ebonlock | Entries tagged with religion

via No More Mister Nice Blog:
Missouri House gives first OK to constitutional amendment emphasizing the right to pray

The Missouri House gave preliminary approval Monday to a proposed constitutional amendment that would emphasize the right to pray in any public setting, including public schools.

The action came after more than an hour of spirited debate over whether such an amendment would make any difference and whether the names of individual deities should be inserted into the Constitution.

At one point, lawmakers voted to insert into the Constitution a citizen's right to acknowledge "the inerrancy of the Bible." But they deleted that reference on a subsequent vote.

...Republicans, including the proposal's sponsor, Rep. Mike McGhee of Odessa, acknowledged that the new wording would not change the law. But McGhee said it was needed to highlight that children had the right to carry Bibles on school buses and could write about Jesus in class.

Rep. Jim Lembke, a St. Louis County Republican, said "you can't get much clearer" than the current Missouri Constitution's guarantee of religious freedom. But the new wording would be a rebuke to people who have tried to outlaw prayer in public schools and sought the removal of the Ten Commandments from public places.

"This will send a clear message to people who might want to mess with those rights to keep their hands off," Lembke said.

Rep. Trent Skaggs, a North Kansas City Democrat, demanded to know where Bible-toting children had not been allowed to ride school buses. McGhee said he didn't know the location.

And here's the money shot:

The sometimes wild maneuvering reflected the feeling of most Democrats that the proposal was nothing more than meaningless verbiage designed to go on the ballot to drive religious conservatives to the polls in November.

Republicans using the terminal stupidity of the religious whackjobs convinced they're under siege by their liberal fascist secularist overlords...well color me stunned.

Love to say I'm shocked by this, but...:

A Wiccan display put atop City Hall last week after a nativity scene was set up was vandalized early Monday, police said.

A Green Bay police officer was flagged down just before 12:45 a.m. by a citizen who reported seeing someone on a ladder taking down a decoration.

The ladder was left at the scene and the partially damaged Wiccan wreath that was taken down was found behind some shrubs nearby.

The Wiccan display including the wreath encircling a gold five-pointed star was put up Friday at City Hall after Green Bay City Council president Chad Fradette received the go-ahead earlier last week from the city's advisory committee to install a nativity display....

But wait, it gets better:

Mayor Jim Schmitt's declared moratorium Monday on religious displays at City Hall did little to quell the furor that erupted in the days following the installation of a nativity scene on an entrance roof last week.

After police announced Monday someone stole and damaged a Wiccan display overnight that had been placed on the roof Friday, Schmitt ordered that it wouldn't be replaced and that no other displays would be permitted until the City Council debates the issue tonight.

Schmitt's declaration means that the nativity scene, placed by Council President Chad Fradette last Tuesday, is the only holiday display over City Hall's northwest entrance.

...Taku Ronsman, who identified herself as a member of the Unitarian Universalist faith, wanted to display a peace sign on the roof. The symbol represents one of the principals of her religion, she said.

"How is that fair to leave the manger up but not the non-Christian symbols?" she said when told her display would not go up.

Wendy Corriel brought a cross decorated with ornaments and wrapped in American flag cloth, a display she said symbolized the improper way that church and state were merging.

"I'm extremely irate," she said. "I feel like I don't have rights. This is not a religious battle, it's a fight for the constitution."

...[Mayor Scmitt] described other proposed displays as "silly." He was referring especially to the Festivus pole and was not familiar with the "Flying Spaghetti Monster" display that an aide told him had also been proposed Monday. The Flying Spaghetti Monster is an Internet-based parody of religion.

via No More Mister Nice Blog

Ok, about this piece "Falwell’s Flub: Jerry-Rigged Policy Opens Door For Pagan Proselytizing In Virginia Public School" I can but say, BWAHAHAHAHHAHA!

No, wait, I should be really mature and...*giggle*...oh fuck it, BWAHAHAHAHA!

A group of Pagans in Albemarle County, Va., was recently given permission to advertise their multi-cultural holiday program to public school children – and they have the Rev. Jerry Falwell to thank for it.

The dispute started last summer when Gabriel and Joshua Rakoski, twins who attend Hollymead Elementary School, sought permission to distribute fliers about their church’s Vacation Bible School to their peers via “backpack mail.” Many public schools use special folders placed in student backpacks to distribute notices about schools events and sometimes extra-curricular activities to parents.

