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.
For the past couple of days, the New York Times’ Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Robert Gebeloff have been reporting on the nature of arbitration in lieu of courts when it comes to settling a dispute. In general, there have been a lot of cases where arbiters, already cozy with the companies they’re supposed to judge, side with the companies (who’d have thunk?) even when the evidence points in the other direction. In the final part of the series, the reporters focus on religious arbitration, when Scripture supersedes secular law: Read more
Letters to the editor are like open comments sections on a website, with the important distinction that someone at the newspaper always makes the decision on which letters to publish. So when Chip DeNure wrote a letter to the editor of the La Crosse Tribune (in Wisconsin) arguing that there was a link between vaccines and autism — which there isn’t — should the newspaper have published it? The writer is obviously ignorant, but that alone has never been a reason not to publish a letter. Richard Kyte, a member of the newspaper’s editorial board, agrees the writer was wrong in his assertion but he’s grappling with the question of whether the paper was wrong to publish his letter. Ultimately, he defends it appearing in print. Read more
More than a month ago, I posted about the prayer boxes at Airline High School in Louisiana’s Bossier Parish: This was the same high school where the principal signed off on his newsletter message by saying “May God Bless You All.” (And the same District where the ACLU has had problems in the past. And the same area where the Sheriff’s Office wanted federal money for a faith-based program.) Zack Kopplin, who grew up in the state, spoke with several students who attend Airline High and found out that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Christianity’s fingerprints are all over the public school: Read more
