Hemant Mehta is the founder and editor of FriendlyAtheist.com, a YouTube creator, and podcast co-host. He is a former National Board Certified math teacher in the suburbs of Chicago. He has appeared on CNN and FOX News and served on the board of directors for Foundation Beyond Belief and the Secular Student Alliance. He has written multiple books, including I Sold My Soul on eBay and The Young Atheist's Survival Guide. He also edited the book Queer Disbelief.
I have a hard time believing Christians are under attack in America. Mostly because they’re so totally not. Usually, when Christian groups are upset, it’s not because their rights are being violated, but because they’re no longer getting the privileged treatment they’re used to receiving. So you should always take their complaints with a grain of salt and search for whatever they’re not telling you. When I heard about first-grader Brynn Williams’ story, in the back of my mind, I was wondering what really happened because I knew Advocates for Faith & Freedom (a Christian version of the Freedom From Religion Foundation) couldn’t be trusted to share the entire story. Here’s how AFF explained what happened: Read more
A few days ago, I mentioned that evangelical Christians in the Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) wanted to censor two performances of a comedy play called “The Bible: The Complete Word Of God (abridged)” because they felt it was too blasphemous: Well, they changed their minds pretty damn quickly after everyone started laughing at them. The shows are back on! Read more
Last year, Mississippi’s Republican Governor Phil Bryant signed into law a bill that made student-led, administration-supported proselytizing perfectly legal in the state’s public schools. On the surface, the bill appeared to be useless — as one Americans United lawyer said of similar legislation, “This bill is a solution in search of a problem.” It said students could “express their beliefs about religion in homework, artwork, and other written and oral assignments free from discrimination”… even though they could always do that. It said students could form religious clubs that met before or after school… which was also never in doubt. Here’s where things got really weird. The bill said: Read more
Kirk Cameron, Protector of the Family, Defender of the Faith, and Speaker of the Bullshit, took to Facebook today to announce that the mass-wedding at last night’s Grammy Awards during Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ performance of the pro-LGBT song “Same Love” was an “all out assault on the traditional family.” And there’s only way to defend against that assault: Buying Kirk Cameron’s new movie: Read more