School officials originally denied the request from the twins’ father, Ray Rakoski, citing a school policy barring “distribution of literature that is for partisan, sectarian, religious or political purposes.”

A Charlottesville weekly newspaper, The Hook, reports that Rakoski “sicced the Liberty Counsel on the county,” and the policy was soon revised to allow religious groups to use the backpack mail system. Liberty Counsel is a Religious Right legal group founded by Mathew Staver and now affiliated with Falwell.
[...]
Some local Pagans who attend Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church, a Unitarian-Universalist congregation in Charlottesville, decided to take advantage of the new forum as well. They created a one-page flier advertising a Dec. 9 event celebrating the December holidays with a Pagan twist and used the backpack system to invite the entire school community.

“Have you ever wondered what ‘Holidays’ refers to?” reads the flier. “Everyone knows about Christmas – but what else are people celebrating in December? Why do we celebrate the way we do?”

The flier invites people to “an educational program for children of all ages (and their adults), where we’ll explore the traditions of December and their origins, followed by a Pagan ritual to celebrate Yule.”

It concludes, “Come for one or both parts and bring your curiosity.”

Many members of this congregation are strong supporters of church-state separation who don’t believe public schools should promote any religion. But they were also unwilling to cede the field to Falwell and his fundamentalist allies. Falwell opened the backpack forum, and the Pagans were determined to secure equal time. {ed. note: Boo-yah, my Pagan brothers and sisters! About time we took the fight to the fundies!]

Suddenly not everyone was pleased by the open forum. Jeff Riddle, pastor of Jefferson Park Baptist Church in Charlottesville, wrote on his personal blog, “If the school allows the Baptist or Methodist church to send home a note to its students about Vacation Bible School, it also has to allow the Unitarian Church to send home a note about its ‘Pagan ritual to celebrate Yule’….This kind of note adds weight to the argument that it is high time for Christians to leave public schools for reasonable alternatives (homeschooling and private Christian schools).”

Another conservative Christian blogger in the county complained about finding the flier in her child’s folder. Apparently unaware of Falwell’s role in bringing it about, the blogger who goes by the name Cathy, noted disclaimer language at the bottom of the flier noting that the event is not connected to the school and wrote, “They [the school officials] aren’t endorsing or sponsoring this? Then it shouldn’t have been included in the Friday folders. The Friday folders have never been used for any thing other than school work and school board and/or County sanctioned/sponsored programs.”

She then fumed that a “pagan ritual” is “an educational experience my children don’t need.”

Well, Cathy and Jeff, it’s a new day. Your pals Falwell and Staver have opened up this forum, and now everyone gets to use it. Isn’t that what you wanted all along – freedom of religion? That freedom means all religions – even ones you don’t happen to like.

Oh man, it's like an early Yule present, thanks Jerry!

You have to give points to Fox's John Gibson whose piece on the "War on Christmas"(tm) at least lays it all out:

GIBSON: The whole point of this is that the tradition, the religious tradition of this country is tolerance, and that the same sense of tolerance that’s been granted by the majority to the minority over the years ought to go the other way too. Minorities ought to have the same sense of tolerance about the majority religion — Christianity — that they’ve been granted about their religions over the years.

PARSHALL: Exactly. John, I have to tell you, let me linger for a minute on that word “tolerance.” Because first of all, the people who like to promulgate that concept are the worst violators. They cannot tolerate Christianity, as an example.

GIBSON: Absolutely. I know — I know that.

PARSHALL: And number two, I have to tell you, I don’t know when they held this election and decided that tolerance was a transcendent value. I serve a god who, with a finger of fire, wrote, he will have no other gods before him. And he doesn’t tolerate sin, which is why he sent his son to the cross, but all of a sudden now, we jump up and down and celebrate the idea of tolerance. I think tolerance means accommodation, but it doesn’t necessarily mean acquiescence or wholehearted acceptance.

GIBSON: No, no, no. If you figure that — listen, we get a little theological here, and it’s probably a bit over my head, but I would think if somebody is going to be — have to answer for following the wrong religion, they’re not going to have to answer to me. We know who they’re going to have to answer to.

PARSHALL: Right.

GIBSON: And that’s fine. Let ‘em. But in the meantime, as long as they’re civil and behave, we tolerate the presence of other religions around us without causing trouble, and I think most Americans are fine with that tradition.

via The Poorman
As a well-behaved pagan, I thank my Christian overlords for their continued tolerance of my "wrong" religion.

