Ed Brayton » Dispatches from the Culture Wars

Ed Brayton

Author's details

Name: Ed Brayton
Date registered: June 30, 2011
URL: http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches

Biography

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

Latest posts

Rand Paul Cares About Christian Persecution — June 18, 2013
Meet Murray’s New Book — Same as the Old Book — June 18, 2013
Religious Privilege and Citizenship — June 18, 2013
Lessig: NSA Revelations Won’t Change Anything — June 18, 2013
Why I Love Patton Oswalt — June 18, 2013

Most commented posts

It Appears I’ve Started An ‘Atheist Cult’ — 842 comments
Shermer and the Myth of Feminist Persecution — 405 comments
Major Changes at Freethought Blogs — 390 comments
Professor: Rape is Okay if Woman is Unconscious — 375 comments
Butler: Arrest Anti-Muslim Filmmaker — 258 comments

Author's posts listings

Jun 17 2013

Islamophobia in Action

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More video is coming out from that event held in Tennessee last week by a Muslim group, prompted by a local politician posting a meme on his Facebook page showing a shotgun pointed at the camera and saying “how to wink at a Muslim.” Pam Geller and hundreds of others showed up to protest it, …

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Jun 17 2013

FFRF Files Suit Over Atheist Book Distribution

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Church and State, Constitutional law

You may remember that a few weeks ago a number of atheist-themed books and pamphlets were passively distributed in public schools in Orange County, Florida. This was done because the school had allowed a Christian group to distribute Bibles in that same manner earlier and the school agreed that it was a limited public forum. …

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Jun 17 2013

‘Psychic’ to Pay Millions for Defamatory Statements

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A “psychic” in Texas who went to law enforcement authorities and told them that she was sure a local couple had a mass grave full of dismembered bodies of people they’d killed has been ordered to pay nearly $7 million in damages to that couple. Insert the obvious “she should have seen this coming” joke …

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Jun 17 2013

Starnes Freaks Out About Flag Tablecloth

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Todd Starnes, Fox News’ Executive Vice President for Pearl Clutching, is having one of his usual tantrums about HGTV offering a tip to use a nylon American flag as a tablecloth for 4th of July picnics and celebrations. ZOMG! That’s a violation of the flag code!

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Jun 17 2013

Racists Explode at Latino Singing National Anthem

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Before game three of the NBA finals between San Antonio and Miami, the national anthem was sung by Sebastian De La Cruz, an 11 year old San Antonio native with a spectacular voice. Naturally, a bunch of racist assholes went ballistic over it on Twitter, spewing bigotry like a fountain.

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Jun 17 2013

God Hates Crippled People

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Religious Barbarism, Religious Weirdness

Leviticus 21 is a fascinating chapter in the Bible, containing the rules for priests who must offer up the sacrifice of food to God. The priests must remain “pure” and avoid anything that is “unclean.” And anyone who has the slightest defect is not allowed near the altar of God.

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Jun 17 2013

Justice Kennedy and Gender Discrimination

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Constitutional law, Equality

Sonja West has an article at Slate about one intriguing possibility for how the two marriage equality cases could turn out. She points to a key question asked by Justice Kennedy, who will almost certainly be the swing vote as usual, during the oral argument in the Prop 8 case.

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Jun 17 2013

Nance: Christians Should Focus on Gay Marriage, not Sex Trafficking

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Equality, Wingnuttia

Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America has a column in the Christian Post claiming that Christian ministers have their priorities wrong if they focus more on sex trafficking than on stopping gay marriage. But she only says this because she loves gay people so much:

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Jun 16 2013

That’s My Father

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It’s Father’s Day, so I’d like to reprint something I wrote when my father turned 70 years old. He’s about to turn 78 and he is still the best man I know. Everything good that I am came from him, though unfortunately I failed to follow his good example in far too many ways. This …

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Jun 16 2013

Hannity’s Convenient Flip Flop on NSA Surveillance

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Civil Liberties, Privacy, Wingnuttia

Like Bill O’Reilly and many others, including many liberals unfortunately, Sean Hannity’s position on government surveillance has taken a mighty swing in the other direction now that Obama is in office instead of Bush. When Bush was in office, questioning NSA data mining makes one “weak on national security.” Now that Obama is in office, …

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Jun 16 2013

Pat Robertson’s Staggering Lack of Irony

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Bill Hicks once said, “That’s what fundamentalism breeds — no irony.” Not that they don’t generate a great deal of it, but that they seem completely oblivious to it. Pat Robertson is a textbook example, telling his followers to beware of false prophets while making dozens of false predictions himself. Now he’s told a reader …

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Jun 16 2013

Beck: Cruz Thinks I Could Be Imprisoned

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Glenn Beck had a powwow with some of the crazier far-right members of Congress recently, including Sen. Ted Cruz. And he says Cruz told him that he could envision him someday becoming a political prisoner to prevent him from speaking out. Seriously, the paranoid persecution complex of the right simply knows no bounds.

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Jun 16 2013

Why Illegal Surveillance Matters

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Civil Liberties, Executive Power, Privacy

Chris Hayes has been doing an excellent job of examining the recent revelations about illegal government spying, including this segment explaining why history teaches that we should be very concerned about the abuses of government surveillance, especially when it’s done without serious checks and balances. He makes many of the same points I’ve made about …

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Jun 15 2013

Dumbass Quote of the Day

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Environment, Wingnuttia

Rep. Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma is staking a strong claim to join the Republican Crazy Caucus with this utterly moronic and hypocritical declaration on the House floor, falsely claiming that the federal government spends 30 times more on climate change research than on weather prediction — and that Obama should apologize for that.

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Jun 15 2013

MA to Get Secular Recovery Program

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The American Humanist Association made a great announcement the other day, that medical authorities in the state of Massachusetts are going to begin giving people the option of referral to secular recovery programs as an alternative to religious programs like AA and NA.

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