Miscellanea Agnostica

The Washington Post reports that the widely-derided-by-religionazis Michael Newdow — backed by groups such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation — is suing in federal court to keep two pastors off the podium when Barack Obama is sworn into office as president, and to keep him from having to say “so help me God” at the end of his oath:

A group of atheists, led by a California man known for challenging “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools, plan to file a lawsuit today to bar prayer at the swearing-in of President-elect Barack Obama.

Michael A. Newdow, 17 other individuals and 10 groups representing atheists sued Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., several officials in charge of inaugural festivities and Rev. Joseph E. Lowery and pastor Rick Warren.

Somehow, America’s religious folk are not clear on this, and need to be reminded (as I blogged earlier): They aren’t going to see a bishop crown a king in a medieval rite, they’re going to see a US president sworn into office. In case anyone sees no problem with that practice, keep in mind that the author of the First Amendment, James Madison, said that the hiring of Congressional chaplains violated that Amendment (all spellings original):

Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom?

In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be paid out of the national taxes.

So … if the man who wrote the First Amendment didn’t think Congressional sessions should be opened by chaplains, what the hell business does a president have being sworn in under the watchful eye of clergy?

Any questions from the so-called “strict constructionists” out there (who are almost universally all of the Religious Right persuasion), who always seem to foam at the mouth over what they claim is “the Founders’ intent”? You now know what the Founders’ intent was — from the pen of that very Founder who wrote the First Amendment! Read it, learn it, understand it.

P.S. Did I mention that “so help me God” is also not part of the Constitutional oath that presidents swear to? Oh, that’s right … it’s OK to add stuff into the Constitution so long as it’s God you’re adding in. There’s a word for that, you know … hypocrisy!)

There’s nothing like Christmas to bring out the lunacy of the religionazis. A small daily newspaper here in northwestern Connecticut published a letter-to-the-editor today which exemplifies all the fallacies and false beliefs of the religionists. This guy (Thomas Latina) uses Christmas as an excuse to complain about things ranging from the ancient Romans (who are long dead), to separation of church and state, to Black Baptist churches, to Kwanzaa, the atheist sign in Washington state, to Darwin and evolution, and more … along the way he comes up with the idea that atheists should not have Christmas off with pay, they should be forced to work. Here are a few excerpts from this hyperreligious nonsense, along with some notes by me:

believe what our founding fathers had in mind is where King James broke with the Catholic church and started his own religion that was a state sponsored religion that you had to follow. Christians were given the choice of to convert to Anglicism, or be killed.

Mr Latina is mixing up King James with Henry VIII, who launched the Anglican schism; as for people being killed if they did not “convert,” at first this was a non-issue since the entire Church presence in England came under Henry’s control, initially. There was no conversion since everyone was assumed, then, to be an Anglican. Strife came later as people within Britain returned to Catholicism or joined other sects.

And politicians? Why do you always see them in Black Baptist churches, but never preaching from a Catholic church? Double standard?

No Mr Latina, it’s called “facing your audience where they can be found,” and is what politicians do.

Then there’s Darwin’s theory. Does anyone wonder why it’s called Darwin’s theory, and not Darwin’s rule? Because, the same as God, you can’t prove it.

Mr Latina is having trouble understanding the meaning of “theory” as a scientific term, and is purposely confusing it with its colloquial, and technically incorrect, meaning of “estimate” or “guess.”

Now let’s get to the real world. If all those state employees (like teachers for instance) don’t believe in God, or Christmas, they should have to work that day for straight pay, no Christmas bonuses, no Holiday pay. Just another day at school.

Hmm, just another day? With the majority of kids out for Christmas? Really?

In sum, if there’s any crazy religionist idea that somebody obsessed with Christianity could come up with — and whose grasp of basic facts is poor or non-existent — it’s in this letter. Read more of this fact-deprived crap and laugh … or perhaps cry, knowing there are actually people in the world who think this way, and there are publishers willing to give them a platform from which they can ramble incoherently for Jesus.

At Fox News, the concept of a “war on Christmas” is old news, that gets kicked up every year like clockwork. Erstwhile host John Gibson penned a book on the subject in 2005, The War On Christmas, positing that there is a secular movement to outlaw the celebration of Christmas in the US, and implies that this war on Christmas is merely the first salvo in a much larger campaign to abolish Christianity altogether.

