Sponsoring a government religion without calling it government-sponsored religion

A few years ago, in his State of the Union speech, President Bush called for a  massive increase in federal spending to help fight the AIDS epidemic in Africa.  At the time, I was suprised that Bush -- who is not known as a friend of AIDS victims, people of…

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Co-sponsor of ten commandments bills can’t even name four of them

This afternoon I started feeling a bit guilty. You see, since this blog was founded a few months ago, I've been posting that many people who claim that the Bible is the most important book in the world don't actually read it and they know very little about what's in the Bible. I made these claims based on repeated personal experience. Then this comes along. As demonstrated during an interview with Stephen Colbert, Republican Congressman Lynn Westmoreland, a man who twice in 2005 attempted to require the display of the Ten Commandments on public property, does not know the ten commandments. He doesn't even know four of them.

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Better Know a District - Georgia's 8th - Lynn Westmoreland
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To see the vigor with which Westmoreland wants to force something with which he is not even familiar on the public, go the Library of Congress site and enter the word "commandments." [More . . . ]

Continue ReadingCo-sponsor of ten commandments bills can’t even name four of them

Gay Rights “Not a Civil Rights Issue”?

The Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN) supplies high school LGBT rights groups around the United States with a wealth of useful information, tools, and event and activity guides. For the last few years, I’ve appreciated the planning guides GLSEN provides as a source of brainstorming and public-relations hints. But looking through a GLSEN binder of open forum topics and public speaking tips recently, I came across an unusual and off-putting suggestion:

“Do NOT compare the LGBT Rights movement to the Civil Rights movement.”

Wait, what? The battle for LGBT rights mirrors the Civil Rights movement in a variety of ways. The reactionary backlash and lack of logic behind opponents’ arguments read exactly the same, complete with desperate biblical references. Take for example this judge’s ruling in Loving v. Virginia, a pre-Civil-Rights case on interracial marriage:

“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”

Indeed, and Almighty God also created Adam and Eve, not, as the social conservatives say, Adam and Steve. The slow social acceptance and increase in violent hate crimes look much the same, too. So what differentiates Gay Rights from Civil Rights, again?

Well, nothing really. It just ruffles a lot of (black, evangelical) feathers to make the comparison. Apparently GLSEN doesn’t …

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Continue ReadingGay Rights “Not a Civil Rights Issue”?