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.
Last week, during the high school graduation ceremony for TNT Academy, a private school just outside of Atlanta, founder/director Nancy Gordeuk accidentally dismissed the crowd earlier than expected. So as a student was trying to give a speech, there were people walking out of the ceremony. It pissed off Gordeuk, who began reprimanding the crowd from the stage, but then it took a really ugly turn when she said, “Look who’s leaving, all the black people.” Read more
The last time I wrote about Polk County (Florida) Sheriff Grady Judd was in 2010, when he was removing basketball hoops from the local prison and giving them away to local churches. When Judd was asked why he wouldn’t give the hoops to a secular organization, his response (referencing an atheist group) was, “Why should I kowtow?”… as if giving them to a public school meant bolstering the “atheist agenda.” I just learned that Judd recently delivered a guest sermon at First Baptist Church on the Mall last month — it was called “Wouldn’t the World be Better if Everyone Behaved Like a Christian” — and he didn’t do it as a private citizen. He delivered it while wearing his sheriff uniform, suggesting that he was speaking as a government official: Read more
On Real Time with Bill Maher last night, guest Ayaan Hirsi Ali shared her life story and formula for reforming Islam (which calls on Muslims to adopt less extremist ideology — good luck with that one). They also spoke about why liberals have been among the louder voices criticizing the cartoonists drawing Muhammad rather than the people killing them. Read more