Atheist discrimination

I wrote a few months ago explaining why I feel it necessary to maintain anonymity online in relating my job security to my lack of religious belief. Given our high unpopularity, examples of discrimination based on one's non-religion abound. In the news is a bill now being put forward in Arkansas to clear the state's constitution of clear discrimination against nonbelievers. Their state constitution (along with other states, including with South Carolina's) explicitly forbids people who don't believe in God from being a civil servant.

South Carolina's state constitution, article six, section two reads:

SECTION 2. Person denying existence of Supreme Being not to hold office.

No person who denies the existence of the Supreme Being shall hold any office under this Constitution.

Of course this is blatantly unconstitutional, and Herb Silverman fought to make it officially so, but still it exists in the constitution as written because of the cowardice of state representatives who won't fight to end such discrimination for fear of being labeled an "atheist sympathizer" or something. If only SC state representatives had the courage of AK Rep. Richard Carroll of North Little Rock (Green Party).

One of the most amazing things about this to me is the complete lack of sympathy that atheists get from believers about such discrimination, because believers don't have a true concept of "freedom of religion" -- they think it just means, "You get to pick a religion to believe in," but not, "You can pick any religion or none at all..." But if we all fight for true freedom of religion, then we're all better off in the end.

Some are trying to put an end to atheophobia. My aims are less lofty: just get people to recognize that it exists and that it is wrong.

The fear of reprisals among atheists

The conversation on the message board at GC is turning to the issue of making our membership directory there private to non-members. (It is now private) Charlie, the same guy I debated concerning alternative energy, has of course waxed poetic randroid-style about fear and courage and individuality. While I think comparing the "coming out as atheists" thing to a civil rights movement is fallacious, I do know of many instances of workplace discrimination and illegal terminations based on atheism. However, I don't like the comparison between atheist "movements" and civil rights movements:

Most important is that this isn't about ending some entrenched economic system or clear and flagrant inequality before the law. We have none of the same legal and moral authority that civil rights and abolitionist groups had on their side. And it was this very issue that became an argument a while back between D.J. Grothe and PZ when atheists today were contrasted to civil rights crusaders in the 60s. Ditto with gay rights groups, who are still denied marriage and have been targets of violence since time out of mind. We have to go back to the Puritans or Bruno to get that sort of comparison with atheists.

Honestly, I feel that I could face a risk to my job security if my boss(es) were pressured regarding the extent of my nonreligion, given ties to groups like Godless Columbia. My workplace is susceptible to outside pressures and politics. But, this sort of prejudice is not akin to the legal discrimination that other groups face based on race, sex and sexual preference.

If people want their privacy, they should have it, while not walking around worrying about being the victim of a hate crime like that at the UU of Knoxville. Now, on to the latest post by Charlie:

I think everyone is making more of this than what it is. I don't think anyone is more out there than myself, and the negative backlash I have received has been minimal.

I think you should separate out two very different things:

1) fear of violence
2) fear of reprisals -- attempts to smear you, get you fired, &c

As for (1), you are a physically-large male with an agressive attitude, so it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that you neither worry about, nor have reason to, acts of violence directed against you for your lack of religious beliefs.

As for (2), you are lucky. Many of us work in places that we can easily be fired for minor offenses, and although saying, "I'll sue!" sounds good and all, at best, this will lead to months of no pay followed by (hopefully) reinstatement and some coverage of our legal fees. Given the conservative composition of the high courts and recent relevant rulings in areas of labor protection, especially Enquist v. Oregon Dept. of Ag. (ruling), I wouldn't hold my breath.

I keep a blog that my boss reads on a regular basis where I publish my unvarnished opinions on anything and everything. No backlash. In fact, it is often the topic of conversation at work.

Then you are obviously lucky to work under someone who isn't a bigot. Many are not so lucky. I don't think that the people here are worried about "people not liking me at work," but rather, some Evangelical-type supervisor who would find a way to start putting undue pressure on you or finding ways to discredit your job performance once they learned.

People disagree with me, but they respect me. That is because I don't hide in fear or shame.

When I was at the University of Florida, I started the only non-theistic student group on campus and have even been on national TV to defend my views. (I argued against the placement of a Decalogue monument in Dixie County, Florida. While we were there, people cussed at me from the crowd gathered around and said crap to my wife while I was on-camera. Unfortunately, the satellite feed was cut off right as it was getting ready to be my turn to talk to Alan Colmes, who would've let me speak uninterrupted for a few minutes. I still wonder if Hannity had me cut off because I sounded half-competent and cognizant of the facts surrounding the other cases he referenced...)

Does that sound like I "hide" from being an atheist?

