Sad numbers prove Religious Right wrong.

Sadly, one of the dominant features of the Religious Right today is their unabashed tendency to lie to the public in order to promote their own agenda. Even when the facts are documented and easily discoverable, or even pointed out to them, they deny them and continue with their lies. When falsehoods are repeated, even when evidence proves them false, then the issue is honesty, not error.

You may remember the Republican state senator from Tennessee, Stacey Campfield, who went into a little rant about how only gays get AIDS and that they caught it from having sex with a monkey and infected the heterosexual community. This was all invented by his hateful, little mind. In fact, none of that is true. He also said that it is almost impossible for heterosexuals to contract the disease. Here are some sad statistics from the good people at the South African Institute of Race Relations.

The population of South Africa is just under 50 million, but the round figure will do. The United States, in comparison is about 311.6 million. South Africa has approximately 5.58 million HIV infections while the significantly larger United States has 1.1 million cases. The population of the US is 6.2 times larger than that of South Africa, yet their HIV infection rate is 5 times larger.

Who is it that suffers from HIV in South Africa? As is often the case, it is mostly women and children. The SAIRR says that 53% of the cases in South Africa are among women ages 15 t0 49. Now, you have to understand that HIV infection as a result of sexual contact between women is extremely difficult. It isn't impossible, but it is very, very unlikely. These women contracted the disease from men, and not from gay men. About 8% of all victims are children under the age of 14 years old. The vast majority of them were born infected because their mothers were infected.

Only about 0.6% of all HIV cases are in North America (Canada, the US, and Mexico combined). In Western Europe the infection rate is close around 0.2%. These are the parts of the world where the gay community was hit hardest—and they are also the parts of the world with some of the lowest infection rates around. There are an estimated 34 million people, world-wide, with HIV—and about 67% of those cases are in Subsaharan Africa. In the West the total number of infections is about 2.1 million, a fraction of those cases. And while South and South-East Asia has relatively low infection rates they account for 4 million cases, more than double those in Europe and North America.

Of course, not even all those 1.1 million cases in America are among gay men. Of the 1.1 million Americans with HIV about 300,000 are women. Again, they caught the disease by heterosexual contact (66%) or sharing infected needles (32%) during drug use. That leaves around 800,000 men with HIV infections. It is estimate that 488,000 men contracted HIV through gay sex. Another 80,000 might have, but were also injection drug users which is a more potent means of infection. About 232,000 were men who contracted the disease either through needle usage or heterosexual sex. So, even in the United States, where HIV hit the gay community early on, most of the infections are among heterosexuals, not homosexuals.

And, in those areas of the world with higher infections rates than our own, the overwhelming majority of cases are due to heterosexual infections. In those countries infections among heterosexuals is significantly higher than in the United States. Given that most the worlds infections are in those countries, and given that a significantly higher percentage of them are among heterosexuals, this means that the percentage of HIV infection caused through homosexual contact, worldwide, is relatively small—far smaller than it is the United States.

These are all sad numbers. It really shouldn't matter who is infected, or how they are infected. HIV remains a crisis for the world and is killing millions of people. What is sadder is how the Religious Right distorts the numbers to try to convince the public that hating homosexuals is somehow a rational thing because of the tiny percentages of HIV cases in the US, the majority of whom are heterosexuals.

What is really awful, if you pause to think about it, is that the disinformation that these religious kooks spread about HIV actually gives people a false perception of the risks. And, if they buy into the "hate the homosexual" message that these fanatics are pushing, and assume that most HIV victims are "evil gays" then the response to this crisis will be far less than what it should be. If these Christians come to believe that most HIV victims are gay men, and are thus less inclined to want to help end the crisis, the people who suffer as a result will be overwhelmingly heterosexual.

Who Would Jesus Assault?

Some religious right folks in Mississippi started a group they called The Savior Unit. They call themselves a "tactical search team that is faith based. Our purpose is to promote Christ." They say they detain "offenders who are danger to society." I'm not sure how they define offenders, but I would guess rather broadly.

The Savior Unit came to the attention of police who got a call about a home invasion. Apparently these "faith based" thugs, dressing in military outfits and bullet-proof vests smashed in the door of a home and dragged out three people for a beating, including a 70-year-old man. After promoting Christ by assaulting people the police caught them and prevented them from further witnessing in said manner, which no doubt some Christian group will say is violating their religious freedom.

The Savior Unit was primarily made up of adolescent males who would retreat to the woods to learn about guns and God.

The leader of this para-military religion band of kooks was 32-year-old Michael Schaffran. Like so many on the religious Right, Schaffran seeks to protect society from people like himself. If they were out to get "offenders who are a danger to society" they might take notice that Schaffran has felony convictions for theft, forgery and aggravated assault. Yes, who would Jesus assault?

Schaffran's mother claims her son "was keeping them [the other paramilitary members] out of trouble, on a good path," and mentioned how he took one of the other invaders to church as evidence.

The mother, in what is clearly a faith-based claim, said her son heard screaming and went to rescue a woman. Odd that he just happened to be in a bullet-proof vest when walking innocently by this house. Odder still is that the woman claims they grabbed her and forced her to the ground. And even odder yet is that the two Savior Unit members ran for the woods, their tails between their legs, when the police arrived. Heroes usually don't flee. But, the virtue of faith is believing something in spite of the evidence, not because of it.

Sadly, the religious Right has a tendency to want to use force to save people who don't think they need saving, except perhaps from the religious Right.

Why You Shouldn't Donate to the Salvation Army—Ever

With Thanksgiving days away, you know that means the Christmas lights will be out. And with them will be the bell ringers and their Salvation Army kettles. But libertarians and liberals may well wish to keep their change to themselves. Even conservatives should think twice. The Salvation Army is not exactly a charity, as many people assume. It is a religious sect, and a fundamentalist one at that. It is part of the Religious Right and it has an agenda like they do.

Like other fundamentalists they think abortion should be outlawed. They write: “The Salvation Army deplores society’s ready acceptance of abortion, which reflects insufficient concern for vulnerable persons, including the unborn.” Get that? The “unborn” are persons. That is in line with the “personhood” campaign to define every fetus as legally a person. Similarly you can count them out when it comes to defending the rights of individuals to terminate their own lives in the face of unbearable pain and misery. They say: “The Salvation Army believes that euthanasia and assisted suicide undermine human dignity and are morally wrong regardless of age or disability.” Yep, I sure would feel more dignified, if my mind was gone, and I was bedridden, lying in my own urine and feces while suffering pain—instead of being able to choose to terminate my life before that happens.

On alcohol and drugs they don’t want legalization or harm reduction strategies. As they note there are “both spiritual and temporal dangers inherent in the use of alcoholic beverages” and the church “believes total abstinence to be the only certain guarantee against overindulgence and the evils attendant on addiction.” They also believe there is a “direct connection between the incidence of addiction and the easy availability of alcoholic beverages and the increasing social acceptance of their consumption.”

No gambling either, they say that “engages its participants and promoters in an exercise of greed contrary to biblical moral teaching.” “We believe gambling is wrong, regardless of any perceived benefit of entertainment, charity, or personal gain, even when its destructive influences may not be seen on an individual basis.”

