The truth will out (no pun intended)

Remember those video recordings of the lawsuit against gay marriage, the recordings that anti-gay activists didn’t want anyone to see? They’re coming out.

Video recordings of the trial over California’s gay marriage ban should be unsealed, a federal judge ruled on Monday.

District Judge James Ware in San Francisco said in a court order that there was “no compelling” reason to keep the digital files under seal.

This is a serious setback for those who believe in the right to harass and oppress others from the safety and privacy of court-protected anonymity. In this case, however, I think the interests of society as a whole outweigh the privileges of the oppressors.

Oo, wicked

Here’s a headline that gives a bit of pause.

Atheist Group to Rip Up Bible Passages on Saturday

Mixed feelings, eh? I mean, I’ve got no compunctions about the Bible being a holy book or anything, but on the other hand, book ripping isn’t really all that different from book burning. But read the details.

An Orange County, Calif. atheist group plans to put on a demonstration Saturday afternoon in which they will rip up sections of the Bible that they deem “immoral.”

Though they won’t be tearing pages straight out of a book, members of Backyard Skeptics, OC’s largest atheist organization, plans to rip up photocopies of the Scriptures on the Huntington Beach pier.

Brilliant! They found a way to express their disapproval of significant Scriptural passages, without giving in to the temptations of censorship and oppression. They claim that they’re not out to offend anyone (yeah, right), but that they’re hoping to educate people. Don’t apologize, guys—outrageousness is what gets their attention. If Rush Limbaugh went out of his way to avoid offending people, we’d be referring to him as “Rush who??”

And it looks like this stunt is already producing some very educational results. See below the fold for the Christian response.

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And on the other hand…

…sometimes common sense does prevail. A federal appeals court has ruled that a San Diego County school district does have the right to tell Christian teachers not to use their classrooms for proselytizing. The case at hand concerns a math teacher who wanted to establish religion by hanging “testimonial” banners in his class.

The two banners, each about 7 feet by 2 feet, contained references to God from U.S. documents and patriotic songs. One quoted the Declaration of Independence passage that all men are “endowed by their CREATOR” with unalienable rights.

The banners also trumpeted phrases such as “IN GOD WE TRUST” and “GOD SHED HIS GRACE ON THEE,” but do not seem to have imparted any concepts with any particular relationship to mathematics, the subject of the class. Predictably, the teacher complained about discrimination against Christians, effectively confessing that he was indeed explicitly promoting Christianity in the classroom. At first, this was a winning argument, but when the appeals court looked at what he was specifically complaining about, it reversed the lower court ruling.

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RI High School refuses to take down prayer

The ACLU is taking a high school to court over a fairly blatant endorsement of Christianity, in the form of a large prayer banner, prominently displayed.

CRANSTON — The Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union is asking a federal judge to stop the city from displaying a Christian prayer banner painted on a wall of Cranston High School West.

The 8-foot-high mural, which is addressed to “Our Heavenly Father,” has deprived student Jessica Ahlquist of her rights under the First and 14th Amendments, argue attorneys Lynette Labinger and Thomas Bender in a brief filed Friday in preparation for an Oct. 13 court hearing.

The high school’s defense? “Hey, we’ve defied the First Amendment for a long time, and therefore we have a right to continue to do so.”

After giving the issue much thought, school officials “decided not to erase history for the sake of political correctness,” say attorneys Joseph V. Cavanagh Jr., Joseph V. Cavanagh III, Eric C. Rassbach, Lori H. Windham, Anthony A. Cipriano and Christopher M. Rawson in a brief filed Friday in U.S. District Court.

The decision by School Committee members to leave the mural alone is “based not upon some desire to inject religion into the public schools, but on their belief that school history and tradition should be maintained,” they say.

The “injecting religion” bit is just a perk, or something.

Skeptics to protest “museum”

San Diego area atheists and agnostics will be gathering for a protest, I see.

September 12, 2011 (Santee) –San Diego New Atheists and Agnostics (SDNA), a Web-based organization of over 700 members, plans a demonstration against the Creation and Earth History Museum in Santee on September 24. That’s the same date when the Museum plans to participate in a nationwide “Museum Day” organized by the Smithsonian Institute…

Not a bad idea, but if I were running that protest, my theme would be, “Attention Christians: this museum teaches that God FAILED to create a design as good as Darwin’s!”

Bet there’d be some interesting sidewalk conversations at a show like that.