Yes, it’s paranoia. How else can one account for the idea that using the phrase “Happy Holidays” is a way to wipe all memory of “Christmas” from the minds of Americans? Nothing other than “paranoia” can explain such thinking. No one is swiping Christmas trees from people’s homes or taking lighted reindeer off their lawns. No one has outlawed “mall Santas.”

Simply put, there is no effort to abolish Christmas, let alone Christianity.

Each year, Gibson’s former colleague Bill O’Reilly is actually the major champion of the “there’s-a-war-on-Christmas!” mantra. All through December, it’s a nightly segment on his show. His outrage over it is palpable, even though it’s utterly irrational.

Recently Gretchen Carlson, another Fox News host, was on O’Reilly’s show to kvetch and whine about it:

O’REILLY: So you were brought up in Minnesota, right?
CARLSON: Exactly.
O’REILLY: OK, now think back many, many years ago to when you were a child.
CARLSON: Thank you, Bill.
O’REILLY: I do that to everybody. None of this existed, correct?
CARLSON: No, my grandfather was a minister. So I have to - I’ll say that because I grew up spending a lot of time in the church.
O’REILLY: But none of it existed. There was no controversy over Christmas. …
CARLSON: We actually called it Christmas. …
O’REILLY: … What’s changed?
CARLSON: What’s changed is the whole politically correct environment that we live in. I’m all for people to have their rights of free speech. Just don’t choose December 25th to do it.

So … we have someone who claims to support free-speech rights, but admits she’d like to limit that right, one day a year.

Yes folks, you read that right. One day a year, no one should have free-speech rights.

On top of that, she insists no one ever said “Happy Holidays!” when she was a kid, only “Merry Christmas.” Well, she must be much older than she admits to, because — get this — people were saying “Happy Holidays” decades ago … this phrase even led to the Irving Berlin song “Happy Holiday,” which was in the 1942 movie Holiday Inn.

Did you catch that? Back in 1942, Irving Berlin and all the other folks who produced one of the most-beloved holiday films, took part in that “War on Christmas.” Oh yeah, I believe that.

Not!

It’s time for the religionazis of this country — and their leaders on Fox News — to grow the hell up and stop fabricating stuff so they can justify feeling persecuted and outraged. It really has grown old, you know. Enough already!

The latest “God” story out of Kentucky — home of the infamous Creation Museum — is a bit odd because it’s not exactly “news.” It is, rather, a “discovery” of something that was actually done back in 2006:

Today’s Lexington Herald-Leader reports on a little-noticed provision in Kentucky’s law enacted in 2006 to create the state Office of Homeland Security. KY Code 39G.010 requires that the agency’s executive director is to “publicize the findings of the General Assembly stressing the dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth by including [specified findings] … in its agency training and educational materials.”

Yes folks, that’s right — God is “vital” to Kentucky’s security, and now everyone knows this is true, because it was a “finding” of the Commonwealth’s legislature. You know, of course, that the legislature governing the home of the Creation Museum could not possibly be wrong on that score, don’t you?

// End sarcasm mode //

I find it a bit odd that this has only just been uncovered. There’s more to this story, methinks, than meets the eye.

At any rate, it’s clear that the religionazis of this country will leave no stone unturned — and no ceremonial language out of legal statutes — in their effort to proselytize. I can’t help but wonder why it is that they’re so insecure in their beliefs, that they need to see the importance of God cited in a law and on a plaque? Are they really that immature and weak-minded?

… No, don’t answer that, I already know what it is …

My home state of Connecticut is one of the most secular and progressive in the country, sometimes running far ahead of the rest of the US, as for example when — just this October — it became only the second state to legalize gay marriage. But Connecticut began as a primarily-Puritan colony (actually as three, one based in Hartford and the other two being New Haven and Saybrook). As such Connecticut has a history of religious prudery like none other, and a tendency remains here to revere religion in spite of all else. There are a lot of Catholics here, for example; the archdiocese of Hartford and dioceses of Bridgeport and Norwich have become militant, activist, and more parochial over the last few years, a trend of questionable legality I blogged about earlier.

