map of The United States of Islam
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/pictures/Pictures/US-Islam-lg.jpg

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posted in Separation of church and state - 1 reply

"Praise Darwin" Billboards going up in the US

Rocky — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 22:08:34 GMT

"Praise Darwin" Billboards going up in the US

"City of Whitehall, Ohio, Won't "Praise Darwin" . . . So FFRF Billboard Will

Billboard counters mayor calling U.S. "a Christian nation," and dismissing state/church violations because the critics are" atheists, antagonists and a minority."

Feb. 9, 2009

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, which has been tangling with Whitehall Mayor John Wolfe over the city's unlawful Christian display every December, is fighting back with a billboard!

The City of Whitehall refused to adopt a proclamation for Darwin Day, Feb. 12, in honor of the historic bicentennial celebration of Charles Darwin's birth. So the national state/church watchdog has posted a billboard in Whitehall reading "Praise Darwin: Evolve Beyond Belief."

Bearing Darwin's iconic image, the billboard message will be up at East Main and Fountain Lane in Whitehall, a suburb of Columbus, by Feb. 11.

The Foundation, the nation's largest association of freethinkers (atheists and agnostics), has 13,600 members nationwide, and 300 members in Ohio. On behalf of its Ohio members, the Foundation has complained about nativity scenes at Malabar State Farm and Shawnee State Park, as well as city-sponsored endorsements of Christianity every December, including a violation in Whitehall. Read FFRF letter of complaint.

"We were so shocked and offended at the statement by Whitehall Mayor John Wolfe to CBNS-TV Channel 10 saying, "We are a Christian nation," and dismissing a constitutional violation because: 'They're atheists, they're antagonists and they're a minority,' " said Foundation co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor.

"Can you imagine him dismissing charges of racial discrimination by the city because, 'They're blacks, they're antagonists and they're a minority'? Or, 'They're Jews, they're antagonists, and they're a minority'? The mayor's intolerant remarks prove the harm of uniting religion and government, which invariably invites persecution of dissenters."

"The Darwin billboard in part recognizes the enduring and scientific accomplishments of a brilliant man," notes David Russell, an area state/church separation activist who first complained about Whitehall's nativity display.

"Darwin not only researched extensively how life evolved through succession, but his work helped shape the modern interpretation of evolutionary theory. He almost single-handedly took the world from blind faith of unproven dogma to an enduring theory that has withstood 150 years of scrutiny.

"The placement of the billboard in Whitehall is especially appropriate since some members of Whitehall city government seem intent on mixing religion and government. The large Christian-only display on the steps of city hall each December serves to remind us that we must be ever-vigilant of the unfortunate mixing of religion and government. Neither is served when religion is given special treatment," Russell added.

The Foundation would like to hear from any resident of Whitehall, or anyone who regularly does business at Whitehall City Hall, who is offended by the annual display of a nativity scene by the entrance of city hall, and wishes to pursue a legal remedy. Such individuals may contact the Foundation at info@ffrf.org.

The Foundation also placed billboards "praising Darwin" this month in Dayton, Tenn., and Dover, Penn., sites of the historic classroom battles over the teaching of evolution, as well as in Madison, Wis., the Foundation's headquarters. This week it has just placed a "Praise Darwin" billboard in Grand Junction, Colo., where local officials also refused to declare a day to honor Darwin.

"Charles Darwin gets such a bad rap in America, and we want to counter that. It's an intellectual stain on our nation that more than half of all Americans reject evolution," said Gaylor. "The Darwin bicentennial is a chance to move our nation forward, to return to the Enlightenment, and give credit where it is due."

The year 2009 also marks the 150th anniversary of the release of Origin of Species, Darwin's seminal work on evolution.

"The double anniversaries of these historic dates make 2009 a blockbuster year for promoting reason and science," adds Foundation co-president Dan Barker, author of Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis., is a national association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics) that has been working since 1978 to keep church and state separate."

http://www.ffrf.org/news/2009/darwin_whitehall.php

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posted in Separation of church and state - 1 reply

FFRF Debuts New Freethought Bus Sign Campaign

Rocky — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 18:52:14 GMT

FFRF Debuts New Freethought Bus Sign Campaign

http://www.ffrf.org/news/2009/madison_buscampaign.php

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Church-State Separation Victory

Rocky — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 20:38:41 GMT

Church-State Separation Victory

The Secular Coalition Thanks the Senate for Upholding Church-State Separation

February 6, 2009

"While the 111th Congress has only been in session for a month, the Secular Coalition for America and its allies won the first battle to protect church-state separation when an amendment by Religious Right favorite, Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, was defeated yesterday.

On February 5th, the U.S. Senate voted down (43-54) an amendment that would have stripped important church-state constitutional protections in the economic stimulus package. DeMint's amendment would have allowed taxpayer funds to be used for construction and building rehabilitation for religious facilities at private religious institutions, including divinity schools.

"Yesterday's vote is a reminder that the Religious Right has no plans of giving up trying to use the federal government, and our tax dollars, to promote their religious beliefs," said Ron Millar, acting director of the Secular Coalition for America.

This is the first time the Senate has had a direct vote on a church-state issue of this nature in several years and the Secular Coalition is thrilled that 54 Senators opposed permitting federal funds to go towards religious schools and institutions."

http://www.secular.org/news/demint_amdt_02_6_2009.html

posted in Separation of church and state - 4 replies

Protest Obama's Faith-based Executive Order!

Rocky — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 02:27:43 GMT

Protest Obama's Faith-based Executive Order!

"Action Alert! Protest Obama's Faith-based Executive Order!

FFRF: Faith-based Office at White House Violates State/Church Separation

Feb. 5, 2009

Register your dismay over the faith-based executive order:
Phone the White House Comment Line at 202/456-1116
E-mail: www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Statement by Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker Foundation Co-Presidents

With so many priorities on the presidential plate, it was discouraging to see President Barack Obama devote precious time to schmoozing with religionists today at the National Prayer Breakfast. To what purpose, other than to be seen wearing religion on his sleeve?

The nation is needing and awaiting sweeping action and reform, and we're being told to pray? (FFRF Takes National Prayer Breakfast Remarks to Task.)

Far more distressing is the fact that Mr. Obama used the occasion to copy a page off the George W. Bush script, and announced at that breakfast that he is issuing an executive order to create the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

The national treasury is bleeding and we're being told to throw more tax dollars at religion?

Scientists, medical pioneers and suffering families are still waiting for Obama to revoke Bush's embryonic stem-cell line embargo, to undo the harm of two presidential vetoes wielded expressly to kowtow to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Well over 70% of Americans support embryonic stem-cell research; even Nancy Reagan and the Mormon Orrin Hatch endorse it!

Yet there been silence on this front from the White House since Obama's inaugural promise to "restore science to its rightful place." The creation of another White House faith-based office takes precedent over freeing stem-cell research lines?

The door was slammed shut on the Foundation and on us as individual taxpayers by the Supreme court in 2007, when we were told we did not have standing to legally challenge Bush's creation of the White House faith-based office. The Hein v. FFRF decision in effect gave the executive branch carte blanche to violate the Establishment Clause. If general appropriations are used by the White House to violate the Establishment Clause, state/church violations by the executive branch are not challengeable in today's America.

Any hope that the administration of "hope and change" would put our nation back on constitutional track was quashed by Obama's action today. His support of the program is no surprise. As a candidate, he announced his intention to rename the faith-based initiative to the faith-based council. But last July, Obama at least firmly vowed he would not let federal funds go to faith-based groups that discriminate on religion in hiring, firing or services.

Now Obama is backpedaling even on that minor reform. Obama did not rescind Bush's provision to allow faith-based groups to discriminate in their hiring practices. The new order supposedly provides a legal process for organizations to go through to ensure hiring is legal and nondiscriminatory—namely, referring such cases to the Attorney General for a determination. Imagine the mess!

In announcing the executive order, Obama said: "There is a force for good greater than government. It is an expression of faith, . . ." This pious assertion is no deviation from the Bush Administration. Obama will keep faith-based offices at all the agencies where Bush placed them.

The White House even brags that Obama's faith-based effort will be broader than Bush's. The White House faith-based office will be a "substantial programming and policy arm of the federal government," according to the White House.

Today Obama also officially named a 26-year-old Pentecostal minister to head the White's House's new faith-based office. Josh DuBois previously directed religious outreach for the Obama campaign. While it is possible BuBois' positions on social issues may deviate from those of his church, Pentecostals are generally right-wing. They are bible literalists, therefore they are almost all antigay rights and antiabortion. DuBois belongs to the same tradition that made Sarah Palin's religious views notorious. Pentecostals are the "noisy" fundamentalists who believe in the "gifts of the spirit": speaking in tongues, faith healing, prophecy, discernment of spirit (exorcism). Normally the private religious views of White House staff would be off limits. DuBois' extremist religious views have become relevant by his elevation to an office at the White House to promote faith and funding of faith-based social services.

A 25-member advisory council includes a few representatives of secular social agencies, but most are representatives of religious groups with a stake in funding religious groups, including the president of World Vision, and the president of Catholic Charities USA, etc. Before the faith-based schemes began, initially at the instigation of John Ashcroft, religious charities were granted vast sums of taxpayer monies to provide social services. All they had to do to qualify was to take their crosses down, create a secular arm and keep separate books. Obama should have returned to these simple safeguards.

