Texas wingnut Don McLeroy on the march

Cartoon from The Great Realization

We've written before about the chairman of the Texas State Board of Education, Don McLeroy, the christianist wingnut dentist.

McLeroy is endorsing a new book called Sowing Atheism: The National Academy of Sciences' Sinister Scheme to Teach Our Children They've Descended from Reptiles by Robert Bowie Johnson Jr., who just happened to "self-publish" the book.

In this book students in science classes in Texas will learn, according to the Texas Freedom Network, that "Scientists are 'atheists.' Parents who want to teach their children about evolution are 'monsters.' Pastors who support sound science are 'morons.'"


This would be hilarious if it wasn't so damn serious. How does a wingnut like McLeroy get to hold the position of chairman of any state board of education?

And again, all of this is an attempt to impose and install fundamentalist christianity into our public schools.

From the book: "Creationists do not want to bring religion into the classroom... Creationists simply want the God hypothesis brought back into the science classroom, and recognized for what it is--a scientifically valid hypothesis."

Heh, heh!

The "God hypothesis" is not "religion," according to this fruitcake!


TFN summarizes: "As bizzarre and abrasive as some of these ideas may be [in the book], clearly any yahoo with a half-baked idea can write and self-publish a book. That is not the important point here. The real issue is the inability of the chair of the Texas State Board of Education to distinguish between legitimate, mainstream science - a represented by the National Academy of Sciences - and a lone crackpot with an openly religious agenda."

I disagree to some degree. I think the chair of the Texas State Board of Education can distinguish quite clearly the difference between "legitimate mainstream science" and "a lone crackpot with an openly religious agenda."

I think the real point and the real problem is that the chair of the Texas State Board of Education cares not about science and students in Texas schools, but is doing everything in his power to ensure that his particular brand of fundamentalist christianity has a gateway to spread its pernicious doctrines in Texas schools.


Read the entire article here.

h/t to Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly via Alternet.

Florida wingnuts want to control your marriage

[Image of christianist wingnut, John Stemberger]

We have, in the state of Florida, a christianist wingnut group connected with James Dobson's Focus on the Family that wants to tell you if and when you have the right to get a divorce.

Not content to rest on their success in conning the voters to approve a horrendous anti-gay marriage amendment to the state constitution, these wingnuts, feeling their oats, now want to legislate standards of marriage.

John Stemberger, the chief wingnut of this outfit, has announced a program called "Strong Marriages Florida" which is supposed to lead to a 10% drop in the divorce rate in the state.

Why does this asshat care? He says this is being done to "serve the children, families, communities of Florida. ... The breakdown of families in our state brings not only high social costs to children whose lives are often devastated, but there is an enormous economic cost to taxpayers and to businesses."

Oh, right. Wingnuts care a lot of "enormous" economis costs!


The Palm Beach Post editorialized this way:

"Mr. Stemberger's group and its allies promoted the gay marriage ban that voters put in Florida's Constitution in November. Success in that campaign, which featured misinformation and religious intolerance, doesn't qualify the Florida Family Policy Council to be the state's marriage counselor."

You think?

Here's what these religious con artists think is the cat's meow:

* Waiting periods of up to two years before a divorce can be obtained. (Florida has no waiting period now)

* According to the Palm Beach Post, "An article on the Web site says that married couples with children should have to stay married unless both agree to the divorce of there has been a 'major fault,' such as abuse, adultery or desertion.'"


We agree that divorce is serious business and can be hurtful to all those involved. So why make it more hurtful? Why require a couple to wait two years, especially if they are seething with mutual hatred? Why require a couple with children to stay married when the marriage is broken?

I think these christianist fruitcakes really like to see people suffer. That's probably the reason the love the notion of hell; they can consign all of us who disagree with them to eternal torture! And won't that be grand?


This moronic bunch, like Dobson's outfit, are clearly and openly fundamentalist christianist organizations promoting fundamentalist christianist notions of morality; indeed their entire operation is geared to imposing that morality on the rest of us. I sure as hell hope they're not tax-exempt!

They are theocrats! The should be laughed at, derided, run out of town! They've already done too much damage by their intolerant promotion of hatred for gays. They must have no further say in legislating morality in the state of Florida or anywhere else.


Their website is here. More here. The Palm Beach Post editorial here. The best article on Stemberger is here.

h/t to Pensito Review

Abortion and breast cancer

[Race for the Cure - 2008 - Photo by Alex Bentley]

The christianist wingnuts are at it again!

An outfit called The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer (an "international" organization) which is dedicated to the notion that abortion may cause breast cancer, has put out a video titled "Komen's Dark Side."

