Rachel Ford is a programmer, and since 8:00 to 5:00 doesn't provide enough opportunity to bask in screen glare, she writes in her spare time. She was raised a very fundamentalist Christian, but eventually "saw the light." Rachel's personal blog is Rachel's Hobbit Hole, where she discusses everything from Tolkien to state politics.
Florida legislators have been considering a number of restrictions and bans on abortion lately, including HB 865, which the Tampa Bay Times says “would make performing an abortion or operating an abortion clinic a first-degree felony in Florida, punishable by up to 30 years in prison.” But it was a man named Paul who made headlines during a subcommittee hearing on the bill, when he told the legislators that abortion must be restricted to preserve “white culture.” Read more
I’ve often thought that Sen. Ted Cruz exudes a kind of smarminess better suited to an ethically challenged salesman than a legislator (much less president). It’s rarely so prominent, though, as when he’s discussing God’s divine plan for America, and how that involves electing him president. His recent interview on Christian Broadcast Network’s The Brody File is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. Read more
Move over, birth control. Stand aside, marriage equality. Catholic organizations have found a new menace from which they must shield themselves by invoking their freedom of religion: collective bargaining. It’s like a conservative’s dream come true: in addition to the standard reasons why empowering workers is a terrible thing, Catholics are now adding “God says so” into the mix. Read more
One of my all-time favorite segments from The Daily Show was the episode in which Jon Stewart examined the bizarre love-hate relationship that American conservatives seem to have with Vladimir Putin. It was hilarious, particularly when juxtaposed with conservatives’ hate-hate relationship with their idea of the weak, mom-jeans-wearing tyrant dictator King Obama. But there’s more to Putin than a quick-acting, horse-riding, bear-wrestling, non-Mom-jeans-wearing President. And it’s the sort of stuff Republican dreams are made of. Dreams, and religious-political fantasies. You see, like so many conservative religious leaders in America, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill knows who to blame for things like the rise of ISIS: religious extremism, he says, is a result of secularism. And gay people. Read more