Secularists, freethinkers and those of us who are the true conservatives--who wish to conserve what is greatest about our country and its godless constitution--must make a great fuss over today's blows to the Establishment Clause.

Tragic news came today--that the frail but constitutionally stalwart Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg just underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer. Justice Ginsburg has been a friend to freedom and rationality on the court. If health forces Ginsburg to resign, it is essential that the last woman on the U.S. Supreme court not only be replaced by another woman, but that Ginsburg's replacement demonstrate her same understanding and agreement of the Jeffersonian "wall of separation between church and state."

While Obama, in his National Prayer Breakfast speech, gave lip service to working with faith-based groups "without blurring the line that our founders wisely drew between church and state," it is clear he needs as much bolstering on this issue as that constitutional wall needs rebuilding.

Register your dismay over the faith-based executive order:
Phone the White House Comment Line at 202/456-1116
E-mail: www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis., is a national association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics) that has been working since 1978 to keep church and state separate."

http://www.ffrf.org/news/2009/obamafo.php

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Seeing and Believing

Rocky — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:22:40 GMT

Jerry Coyne's "Seeing and Believing"

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Jerry Coyne has written another wonderful demolition of religious faith which has prompted some discussion on Edge.org.

You can read Coyne's article here:

http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=1e3851a3-bdf7-438a-ac2a-a5e381a70472

Edge responses to it here:

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/coyne09/coyne09_index.html#tnr-coyne

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

"Civil rights, by definition, are civil. They have nothing to do with religion."

varianpierce — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:02:05 GMT

THE RICK & TED SHOW
By Kim Corsaro, Editor - SF Bay Times

This week, in the midst of economic crisis, job layoffs, escalation of the war in Afghanistan, harrowing winter storms, we get the full frontal PR blitz from disgraced evangelical leader Ted Haggard. He’s everywhere - Alexandra Pelosi’s latest film on him will air on HBO; Haggard is doing interviews with Oprah and Larry King.

He’s trying to redeem himself, put himself back together somehow.

And he’s trying to convince all of us that he’s not gay.

That’s the really sad part. The part that brings us back to leading public homophobes like Pastor Rick Warren. The part that brings us back to our Prop 8 defeat.

The religious right is doing their darndest - and succeeding, thanks to the media, and thanks to incidents like the Obama elevation of Warren to the national podium - to cast us as abominations before God, unworthy of basic civil rights. They have been wildly successful in imposing their views on much of the country. Their Sunday morning pulpits rage with bigotry, misinformation and scriptural misinterpretation that turn our families against us and give them a Divine excuse for discrimination. Did you see the study that showed that family affiliation didn’t necessarily affect Prop 8 voting? That means that evangelical families were comfortable voting against their own sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, based on what their ministers told them.

Our community was told to suck it up over the Rick Warren prayer at the Inaugural. We were reminded that Obama was just trying to bring different groups together. But we know that Obama would never pick a Klansman to “balance” an African American speaker.
Here’s the lesson we have to take away from all of this. We need to reframe this discussion.

It’s been 40 years since the start of the gay rights movement when the media first began enlisting a religious wingnut to bring “balance” to any discussion of our community and it’s time to put an end to the charade.

Ted Haggard is not a tragic hero. He’s a self-hating gay man. Rick Warren is no friend to gay men and women, regardless of how many donuts he passes out to queer protesters outside his door. He is a dedicated anti-gay religious conservative, devoted to the elimination of our civil rights. You can’t “balance” civil rights with religion. Civil rights, by definition, are civil. They have nothing to do with religion.

During the black community’s struggle for civil rights in the 1960s, it was widely considered that those who opposed civil rights for African Americans were racists, period. They were not depicted in the media as following religious doctrine, although in many instances people used the Bible - which clearly supports slavery and keeping different races separate - to justify their opposition to integration .

The people who fervently oppose our civil rights are not worthy church-goers. They are homophobes, period.

There are plenty of devoutly religious people who support full civil rights for gay people. Opposing our civil rights has nothing to do with religion. It is bigotry, it is homophobia, it is practiced discrimination, and it is wrong.

As for Ted Haggard, I actually feel sorry for the guy as he struggles to deny himself. There’s really nothing more painful than shutting down such a core part of your being as your sexuality. Compound that misery with a mission to preach the evils of homosexuality to the masses? That’s gotta mess you up (not to mention the damage it does out there in the world).

But it’s still frustrating beyond belief to watch Haggard perfect his “poor me” act, or listen to Warren gush at the podium at our expense while the media laps it up in the name of religious points of view.

We had a great opportunity in the Prop 8 campaign to distinguish between religious belief and civil rights. Like so much about that campaign, we blew it. But we know better now, and going forward, we need to be clear about this. We should be able to take the Ted Haggards and the Rick Warrens of the world, define them clearly and hold them accountable for their venomous positions.

http://www.sfbaytimes.com/?sec=article&article_id=9991

posted in Separation of church and state - 1 reply

Godlessness = Social Justice

Erik — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 09:49:26 GMT

I'm still trying to get a copy of the study he cited.

January 30, 2009
CONSIDER THIS
The Virtues of Godlessness

The least religious nations are also the most healthy and successful

By PHIL ZUCKERMAN

The world seems more religious than ever these days.

Across the Middle East, fervent forms of Islam are growing more popular and more politically active. Muslim nations that were somewhat secularized 40 years ago — like Lebanon and Iran — are now teeming with fundamentalism. In Turkey and Egypt, increasing numbers of women are turning to the veil as an overt manifestation of reinvigorated religious commitment. But it isn't just in the Muslim world that religion is thriving. From Brazil to El Salvador, Protestant evangelicalism is spreading with great success, instilling a spirited, holy zeal throughout Latin America. Pentecostalism is proliferating, too — vigorously — and not only throughout Latin America, but in Africa and even, to a lesser extent, China. And many nations of the former Soviet Union, which had atheism imposed upon them for decades, have emerged from the communist era with their faith not only intact, but strong and vibrant. Here in the United States, religion is definitely alive and well. In terms of church attendance and belief in God, Jesus, and the Bible, religion in the United States is stronger and more robust than in most other developed democracies.

In sum, from Nebraska to Nepal, from Georgia to Guatemala, and from Utah to Uganda, humans all over the globe are vigorously praising various deities; regularly attending services at churches, temples, and mosques; persistently studying sacred texts; dutifully performing holy rites; energetically carrying out spiritual rituals; soberly defending the world from sin; piously fasting; and enthusiastically praying and then praying some more, singing, praising, and loving this or that savior, prophet, or God.

But that is not occurring everywhere. I am referring to two nations in particular, Denmark and Sweden, which are probably the least religious countries in the world, and possibly in the history of the world. Amidst all this vibrant global piety — atop the vast swelling sea of sacredness — Denmark and Sweden float along like small, content, durable dinghies of secular life, where most people are nonreligious and don't worship Jesus or Vishnu, don't revere sacred texts, don't pray, and don't give much credence to the essential dogmas of the world's great faiths.

In clean and green Scandinavia, few people speak of God, few people spend much time thinking about theological matters, and although their media in recent years has done an unusually large amount of reporting on religion, even that is offered as an attempt to grapple with and make sense of a strange foreign phenomenon out there in the wider world that refuses to disappear, a phenomenon that takes on such dire significance for everyone — except, well, for Danes and Swedes.

What are societies like when faith in God is minimal, church attendance is drastically low, and religion is a distinctly muted and marginal aspect of everyday life?

Many people assume that religion is what keeps people moral, that a society without God would be hell on earth: rampant with immorality, full of evil, and teeming with depravity. But that doesn't seem to be the case for Scandinavians in those two countries. Although they may have relatively high rates of petty crime and burglary, and although these crime rates have been on the rise in recent decades, their overall rates of violent crime — including murder, aggravated assault, and rape — are among the lowest on earth. Yet the majority of Danes and Swedes do not believe that God is "up there," keeping diligent tabs on their behavior, slating the good for heaven and the wicked for hell. Most Danes and Swedes don't believe that sin permeates the world, and that only Jesus, the Son of God, who died for their sins, can serve as a remedy. In fact, most Danes and Swedes don't even believe in the notion of "sin."

So the typical Dane or Swede doesn't believe all that much in God. And simultaneously, they don't commit much murder. But aren't they a dour, depressed lot, all the same? Not according to Ruut Veenhoven, professor emeritus of social conditions for human happiness at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Veenhoven is a leading authority on worldwide levels of happiness from country to country. He recently ranked 91 nations on an international happiness scale, basing his research on cumulative scores from numerous worldwide surveys. According to his calculations, the country that leads the globe — ranking No. 1 in terms of its residents' overall level of happiness — is little, peaceful, and relatively godless Denmark.

The connection between religion — or the lack thereof — and societal health is admittedly complex. It is difficult to definitively establish that secularism is always good for society and religion always bad. However, the often posited opposite claim is equally difficult to substantiate: that secularism is always bad for a society and religion always good. To be sure, in some instances, religion can be a strong and positive ingredient in establishing societal health, prosperity, and well-being. And when considering what factors contribute to the making of a good society, religion can be a positive force.