How about gay people? Well, they try to sound enlightened by saying that “same-sex orientation” is not blameworthy but “requires individual responsibility and must be guided by the light of scriptural authority.” If they stopped at “individual responsibility” there would be no problem. Instead they toss in the Bible and then say this means homosexuals “are called upon to embrace celibacy as a way of life.” Sure, celibacy, that worked so well with Catholic priests, didn’t it. Thus they oppose marriage rights for gay couples because “There is no scriptural support for same-sex marriage as equal to, or as an alternative to, heterosexual marriage.” I would note there is also no “scriptural support for cars as an equal to, or as an alternative to, riding an ass into town.” They even try to say they will accept gay people in their church and don’t discriminate, provided they “accept and abide by The Salvation Army’s doctrine and discipline.” In other words, gay people are fine provided they don’t actually have a relationship, remain celibate, only shake their tambourine to raise money for the sect.

The church, remember the Salvation Army is a church, says that marriage is “the loving union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.” I think that “for life” part precludes divorce for heterosexuals, and, of course, it precludes all marriages for gay people at all. And marriage “is the only proper context for sexual intimacy.” Otherwise it is “abstinence before, and faithfulness within, marriage” but only for opposite-sex couples. Gay people are NEVER, NEVER, NEVER to have sex. They also push the myth that marriage is “God’s institution” and that God invented it. They no more believe that marriage evolved than they believe humans did.

And, since gays can’t marry, can they at least have a wank? Well, it's not clear but they can’t if they look at erotica which the Salvation Army opposes “in all of its forms.” They also promote the lie of the Right that porn “is clearly linked with prostitution, sexual abuse and assault, and other forms of sexual exploitation.” They claim it “promotes deviant sex and violence”—I was so naïve I thought the Old Testament did that; it is pretty kinky book with fathers and daughters fornicating, multiple wives, etc., and there is more genocide there than in the worst blood and gore film around.

And don’t think you have a private right to erotica. They say it is “not an issue of private morality alone,” and that people “have the right to protection from enterprises that erode society and exploit persons.” What does it mean when you say people have a “right to protection from” something? If you have a right to protection from assault it means that the act of assault is a crime. It means those who assault are arrested and may be imprisoned. When you have a right to protection from murder it means that murder is a crime, as is attempted murder, and those who try, or succeed, in such an endeavor are arrested, tried, sentenced and imprisoned. It is clear they want the low to censor erotica under penalty of prison.

They also urge people to “start or join grassroots efforts to protect your community against pornography.” And they even have a “click here” button so you can download information on how to do that. And where does that information come from? Focus on the Family, of course. In other words, the Salvation Army directly promotes one of the most active Religious Right groups around. And Focus on the Family then quotes a Salvation Army official who says erotica “is prostitution for mass consumption.” (Note to libertarians, they would oppose legalize prostitution as well.) The brochure the Salvationists distribute says that all porn is technically illegal and that the problem is that “law enforcement agencies at the local, state or federal level do not enforce obscenity laws.” The Salvationists, and Focus on the Family, note “Active, informed and vigilant citizens are needed in every community to ensure laws are enforced and community standards are maintained.” Get that, what we need are more vigilant fundamentalists trying to impose their moral values, through the force of law, on the rest of us.

So, the “right to protection from enterprises that erode society and exploit persons” means that people should be arrested for producing and selling porn, perhaps even for owning it. And since it is not just “an issue of private morality alone” don’t take naughty videos of yourself and your partner, presumably even if you married (which means straight, and for life).

But, wait a second. If there is a “right to protection from enterprises that erode society and exploit persons,” and since the Salvation Army already said that alcohol and gambling do just that, then aren’t they also hinting that gambling and alcohol production should be criminal offenses as well?.

They also say they support human equality and then put in enough loopholes to indicate that they don’t. They say they support “the Biblical and Christian imperatives of human and civil rights.” So, if the Bible says you can have the right they are fine, otherwise, not so much. They don’t oppose discrimination per se, just “unlawful, unjust, or immoral discrimination.” Apparently “moral discrimination” is fine, such as denying gays the right to marry because it isn’t a “Biblical and Christian… civil right.”

Libertarians, and conservatives will both be appalled to learn that the Salvation Army believes: “All people have a right to secure the basic necessities of life (e.g., food, clothing, shelter, education, health care, safe environment, economic security.) So along with their socially conservative agenda they are very Obamanesque when it comes to a “right” to health care and a “right” to shelter, education and “economic security.” They claim all people have a “right” to a “just wages and benefits” but fail to define what that means. Rights are something other people have to respect, and how do they respect your right to health care? Not by leaving you alone, but by being forced to fund your health plan.

So what kind of governance would exist if we implemented the ethical system of the Salvationists. First, there would be no decriminalization of drugs, a reimplentation of prohibition, a war on gambling, and erotica would be illegal. Gay people would not be allowed to have sex, let alone marry. Abortions would be illegal. And if you think all of this is rather unbearable you aren’t allowed to commit suicide either. And before the Religious Right starts having wet dreams over the Salvationist ideal society they should remember that it also teaches that every person has a “right” to health care, economic security, just wages and benefits, education, etc. We are talking about very active government with fingers in every aspect of human existence.

Next time you see one of those annoying bell ringers, remember your donations do more than feed some hungry people. It goes to a fundamentalist sect with the same agenda as the rest of the Religious Right. It allows them to promote brochures on how to bring the law down on people who don’t live according to their religious morality. It is used by them to promote a political/religious agenda, not just to help people in need.

There is nothing wrong with helping people in need. If you want to feed hungry people give to a food kitchen for the hungry. What you don’t have to do is donate to an organization that has a “charitable” public face, while pushing a fundamentalist, religious agenda behind the scenes. The only reason the Salvationists are not as open as their good friends at Focus on the Family, is that they, unlike FOTF, rely on naïve, charitable people for their donations. In a way, that makes them worse. At least Focus on the Family is upfront about their political agenda and only people who support that agenda donate to them. But the Salvation Army has their agenda hidden behind a wall of “human needs” and that allows them to dupe a lot of well-meaning individuals to fund an agenda they would not normally support.

Klan Uses PR Tricks from the Religious Right

Above is the banner from the web site of a confirmed hate group—the Ku Klux Klan, the cowardly, hooded "knights" that rampaged through the Bible belt lynching folks in the name of God, race and country. Now they are trying the same PR trick that other fundamentalist hate groups try to pull—they claim to merely be "pro-family." Notice the slogan, "Loving our family!" in the banner.

They go even further. Like fundamentalist Christians they claim they don't really hate all the people they are trying to hurt, they really "love" instead. The site for the Klan says: "Bringing a Message of Hope and Deliverance to White Christian America! A Message of Love NOT Hate!" Right! Sure, I believe it. NOT!

When the Religious Right drones on about "family" what they are really doing is saying that anyone who doesn't fit their definition of family—which is a hell of a lot of people—are evil. When the Klan says they "love" they are a bit more explicit about it. They mean "our people—my white brothers and sister..." and openly exclude non-whites from their "love."

In this sense the Klan is more honest than the American Family Association, Maggie Gallagher or Jennifer Morse. They pretend that they actually "love" the people they are attacking and denigrating.

But this "Love" message from the Klan is new. They have always been openly hateful. So what gives with them taking a page from the PR book of the Religious Right? One possible explanation is that their leader is a fundamentalist minister, Thomas Robb. Robb is one of these nuts who worries about the supposed "New World Order." Of course, many of these conspiracists mean Jews when they talk about "New World Order" or about "international bankers." And this group is no different. They HATE Jews. One example is that they denounce the term "Judeo-Christian" because it "is much like saying clean filth. Filth is not clean and Judaism is not Christian." Guess who is the "filth" in that analogy. They quickly go into claims that Communism is run by the Jew.

And, like the real loons on the Right, they argue the Federal Reserve is a "privately owned" bank and run by the international bankers. Please, don't let the "international bankers" label deceive you. When the Right uses this phrase they mean "Jewish bankers," the old alleged enemy of "White, Western, Christian" civilization—you know, the kind of decent society that poor, misunderstood Adolph Hitler tried to impose on Germany and the rest of Europe.

The far Right has been obsessed with the Federal Reserve, not because they understand the problems of central planning of monetary issues, or understand any of the economics that tells us the Fed is a bad idea. What they are obsessed about is that the Fed is supposed controlled by the Jewish conspiracy of bankers to plunder the economy for the private benefits of Jews. They are convinced that an "audit" of the Federal Reserve will prove the existence of this international banking plot. It won't. As usual their premises are completely wrong.

The "legal counsel" for the Klan is one Jason Robb, who I assume is the son of the fundamentalist minister who runs the hate group. Robb recently went off on the Fed with the claim it is "a private corporation that is not part of the U.S." His solution to this secret Jewish plot: "We all should be getting being Rep. Ron Paul for president." Robb has gone as far are publishing entire fund appeal letters from Paul so his Klan-loving readers can make financial donations to Paul.

Robb senior runs "Thomas Robb Ministries" and like Ron Paul he's worried about the secret plot to impose "one-world government." Robb explicitly claims that God's "chosen people" are whites. "We believe that the Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, Scandinavian, and kindred people are THE people of the Bible—God's separated and anointed Israel.

I guess the Klan just figured that if Maggie Gallagher, Bryan Fischer and Jennifer Morse could use the "love" slogan for hating gays, then they could use it for hating non-whites and Jews.

Convenient scapegoats.

Harris Himes is a Religious Right activist, who periodically claims to be a pastor and an attorney though both credentials seem to have been called into question. He is the head of Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum, and an outspoken proponent of using government to impose "Christian values" on the entire culture. Schlafy lists Himes as her state coordinator in Montana, though I wouldn't be surprised if that changes soon.

Himes was recently arrested in a phony investment scheme, charged with bilking a man out of $150,000. Himes and another man, who is also a fundamentalist minister, claimed to be principles in a manufacturing compan,y but records indicate the $150,000 went to pay off credit card debts.

After his arrest Himes went on radio to claim that he is the victim of a conspiracy lead by "the gays" along with "pro-abortion activists." I wonder if "the gays" involved in the conspiracy against Himes includes Schlafly's son.

In celebration of the paranoid delusions of "Rev." Himes, here is a music video by Oded Gross, "It's All Because." Enjoy it.

Should we accommodate religious intolerance?

Some years ago I owned a business, and as is normal, it was open to the public. A man enters and moves from one section of the business to another and then comes out to complain that a black man was in the other section. He literally demanded to know why I was “letting people like that” come into the business. The black man had done nothing wrong, he had a skin color this bigot found offensive.

It took me a few seconds to figure out what was actually happening. I think it took a bit longer than normal simply because I couldn’t fathom someone actually complaining that I allowed black people to enter my business. I just assumed it had to be something else and not something so blatantly ugly and hateful. But, it was ugly and hateful; it wasn’t something else. When that dawned on me, I, in no uncertain terms, told the bigot that my business was open to everyone and if he didn’t like it he was invited him to leave and he would not be missed.

Now, what if the man told me he held sincere religious beliefs about the inferiority of black people and that they pose a threat to his world-view because God damns them? Does god-talk mean we have to cut people slack?

Racism in the West often had a religious foundation to it. Having escaped fundamentalist Christianity I can assure you that I heard Baptist preachers claiming that the Biblical “curse of Ham” damned the black race to an inferior position for eternity. This wasn’t all that long ago either. Mormons were rather racist and claimed it was all about theology as well. Of course, after the civil rights movement the Mormon “prophet” faked a revelation from God that said black men were now allowed to join the Mormon priesthood—which is open to all other men, but not women, no matter their race.


Recently some Orthodox rabbis in Israel were making a stink about the military because at various events female soldiers were allowed to sing. Apparently, and I admit I did not know this, it is Orthodox religious law that men may not listen to a woman sing in person. Apparently God made exceptions for CDs, radios, DVDs and the like—which is rather progressive of him. The rabbis want male soldiers exempted from events where women might sing.

Admittedly I’ve heard some female singers that were rather offensive, but it just never dawned on me that some god-monger might invent a deity that finds all female singers a problem. But this controversy is going on now in Israel.

Closer to home we have a woman who is a rather fanatical Catholic and a prolific breeder as well, having seven children—not allowing birth control will do that. In the mode of the insane Jennifer Roback Morse, this woman, Stacy Trasancos, is deeply offended that gay people exist and that she sometimes has to look at them.

Stacy says seeing gay people means they “are imposing immorality on me” and that now she has a “hard time even leaving my home anymore to do something as simple as visit the park. And this is freedom?” Stacy is deathly afraid she will see gay people. This Massachusetts baby-maker is very upset that she went to a public pool and “there were homosexual couples with children” present. Apparently that may cause her kids to ask questions, “I’m not ready to answer.” As for the pool, “The truth is, now I don’t really want to go back.”

Later she saw a gay couple with kids at the park and now laments “I find myself unable to even leave the house anymore without worrying about what in tarnation we are going to encounter. …I can’t even to normal places without having to sit silently and tolerate immorality.” By the way, she then also laments the presence of immigrants as well, but bigotry is rarely limited to just one group.BTW: she really doesn't know if the people are gay or not and I imagine that she imagines gay people far more often than is the case. The women in the park rubbed each others back and that clued told her they were lesbians. Of course, I see straight women do that with other straight women. Perhaps the two women were sisters? But when you imagine gays to be monsters you see monsters everywhere.

Having to see gay people is to Stacy being forced to “tolerate immorality.” Okay, let’s run with that. Am I being forced to tolerate irrationality every time I see some Jesus-addict pray in a restaurant? Does the church I drive by force me to tolerate irrationality? I think these religious people are irrational and often, particularly in this case, rather creepy and pathetic. To obsess that one may see a gay couple in public, and to hide in one’s home to avoid this, is actually rather sad. It is her right to be fearful and terrified, but given her tendency to produce litters of children she should be aware that with each additional child the chances that one of them would be gay grows. With seven kids there is already a decent chance one of them is an embryonic homosexual and then she won’t even be safe in her own home either.

