Here is another round-up of recent interesting posts from the Greater Blogosphere -- on the religious right and what people are doing about it.
Rob Boston writing on the
Wall of Separation, tells of the founding of a new organization that seeks, in the wake of the recent scandals at the Air Force Academy, to defend religious freedom in the military. Founder
Mikey Weinstein states:
"I created the Military Religious Freedom Foundation so that others could join in the fight to assure that our Armed Forces preserve the Constitutional guarantee of the separation of church and state and ensure that junior officers and enlisted personnel are protected from coercive proselytizing and evangelizing by their superiors."
Blog from the Captital has more on Weinstein and the ongoing scandal at the Air Force Academy:
The recently revised Air Force guidelines have been brought in to the lawsuit against the Academy regarding their religion policies:
Michael "Mikey" Weinstein, a 1977 graduate of the Air Force Academy, filed suit against the Air Force in federal court in Albuquerque in October. Weinstein and four other plaintiffs allege illegal proselytizing by evangelical Christian chaplains, officers and cadets at the Air Force Academy and throughout the service.
The plaintiffs -- including one of Weinstein's sons who is an Air Force officer -- filed a motion Thursday to amend the lawsuit, challenging the Air Force's "interim guidelines" on religious expression issued last month.
The latest filing seeks to add another plaintiff, Master Sgt. Phillip Burleigh of Alamogordo, N.M., a 24-year veteran. It alleges that Burleigh, an Air Force Reserve recruiter at Holloman Air Force Base, "has been subjected to regular and persistent proselytizing by his superior officers" against his will and "in violation of his constitutional rights."
And
Jeremy Leaming, also writing on the
Wall of Separation reports:
Despite fevered lobbying, Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue has failed again to convince the state's legislature to amend the state constitution and gut its provision for church-state separation.
For several years now, Perdue has been pressuring lawmakers to approve a proposal that would allow for public funding of religious work. The amendment is needed, he says, because Georgia's Constitution states, "No money shall ever be taken from public treasury, directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, sect, cult, or religious denomination or of any sectarian institution." He says that this prevents faith-based groups from providing social services, despite the fact that the Georgia Supreme Court recently affirmed that these organizations may use state money so long as they use it only for non-sectarian purposes... the Republican-controlled House of Representatives failed to muster the two-thirds majority vote needed to approve HR 1345.
Religion Clause reports:
The UC Berkeley News reports that last Monday, a San Francisco federal district court dismissed a suit that had been brought by a Santa Rosa couple who claimed that a University of California, Berkeley, website titled "Understanding Evolution" was used to promote religion. (See prior posting.) Without reaching the merits, the court held that plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the suit.
Chuck Currie has been keeping an eye on the Biblical Witness Fellowship an affiliate of the Institute on Religion and Democracy that has wreaked such havoc in the mainline churches. At
Street Prophets he states "
All They Have Are Lies."
Pastordan also
takes a dim view of the latest antigay "renewal" group operating in his denomination, the United Church of Christ.