Here in the United States, for example, religious ideals often serve as a beneficial counterbalance against the cutthroat brand of individualism that can be so rampant and dominating. Religious congregations in America serve as community centers, counseling providers, and day-care sites. And a significant amount of research has shown that moderately religious Americans report greater subjective well-being and life satisfaction, greater marital satisfaction, better family cohesion, and fewer symptoms of depression than the nonreligious. Historically, a proliferation of religious devotion, faith in God, and reliance on the Bible has sometimes been a determining factor in establishing schools for children, creating universities, building hospitals for the sick and homes for the homeless, taking care of orphans and the elderly, resisting oppression, establishing law and order, and developing democracy.

In other instances, however, religion may not have such positive societal effects. It can often be one of the main sources of tension, violence, poverty, oppression, inequality, and disorder in a given society. A quick perusal of the state of the world will reveal that widespread faith in God or strong religious sentiment in a given country does not necessarily ensure societal health. After all, many of the most religious and faithful nations on earth are simultaneously among the most dangerous and destitute. Conversely, a widespread lack of faith in God or very low levels of religiosity in a given country does not necessarily spell societal ruin. The fact is, the majority of the most irreligious democracies are among the most prosperous and successful nations on earth.

Just to be perfectly clear here: I am not arguing that the admirably high level of societal health in Scandinavia is directly caused by the low levels of religiosity. Although one could certainly make such a case — arguing that a minimal focus on God and the afterlife, and a stronger focus on solving problems of daily life in a rational, secular manner have led to positive, successful societal outcomes in Scandinavia — that is not the argument I wish to develop here. Rather, I simply wish to soberly counter the widely touted assertion that without religion, society is doomed.

If you can smell my ax starting to grind here, your nostrils are in good working order. The claim that without religion, society is doomed deserves to be challenged because, aside from being poor social science, it is a highly political claim that is regularly promulgated by some of America's most popular and most influential Christian conservatives. Those individuals do not represent or speak for the majority of believers in America, but together they do constitute a formidable and uniquely zealous chorus that reaches the hearts and minds of millions of people on a regular basis.

I am referring, for instance, to Pat Robertson, the successful televangelist and founder of the Christian Coalition, who regularly condemns secularism. And Ann Coulter, the Christian conservative media pundit, who has written in one of her best-selling books that societies that fail to grasp God's significance are headed toward slavery, genocide, and bestiality, and that when Darwinian/evolutionary theory is widely accepted in a given society, all morality is abandoned. Conservative pundit William J. Bennett has argued that "the only reliable answer" for combating societal ills is widespread religious faith, and that without religion, a society is without "the best and most reliable means to reinforce the good" in social life and human relations.

Conservative Christian Americans aren't the only ones who broadcast this perspective. Keith Ward, a professor of theology at the University of Oxford, has recently argued that societies that lack strong religious beliefs are essentially immoral, unfree, and irrational. He claims that any nonreligious society without a strong belief in God is a society "beyond morality ... and freedom" and ultimately predicated upon "the denial of human dignity." John D. Caputo, a professor of religion and humanities at Syracuse University, has declared that people who are without religion and who do not love God are nothing more than selfish louts, thereby implying that a society with a preponderance of irreligious people would be a fairly loveless, miserable place.

Belief in God may certainly give emotional and psychological comfort to the individual believer — especially in times of pain, sadness, or uncertainty — and history has clearly shown that religious involvement and faith in God can often motivate individuals or cultures to promote justice and healthy societal development. But the fact still remains that it is not the most religious nations in our world today, but rather the most secular, that have been able to create the most civil, just, safe, equitable, humane, and prosperous societies. Denmark and Sweden stand out as shining examples. The German think tank the Hans-Böckler Stiftung recently ranked nations in terms of their success at establishing social justice within their societies; Denmark and Sweden, two of the least-religious nations in the world, tied for first.

It is a great socioreligious irony — for lack of a better term — that when we consider the fundamental values and moral imperatives contained within the world's great religions, such as caring for the sick, the infirm, the elderly, the poor, the orphaned, the vulnerable; practicing mercy, charity, and goodwill toward one's fellow human beings; and fostering generosity, humility, honesty, and communal concern over individual egotism — those traditionally religious values are most successfully established, institutionalized, and put into practice at the societal level in the most irreligious nations in the world today.

Phil Zuckerman is an associate professor of sociology at Pitzer College. This essay is adapted from his book Society Without God (New York University Press, 2008).
chronicle.com
Section: The Chronicle Review
Volume 55, Issue 21, Page B4

posted in Separation of church and state - 2 replies

FFRF Erects Billboard to Honor Darwin

Rocky — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 02:39:33 GMT

FFRF Erects Billboard to Honor Darwin

January 28, 2009

To celebrate and call attention to the Year of Darwin, the national Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis., is unveiling a new billboard message: "Praise Darwin: Evolve Beyond Belief."

The message is debuting in Madison on Regent Street, near the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Billboards with the Darwin message will also be going up in time for Darwin's Feb. 12 birthday bicentennial in two significant locations: Dayton, Tenn., and Dover, Penn.

Dayton was the site of the infamous 1925 Scopes "Monkey Trial," and Dover was the Pennsylvania hamlet where an attempt to promote "intelligent design" by the local school board was quashed by a federal judge in a historic 2005 decision.......

http://www.ffrf.org/news/2009/darwin.php

posted in Separation of church and state - 2 replies

Dutch MP to be prosecuted over anti-Islam comments

Rocky — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 20:38:06 GMT

Dutch MP to be prosecuted over anti-Islam comments

Reuters 01.21.09 Israel News

"Amsterdam appellate court says right-wing MP Geert Wilders who directed film accusing Koran of inciting violence must stand trial. 'This is a very black day for freedom of speech,' he says

Right-wing Dutch MP Geert Wilders, who has made a short film accusing the Koran of inciting violence, must be prosecuted for anti-Islam comments, an Amsterdam court said on Wednesday.

The court overruled the public prosecutor who had declined to prosecute Wilders, whose film "Fitna" urged Muslims to tear out "hate-filled" verses from the Koran.

"The Amsterdam appeals court has ordered the prosecution of member of parliament Geert Wilders for inciting hatred and discrimination, based on comments by him in various media on Muslims and their beliefs," the court said in a statement.

"The court also considers appropriate criminal prosecution for insulting Muslim worshippers because of comparisons between Islam and Nazism made by Wilders," the statement said.

"Fitna", a Koranic term sometimes translated as "strife", intersperses shots of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and other bombings with quotations from the Koran. "This is a very black day for me and for freedom of speech. I am shaken. I had absolutely not expected it," Dutch news agency ANP quoted Wilders as saying in an initial reaction.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3659845,00.html

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Geert Wilders's "Fitna: The Movie"
http://www.truthbeknown.com/fitnareview.html

This is could be scary if other gov'ts around the world follow suit. Or it could turn out to be good if they pull their head out of the sand and wake-up to the Islamic agenda for world domination. If the former takes place then, prepare for a modern type of Islamic Inquisition.

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posted in Separation of church and state - 4 replies

Its that time of year

PaulaC — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:14:57 GMT

Walk-for-life is holding their annual march in San Francisco this saturday. It always confused me that this huge protest would be held in a city that neither held the state capitol nor the supreme court. Last year I went to the counter protest and figured it out. There were franciscan monks walking around with professional production level video cameras and concentrating on any counter protester that looked gay or in any way unusual to a mid-westerner.

So the tactic of the Catholic church is to use it as propaganda to illustrate how much San Francisco represents Sodom. If the church has a physical manifestation of Sodom and as much video as possible of angry 'sodomites' verbally abusing protesters, who to other christians are like crusaders, then they can rally middle America.

It's frustrating to know as well that the counter protesters [those who are pro choice] stubbornly feed into it with sarcastic street theater and dressing up to fit the stereotype that the Chruch is looking for.

posted in Separation of church and state - 1 reply

Newdow, FFRF & Coalition Sue to Halt Inaugural Prayers

Rocky — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 23:39:08 GMT

Newdow, FFRF & Coalition Sue to Halt Inaugural Prayers

December 30, 2008

"The Freedom From Religion Foundation, its co-presidents Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor and several of its members are among the 29 co-plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit, Newdow v. Roberts, filed today by attorney Michael Newdow in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking to enjoin the Presidential Inaugural Committee from sponsoring prayers at the official Inauguration. The 34-page Legal Complaint also punctures some myths, documenting that for most of our country's history, no clergy led prayers at inaugurations."

http://www.ffrf.org/news/2008/inaugurationComplaint.php

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posted in Separation of church and state - 7 replies

Keep Religion OUT of Politics Mobile Billboard in D.C. on Jan. 20

Rocky — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:33:23 GMT

Keep Religion OUT of Politics Mobile Billboard in D.C. on Jan. 20

"January 15, 2009 The Freedom From Religion Foundation is taking its message of keeping religion out of government to the Inauguration on Jan. 20. The nation's largest association of atheists and agnostics, also a state/church watchdog, is running a catchy quarter-page ad in The Washington Post on Jan. 20 addressed to the incoming president, urging "Mr. President, Rebuild That Wall!"

"The Freedom From Religion Foundation is taking its message of keeping religion out of government to the Inauguration on Jan. 20.

The nation's largest association of atheists and agnostics, also a state/church watchdog, is running a catchy quarter-page ad in The Washington Post on Jan. 20 addressed to the incoming president, urging "Mr. President, Rebuild That Wall!"

The ad will further urge the new president to "Dismantle Bush's disastrous 'faith-based initiative' " and "Restore the Jeffersonian 'wall of separation between church and state.' " Government, the Foundation noted, "should run on facts, not faith."