And from the "Gee, really?" file:

The former Sept. 11 commission is giving Congress and the White House poor marks on protecting the U.S. against an inevitable terror attack because of their failure to enact several strong security measures.

The 10-member panel, equally divided between Republicans and Democrats, prepared to release a report Monday assessing how well their recommendations have been followed. They say the government deserves "more F's than A's" in responding to their 41 suggested changes.

"People are not paying attention," chairman Thomas Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, said Sunday. "God help us if we have another attack."

Since the commission's final report in July 2004, the government has enacted the centerpiece proposal to create a national intelligence director. But it has stalled on other ideas, including improving communication among emergency responders and shifting federal terrorism-fighting money so it goes to states based on risk level.

Bet all those Security Moms feel loads better now that Daddy McFlightsuit is watching over them with his steely-eyed squint. Or perhaps not.

Regarding my post yesterday on the openly misogynistic rantings of one Vox Day, TBogg lays the ultimate verbal smackdown:

At the risk of calling attention to a booger-eating spaz who says profoundly stupid things just to get people to pay attention to him, here we have Vox Day, the "Christian Libertarian commentator from WorldNetDaily" on rape (I refuse to link to the post)
[...]
Normally we would make a glib comment that Vox isn't getting much, or has "issues", or some other one-liner that is supposed to diminish him to, if not fringe status, a base object of ridicule. But it's pretty obvious from reading other posts on his blog that he's doing it for the attention. He has nothing to say, he's not particularly bright, he's a waste of time and bandwith which is why I didn't post the link. Day isn't stupid, but the fact that he isn't stupid doesn't make him any less of an idiot.

And he is an idiot.

Amen, brother.

And oh dear gods his bitch slapping of Christian Underground is too funny for words:

Apparently there is a movement afoot in America to rould up all the Christians and nail them to crosses and then feed them to lions and then burn their bones in bonfires made of confiscated Bibles... and I never got the memo.

At least that's the impression I get from christianunderground who are all, like, "bring it unto me, man" and I'm all, like, "who are you? Stop bothering me. Go away." and they're all, like, "I mean it, man. You're in for a world of peril cuz we're not gonna be kept down by the dominant atheistic culture", and I'm all, like...well, walking away because I don't give a shit.... and then they go out late at night for drive-by proselytizing.

But seriously you need to read Mike Sewell's response, which I should like to print verbatim on t-shirts:

Hey,

Pray to your gods wherever you want. Just don't make me do it, or tell me about it. I don't find it as interesting as you do.

Also, try not to pray in the middle of the street or in major throughways. A recent report has stated that traffic jams cost the Ontario public 4 billion per year in lost income, gas, etc. Delaying everyone isn't very productive.

Please don't pray in libraries, unless you do so silently. People are trying to read.

Prayer in subways or on major transit is not reccomended, neither is falling asleep. You should keep an eye on your belongings.

Depending on your job, prayer may not always be welcome there, either. For example, if you are a telemarketer or working in a phonce centre, asking your client if you can take 5 minutes to pray while they're on the phone is not considerate. As well, if you're an airline pilot or a bus driver, taking a timeout to pray may shake your passengers' faith in your ability to drive.

Rules for praying in movie theatres follow the rules for praying in libraries.

Please to not stop to pray while filling your gas tank. People are waiting behind you.

Prayer in prison may make you a target for rape. Just saying.

Praying in the middle of class could get you kicked out, and rightly so. The prof needs your full attention.

If someone asks you if you could pray somewhere else, keep in mind what it looks like you're doing. It appears that you're talking to yourself, which can put a normal person at unease. At all possible, try holding a cellphone while praying. That will definitely help with the creepiness factor.

Also, if asks you if you could pray somewhere else, or not to pray, or says that prayer is stupid because you're only talking to yourself, they are not persecuting you. Feeding you to a lion is persecuting you. Asking you to pray in your church or home is not. I, personally, enjoy singing showtunes. If I did it in the middle of a church, I wouldn't feel persecuted if someone asked me to stop.

Please don't tell non-religious people thay your praying for them or their souls. It's silly. Plus, we all know it's actually a veiled insult.

Your corpse nailed to a board is disturbing, and I don't necessarily think kids should see it. Again, just saying. Worshipping it is all well and good, but don't be surprised if other people feel the same way as I do.

Have fun with your website,
Mike

So of course they asked people to pray for him...