Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA) is one of the most determined theocrats in Congress, constantly looking for every possible way he can turn America into a “Christian nation.” And he’s positively furious about the American Humanist Association sending a letter to new legislators asking them not to join the Congressional Prayer Caucus.
Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.), who founded the caucus in 2005, said the American Humanist Association is among the “extremist groups” that “want to make sure they’ve censored and shut down anything related to faith.” …
He said the atheist group — “in a situation that we have never seen before — actually wrote letters trying to get members not to join.”…
Forbes said he has no objection to atheists or anyone else saying whatever they want to say. “The unfortunate thing is these extremist groups don’t give us the same right, and they want to censor our ability to say that we do believe in God and we do believe in our faith.”
Forbes said the atheists’ real agenda is to stop anyone in government from saying anything about God, faith or religion — and to stop anyone in the church from saying anything about government.
“And that’s clearly not the intention of the First Amendment and the Constitution as most of us know it.”
As usual, Forbes is full of shit. You can read the letter yourself. Apparently, writing a politely worded letter is “extremist” — when it’s done by atheists, of course.
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eamick
December 10, 2012 at 9:11 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m sure the appearance of the name of the Honorable Mr. Forbes in the letter had absolutely nothing to do with his labeling them an extremist group. No, not the least little bit.
michaeld
December 10, 2012 at 9:13 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
But of course they are made up of those militant atheists.
Michael Heath
December 10, 2012 at 9:13 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I didn’t find the letter all that convincing, the AHA described this caucus in fairly benign ways.
However, the AHA did expose the incredible dishonesty and hypocrisy of this prayer caucus by quoting their self-identified first purpose:
cry4turtles
December 10, 2012 at 9:23 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Maybe it will give some of the newbies the courage to say, “No thank you.”
gshelley
December 10, 2012 at 10:12 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well, I am sure that Forbes wouldn’t have sent out his own letter asking people to join, so he is probably only being consistent.
eamick
December 10, 2012 at 10:43 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I clearly should have worded it better. I was trying to imply that AHA’s mentioning of Forbes led to him labeling them an extremist group.
laurentweppe
December 10, 2012 at 12:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well: look at things this way: the far-right has tried since the end of WWII to look like civilized, courteous people instead of the frothing mob which gets a collective hardon everytime the possibility of enslaving, slaughtering, raping… people from another ethnic background is mentionned.
.
Its repeated attempt have so far not been very succesful, but one can understand how they might think that someone who actually manage to write a politely worded letter is probably also a frothing mad dog with an hardon for enslavement, collective rape and genocide, who’s just better at hiding it.
Marcus Ranum
December 10, 2012 at 9:48 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
My dad’s a historian, so you can imagine my surprise to hear that the American Historical Association was a terrorist organization…
Aliasalpha
December 10, 2012 at 11:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ooh, I thought this would be about the 80s band from Norway, frankly I’m slightly disappointed