Bligbi » Church & State

Megyn Kelly schools O’Reilly

Karen — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 15:14:45 +0000

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Las Vegas to be sued by Humanists?

Karen — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 17:15:41 +0000

Here’s a bit of interesting news, the American Humanist Association may be suing the City of Sin due to state laws that forbid atheists from officiating weddings:

In a city launched by shotgun weddings and quickie divorces, and which offers the chance to be wed by faux Liberaces, King Tuts and Grim Reapers, there remains at least one nuptial taboo: You can’t be married by an atheist.

Michael Jacobson, a 64-year-old retiree who calls himself a lifelong atheist, tried this year to get a license to perform weddings. Clark County rejected his application because he had no ties to a congregation, as state law requires.

So Jacobson and attorneys from two national secular groups — the American Humanist Assn. and the Center for Inquiry — are trying to change things. If they can’t persuade the state Legislature to rework the law, they plan to sue.

Am I the only one that finds it hilarious that a city that markets itself as being a decadent place (video) that’ll take the sins you commit within it’s borders to it’s grave has a problem with the ultimate sinner (see Psalms 14:1, any version) getting in on the game?

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Christian plates shelved in South Carolina

Karen — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 00:45:31 +0000

American’s United has won a small victory in the war against theocracy.

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.”

I’m sure it didn’t help that various lawmakers in South Carolina made it abundantly clear that they only voted yes because the plate was for Christians and would have most certainly voted no had it been any other religious group.

I do wonder how they’re going to spin this as a war against “religious freedom” and not theocracy by us mean ole secularists as all the complainants are religious people and organizations.

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Why [some] atheists care about religion

Karen — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:36:57 +0000

I found the following video a couple of weeks ago and have been meaning to put it up. It’s a ’5 minute Reader’s Digest version’ of why some of us atheists care about religion.

The fact of the matter is that ‘religion’ isn’t a private matter between the religious adherent and the object of their religion as many would have us believe. Many religions consider it a duty of it’s adherents to force their various religious rules and regulations upon every one else, members or not and have no intention of ever ceasing to do so.

Some are so bad they consider not letting them hit you up for membership in their club to be an act of persecution. They consider any law that is not in accordance with their beliefs to be abridgments of their religoius freedom rights (ie, marriage equality laws). They want to pass laws that are in accordance with their religious rights (ie, laws banning marriage equality, forbidding abortion in it’s entirity). The list just goes on and on.

Not caring about these and more is absurd for they are not content to ‘live and let live’.

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What the state asks for, the state gets

Karen — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:24:15 +0000

Six chaplains in Virginia have resigned, dozens more have signed a protest letter and there’s talk of having a rally outside the governor’s pad on November 1, just a few days before the election. All allege that they’re the victims of religious persecution.

In this case it’s persecution because the state enacted a policy forbidding sectarian prayers at publicly sponsored events and is thus “expunging our Judeo-Christian heritage from the public square” because “in the name of tolerance, public faith is frowned upon”.

Of course, that’s a lie. Not being able to force your religious views on others especially at a public event is not persecution. It’s a realistic expectation of neutrality and plain old good manners.

It’s also a lie that that prayer cannot be stripped of its sectarian nature, but that’s another subject. Today’s subject is the state getting exactly what it asked for which is grief from the religious set.

The real answer is not to strip prayer of “God”, “Jesus”, “Allah” and the like, but to stop inserting prayers of any sort into public events.

No one can complain about not being able to say “In Jesus name we pray, amen” if no one is up in front of the attendees praying to begin with. Yes, the religious set will cry about it, but so what? It seems to me that every time we give them an inch, they insist that anything less than a mile is “persecution”.

For example, they’ve gotten their inch here in Texas by managing to get the Bible into the schools as an elective course. Now certain supporters are attempting to get an extremely biased curriculum that got one school here in Texas sued and is peddled by right wing Protestant Christians such as Chuck Norris as the course material.

An inch is never enough for the religious right and the sooner we learn this the better off we’ll be.

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Can you get a refund for a gift god gave you?

Karen — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:54:51 +0000

Seriously!

A confident Barack Obama raised an extraordinary $7.8 million Sunday at three California fundraisers, most of it in large checks to a Democratic Party committee.

“I will win. Don’t worry about that,” he said to the crowd of about 1,300 at his third event of the evening, according to the pool report.

He was warmly received by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who called him “a leader that God has blessed us with at this time.”

Back in the day we progressives, liberals and Democrats used to vote against people who pulled this kind of crap. Those days are apparently over.

I never thought I’d ever be in a position where I’d actually hate the Democratic nominee for president, but here I am. I actively dislike Obama and want him to lose. It’s kind of strange. I’m used to hating Republicans and cheering for their loss.

I know, I know. A loss for the Democrats in November will cause hellfire to rain down on America. I don’t care. Maybe America needs some hellfire falling on it’s ass to snap it the hell out of this sickening obsession with religiosity on both sides of the political aisle.

