The Old Eighteen

McCain: "The Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation"

John McCain, hoping to carry on the fine tradition of constitutional illiteracy established by his mentor and role model, George Bush:

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(via RichardDawkins.net)

Christianist pastors plotting to defy IRS tax-exempt requirements

As America continues to creep further and further toward becoming a falangist state, one of the few bulwarks impeding the progress of that creeping religious fascism has been the IRS law banning nonprofit organizations, including churches, from maintaining their tax-exempt status if they endorse or oppose political candidates or otherwise engage in partisan politics.  Now, even that slim line of defense may be in danger:

A conservative legal-advocacy group is enlisting ministers to use their pulpits to preach about election candidates this September, defying a tax law that bars churches from engaging in politics.

Alliance Defense Fund, a Scottsdale, Ariz., nonprofit, is hoping at least one sermon will prompt the Internal Revenue Service to investigate, sparking a court battle that could get the tax provision declared unconstitutional. Alliance lawyers represent churches in disputes with the IRS over alleged partisan activity.

The action marks the latest attempt by a conservative organization to help clergy harness their congregations to sway elections. The protest is scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 28, a little more than a month before the general election, in a year when religious concerns and preachers have been a regular part of the political debate.

[...] Alliance fund staff hopes 40 or 50 houses of worship will take part in the action, including clerics from liberal-leaning congregations. About 80 ministers have expressed interest, including one Catholic priest, says Erik Stanley, the Alliance's senior legal counsel.

"The government should not be telling the church what it should or should not be saying," says the Rev. Steve Riggle, senior pastor of Grace Community Church in Houston, who hopes to take part in the Alliance effort. Mr. Riggle says he told his congregation from the pulpit, before the Texas primary in March, that he was supporting former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee for president. "As a pastor, a private citizen, I can speak for myself. The IRS cannot quench my voice," he says.

Of course they can't "quench your voice."  They can, however, revoke your privilege of not having to pay taxes if you aren't living up to your end of the bargain, and that's all they're doing.  If churches want to engage in politicking, they have every right to do so - they just don't have a right to expect special treatment under federal tax law, as they currently receive.

What are the chances of this challenge being successful?  Well, the law has already been challenged unsuccessfully once, in 2000.  But there's no guarantee that it won't happen in the future, especially under a judicial system stacked with Republican appointees:

Some legal scholars are hoping for a new test case. Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, says a church might make a successful claim that the federal government is burdening the free exercise of religion and cannot do so without a compelling state interest.

Let's hope he's wrong - if this law is overturned, the dominionists will have one more tool at their disposal in their fight to turn this country into a Christianist dictatorship.

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(via Daily Kos)

Jewish students in Plano pressured to pick up New Testaments

From Plano, a brief reminder of why we "secular progressives" sometimes feel it necessary to bitch about things like organized prayer in public schools, and requiring students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance:

Some Plano students who are Jewish say they were pressured or taunted to pick up copies of the New Testament from school display tables during recent weeks.

Their parents have called for changes in district policies that allow outside groups to distribute materials on campus.

"Probably the one I heard the most was, 'If the Bible touched you, like, will you burn or something?' " said Jeffrey Lavine, 16, a sophomore at Vines High School. "I sort of played it down as a joke and everything, which it was, but it was definitely a meaner comment than what we're used to."

Plano officials said they pulled aside some students to talk about respect and tolerance after the recent complaints, but no students have been disciplined.

The New Testaments were part of unmanned displays set up by Gideons International, a nondenominational Christian group that has visited a dozen Plano schools in recent months.

Displays like the one at Vines High School are not about Christians sharing the good word out of love for their fellow man.  What they are about, pure and simple, is the assertion of power and control by the Christian majority over public institutions.  The people who aranged for these displays are motivated by the same animus as people who insist that every public event, no matter how banal or lofty, be consecrated with a word of prayer - one that is almost always delivered by a Christian, in Jesus' name.  Occasionally Jews are allowed to lead prayers, because they've been adopted by many in the majority as honorary Christians, but very rarely do you see a Muslim or Hindu or pagan, or other adherent of a minority religion, deliver an invocation at a public event.  And on those rare occasions when they are invited to do so, they are often greeted with verbal abuse and belligerent intolerance (1, 2).  This flies in the face of what Christianists often say in defense of organized prayer and other such assertions of power at public events and places, that they are simply defending religious freedom in general - people who exercise their religious freedom by asserting non-Judeo-Christian beliefs are told far too often that their beliefs don't count.  Likewise, people who choose not to participate in public assertions of Christianity, like the Jewish boy in the story above, are often subjected to harassment and ridicule.