The Foundation's red-white-and-blue message of "Keep Religion OUT of Politics" will also be circulating for ten hours in the Capitol Hill area on Tuesday. (The Foundation is eager to receive photographs of supporters next to the mobile billboard to post at its website.)

" 'All the king's horses and all the king's men' can't put the faith-based initiative back together again, so let's throw it out and go back to the simple First Amendment," says Foundation co-president Dan Barker.

The Foundation and its co-presidents Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, on behalf of its 13,600 members, are among the co-plaintiffs in Michael Newdow's federal lawsuit, Newdow v. Roberts, challenging prayer to open and close the swearing-in and the addition of "In God We Trust" to the secular oath of office.

"The inauguration is not a religious event," notes Foundation co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor. "It is not a coronation. It is a secular celebration for all of us. ‘We the people’ bow down to no sovereign, be it earthly or heavenly."

Michael Newdow will be arguing for a temporary restraining order today at 2 p.m. in a district court in the District of Columbia.

The Foundation has launched more than 40 lawsuits to preserve the constitutional separation of church and state since it was founded in 1978, and has taken (and won) more challenges of the faith-based initiative than any other civil liberties group. Its members were spurned by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision last year denying standing in FFRF's challenge of Pres. Bush's authority to create a "faith-based office" in the White House."

http://www.ffrf.org/news/2009/washpoad.php

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posted in Separation of church and state - 2 replies

Atheists want God stricken from inaugural oath

Rocky — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 02:37:43 GMT

Keeping this news in mind, Newdow, FFRF & Coalition Sue to Halt Inaugural Prayers
http://www.ffrf.org/news/2008/inaugurationComplaint.php

This news just in...

Atheists want God stricken from inaugural oath

"WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama wants to conclude his inaugural oath with the words "so help me God," but a group of atheists is asking a federal judge to stop him.

California atheist Michael Newdow sued Chief Justice John Roberts in federal court for an injunction barring the use of those words in the inaugural oath.

Newdow and other atheists and agnostics also want to stop the use of prayers during the inaugural celebration.

Newdow, who lost a Supreme Court battle to get the words "under God" taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance, has failed in similar challenges to the use of religious words and prayers at President George W. Bush's inaugurations.

Roberts' attorney Jeffrey P. Minear filed a document in Newdow's lawsuit saying that Obama wants the words "so help me God" included in his oath of office.

The Justice Department and attorneys general from all 50 states have filed motions at the federal court asking for the lawsuit to be thrown out.

The oath dictated by the Constitution is 35 words long and reads: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

The National Archives says that George Washington added the words "so help me God" when he took the oath at his 1789 inaugural, and most presidents have used it since. However, some have argued that the first eyewitness account of a president using those words came at President Chester Arthur's inauguration in 1881.

Named in Newdow's lawsuit are Roberts; Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; and the two pastors invited to the event, the Rev. Rick Warren and the Rev. Joseph Lowery.

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton will hear arguments on Thursday."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090115/ap_on_go_ot/obama_under_god

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posted in Separation of church and state - 3 replies

"Imagine No Religion" Billboards Pop Up In Portland

Rocky — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 04:23:33 GMT

"Imagine No Religion" Billboards Pop Up In Portland

"January 12, 2009

The national Freedom From Religion Foundation has a mini-blitz of its irreverent billboard, saying "Imagine No Religion," around Portland, including billboard sites at 18th & Taylor, Sandy & 50th and Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard & Beech.

The John Lennonesque-message is against a colorful stained-glass window background. The Foundation originally placed ten billboards in Portland last month at various locations, but some have come down as contracts ended.

"We want Portland residents who are not believers to realize they are not alone, and we also hope our billboard message will provoke thought," said Foundation co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor.

The Foundation launched a national billboard campaign in late 2007, and has placed billboard messages in about 14 states to date. The Portland billboards are the Foundation's first foray into the state of Oregon, which boasts a comparatively high percentage of citizens who are not religious.

The Madison, Wis.-based Foundation, a state/church watchdog and the largest association of atheists and agnostics in the country, made headlines in the Pacific Northwest last month over its Winter Solstice sign in the Olympia State Capitol, placed to protest a nativity scene at the capitol.

The Foundation's feisty sign captured the ire of Bill O'Reilly, was briefly stolen and then replaced, provoked an evangelical rally outside the statehouse and resulted in Washington Gov. Gregoire declaring a moratorium, for now, on December capitol displays.

"Those of us who are free from religion like to imagine a world where instead of wasting our best efforts on some unprovable afterlife, we humans could concentrate on leaving this world a better place for future generations. We should strive for 'heaven' here on earth," noted Dan Barker Foundation Co-President and author of the new book, Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists.

The Foundation will sponsor a mobile billboard in red, white and blue, advising "Keep Religion OUT of Politics," on Inauguration Day in Washington, D.C.

The 13,600-member organization is a co-plaintiff in Michael Newdow's challenge of a religious oath and formal Christian prayer by ministers at the presidential inauguration. A hearing has been scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 15 in the District of Columbia over the challengers' request for a temporary restraining order to bar Chief Justice John Roberts from adding "So help me God" to the secular oath prescribed in the Constitution and to stop ministerial prayer at the civil function."

http://www.ffrf.org/news/2009/portlandbb.php

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis., is a national association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics) that has been working since 1978 to keep church and state separate.

posted in Separation of church and state - 2 replies

The Mythicist Position:

Rocky — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:09:12 GMT

I have been searching for a well thoughout mythicist position to counter the theist, atheist and Euhemerus or Evemerist positions and was surprised that I was unable to find a good one anywhere. One may find these terms in dictionaries and encyclopedias but no mention of a well thoughtout mythicist position. I thought that was very odd - so I sent D.M. Murdock an e-mail and asked her about it and she organized what I consider the perfect mythicist position that works for me. It will be published in her latest book "Christ in Egypt." It takes us beyond the neverending theist/atheist debate to create a far more interesting position to take. Lets see what you think.

For those who don't know, here's some brief info about Euhemerus.

"Euhemerus was a Greek philosopher who lived about 330-260 BC who is known mainly for his radical interpretations of the Greek myths, which he felt were part of a long historical tradition by which the Gods were originally men, known for some great historical feat or some important social and cultural advancement and later raised to god-hood. This view was current in Greek intellectual circles and was popular in the early Christian period as well, probably as a way of defusing the idea of pagan religion."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euhemerus

http://www.reference.com/browse/Euhemerism

This thesis developed by Euhemerus may be called "euhemerism," "evemerism" or the "evemerist position," defined as follows:

"Evemerism represents the perspective that many of the gods and goddesses of antiquity had been real people, such as kings, queens and other heroes and legendary figures, to whose biographies were later added extraordinary and/or supernatural attributes."

So, the info above may easily be found. However, you won't find any valuable information on a well thoughout mythicist position at all - I find this utterly WEIRD! I have to wonder if it's due to censorship or suppression.

The Mythicist Position:

"Mythicism represents the perspective that many gods, goddesses and other heroes and legendary figures said to possess extraordinary and/or supernatural attributes are not "real people" but are in fact mythological characters. Along with this view comes the recognition that many of these figures personify or symbolize natural phenomena, such as the sun, moon, stars, planets, constellations, etc., constituting what is called "astrotheology." As a major example of the mythicist position, various biblical characters such as Adam and Eve, Satan, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, King David, Solomon & Jesus Christ, among other figures, in reality represent mythological characters along the same lines as the Egyptian, Sumerian, Phoenician, Indian, Greek, Roman and other godmen, who are all presently accepted as myths, rather than historical figures."

- From "Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection" by D. M. Murdock
http://stellarhousepublishing.com/christ-in-egypt-table-of-contents.html

Now, I really like this mythicist position. I'm going to submit it as an entry into dictionaries and encyclopedias.

Join the "Solar Mythology ~ Astrotheology" tribe - http://tribes.tribe.net/solarmythologynastrotheology

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posted in Separation of church and state - 1 reply

A New Year’s Greeting For The Ages:

Rocky — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 20:36:47 GMT

A New Year’s Greeting For The Ages: Jefferson’s Jan. 1 Letter To The Danbury Baptists Still Rings True

"December 31, 2008

I love Thomas Jefferson’s New Year’s Day greeting to the Danbury Baptists in part because it drives the Religious Right into such paroxysms of paranoia, ignorance and intemperance.

As I’m sure most of you know, President Jefferson sent a friendly missive to his Baptist admirers in Connecticut on Jan. 1, 1802. He thanked them for their support of him and of religious liberty. He also celebrated the First Amendment’s religious liberty provisions and expressed sympathy for the Baptists’ plight in a state where religious minorities still faced government hostility.

Jefferson famously observed: “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”

Jefferson’s “wall of separation” metaphor has proved handy over the years as a convenient means of describing the relationship between religion and government in the United States. Religious and political leaders, judges and citizen activists have often cited that protective constitutional barrier as they battle for true religious liberty, and many of us still do.

To the theocracy-minded, however, Jefferson’s wall is a never-ending source of sorrow. It stands between them and their goal of a government that imposes their religion on everyone by force of law.

Recently, Townhall pundit Christopher Merola launched two incendiary columns at the wall and those who support it. His essays are so pathetically mired in inaccuracies, smears and conspiracy theories, they would make a John Birch Society acolyte blush. He rails against Supreme Court’s 1947 Everson opinion that celebrated Jefferson’s wall and he singles out Justice Hugo Black and others who support it for vitriolic abuse.

