You know how all children are exactly like their parents? And if your parents are wicked people, you’ll always end up just like them? Don’t bother refuting that. It’s too late. Pat Robertson just used a variant of that argument to justify divine genocide. In response to a woman asking him how a loving God could wipe out entire cities in the Bible (“That sounds like Islam to me”), Robertson explains that God’s just choosing the more merciful path: Read more
Imagine a Christian law professor who doesn’t really like the First Amendment. That is, he wants to “rethink” it so that people who say harsh things about others can be fined or sent to jail. He believes that it’s about time to cut America’s 222-year-old free-speech law down to size, creating new exceptions that go far beyond accepted ones such as slander, libel, and incitement. In placing limits on speech we privilege physical over emotional harm. Indeed, we have an entire legal system, and an attitude toward speech, that takes its cue from a nursery rhyme: “Stick and stones can break my bones but names can never hurt me.” The professor says that words can in fact wound deeply. He wants to alleviate the quiet suffering that people of faith, and others, must endure at the hands of columnists and cartoonists and bloggers and internet commenters. Pain has a shared circuitry in the human brain, and it makes no distinction between being hit in the face and losing face (or having a broken heart) as a result of bereavement, betrayal, social exclusion and grave insult. Emotional distress can, in fact, make the body sick. So… are you guilty of using language that promoted someone’s “social exclusion”? See you in court. Did you make someone lose face in a public argument? Pay up, bud, or else. After all: We impose speed limits on driving and regulate food and drugs because we know that the costs of not doing so can lead to accidents and harm. Why should speech be exempt from public welfare concerns when its social costs can be even more injurious? In the marketplace of ideas, there is a difference between trying to persuade and trying to injure. If the professor’s proposal to curtail the First Amendment became reality, anyone could now get sued who says or writes words that even one other person finds offensive to the point of causing “injury.” This blog, and a million others, on all sides of all kinds of issues, would have to start over, under a de facto government directive that none of us may write sharply or mockingly if readers anywhere in the United States’ jurisdiction could take offense. Everything I wrote and quoted above is accurate. The law professor in question is Thane Rosenbaum (pictured), who teaches at Fordham University. He’s been working on a book called The High Price of Free Speech: Rethinking the First Amendment, and his let’s-gut-free-speech piece was just published by the Daily Beast. Read more
Here’s something I’ve learned from years in the classroom: there’s nothing more entertaining than a high schooler who thinks he has a brilliant idea… when you know damn well it’s an awful one. It never gets old. That’s what been happening at Rusk High School in Cherokee County, Texas, where one of the teachers had this poster hanging in the classroom: Totally not okay. The Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter to the school (on behalf of a student) requesting they take it down, and the school complied. And that’s when senior Cameron Franks decided to “take a stand” by making and selling t-shirts with a pro-Christian message on them: Read more
If you’ve often wondered how I retain my high level of sanity as well as my lovely complexion, puzzle no more: I live in the third least religious state in the country. Plus, I’d have to drive a day or two to get to an area where a majority of people consider themselves “very religious.” (Admittedly, this cheers me like beer cheers a barfly.) How do I know? By looking at the latest Gallup numbers, released yesterday. Read more
My prom night involved being around close friends, sharing nice food, enjoying a night of dancing, and spending the next day together at an amusement park. The folks at Liberty Counsel, who are promoting abstinence-until-marriage with their “Day of Purity” (on Valentine’s Day), think that Prom must be synonymous with venereal diseases. I think we went to different proms. But that would at least explain their promotional ads: Read more
Darren Foreman, a.k.a. Beardyman, is a beatboxer who uses live looping technology in his shows. At a 2013 concert just uploaded to YouTube, Foreman riffs on atheism (beginning at the 59:24 mark): Read more
When Jim Mulholland was a still a pastor, long before he drifted towards atheism, he relished the chance to teach young children morality. Now that he’s no longer a believer, but still very much a dad, this is what Christians sometimes ask him: “But what about your daughter, Ella?” Mulholland has the always-interesting perspective of someone who was on the inside, but whose analytical powers are in fact greater on the outside. He wrote a great article about being a non-believer father: Read more
In a recent episode of the Disney Channel show “Good Luck Charlie,” Charlie’s parents set up a playdate with her friend Taylor… and they soon learn that Taylor has two mothers: Read more
Republican lawmakers in Idaho are so worried that LGBT people will force them to abandon their religious beliefs, they’ve outlined a plan of attack for a problem that doesn’t exist. Last week, Rep. Lynn Luker introduced plans to preemptively protect professionals in various fields from having their licenses revoked if they refuse to serve LGBT people on religious grounds. Professionals from physical therapists to midwives to teachers would be protected if they decided it was against their religious beliefs to provide services to gays and lesbians. (The only exception is that emergency personnel could not refuse to treat somebody.) Read more
Conservative Christians who hadn’t heard of Macklemore’s pro-gay hit “Same Love” have certainly heard of it now. The massive wedding that took place live at the Grammys last weekend, which included same-sex couples and was officiated by Queen Latifah, has right-wingers furious over the destruction of marriage, morals, purity, and everything else they get upset about as soon as LGBT folks enter the picture. But few seem to be more upset than Bizzle, a Christian rapper who has previously targeted the music of Jay-Z, Kanye West and Nicki Minaj, among others, for the messages their music sends. This “Same Love” nonsense really has Bizzle in a tizzy — so much so that he released a rap song explaining why LGBT people actually have it all wrong. In “Same Love (A Response),” Bizzle offers his opinions on the LGBT rights movement and the presence (or absence) of God in the ongoing debate, all while the iconic instrumental of the original song plays underneath. If we could only ignore how we feel and give our lives to God, he seems to say, everything would be fine. Listen to the song below: Read more