We are told we should “tolerate” such things. More importantly we are supposed to give way to these prejudices precisely because they are religious. For instance, we are supposed to accommodate religious beliefs in employment. So, if someone won't work on one particular day, because they imagine a deity told them to chant and lament the state of the world on that day, employers are supposed to alter work schedules to fit that belief.

We have an entire political campaign run by the dowdy, porcine Maggie Gallagher that argues that American marriage law should be founded entirely on the imagined god that lives in Gallagher’s head.

Constantly the rest of the country is being told they must accommodate the religious fantasies of the god-snorters. Yet, we also must not question these beliefs. We are told that sincere religious beliefs are immune from criticism and questioning. But what is a religious belief?

At the basis it is a belief that someone holds and which he or she claim is religious. That is all. We can’t say it is based on God’s revelation to them since they all differ about what their God wants and we have zero evidence a god revealed anything to them. All we have are their claims. The mere fact that someone calls a belief religious is supposedly enough to make it immune from scrutiny. Now, if someone says that they believe in evolution, because of various facts, that is science. If they say they believe in creation because God said to, that is not science; that is religion.

Religion is claimed knowledge about reality based on imaginary sources, not rooted in reality, and supposedly exempt from rational inquiry or criticism.

And, the Republicans want us to base the law of the nation on such notions. Most Republicans would laugh at the idea that female singers are offensive. But many of them would applaud this paranoid baby-machine in Massachusetts. To them the belief that female singers are offensive is just plain silly, but the belief that seeing gay people in public is offensive makes perfect sense. Why? Because they don’t believe the nonsense of Jewish orthodoxy, but they do believe the nonsense in Christian orthodoxy, that’s why.

The bigoted theology that says the black race is cursed by God to be servants to the white race doesn’t establish American legal policy. Nor should it. So, why do we allow any theology to determine the law? We don’t just need separation of church and state, we need separation of theology and state. Just because your god is a teetotaler is no reason to impose prohibition on others. And, just because you imagine God wanted marriage to between one man and one woman (if you are Maggie Gallagher) or one man and many women (if you are Joseph Smith), doesn't mean the law should deny marriage contracts to gay couples.

Now, I have to applaud fearful Stacy in one sense. If she doesn’t like seeing gay people then she shouldn’t go in public. And yes, Stacy, that is freedom. The equal freedom of all people to use the public parks is part of freedom. Just because Klanners don’t like seeing blacks doesn’t mean we are infringing on their liberty by not hiding blacks away. And, just because you hate gay people so much that even seeing one causes emotional pain, does not justify anti-gay policies, though it may justify therapy. I’m just hinting, for what it’s worth. A little less time on your knees and a little more time on the couch might do you a world of good and, it might make you a better mother—just in case one of your own turns out gay.

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.

Wacky Romp on the Religious Right

You know we're getting into election when the Religious Right goes bonkers, making bizarre statements and hiding their own little scandals. It's been a busy few days.

Of course, we have the scandals of two Republican legislators, both with anti-gay records, getting caught in their own little gay scandals. Indiana Representative Phil Hinkle claimed his brain "snapped" and caused him to try to hire, then sexually assault, an 18-year-old man but rest assured, Hinkle said he's not gay. Puerto Rican Republican senator Robert Arango took rather intimate photos of his anus and posted them to a gay "meet up" site. His justification for the photos was he was documenting his recent "weight loss." Okay!

Then there was Rabbi Yehuda Levin, who speaks at rallies held by the sexual equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan, the National Organization for (sic) Marriage run by that rotund little bigot Maggie Gallagher. Actually Maggie is very pro-marriage. This explains why she had her first child out of wedlock, and why she is now on her second marriage. I believe, if my math is correct, she has had children by three different men to date. Her current hubbie is Raman Srivastav. Maggie not only hides him away but won't use her married name. I guess the kind of pro marriage people she deals with don't take kindly to her current marriage to a man who is not "Caucasian" and who is NOT a Christian. Given how Maggie wears her religion on her sleeve, it is no accident she avoids being seen in public with her husband and refuses to use his name. But, back to Levin, who told the world that earthquake that was centered in Virginia was God's punishment to New York for gay marriage. Yep, he knows what motivates God.

Well, the dike has broken with that sort of nonsense. The senile, rambling Ron Paul of religion, Pat Robertson, said the Virginia earthquake "means that we're closer to the coming of the Lord." I wonder how long these morons can keep that mantra up? Earthquakes have been a common, daily occurrence for as long as the planet has existed. God really is a dork to pick a "sign" that happens daily. It is of no use to indicate his "message" since they happen constantly, no matter what "sins" the people are engaging in. God has to be rather stupid. This is like picking sunlight to predict the end of the world. Every day the sun shines and the world still hasn't ended. All I can conclude is that Jehovah would have to be as dumb as his followers.

Of course, Robertson can't be outdone by a Christ-crucifying rabbi so he upped the ante and claimed that the crack in the Washington Monument is a "sign from the Lord" and is "symbolic." You might remember that senile Pat said the Haiti earthquake was because Haitians had a secret "pact" with the devil.

According to surveys about 38% of Americans believe that natural disasters are messages from God. I note this is almost the same percentage of people who believe support the Republicans as advocates of free markets and limited government. Clearly this proves that once you believe one piece of bullshit, you are prone to believe other pieces. Note, I'm not saying free enterprise and limited government are bullshit, I'm saying that Republican "support" for these things is bullshit. God's Own Party remains a big government organization.

Meanwhile, another crazy woman from the Right, Linda Harvey of "Mission America," has decided that the way to solve the "gay problem" is to announce that gay people simply DO NOT exist. On wacky right radio she said: "There's one big fact that's not backed up." Read that several times and it still won't make sense. It is a contradiction. If it's not backed up, then it is not "one big fact." But what gets more bizarre is that the unsubstantiated fact is "There is no proof that there's ever anything like a gay, lesbian or bisexual or transgendered child, or teen or human." Okay, so her inability to speak English meant she said the opposite of what she was trying say.

She seems to be saying that there is no such thing as gay people, or bisexuals or transgendered people. She was ranting about a program to teach respect of others. She says this really means respect not for people "but for homosexual lifestyle." She says the "The PR campaign to hold up gay as a good thing: the lifestyle, not the person, because there are no such humans." When I hear sentences such as that, I become sympathetic to the bigots who want to make English the official language.

Harvey simply can't put a complete sentence together. Entire clauses appear to be missing. But, what she is saying is that you can't teach respect for gay people because gay people do not exist. There is only something called a "homosexual lifestyle," which apparently even homosexuals can't agree upon. From the "lifestyle" that I'm seeing being pushed by "activists" and "radicals," in the non-existent gay community, is to get married, settle down, and maybe have children. Wait a second! Isn't that the heterosexual lifestyle? Of course, the way the sentence is worded Harvey may simply be saying she doesn't think gay people are humans. It's hard to tell when you're clearly dealing with someone who doesn't speak English well.

Meanwhile, the Religious Right had to deal with the funeral of one of their own. Rev. Zachery Tims was pastor of the mega-church New Destiny Christian Center. Tims was found dead in a hotel in New York City. He had a "glassine envelope containing white powder" on his person. No doubt it was Sweet 'n Low or something similar. Surely it wasn't an illegal substance in spite of Tims history of drug abuse problems.