According to christiannewswire, this video "exposes the irregular relationship between the breast cancer organization, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and Planned Parenthood and reports on the cover-up of the abortion-breast cancer (ABC) link."

Just so you know enough to avoid watching the damn thing, it's called "Facing Life Head-On," and selected cable outlets will feature it on March 8.

Here's what the video is all about:

1. ABC (abortion/breast cancer link) "makes good biological sense." (Notice this is a "belief" statement, not a scientific statement!)

2. The cancer fundraising industry is covering up the link in order to raise more money from its donors. (Notice this accuses the people dedicated to the eradication of cancer of criminal, or at least "sinful" activity: denying the abortion/breast cancer link just to raise money!)

3. The "abortion industry feminists lead the breast cancer raising industry."


It's all a crock, of course.

There is no link between abortion and breast cancer!

Christianists will lie about anything and everything because they operate from the position that the ends justify the means.

Read more here. And here. The Susan G. Komen organization here.

Texas atheists attack "godly" moment of school silence

[Image from constitutioncenter.org]

For most teachers, a moment of silence in a classroom is a rare and wonderful thing.

The State of Texas, however, mandates that, in Texas schools, as the school day begins, following the students mumbling their "allegiance" to the flags of the United States and the State of Texas, there be a "moment of silence."

In spite of the fact that said moment of silence is promoted as an opportunity for students to "reflect, pray, meditate, or engage in any other silent activity" that does bother other students, this is moment of silence is but a perverse means by which the christianist right got some sort of "prayer" in the public schools. It's a religious thing, as you shall see.

Other than in professional football, where do you see people come together and have a moment of silence before they get about their business?

Good christianists in Texas are all agog because an "atheist" couple from Carrollton have sued to get the moment of silence tossed from Texas schools.


On the other side, the right wing christianist Liberty Legal Institute, has stepped into the fray and filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing for the maintenance of the moment of silence. Kelly Shackelford, a legal beagle with the LLI, just can't understand why anyone would object.

It's so intolerant, he thinks. "You know," he said, "it's hard to understand these kinds of folks who are so intolerant that they don't want there to be a moment of silence to start the day. ...

"...I hope," whines Shackeford, "we are at a day and age where the idea of striking down times of a moment of silence where every kid gets a right to really pray or not pray or meditate or do whatever they want -- I hope we're at a day and age where we're not that hostile to religion..."


Aha. See! It's all about religion!

A moment of silence is no big deal. It's kind of stupid, though, when a teacher is trying to settle the kiddos down and get to the lesson plan, to have to monitor a moment of silence -- to make sure nobody is talking or whispering or passing notes or listening to their iPod or talking on a cell phone or text messaging or beating up on the person sitting in the seat in front.

What is about these christianists that they just can't keep their grubby little creepily "spiritual" hands off the public schools?

The christianist patriarchy movement

[Image from current.com]

The christianist wingnuts in our midst would like nothing better than to return to what they perceive as the "good old days."

I can remember when they began their latest battle against evolutionary theory. Actually, I was stunned, thinking it just wasn't possible. That particular fight was long over, arguments opposing the theory of evolution long since put to rest. Or, so I thought.


Just recently, when someone near and dear to me expressed her desire to be submissive to her new husband, I got a glimpse of a new cultural battle being waged called the "patriarchy movement," the goal of which is to spark "a counterrevolution to the feminist movement of the 1960s."

What?


Kathryn Joyce, at Religion Dispatches, tells the story in her article, "Women's 'Liberation' Through Submission: An Evangelical Anti-Feminism Is Born."

"This October," says Joyce, "more than 6,000 women gathered in Chicago for the True Woman Conference '08: a stadium-style event to promote what its proponents call 'biblical womanhood,' 'complementarianism,' or -- most bluntly -- 'the patriarchy movement.'"

According to the Associated Baptist Press, "an ambitious initiative ... arose from the meeting: a signature drive seeking 100,000 women to endorse its 'True Woman Manifesto,' which, the ABP writes, aims at sparking a counterrevolution to the feminist movement of the 1960s."

Joyce says that while only 3,000 women have signed this "manifesto," it is important to note that the women involved "don't view themselves simply as a remnant of polite, churchy women, holding out against a crass culture, but rather as a revolutionary body waging 'countercultural' rebellion against what they see as the feminist status quo."

They are counting on millions of women becoming part of this movement who are "able to capture all kinds of battlefronts for Christ."


Here's what they believe: "women and men were designed to reflect God in 'complementary and distinct ways'; that today's culture has gone astray distinctly because of its egalitarian approach to gender (and that it's 'experiencing the consequences of abandoning God's design for men and women'); and that while men and women are equally valuable in the eyes of God, here on earth they are relegated to spheres at home and in the church."

Yup. Furthermore, as Joyce notes, "women are called to affirm and encourage godly masculinity, and honor the God-ordained male headship of their husbands and pastors; that wifely submission to male leadership in the home and church reflects Christ's submission to God."

Oh, yeah, they should also be willing to "receive children as a blessing from the Lord."


Okay, girls. Line up and submit. Make your man "godly masculine." Bow down before his decisions. Keep the cooking good, the house clean, the sex kinky and most of all keep your damn mouth shut in church and in the home. God ordained a patriarchal system. That's just the way it is.

This is the kind of ungodly nonsense that derives from a literalistic reading of certain biblical books written by MEN who had no understanding of a real relationship between a man and a woman, but felt threatened by women (and their sexual enticements), and most importantly, wanted to keep women down in order to maintain their own authority.

This is the kind of ungodly nonsense that derives from a lack of knowledge and understanding with regard to the early church in the first few centuries.

Not that it matters. To organize one's life around principles devised by ignorant, superstitious and misogynous males who lived some 2,000 years ago is at best stupid and a losing proposition for all involved.

Furthermore, if it matters, women were an important part of the early church, especially among the gnostics who, in spite of orthodox propaganda, were an extremely large and important part of the church as it developed in the first few centuries. In gnostic (and in some "orthodox") settings, women preached, taught, baptized, conducted the eucharist, and sometimes became bishops.

It wasn't until a couple of hundred years had passed and the "orthodox" Christians had gained enough power that women began to be shut out from their earlier roles. Orthodox writers, scared to death of females, wrote extensively about how dangerous they were because of sex, sex, sex, and therefore were not to have any positions in the church. Indeed, in some cases, the sexes were separated during worship!

Thus, the church father Tertullian writes: "It is not permitted for a woman to speak in the church, nor is it permitted for her to teach, nor to baptize, nor to offer the eucharist, nor to claim for herself a share in any masculine function--not to mention any priestly office."

Tertullian was deathly afraid of women: "You are," he wrote of women, "the Devil's gateway. you are she who persuaded him whom the Devil did not dare attack. Do you not know that every one of you is an Eve? The sentence of God on your sex lives on in this age; the guilt, of necessity, lives on too."


In spite of all this, the women involved in the patriarchy movement would probably find history of no account. Notice their argument that the culture has gone "astray" because of the feminist movement! Some christianists argue that it's because of abortion, or the "homosexual agenda," or liberals in general, or simply that we've backslid from the wonderful religious beliefs of our founding fathers. Whatever, these women think they can make things right if only they submit to their husbands at home and in the church.

John Piper, a Southern Baptist theologue is one of the promoters of this nonsense. Joyce explains that he considers "submission is a wife's divine calling, and truest form of power. 'I distinguish between authority and influence,' he said. 'A woman on her knees sways more in this nation than a thousand three-piece suited Wall Street jerks.'"


It's all so stupid and so sad that women believe this crap and submissively fall in line with what is moronic on the face of it and does nothing but degrade them as human beings and in the end, is not biblical at all (if that matters), but derives from the ravings of angry and fearful old men living about the year 200 C.E.


You can read Joyce's entire article (there's much more) here.

Jerry Falwell is dead. Jerry Falwell lives.

[Photo from Liberty University website]

Jerry Falwell has come back again in the form of his son, Jerry Falwell, Jr. Jerry and Jonathan Falwell are running Daddy's "ministry" now which you can check out here, if you're so inclined. Jerry Jr. is the president of the right wing Liberty University.

In a recent article at onenewsnow, Falwell Jr. reminded fundamentalist christianists that the election of Barack Obama did not destroy the Christian right; but rather that the movement remains strong. He further says that "Christians ... have a responsibility to pray for the president-elect [this was published on January 24, so maybe Falwell Jr. hadn't received word that Obama had actually become president] and not only to support him when he makes good decisions but also to lawfully oppose him when he promotes anti-Christian policies."

What are those anti-Christian policies you ask? Ah, heck, you know: homosexuality, abortion, blah, blah, blah. Rather than spell them out, Falwell refers to an article by another christianist who refers to an article by J. Matt Barber which is a vicious attack on the President and his faith.

Falwell then goes on to say that it has never "been the goal of conservative Christians to obtain political power or legislate morality! What?

Here's his logic: "Are we legislating morality when we, as citizens, fight for laws to protect marriage and life?"

