Year: 2010

  • The pastor and the rent boy

    Baptist minister George Rekers co-founded influential right-wing Family Research Council, hired male prostitute to “carry heavy baggage.”

  • The document trail: William Levada

    The New York Times gives 81 pages of primary docs.

  • NY Times looks at Cardinal Levada’s record

    Complicated by the fact that his congregation’s decisions are shrouded in confidentiality rules.

  • It’s national prayerbook day

    So you’ve spent the day praying, right? Well not all of you of course, but those of you who are loyal citizens of the United States…and hey, why not, also those of you who want to show solidarity with devout Americans. No doubt there are some of you bending the knee or head-butting the floor in Swansea and Cracow, Lagos and Kinshasa, Bombay and Karachi, Lima and Santiago, Kyoto and Shanghai, just for the sake of showing that state-sponsored prayer must be supported by the united peoples of the world. Yes?

    Okay, I’ll stop now. I’ll just offer a thought from Americans United for Separation of Church and State:

    It’s obvious that Americans don’t need a government-sponsored day to pray. But this day has never really even been about prayer or the freedom to pray or not.

    Instead, the NDP has served as another opportunity for the Religious Right to exert its influence on our government and laws and send a not-so-subtle message that those who don’t agree with the Religious Right on theology are second-class citizens.

    Go, sing a song, read a poem, watch a hummingbird, or just scratch your bum and eat a chocolate bar.

  • Religious Right’s Public Piety Pageant Goes On

    But this year Shirley and James Dobson were not invited to the White House.

  • Jesus and Mo are sad about bigots

    Nobody seems to care what they think any more!

  • Letters for May, 2010

  • Behzti is no longer taboo

    Of course that doesn’t mean you can actually see it performed.

  • Philippa Stroud’s lawyers warn media

    Stroud denies belief that homosexuality is an illness, refuses comment on belief that it is demonic possession.

  • Ayala receives Templeton Prize in palace ceremony

    Ma Teresa, Billy Graham, not in opposition, often complementary, two windows, same world, different views.

  • Polygamy in France

    It can be a nice little earner for the men.

  • Beware the rising tide of

    Shaista Gohir is very generous.

    Legitimate criticism of Muslims who spew extremist rhetoric and commit criminal acts is acceptable.

    Oh. Thanks. We’re allowed to criticize people who commit criminal acts. That’s awfully nice of you.

    In France, where the headscarf has already been banned and a face veil ban likely to follow, only a couple of thousand women wear it out of 5 million Muslims.

    The headscarf has not been banned in France, of course; it’s been banned in public schools and other government buildings.

    Currently Muhammad is the second most popular boy’s name in Britain – if it tops the list of baby names, how long before there are calls to ban Muslims from naming their sons after their beloved prophet?

    Gee, I don’t know. Should we start stockpiling baked beans right now, just to be safe?

  • Real-time natural selection on crops and their pests

    You want evidence for natural selection? We’ve got evidence for natural selection.

  • BioLogos to scientists: stop advocating

    “It is important for scientists to emphasize that uncertainty is central to science.” Does that apply to religion too?

  • “The rising tide of Islamophobia”

    “How long before there are calls to ban Muslims from naming their sons after their beloved prophet?”

  • US Catholics critical of pope

    Yet they have “confidence in the Vatican to make changes to prevent abuse in the future.” Odd.

  • Ireland: Evangelicals demand “freedom”

    Of conscience and religion, which means not being legally obliged to serve gay people in public facilities.

  • Diversity in action

    Aygül Özkan said crosses and hijabs don’t belong in classrooms – and the Christian parties went berserk.

  • Urgent re-education

    And another thing. Where I come from, diversity training means something along the lines of learning not to express stupid dislike of people for absurd reasons such as race sex class sexual orientation foreignness and the like. But at the Foreign Office it apparently means more than that.

    All the staff involved in producing the memo are to be sent on “urgent diversity training”…”Although [the memo] was intended only for internal use, it was ill-judged, naive and disrespectful of some key tenets of the Catholic faith.”

    Clearly this urgent diversity training will be for the purpose of teaching staff to respect all key tenets of the Catholic faith – so “diversity” now means not just different kinds of people but different kinds of beliefs and “tenets,” and the underlying assumption is that they all have to be respected.

    But – but – but some ideas are just stupid and wrong. Some of the tenets of the Catholic church are just fictitious and wrong but others of them are harmful and wicked. People shouldn’t be trained to respect them. I can see the FO wanting narrowly vocational training in when to say what and to whom, although I’m not sure I can see extending that to internal memos – but I know I can’t see extending it to what to think, which is what this kind of “diversity training” amounts to.

  • What’s up in there?

    My friend Claire went to Denver and she saw something very nice there.

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