Miscellanea Agnostica

Halloween seems to bring out the ridiculous in a lot of Americans. And the mass media have more than a little to do with it. A common mantra every year is that children are sickened and sometimes killed by trick-or-treat candy, every year, because they ingested a “treat” that had been poisoned. Unfortunately for this all-too-common myth, it simply is not true (WebCite cached article). This year, the concern voiced by local media here in Connecticut is not toxic treats, but sex offenders. For instance, WTIC-AM 1080 in Hartford offers this proud announcement that the state plans to head off this danger (cached):

Connecticut Department of Correction parole officers will be conducting unannounced home visits and surveillance of the roughly 250 sex offenders under their supervision, for Halloween.

Offenders have been advised to have no contact with minors, keep their outside lights off, and not answer the door for trick or treaters.

And the venerable Hartford Courant dutifully carries a virtually-identical story (cached):

Trick-or-treaters may not be the only ones showing up on Connecticut doorsteps this Halloween.

Parole officers will make unannounced visits to sex offenders’ homes, although the offenders may not know it, the Department of Correction announced Thursday.

They’ll be watching to make sure offenders are not having contact with minors — even those who show up at their homes. The sex offenders have been told to keep their outside lights off and refrain from answering their doors, the agency stated in a press release.

Right at the start, let me state that there is clearly a potential danger here, that some child might unknowingly knock on the door of a sex offender. Clearly that’s possible. I don’t deny it, not in the slightest.

But let’s put this in perspective. It’s exceedingly rare for any child to go trick-or-treating alone, not to mention unsupervised. (We used to go out by ourselves when I was a kid, but that never happens these days. More’s the pity.) The chances that any given sex offender might answer the door and be faced with a lone trick-or-treater he might be able to molest, are extremely remote.

Making this an even more improbable scenario, please note that we’re talking about 250 sex offenders. Yes, that’s 250 … in a state with a population in excess of 3.5 million! The average child in Connecticut will not even go near a sex offender’s home in the first place. A child trick-or-treating at 25 homes (for instance) has a 0.179% chance of encountering a sex offender. That’s right, not even .2 percent of a chance.

(Updated to add: My figures here are wrong. CT has an average household size of 2.52. This means the odds of a trick-or-treater encountering a sex offender while visiting 25 homes, is actually 0.45%. Higher than I cited, but still certainly not significant.)

Talk about a ridiculous non-story. Give me a fucking break!

P.S. In the world of Christian religionism, it turns out that some of them are more than a bit miffed that Halloween is too non-Christian a holiday. So they’ve launched a campaign to celebrate Jesus Ween instead (cached). Yes, you read that right: Jesus Ween (cached). The less said about that, the better, I think … !

Photo credit: De’Nick’nise.

Tags: connecticut, connecticut department of corrections, correction department, halloween, jesus ween, journalism, journalism fail, lazy journalism, moral panic, scaremonger, scaremongering, sex offenders, trick or treat, trick or treating, urban legend

My home state of Connecticut, known as “the Land of Steady Habits,” has a reputation for being a state full of people who don’t like rocking the boat. And it is. But oddly enough, in spite of that, the Nutmeg State has more than its share of annoying gadlfies and cranks who love nothing more than to make pests of themselves and make demands of everyone else. Perhaps the most famous of these is Ralph Nader, a native of Winsted, CT, but there are plenty of other such folks — and thankfully most of them are not anywhere near as well known.

Among these is community organizer-turned-hyperreligious wingnut Ned Coll. The Greenwich Time reports Coll is now waging a crusade to get prayer back into public schools (WebCite cached article):

The divorced father of two from the tiny Litchfield County hamlet of Barkhamsted is adopting the cause of reinstating prayer in public schools.

In the beating July sun and wearing wooden prayer beads from the religious shrine of Fatima in Portugal, Coll waved a sign calling for a spiritual renewal to passing motorists on West Putnam Avenue at the state line.

“Our children are not getting guidance in this nation,” Coll said. “We better start trying to get vocal prayer in all public schools and private homes.”

Coll is consciously repeating his own past activism:

It’s a reprisal of sorts of Coll’s famous hike along the Connecticut coast, where he championed open beach access during the 1970s and 1980s.

I have no idea how he plans to get prayer into public schools, especially since the U.S. Supreme Court has forbidden it — in Engel v. Vitale (1962), which was subsequently backed up by later decisions Wallace v. Jaffree (1985) and Lee v. Weisman (1992). Does Coll really think he’s somehow bigger than the Supreme Court? (My guess is, he does!)