The Hartford Courant reports, today, on one religious effort which has Hartford’s government sanction, and is an overtly proselytizing operation:

The men who live at Taste-N-See Outreach Ministry in Bridgeport have been praising God in song and scripture for a good hour when Pastor James Jennings urges them to their feet shortly after 7:30 a.m. …

Taste-N-See, which is named from Psalms 34:8, “Taste and see that the Lord is good, Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him” — is one of about 20 faith-based agencies receiving federal funds through the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.

Connecticut has embraced faith-based services, one of the initiatives to come out of the Bush administration after it created the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in 2001. Eleven federal agencies took up the charge, making federal money and support more accessible to faith-based and community organizations.

Way to go Connecticut, throw money at churches and allow them to use people in prison — whose options are limited and to whom access is restricted by necessity — to indulge their missionary impulses. Of course, it’s not as though no one knows this is wrong:

“A lot of these programs contain a significant amount of evangelizing or proselytizing, and from our position that type of outreach should never be funded with taxpayer dollars,” says Rob Boston, senior policy analyst for Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

“There should be no taxpayer-funded evangelizing, period.&dquo;

But Jennings, a former drug addict himself who found healing in his faith, sees a distinction between using taxpayer money to evangelize and using it to show people, through mercy and kindness, a better path.

While I am sure that a lot of addicts like the program, and one could claim it works so let’s keep doing it even if it’s unconstitutional, as I said the fact remains that the options of prisoners are limited at any given moment and programs like this may be the only reasonable choices available to them. Hence, they end up being forced into religion, when they should not be. Oh, but not to worry — Connecticut officials are equipped with a rationale for why this is acceptable:

Thomas Kirk, commissioner of the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, says he understands why people get skittish about this, but insists there is a fundamental misunderstanding among the public about what faith-based programs do.

“We don’t pay for prayer,” Kirk says flatly.

That means that while Taste-N-See Outreach Ministry might offer prayer as part of its program — and an unabashedly Christian perspective as well — the state isn’t paying for that particular element of the program.

Instead, the government funds the housing and case management services offered by the program.

Sorry to break it to Commissioner Kirk, but giving money to a religious operation that proselytizes, does in fact — and in all cases — fund the proselytizing as much as it does anything else. Merely giving an overtly-religious program exclusive access to prisoners, which other programs do not get, is wrong. Prisoners in the program who are trying to prove themselves, are going to go along with all of that program — including prayers — because not doing so will reflect badly on themselves … not to mention it might earn the derision of their praying peers (and as one might imagine, prisoners have ways of coercing each other into doing things they might not otherwise do). The idea that participants in Taste-N-See are truly “free” to opt out of praying, is simply not true.

The Courant story goes on to mention that the efficacy of these programs is not known with certainty (even if the faith-based providers themselves claim they are). Kirk and other officials behind this admit the statistics aren’t in yet … but they quite frankly don’t care. They’re going with them anyway.

The religiosity of these programs aside, I wonder how smart it is for officials to be spending public money on programs they don’t know will work! Seriously … why throw money at unproven things? Everyone in Connecticut, religious or not, should be concerned about this cavalier and casual attitude toward public expenditures by Commissioner Kirk and our other elected and appointed officials.

Fox News has been all over this one for a couple days, and they claim — falsely — to have been the only outlet reporting on it (the Seattle Post Intelligencer had mentioned it by November 29, i.e. last Friday). So you may well have heard about the atheist sign that had been put on display in the Washington state capitol in Olympia, next to a nativity scene and a menorah. America’s religionazis went berserk, as one might expect, and it’s been the talk of the country for a while. Today (Friday Dec. 5), the sign was found to have been missing. It has since been found under mysterious circumstances, as CNN reports:

An atheist sign criticizing Christianity that was erected alongside a Nativity scene was taken from the Legislative Building in Olympia, Washington, on Friday and later found in a ditch.

An employee from country radio station KMPS-FM in Seattle told CNN the sign was dropped off at the station by someone who found it in a ditch. …

The sign, which was at the Legislative Building at 6:30 a.m. PT, was gone by 7:30 a.m., [Freedom From Religion Foundation co-founder Annie Laurie] Gaylor said. …

Gaylor said that police are checking security cameras pointed at the building’s entrances and exits to see if they can see anyone stealing the sign.

