This year’s competition for the top opinion blog by the American Bar Association has become an intense race between our blog and one of the largest conservative legal blogs, Volokh Conspiracy. Even though VC is one of the largest blogs in the country, we are only a couple of dozen votes away with voting closing on December 31st. We need every vote so please spread the word to civil libertarians and others that we need their support to pull off the ultimate David and Goliath victory.
Continue reading “The Turley Blog Needs Your Vote! The ABA Competition Is Down To The Wire For Top Opinion Blog”
Category: Religion
It appears that scientists will not stop at anything to fabricate fossils older than 5,000 years old — the rough age established by the Bible according to some creationists. The scientists found the fossils in a quarry that date back to the Ordovician period. The range of the fossils is considerable from sponges and worms to nautiloids.
Continue reading “Another Darwinistic Plot? Scientists Find 450 Million Year Old Fossils in Quarry”
We have previously discussed attacks by orthodox Jews on women and others in Israel. The demand for segregation of the sexes however has triggered a national debate after accounts of women being asked to sit in the back of buses. There is also an outcry over Orthodox Jews ripping down any advertisements showing women in public areas.
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Christopher Hitchens died on 16 Dec. of pneumonia, a complication of his esophageal cancer. With eloquence and reason, sprinkled generously with wit and wisdom, his talks were a joy to listen to. His unique insights into religion will resonate long after his voice has been silenced.
The lawsuit in Kentucky is working its way through the legal system contesting a 2006 state law requiring state homeland security material to recognize the necessity of faith in God for true security. State Rep. Tom Riner, an ordained Baptist minister, has defended the law out of his belief that “the safety and security of the state cannot be achieved apart from recognizing our dependence upon God.”
Continue reading “In God We Trust: Kentucky Defends Law Requiring State Homeland Security Officers To Proclaim God’s Greatness”
My last column discussed how the Obama Administration is continuing its dangerous effort to appease Muslim allies in establishing limitations on free speech to combat “intolerance” for religion. Yesterday, there was an interesting article from Indonesia where police raided punk parties and took kids into custody to be “spiritually cleansed” in the name of Sharia law. Police insisted that the shaving of their heads and other abuses were perfectly consistent with human rights law because it was benefiting the subjects.
Religious folk in California are outraged after learning that atheists won the right to 14 out of 21 spaces for holiday scenes. The city has a lottery system and, while God may not have favored them, fate did in selecting two atheists with claims to over two dozen spaces.
Continue reading “Religious Groups in Santa Monica Call For Changes After Atheists Win Majority of Places Set Aside For Holiday Scenes”
The Saudi Kingdom has now executed yet another “sorcerer” — part of a continuing trend in Muslim countries in arrested suspecting Genies and sorcerers in the name of Allah. In this case, the Saudis appear to have arrested a garden-variety carnival healer — a woman saying that she could heal illness for $800 per session.
Continue reading “Saudi Kingdom Executes “Sorceress””
Below is my column today in The Los Angeles Times on the conference this week in Washington on religious speech. I have previously written about the Obama Administration’s break with past policies to support Muslim countries in cracking down on speech deemed “defamatory” to religion. While the latest resolution does not repeat the defamation language, the purpose remains unchanged and the dangers for free speech are obvious. The non-binding resolution was passed in March, largely in response to the assassinations of two Pakistani officials who had spoken out against the nation’s blasphemy law. Ironically, however, the resolution will likely reinforce the right of countries to criminalize anti-religious speech and blasphemy laws.
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
If Republican Sen. Bill Heath’s bill, Senate Bill 293, is enacted the phrase “In God We Trust” will be printed in the area where the county name used to go. While many states sell, at an extra cost, specialty plate with the phrase, the Georgia plate will be the default plate.
Continue reading “Georgia Bill Will Put “In God We Trust” On All License Plates”
Yeshiva University has taken a step that appears to affirm that it is religious first and a university second. The school’s study body stripped an online student newspaper of funding over a column that discussed a sexual encounter between two students. The attack on free speech and free press occurred after the students rightfully refused to censure their own newspaper and writer. It is a shameful act by Yeshiva that puts the university squarely in the category of intolerant, orthodox institutions — a blow to many faculty and students who have struggled to make Yeshiva something more than a school teaching Jewish values.
Continue reading “Yeshiva University Strips Newspaper Of Funding For Standing Up For Journalistic Principle and Refusing To Retract Article”
It appears that cucumber farmers are equivalent to pornographers in some religious circles. We previously saw how a grocer in Iraq was killed for putting fruits and vegetable together that might be sexually suggestive. Now, an Islamic cleric in Europe has issued his own warning to Muslim women not to get close to cucumbers, bananas or other sexually suggestive fruit.
Continue reading “Do Not Handle The Fruit: European Cleric Warns Muslim Women Not To Handle Cucumbers, Bananas, and Other Sexually Suggestive Produce”
We have yet another blasphemy case. A Saudi Arabian court has sentenced Australian national Mansor Almaribe to 500 lashes and a year in jail for insulting Muhammad during prayers in a pilgrimage to Mecca.
Continue reading “Saudi Court Orders Australian To Be Flogged 500 Times For Insulting Mohammad — and Sent To Jail For One Year”
I recently saw this video on YouTube and had to share it. It is the account of a leading Muslim cleric on the sexual delights that men will find in paradise. We have followed the plight of women in many Muslim countries on this blog and this video reveals the attitude that fosters such abuse, in my view. Many of us were unaware of the promise of the 72 virgins waiting for the faithful in Paradise until we were told that 9-11 hijackers believed in this promise. This video shows a deep-seated problem with women for his cleric, who wishes to pass it along to his followers.
Continue reading “Muslim Cleric Promises Muslim Men Locked Up Virgins in Paradise . . . And The Sexual Strength of 100 Men”
We have been watching the national and international campaign by leaders against atheists, who appear to be fair game for hateful, ill-informed rhetoric. Even Newt Gingrich (who has been criticized for violating two oaths to God in having affairs while married) has campaigned on the need for any candidate to be faithful. Recent polls show these statements are playing to the majority bias against non-believers. Now, researchers at the University of British Columbia and the University of Oregon have released the results of a study that shows that religious people would just as soon trust a rapist as they would an atheist or non-believer.
Continue reading “Poll: Atheists Trusted As Much As . . . Rapists”