According to the church's website Tims was a "troubled" youth who was "miraculously saved, instantly delivered from drug addictions and called into ministry." Hmm, I hope that "miraculously saved" part worked better than the "instantly delivered" part. Having escaped from the world of fundamentalism I can assure you that dishonest claims about being "instantly delivered" are rampant on the religious right. The one thing they can not tolerate is reality.

I remember when a porno theater burned down and a well known fundamentalist minister was among the dead. His followers had an instant explanation for his presence. He went there to "minister to" the men attending the film. Sure, he went to the porno theater to give them a hand or something like that. When Southern Baptist leader Lonnie Latham was caught propositioning a male police office for oral sex he tried the "I was in the area pastoring to police" excuse as well. It didn't work. Giving a cop a blow job is not the same thing as pastoring.

They can't face the truth about evolution. They can't face the facts about gay people. They can't even face the facts about drug addiction. They make up bullshit to try and rescue a theology befitting the Dark Ages. Since they can't accept the reality that their religion is so much BS, they twist reality and lie constantly. So, yes, we get scandals about drug addicted ministers dying in a out-of-state hotel room with a suspicious powder on their person. We get "exgay" leaders caught in bed with same-sex individuals they claim to be counseling. We get anti-gay Republicans claiming they posted their anal opening on a gay site to document weight loss, or who claim they "snapped" and that caused them to hire a male prostitute. Of course, who can forget Rev. George Rekers, an antigay leader of the cure-gays kind, who was caught with a pretty boy prostitute that he took to Europe.

Rekers still has the most articulate excuse. He claims he asked this boy to accompany him and give him nude, genital massages, because he needed someone to "Lift my Luggage."

Sure, we all need someone to life our luggage now and then. But only fundamentalists feel compelled to lie about it.

Is bin Laden's successor a Republican?

The man who has taken over leadership of Al Qaeda from Osama bin Laden is Ayman al-Zawahri. Omar bin Laden, the son of the previous leader, had written a book Growing Up Bin Laden, detailing his life with his father. In it he recounts an incident with Zawahri.

He told of a friend of his, a teenage boy, who was grabbed by some men and raped. The men took photos of the abuse as it happened and then showed them around the camp where they lived. Zawahri had the boy put on trial for being homosexual and with the photos as evidence he was convicted and executed. I think Zawahri is out to win the Republican vote.

Consider figures on the religious right who have advocated the same thing.

Rev. Greg Dixon was the national secretary of the Moral Majority. In a sermon, he said, regarding gay people, "I say either fry 'em, or put them in the pen. Don't unleash them on the human race." He clearly meant execution and in a debate on WIND radio between he and I, he reiterated his support for executing gay people.

When Republicans in Minnesota were in the midst of pushing an anti-gay marriage initiative, they invited a fundamentalist minister, Bradley Dean, to open the state assembly in prayer. Dean previously praised radical Islamists for being willing to execute gay people. He said: "Muslims are calling for the execution of homosexuals in America... And it shows you that they themselves are upholding the laws that are even in the Bible of the Judeo-Christian God. They seem to be more moral than even the American Christians do." So, it is "more moral" to want to kill gays. The broadcast is below.



At National Organization for (sic) Marriage rallies, individuals have shown up with signs demanding the death penalty for gay people. In Indianapolis one NOM protestor had a sign saying "The Solution to Gay Marriage;" it showed two nooses. In the video below, of a NOM rally, you can hear Rev. Ariel Torres Ortega, preaching in Spanish, which was then translated into English. He says that gay people are "worthy of death, not only they that do it, but those who practice it."



Rev. Greg Bahnsen, in Homosexuality: A Biblical View, published by a major evangelical publisher (Baker Books), told his readers," Either we will discriminate against homosexuals, or we will discriminate against the Word of God." (p.9) He writes, "the state and its rulers must act as servants of God, avenging His displeasure against evildoers." (p.14)

Bahnsen says God calls homosexuals "dogs" (p.93) and that any kind of sympathy for them is "out of place when it comes to capital crimes like... homosexuality." This doesn't mean gay people "have no civil rights at all and can be treated in a shameful fashion. They would still retain, for example the right to due process of law, to a fair and speedy trial, and to legal defense." After that, you can kill them.

Gary North, a supporter of theocracy associated with the misnamed Mises Institute as well as a former staff member for Ron Paul, says: "The death penalty is God's required means of enforcing earthly restitution for certain crimes, irrespective of the opinion of any victims." He then lists some "crimes" that qualify for the death penalty: bestiality, homosexual acts and blasphemy. (Leviticus: An Economic Commentary, Institute for Christian Economics, p. 374) North says this "crime" is against God and the "convicted criminal is to be transferred from the civil court to God's heavenly court. The means of this transfer is execution." "Death is restitution to God." (p.375)

North argues that God "does not hate the sin and love the sinner. He hates the sin and hates the sinner. God is indeed a homophobe." (p. xxix) And stoning is "God's mandated method of execution." (p.336) The "integrity of the family," he says, "must be maintained by the threat of death." (The Sinai Strategy, Institute for Christian Economics, pp 59-60.) Just remember that the next time you hear a religious conservative invoking the "defense of the family" as justification for their prejudices.

More fundamentalist craziness.

This is not even a coherent response.

Victoria Jackson became a fundamentalist some years ago after she achieved "has-been" status in Hollywood. Lots of people, who once had fame, seek it again in the most desperate way. Victoria Jackson is one of them. Her only fame today is that she is on the Far Right politically pushing a theocratic agenda.

What I found fascinating is that she seems to have memorized Right-wing slogans but nothing else. She has trouble formatting a coherent reply to anything, stutters a bit and then tries to throw up another slogan. She is a walking bumper sticker for the radical Right.

The woman doing the interview asks Jackson if she is homophobic, saying she was accused of this. But, again, Jackson is not homophobic. She does not fear gay men, she despises them, she calls gay couples marrying "a comedy skit" and "ridiculous." There is no fear, just disdain and insults.

Her answer: "Well, ah, I'm.... It doesn't matter what I think, what matters is what the Bible says." Okay, why? Exactly why should the rest of us worry about what she thinks the Bible says? And why are you avoiding answering what you actually think?

Jackson says she is concerned about the country because "immorality (buzz word) is, well, ah, let's see, secular humanism (buzz word) rules the airwaves (at least she didn't blame the Jews) and it's stealing innocence (buzz words) from this whole generation of children."

How is that? And what does she mean by innocence. This is the idea that sex is immoral and dirty and sinful by nature. And, well as for those gays, all fundamentalists can see with them is sex. They don't see committed relationships or love. They see lust and rampant hedonism, nothing else. They see heterosexuals disobeying their god by having immoral sex. And somehow, that one kiss steals innocence? Innocence apparently is another word for ignorance. In which case Ms. Jackson is very innocent indeed.

Jackson says her teenage daughter can't watch anything because Jackson can't find anything worth watching. (Well, I certainly wouldn't recommend any of her old skits.) But really, there are so many channels with shows that most people would consider "wholesome" this whole talking point, besides evading the question completely, is clearly false.