“It’s probably about 50 pounds,” Gaylor said. “My brother-in-law was huffing and puffing carrying it up the stairs. It’s definitely not something you can stick under your arm or conceal.”

I suspect the “investigation” will be minimal and not lead anywhere. As for the radio station’s possible involvement … who knows? Country stations are one of the three radio abodes for the Religious Right (the other two being talk-radio and gospel), so the station cannot be ruled out.

Curiously, the Republican (yes, Republican!) attorney general of Washington had declared that the atheist sign — no matter how repugnant it may be to Christians — was legal and should remain in the state capitol:

[Governor Christine] Gregoire, a Democrat, and Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna put out a joint statement Wednesday noting that [a prior] federal lawsuit led the state to create a policy allowing groups to sponsor a display “regardless of that individual’s or group’s views.”

The sign may be offensive to Christians, but it is a statement of belief (or rather, of non-belief) which is exactly what nativities and menorahs are, so I cannot see how it could be precluded.

As for whichever Christian (they are, after all, the only likely thieves) briefly stole the sign, may I remind you of a couple of things:

You shall not steal. (Ex 20:15)

You shall not steal … (Lv 19:11a)

You shall not steal. (Dt 5:19)

Was there anything about these that you missed? They’re your own scripture; if you won’t obey these words, who will?

Better yet, religionazis, why not try growing the hell up and keeping your outrage to yourself?

The new Visitors’ Center in the US Capitol just opened. Normally such occasions are when Congressmen congratulate each other over the completion of yet another massive boondoggle project and make long speeches about how great they are the country is. But Jim DeMint, Theocrat GOP Senator from Bibleland South Carolina, chose this grand occasion instead to whine and pout like a brat:

Delete Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) from the list of admirers of the new Capitol Visitor Center.

DeMint issued a statement Tuesday criticizing the new facility for “omitting the history of faith.” DeMint noted that the new tourist spot ignored his request to include the phrase “In God We Trust” and the Pledge of Allegiance.

Waah waah waah. Grow the hell up, Senator, and stop using your office to proselytize. Didn’t anyone tell you that it’s undignified for a US Senator to whine?

What DeMint and other theocrats do not understand — or else they understand, but choose to deny — is that the oft-said crap about the United States being “a Christian nation” is simply not true. And no amount of motto-izing or bellyaching over the Pledge of Allegiance can change that. The historical record is clear; continued denial by the forces of the Religious Right only make them look more juvenile than they already do.

Enough already.

I’m not sure when things changed. But for at least a couple of decades after II Vatican, the Roman Catholic Church had been less politically-involved. And this policy was world-wide. Priests, for example, were forbidden to hold political offices. Of course, in the US, the Catholic Church is under IRS regulations that forbid it to be politically-active, which adds another layer of suppression to its political meddling.

But things have changed recently. In the last few years American Catholic bishops and activist groups (such as the Catholic League) have been taking orders from the Religious Right; it’s been meddling in politics increasingly.

Here in Connecticut the state’s bishops actively lobbied in favor of question 1 on the state’s 2008 ballot (concerning a constitutional convention). I really am not sure of the legality of this. I suppose they had lawyers review and approve it, but let’s be honest, they purposely skated the edge of the law in order to do so. How ethical is that … especially in an organization that claims to be an arbiter of morals and ethics?

Now comes word that a South Carolina priest has declared Obama voters ineligible for communion unless they first do penance for their “sin”:

A South Carolina Roman Catholic priest has told his parishioners that they should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion, and supporting him “constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil.” …

“Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exists constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ’s Church and under the judgment of divine law. Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation.”

Claiming that voting for a pro-choice candidate is “evil” and contrary to Catholic doctrine, is effectively the same thing as endorsing that candidate’s rival — something which is forbidden by federal law (unless the priest wants to forfeit his parish’s non-profit status, which is fine by me but probably not his superiors or parishioners).