Merola says Everson was “horribly decided” and charges that “FDR appointee Hugo Black, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, reinterpreted the meaning of the First Amendment of the Constitution.” He says Black took Jefferson’s wall metaphor “completely out of context” and “limited the religious liberty of all Americans.”

Merola claims that thanks to the Supreme Court, little girls are kept from praying in public school and he hints darkly that anti-God conspiracies kept references to religion out of the new Capitol Visitors Center.

Like all good Red-baiters, Merola traces the problem to communists and the ACLU.

“We must not,” he says, “ allow ourselves to buy into the delusion of Roger Baldwin, the founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and a member of the Communist Party of the USA, who desired the removal of all references to God from the public square.”

Merola concludes, “Consider what has occurred in the last sixty years or so. The freedom of religion in America has been limited and even demonized in some cases, due to a lie that began with a member of the Communist Party of the USA, who influenced an FDR appointee to the Supreme Court, who was himself a member of the Ku Klux Klan. It’s totally insane! “

What’s insane, of course, is Merola’s take on American history and the protections of our Constitution.

Justice Black was indeed a member of the Ku Klux Klan in his Alabama youth. But Black’s record on the high court shows no hint of racial and religious bigotry. On the contrary, his decisions upheld the civil rights and civil liberties of all Americans. (In the Everson case itself, Black called for high wall of separation, but at the same time he ruled in favor of bus transportation aid to Catholic schools. That’s hardly the work of an anti-Catholic bigot!)

As for the actions of Franklin Roosevelt and the ACLU, I’ll let their records speak for themselves. Right-wingers have made Roosevelt a villain for years, but most Americans still regard him as a great leader who brought us out of the Great Depression and saved the world from fascism in the Second World War.

Say what you will about the ACLU – I don’t agree with them all the time myself — but Americans’ rights would be less firmly established if that organization were never founded.

Put simply, there is no KKK-Communist-ACLU-FDR plot to end religious liberty in America. It’s absurd to think that the far-right KKK has ever worked in tandem with communists and Franklin Roosevelt to restrict civil liberties. Hey, Merola, you left the Masons, the Illuminati, the Bilderbergers, the UN and the Mafia out of your little conspiracy theory. Get out your tin foil hat, buddy, and add some new players to your imaginative and imaginary drama!

Merola, by the way, is described as “the Political Director for Political Media, Inc, a political advertising and public relations firm in Washington, DC.” Isn’t it sad that politics and public relations in the nation’s capital sometimes sink to this level?

Here’s the real scoop. From Jefferson on, thoughtful Americans have understood that true religious liberty means that government stays out of religious matters. That’s not a plot; it’s common sense – and it’s the mandate of our Constitution. The American people have, indeed, built a wall of separation between church and state, and it will take more than the ravings of Religious Right zealots such as Merola to tear it down.

Happy New Year, everybody! 2009 looks brighter on the civil liberties front than 2008, but we’ll still need your help in stalwart defending church-state separation. Stay with us!!"

By Joseph L. Conn

http://blog.au.org/2008/12/31/a-new-years-greeting-for-the-ages-jeffersons-jan-1-letter-to-the-danbury-baptists-still-rings-true/

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posted in Separation of church and state - 1 reply

Pope Admits Jesus is the SUN

Rocky — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 23:25:23 GMT

Pope Admits Jesus is the SUN

An interesting article today on the Italian newspaper "La Stampa":

Benedetto XVI: «Lui e altri scienziati ci hanno fatto capire le leggi naturali» 21 December 2008

Google translation from Italian:

Benedict XVI: "He and other scientists have made us understand the natural laws'
December 21, 2008

CITY OF VATICAN Benedict XVI recalled this morning at the Angelus before Christmas the figure of Galileo Galilei and other scientists who made us to understand the laws of nature and therefore the work of the Lord.

The fact that today, Dec. 21 - Ratzigner explained to the crowd of faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square - in the same time, falls the winter solstice, gives me the opportunity to greet all those who participate in various ways to initiatives for the year world of astronomy, 2009, held in the 4th centenary of the first comments to the telescope by Galileo Galilei. Among my venerated predecessors of memory - continued the Pope - were devotees of this science, as Sylvester II, that taught, Gregory XIII, and we owe our calendar, and St. Pius X, who knew build solar watches '.

If the heavens, according to the fine words of the Psalmist, telling the glory of God, "even the laws of nature, which over the centuries many men and women of science have made us understand better and better, I am a great stimulus to contemplate with gratitude the work of the Lord. Benedict XVI then recalled that astronomy has an important role in the scan time of prayer during the day and the Piazza San Pietro with its obelisk is a sundial that marks the hours of the day. The mystery of salvation, as well as historic - said the Pope - has a cosmic dimension: Christ is the sun of grace, with its light, and transfigures the universe turns on hold. The location of the feast of Christmas itself is linked to the winter solstice, when the days, in the northern hemisphere, start to grow longer again.

In this regard - added the Pope - perhaps not everyone knows that Piazza San Pietro is also a sundial: the great obelisk, it casts its shadow across a line that runs on the pavement toward the fountain toward this window, and in these days the shadow is the longest of the Year. This reminds us - added the pontiff - the role of astronomy in the scan time of prayer. The Angelus, for example, is recited morning, noon and evening, and the meridian, which formerly was used for knowing the "true noon" is governing watches."

source: http://www.lastampa.it/redazione/cmsSezioni/cronache/200812articoli/39412girata.asp

Other sources:
http://www.zenit.org/article-16611?l=italian
http://www.adnkronos.com/IGN/Cronaca/?id=3.0.2838599856
http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=14060&size=A

Join the "Solar Mythology ~ Astrotheology" tribe
http://tribes.tribe.net/solarmythologynastrotheology

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posted in Separation of church and state - 8 replies

Unlocking the misery some atheists feel

Rocky — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 00:02:18 GMT

Unlocking the misery some atheists feel

By Paul Bloom, Slate
In print: Sunday, December 28, 2008

"Many Americans doubt the morality of atheists. According to a 2007 Gallup poll, a majority of Americans say that they would not vote for an otherwise qualified atheist as president, meaning a nonbeliever would have a harder time getting elected than a Muslim, a homosexual, or a Jew.

Many would go further and agree with conservative commentator Laura Schlessinger that morality requires a belief in God — otherwise, all we have is our selfish desires.

In The Ten Commandments, she approvingly quotes Dostoyevsky: "Where there is no God, all is permitted." The opposing view, held by a small minority of secularists, such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, is that belief in God makes us worse. As Hitchens puts it, "Religion poisons everything."

Arguments about the merits of religions are often battled out with reference to history, by comparing the sins of theists and atheists. (I see your Crusades and raise you Stalin!) But a more promising approach is to look at empirical research that directly addresses the effects of religion on how people behave.

In a review published in Science, psychologists Ara Norenzayan and Azim Shariff discuss several experiments that lean pro-Schlessinger. In one of their own studies, they primed half the participants with a spirituality-themed word jumble (including the words divine and God) and gave the other half the same task with nonspiritual words. Then, they gave all the participants $10 each and told them that they could either keep it or share their cash reward with another (anonymous) subject.

Ultimately, the spiritual-jumble group parted with more than twice as much money as the control. Norenzayan and Shariff suggest that this lopsided outcome is the result of an evolutionary imperative to care about one's reputation. If you think about God, you believe someone is watching.

Since the United States is more religious than other Western countries, this research suggests that Fox talk-show host Sean Hannity was on to something when he asserted that the United States is "the greatest, best country God has ever given man on the face of the Earth."

It is at this point that the "We need God to be good" case falls apart.

In his new book, Society Without God, Phil Zuckerman looks at the Danes and the Swedes — probably the most godless people on Earth. They don't go to church or pray in the privacy of their own homes; they don't believe in God or heaven or hell.

But, by any reasonable standard, they're nice to one another. They have a famously expansive welfare and health care service. They have a strong commitment to social equality. And — even without belief in a God looming over them — they murder and rape one another significantly less frequently than Americans do.

Denmark and Sweden aren't exceptions. A 2005 study by Gregory Paul looking at 18 democracies found that the more atheist societies tended to have relatively low murder and suicide rates and relatively low incidence of abortion and teen pregnancy.

So, this is a puzzle. If you look within the United States, religion seems to make you a better person. Yet atheist societies do very well — better, in many ways, than devout ones.

The first step to solving this conundrum is to unpack the different components of religion. In my own work, I have argued that all humans, even young children, tacitly hold some supernatural beliefs, most notably the dualistic view that bodies and minds are distinct.

Other aspects of religion vary across cultures and across individuals within cultures. There are factual beliefs, such as the idea that there exists a single god that performs miracles, and moral beliefs, like the conviction that abortion is murder. There are religious practices, such as the sacrament or the lighting of Sabbath candles. And there is the community that a religion brings with it — the people who are part of your church, synagogue, or mosque.

The positive effect of religion in the real world, to my mind, is tied to this last, community component — rather than a belief in constant surveillance by a higher power. Humans are social beings, and we are happier, and better, when connected to others. This is the moral of sociologist Robert Putnam's work on American life. In Bowling Alone, he argues that voluntary association with other people is integral to a fulfilled and productive existence.