However, now that I'm working, with a baby on the way, the security and stability of my job is far more important than having my meetup.com profile public. In the question of risk versus reward, what is the reward? The real risk I face is in having a someone related to work find something online about me they don't agree with, then rally others to have me fired. There's something to be said about people's poor grasp on the concept of complete liberty in the freedom of expression.

The real threat here is not getting assaulted or fired. It is being embarrassed. It is sticking out from the herd. It is being an individual.

If you say so. Sounds to me like you don't really care about the evidence of discrimination based on atheism in the workplace and school for others. You just choose to pretend all that doesn't exist or doesn't matter. If you feel strongly that it's about "being embarrassed" then that's all that matters to you, right?

I am with Seneca when he said that it is better to die on your feet than live on your knees.

Yeah because having a public membership directory of a meetup group is to "die on your feet", while having a private one to non-members is to "live on your knees"...

Believe me when I say that everyone of you is more likely to die or be injured in a car wreck than to be assaulted or lose your job as a consequence of being a freethinker.

So do you wear a seat belt, or is that also fear? Do you show courage and "die on your feet" by not wearing a seat belt?

It's about risk and reward Charlie, nothing more. Having a private membership directory to non-members is not "hiding in fear" any more than your wearing a seat belt in the car is "driving in fear".

Copeland continues to stonewall Congress

The investigation of Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) into the tax-free practices of some religious organizations turned up a few rocks, and some especially slimy creatures are scurrying away from the harsh sunlight:

Already a well-known figure, Copeland has come under greater scrutiny in recent months. He is one target of a Senate Finance Committee investigation into allegations of questionable spending and lax financial accountability at six large televangelist organizations that preach health-and-wealth theology.

All have denied wrongdoing, but Copeland has fought back the hardest, refusing to answer most questions from the inquiry's architect, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa.
...
Swicegood said the church's independent compensation committee approves all payments to board members.

Marilyn Phelan, a Texas Tech University law professor and author on nonprofit law, said the practice could pose problems. Both the IRS and Texas state law prohibit benefits beyond reasonable compensation for insiders, including board members, she said. If violations are found, nonprofits can lose their tax-exempt status and board members can face penalty taxes.

As the Senate Finance Committee considers its next step, Copeland is not backing down. His ministry is portraying the inquiry as an attack on religious liberty.

At the same time, it is moving forward with a big fund-raising project: soliciting donations for new television equipment so Copeland can be broadcast in high-definition.

I'd love to see this crook thrown in jail, but it's enough to hope for all the money he's misused to be taxed. From their supposed needs for private jets to their staying in $5,000 a night resorts during "evangelistic trips" and driving Bentleys that they write off as "work-related vehicles"...it all just makes me sick. Paula and Randy White have probably cooperated more than anyone else, but with their ongoing divorce and financial issues, it's understandable that they can't take any more heat.

Gay marriage redux

Last January (2007), I wrote a short piece in response to the statistics on single women and the general decline of marriage among women until later life in my generation. I pointed out that gay marriage can't really be blamed for these trends, given the virtual non-existence of it at that time, and even now, only a few places allow it. This humorous video shows the fallacy of blaming gays for heterosexual divorces is like blaming Jews.

Stanford issued a press release in 1995 that summarized, even way back then, the genetic and hereditary evidence that homosexuality was not merely an arbitrary lifestyle choice. Given the new research just reported this week that shows a fundamental difference in the brain structures of gay men and women versus straight men and women, arguing that being attracted to the same sex is a "choice" is without merit. That's the first hurdle anti-gay advocates face: showing how discrimination against them is fundamentally different from discrimination based on race or gender.

About a week ago, a colleague emailed me an article by Chuck Colson (former corrupt Nixonian) about gay marriage and, quote:

There is nothing in the California majority opinion that necessarily limits “loving and long-term relationships” to two people, or even people who are unrelated to one another. The biggest impediment is our revulsion at polygamy and incest—revulsions that can be swept aside by activist judges as easily as the millennia-old revulsion toward same-sex “marriage.”

That would only leave the argument that these arrangements pose a threat to the health and well-being of children.

I want to look at this common "slippery slope"-style argument.

First, I want to make it clear that a lot of the "issues" swirling about here should be clearly delineated:

1. What is the "compelling interest" of the state to involve itself in any fashion in marriage?
2. What role(s) have the state and federal government played in regulating marriage in the past?
3. What are the government-related benefits of marriage?
4. What can be said about the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and marriage?
5. Would people be satisfied if gays were given equal rights and benefits but it was called a "civil union" rather than a "marriage"? What is the non-semantic difference?
   

