The recent media dust up about the Internal Revenue Service doing their job when considering group tax exemptions under the 501(c)4 rules focused on conservative groups being ‘targeted’ for political reasons. What hasn’t been reported as much is that non-conservative groups, including Camp Quest, were also targeted for extra scrutiny. This just shows that the conservative group’s claim of victimhood is more hysterical than the facts support.
The first Thursday in May is the National Day of Reason. It was created as a response to the National Day of Prayer held on the same day. the National Day of Reason is to celebrate reason – a concept all Americans can support – and to raise public awareness about the persistent threat to religious liberty posed by government when it takes sides.
Jesus Portrait in Jackson Ohio Middle SchoolA story, at the top of the 6 PM newscast on WBNS 10TV in Columbus, about a complaint over a Jesus portrait hanging in an Ohio middle school hit all the false talking points over religious symbols in a public school. The report missed or ignored an opportunity to give accurate information on the 1st amendment and instead spent a majority of time trying to defend an obvious illegal act.
WBNS 10TV is the top ranked news station in Columbus Ohio. It’s owned by the company that also owns the only print newspaper in town, The Columbus Dispatch. 10TV gave 3 minutes at the top of their premiere 6 PM newscast, on Monday 01/07, about a complaint lodged against a portrait of Jesus hanging in the public area of the middle school in Jackson Ohio. Chuck Strickler, who is also an anchor at the station was the reporter on the story. The fact they gave the story 3 minutes of time on the primary newscast and had one of their veteran anchor/reporters doing the story shows how important 10TV believed the story to be.
Rev. Billy Graham, or rather his ministry, had a full page ad in the New York Times and other news papers around the country electioneering for god. In the ad, Graham asks people to “cast our ballots for candidates who base their decisions on biblical principles and support the nation of Israel.” Graham’s call crosses the line against churches electioneering for candidates.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation will be filing a complaint about the “coded” message:
A Google alert caught my eye on Sunday. It was to a post on a website called LifeNews.com and it was titled “Liberals Are Trying to Intimidate Your Church This Election”. So of course I had to read about this very important issue. The post basically was the standard conservative scare post. Naturally none of their information was correct. What I did find interesting was links to two voter guides. I didn’t know that a church was so concerned with obviously non-religious issues like energy, Voter ID, and Iran.
Thursday nights Vice Presidential debate between current VP Joe Biden and GOP nominee Rep. Paul Ryan contained topics from domestic issues and foreign affairs. Toward the end of the night debate moderator Martha Raddatz asked, since both men are of the Catholic faith, about abortion. Each man’s answer drew a sharp contrast on the relationship between faith and public policy. I thought Vice President Biden had the correct view.
This is from a transcript hosted by the website Plunderbund but I did view the debate and vouch for the text in this transcript: