The Golden Valley City Council (in Minnesota), like so many other city councils, says the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of its meetings. But council member Steve Schmidgall suggested removing it at last night’s meeting, which turned out to be quite the story: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Shocking news. I hope you’re sitting down. Being a conservative and a Christian marks you for persecution in today’s military. So claims FOX News Radio journalist Todd Starnes. So says Master Sergeant Nathan Sommers, a member of the U.S. Army Band. And so parrots Ret. Navy Commander John Bennett Wells, who is representing Sommers: [Wells] said there is no doubt in his mind that the U.S. military is discriminating against Christians — and specifically his client. “There’s no question about it,” Wells told Fox News. “Because he is religious, because he feels that homosexual conduct is wrong for religious reasons, he is basically being persecuted.” What got Sommers in hot water with his superiors? It wasn’t one thing in particular, but a string of behaviors, opinions, and utterances over time. For instance: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Back in February, I posted about how a group of students at Texas Christian University wanted to start an atheist group: “Freethinking Frogs” is being founded by Alexis Lohse. The transfer student said she wanted to establish an organization “that was agnostic and secular,” so that students with those beliefs would have a place free to discuss and challenge conventional religious thinking. There’s finally some good news to report. [Click headline for more…] Read more
Last week, the Vero Beach City Council (in Florida) was set to proclaim June 16-23, 2013 as “Humanist Recognition Week” — normally just a formality — but two of the five council members objected to it. One of them was Mayor Craig Fletcher: When the council went over the agenda at the start of the meeting, Fletcher asked that the item about the proclamation be removed entirely. His reasoning? “I refuse to support an organization that does not believe in Jesus Christ. I’ll have nothing to do with it.” This afternoon, though, Fletcher issued an apology for his remarks: [Click headline for more…] Read more
This is good news for all of us. First, some background: Below is a sculpture called “Sacred Rain Arrow” by Oklahoman Allan Houser. It’s currently housed in Tulsa’s Gilcrease Museum. “It is depicting a young Apache warrior who was selected in a time of drought to shoot a rain arrow into the sky, into the heavens, to bring his people’s prayers to their gods so that they would get rain,” said Anne Brockman, Gilcrease Museum public information officer. The sculpture has been on display at Gilcrease since 1988 or 1989, she said. It is at the front entrance to the museum, she said. In 2009, the state began issuing license plates featuring an image of the sculpture: [Click headline for more…] Read more
During a Texas public preschool’s “graduation” ceremony on May 31st, one teacher urged a student to say “In Jesus’ name, Amen.” Amber Barnhill was a parent at that ceremony and she was surprised by what she heard. She didn’t want to make a big deal out of it — it was probably just an innocent mistake, right? So she decided to just chat with the teacher and let her know what the issue was: [The teacher] replied “I’m sorry, but I cannot apologize for that”. She kept reiterating this line through the whole of our conversation. She also said “no one else had a problem with it” though clearly she did not ask everyone involved and “no one has ever said a word to me before about this”. I inserted the word “religion” to which she immediately cut me off with “oh it’s not a religion, it’s a way of life. It’s who I am” and elaborated on this. The conversation just got more frustrating from there. In short, Amber was the voice of reason. The teacher was the voice of denial. [Click headline for more…] Read more
I know what you’re going to say: we really shouldn’t dignify Charisma with press coverage and pageviews. The Christian “news service” is dripping with bigotry, intolerance, and just plain misinformation about any issue you can name. But when I read that Charisma news editor Jennifer LeClaire wrote that openly gay basketball player Jason Collins would make more of a difference in the world if he “renounced homosexuality,” I got too mad to ignore it. [Click headline for more…] Read more
Back in November, during a debate on God’s existence between Young Earth Creationist Eric Hovind and atheist Bernie Dehler, 11-year-old Chad Dehler (Bernie’s son) challenged Hovind with a simple question: “What is your evidence of God?” How do you know you’re not just talking to yourself? Hovind’s answer, in a nutshell, is that we can’t know anything to be true unless we know everything… therefore, God has to give you revelation… therefore PROOF! That makes perfect sense, right? And at the end of the video, Hovind claims that Bernie Dehler, unlike his son, would say that there may be evidence of God’s existence. It’s taken Chad a few months to process all that gobbledegook and he’s come to the conclusion that it made absolutely no sense! So Chad went back in front of the camera to ask Hovind the same question once again: [Click headline for more…] Read more
The mayor of Monterrey, Mexico, Margarita Arellanes Cervantes, recently spoke at an event called “Monterrey Prays” (organized by a group called the Pastors Alliance) and gave quite the sermon: “I, Margarita Alicia Arellanes Cervantes, deliver the city of Monterrey, Nuevo León to our Lord Jesus Christ. For his kingdom of peace and blessings to be established, I open the doors of this city to God as the maximum authority.” The mayor said that without the presence and help of Jesus Christ there cannot be real success; “If the Lord doesn’t build the house, the ones who build it work in vain; if the Lord doesn’t care for the city, the watchers stand guard in vain.” … She mentioned that some people are offended and intolerant if God is spoken of in public, but tolerate and stay silent before hatred and evil… [Click headline for more…] Read more
When it comes to acceptance of LGBT people, the United States is far from being the most tolerant country in the world. According to a report released last week by the Pew Research Center, attitudes about homosexuality in society vary widely based on geography — but less by religion than you might expect. Pew asked more than 37,000 participants in 39 countries whether “homosexuality should be accepted or rejected by society,” and found widespread geographical differences in responses. [Click headline for more…] Read more