Schools should be places of learning, not vehicles for Christian religious proselytizing.  I seriously doubt that very many of the students who actually want or need a bible are lacking one (or more) at home, since most of the students are practicing Christians, and many of the ones who aren't have probably made a conscious rejection of the religion.  But if they do want or need a bible, there's a church or bookstore on just about every other street corner.  When they are in school, the only books these students should be worried about are the books they're learning from.

Thou shalt not install any graven images at the Potter County Courthouse

You don't hear news like this coming out of Texas very often, so when it comes it's a pleasant surprise:

A Ten Commandments Monument will not go up at the Potter County Courthouse. County commissioners voted this morning four to zero against the proposed monument.

County Judge Arthur Ware says even though the county would not pay for the monument itself, taxpayers' money would pay for an inevitable lawsuit. Ware says, "it wouldn't be the county, because it's not budgeted. But the county would have to pay to defend a lawsuit."

Ware also says the monument that was proposed to go up had more than just the Ten Commandments on it; it also had religious messages on other sides.

They may have been motivated more by fear of an expensive lawsuit than out of any respect for the First Amendment, but it's still good to hear about elected officials in Texas standing up for separation of church and state.

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(via jobsanger)

Taylor Marsh: stuck on stupid

Taylor Marsh is now telling people that she thinks Rev. Jeremiah Wright is, as she put it, the "most divisive nationally recognized religious figure I've seen in my lifetime."  For your review, here's a brief list of just a few of the religious figures Taylor Marsh thinks Jeremiah Wright is worse than:

Jerry Falwell:

• "The Jews are returning to their land of unbelief. They are spiritually blind and desperately in need of their Messiah and Savior."
• "The true Negro does not want integration... He realizes his potential is far better among his own race... It will destroy our race eventually... In one northern city, a pastor friend of mine tells me that a couple of opposite race live next door to his church as man and wife... It boils down to whether we are going to take God's Word as final."
• On 9/11: "God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve."
• Also on 9/11: "The ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this," and "And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America — I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"
• "And the fact that John Kerry would not support a federal marriage amendment [prohibiting gay marriage], it equates in our minds as someone 150 years ago saying I'm personally opposed to slavery, but if my neighbor wants to own one or two that's OK. We don't buy that."
• "You know, you almost got to be a homosexual to be recognized in the entertainment industry anymore."
• "Since Jesus came to the earth the first time 2,000 years ago as a Jewish male, many evangelicals believe the Antichrist will, by necessity, be a Jewish male. This belief is 2,000 years old and has no anti-Semitic roots. This is simply historic and prophetic orthodox Christian doctrine that many theologians, Christian and non-Christian, have understood for two millennia."
• "AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharaoh's charioteers... AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals."
• "The ACLU is to Christians what the American Nazi party is to Jews."
• "If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being."

Pat Robertson:

• "The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."
• Regarding the election of anti-Intelligent Design candidates to the Dover, PA school board: "I'd like to say to the citizens of Dover, if there is a disaster in your area don't turn to god; you just rejected him from your city."
• "If anybody understood what Hindus really believe, there would be no doubt that they have no business administering government policies in a country that favors freedom and equality."
• "[Homosexuals] want to come into churches and disrupt church services and throw blood all around and try to give people AIDS and spit in the face of ministers."
• "I know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get married, you have accepted the headship of a man, your husband. Christ is the head of the household and the husband is the head of the wife, and that's the way it is, period."
• "Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history."
• [Planned Parenthood] "is teaching kids to fornicate, teaching people to have adultery, every kind of bestiality, homosexuality, lesbianism – everything that the Bible condemns."
• "Presbyterians are the spirit of the Antichrist."
• "The media challenged me. 'You're not going to bring atheists into the government? How dare you maintain that those who believe the Judeo-Christian values are better qualified to govern America than Hindus and Muslims?' My simple answer is, 'Yes, they are.'"
• "When lawlessness is abroad in the land, the same thing will happen here that happened in Nazi Germany. Many of those people involved with Adolph Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals – the two things seem to go together."
• "We're importing Hinduism into America. The whole thought of your karma, of meditation, of the fact that there's no end of life and there's this endless wheel of life, this is all Hinduism. Chanting too. Many of those chants are to Hindu Gods -- Vishnu, Hare Krishna. The origin of it is all demonic. We can't let that stuff come into America. We've got the best defense, if you will -- a good offense."
• "You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense, I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist."
• "Ladies and Gentleman, we have to recoginze that Islam is not a religon. It is a world wide poltical movement meant on dominating the world. And it is meant to subjugate people under Islamic law."

Jimmy Swaggart: "Evolution is a bankrupt speculative philosophy, not a scientific fact. Only a spiritually bankrupt society could ever believe it.… Only atheists could accept this Satanic theory."