When the host tries to bring it back to the question and stop the rambling, Jackson calls "homophobic" a "cute little buzz word of the liberal agenda." Wow! Right after accusing a word of being a buzz word she attaches it to Right-wing buzz words like "liberal agenda." Oddly I would think she would be ranting about the "gay agenda" not the "liberal agenda."

Then she waves her Bible, which I should say appears to be one of the copies you find in a motel room, not one you buy at a bookstore. I know she's a nobody now, but surely she doesn't have to resort to lifting Bibles from motels. She says the Bible says homosexuality is a sin. Okay, but so what? How does that impact law in a free society? Is she proposing we adopt a version of Christian sharia law? Should we impose the penalty for homosexuality that the Bible mentions? That would be death by stoning, just like those Muslims, whom she also hates, would do?

She then claims: "But it (the Bible) also has gossip listed in the same paragraph as an equal sin." First, no it doesn't. The Bible verses interpreted to mean homosexuality do not then mention gossip and they don't call it an equal sin.

But let us assume that Jackson is right, then precisely why do we see the Religious Right engaging in jihads against gay people and yet we've never witnessed one single campaign against gossips. They have advocated jailing gay people, not gossips. They have thrown gay people out of their churches but they don't disfellowship gossips. Gossips can be in their choirs, not gay people. Gossips can marry, not gay people. Exactly how is this an "equal" sin when we see nothing by the church to stop gossiping while they spend hundreds of millions to strip gay people of the same rights granted everyone else.

They have never treated homosexuality as an equal sin.

Jackson then goes into a rant about how liberalism is "anti-Christ" or "anti-Jesus." Odd, I know many liberals who are quite pro-Jesus.

Attempts to get her on topic fail and she then invents a new factoid that 50% of all teens have some unnamed new STD that they get from oral sex! That appears to be double the most reliable estimates among teens for all forms of STDs combined.

She says television should engage in abstinence campaigns "instead of trying to make kids gay." She says that last bit so fast and then changes the topic so quickly, it is easy to miss. According to the ditzy Jackson, television is "trying to make kids gay." How do you make someone gay? How many heterosexuals who just watched that clip of the kiss actually suddenly felt an urge to go gay on the spur of the moment? A few might find the incoherent ranting of a chubby, ditzy woman with atrocious headgear a better reason to go gay that the kiss they just witnessed. I suspect, given a Sophie's choice, many a straight man would prefer Blaine in bed than Victoria Jackson, especially if they can't get her to shut up.

Jackson then changes topics yet again, claiming the demonic liberals are "pro-Muslim and pro-gay." Really? What does that mean? Does it make you pro-paraplegic to say that paraplegics should have the same legal rights of other people? She thinks she is showing a contradiction among liberals (and libertarians I might add) because they defend the rights of both groups even though fundamentalist Muslins "kill gays," which is what her Bible says should be done. She says: "That's what's confusing to me." I bet that isn't the only thing she finds confusing. Based on her conversation she must find lots of things confusing.

I will explain it. I don't want fundamentalist Christianity to be made illegal. I don't want Christians to have lesser rights, or greater rights, than anyone else. I say the same thing for fundamentalist Muslims, even though the two groups hate each other and would deny each other rights. See, I'm not pro-Muslim, or pro-Christian. I am pro-individual rights. And liberals who defend the rights of gay people are not necessarily "pro-gay" they are pro-rights for gay people. One can even dislike gays personally and still be supportive of equality of rights. Just because I don't want Victoria Jackson taken out and stoned to death for wearing ridiculous headgear doesn't mean I'm pro-Jackson. I am not pro-Jackson at all. I think she is a mentally dense moron who doesn't have a clue about the facts of life. But I want her rights defended even if I dislike her personally.

Jackson says the only reason she can explain why liberals defend both the rights of Muslims and gays is because "Muslims hate God" and "gays hate his word." Wow! I believe that she believes it. And that sort of logic is evidence of a particularly dumb woman. I honestly don't think she is evil. She isn't intelligent enough to pull off evil.

When the host points out how Glee, which was supposed to be the topic under discussion, was going to include a Christian character in it's spirit of "inclusiveness," something that is the opposite of what Jackson was claiming, Jackson again evades the point and instead lectures about a "spiritual war" urging Christians to get out and bother others with their view on god.

And then, in the spirit of every anti-Semite I've ever met, she ends with: "I have gay friends." Hitler bitched that his own Nazi party was filled with members who each had their "special" Jew they wanted protected. Hitler himself protected the Jewish doctor who had cared for his dying mother. Really, Victoria, do you think that claiming you have gay friends somehow changes the nature of what you are doing?

Another lie from NOM and Maggie Gallagher

NOM, the National Organization for (sic) Marriage, is one of the most deceitful Religious Right groups around. Often their lies are quite subtle, as they are in this ad. They claim: "After swearing on a Bible to uphold the law and defend the Constitution, he's (Obama) made a shocking move: he unilaterally decided to no longer defend our country's Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which is the federal law that defines marriage as between one man and one woman."

One thing about this is true, this is a federal law that defines marriage! Ron Paul, pay attention, the State's Rights excuse to defend DOMA is bullshit, even the rotund Maggie Gallagher admits as much. This is a federal definition of marriage which strips the states of the right to define marriage locally.

As for Maggie's lie, notice the way they smuggled into the oath of office something that isn't there at all. The oath of office says:

"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Maggie smuggled into the oath something that is not there. She has her voice over artist intone that Obama swore "to uphold the law and defend the Constitution." FALSE. No president swears to uphold the law, they all swear to uphold the Constitution. Why not both? Simple; sometimes laws violate the Constitution. The president's job is to uphold the Constitution and that sometimes means refusing to defend various laws.

There is another subtle lie in Maggie's new ad (how much Mormon money funded this?). Upholding the law and defending the law are not the same thing. The Obama administration, to their shame I might add, have said they would uphold DOMA, which means enforce it. What they aren't doing is defending it in court any longer.

This is actually rather pathetic if you think about it. As much as the Right pretends to be staunch defenders of the Constitution it is Obama who is on firmer ground here. First, DOMA does violate the jurisdiction of the state's to define marriage. DOMA created a federal definition for marriage, which had never been done before. Marriage was always a state issue. So Obama is defending the Constitutional separation of powers by refusing to defend a law that violates those principles. It is the Maggies and Ron Pauls on the Right who continued to defend the unconstitutional usurpation by the federal government to define marriage.

Second, Obama's oath to uphold the Constitution requires him to oppose laws that defy constitutional limits on power. No, Obama does not do that consistently. He, like Georgie Boy before him, is a power-hungry politicians who creates powers for himself which simply don't exist in the Constitution. He supports a plethora of unconstitutional laws, and wars I might add. That doesn't change the fact that in this case he is right, and the Right is wrong. So, not only is Obama not violating his oath of office, he is actually living up to it, in this one case.

What upsets Gallagher, Morse and other bigots with messages from God, is that Obama is not violating his oath by fighting to impose a religiously defined concept into the law. Listen for just two minutes to the anti-marriage crowd on the Right and you will constant invocations of the Bible, Jesus, God, the Catholic Church, the Mormon Church, ad nauseum. The simple truth is that their religion tells them what marriage ought to be and they then want their religious beliefs enforced on everyone in the country. That has Constitutional issues as well. As hard as they try they simply haven't not come up with anything remotely convincing to support their case, outside of religion.

