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.
Bremerton High School assistant football coach Joe Kennedy, the guy who continues to pray on the field despite several warnings that he’s violating the law, still doesn’t get that school representatives can’t promote religion while on the clock. Last we heard, the District was still “negotiating” with his Christian lawyers (the Kim Davis people). I guess negotiations are over since conservative websites are now reporting that both sides are threatening legal action. The District says Kennedy may be fired if he doesn’t stop praying on the field (a threat they’ve already made before…), and Kennedy says he will file a lawsuit against the District for not letting him proselytize on the field. Read more
Winter Garden (Florida) has been the site of a few church/state separation problems over the past year. It began when an atheist, Joseph Richardson, was kicked out of a public meeting for not standing during the invocation or Pledge of Allegiance (even though no one should ever be forced to participate in either). That led to a back and forth over whether religion should be at public meetings at all. This past March, after temporarily doing away with prayers at meetings, they voted to bring back the invocations. And how has that gone? In the past seven months, there have been 14 meetings… and with one exception, when there was just a moment of silence, every invocation has been delivered by a Christian pastor. No diversity whatsoever and a very clear violation of the law. The Central Florida Freethought Community and Freedom From Religion Foundation sent letters to the Winter Garden Commissioners early last week, warning them about the First Amendment violations they were committing when, in what seemed to be a total coincidence, they decided to do the right thing. Atheist Ed Lynch was invited to deliver an invocation on Thursday — and he made sure to make the most of it. He thanked Richardson for putting this whole process in motion and told the Commissioners, “Let us play.” Read more
It was more than three years ago when Fazil Say (below), a pianist, composer, and atheist from Turkey, was charged with the crime of mocking Islam. It wasn’t that he drew a cartoon or made some public statement condemning Allah. Rather, he retweeted or told jokes poking fun at the religious — like one about a muezzin who delivered a call to prayer so quickly, it was as if he wanted to get away for a drink. Another joke said, “I am not sure if you have also realised it, but all the pricks, low-lives, buffoons, thieves, jesters, they are all Allahists. Is this a paradox?” Read more
In January of 2013, Ontario natives John Heydari and Homa Ahmadi gave birth to a little boy they named Ryan. He was perfectly healthy and the parents had no desire to circumcise him because they believed “mother nature created us the way she intended us to be.” But their physician, going against the recommendation of the Canadian Pediatric Society, suggested the boy should be circumcised anyway. The unnecessary procedure was botched and the boy died three weeks after his birth due to blood loss. Read more