The Danes and the Swedes, despite being godless, have strong communities. In fact, Zuckerman points out that most Danes and Swedes identify themselves as Christian. They get married in church, have their babies baptized, give some of their income to the church, and feel attached to their religious community — they just don't believe in God. Zuckerman suggests that Scandinavian Christians are a lot like American Jews, who are also highly secularized in belief and practice and have strong communal feelings.

American atheists, by contrast, are often left out of community life. Studies cited by Arthur Brooks in Gross National Happiness, which find that the religious are happier and more generous than the secular, do not define religious and secular in terms of belief. They define it in terms of religious attendance. It is not hard to see how being left out of one of the dominant modes of American togetherness can have a corrosive effect on morality.

The sorry state of American atheists, then, may have nothing to do with their lack of religious belief. It may instead be the result of their outsider status within a highly religious country where many of their fellow citizens, including very vocal ones like Schlessinger, find them immoral and unpatriotic. Religion may not poison everything, but it deserves part of the blame for this one."

Paul Bloom is a professor of psychology at Yale University and author of Descartes' Baby: How the Science of Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/perspective/article948684.ece

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posted in Separation of church and state - 1 reply

Role Of Religion In Presidential Campaign Heads 2008 'Top Ten' List Of Church-State Stories

Rocky — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 23:41:46 GMT

Role Of Religion In Presidential Campaign Heads 2008 'Top Ten' List Of Church-State Stories

Monday, December 29, 2008

From Radioactive Clergy To Media Inquisitions, Religion Was A Hot Topic In This Year's Race For The White House, Say Editors Of Church & State Magazine

"The role of religion in the presidential campaign tops the 2008 “Top Ten” list of top church-state stories, according to the editors of Church & State.

The monthly magazine, published by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, is the nation’s only news periodical devoted exclusively to the intersection of religion and government.

Said Church & State publisher Barry W. Lynn, “It was a wild and crazy year. To tell you the truth, I’m glad it’s coming to a close. I’m hopeful 2009 will be a lot better.”

After studying the past 12 months of news, the editors selected the following 10 stories as the most important and most interesting church-state developments for the year.

1. The Role of Religion in the Presidential Campaign: Not since 1960 when John F. Kennedy the first Roman Catholic president was elected, has religion played such a large role in a presidential campaign. News media representatives grilled candidates on what sins they had committed and what their favorite Bible verses were. Barack Obama fought false rumors that he is secretly a Muslim, and Mitt Romney’s Mormonism became a controversial topic. Candidates were held accountable for the incendiary comments of their pastors and their clergy supporters, such as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and TV preacher John Hagee. Many observers thought the whole thing was an unholy mess, especially in a nation that separates religion and government.

2. The Resurgence of the Religious Right: While pundits and progressives have proclaimed the demise of the Religious Right, the fundamentalist political movement remained extraordinarily powerful. Republican John McCain found it necessary to name evangelical Sarah Palin as his running mate to mollify the GOP’s restive religious base, and Religious Right forces rammed through bans on same-sex marriage in California, Florida and Arizona. Moderate evangelical Richard Cizik was forced out as government affairs representative at the National Association of Evangelicals after coming under fire from Religious Right forces.

3. The Battle Over Gay Marriage: Bans on same-sex marriage were approved in California, Florida and Arizona with conservative religious forces leading the drive. California’s approval of Proposition 8, with massive funding from members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was particularly contentious. The Mormons, joined by the Roman Catholic hierarchy and evangelical Protestant congregations, were successful in passing a constitutional amendment that takes away the right of same-sex couples to marry and reflects church doctrine in civil law. The issue now moves back to the state Supreme Court.

4. The Ascendancy of Rick Warren: Once known primarily as a mega-church pastor and best-selling author (The Purpose Driven Life), the Rev. Rick Warren has rapidly moved into position as the nation’s most prominent preacher, despite right-wing views on reproductive freedom, gay rights and church-state separation. Warren, a Southern Baptist who heads Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., is viewed by progressives as Jerry Falwell in a Hawaiian shirt with an ace PR team. After hosting a presidential debate stacked toward John McCain and being asked to give the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration, many think Warren seems destined to be the new Billy Graham.

5. Religious Right Influence at Justice Department: Religious Right influence at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) was exposed this year. According to an internal DOJ investigation reported in the media in July, senior aides in the department used religious and political criteria to hire staff members for non-political positions. Monica Goodling, a top adviser to the attorney general, checked to see if job applicants were “pro-God in public life” and held right-wing views on abortion, homosexuality and other issues. (Goodling is a graduate of TV preacher Pat Robertson’s Regent University.) DOJ also posted a legally dubious memorandum this year insisting that the federal government may give grants to “faith-based” social service agencies that discriminate in hiring, even if Congress has explicitly banned such bias.

6. Battles Over Creationism in Public Schools: New battles have erupted over the teaching of evolution in public schools. Blocked by the courts from teaching fundamentalist religious concepts directly in biology classes, Religious Right forces are trying a backdoor strategy. They are demanding that schools teach the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution, a euphemism for creationist ideas. Over the heated objections of educators, scientists and civil liberties activists, the Louisiana legislature approved an “academic freedom” law encouraging such instruction in the state’s schools. Now the Texas State Board of Education is debating a similar proposal as part of its 10-year review of science standards.

7. Church Politicking Plot: The Religious Right’s dream of building a fundamentalist church-based political machine took a big step forward in 2008 when more than 30 pastors used their pulpits to endorse Republican political candidates. They acted at the behest of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a wealthy Religious Right legal outfit that wants to challenge the federal tax law ban on partisan politicking by tax-exempt groups. The ADF, which was founded by TV preachers and other religious broadcasters, hopes the Internal Revenue Service will revoke participating churches’ tax exemptions leading to a court showdown.

8. Defeat of Jeb Bush Referenda: Florida Gov. Jeb Bush saw his school voucher subsidies for religious and other private schools overturned by the state Supreme Court in 2006. Undeterred, the now former governor’s allies on an obscure tax commission engineered two measures onto the November 2008 ballot that would have repealed the state constitution’s ban on public funding of religion as well as diluted its provision for a strong system of public schools. To Bush’s dismay, the state Supreme Court on Sept. 3 struck the referenda from the ballot, derailing the scheme.

9. Blocking of ‘Christian’ License Plate: The South Carolina legislature unanimously approved a special “Christian” license plate featuring a bright yellow cross, a stained-glass church window and the words “I Believe.” Backed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, four local clergy and two minority faith groups challenged the government favoritism toward one faith. On Dec. 11, a federal district court blocked issuance of the plates. The judge’s action may forestall similar sectarian plates under consideration in other states.

10. The Christmas Wars: It has become an annual holiday tradition Religious Right groups and their allies in the right-wing media launch a yearly crusade to stop the alleged secularization of Christmas and to pressure government to include Christian symbols in the holiday mix. They rail against stores’ use of the term “Happy Holidays” and insist that advertisements say “Merry Christmas” instead. This year, much of the attention focused on a Washington State battle where an atheist Winter Solstice sign was positioned near a Christian Nativity scene in the state capital. Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly and an array of Religious Right scolds lambasted Gov. Christine Gregoire for allowing the anti-religious sentiment. Ironically, credit for the atheist display actually should go to the Alliance Defense Fund, a Religious Right legal group that sued Gregoire last year, insisting that the Capitol is an open forum where a Nativity scene (and all other forms of speech) must be allowed."

http://www.au.org/site/News2?abbr=pr&page=NewsArticle&id=10201

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Federal Judge Blocks Issuance Of ‘I Believe’ Auto Tag

Rocky — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 00:09:06 GMT

Federal Judge Blocks Issuance Of ‘I Believe’ Auto Tag

Federal Judge Blocks Issuance Of ‘I Believe’ Automobile Tag Featuring Cross And Stained-Glass Church Window

December 11, 2008

Americans United Applauds Federal Court Ruling Against South Carolina's 'Christian' License Plate

"A federal judge today ruled that the state of South Carolina may not issue a special “Christian” license plate featuring a cross, a stained-glass window and the words “I Believe.”

Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which sponsored the litigation to stop issuance of the plate, hailed the decision.

“The ‘I Believe’ license plate is a clear example of government favoritism toward one religion,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “The court drove home an important point: South Carolina officials have no business meddling in religious matters.”

U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie today issued a preliminary injunction forbidding the state to issue or manufacture the plates. She also ordered the state to inform people who requested the plates that they will not be available and to remove information about the plates from the state Web site."

http://www.au.org/site/News2?abbr=pr&page=NewsArticle&id=10191

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posted in Separation of church and state - 2 replies

Countdown: Rob Boston on Why the Inclusion of Warren is a Bad Idea

Rocky — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 22:29:00 GMT

I agree with Rob Boston - Rick Warren supports taking away rights from a certain class of individuals specifically because it counters his religious views. This does not represent the *"CHANGE"* Obama promised - this is more of the same religious right xian fundamentalism of the Bush administration. Rick Warren is Anti-gay, Anti-reproductive freedom, Anti-science.

It's a major disappointment to have him up there for such a historical event starting off the Obama admin. Whatever Obama was thinking he must've been stoned.

Countdown: Rob Boston on Why the Inclusion of Warren is a Bad Idea

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJzxw1jWFqU

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posted in Separation of church and state - 1 reply

"Congress Shal Make no Law..."

PaulaC — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 19:58:07 GMT

I just heard an interesting argument last night. I don't really invest in it as true, but am curious about what you think regarding it.

