Fundy pastor wants "registry" to track non-believers.

Fundamentalist "minister" Mike Stahl wants to use the power of the state to force all "atheists" to register on a "national registry" so that Christians can harass them.

Stahl wrote: "There are already National Registrys (sic) for convicted sex offenders, ex-convicts, terrorist cells, hate groups like the KKK, skinheads, radical Islamists, etc." Other than not knowing how to spell registries Stahl is talking out of his proverbial anal orifice. There is NO national registry for sex offenders. There are state registries and they have worked very badly, and been counterproductive.

That said, there are no national registries of any kind similar to what Stahl envisions. Not only that, but other than state run registries for so-called sex offenders (peeing in an alley is now a sex offense, streaking is a sex offense, two teens have consenting sex is a sex offense, etc.) there are NO registries of any kind, at any level of government. More importantly, under Constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech there are NO registries based on opinions.

Stahl is simply making things up.

What is the purpose of this registry? Stahl wrote:

Now, many (especially the atheists), may ask "Why do this, what's the purpose?"Duhhh, Mr. Atheist for the same purpose many States put the names and photos of convicted sex offenders and other ex-felons on the I-Net - to INFORM the public! I mean, in the City of Miramar, Florida, where I live, the population is approx. 109,000. My family and I would sure like to know how many of those 109,000 are ADMITTED atheists! Perhaps we may actually know some. In which case we could begin to witness to them and warn them of the dangers of atheism. Or perhaps they are radical atheists, whose hearts are as hard as Pharaoh's, in that case, if they are business owners, we would encourage all our Christian friends, as well as the various churches and their congregations NOT to patronize them as we would only be "feeding" Satan.

Frankly, I don't see why anyone would oppose this idea - including the atheists themselves (unless of course, they're actually ashamed of their atheist religion, and would prefer to stay in the 'closet.').

Two purposes are given by Stahl to register non-believers. First, he wants to know who these people are so fundamentalists can "witness to them." Anyone who has been "witnessed" to by this annoying morons knows exactly how aggressive and rude they can be. To register people so that fundamentalists can find them for "witnessing" amounts to harassment. People's opinions are not public business. The second reason Stahl wants a registry is so that Christians can boycott, perhaps picket, businesses owned by these people.

Now, let us consider a second factor when it comes to these extremists. They don't believe Catholics are Christians. They believe Jews worship the wrong god, ditto for Mormons, most mainstream Christians and everyone who is not a brain-damaged fundamentalist. None of these people are Christians in the eyes of the fundamentalist. Only fellow fundamentalists are Christians. So, why stop with a registry for atheists who need "witnessing?" Surely the Mormons need witnessing. Ditto for Catholics, Episcopalians, etc.

Also notice that Stahl wants to use boycotts to harm businesses simply because they are owned by non believers.

And that brings us to a religious right loon named Matt Barber. Like many fundamentalists Barber's obsession is hating gay people. Fundamentalists, of course, really "love" gay people. Much like the SS loved Jews and the Klan loves blacks. Actually neither the Nazis nor the Klan liked gay people much either—which just goes to show how "Christian" they really were.

Barber's bitch is that there is a fundraising organization that was called the Christian Values Network. Well, the name was a give away so they changed it to something that gives a different, albeit false, impression. They are now called the Charity Give Back Group. Now "giving to charity" sounds much nice than funding fundamentalist hate groups sounds. Which is why they changed their name to hide that funds they received went to far right groups trying to impose government regulations on people they hate—which is about everyone.

They encourage fundamentalists to use their web site to buy items from major companies and they tell the companies they will channel business to them for a cut of the action—which is then used to finance fundamentalist political groups and churches. What is missing from the list of organizations funded this way are what would count in most people's minds as real charities.

Lots of large corporations signed on. After all they don't have anything against "giving back" to charity. What they didn't realize was that they were funding some very specific political policies. As these corporation discovered they were being duped they started pulling out of the program. That has pissed off fundamentalist hate leaders like Barber who, of course, says "the gays" are to blame. Gays are to fundamentalists what Jews are to Nazis, the all-encompassing scapegoat for every social ill that befalls them.

Barber says that since sponsors of this project are dropping out, when they discover they are financing a political agenda, it means that there is "economic terrorism" going on. Yep, "economic terrorism." Apparently Barber assumes that since people tell businesses they will boycott them if they make political contributions this is "terrorism." Well, actually it is only terrorism when other people do it. Barber himself has demanded boycotts of businesses for not being sufficiently anti-gay to please him. When he does it, it's peachy keen and what Jesus wants. When other people do it, it's "economic terrorism." This is fundy-speak, an Orwellian world where words mean different things for different groups.

Barber goes even further with his latest rant. He now claims that the "sexual anarchist lobby," which includes non-anarchists as well, "want to see those of us who hold traditional values and have a biblical view of sexual behavior and sexual morality; they want to see us behind bars." Hyperbole is the hallmark of the fundamentalist. I know of no such effort to arrest people for being assholes—Barber is safe. He knows he safe but he needs to terrorize the old bigots on his mailing list and this works. He says that the nasty gay anarchists "want to see people like us not able to make a living" and that is why they have this "economic terrorism."

Notice that CGBG is not about "making a living." It is about donations to political groups and religious groups. No one is saying that these people should lose their jobs or that companies should fire them for being annoying asswipes. It is their absolute right to be asswipes and Barber exercises that right on a daily basis. But no one has a right to donation. Donations are freely given gifts and if people decide to not give those donations there is no "terrorism" going on.

But things get more bizarre when you read about how Barber pretends that gays want to put fundamentalists "behind bars." Watch the video below of fundamentalist Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association. Fischer claims there is "no reason" that homosexual sodomy shouldn't be a criminal offense in this country. Criminal? So who wants to jail whom? See, that's more of the fundy speak. People who don't donate to them want to put them in jail but when they actually want to make being gay a criminal offense, which means jail, they are just being loving.

By the way, for the record, sodomy laws did not make homosexuality per se a sexual offense. The laws were much more complex. Sometimes homosexual acts were covered by such laws and some homosexual sex was NOT covered by such laws. The laws often applied to oral sex between any consenting adults, including husband and wife but not oral sex between two women. And in many cases two men having sex in private couldn't be prosecuted even if they both admitted they had sex, in some states it required a third party witness. Fischer doesn't know the facts about sodomy laws in America, but then knowledge and fundamentalism rarely go together.