Marriage certainly pre-dates written history and the logic of marriage is simple and compelling: as social creatures, humans have a lot of required investment in raising their young. Unlike other primates, whose young become self-sufficient for food after a maximum six years in gorillas and chimps, human young are highly dependent on their mothers for much longer. As such, this enormous divestment of time and energy is a trade-off that pays for itself in learning -- the longer the developmental period, the more learning and behavior that can be passed between generations. Given that we males are just as biologically and evolutionarily invested in the survival of our young, the formation of families or family groups is something seen in all primates. Although our current concept of monogamy seems logical and moral, we have seen polygamy's place in ancient (check your Bible!) and modern history, and our closest cousins, the great apes, certainly do not form strictly-monagomous pairing.

Institutionalized marriage probably began as a simple property transfer. Fathers literally sold their daughters off to suitors for a reasonable "bride price", overseen by local authorities, and this has a lot of precedent in the Bible and the earlier Babylonian Hammurabi's Code (see #138). It's understandable from a moral and pragmatic point of view that in these times, fathers were responsible for and controlled their daughter's welfare up until puberty, keeping her safe and getting value out of her by the work she did around the household. Once she was old enough to take care of herself (and a family), then her "value" in work around her father's household would have to be compensated for by the prospective groom. Primitive? Of course, but logical enough...

It should be quite obvious that divorces have happened as long as marriages have (again, see Hammurabi's Code #138). The "threats" to marriage, then, have been around long before "them queers" started asking for the legal rights to marry. The divorce rate in our country is fairly high, and if you want to talk about slippery slopes, the "remedy" proposed by many groups is to make no fault divorces illegal. This is another case where conservatives are completely inconsistent: they are adamant that raising taxes is horrible because it circumvents individual liberties and call themselves champions of states' rights. On the other hand, when they have a moral argument about restricting alcohol sales on Sundays, or laws against marijuana, or laws about gay marriage, this whole notion of civil liberties gets pretty damned fuzzy, and they want the government to step in and limit individual freedoms.

Given the paucity of logic or evidence that allowing gay marriage would somehow "undermine" or "threaten" marriage as an institution, the argument to prevent gay marriages must rest mainly on legal precedent. Unfortunately for antagonists of gay marriage, much of the legal precedent concerning "equal protection" will not work out well in their favor, unless the judges involved want to completely ignore the clear letter and spirit of the law. The Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment guarantees (aptly enough) equal protection to all groups under the law; it has been used with increasing scope to prevent discrimination based on race, gender, disability, religion, &c. The next logical step is to use it to prevent discrimination based on sexual identity/preference, and this is exactly what the courts in California and Massachusetts have done.

Now, perhaps I feel that marriage should not even be the purview of government, and that really all the government should have to do with it is in recognizing my wife's status in order for her to execute legal documents on my behalf and as co-owner of my property. What is the government's interest in regulating marriage, after all? Is the government a giant family planning organ that serves to try to help citizens propagate the species? Unbelievably, this is exactly the argument that some of these quote, pro-family, groups and anti-gay writers use in predicting "the demise of civilization":

Because civilization provides the best odds for their children to live to adulthood. So even though civilized individuals can't pursue the most obviously pleasurable and selfish (i.e., natural) strategies for reproduction, the fact is that they are far more likely to be successful at reproduction in a civilized society -- whether they personally like the rules or not.

Civilizations that enforce rules of marriage that give most males and most females a chance to have children that live to reproduce in their turn are the civilizations that last the longest. It's such an obvious principle that few civilizations have even attempted to flout it.

Even if the political system changes, as long as the marriage rules remain intact, the civilization can go on.

Get that? The impetus on government is to protect and prolong our society and civilization. This takes the primary aim of marriage as reproduction. Of course, given that many marriages are childless, either because one or both of the spouses are infertile, or because they simply don't want kids, one must wonder if in this paradigm it would entail that government should regulate marriage further than it already does and restrict it to only couples who are fertile and want children. It's already clear that these anti-gay so-called "family advocates" are in favor of tightening restrictions on divorce, overturning a woman's right to choose, as well as making birth control less readily available, so it's obvious that they think that the government's compelling interest is not just to keep the "rules of marriage" immutable, but to literally control the reproduction of society.

If the "rules of marriage" are loosened, let's say all the way to the point that people could marry animals or be polygamous (or start sex cults), would it logically follow that heterosexual couples would stop marrying? Would they stop breeding? To assert, "yes" to either of those questions is to admit to a credulity beyond that which I am capable. What you are asserting is that people would no longer have a rational justification for committed monogamous relationships if the imprimatur of the government was not attached to it. This conveniently overlooks the fact that people engaged in such relationships before governments regulated them; whether or not the government "sponsored" marriage, people would choose to live in a committed monogamous relationship that mirrors, in all respects, marriage.