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Christian Marines evangelizing Iraqi Muslims

Karen — Thu, 29 May 2008 18:28:19 +0000

As if the situation in Iraq wasn’t bad enough it appears that American marines are contributing to the problem by attempting to convert the Muslim residents of Fallujah to Christianity.

According to this report, unidentified Marines are said to have passed out evangelical coins at the gates of Fallujah while serving as guards.

One side of the coin asks “Where will you spend eternity?”. When you flip it over you’re told how “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16″.

This comes on the heals of another story about a sniper sing a Koran for target practice near Baghdad.

If this story turns out to be factual, I hope the marine(s) involved are severely punished because every time one of them does something like this they slander not just their fellow marines, but every American soldier in Iraq.

The fact of the matter is a lot of Muslims are convinced that America invaded Iraq for the purpose of converting them to Christianity. This kind of shit “proves” it and makes Muslims both fearful and/or suspicious of the American soldiers they encounter.

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Kieffe & Sons issue apology for bigoted ad

Karen — Thu, 29 May 2008 12:09:05 +0000

The owners of Kieffe & Sons Ford dealership out in Mojave that I recently wrote a post about have issued an apology for the bigoted ad they aired on a local radio station:

“For 15 years, Kieffe and Sons Ford has run ad campaigns that focus on current events. We have chosen to do this rather than presenting typical car sales ads. We do this through an agency that develops the material and sends us a package of commercials to review. From this, we select commercials that we distribute to area radio stations.

Frequently we emphasize humor and patriotic themes, as we are located adjacent to two military bases. Public response over these 15 years has been hugely positive, often eliciting calls and visits from appreciative individuals.

Regrettably, the commercial that has prompted the current objection to religious sentiment (”Under God”, “In We Trust”) was not closely reviewed by our dealership before it went live. The commercial has been replaced.

We apologize to all who were offended. It is Kieffe and Sons’ intention to support America and the freedoms that make this country great.”

Rick Kieffe, President

Personally, I don’t believe that the the ad was “not closely reviewed”. However, they have apologized and it’s not one of the fake “sorry if you were offended” apologies that appear to be in vogue these days.

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Ford Dealership to Non-Christians: STFU

Karen — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:55:34 +0000

Kieffe & Sons, a Ford dealership in California, has been running a radio ad since approximately February telling people who support the separation of church(es) and state and atheists to “sit down and shut up” .

The ad, found at The Consumerist, has a man saying:

Did you know that there are people in this country who want prayer out of schools, “Under God” out of the Pledge, and “In God We Trust” to be taken off our money?

But did you know that 86% of Americans say they believe in God? Now, since we all know that 86 out of every 100 of us are Christians who believe in God, we at Kieffe & Sons Ford wonder why we don’t just tell the other 14% to sit down and shut up. I guess maybe I just offended 14% of the people who are listening to this message.

Well, if that is the case, then I say that’s tough, this is America folks, it’s called free speech. And none of us at Kieffe & Sons Ford are afraid to speak up. Kieffe & Sons Ford on Sierra Highway in Mojave and Rosamond: if we don’t see you today, by the grace of God, we’ll be here tomorrow.

This is some classic Christian supremacism here in case you didn’t notice.

Kieffe and sons have a right to say whatever the fuck they want cause “this is America folks, it’s called free speech” but anyone who disagrees with Kieffe and his boys needs to “sit down and shut up“.

In other words, constitutional rights are fine and dandy just as long as one doesn’t go too far and think that they give one a right to not only practice those rights free of Christian interference but use them to speak out against and/or work to end Christian supremacism.

Then it’s all “there are more of us than there are of you so obey or be punished”.

Can’t you feel the love?

UPDATE: Just wanted to point out some great letters in the comment section by Jenny & Brian. If you’re on Facebook and are interested Amanda has started up a user group about this . You can contact the dealership at the link above and Ford. Feel free to copy & paste your letters in the comment section below.

UPDATE 2: JW Horne, the apparent producer behind this ad has decided to join us with this comment claiming, in short, we’s all be stupid mofo’s who just don’t get it.

UPDATE 3: JW might think we’re idiots, but Kieffe & Sons has apparently realized that it stepped over the line and has issued an apology for the ad.

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God made Spring

Karen — Sun, 04 May 2008 18:18:38 +0000

Just ask my five year old. Where’d she hear that gem? At school and it’s the truth because her teacher said so.

We should have known that something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. The teacher has made it extremely obvious she’s one of those Christians who assumes everyone else is also.

For example, we recently watched in shock as she led the students in two god soaked pledges and a god soaked song which she followed up by telling the children to bow their heads and say their prayers.

I’ve been hoping that we wouldn’t have to deal with this until our daughter was older and more capable of understanding what’s going on, but it appears that’s not going to be possible.

What’s gets me though is that I feel like the bad guy for even considering making a complaint about this.

I’m also quite worried about what will happen to our daughter if we do. A lot of Christians simply can’t handle not being allowed to use their official positions to promote their personal beliefs. They tend to turn into vicious bullies who make life hell for the only party can reasonably get to – the kid(s).

Our daughter is just coming out her shell and I’m afraid that if there is a backlash, she’ll retreat back into it – permanently.

What’s a parent to do?