Below is today’s column in the Washington Post (Sunday) exploring the growing infusion of religious pitches and policies in the presidential campaign. With the anniversary this week of the Danbury letter, this is a particularly good time to take account of the condition of the wall of separation. Today is also the day of the “Red Mass,” the annual religious service held with members of the Supreme Court before the start of their term and leading Republican and Democratic politicians. While the separation of church and state is not mentioned in the Constitution, this exchange cemented the phrase in our legal and cultural lexicon. The piece below does not delve into the meaning of the First Amendment and whether it can be read broadly or narrowly given its language and history. Even if one accepts that the establishment clause was only designed to prevent the creation of an official church, there remains the long-standing principle in politics and government against the intermingling of church and state. To put it simply, religion is back in politics. While the targeted religious minorities may have changed from Baptists to Muslims, the fight over separation has resumed with the same politicized piety that once tore this country apart.
Continue reading “Separation of Church and State? Not on the 2012 Campaign Trial”
Category: Religion
A new study from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy has identified an area of young adults who have been overlooked by prior campaigns: young evangelicals. The study found 80 percent of unmarried evangelical young adults have had sex. That is virtually the same (8 percent below) the national average. With a campaign infused with religiosity this year and all of the talk of “real America” versus urban America, the study challenges stereotypes.
Continue reading “Laying Hands Upon The Faithful (and Available): Study Finds 80 Percent of Unmarried Evangelical Young Adults Have Pre-Marital Sex”
A family in Pakistan is living in poverty and avoiding neighbors calling for their deaths. Their offense? The oldest daughter was raped and the family did not kill her as demanded as a matter of honor. Unlike hundreds of such girls killed in honor killings each year, Kainat Soomro, 17, is being supported by her family and refuses to back down in demanding justice for her kidnapping and gang rape.
Continue reading “Pakistani Religious Elders Order The Killing of Teenage Rape Victim For Losing Her Virginity Before Marriage”
In Bay Minette, Alabama, felons are being given the opportunity to climb the wall. Not the prison wall, mind you. The Alabama court and local police are helping felons over the wall of separation of church and state by giving convicted citizens an opportunity to avoid jail if they volunteer — so long as it is with a church.
Continue reading “Alabama Courts Give The Convicted The Choice Between Jail and Church”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
To my mind the greatest movie satire on the idiocy of the Cold War and the fear it inspired in humanity, was Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece “Dr. Strangelove, or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”, released in 1964. The plot in brief was, “An insane general starts a process to nuclear holocaust that a war room of politicians and generals frantically try to stop”. For those unfamiliar with one of the best American movies of all time check this link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057012/
Rent the movie if you haven’t seen it, for it will bring you dark laughter and present you with much to ponder. At the time of its release, some disparaged the movie as being un-credible in its characterizations and not believable in it premises. I hadn’t thought of the movie in years until I came across this article at the website Buzzflash.com titled “The Theology of Armageddon” by Robert Koehler. http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/13024 . The article is relatively brief, but well worth your time.
The article deals with a course titled “Nuclear Ethics and Nuclear Warfare” at Vandenberg Air Force Base, given under Air Force auspices. As the Robert Koehler states:
“(I)t turns out that the point of the mandatory course, which was recently canceled by the Air Force after officers of numerous faiths complained to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation about it and Truthout published an exposé in July, was to give officers in the first week of missile-launch training a Bible-verse-studded indoctrination in faux-Just War Theory (cynically known in the ranks as the “Jesus Loves Nukes” training)”.
What got me thinking of the movie Dr. Strangelove was a quote in the article from Dr. Wehrner Von Braun, which makes credible the satiric reality of the movies title character, Dr. Strangelove, hysterically portrayed as a heavily accented former NAZI, by Peter Sellers. Seller’s character was widely denounced as being unfair to Von Braun, at the time, but seeing this quote from him makes me wonder:
“We knew that we had created a new means of warfare and the question as to what nation . . . we were willing to entrust this brainchild of ours was a moral decision more than anything else,” von Braun is quoted as saying. “We wanted to see the world spared another conflict such as Germany had just been through and we felt that only by surrendering such a weapon to people who are guided by the Bible could such an assurance to the world be best secured.”
To me this is post facto justification by von Braun of his choice of the comfort of an honored life in the U.S. mirroring his NAZI lifestyle and providing a sop to detract from the truth that he was an enthusiastic war criminal. Von Braun had developed the V (I & II) guided missiles for the NAZI’s and became the head of the United States Ballistic Missile Program. Von Braun was a NAZI Party member of distinction and it seems dedication. His missiles fell upon Great Britain in the closing days of WW II as an attempt to cause terror within the British people and were random in their destruction. That he then became an honored man in the U.S., rather than a defendant at Nuremburg, is a tribute to our own hypocrisy in prosecuting the Cold War. A similar mindset seems to have infected some in our Air Force as I will show. Continue reading “As We Careen Towards a Dream of Armageddon”
There is an interesting controversy in Fort Worth, Texas where Dakota Ary, an honors student was suspended for turning to another student in his German class and saying that he viewed homosexuality as wrong. The teacher at Western Hills High School became angry in overhearing the comment and accused Ary of being a bully.