Slippery slope arguments like the one employed in the article by Colson assert that to allow two people to marry of the same sex removes the threshold of rationality from deciding what marriage is, and would open the door to bestiality or polygamy. These arguments are simply horrible. These same exact arguments have been historically employed in the following way:

1. Lincoln wants to give blacks the right to vote? Well, what's next? WOMEN?
2. They're going to give women the right to vote? What's next? Civil rights for blacks?
3. They're going to give people of different colors the right to marry? What's next gay marriage?

Now, we hear:

1. They're going to give gays the right to marry? What's next, will we be able to marry dogs or multiple people?

The slippery slope argument ignores the fact that people can draw rational distinctions between categories, and that humans cannot correctly divine rational and irrational behavior. It gives no credit to the powers of human reason to limit change, implying that one change must entail another, even one of a completely different nature, which commits a category error. Imagine that I said the following:

1. Lincoln wants to give blacks the right to vote? What's next, dogs?
2. Women will be given the vote? What's next, dogs?

The category error here is clear: the ability to vote is already held by white men, so extending it to black men is including another part of the category "man". Extending it to dogs would be absurd. Ditto with women: they belong to the category "human" and so extending the right to vote to them is simply saying, "All humans have the right to vote," rather than saying, "Everything has a right to vote."

By the same logic:

1. An adult man and woman are allowed to marry: this is a definition of marriage. It is completely consistent with me using a gender-neutral definition: two adult people are marrying one another.
   
2. If a man and man are allowed to marry, this entails no substantive expansion of the definition: two adult people can choose to get married. Ditto with a woman and woman.
   
3. It does not follow that the definition of marriage has been altered to allow more than two adults to marry, nor to allow adult persons to marry animals.
4. If not substantive change in the definition of marriage occurs, then the supposed "snowball effect" of change is undermined.
   

Those who make the slippery slope argument imply that to broaden the definition of marriage from "one man, one woman" to "two adult persons" would be enabling the definition to be broadened even further to "more than two adult persons" or "persons and animals" but this is a categorical mistake.

This mistake is akin to someone who argues that, "If you make it illegal for me to punch you in the face (assault), then what's next? Will I be arrested for patting you on the shoulder for a job well done?" It implies, again, that human reason cannot differentiate between degree and quality of action or definition. Basically, the slippery slope argument is employed by those who have no valid arguments or evidence on their side to make people afraid that change in tradition will snowball in effect and run amok. The problem is that history has taught us, again and again, that people are able to adapt and change and modify law and make progress without the destruction of civilization.

...at least, so far.

Conclusions:

There is more and more evidence that gay people are physiologically determined as such. Denying them marriage rights runs afoul of the Equal Protection clause. The slippery slope argument often commits a category error and always ignores the ability of people to make distinctions and refinements and progress in existing law and culture; it implies that humans cannot act rationally and control the changes in the status quo, because change will snowball and multiply and wreak havoc on civilization. This has been shown logically fallacious and historically inaccurate.

Virginia follows Texas with NCBCPS

A year ago to the day, I reported that the sectarian proselytizing tool known as NCBCPS was receiving its first legal challenge in Texas. Luckily, that case ended well for our civil liberties as the state saw its unconstitutional adoption of this tool would lead to further lawsuits and dropped it from the curriculum.

Virginians have now followed in Texans' footsteps. All it will take to remedy this one, as well, are some courageous parents who actually think the Constitution matters and are willing to act to enforce it. Craig County is smack dab in the heart of, you guessed it, Appalachia! More glorious progress for science education in the Bible Belt.

VT shooting & gun laws

It's hard to believe that it's been a year since the VT shootings. It's harder still to believe that Virginians refused to amend gun statutes to protect citizens from mentally-disturbed persons making gun purchases.

NRA continues to hold dominion over Virginia
Posted January 26th, 2008 at 9:30 am

Guest Post by Morbo

After the Virginia Tech massacre, I wrote a post predicting that the horrific incident would do nothing to change our gun policy. I secretly hoped I’d be proven wrong. Sadly, it looks like I won’t.

In Virginia, lawmakers have rejected modest legislation closing a loophole that allows people to buy weapons at gun shows without undergoing a background check. This should be a no-brainer after what happened, but still the measure failed.

Reported The Washington Post:

Gun-control advocates, including survivors of the April 16 shooting rampage that took the lives of 32 victims at Virginia Tech, poured into a Senate committee meeting to support a bill that would require background checks for all gun-show sales. They then staged a “lie-in,” lying on their backs outside the Capitol to draw attention to gun deaths in Virginia last year.