The alliance between the Catholic Church and the Religious Right — which is overwhelmingly Protestant evangelical and therefore anti-Catholic — is disturbing. I don’t see how or why America’s bishops and other Catholic activists think it’s a good idea to ally with one’s doctrinal foes, but they do. Unfortunately by marching in lock-step with these folk, they’re granting political influence to dominionism, a movement which — if successful — would have no reservations about outlawing Catholicism. Not all of the Religious Right are dominionists, that’s true … but the dominionist faction within that movement is very influential as well as politically-connected, and any power which accrues generally to the R.R. enhances the dominionsts’ influence as well.

In short, the Catholic Church in the US could very well be engineering its own destruction.

The North Carolina Senate race reached perhaps the height of absurdity this week when incumbent Republican Elizabeth Dole claimed that her opponent, Kay Hagan, is an atheist supported by an atheist PAC. Liddy Dole’s ad includes snippets from the Bill O’Reilly TV show in which atheists deny Jesus lived and even state that they want to remove “In God We Trust” from the nation’s currency.

As an added touch, the Dole ad ends with a soundalike audio piece of Hagan saying “There is no God!” Have a look at this piece of tripe:

The problem here is fourfold, the first two points being the simplest and most obvious: First, Hagan is not an atheist. She’s a lifelong Christian (a Presbyterian if I recall correctly) who even taught Sunday school. Second, she never actually uttered the words “There is no God!” — that was a soundalike recording.

The third point is that nothing any atheist said on the O’Reilly show has the slightest thing to do with Kay Hagan. There are PACs all over the place who raise money, then give it to candidates. That a person or group gives money to one, does not mean that the candidate agrees with them.

Fourth — and this is the point which is the most fundamental consideration here, but which is glossed over here — is that, even if Hagan is an atheist, so the hell what? Atheists are people too and can be Senators! (For those who disagree, may I direct your attention to Article VI of the US Constitution, which contains what is known as the No-religious-test clause. Thank you.)

One last remark about what the atheists on the O’Reilly show said … in fact, Jesus’ existence is not known with any certainty, and I can’t see that it ever will be.

Elizabeth Dole ought to be ashamed of herself … going so far as to record a soundalike of her opponent saying something she never said. And she dares call herself a good Christian woman … !

I suggest that people donate to Ms Hagan’s campaign as a way to protest what Liddy Dole has done.

My home state of Connecticut just became the third US state to permit gay marriage, and it came about in the same way as in Massachusetts (the first) and California (the second) — via a state Supreme Court decision:

The [CT] state Supreme Court’s 4-3 decision Friday that same-sex couples have the right to marry swept through the state with the force of a cultural tidal wave.

While lead plaintiff Beth Kerrigan and her partner — soon to be wife — embraced and sobbed after learning of the ruling, opponents vowed to pursue a long and complicated route to change the constitution to ban gay marriage.

The Supreme Court released its historic ruling at 11:30 a.m. Citing the equal protection clause of the state constitution, the justices ruled that civil unions were discriminatory and that the state’s “understanding of marriage must yield to a more contemporary appreciation of the rights entitled to constitutional protection.”

“Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same sex partner of their choice,” the majority wrote. “To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others.”

There has been a storm of outrage, of course, as one would expect from among the immature tip of the Right wing:

The Family Institute of Connecticut, a political action group that opposes gay marriage, called the ruling outrageous.

“Even the legislature, as liberal as ours, decided that marriage is between a man and a woman,” said executive director Peter Wolfgang. “This is about our right to govern ourselves. It is bigger than gay marriage.”

Wah wah wah. Too bad you cannot point to anyone on the planet who has ever been harmed because a gay couple got married (instead of just living together or getting a “civil union,” whatever the hell those are). Also his comment about self-governing is a non sequitur, since no one is forcing anyone to enter into a gay marriage — so calm yourself, Petey!

Looks like he also forgot that there is no single definition of marriage, it has changed through history, even within Judeo-Christian tradition. Note to the Religious Right™: Grow up and stop imposing your version of religion on other people.

Finally, a note to any who might be interested: As an ordained bishop in the Apathetic Agnostic Church, I am legally able to marry couples residing in Connecticut, and am more than willing to do so for gay couples who are committed to marriage. Use this Contact Form to get in touch with me about this (note, this is not a Comment box, use the Comments link for that).

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