It seems that when the majority religious sects have a government policy go against them and their religion – they make a legal claim demanding separation of church and state. They never ask for it when a policy – say the Faith Based Initiative – supports them or gives them an advantage – like government funding.
Tag: religion
I posted earlier about not having a transcript or article about the recent “The War on Christians and Values Voters in 2006” hosted by the religious right front group Vision America. I had an idea of what would be talked about – same old same old tired arguments – but I wanted to read about the conference and maybe some details about it. Thanks to the blog Writing Right, I was led to an article on the People for the American Way site that gave me what I needed.
The Associated Press reported today (03/29/06) that the company that operates Borders and Waldenbooks stores will not stock the April-May issue of Free Inquiry magazine because it contains cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad that provoked deadly protests among Muslims in several countries a couple months ago. But I get it. They can pander to those customers who might not have appreciated the cartoons in context and it doesn’t hurt them in the balance sheet. However, censoring the magazine is going to create more of a scene than just letting it sit silently on the shelf collecting dust before being shipped back to the distributor. The move also brings fresh free publicity for CSH. Now if they decided not to stock Dr. Phil’s latest fake psychology book then all hell would break loose – or better what if they ban the Holy Bible – with its tales of incest, sex, violence, and tribulation.
American Atheists, in an article posted on their site on Saturday March 25th, discussed a report that will be published in American Sociological Review, by researchers at the University of Minnesota. The research is part of the American Mosaic Project which monitors attitudes of the population in respect to minority groups. Researchers concluded: “Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in ‘sharing their vision of American society.’ Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.” Very interesting reading if it proves some of the points I made in my last post about the myth of Christian persecution in the US.
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.
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?