I am not saying the religious arguments are convincing. Please! The magic man in the sky argument only goes so far and it just doesn't get the same traction it used when most people believed in witches, demons, magic spells, portions and prayers. But in watching this debate for the last few years I've seen little in the way of rational, factual argumentation on the part of the anti-equality lobby. In the end they resort to claims of the supernatural. It was once said that patriotism is the refuge of the scoundrel, well it seems that theology is the refuge of the moron.

Wingnut News Daily Distorts Parental Dispute

I hate to refer to World Net Daily at all because they are such a dishonest, extreme website and they distort the facts regularly. But I want to mention them today to give you an example of just how dishonest they can be.

Their headline, about a New Hampshire case, implies a girl is being forced to attend a public school because of her mother’s extreme fundamentalism. The article, however, quite carefully avoids giving readers any links to the decision or even giving them a hint as to the actual nature of the case. They quote the theocratic, anti-gay Alliance Defense Fund, which was involved in the case.

The ADF lawyer said: “Parents have a fundamental right to make educational choices for their children. Courts can settle disputes, but they cannot legitimately order a child into a government-run school on the basis that her religious views need to mixed with other views.” All of this is true, but the WND article is being dishonest, they are hiding facts from their normally rabid readers.

They mention the fundamentalist mother and the girl’s father are divorced. They mention the mother has “homeschooled” the girl in her fundamentalist faith. And they talked a lot about religion. What they left out was the actual nature of the dispute.

If you read the WND report you would think that the courts stepped in, said they didn’t like the mother’s religion, and then ordered the girl to go to government schools for no other reason. But the courts did not just step in. While ADF laments the destruction of a parent’s right to determine their child’s education they deceitfully hide the fact that this court upheld a parent’s right in this case: the father’s.

The court did not intervene against parental wishes. It got involved to settle a dispute between both parents. The father was worried that his daughter was not learning how to think, but merely being indoctrinated in the mother’s extreme beliefs. Now, whether or not the public school will teach thinking remains to be seen, but the case was a dispute between two parents with joint custodial rights over the child, with the mother having primary physical custody.

This blog reported about the case one year ago, listing it as one of the top ten lies that fundamentalist were telling about America. We reported then:

Brenda Voydatch and Martin Kurowski were divorced parents of a 10-year-old girl. Voydatch wanted the child home-schooled. Kurowski wanted her to attend a school saying her mother deprived her of socialization opportunities. In this dispute over child rearing by two parents, the court asked a guardian ad litem to investigate. That was done and this individual sided with the father in this case. The guardian ad litem mentioned the small girl’s rigidity of beliefs as reflecting the mother’s. That was enough for the Christianists to leap on it.

Kurowski’s attorney, Elizabeth Donovan, says the “the ruling was based on the girl’s isolated learning environment, and not on her mother’s religion.” Donovan also notes that Kurowski never complained about the mother taking the daughter to church. This was purely about education and socialization, not religion. Donovan said: “When two parents with joint decision-making responsibility disagree and they cannot come to any common ground, we submit it the court.” Once again the incident isn’t what it was portrayed to be. And this was the 4th worst incident against Christians—ah, if all persecuted groups only it had it that good.

In all their talk about parental rights, WND ignored the father's rights. Why? Perhaps because he is not a fundamentalist Christian.

When two parents have custody rights over a child and both are allowed to make decisions, they will sometimes disagree. If they cannot come to agreement the courts are asked to adjudicate. Only one parent’s will can be done since they do not agree. WND has every right to prefer the mother because she shares their far right Chistianist views. They have a right to their own opinions and conclusions, but they are claiming a right to their own facts as well, by refusing to tell the truth to their readers about the actual nature of the dispute.

They know the case was not about denying parental rights. It was about settling a dispute between two parents with conflicting wishes. In that sort of case, a court will always end up disappointing one parent while granting the parental rights of the other parent. WND pretended there was only one parent’s rights involved and ignored the other parent. This was the only way they could present their claims in the dishonest manner that did. An honest presentation of the facts would have undermined their political claims so they chose to be dishonest instead. But that is pretty standard with them.

Religious Right Leader Relieves Himself in Public

Rev. Grant Storms has made something of a pest of himself in that he has been involved in constant campaigns denouncing gay people as immoral. He was one of these God-judged-New-Orleans-and-sent-a-hurricane types. In particular he was upset by the Southern Decadence festival which attracts gay people from around the country. He and his fundamentalist followers have gone to the festival to try and harass attendees. But, it appears, the Bible isn't the only thing that Rev. Storms beats.

He was recently parked at playground watching children while he masturbated. He had the windows of his car open so he could easily be seen. A woman who brought her kids to the park had parked next to him when she saw what he was doing. She got her kids back out of her car and told another woman what had happened. The second woman walked past Storms vehicle and verified that he was indeed masturbating while watching the children. She called a park employee who called police and then detained the self-proclaimed "Christian patriot" until law enforcement arrived.

In the above photo Rev. Storms is leading an anti-gay march through the French Quarter. He is the man with the broom, allegedly showing how God's people will "sweep the city clean" of perversion. Given his arrest record perhaps he should bring a mop next time.

The true colors of Ron Paul! They ain't pretty.

This blog has been telling people for years that Ron Paul is NO libertarian—of any kind. He has a few libertarian-leaning positions in some areas. But he is a fucking Right-wing social conservative who believes in big government control in the name of Jesus. He was only marginally libertarian in 1988, when the Libertarian Party nominated him for president, and it has been downhill since then. But the Rondroids won't believe it. This cult of Ron Paul has no ability to think critically.

Ron Paul is a man who voted to reintroduce "sodomy laws" in Washington, D.C., when the city council repealed them. Congress can veto legislation in D.C. or repeal it, if they don't like what the city council does. When the D.C council repealed sodomy laws, which is clearly the libertarian thing to do, the bigoted Religious Right had fits. They want gay people arrested and imprisoned, they want such laws enforced because they are sure that is what Jesus wants. DAMN the constitution, damn the rights of people, they want theocracy.

When theocratically-inclined Republicans introduced legislation to reinstate sodomy as a crime Ron Paul jumped on their bandwagon. Then, when libertarians questioned him, he did the typical double-talk he has used for decades to justify his authoritarianism on social issues. Ronnie Paul lied and said it was absolutely necessary to recriminalize sodomy because the same legislation reduced the penalty for rape.

What Paul never told people was that anti-rape groups wanted the clause, reducing the penalty for rape, put into effect. The penalty was so high that they found juries were reluctant to convict rapists for their crimes. An ultra-high penalty may punish a few rapists more severely but it also means that any slight doubts jurors may have dominate in a very large number of cases and rapists are found "not guilty" because jurors fear imposing such a severe punishment without absolute and total certainty.

Instead of bashing homosexuals in order to protect women from rapists, Congressman Paul, always the lying conservative, was willing to let rapists go free in order to bash gay people. His views on gays were so strident he was willing to help rapists beat the rap.