Some of the survivors offered compelling personal testimony. Colin Goddard, 22, who survived the shootings and is now a senior at the school, cut to the chase when he said: “People tell me I am alive because of God or luck or a bunch of other stuff. I don’t know how much I can accept any of those, but one thing I can’t accept is that it was just criminals being criminals and I was just caught in the wrong situation at the wrong time.”

Amazingly, several gun nuts attended this event with weapons strapped on their hips. That’s right — in Virginia, it is legal to attend a public meeting of government representatives wearing a pistol. One complained that background checks are “onerous” because they can take as long as one day to complete.

At the hearing, some of the surviving students were approached by gun nuts who explained to them that had the students been armed, they could have taken out the shooter, Cho Seung-Hui. These gun nuts are clearly disturbed — yet the legislature listens to them, not the families of those who were killed.

A panel of the Virginia House of Delegates had already voted down closing the loophole. The Senate hearing was an attempt to revive it, but on Wednesday the members of the Courts of Justice Committee voted it down 9-6. All seven Republicans on the committee voted against it, as did two Democrats.

To the gun nuts, “gun control” is synonymous with seizure of weapons. They do this on purpose to frighten people. Thus, the debate becomes whether people can have guns or not instead of what reasonable restrictions we can put in place to make sure the wrong people don’t have access to guns. I don’t want to take away the rifle your uncle Fred uses to hunt deer. I do want to make sure that a deranged person can’t go to a gun show, walk out with an assault rifle and head for the nearest middle school.

If Virginia won’t even pass a baby-step measure like this in the wake of the Virginia Tech killings, then all hope for any sensible gun laws in that state is lost. As I said back in April, we are left to wait until some other deranged person decides to top Cho Seung-Hui’s grim record.

After this was written, we had the NIU shootings. Did he get those guns illegally? Nope.

The graduate student bought two of his four guns at a Champaign, Ill., gun store Saturday — indicating that he had been planning his assault for at least six days, ABC News' Richard Esposito and Pierre Thomas report. The other weapons were purchased from the same store in December and August 2007.

The Virginian-Pilot's Bill Sizemore on Pat Robertson

My friend and yours, American Talibanist Pat Robertson, was exposed a while back for his role in denying compensation to a sponsor of his "age-defying shake" and threatening him when he chose to use legal means to recoup $. The Virginian-Pilot exposed Robertson, and he threatened to sue them...only to come back some time later (after talking to a lawyer who told him we have this pesky thing called "freedom of the press" -- Robertson never passed the bar exam after getting his JD in 1955) and try to buy off the paper.

The author of the original expose, Bill Sizemore, now has another great article on Robertson's past and details on how he came into the ministry and got involved with TV.

From Sizemore's piece:

In the decade between the time The 700 Club became a daily program and the midseventies, CBN purchased a new facility in Portsmouth with a 175,000-watt transmitter, then a staggering 2.25-million-watt transmitter that could reach most of the mid-Atlantic coastline. Robertson also purchased five radio stations in New York State and new TV stations in Atlanta and Dallas. Then, in 1976, CBN bought a satellite and, months later, broadcast its first feed from Jerusalem. Robertson’s teleministry was now big business. In 1972, Robertson wrote that you can’t “worry about technical production when the cameraman is caught up in the Spirit and begins to weep over someone’s testimony . . . Who cares about the time if God is moving?” But only a few years later, CBN’s brand of production had become distinctly professional. No longer were broadcast slots subject to whim. No more was airtime filled with homemade puppet shows.

Along with the increasingly political slant of the show came more and more secularized programming, aimed at broadening the network’s appeal. CBN began showing family-friendly reruns like Lassie to help finance pricey advertisements for The 700 Club on other networks. Soon, secular shows took up the bulk of CBN’s airtime. This shift led to Robertson’s first run-in with the government, when the state of Massachusetts realized that the programming on WXNE-TV in Boston, purchased by CBN in 1977, was more than 50 percent secular. The station could be tax-exempt only if it functioned as a church instead of a business. Robertson subsequently shifted his holdings to a new company, Continental Broadcasting—some said this shift was to prevent the state from accessing CBN’s financial records.

This glitch did little to slow CBN’s progress, however. The station was finally beginning to turn a profit, after years of surviving on charity from Robertson’s father and local donors. The gifts had often been generous (a local car dealer, for example, once gave Robertson a free Lincoln), but Robertson’s wife still had to work in a local hospital to support their four children—two boys and two girls. By the middle seventies, though, Robertson’s risky decision to “renounce wealth and privilege” to pursue a life of Christian televangelism was suddenly paying off in a whole lot of wealth and privilege.