John Hagee: "It was the disobedience and rebellion of the Jews, God's chosen people, to their covenantal responsibility to serve only the one true God, Jehovah, that gave rise to the opposition and persecution that they experienced beginning in Canaan and continuing to this very day... Their own rebellion had birthed the seed of antisemitism that would arise and bring destruction to them for centuries to come.... it rises from the judgment of God upon his rebellious chosen people."

James Kennedy:

• "The Christian community has a golden opportunity to train an army of dedicated teachers who can invade the public school classrooms and use them to influence the nation for Christ."
• "Our job is to reclaim America for Christ, whatever the cost. As the vice regents of God, we are to exercise godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government, our literature and arts, our sports arenas, our entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors -- in short, over every aspect and institution of human society."
• "How much more forcefully can I say it? The time has come, and it is long overdue, when Christians and conservatives and all men and women who believe in the birthright of freedom must rise up and reclaim America for Jesus Christ."
• "The intimate coupling of two men or two women is not marriage. It is a pale and misshapen counterfeit that will only serve to empty marriage of its meaning and destroy the institution that is the keystone in the arch of civilization."

James Dobson:

• "Patrick Leahy is a God's people hater. I don't know if he hates God, but he hates God's people."
• "Isn't it amazing that there's such a sizable number of people in the media and in the liberal community that despise this country and its freedoms, and they're doing everything they can to undermine it?"
• On gay marriage: "Homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage. It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth."
• "[T]he boy's father has to do his part. He needs to mirror and affirm his son's maleness. He can play rough-and-tumble games with his son, in ways that are decidedly different from the games he would play with a little girl. He can help his son learn to throw and catch a ball. He can teach him to pound a square wooden peg into a square hole in a pegboard. He can even take his son with him into the shower, where the boy cannot help but notice that Dad has a penis, just like his, only bigger."

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(via Too Sense)

“Britain has had it with religion”

If only the people in this country were as rational as those in the UK:

A poll by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation uncovered a widespread belief that faith - not just in its extreme form - was intolerant, irrational and used to justify persecution.

Pollsters asked 3,500 people what they considered to be the worst blights on modern society, updating a list drawn up by Rowntree, a Quaker, 104 years ago.

The responses may well have dismayed him. The researchers found that the "dominant opinion" was that religion was a "social evil".

Many participants said religion divided society, fuelled intolerance and spawned "irrational" educational and other policies.

One said: "Faith in supernatural phenomena inspires hatred and prejudice throughout the world, and is commonly used as justification for persecution of women, gays and people who do not have faith."

Many respondents called for state funding of church schools to be ended.

Meanwhile, here in the US, we have people calling for creationism to be taught as legitimate science in our classrooms.  Rather than improving our public schools, we're told that the answer to this country's lagging student achievement in math and science is to give parents voucher checks, so they can send their children to private parochial schools where they can be taught that the universe was created over a six-day period less than 10,000 years ago.  Public funding is routinely given to religious organizations so that they can proselytize under the guise of charity.  And merely suggesting that we remove the words "under god" from the pledge of allegiance, or "In god we trust" from our currency, sends politicians and their constituents into fits of rage.

Religion is indeed a social evil, and it's good to see that it's being recognized as such at least somewhere on the planet.

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(via Andrew Sullivan)

Pope Benedict XVI is an out-of-touch elitist

I wonder if Hillary Clinton has rolled out the attack ads yet:

Benedict examined American society, saying he detected anger and alienation, increasing violence and a "growing forgetfulness of God."

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(via AMERICAblog)

Happy Easter

So how did you celebrate easter?  Everybody has their own way of doing it.  Some people celebrate by painting eggs, or filling baskets with goodies and crappy fake plastic grass.  Others celebrate by nailing themselves to crosses:

A 15-year-old boy has been crucified in the Philipines today in a gory ritual to mark the death of Jesus Christ.

Dozens of Filipinos, including the boy and an 18-year-old girl, were nailed to crosses and scores more whipped their backs into a bloody pulp as the country's devout Roman Catholics marked Good Friday.

The voluntary crucifixions in the northern Philippines were the most extreme displays of religious devotion in this mainly Catholic country, where millions are praying and fasting ahead of the Easter weekend.

Parents, remember this story the next time you get a little cross at your teenagers for spending too much time hanging around the house, because they could always be hanging somewhere else - like, for example, a little cross.

Crossville, TN is "touched by his noodly appendage"

Pastafarians rejoice!  The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster in Crossville, Tennessee has installed a statue of the Flying Spaghetti Monster on the lawn in front of the Cumberland County Courthouse.  Hey, if they can put a chainsaw-carved wooden replica of the Last Supper on the courthouse lawn, why not?