 

Sept. 11, 2011: a chance to reflect–and blame Obama

Today is a very sober and somber day, the anniversary of a vicious and cowardly attack against thousands of innocent men, women and children, a day when we ought to reflect on the horrors that dwell in the depths of hatred, a day for all men to put aside petty differences and affirm the bonds of charity and compassion.

Or not.

President Obama will be the featured speaker at an “interfaith faith prayer service” at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. (interior photo at left) on the evening of September 11th to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attack on the nation. Curiously, while the event will also include a “Roman Catholic bishop, a Jewish rabbi, Buddhist nun, a Hindu priest, the president of the Islamic Society of North America, and a Muslim musician,” reported Ron Kerby at Beliefnet.com, “…not a single protestant or evangelical has been invited to participate.”

In point of fact, the interfaith prayer service was open to all, including evangelicals, as even a cursory visit to the National Cathedral website will show. And, by the way, if you read the program for the morning prayer service, you’ll find that while representatives of various faiths were indeed on the program, President Obama is not. He is scheduled to speak at the evening concert, on the same program as Patty LaBelle, Alan Jackson, and Denyce Graves, and it’s open to the public—even if they’re evangelical Christians.

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How God really works

[I have to be out of town today and tomorrow, so I thought I’d cheat and replay some old Evangelical Realism posts. This one, from August 2007, is my all-time greatest hit (according to my stats log, that is).]

A blogger at passionateamerica.com has a bit of Monday Morning “humor” that (perhaps without meaning to) gives us a good hard look at how God really “works”:

A United States Marine was attending some college courses between assignments. He had completed missions in Iraq and Afghanistan . One of the courses had a professor who was a vowed atheist and a member of the ACLU.

One day the professor shocked the class when he came in. He looked to the ceiling and flatly stated, “God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I’ll give you exactly 15 minutes.” The lecture room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop.

Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed, “Here I am God. I’m still waiting.” It got down to the last couple of minutes when the Marine got out of his chair, went up to the professor, and cold-cocked him; knocking him off the platform.

The professor was out cold. The Marine went back to his seat and sat there, silently. The other students were shocked and stunned and sat there looking on in silence. The professor eventually came to, noticeably shaken, looked at the Marine and asked, “What the hell is the matter with you? Why did you do that?”

The Marine calmly replied, “God was too busy today protecting America ’s soldiers who are protecting your right to say stupid stuff and act like an a$$. So, He sent me.”

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The Amazing vanishing post

I got a really intriguing snippet in my Google Alerts mail today.

Why Christians Don’t Want Government Defining Marriage
Crosswalk.com (blog)
It’s not uncommon for Christian pundits to agree with certain candidates who are conservative in a number of areas but castigate them profusely when those same candidates don’t support a government ban on homosexual marriage. …

When I click on the link, it takes me to Crosswalk.com, a Christian web site dedicated to Bible study and evangelism. But the post is gone.

Hmmm.

Support your local Republican

Never thought I’d say it, but a report in the New York Daily News may force me to support a few Republican politicians.

ALBANY – An anti-gay marriage group is launching a billboard attack against Republican senators who voted in favor of same-sex unions.

The National Organization for Marriage plans to place billboards in the districts of four GOP state senators who broke ranks and voted to legalize gay marriage in June.

Head Bigot Brian Brown says the group is planning on spending $40,000 on the initial run of billboards, in addition to $150,000 already spent on direct mail campaigns attacking the senators and seeking their defeat in the 2012 elections.

I suppose if they succeed, it will at least simplify the process of telling the good guys from the bad guys.

PS: Check out the actual URL for that article and see if you can figure out which side the web guy(s) at nydailynews.com might be on…

Bigotry backfires on Christian consultant

The Christian Post reports that anti-gay author Dr. Frank Turek is finding it just a little bit harder to sell his team-building consultancy services after publishing a book promoting discrimination against many of the employees and customers of his prospective clients.

Just months after being fired from Cisco Systems in California over an anti-gay marriage book, Christian consultant Dr. Frank Turek was also given the boot from Bank of America.

“I get a lot of flak for just actually agreeing with what a majority of Americans agree on and that is that marriage is between one man and one woman,” Turek said this past week on American Family Radio.

He’s being just a bit dishonest, of course. If all he were doing was defending the freedom to believe that marriage is between one man and one woman, then that would be fine. It’s a bigoted and ignorant opinion, but freedom of speech means that people are allowed to hold bigoted and ignorant opinions, as long as they don’t try to force their bigotry on others in a way that violates their civil and human rights. That last bit, however, is exactly what Dr. Turek and his fellow believers are trying to do, which is why he’s taking some heat for it.

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