Robertson is one of the loudest Religious Right figures, and IMHO, there is more reason for him to be investigated more than the six that Grassley has recently focused on. Why? He's used non-profit resources to push his own for-profit ventures for years now. Even with the shake, for-profit, which he promotes on a tax-free non-profit religious channel. The lines between churches and businesses have become far too blurred, and it's about damned time to levy taxes against churches who sell lots of products and make lots of money -- they forfeit their right to claim tax exemption when they start running like a for-profit entity.

He and Dobson have for years opposed the McCain-Feingold Finance Reforms that put a dent in their ability to buy influence in DC. Not that Robertson doesn't still have enormous clout there, especially with Bush in the WH and a huge percentage of Regent grads in Washington (but not Adam Key). I think much of the public is misinformed: the overwhelming majority of people do want church-state separation, not the other way around. Here are some of Robertson's greatest hits:

“I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he [Hugo Chavez] thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.” [Link]

Robertson suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s recent stroke was the result of Sharon’s policy, which he claimed is “dividing God’s land.” [Link]

“You know some of them [college professors] are killers!” [Link]

“I believe it’s [Islam] motivated by demonic power. It is satanic and it’s time we recognize what we’re dealing with. … [T]he goal of Islam, ladies and gentlemen, whether you like it or not, is world domination.” [Link]

[The following are from the American Taliban]:

"The Islamic people, the Arabs, were the ones who captured Africans, put them in slavery, and sent them to America as slaves. Why would the people in America want to embrace the religion of slavers?"

"Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different...More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"[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."

"[Planned Parenthood] is teaching kids to fornicate, teaching people to have adultery, every kind of bestiality, homosexuality, lesbianism – everything that the Bible condemns."

Gotta love him.

Update on Grassley & ministers investigation

I was reading about additional craziness from John Hagee, and it reminded me of something that I'd written about a while back but forgotten about. First, the article on Hagee divulged much of what I already knew -- that he and his ilk want war with Iran, like, yesterday. Why is it that tying this guy and Parsley around McCain's neck isn't a toxic political millstone? The double standard applied to Rev. Wright and Obama is obvious here.

As I read about Hagee's lavish lifestyle and million-dollar salary, it reminded me of Sen. Grassley's investigation into financial impropriety in "prosperity" churches. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has been leading an investigation by the Senate Finance Committee into the finances of six ministries commonly affiliated with "prosperity preaching" with the aim of updating the tax code to appropriately deal with this malfeasance. I admitted a little skepticism at the utility and motives of this investigation when I first read about it. At the time, I said:

I read this the other day and I'm still scratching my head. I mean, I dislike Benny "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor" Hinn as much as anyone, and I think the whole lot of those six are probably as corrupt and unethical as it gets. However, I just don't understand the legal power that a Congressperson has to audit the finances of these people.

The IRS? Sure! But Congress...!?!? We'll wait and see if this goes anywhere.

It turns out that three of the six ministries are cooperating, and have until March 31st, according to this press release:

Baucus and Grassley lead the committee with exclusive Senate jurisdiction over tax policy; the ministry inquiry that Grassley launched last November is meant to gauge the effectiveness of certain tax-exempt policies.

“This ought to clear up any misunderstanding about our interest and the committee’s role,” Grassley said. “We have an obligation to oversee how the tax laws are working for both tax-exempt organizations and taxpayers. Just like with reviews of other tax-exempt organizations in recent years, I look forward to the cooperation of these ministries in the weeks and months ahead.”

Grassley wrote to six ministries on Nov. 5, 2007, asking a series of questions on the nonprofit organizations’ expenses, treatment of donations and business practices. The questions were based on presentations of material from watchdog groups and whistleblowers and on investigative reports in local media outlets. One of the six ministries – Joyce Meyer Ministries of Fenton, Mo. – has cooperated substantially with his request and provided the requested information. Benny Hinn Ministries of Grapevine, Texas, has indicated a willingness to cooperate and provided answers to
five of the 28 questions so far.

Representatives for Randy and Paula White of Without Walls International Church/Paula White Ministries, Tampa, Fla., verbally have indicated to Finance Committee staff that they will cooperate. Baucus and Grassley wrote to them on March 11 to thank them for the verbal commitment and to reiterate the committee’s role.

The remaining three ministries have not cooperated, citing privacy protections or questioning the committee’s standing to request the information. Baucus and Grassley wrote to them on March 11 to describe the committee’s jurisdiction and role in determining the effectiveness of tax policy developed by the committee, distinct from the Internal Revenue Service’s role, which is to enforce existing law. The three ministries are: Kenneth and Gloria Copeland of Kenneth Copeland Ministries, Newark, Texas; Creflo and Taffi Dollar of World Changers Church International / Creflo Dollar Ministries College Park, Ga.; and Eddie L. Long of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church/Eddie L. Long Ministries, Lithonia, Ga.

