It was reported in the Washington (DC) Blade that through a White House spokesperson, President Obama said he opposes the ban on LGBT participation in the Boy Scouts of America. The ban was recently affirmed after a secret two year evaluation. The President made a point to say he would not resign as Honorary President of the BSA. Does staying as the honorary president undercut his opposition to the ban?
On Monday July 16th, JT Eberhard, campus organizer and high school specialist for the Secular Student Alliance (SSA), posted about a letter SSA had received where an uninformed teacher had gloated about preventing students at the high school where he worked from forming a chapter of the SSA. Eberhard posted the contents of a letter he e-mailed to the administration of that high school and it points out in detail why the teacher’s actions are illegal not to mention bigoted. Just image the uproar if the teacher had done what he did to students wanting to form a religious group.
There is yet another dust up about a city council saying Christian prayers before meetings. Mount Vernon Ohio City Council previously held prayers at the beginning of their meetings then a resident sent a letter of complaint. Once the other people in town heard, then they complained about ending a “tradition”. Add to that mess is the comments the city council president made in a story on a local TV station – that he pledged an oath to God so he sees no problem with having the prayers during the meetings. He’s wrong of course.
Resident Ryan Kitko sent a letter of complaint to the council. He claimed – factually – that Christian prayers at the meeting slighted those who weren’t Christian or who had no religious beliefs.
This past Easter Sunday (April 8th), NBC’s “Meet the Press” had a panel discussion about religion’s place in politics, a panel that didn’t include any atheist voices. Rev Billy Graham’s daughter Anne Graham Lotz provided a bumper sticker moment when she declared, contrary to the Constitution’s prohibition on religious tests for office, she didn’t think an atheist should be President. It brought to my mind a 1963 rant of Alabama Governor George Wallace who declared the 14th amendment illegal. It seems Lotz and Wallace are “birds of a feather” and it’s disgraceful she would express such a bigoted statement on national television. It is yet another reason to support strict separation of church and state.
The membership of the panel on “Meet the Press” reminded me of the all-male panel of witnesses for the recent birth control coverage hearings in the US House of Representatives. The MTP Easter panel had zero atheists. Not even a token agnostic:
January 16th is National Religious Freedom Day. The day commemorates the Virginia General Assembly’s adoption of Thomas Jefferson’s landmark Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom on January 16, 1786. The Virginia Statute was the basis of the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution and also can be used to support Jefferson’s idea of the separation of church and state. The Religious Right have of course co-opted the day by mass marketing misleading information about what real religious freedom means in this country. Luckily, Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) has some help available to tell the truth.
The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was passed at a time when state support and protection of churches was the norm in what would become the United States. Thomas Jefferson offered the statute as a way to protect the church and the state. It is obvious from reading the text that separating church and state was the goal.
This weekend was the annual meeting of the religious right wing of the Republican party at the so-called Value Voters Summit. The name of the event is similar to other ironic names associated with cheap-labor conservatives like “Defense of Marriage Act” and “Clear Skies Act of 2003“. Being it’s election season, the current crop of GOP candidates show up to kiss the ring of the Family Research Council and they say some really stupid crap.
Newt Gingrich would ignore court rulings he didn’t agree with:
