Tag: civil rights

May 10, 2018

The religious right is at it again. This time, Republicans in Tennessee passed a measure allowing for the construction of a monument to the unborn “victims of abortion.”

What they should be calling it is a monument to the systematic oppression of women by a society that is still run unduly in large part by religious fanatics.

The Republican-led Tennessee House of Representatives already passed a bill, and the Tennessee State Senate added an amendment, sending the legislation back to the house before it went on to Republican Governor Bill Haslam. The proposal would raise private funds to erect what the Tennessee legislature is calling the “Tennessee Monument to Unborn Children, In Memory of the Victims of Abortion: Babies, Women and Men.”

November 7, 2017

With Halloween now in the rear-view mirror, we all know the world is about to jump on the Christmas bandwagon for the next two months. Never mind the fact that there’s a whole other national holiday in between the two (not that Thanksgiving doesn’t have its fundamental flaws as well, but that’s for another rant…).

Remember when Starbucks released its Christmas cup design back in 2015, and the entire world went nuts about it? Half the world seemed to be decrying the innocent cups as the end of civilization as we know it, while the other half of the world protested, “It’s just a cup! Get over it!”

March 16, 2017
Christians hate you

A recent post-election poll showed that white evangelical Christians are way outside the views of a majority of Americans on a lot of issues. For people interested in keeping the church and state separate, it really isn’t a surprise. How far white evangelicals are outside the majority points to one tough obstacle seculars face – white evangelicals confuse the loss of cultural dominance with oppression. Demanding a level playing field doesn’t take away from people who already have the privilege of sitting at the table.

December 22, 2016
image of A satanic pentagram erected by atheist Preston Smith lies damaged in Boca Raton's Sanborn Square, Fla. on Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2016
A satanic pentagram erected by atheist Preston Smith lies damaged in Boca Raton’s Sanborn Square, Fla. on Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2016

Every Holiday season is the same thing. We are told by conservatives that there is a ‘war on Christmas’ where saying ‘Merry Christmas’ isn’t allowed and public schools aren’t allowed to sing religious Christmas songs and how this will destroy our world… yadda yadda. The ‘war’ is poppycock but why is it that atheist or freethought holiday displays seem to be the only ones vandalized during the season? If there is a ‘war’, it is on inclusion not Christmas.

October 24, 2016
image of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump

Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, even using causal values, is a terrible person. He has been accused of groping women, admitted to being a pervert, has been married several times, and has some nasty views about women and minorities. Why then is he still getting support from the paladins of virtue – the evangelical Christian community? It really isn’t that hard to see why.

I’m not going to detail on how terrible a human being Trump is, you can search the Internet for details on those points but he has been accused of groping women without consent, admitted to being a pervert by walking into a beauty pageant dressing room without permission, he has been married at three times having started two of those relationships while still married to another wife, and has expressed some vulgar views of women and minorities during campaign stops and on twitter. Yet some evangelicals and their leaders still support Trump.

August 21, 2016
image of the logo for secular vote

The Secular Coalition for America (SCA) released its 2016 Presidential Voter Guides on Thursday August 18th. It consisted of eight areas of concern for the secular community and what each candidate said about those values, if available. The first two guides were for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and, as no surprise, Clinton was given an ‘A’ rating while Trump got an ‘F’.