Will Obama be the next Holier than thou President?  What about Gay Rights, Choice, Freedom of Religion, Equality for all.  Help!  Tell me his faith will not interfear with his position as President.  Please, Please, Obama Supporters tell me he is not going to rule as the next GW Bush - Religious Leader-n-Chief.  Help!!!  My biggest fear is the thought of another President and his story about how JESUS came to him.

From: http://www.cbn.com/...

If you remember, a while back a Pastor Hayes Wicker of Naples had this to say about gay marriage:

This is a tremendous social crisis, greater even than the issue of slavery.

Not surprisingly, a lot of people, such as myself had some problems with that statement.

Wicker, for some reason, took umbrage at the outrage against his hate speech.  Here's what he said in a letter to the editor:

That's the headline from an article in The Observer yesterday.  It describes an honor killing in Basra, where a 17-year-old girl was stomped to death by her father for talking to a British soldier -- "the enemy, the invader and a Christian".

Well, it's been a long time since I posted and received the wrath of dKos for pointing out the obvious for stating this, but I'll do so again: this is another example of how religion kills.  

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive opinions.

2 Peter 2:1*

People are happy and excited now that an end is finally in sight for this godawful primary season. No reason they shouldn't be: it's tough on everybody. But we should resist the temptation to read uncritically every apparent piece of good news for Barack Obama. There's been a fair amount of baloney published already about the presumptive nominee, and more to come.

I have been what you might call a "believer" for quite a while. It has grieved me to live where fellow believers voted in strict accordance with politicians who did not exhibit the better parts of my belief system. It is difficult to grapple with one’s own beliefs. It is even harder to argue them with someone who refuses to think. It is hard to discuss issues with someone who will not accept facts as being fact. It is very difficult to sway someone, even a little, when they refuse to recognize that facts have a value beyond your beliefs.

This series is stimulated by Dorion Sagan's book Notes from the Holocene {A Brief History of the Future}  The first of the series My first Eco-diary:  The earth is Alive? stirred up some calls for more so here it is.  I've provided the link for those who missed the first installment and I'll also make this as self contained as possible.  For the more rigid scientific types, Sagan has the following warning

WARNING: This book contains wild speculations:
READ AT YOUR OWN RISK*

*This statement has not been verified by the FDA, MDA, USDA, APA, DEA, GSA, CIA, NSA, AA, AAA, or AAAA

 Let us look a little further into this man's very innovative mind.  Again, we are here to try out some ideas not to cull through data.

Today I received an email from the group Brave New Films that makes liberal political videos for the web. This email was about one that they teamed with Mother Jones to produce regarding McCain's relationship with the Rev. Ron Parsley. It's worth taking a look at when you get the chance.

But it got me to thinking, is there really a racist bias in the MSM regarding this presidential campaign and might it show up particularly in stories involving religion?

The war in Iraq continues, there is a disaster in Burma and the price of oil is very, very high.

So, wa can be more important? Banning books!

The American library association publishes a list of most "challenged" books, books that get most complaints from the public.

Yes, Gay penguins did well..see all the winners after the flip.

When I arrived at JFK November of 1999, I was in some respects the classical immigrant. I was certainly tired. I was quite poor. And after a six hour flight, I was most definitely a huddled mass yearning to breathe free. And I spent a time in this country acting as many immigrants do - working hard, keeping my head down, and not making any trouble. Even when you are perfectly legal, married to a citizen, speak the language, and have a decent job, it pays not to make waves around here.

In the time since then I have done much to assimilate myself into the American culture. I have visited all 50 states. I am addicted to baseball, both as a spectator and a player. I have become something of a historian of Brooklyn, my adopted home. But I have remained disengaged from the political process, even as the government of this country has become still more corrupt and self serving than I could have imagined. It's time I made an effort. And this post is my starting point.

Below is a comment I posted to an open thread Diary on 6 May 2008. It is in response to a post about the interracial marriage of Mildred and Richard Loving in the l950's and the legal fights they had to go through. My response brought up the current problems that same sex partners now have in relation to religion and the law. I decided that a separate diary entry would allow others who are interested in this debate about same sex marriage to discuss it here.