Evidently, something is not connecting in his brain. The answer is clearly "Yes!" "Hell, yes!"

But, wait, there's more: "When my father [Falwell, Sr.] began organizing the religious right as a movement, leaders were reluctant to become involved in social reform. They were not seeking political power."

Excuse me! They were from the beginning seeking political power in order to put people in place to establish laws based upon their interpretation of select passages from the Bible! That was their exact purpose! When the Christian Coalition was formed some years ago, Pat Robertson warned the nation that his right wingnuts intended to get their christianist friends elected to school boards, to city councils, to county commissions, to state legislatures, to Congress, and to the presidency, if possible, in order to ensure their particular religious delusions became the law of the land!

How can Falwell, Jr., lie with such a straight pen?

Falwell thinks that da "candy man," Jim DeMint, from South Carolina was right when he said that it wasn't conservative ideals that were defeated in November. "Americans haven't changed," said da candy man, "Republicans have." And Falwell pines for the "good old days" of Ronnie Reagan and 1994 when Republicans were in control and all was well.

"We are hungry for a Ronald Reagan to lead us." Heh, heh.


Obama, of course, is leading the nation down the wrong path to perdition. As Reagan said, "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction." And, says, Falwell, Jr., "These words should incite Christians to action. ... we must ensure that our government does not make us unwelcome in our own country."


Let's recap. According to Falwell, Jr., the christianist wingnuts on the right are not about gaining political power. But they must fight to gain political power to stop any and all attempts by Obama and other politicians to make keep abortion legal and provide for civil rights of homosexuals, etc. If Obama and other politicos who support his views are able to deny the "family values" as promoted by the christianist wingnuts on the right, the christianist wingnuts on the right will become "unwelcome" in their own country.

It's okay, it seems, if people who disagree with them and their conservative values are made "unwelcome."

God works in mysterious ways.


You can read Falwell, Jr.'s entire article here. And more here from RightWingWatch.

Fairness doctrine is undemocratic say christianists

Fundamentalist Christians are up in arms about lots of things now that a decent, moral and ethical human being is residing in the White House.

One of them is the perceived threat that the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" will be reinstated, requiring broadcasters using the public airwaves to present both sides of an issue.

That's the way it used to be. Then, the B-grade movie actor (Reagan) turned prezident overturned the policy.

Which made the fundies and the wackos like Rush Limbaugh ooze with gratuitous gratitude. Now they could say anything they wanted without fear of contradiction by intelligent people living in the real world.

One of the christianists most loudly opposed to re-instating the Fairness Doctrine is Roberta Combs, rightwingnut president of the Christian Coalition. "Pelosi's party of freedom does not want freedom on the airwaves," whines Ms. Combs.

Christiannewswire, after deep theological contemplation, says "Liberals know that this 'Fairness Doctrine' law would intimidate radio station owners not to carry hours of conservative talk (because they would have to offer hours of liberal talk) - meaning shows like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly would be a thing of the past. They know that conservative talk radio is one of the biggest obstacles standing between them and being able to implement the rest of their radical liberal agenda."

Yup. That's how Obama didn't get elected: conservative talk radio!

And you imagine a world without Limbaugh, Hannity and O'Reilly? (Smile.)


The Christian Coalition (which is not very "Christian" and not much of a coalition these days) is fighting back with an on-line campaign "to ensure that the onerous 'Fairness Doctrine' is not reinstituted by Congress or by the Obama Administration."

Let's see how well that works.

They've got one backer already - the great Senator Jim DeMint, Repugnican of South Carolina! Jim, as we know, is one of the really moral, ethical, and intelligent members of the Washington Zoo, so we're not surprised.

DeMint and three other Repugnicans have introduced the Broadcaster Freedom Act of 2009 which will "prevent the Federal Communications Commission (FCC( from reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, which would suppress free speech by requiring the government to monitor political views and decide what constitutes fair political discourse."


There is so little honesty in the Repugnican Party these days that statements like the above are par for the course. Far from suppressing free speech, the Fairness Doctrine would create more free speech. The more a radio station promoted a particular point of view, the more we would hear another, opposing view.

Furthermore, as I understand it, the Fairness Doctrine does not require the government to "monitor political views and decide what constitutes fair political discourse," but merely to ensure that opposing views are given equal time.


The real question is: What are the fundy christianists afraid of? Truth? Accountability? Honesty?

I like what The Freethinker said: "When will these nutters get it through their Bible-fogged brains that their days of religious privilege - mercifully - are fast-dwindling, and that have absolutely no right to continue demanding special treatment purely on the basis of their stupid delusions?"