The Utah Supreme Court this week reversed the conviction of Warren Jeffs for his role in the statutory rape of a fourteen-year-old girl. Viewing the facts of the case through the prism of Utah’s religious history reveals an ugly picture indeed.

Warren Jeffs helped run a small Mormon sect called the “Fundamentalist” LDS that is not a part of Utah’s dominant Mormon establishment, the LDS. Elissa Wall spent her entire childhood being brainwashed by this sect; recordings of Jeffs’ teachings were broadcast throughout her home on a speaker system. When Elissa was twelve, she discovered what happens to people who defy the FLDS prophet: her father’s disobedience was punished by having his family stripped from him and sent to another city, where her mother was “married” to an FLDS leader who already had several other wives.

When Elissa was fourteen, Jeffs ordered her to marry her nineteen-year-old first cousin, Allen Steed. According to the opinion, Elissa was aghast, and flatly refused to go forward with the wedding. Even her older sisters, who were already married to the reigning FLDS prophet, tried to plead her cause, but to no avail. At the time of the wedding, a devastated Elissa refused to say “I do” – but Jeffs pushed and pushed, until she finally mumbled “Okay, I do.” Jeffs then proclaimed “Now go forth and multiply and replenish the earth with good priesthood children,” at which point Elissa ran off and locked herself in the bathroom.

When Elissa resisted her husband’s sexual advances over the following weeks, Jeffs gravely informed her that she had to “repent” and be “submissive” – she “needed to go home and give [her]self to [Steed], who was [her] priesthood head and husband, mind, body, and soul and obey without any question.” Allen proceeded to rape Elissa repeatedly over the next two years.

Jeffs was charged as an accomplice to rape, which is defined as any sexual intercourse where the victim “expresses lack of consent through words or conduct,” or where the victim is younger than eighteen and a perpetrator who is more than three years older “entices or coerces the victim to submit.” It makes no difference whether the parties are married – though that’s irrelevant here, because no marriage license was ever issued. The accomplice liability statute is equally blunt: “Every person … who solicits, requests, commands, encourages, or intentionally aids another person to engage in conduct which constitutes an offense shall be criminally liable as a party for such conduct.”

I have now read the court’s opinion several times, and I must confess that I simply can’t follow the logic. Maybe you can. It seems to say that Jeffs lacked the “mental state” to cause a nineteen-year-old to have sex with a fourteen-year-old, even though that’s exactly what he ordered them to do, over the girl’s most strenuous objections. My purpose here is not to debate the legal reasoning, but to paint the religious background that I believe contributed to a bizarre result.
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We just passed the 175^th anniversary of an episode, inconsequential in itself, that kicked off a fascinating chain of events that may well have an impact on the 2012 election.

On June 30, 1835, a traveling showman named William Chandler rolled into the little town of Kirtland, Ohio. Chandler had purchased from the estate of a French adventurer named Antonio Lebolo a collection of genuine Egyptian mummies and hieroglyphic writings on papyrus, that Lebolo had stolen during Napoleon’s occupation of Egypt. Chandler’s investment was profitable, as Americans were willing to pay good money to gawk at such exotic artifacts. The problem with the hieroglyphics, though, was that no one knew what they meant. Except for one man: Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of Mormonism, who claimed to have a divine gift for translating “Reformed Egyptian.” So Chandler made his way to Kirtland, where Smith was then operating, to see if Smith had any interest in his collection.

Chandler hit a gusher. Smith instantly pronounced the writings to be the work of the biblical prophet Abraham himself, written in his own hand, and yes indeed he could translate them if given a little time. Shrewd businessman Chandler wanted cash; Smith raised the then-staggering sum of $2,400 from his congregation to buy the entire collection, including the mummies.

It took Smith several years to complete the translation, during which time he was occupied with other matters such as establishing a fraudulent bank, marrying dozens of wives, and touching off a minor civil war in Missouri. But when it finally was published in 1842, The Book of Abraham had a huge impact on Mormon theology. Among other things, it firmly established Mormon teaching on race.
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[Rant & Reason welcomes new blogger Luis Granados, who also writes the blog God Experts. His bio is here.]