For all his righteousness and professed love of God, Coll curiously has trouble obeying the law. He’s been arrested more than once over the last couple of years, on various minor charges (cached). Also note that this paragon and champion of piety is “twice divorced,” according to the G.T. article. I really love it when brazen fucking hypocrites speak up for Jesus! Don’t you?

One last item of note about Ned Coll: As I said, he was once a community organizer. A professional community organizer. The founder of a Hartford group called the Revitalization Corps. Here’s a short Time magazine profile of him from the early ’70s. That’s right, folks. This militant Christian and staunch advocate for the Religious Right, started out as an urban community organizer … just like someone else whom the R.R. despises for having once been an urban community organizer. Can you guess who that is?

If Coll wants all Americans to pray to his God, then I suggest he starts with me. Come here, Mr Coll, and make me pray. Go ahead. Give it a shot.

Photo credit: Helen Neafsey / Greenwich Time.

Tags: community organizer, connecticut, greenwich CT, ned coll, prayer in public schools, public school prayer, public school prayers

Over the last 10 years or so, talk radio in Hartford has taken a remarkably Right-wing turn. All the nationally-syndicated vehement Right-wingers are aired here, by one station or another (the two chief talk-radio stations being WTIC-AM and WDRC-AM). The local shows are, in many cases, even more extreme in their Rightism. Local talk guys like Jim Vicevich and Dan Lovallo sometimes make Rush Limbaugh look like a Marxist.

What makes this trend as odd as it is, is that Connecticut is more or less a reliably “blue state”: In the 2010 mid-term elections — which saw the Right and the GOP make gains across the country — Connecticut actually veered back toward the Left, electing a Democratic governor to succeed a retiring Republican, and keeping every statewide and Congressional office squarely in Democratic hands. This, of course, has enraged the Right and the local talk-radio hosts, who’ve done everything but burn the new governor, Dannel Malloy, in effigy over his proposed tax increases — and I expect that, soon, they’ll hold an anti-tax “tea party” rally in Hartford, where precisely that will be done!

But despite this trend, which as I said has been a long time coming and is firmly entrenched, one of the nationally-syndicated Rightist talk-radio hosts has lost his show in Hartford. It’s none other than Glenn Beck, and if this report from the Hartford Courant is to believed, it’s because his ratings fell due to being too religious (WebCite cached article) even if the station’s announcement doesn’t say it:

The management at the Blooomfield-based station suggested the Glenn Beck syndicated show was gently being dropped so it could add a new daily morning show with Jones, and a second featuring her and Davis sharing co-hosting duties.

But the real story, the Courant suggests, might be something else. The president of Buckley Radio which owns the station offered this:

“Some of his direction has changed over the last year and a half,” [Rick] Buckley said. “He is preaching a lot more than entertaining.” …

Buckley, whose father started the company in the 1950s, said Beck’s show had changed and taken on more of a religious tone since his August 2010 rally in Washington, D.C.

“There is no question I think he had a big change after his Washington conclave. Something hit him down there. His show changed after that,” Buckley said. “In its basic elements that he had been doing for a long, long time. He got much more into the doomsday and a lot more talking of the religious aspects of people’s lives and stuff like that. For us in New York and in Hartford, we just felt that a local program would be better.”

In recent months, Beck’s show has frequently veered into apocalyptic religiosity.”

What I don’t understand is, if the Glennster is somehow “too religious” for Hartford’s talk-radio crowd, why did WDRC’s rival station, WTIC-AM, give the convicted felon and former Connecticut governor John Rowland and his preacherman and erstwhile theo-political operative, Pastor Will Marotti a three-hour show called Church and State State and Church? I’d love to think Beckie-boy is “too religious” for Connecticut talk-radio, but I’m not really convinced it’s the case. I expect that it’s simply because the Beckster’s audience is beginning to unravel and he’s losing some of his loyal following — enough of it, at least, to cause his ratings to decline measurably.

Photo credit: Hartford Courant.

Tags: apocalyptic, beck, buckley radio, connecticut, connecticut radio, doomsday, glenn beck, hartford, hartford ct, hartford talk radio, john rowland, politics, radio, radio show, ratings, religiosity, religious, religious talk radio, talk radio, wdrc, wdrc 1360, wdrc-am, will marotti, wor, wtic 1080, wtic-am

Here, Gentle Reader, is the second “peasants with pitchforks” moment in less than a week.