Continue reading “Student Disciplined For Telling Friend In Class That He Views Homosexuality As Wrong”
Councilman Lewis Fidler (D-Brooklyn) is calling for the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) to pull down ads critical of funding for Israel. Fidler is demanding that MTA President Thomas Prendergast put an end to billboards calling for an end to funding for Israel as “a highly political campaign with a controversial underlying anti-Israel message.” Apparently, amid all of the graffiti and ads and pamphlets in the MTA there is no room for messages critical of Israel. Fidler wrote I would urge you to disallow and/or remove these advertisements.”
Continue reading “Fidler in the Subway: New York Council Member Calls For Censorship of Pro-Palestinian Ads in Subway”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Most people who regularly visit this blog know that I am Jewish. While I am not what one would call a pious Jew, being a Deist in outlook, I have always been very proud of my ethnicity and of the religion, which plays a central part in it. From their infancy, my children were immersed in Judaism both through education and by our family regularly taking part in Jewish Rituals, including regular Synagogue attendance. Where I part personally from normative Judaism is that I view the Torah, The Five Books of Moses, as primarily allegory with some real history thrown in. To me it is a work of some wise and some not so wise men, not the writings of God. I believe and have seen demonstrated in many families though, that the Torah and its 613 Commandments can serve as blueprint for living a fulfilling life.
The issue becomes complicated when it comes to my feelings about Israel. To me the existence ofI srael is a necessity for Jews to have a future in this world and if it comes to it, a final haven to make our last stand. I am an American first, so I would not willingly emigrate away from the country of my birth, unless those who hate Jews come to power. Contrary to the opinion of many, Jews are far from being a homogeneous ethnicity/religion. One cannot for instance refer to being an Orthodox Jew with any precision of description since that movement is in itself splintered on many details of interpretation. This is true of the other main branches of Judaism: Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionism. Perhaps it is because there is no central Jewish religious authority speaking for all Jews, as much as organizations like ADL, AIPAC, et. al. would claim to, that the range of Jewish opinion is so wide on so many subjects.
This brings me to an article I read at the PublicEye.org titled: “The New Christian Zionism and the Jews”. Its’ thesis is that many Jewish supporters of Israel and the current Israeli government have allied themselves with Christian Fundamentalists whose “love” for Israel and Jews come from the wish to fulfill the prophecies of The Book of Revelations, where in fact Jews not willing to accept Jesus, will die in a horrid holocaust. This trend has been one disturbing me for a long time. I have watched Jews and Israeli’s embrace Fundamentalist Christian support, in what to me is a shortsighted and irrational policy. This could be justified by saying that a country takes its allies where one can get them. Sometimes what seems an example of realpolitik is merely an instance of dangerously narrow opportunism, as I will elaborate. Continue reading “The Christian Zionist Movement and Jewish Confusion”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
St. Xavier is an all-boys Jesuit high school in Cincinnati, Ohio. During a football game with long-standing intra-city rival Colerain, the St. Xavier student section chanted “We’ve got Jesus!”, moments after Colerain missed a game-tying field goal. Do they really think that Jesus cares about who wins a football game?
The Colerain student body responded with their own chant: “We’ve got girls!”
While St. Xavier won the football game, by a score of 17-14, they lost the chant war.
H/T: Yahoo! Sports.
The marriage vows may say “for better or for worse” and “in sickness and in health,” but Rev. Pat Robertson told his “700 Club” viewers that divorcing a spouse with Alzheimer’s is just fine. Robertson says that the vows say “until death do us part” and Alzheimer’s should be viewed as a type of death.
Continue reading “Until Death [or Dementia] Do Us Part? Robertson Says It Is OK To Divorce Spouses With Alzheimer’s”
The Obama Administration is trying to quietly kill the move for recognition of a Palestinian state, particularly after the loss of Anthony Weiner’s seat in the House due in part to an angry backlash by Jewish voters over support of Israel. Other countries have said it is time and momentum appeared to be with the Palestinians . . . at least until the Palestine Liberation Organization’s ambassador Maen Areikat to the United States decided to add his views. Areikat described his vision of a beautiful new free and independent state. The key component? No Jews.
Continue reading “PLO Ambassador Declares New Palestinian State Would Be Jew Free”
The State of North Carolina is about to pay litigation costs to fight for the right to favor pro-life citizens over pro-choose citizens. The state has approved “Choose Life” license plates while steadfastly refusing to allow a pro-choose plate. Now, at a time of budget shortfalls and unemployment, the state will pay to litigate for the right to discriminate on the basis of the content of such messages.
Continue reading “North Carolina Sued For Issuing Pro-Life License Plates While Refusing To Issue Pro-Choice Plates”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Erskine College is a small, private, four year Christian liberal arts college located in South Carolina. William Crenshaw, who taught at the college for 35 years, earning tenure, an endowed chair, and teaching awards was fired for his dissent of Erskine’s teaching of science.
Continue reading “Erskine College Professor Fired For Supporting Science”
Scientists have again embarrassed themselves . . . this time in that fanciful Science Magazine. While creationists (including many of the GOP presidential contenders) have shown that the Earth is only 6000 years old, scientists insist that they have found Australopithecus sediba fossils with the skull, pelvis, hands and feet of the ancient hominin. The fossils with both ape and human characteristics were unearthed three years ago in South Africa.
It may be true that “Ye cannot serve God and mammon,” but Jay Sekulow, the advocate for conservative religious causes, seems to have found a way. A new report alleges that Sekulow and his family have reaped millions in defending religious organizations and fighting the separation of church and state. What is clear is that his decision to fight for religious groups did not involve a vow of poverty.
Continue reading “Making Millions From Mammon? Jay Sekulow Accused Of Funneling Millions To Family”