Now, consider the odious Defense of Marriage Act. DOMA, even by Right-wing constitutionalism is wrong. It is federal legislation over what is historically an area totally under state control: marriage.

The Obama Administration has finally come around to realize that DOMA is wrong and said it would no longer defend DOMA in cases currently going through the court system. Ron Paul is furious. He released his own statement attacking the administration for refusing to defend what is probably an unconstitutional law. See, Ronnie the Righty, would rather ignore the Constitution if it allows him to use his fundamentalist Baptist religion as a guidepost for American law. He is so keen to bash gay people that he will betray his pretense at principles. Ron Paul is one of the biggest frauds to be perpetrated on libertarians in the history of the movement.

Paul claims that DOMA was to stop government "from re-defining marriage and forcing its definition on the States... I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman and must be protected." So federal legislation has to be passed to strip gay people of their rights because Ron Paul thinks a dead messiah wants him to impose his theology on others.

The man is a moron and has always been a moron. I mean he really is stupid. Allow me let you in on a little secret. He doesn't write his own material and never has. He has ghostwriters who make him sound intelligent by putting his name on their work. That is why, when he gets in-depth questions he looks like a deer in the headlights and starts stuttering and stammering and talking around the issue. He can't support the claims in his "books" because he didn't write the books and doesn't know or understand what is in them. And yes, I do know who the ghost-writers were in several of the cases.

That is precisely why he got caught publishing racist rants in his silly little newsletter. The shit that was published was done in his name. But he didn't write it, not even the hysterical, lying material on AIDS that was written in the first person. (Yes, he was a major campaigner attacking people with HIV.) When Ronnie the Liar was asked about the racist rants in his publication he said he didn't know who wrote them. Hmm, maybe he should check the auto dial on his phone, he'll still find the author of those rants there. They remain close friends to this day, even if he told the press he can't remember who it was. He wasn't forgetful, just lying.

I don't think Ron is a racist, though I do think he is an anti-gay bigot. It is possible he is a racist but I don't have personal information that would support that conclusion. It's never come out in conversations I've had with him. While Ron said he had no idea that the material was being printed the facts prove he was lying about that as well. The newsletters came out of his Lake Jackson office. His campaign manager was the publisher. His good friends were the editors, one of whom is still alive and still bosom buddies with Ronnie. His wife and daughter were both on the payroll of the publication—though it is possible they never actually did any work for the salary they receives and that this was merely a means to launder funds into Paul's personal accounts. Ron knew who wrote the material. He still does. He knew what the newsletters said all along. He knows who was responsible for the material and he and the culprit, who has associated himself with numerous racists and anti-Semites, are still good friends. In fact, I went to this person's website and ran "Ron Paul" through the search engine for the site. Ron comes up over 13,000 times. They are still in close cahoots. I am waiting for associates of the actual writer to come here and begin attacking us, in defense of Ron, when they are also defending their own organization and fellow neo-confederates.

Paul got caught when the media saw the actual newsletters that he published. And his defense was to openly lie to the media and to the American public. That's Mr. Integrity.

Paul's bigotry goes so far as to demand that judges not rule on the Constitutionality of laws passed by legislatures. He would strip judges of their duty to rule on whether laws violate rights or not. You didn't hear Ron ranting about activist judges when the Second Amendment was upheld by the Supreme Court—as it should have been. He only rants about activist judges when they rule in ways that go against the Religious Right.

Ron has claimed that First Amendment protections don't apply in the States. He has said that the State's can impose Christianity as the state religion because the First Amendment doesn't matter at that level. Yet, apparently he has no such criticism when the Second Amendment is applied to the states. Why? Because he supports imposing Christianity as a state religion and he supports the right to own guns. His constitutional principles are twisted to conform with his personal moral preferences, not with any consistent theory of constitutional law. And given that he's a gun-rights fundamentalist Christian he's happy to contradict himself.

Ron Paul also lied when he said the Obama Administration said they "will abandon the obligation to enforce DOMA." Actually what the administration said was that they would cease to defend DOMA in the courts but that they would still enforce the law while waiting for the outcome in the courts. Mr. Paul is, once again, woefully misinformed. He usually is.

We saw the same befuddled interpretation of the facts when he engaged in gay bashing when seeking the Republican nomination for president last time around. When asked about DADT he said that he then supported DADT because sexual harassment should be stopped. DADT had NOTHING to with sexual harassment or misconduct. Ron clearly had no idea what DADT was about so he said the first thing that came into his head and often the first thing that comes into his head is completely wrong. He eventually did come to vote for repeal, one of his few libertarian votes in the social arena.

Ron presents himself as a Constitutional scholar yet he says absurd things such as the Constitution is "replete with references to God..." Go read the constitution and you will see Ron Paul doesn't know the constitution. Replete means "abundantly filled." But instead of there being an abundance of references to God there are none. Does Ron believe the bullshit he spreads? I suspect so, as I said, he is not a particularly bright man. I'm sorry but I first meet Ron Paul almost 30 years ago and he wasn't bright then. If anything he just appears more confused than he was then.

He would do his Ron Paul "shuffle." He is a good politician, in the sense he knows how to lie to the constituents and keep both conservatives and libertarians happy. He votes with the conservatives and sounds like a libertarian. That's all it takes. Dance with the Right while sounding libertarian seems to give conservatives what they want and give libertarians worthless rhetoric.

The one thing Ron Paul wants from libertarians are campaign contributions. But he is not one of us. He is a paleo-conservative. He is not a libertarian. He has never been a libertarian. He is libertarian on some issues, but then even Obama is libertarian on some issues: DOMA being one of them. The one thing Ronnie wants from libertarians is their money, not their principles.

Paul says he will stand with the state's and defend their "right" not to respect the rights of same-sex couples. There is no such right. State's don't have rights but people do. State's have powers. And the powers of the State should never allow the State to disrespect the rights of people. Individual rights precede, and are superior to, government powers. That is libertarian. The pablum that Ronnie is dishing out is pure Right-wing conservatism, not libertarianism.

I don't even want to go in the truly insane views the man has about secret conspiracies. But to say the least, he is bonkers. The man is a crank and has always been a crank. He doesn't deserve libertarian support and never really has, though, as I said, he was once more libertarian than he is today. Ron Paul is a hypocritical, lying politician. He is not the messiah. He is not the knight in shining armor. I know other paleo-conservatives, particularly those associated with the man who DID write the racist diatribes, will be furious for me saying this.

But Ron Paul is NOT now, nor has he ever been a libertarian. He was close at one point, but he is a paranoid, right-wing loon with Christianist tendencies who is a social conservative and wants government to impose Christian morality, especially at the state level. But libertarians are so desperate for a messiah that they turn a blind eye to this idiot.

But I don't expect any of this dent the Rondroids. They are a cult more than anything I've seen in a long time, outside real cults. They will continue to make excuses for the man and pretend he is their knight. Ron Paul does a lot of harm to the libertarian brand and shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. When he got caught with the racist material he claimed he couldn't be a racist since he's a libertarian. He was never a libertarian and his defense only associated the racist articles with libertarianism, which only hurts libertarians. Fuck Ron Paul, and I don't mean in the nice way.