It seems the town of Enfield has become Connecticut’s crucible of Rightism, a New England microcosm of Kansas in the late ’90s and early ’00s — and more recently, Oklahoma. Last year, ardent Religious Rightists there chose to defy the law of the land and hold the town’s high school graduation in a church. As expected, they were rebuffed in this effort, mainly because of their lies, but they most certainly haven’t given up enforcing Rightism. The town’s Republican mayor recently ordered the Enfield library not to show Michael Moore’s Sicko documentary, as the (Manchester, CT) Journal Inquirer reports (WebCite cached article):

The Enfield Public Library on Wednesday canceled Friday’s screening of filmmaker Michael Moore’s controversial documentary “Sicko” under pressure from most Town Council members and the mayor, who threatened to cut the library’s funding if the film was shown.

Let me state up-front that I’m no fan of Michael Moore. He’s a shameless propagandist, and I despise propaganda; “propaganda” and “dishonesty” all too often are one and the same thing. But honestly … what the fuck? You people can’t tolerate a couple hours of Moore’s extreme Leftism? Really!? Are you that thin-skinned?

What a bunch of fucking whiners!

Enfield’s militant Rightists came up with a list of rationales for their censorship, beginning with “it’s for the children”:

Councilman Patrick Crowley, also a Democrat, said he didn’t think the effort to cancel the screening amounted to censorship, saying the library should be age-appropriate for young children.

“We want it to be a place for relaxation and fun for the kids,” Crowley said.

Yeah. As if any kids who show up are actually going to sit through more than a couple minutes of Sicko.

Then, it was “but this film is too controversial”:

[Mayor Scott R.] Kaupin said the library should steer clear of controversial material like “Sicko.”

My guess is Hizzonner has never seen the movie and thus knows nothing about its “controversy,” except what Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, etc. have told him about it. The curious thing about controversies is that, without actually examining the elements of the controversy, one never knows what the controversy is. Controversies don’t go away if we clamp our eyes shut and plug up our ears.

There were even some who denied this was even censorship at all:

Resident Dominic Alaimo, who is also chairman of the Thompsonville Board of Fire Commissioners, said at Tuesday’s meeting that canceling the screening is not censorship because the film is “available anywhere you want.”

“Censorship does not start from the bottom and work up. Censorship starts in like Red China, Russia,” Alaimo said.

Aha. There you have it. This can’t be censorship, because Enfield is in the US, and censorship only happens in “Red China” and Russia! Why, I’m so glad to have that cleared up! Whew!

The only good part about this particular childish dust-up is that the Rightists in Enfield have learned their lesson from their legal smackdown earlier this year, and have relented — slightly. Rick Green of the Hartford Courant reports Sicko will be screened, after all — as part of a package of “balanced” film screenings. As though a couple hours of Moore being shown in the Enfield library, one time, needs to be “balanced” … when talk-radio and cable news are stuffed to the gills with 24 hours a day, 7 days a week of unrelenting, undiluted Rightism. Personally, I think propaganda needs to be “balanced” against rationality and truthful information. Unfortunately there are no critical-thinking movies out there … at least, none that I know of.

Photo credit: (UK) Daily Mail.

Tags: censor, censors, censorship, connecticut, crucible, dominic alaimo, enfield, enfield CT, enfield public library, leftism, michael moore, mob, mob mentality, peasants with pitchforks, propaganda, propagandist, propagansts, right, rightism, scott kaupin, scott r kaupin, sicko, torch-carrying mob

The very same day I post about the scam which is daylight saving time, comes an event in my home state of Connecticut, which shines a massive floodlight on yet another scam: The supposed “security” meant to protect us from terrorist attacks. The venerable Hartford Courant provides this incredibly brief story on the incident (WebCite cached article):

State police say a harmless snowglobe in a carryon bag caused a partial evacuation at Bradley International Airport.

State police Lt. J. Paul Vance says a Transportation Security Administration worker spotted something that looked suspicious while screening bags and alerted state police shortly before 11 a.m. Sunday.

Vance says Terminal A was evacuated as a precaution but was reopened about 45 minutes later, after authorities determined the snowglobe did not contain explosives and was not a danger.