The committee’s jurisdiction includes the federal tax policy governing the billions of dollars donated to and controlled by the nation’s tax-exempt groups. The federal government forgoes the collection of billions of dollars to tax-exempt organizations every year.

It doesn't surprise me much about the Copelands or the Dollars. I don't know anything about Long, but I am quite familiar with Copeland and his reputation. I was pleasantly surprised about Hinn -- I figured him for one of those likeliest to resist, rather than cooperate. Randy and Paula White have faced enough personal problems recently with the divorce, so facing additional (scandalous) financial ones was probably a smart decision they made.

While you can read the pseudo-justifications for refusing to cooperate proffered by Creflo and Ken at their own sites, Eddie offers no such attempt at saving face. A little digging finds that some of these jokers are getting paid over $1M salaries. Fuc*ing absurd. Long's church has a gym inside ("Samson's Gym") that offers memberships and massages (all for a large fee, of course) -- the divisions between business and church blurred for these individuals long ago.

Senator Clinton won't sign the AFA Pledge

*UPDATE: The story is old news, and she supported the measure shortly after The Nation piece was written. Ed Brayton goofed up and I goofed up by repeating his story. The only way I can still try to spin this is to wonder why the initial delay on her part...

Read about the American Freedom Agenda Act and see the pledge here.

Another reason to support Barack over Senator Clinton: she won't support the American Freedom Agenda Act. More on that here and here.

The clusterfuc* that is election day

If you really want to lose all faith in the American political system, read this.

"Sound Science" ad from firstfreedomfirst

Sounds like a good question to me, a lot like the one I submitted to the CNN-Youtube debate:

Is anything Bush does surprising anymore?

To get at the heart of how much Bush and his GOP allies in Congress have changed the office of POTUS, Sen. Whitehouse (D-RI, ironic name, eh?) decided to dig in to the classified legal memos that have given "justification" to the president's, uh...liberties with the Constitution. The results are as sickening as you'd expect:

1. An executive order cannot limit a President. There is no constitutional requirement for a President to issue a new executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms of a previous executive order. Rather than violate an executive order, the President has instead modified or waived it.

2. The President, exercising his constitutional authority under Article II, can determine whether an action is a lawful exercise of the President’s authority under Article II.

3. The Department of Justice is bound by the President’s legal determinations. [bold emphasis added throughout]

I don't know if/why this is surprising. Bush believes he can direct the emphatically-independent arm of oversight -- the Justice Department -- not to pursue legal investigations of wrongdoing in his administration, and that the Court itself is not able to tell him what he's doing is illegal.

The Boy Scouts of Philly & discrimination

Looks like one of the more famous discrimination cases for the Boy Scouts, this one regarding the "Cradle of Liberty Council" is coming to a head...much to the dismay of the AFA and their fallacious reasoning.

UN report on rights of atheists

An interesting report from Asma Jahangir details some of the legal and cultural issues that non-beleivers face. It may be useful when deciding on legislation in some already-enlightened country, but it will have little impact anywhere that it is most needed, I'm sure. Here's a nice tidbit:

In several countries, religious groups enjoy certain exemptions from equality legislation concerning employment or the provision of goods, facilities and services. This is criticized as effectively allowing religious groups to discriminate against other religions and non-religious believers. This problem may increase when public services, for example in the health or social sector, are contracted out to faith-based organizations. Atheists and non-theists are concerned that contractual clauses may not be enough to protect them and religious minorities when seeking services from or employment with public service providers when the service provision has been contracted out to faith-based organizations.

Hmmmm...why does this sound so familiar?

Christians and campaign finance

I don't remember why this never interested me before, but hearing people like James Dobson argue against campaign finance reform has finally made me stop and think. Let's concede the obvious: making politics fair is not in the best interests of money/power-hungry politicians and their lobbyists.

I mentioned Dobson's recently-founded 501(c)(4) group a while ago, and it looks like a clear reason for him to oppose campaign finance reform is his own organization.

The main thrust of campaign finance reform since the '90s has been targeting soft money. Soft money is contributed not directly to a campaign or candidate, but to a PAC like Dobson's, which then have very little regulation or disclosure requirements with the public. It's basically a way to try to buy elections, and the Supreme Court agreed in 2003 to uphold limitations on soft money. While I agree that our constitutional civil liberties must be protected, the issue is being obfuscated in much the same way that church-state issues are (by the same players): the Constitution protects individual liberties, not those of PACs. While I personally have the right to say and do as I wish with respect to advertising and campaigning for a candidate, the state has a vested interest in regulating the activity of collective efforts backed by corporate dollars.