There were some xtian fundies who felt that the First Amendment was about -congress- specifically not being able to establish a state religion but that each ~state~ should be able to choose a state religion if they want.

Have you heard this argument?

posted in Separation of church and state - 5 replies

Olympia WA and FFRF

David — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:04:52 GMT

I would like to get down to Olympia and see this display. Was talk of the town on radio stations yesterday.

david

Anti-Christmas Message in Washington State Capitol Holiday Display
By Mark Impomeni
The State of Washington accepted an application from an atheist group, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, to place an anti-religion message as part of the state's official holiday display in the state capitol rotunda steps from a traditional nativity scene. The decision is the culmination of a three-year long battle in Washington over inclusiveness in holiday displays. In 2006, the Port of Seattle removed a Christmas tree from the Seattle-Tacoma airport after a local rabbi requested to add a menorah to honor Hanukkah. That same year, an Olympia real estate agent, Ron Wesselius, requested to place a nativity scene inside the capitol building after observing a menorah displayed there. He was denied and filed suit. The state settled, allowing the manger to be displayed in 2007.

The atheist group's sign reads:

"At this season of the winter solstice, may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds."

The Freedom From Religion Foundation's co-president, Dan Barker, defended the display's provocative message, calling it, "free speech." "Non-believers are a part of the fabric of America and we claim our place at the table to exercise free speech and freedom of religion, which includes freedom from religion," he said.

Washington state officials accepted the group's application to place the sign in an apparent overreaction to the controversy from 2006. The state says that it will honor almost any request from groups to place religious or political displays as long as they are not disruptive, don't cost the taxpayers money, and are not viewed as an endorsement by the state.

But atheist groups like the Freedom From Religion Foundation view any decoration or display with even a hint of religious significance as a violation of the First Amendment's prohibition against establishment of a state religion. What they conveniently overlook is that the same Establishment Clause which prevents a state sanctioned church also prevents the government from limiting the "free exercise" of religion.

Decisions like Washington State's to allow virtually any political or religious display on state ground will not satisfy critics on either side. Religious groups will seek more and bigger displays in future years, and atheist groups will follow suit. A simpler solution would have been to allow the Christmas display unfettered with an official statement declaring it to be placed by a private citizen rather than the state government. Instead, state officials will now include an offensive message of intolerance as part of their official holiday celebration.

posted in Separation of church and state - 15 replies

Secular Solstice and Equinox Celebrations: Community without the Dogma

Rocky — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 18:26:17 GMT

Secular Solstice and Equinox Celebrations: Community without the Dogma

A great way to create a community without all the dogma is through Secular Solstice & Equinox Celebrations.

I think Freethinkers should challenge traditional religious holiday celebrations. Such as "Christmas" and "Easter" for example. There are perfectly valid and scientific reasons to celebrate the solstices and equinoxes. And especially the winter solstice and the spring equinox ... without any need for religious under pinnings at all. We do *NOT* need religion to celebrate these natural phenomena whatsoever.

Challenge Religious Tradition with Secular Solstice and Equinox Celebrations. Today, we find Freethinkers getting involved in the winter solstice fun:

"ATHEISTS: There has been a recent increase in solstice observances by Atheists in the U.S. For example, The American Atheists and local Atheist groups have organized celebrations for 2000-DEC, including the Great North Texas Infidel Bash in Weatherford TX; Winter Solstice bash in Roselle NJ; Winter Solstice Parties in York PA, Boise ID, North Bethesda MD, and Des Moines IA; Winter Solstice Gatherings in Phoenix AZ and Denver CO: a Year End Awards and Review Dinner (YEAR) in San Francisco, CA."
http://www.religioustolerance.org/winter_solstice.htm

1st Ever Winter Solstice Webcast:

"For the first time ever, the 2007 Winter Solstice illumination of the passage and chamber at Newgrange will be streamed live on the internet.

The webcast and an exhibition at the Brú na Bóinne Visitor Centre celebrates the 40th Anniversary of the re-discovery of the Winter Solstice Phenomenon at Newgrange by Professor O’Kelly in 1967.

The Winter Solstice event from inside the chamber at Newgrange will be broadcast on the mornings of Friday 21st and Saturday 22nd December 2007. If conditions are good the rising sun will illuminate the passage and chamber between 8:58am and 9:15am GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)."

"Each year the winter solstice event attracts much attention at Newgrange. Many gather at the ancient tomb to wait for dawn, as people did 5,000 years ago."
http://www.newgrange.com/webcast.htm

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Freethought Radio Dec 6th: Barbara Walker

Rocky — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 06:17:09 GMT

Freethought Radio Dec 6th: Barbara Walker

Weekend of December 6, 2008
Guest: Author Barbara G. Walker
Topic: The Winter Solstice - The Reason for the Season

"Dan and Annie Laurie will announce various Winter Solstice initiatives of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, air news clips about FFRF Winter Solstice Displays at State Capitols and its new "Reason's Greetings" billboards (including Bill O'Reilly ranting against them), and play a little tongue in cheek seasonal music.

They will also interview scholar and author Barbara G. Walker, about the real meaning of the season and everything they didn't teach you about the origins of "Christmas" in Sunday School! Walker is Freethought Today's columnist and author of the monumental Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets"

"Freethought Radio streams live over Air America. In most locations, the show airs Saturdays, 1-2 p.m. Eastern. Check your local listing to confirm times.

Freethought Radio is streamed live at The Mic 92.1, Madison, Wis., every Saturday from 11 a.m. - noon CDT."

http://www.ffrf.org/radio/

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

The United American Committee

Rocky — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 04:39:01 GMT

The United American Committee

"The United American Committee is a non-partisan movement of concerned Americans, promoting awareness of threats which face America from within. The UAC is dedicated to educating and awakening the nation to the current threats confronting the U.S., with the primarily focus on confronting Islamic extremism. The UAC champions the fight in the ideological aspects of the War on Terror, and brings the War on Terror to the grassroots level. The thousands of UAC members who are just like you are heroes for making the pledge to make tomorrow in America a better, and safer place. We are a diverse group, all Americans, united, and striving for a better tomorrow in America."

THE 10 POINT UAC PLATFORM:
http://www.unitedamericancommittee.org/platform.htm

http://www.unitedamericancommittee.org

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

Send a letter to President-Elect Obama to STOP Religious Discrimination

Rocky — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 19:07:11 GMT

Send a letter to President-Elect Obama to STOP Religious Discrimination

Tell President-Elect Obama to Stop Religious Discrimination!

Take action NOW!

The election is over and transition plans are well underway. The possibility of change has arrived, and for those of us who stand up for separation of church and state, it’s not a moment too soon. For eight years, we have been fighting President Bush’s Faith-Based Initiative. We’ve battled over charitable choice in Congress time and time again. From hiring discrimination to proselytizing, from the lack of accountability to the preemption of important state and local civil rights laws, the Initiative has been fraught with unconstitutional and unconscionable policies.

With a new administration taking office, we finally have an opportunity to reverse some of the damage caused by President Bush’s Faith-Based Initiative. President-elect Obama has stated clearly that he will continue the government partnership with faith-based organizations in order to reach as many of our citizens as possible who need social services. But thanks to some encouraging words by the President-Elect, we have reason to believe that some of the most destructive aspects of the Faith-Based Initiative may finally end. Until policies have been implemented, however, the revisions to the Initiative remain uncertain. Needless to say, President-Elect Obama has recently been hearing from loud voices from across the political spectrum including those who wish to send federal dollars to support religious activities and to underwrite organizations that discriminate in hiring. We must be willing to work with President-Elect Obama to implement this new partnership in order to protect church-state separation.

We need you to speak up NOW to ensure that once and for all, the wrongs of the Bush Faith-Based Initiative are made right. Please click here to send a letter to President-Elect Obama encouraging him to restore civil rights and prevent possible violations of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. This is our opportunity to work with the next administration to begin to repair the wall between church and state!

To send a letter to President elect Obama go here -
http://action.au.org/au/mailapp/

http://www.au.org/site/PageServer?pagename=fld_dear_pres_elect

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posted in Separation of church and state - 0 replies

FFRF "Imagine No Religion" Billboards Come Down

Rocky — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 00:02:18 GMT

FFRF "Imagine No Religion" Billboards Come Down

"Imagine No Religion" Billboard Comes to California for the First Time

November 18, 2008 The Freedom From Religion Foundation's national campaign to place nonreligious, irreverent billboards has come to California for the first time. The billboard just went up on Archibald Street, facing north, in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. The colorful billboard carries the Freedom From Religion Foundation's name and website, and boasts a John Lennon-esque statement, "Imagine No Religion," against a stained-glass window background. The billboard can be seen by those traveling east and west on Foothill Boulevard, which is part of the famous Route 66."

http://www.ffrf.org/news/2008/cali_billboard.php

And again - "Imagine No Religion" Billboard Comes Down in Cucamonga

"November 20, 2008 The Freedom From Religion Foundation's "Imagine No Religion" billboard, which only went up late last week in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., for a two-month run, has been censored by General Outdoor Co., which took down the Foundation's vinyl message today. While the Foundation has encountered billboard companies unwilling to lease boards in several locations (Rapid City, Mich., Peoria, Ill., rural Nebraska and Salt Lake City), this is the first time one of its billboards has been censored after going up......"

http://www.ffrf.org/news/2008/censorship.php

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posted in Separation of church and state - 2 replies

The Jesus Challenge

Rocky — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 03:28:15 GMT

The Jesus Challenge

Whether you may be a Christian who believes in the biblical Jesus or a freethinking skeptic who believes in a historical Jesus, there are some questions that must be answered:

* Why don't we have the original Gospels in their original language written by the hand of actual eye witnesses of Jesus with the correct authorship and dates on them?