Full disclosure: I live near Bradley and have been there many times. What you may not know about it is that an evacuation of Terminal A is NOT a “partial” evacuation. It is a “full” evacuation. That’s because, as of this summer, ALL passenger flights go in and out of BDL though Terminal A. That’s right, Terminal A is pretty much the entire airport! The “old airport,” Terminal B, has been closed for months … and for a couple of years prior to that, only one airline used it, that being American Airlines.

I almost cannot believe the Courant purposely downplayed this event by using this wording — but they did. It’s inexcusable, but not surprising.

The cold hard fact is that airport security is nothing more than “security theater,” intended to make travelers feel as though they’re safe, when they’re not.

Second point of full disclosure: I happened to be traveling during the holidays in 2009, when a young man from Africa shoved explosives in his shorts and tried to set them off on a flight into Detroit (cached article). My return trip included extra security measures ostensibly designed to deal with that (cached). However, I can attest that, had I also packed explosives in my shorts, not one of the “extra” measures they implemented, would have even come close to finding it. All TSA did was add time and complexity to everyone’s travel, without adding so much as a micron of actual, extra “security.”

As CNN’s article on that event shows, the government actually had had all the information it needed to have prevented that young man from getting on the airplane … but they chose to do nothing about it.

And that, Gentle Reader, is what makes all the “security theater” a meaningless exercise. Real “security” means not letting the terrorists anywhere near an airport in the first place. The measures taken to — supposedly — detect weapons and explosives in the airports, are useless, if a terrorist is sufficiently driven to slip it through.

Although “security theater” is most noticed in airports and in aviation, it does crop up in other places too, such as in large-city mass transit systems. The same principle applies to all settings, though: True security lies in keeping terrorists out of public venues entirely, not in dealing with them once they’ve already arrived.

At any rate, authorities tend to go overboard when faced with “suspicious” packages and devices. They say it’s due to being “cautious,” because — it is said — IF the “suspicious” item turns out to truly have been dangerous, but no action had been taken, and someone was hurt or killed, there’d be hell to pay. While this is true, it’s also a fallacious false dilemma. There IS a large middle ground of possible choices between these two extremes; various shades of action that span the continuum between doing nothing and shutting down an entire airport. For example, there’s cordoning off the immediate vicinity of the device, calling in the bomb squad, and carting it away safely, but with everyone kept at a safe distance, with most people able to continue with their business. (Bradley’s Terminal A is a very large building, so there’s plenty of room to work with, if officials wanted.)

The reason that this sort of discreet measure is never taken, is because officials don’t want to use discreet measures: They want everything they do to be seen, to be seen BIG, and to be as noticeable as possible, so that everyone knows they’re doing their jobs. Quietly controlling the situation and removing the device with a minimum of trouble, is the opposite of that, and therefore is unacceptable.

The problem with idiotic hypersecurity debacles such as the snowglobe that closed Bradley International is not merely that they’re laughable or inconveniences for travelers. There are very real costs involved in closing airport terminals. Planes, for example, cannot fly in or out of them; this means airlines must incur the costs of shuffling airplanes and travelers around. Concessionaires cannot sell to empty terminals; this means a loss of business for them. I could go on, but won’t bother … you get the picture.

The “security theater” which has become a national obsession since September 11, 2001 is indeed a scam and a joke … but you need not just take my word for it. Folks much more expert on the matter than I, have weighed in, and they agree. See e.g. this 60 Minutes report on it (cached), as well as this report by The Atlantic (cached).

It’s a sad day when a mere snowglobe … someone’s harmless souvenir … can cripple an entire international airport. Unfortunately this kind of pathetic, laughable sham happens all the time in the US. But it shouldn’t. It’s a scam Americans should no longer tolerate.

Photo credit: Tenineight.

Tags: airport, bag screening, bdl, bradley international airport, connecticut, govenrment, governmental scam, hypersecure, hypersecurity, prevention, scam, scams, security, security theater, snow globe, snowglobe, terminal a, terror, terror prevention, terrorism, transportation security administration, tsa, windsor locks CT

Note: There have been some developments about this story, please see below for an update!

My home state of Connecticut, over the course of the 20th century, tended to be areligious and progressive. That changed, however, as the 21st century dawned. This state has become increasingly religious, and increasingly militant about it. Connecticut’s Roman Catholic dioceses, for instance, have decided to wield their political power like a club — very likely as an exercise in pushback, due to the reporting over various abuse scandals, such as that of Fr Stephen Foley (cached) and Dr George Reardon (cached). And the state’s right-wing — once of the gentlemanly, socially-moderate “country-club Republican” variety — has become more ardent and much more religious than it had been.