Any time that transparency mixes with politics, those who practice in the dark fight furiously against the intrusion of light. We should be quite suspicious of those who are so vocal and adamantly opposed to this legislation via sheer demagoguery (using lies about limits on individual religious expression).

I don't actually think that Dobson wants to hide something of his own personal fortune. I mean, hell, Dobson only makes around $300 K himself in his $200M FoF empire (plus $30M for the FoF "Action" political branch), just chump change, really. I think the real fear that these people have is the way that the money flows from their non-profit religious groups to their political action groups. That, combined with who is funding those action groups. I think Dobson doesn't want the public to know that he is bankrolled by the same machinations that Ralph Reed, with the Christian Coalition, was: Jack Abramoff and crooks just like him. I think Dobson and Perkins and others like them are in bed with the same corrupt lobbyists that all the politicians are, and they don't want anyone to know about it. The money they receive from their religious fronts are siphoned over to PACs. They are able to take politicians out to dinner and on trips to influence their votes for their own special interests. Dobson and his ilk are no better than any other politicians or lobbyists in DC, they just don't want anyone to know about it.

So proud to be an American

A new Red Cross report details the extent of torture at our CIA's secret prisons in Europe.

For those who think that it is necessary to have secret prisons and torture to win the "war on terror", I have abandoned the hope of prospect of using rational argument or moral appeals to win them over.

How will history judge this period in America? Its darkest ever?

"Christian Embassy" fundraising video results in military censures

I mentioned Mike Weinstein a while back; now he's making more trouble for himself, standing up for religious freedoms in the military. The RR is predictably blowing it out of proportion. Basically the issue involves a ministry's use of military members in uniform to promote their organization.

The very important thing to remember is the difference between limitations on government religious expression and individual religious expression. Military members are considered agents of the government when in uniform, and they have been held accountable that way for years and years (e.g., many have been court martialed for being in uniform at peace rallies).

In other news, the USA Today has an article on private companies promoting spiritual activities among employees. Tit for tat, I guess...

So Depressing

So sad to read about Hein v. FFRF.

SCOTUS is just what the theocrats had wet dreams it would be -- completely unmoved by the idea that the Executive Branch using tax money to further religion is unconstitutional.

Taxpayers, he said, "set out a parade of horribles that they claim could occur" by allowing such faith-based funding to continue, suggesting the federal government could build a national house of worship, or buy Jewish Stars of David and distribute them to public employees.

"Of course none of these things has happened," said Alito, and "in the unlikely event that any of these executive actions did take place, Congress could quickly step in."

*sigh*

Things very similar to this have happened -- the government funds appropriated for "abstinence-based sex ed" have been used to promote religious ideology over scientific fact at the expense of the health of millions of people. The exponential rise of AIDS in Africa can rightly be framed as a serious implication of such policies, in concert with Vatican dogma against condom usage.

Alito is the author of the unitary executive legal theory which all but confers dictatorial powers to the President, which he has cited numerous times in his usage of "signing statements" to bypass him having to actually obey the law. This should come with little surprise. Everyone knew that Kennedy was the swing vote.
________________
Technorati tags: God, Religion, Church-state, Politics

Time to repeal failed "don't ask, don't tell" policy

See this, and watch the video.

I like the vacuity of logic in what Giuliani said, how it's "not the time" for this policy to be revised, in the middle of the war. WTF? It matters most right now to keep patriotic Americans who have crucial skills that keep our troops alive, rather than kicking them out for what they do in the bedroom. It won't matter in a time of peace, Rudy. Moron.
________________
Technorati tags: Politics

Interesting Church-State Separation Cases

From Prof. Friedman and Prof. Byrd come two cases of interest to me: one for personal reasons; the other out of curiosity.

Curiosity first: the 5th Circuit Court is hearing a case involving a monument in Harris County, TX, which recently had neon lighting installed to highlight a Bible therein (no, I'm not joking). You can read some background on it here. Oddly, the county went ahead and removed the monument, apparently hoping to moot the case, just days before the case begins arguments at the 5th C. The BJC filed an amicus brief in the case. See here and here for more.

The personal case revolves around Teen Ranch, an outfit strongly resembling Teen Challenge, with which I have personal familiarity. The 6th Circuit Court has upheld a lower court's ruling which allows a state agency to prevent boys from being sent to the Christian facility. See Prof. Friedman's posting for details, and Teen Ranch's side of the story archived here. It appears that their site is down for good -- perhaps their legal fees and such have caused them to sacrifice the domain. One has to wonder how the federal funds going to such organizations will continue once the Dems start to revamp the whole "faith-based initiative" mess. Perhaps the Dems won't tackle it. For the sake of our country's future, I hope they do.
________________
Technorati tags: Religion, Church-state