I never thought I'd find it, but this news article is an example of everything that's wrong with America. At the intersection of religion and consumerism we have a energy strategy so ridiculous that I can't believe Bush hasn't already made it his official energy policy.

During his tenure, George W. Bush increased government spending fourfold.  As a typical Republican Mr. Bush relaxed government regulation of health and safety issues which affect our daily lives and tripled government oversight of our daily private lives.

The revelation that an Austrian man held his own daughter captive in a dungeon for 24 years, raping and beating her the entire time and forcing her to bear seven children by him got me thinking about the idea of hell.

Police in Austria say Josef Fritzl may have planned the dungeon in which he incarcerated his daughter Elisabeth as early as 1978 - when she was 12.

Hell is commonly conceived of as uncannily similar to the life this captive woman had, except that it lasts forever instead of 24 years. And people go there not because a sick monster puts them there, but because a supposedly loving God, creator of the Universe, puts them there for not believing that a guy who lived in Palestine about 2000 years ago is his son and also part of a 3-way God creature with him.

We all know the classic line by Roosevelt about 'fear'.  Conversely, we all know how the 'fear-card' has been played by the Bush administration ( and echoed by all their little droogies across the land ).  Unfortunately, very few Democrats in the House and Senate have had the sand enough to call each and every bluff - they feared their hand wasn't strong, ended-up playin their cards so close to their chest that they forgot what they held.  Those that have stepped-up have either done so with lack-luster results or simply no result at all.  

We are seen by corporations as nothing more than consumers.  We watch American Idol, or Desperate Housewives, or reality progams currently piting has-been rockers of the 80s against former child-stars of the 70's in death-combat-style dance-offs and we absorb every gimmicky new product in every commercial.  We read magazines, newspapers, are pelted with pop-up ads on the internet, sales circulars in the mail, on and on and on.  And we buy - buy - buy - buy!!!!

The same standard seems to hold true when judging people's patriotism.  If you are afraid, and you consume, then you're almost a "partiot".........but not quite yet.

More of my random philosophical ramblings below the flip ------>

I've written quite a lot on the subject of coercive "behaviour modification" facilities in past--including legislative efforts to stop the industry in its tracks as well as exposes of their heavy usage as a dominionist "parallel economy" alternative to legit mental health and info on gross abuses in these facilities.

Over the past few days, we have focused on a specific chain of these facilities (which have been compared to Abu Ghraib)--Teen Challenge, a chain of Assemblies-run "faith based rehabs" that was the target of a "get out of jail free" deregulation of the "kiddie gulag" industry in Texas by none other than George W. Bush.

In our final installment, we note how Abu Ghraib and Gitmo aren't the only abusive facilities getting tax dollars--both by direct funding and by welfare fraud, Teen Challenge gets quite a bit of your tax money for institutionalised abuse...and Dubya is still to this day bailing them out when they're caught doing something wrong.  

I have read a number of posts, on this site and elsewhere, attributing the different response of some people to the pronouncements of Rev. Wright on the one hand, and of the Revs. Falwell, Hagee, Robertson etc. on the other, to the race of the preachers.  The point being made is that it's more acceptable for a white minister to make derogatory comments about certain groups of people, and to say that God is punishing America for various sins, than it is for a black minister to make such comments.  I'm certainly prepared to believe that race is a factor.  But I think a bigger factor is whose ox is getting gored.  

Bioethicist Steven Miles -- author of Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity, and the War on Terror  -- sends us this extremely moving talk he gave to St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church. Miles deals here with the moral challenges posed by torture and the ways in which torture affects all of us by destroying community.

I've written quite a lot on the subject of coercive "behaviour modification" facilities in past--including legislative efforts to stop the industry in its tracks as well as exposes of their heavy usage as a dominionist "parallel economy" alternative to legit mental health and info on gross abuses in these facilities.

Over the next few days, we are going to focus on a specific chain of these facilities (which have been compared to Abu Ghraib)--Teen Challenge, a chain of Assemblies-run "faith based rehabs" that was the target of a "get out of jail free" deregulation of the "kiddie gulag" industry in Texas by none other than George W. Bush.

In the latest installment of this series, we focus on an increasing trend of using Teen Challenge as "alternative sentencing"--and to add insult to injury, the use of "indemnity contracts" by Teen Challenge to prevent lawsuits by survivors who manage to escape.