I was flipping though the channels Saturday evening when I came across an hour long report by Brit Hume on the Fox News Channel. It was called “Religion in America: Church & State”. Yes, I took a shower after watching it. It was shown originally back in December when the fake “war on Christmas” was at its peak. Unfortunately it was not “a fair and balanced examination”. In fact, the report had a definite point of view and a majority of the talking heads were people opposed to religious liberty by keeping government neutral in religion. It also showed how a biased view point and selective evidence can slant what is called a news report.
Category: Lies
I posted earlier about not having a transcript or article about the recent “The War on Christians and Values Voters in 2006” hosted by the religious right front group Vision America. I had an idea of what would be talked about – same old same old tired arguments – but I wanted to read about the conference and maybe some details about it. Thanks to the blog Writing Right, I was led to an article on the People for the American Way site that gave me what I needed.
On March 29th it was reported that the Borders bookstore chain had decided not to stock the April/May issue of the “Free Inquiry” magazine. The chain claimed it was concerned about the safety of their customers because the issue of the magazine would include a selection of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that had been published in a Danish newspaper back in September However Secular Left has learned that Borders looked the other way when a conservative magazine, “The Weekly Standard” published an article about the cartoons AND included a full color photo of the Danish newspaper with the cartoons.
With 2006 being an election year, the Ohio legislature was busy trying to pass some laws that would show voters how important they were – even though a closer look would show that the legislature was pandering. Election year pandering takes the form of passing laws addressing some issue that 99% of the population would agree with and that wouldn’t bite them in the ass while campaigning. This year the issue is sex abuse against children. Another law directed at Catholic Priests who have abused children was changed after heavy lobbying by US Bishops. While the law includes a requirement of the Church to report suspected abuse and creates a registry of non-convicted abusive Priests (those who are held liable in civil court after a trial but who’s criminal statute of limitations have run out), a provision to allow previous victims a chance to file civil suits for old cases was removed.
While cruising the Internet the other day, I came across a post by Adam Graham on his blog titled “Why You Can’t Trust the Left on Religious Freedom”. In the post he talks about the recent case of a man in Afghanistan who is under threat of execution for converting to Christianity. Afghanistan, although free of the mega-zelots, the Taliban, still bases their laws on sharia, or Islamic law. Graham takes another blogger to task for complaining about some religious conservatives from the US who complained about the persecution of the man. At one point he makes the statement: “Wow, and like I said, that’s why you can’t trust the left with religious liberty. First of all, do I think Russ would ever do violence against religious people? No. But what it shows is that Russ takes a flippant attitude towards it.” I had to respond to the post.
The American Atheist AANews list reported on 3/13 that the American Legion, the largest war veteran’s group in the country, has announced its support for a law, introduced by Rep. John Hostettler, R-Ind., that would forbid judges from awarding compensatory fees in Establishment Clause cases. What also disturbs me is the group representing war veterans, the same people who like to claim they fought for our rights, would support such un-American law in the name of religion. When did special rights for religion become more important than the Constitution?