Category: Politics

April 1, 2006

It seems that Pastor Rick Scarborough, the founder and leader of Vision America, in introducing Rep. Tom DeLay, former majority leader in the US House of Represenatives, told the audience that DeLay was in legal trouble because he stood up for Jesus. The inference being that DeLay’s legal troubles came about because he is a hardcore religious conservative – as if the charges aren’t really true. Their BIG issue is called “The ValuesVoters’ Contract with Congress: A Declaration of American Renewal” which is similar to the infamous “Contract for America” that Republicans signed when they won the majority in the US House back in 1994. Being a religious group there are the usual religious conservative wish items like a ban on abortion, forcing religious expression in government, ban on gay marriage, and a ban on cloning.

March 30, 2006

With 2006 being an election year, the Ohio legislature was busy trying to pass some laws that would show voters how important they were – even though a closer look would show that the legislature was pandering. Election year pandering takes the form of passing laws addressing some issue that 99% of the population would agree with and that wouldn’t bite them in the ass while campaigning. This year the issue is sex abuse against children. Another law directed at Catholic Priests who have abused children was changed after heavy lobbying by US Bishops. While the law includes a requirement of the Church to report suspected abuse and creates a registry of non-convicted abusive Priests (those who are held liable in civil court after a trial but who’s criminal statute of limitations have run out), a provision to allow previous victims a chance to file civil suits for old cases was removed.

March 24, 2006

While cruising the Internet the other day, I came across a post by Adam Graham on his blog titled “Why You Can’t Trust the Left on Religious Freedom”. In the post he talks about the recent case of a man in Afghanistan who is under threat of execution for converting to Christianity. Afghanistan, although free of the mega-zelots, the Taliban, still bases their laws on sharia, or Islamic law. Graham takes another blogger to task for complaining about some religious conservatives from the US who complained about the persecution of the man. At one point he makes the statement: “Wow, and like I said, that’s why you can’t trust the left with religious liberty. First of all, do I think Russ would ever do violence against religious people? No. But what it shows is that Russ takes a flippant attitude towards it.” I had to respond to the post.

March 15, 2006

The American Atheist AANews list reported on 3/13 that the American Legion, the largest war veteran’s group in the country, has announced its support for a law, introduced by Rep. John Hostettler, R-Ind., that would forbid judges from awarding compensatory fees in Establishment Clause cases. What also disturbs me is the group representing war veterans, the same people who like to claim they fought for our rights, would support such un-American law in the name of religion. When did special rights for religion become more important than the Constitution?

March 12, 2006

The Associated Press reported Sunday 3/12/2006, that Ohio governor candidate Ken Blackwell, who is currently the Ohio Secretary of State, met with Rev. Russell Johnson and Rod Parsley or their churches 27 times from January 2004 through March of this year. Since the records search noted 75 meetings of a religious nature, the actual context of those meetings are being hidden by Blackwell.

March 5, 2006

In response to the passage on February 24th of an outright ban on abortion from the South Dakota legislature, an Internet based church, The Church of Reality, has issued an edict that the ban violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the church’s exercise of its religion. I loved the idea of using a law like the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (1993)( aka RFRA) against laws that are passed mainly to legalize someone’s religious agenda. Something, however smelled fishy.