Toward that end, WTIC-AM 1080 in Hartford — which has reflected this increasing militancy and religiosity in its talk-radio offerings — will now have a daily 3-hour show co-hosted by John G. Rowland — once governor of Connecticut, who was disgraced out of office and pled guilty to corruption charges — and his “friend” and erstwhile political operative, the Rev. Will Marotti, as reported in the Hartford Courant‘s Java blog (WebCite cached article):

Tune in …Former CT guv, John Rowland, is on the air beginning Thursday.

Rowland, the come-back kid when it comes to being an arrested public official who did jailtime but landed a plum job in his hometown of Waterbury, has a new gig… radio show host on WTIC-AM.

He and his religious inspiration, Rev. Will Marotti are launching a new program titled “Church and State.” The show runs daily from 3 to 6 p.m. replacing the “Total News” block.

I’ve already blogged about Rowland’s appeal to religiosity as a way of recovering from his own shame. It appears that Connecticut’s right wing has fallen for this swindle, and the venerable (and once-respectable) WTIC-AM has bent over for him and for the militant Religious Right.

Well, WTIC can put on its religious radio show — and make no mistake, it absolutely will be religious in nature, no matter what Rowland, Marotti, or WTIC say about it — but I’m not fooled by the criminal Rowland or his willing enablers in the church or in the media. And I don’t plan to surrender to the Religious Right who are trying to conquer the Nutmeg State. If they want me to obey the strictures of their religion, they’re just going to have to make me do so.

Update: I’m not sure when it happened — maybe in the last month or two — but the Rev. Marotti is no longer part of this show, and it’s no longer called “Church & State.” The shamed-out-of-office Rowland is now its sole host. I guess WTIC-AM’s experiment in trying to proselytize Nutmeggers, has failed. Although leaving a convicted felon on the air, isn’t all that great either. Sigh.

Photo credit: Andrew Ciscel, via Flickr.

Tags: 1080, christian, christian right, Christianity, christians, connecticut, hartford ct, john g rowland, john rowland, meriden CT, new life church, religious right, right, talk radio, waterbury CT, will marotti, WTIC, wtic 1080, wtic-am

I’ve come up with a term to describe the Religious Right’s war against Islam inside the US: Neocrusade. That’s right, these folks are Neocrusaders, the childish spiritual resurrection of the western Europeans who stormed into the Middle East during the Middle Ages. It’s the only term I can think of, to describe militant Christians in the US who basically want to drive Muslims underground — or out of the country entirely.

Although I’m no friend of any religion, I can only disapprove of this movement to destroy the “freedom of religion” that this country has had for over 200 years.

I say that because, once you’ve eliminated religious freedom for some, then you’ve eliminated it altogether, because “freedom” either applies to everyone, or it doesn’t exist.

The latest dust-up is taking place right here in the Nutmeg State. The Hartford City Council has decided to show some solidarity with Muslims in the US, and will open their meetings with prayers delivered by Hartford imams. I can’t really support this personally, since I’m opposed to any government session including a religious component, but as it turns out, this is a short-term decision, since the City Council meetings don’t ordinarily open with prayers.

The Religious Right, of course, has gone berserk over it. Hartford’s Internet servers have been inundated with sanctimonious emails raging and blustering over how terrible this decision is. The Hartford Courant reports on the Neocrusaders’ furious outrage (WebCite cached article):

A plan by the Hartford City Council to diversify its opening prayers before meetings has come under fire after it was announced that Monday’s invocation would be Islamic.

City Councilman Luis Cotto, who proposed having two imams lead the invocation Monday, said the city council’s website has been inundated with e-mails criticizing the plan. The harsh response prompted city council President rJo Winch to call a news conference today at 1 p.m. to discuss the issue.

Cotto said that his goal in having an Islamic prayer was to speak out against what he called “the current wave of Islamophobia” in this country.

(Before you ask, no, I haven’t a clue how to pronounce “rJo,” and yes, that’s how the name is spelled.)

Helpfully, Cotto has posted some of the correspondence he’s received on his own blog, IonHartford (cached version). Read it and see for yourselves the insipidity, stupidity, and rage of these Neocrusaders. Virtually every “Christian nation” myth is included in this correspondence.

Enough is enough, folks. I’m not a Muslim myself, nor will I ever become one. But until the First Amendment is altered or repealed, the rest of the country needs to leave them the fuck alone and let them live their lives. They are entitled to nothing less. This childish caterwauling simply must stop.

Not that it will, of course … Christians are notoriously unwilling to contain or muzzle their own, so the Neocrusaders will be allowed to carry on and do … well, whatever! … as long as they wish. The rest of the country’s Christians will never lift a finger to stop them, and will do absolutely nothing to force their juvenile co-religionists to grow the fuck up.

Photo credit: Michael Heilemann.

Tags: christian, christian nation, christian right, Christianity, christians, connecticut, hartford, hartford city council, hartford ct, imam, imams, Islam, luis cotto, muslim, muslims, neocrusade, neocrusader, neocrusaders, religious right, rjo winch, US

Last week a strange event occurred in my home state, the Land of Steady Habits. Perhaps inspired by the ridiculous Religious Right attacks on the Cordoba Center (a cultural center — not a mosque! — which will soon be built near — not at, or over! — the site of the World Trade Center in New York City), a bunch of militant Christians protested at a mosque in Bridgeport. The Connecticut Post reports on this protest (WebCite cached article):

About a dozen right-wing Christians, carrying placards and yelling “Islam is a lie,” angrily confronted worshippers outside a Fairfield Avenue mosque Friday.

“Jesus hates Muslims,” they screamed at worshippers arriving at the Masjid An-Noor mosque to prepare for the holy week of Ramadan. One protester shoved a placard at a group of young children leaving the mosque. “Murderers,” he shouted.

My first inclination, upon reading this, was to say, “Here? In Connecticut?” This is a relatively progressive state, compared to the rest of the country. OK, so we have a bit of a parochial streak, as evidenced by our remaining Puritan-era “blue laws,” and of course we have the same sort of “lunatic fringe” one might expect to find in a state of some 3 million people. And the Roman Catholic Church has staged some massive protests, when the Connecticut bishops needed to distract people and squirm out of having to take responsibility for the things they’ve done and so they could desperately cling to all their precious money. But really … this kind of brainless Christofascism, I thought, is something one is far more likely to find down in the Bible belt. Well, it turns out I was correct — these wingnuts aren’t even Nutmeggers:

Flip Benham, of Dallas, Texas, organizer of the protest, was yelling at the worshipers with a bullhorn.

“This is a war in America and we are taking it to the mosques around the country,” he said.

I’m not too sure how truly proud of themselves they were, however, since they didn’t really protest too long, and they packed up and left fairly quickly:

After about an hour the protesters packed up their placards and fliers into a couple of vans and drove off.

Good riddance, “Flip,” and all your militant religionist pals.

Just to see what kind of a freak show these people are, I went to their Web site, and took a look (cached version). They seem to have a problem with the CT Post‘s coverage, as you can see in this screen-shot:

So, they admit the CT Post covers this “protest” correctly, in every detail but one … i.e. the accusation that they’d screamed “Jesus hates Muslims.” As evidence they did not, they proudly link to a PDF file of the brochure they said they handed out there. Unfortunately for them, this brochure does nothing to make them seem less extreme. If anything, it shows how insane they are. It includes such enlightened gems of “the Religion of Love” such as:

WHAT DO ABORTION, HOMOSEXUALITY, AND ISLAM HAVE IN COMMON?
They are all inspired by the same liar who has come to the earth to rob, kill, and destroy. …

OUR FAILURE TO RIGHTLY REPRESENT CHRIST TO YOU
Unfortunately, Christianity in America has become so feminized, weak, and limp-wristed that these lies (abortion, homosexuality, and Islam) have come to prevail in a nation that was established and made great on the manly bedrock of biblical Christianity.

This brochure also claims the US was “founded on Christianity” — which is a lie, because it was not — a contention that they support using a quotation supposedly by Patrick Henry — which in fact, he never actually said.

Given the ferocious, irrational content of this brochure — capped by lies and fake quotations — on this matter, I find I must believe the CT Post over this delusional and militant crew.

Photo credit: Autumn Driscoll / Connecticut Post.

Tags: abortion, bridgeport CT, christian, christian right, christianism, christianist, christianists, Christianity, christians, christofascism, christofascist, connecticut, dallas TX, flip benham, gays, homosexuality, Islam, masjid an-noor mosque, mosque, operation rescue, operation save america, pro-life, protest, religionism, religionist, religionists, religious right, right