Our guest is Andrew Seidel, vice president of strategic communications for Americans United. Andrew is a seasoned attorney and ardent defender of the First Amendment. He is author of the book “American Crusade: How the Supreme Court is Weaponizing Religious Freedom” and he shares some thoughts about our new Speaker of the House Michael Johnson
Tag: equality
A recent post-election poll showed that white evangelical Christians are way outside the views of a majority of Americans on a lot of issues. For people interested in keeping the church and state separate, it really isn’t a surprise. How far white evangelicals are outside the majority points to one tough obstacle seculars face – white evangelicals confuse the loss of cultural dominance with oppression. Demanding a level playing field doesn’t take away from people who already have the privilege of sitting at the table.
Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, even using causal values, is a terrible person. He has been accused of groping women, admitted to being a pervert, has been married several times, and has some nasty views about women and minorities. Why then is he still getting support from the paladins of virtue – the evangelical Christian community? It really isn’t that hard to see why.
I’m not going to detail on how terrible a human being Trump is, you can search the Internet for details on those points but he has been accused of groping women without consent, admitted to being a pervert by walking into a beauty pageant dressing room without permission, he has been married at three times having started two of those relationships while still married to another wife, and has expressed some vulgar views of women and minorities during campaign stops and on twitter. Yet some evangelicals and their leaders still support Trump.
A committee of the Southern Baptist Convention has published a pamphlet teaching members how to subvert civil laws against discrimination. The main idea is to pretend all church employees are ministers so they can use the ministerial exemption.
Friendly Atheist has the info on the pamphlet:
Today is Religious Freedom Day and President Obama issued a Proclamation to honor the day. The text included atheists as part of the religious diversity and cultural fabric of the United States. He also mentioned the important thing isn’t someone’s faith but that we all should support freedom, equality, justice, and separation of church and state.
Religious Freedom Day marks the day in 1786 when the first religious freedom law – Statute for Religious Freedom – was passed in Virginia.
WTC Cross being blessed before installation at the 9/11 memorial in New York
Back in July of 2011, American Atheists filed a lawsuit to prevent a Christian cross from being installed at the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York. On Good Friday, U.S. District Judge Deborah Batts ruled that the obvious Christian cross was really a secular item. I don’t know who should be more angry with the decision, atheists who don’t have any symbol marking their dead at the site, or Christians who keep having their symbols deemed generic and secular.