* Why were the Gospels originally written in Greek when Jesus supposedly spoke Aramaic?

* Why do Christians uphold the King James Version of the bible as the inerrant word of God when it contains literally thousands of errors?

* How many Christians can read the bible in its original languages i.e. Hebrew and Greek?

* The Gospels as we have them today did not enter the historical or literary records until toward the end of the second century around 180CE - WHY? Prior to that the Gospels were anonymous. That's 150 years after the supposed death of Jesus!!! How can this be if they're suppose to be written by eye witnesses?

* The canonical Gospels are not considered reliable accounts of history by biblical scholars - WHY?

* The epistles of Paul were written long after Jesus supposedly lived and resurrected from the dead - why do they lack any facts about Jesus' life?

* Why didn't Jesus/God leave behind valid, convincing evidence to alleviate Christians from persecution and ridicule and to convince the rest of the world of his existence?

* Why didn't anyone ever describe what Jesus looked like?

* If Jesus was a "carpenter" why don't we have anything created by his hand?

* Why isn't there any artwork, writings or carvings by the hand of Jesus or anything to demonstrate a historical Jesus?

* Where are the court documents for the trials & crucifixion of Jesus proving a historical Jesus?

* Why doesn't the 10 commandments unmistakably forbid war, tyranny, taking over other people’s countries, slavery, exploitation of workers, cruelty to children, wife-beating, stoning, treating women--or anyone--as chattel or inferior beings, government corruption?

* There are over 20 passages in the bible claiming that Jesus was famed far & wide: Mt 4:23-25, 5:1, 8:1, 8:18, 9:8, 9:31, 9:33, 9:36, 11:7, 12:15, 13:2, 14:1, 14:13, 14:22, 15:30, 19:2, 21:9, 26:55; Mk 1:28, 10:1; Lk 4:14, 4:37, 5:15, 14:25 - Why didn't any contemporary historians write anything about Jesus?

* Why do Christians hold-up the writings of Josephus (37-100 CE), Pliny the Younger (62-113 CE), Tacitus (c. 56-120 CE), Suetonius (c. 69-c. 122 CE), as the very best so-called "evidence" for Jesus when even *IF* we consider their writings authentic they are far too late to be considered eye witnesses as they were all born after Jesus' supposed death?

* If Jesus lived and the bible is true then why the need for Christians destroy all the Pagan temples, writings, history and kill the Pagan Priests?

* If Christianity is the one true faith then, why isn't the world convinced?

* The cross is the most important symbol to Christians representing eternal life - how is that any kind of a new divine revelation when the cross/ankh existed in ancient Egypt symbolizing eternal life?

* The primary passage for the Rapture is 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17. Christians are gleefully awaiting Jesus' 2nd coming & rapture etc - WHY, when Jesus said "...There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom." (Matthew 16:28 KJV) ? Or in Matthew 24:34 Jesus said, "Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled."

Jesus is implying that he would return within the lifetime of his contemporaries, and indeed the Apostles expected Jesus to return before the passing of their generation. Isn't that a failed prophecy? If not, then why did Jesus lead them to believe he would return before their own death? Shouldn't he have said something?

* Why should anyone accept the biblical story of Jesus as historical fact when 1.) There's no valid scientific evidence supporting it and 2.) We have similar concepts via Pagan religions long prior to Christianity.

* Where's the genealogy of Jesus' family tree? Where are his family today? And why didn't anyone in Jesus' immediate family write anything at the time about Jesus at all to pass on? We have no writings from any siblings or descendants claiming any heritage whatsoever.

How in the world can anyone believe the biblical character named Jesus existed when it appears he simply appeared for 30 to 33 years and just vanished with out a trace - and I guess his immediate family disappeared too as there is no trace left, no genealogy of Jesus' family tree to track down.

posted in Separation of church and state - 3 replies

California, A New Battleground of Spiritual Warfare

PaulaC — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 15:49:05 GMT

"On November 1, 2008, I attended The Call - a rally organized by Lou Engle at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium - attended by 33,000 (according to organizer estimates) over a twelve hour period. Citing the state's "fog of Jezebel confusion"* Engle organized this incarnation of The Call to support Proposition 8 - a California ballot proposition that would ban same-sex marriage in the state. During the event, Engle warned that the decadence in the state "will release a spirit that is more demonic than Islam". The Call is a large-scale traveling revival that purports to offer participants an edifying day of fasting and prayer away from the temptations of secular culture. But far from being a quiet zone for collective meditation, TheCall was a anxious assembly of endtime spiritual warriors.

As Max Blumenthal notes in a piece today on The Daily Beast, the event was bankrolled by prominent dominionists - including the notorious Christian Reconstructionist Harold F. Ahmanson. This connection illustrates the ways in which Christian right leaders from radically different theological perspectives routinely find common ground in the dominionist mandate to "purify the nation" through political means.
The "call" of the title was to spiritual warfare - to "break the 40-year Berkeley rebellion" (a reference to what they see as the rampant spread of secular values following the Berkeley protests of the 1960s) and to cleanse the city of San Francisco. Engle's apocalyptic battle cry, "As California goes, so goes the nation" was the underlying theme of the event - if the "sanctity of marriage" falls in the trendsetting state of California, the nation won't be far behind. The crowd was reminded by Engle, James Dobson, Tony Perkins and others of a Christian right maxim: the traditional family structure forms the foundation of a Godly society and to undermine it is to join forces with the Antichrist.

Toward the end of the night, the stakes were raised when an increasingly agitated Engle and a young campus leader from UC-San Diego called the crowd to ready themselves for martyrdom. The 20,000 or so who remained in the stadium after 12 hours of spiritual warfare seemed all too willing to comply.

* Engle stated here his belief that the spirit of Minerva (Roman goddess of warriors, poetry, wisdom and medicine) controls the state of California. "

[posted in Talk to Action]

Watch the video, it's frightening.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1HGpY8EuXQ

posted in Separation of church and state - 7 replies

GAFFNEY: Treasury submits to Shariah

Rocky — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 17:58:05 GMT

GAFFNEY: Treasury submits to Shariah

"The U.S. Treasury Department is submitting to Shariah - the seditious religio-political-legal code authoritative Islam seeks to impose worldwide under a global theocracy.

As reported in this space last week, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Robert Kimmitt set the stage with his recent visit to Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Persian Gulf states. His stated purpose was to promote the recycling of petrodollars in the form of foreign investment here.

Evidently, the price demanded by his hosts is that the U.S. government get with the Islamist financial program. While in Riyadh, Mr. Kimmitt announced: "The U.S. government is currently studying the salient features of Islamic banking to ascertain how far it could be useful in fighting the ongoing world economic crisis."

"Islamic banking" is a euphemism for a practice better known as "Shariah-Compliant Finance (SFC)." And it turns out that this week the Treasury will be taking officials from various federal agencies literally to school on SFC.

The department is hosting a half-day course entitled "Islamic Finance 101" on Thursday at its headquarters building. Treasury's self-described "seminar for the policy community" is co-sponsored with the leading academic promoters of Shariah and SCF in the United States: Harvard University Law School's Project on Islamic Finance. At the very least, the U.S. government evidently hopes to emulate Harvard's success in securing immense amounts of Wahhabi money in exchange for conforming to the Islamists' agenda. Like Harvard, Treasury seems utterly disinterested in what Shariah actually is, and portends.

Unfortunately, such submission - the literal meaning of "Islam" - is not likely to remain confined long to the Treasury or its sister agencies. Thanks to the extraordinary authority conferred on Treasury since September, backed by the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the department is now in a position to impose its embrace of Shariah on the U.S. financial sector. The nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Treasury's purchase of - at last count - 17 banks and the ability to provide, or withhold, funds from its new slush-fund can translate into unprecedented coercive power....

... After all, the object of Shariah is the supplanting of our government and Constitution, through violent means if possible and, until then, through stealthy ones. Islamists, having secured footholds via their parallel societies, inevitably use those to extend their influence over Muslims who have no more interest in living under authoritative Islam's Shariah than the rest of us do. Inexorably, it becomes the turn of non-Muslims to accommodate themselves to ever more intrusive demands from the Islamists...

It is known as submission, or dhimmitude."

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/nov/04/treasury-submits-to-shariah/

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posted in Separation of church and state - 2 replies

Religious Discrimination in the Military

Rocky — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 02:24:44 GMT

Atheists in Foxholes: Preventing Religious Discrimination in the Military under an Obama Administration

Secular Coalition for America and Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers Unveil Proposal on Religious Accommodation at Pre-Veterans Day Briefing

"Nov. 10 - Atheists and others with no religious affiliation make up 21% of the U.S. Armed Forces, and yet they suffer harassment, discrimination and proselytizing in a military increasingly dominated by a powerful minority of evangelical Christians. In a pre-Veterans Day proposal unveiled today at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., the Coalition and its member organization the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers made a series of recommendations in a memo to President-elect Barack Obama as he considers staffing and policies regarding the military."

http://www.secular.org/news/Obama_military_accommodation.html

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posted in Separation of church and state - 1 reply