Talk about a made-for-blogosphere non-event. A cartoonist posts a clever take on the censorship of the South Park Muhammad-in-disguise episode (more on which you can see in my April 24 God Experts piece), showing entries in an imaginary “Everyone Draw Mohammed” contest. Next thing you know, someone picks up on it, and there’s a Facebook page with 8,500 members, all pledged to draw a picture of Muhammad on May 20, defying a Muslim ban on depictions of the prophet. Since every blogosphere action has an opposite (if unequal) reaction, there is soon angst and hand-wringing over such insensitivity to Muslims worldwide.

At least this has the benefit of smoking out muddleheadedness so it can be shot at. Leading the charge was the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto, who compared the plan to “Everybody Burn the Flag Day,” suggesting that just because we have the freedom to express ourselves doesn’t mean that doing so is a wise idea. The obvious difference for me personally is, I don’t want to burn the flag—I’m rather proud of what it stands for. But the taboo against depicting Muhammad is intolerable. Granted, some religious rules happen to coincide with common-sense values—“Thou shalt not steal” is pretty non-controversial. But threatening to kill someone for drawing a picture of Muhammad, disrespectful or otherwise, is idiotic.  The bigger the outcry, the sooner this thuggery will end.

According to Taranto,

The problem with the “in-your-face message” of “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” is not just that it is inconsiderate of the sensibilities of others, but that it defines those others—Muslims—as being outside of our culture, unworthy of the courtesy we readily accord to insiders. It is an unwise message to send, assuming that one does not wish to make an enemy of the entire Muslim world. 

The problem with this thinking is that it is essentially racist. The implicit assumption is that those brainwashed from birth into being Muslims, most of whom are black or brown, are incapable of responding to constructive criticism by changing their ways, so suggesting they do so lacks “courtesy.”

For almost all of Muslim history, a teaching far more central than the ban on depicting Muhammad was that of slavery. God commanded it repeatedly in the Koran, and Muhammad practiced it extensively throughout the body of traditions ascribed to him. Most black Americans are here today because their ancestors were captured and sold by Muslim slavers. In the Taranto view, criticizing slavery would be “an unwise message to send, assuming that one does not wish to make an enemy of the entire Muslim world.” In fact, the anti-slavery agitation of the 19^th century did make an enemy of large portions of the Muslim world: the Mahdi’s 1881 uprising in Sudan was largely sparked by Britain’s godless crackdown on the slave trade. If Taranto were king, our deep respect for the cultural sensibilities of others would have allowed slavery to roll merrily along.

By far the most effective way to undermine the moronic idea that visual depictions of Muhammad warrant violent reaction is to ridicule it. If that earns us as many enemies as abolitionists like Voltaire and Paine had in their day, we’re in good company.

Ann Althouse reserves her crocodile tears for innocent Muslims. “Depictions of Muhammad offend millions of Muslims who are no part of the violent threats. In pushing back some people, you also hurt a lot of people who aren’t doing anything.”

Now she’s done it. She’s gone and hurt my feelings. Here I am, all abuzz about participating in “Everyone Draw Mohammed Day.” I have my entry all planned out: not a caricature, but a tasteful, respectful, historically accurate tableau of the episode from the Sunna in which Muhammad personally beheaded 600 Jewish prisoners in the market square of Medina, while enslaving their wives and children.  (If I could actually learn to draw something like this between now and May 20, that would be a miracle.) I’m joining hands in fellowship with like-minded humanists in a common mission to preach the values we hold sacred: tolerance, freedom of expression, reason over revelation, and creativity. (And let me add, I don’t even like South Park.) Now Ms. Althouse bursts my bubble, telling me that I’m a bad person for putting into a picture what the sacred Sunna puts into words. I am hurt; I am offended; I may cry myself to sleep tonight. Ms. Althouse cares deeply about Muslim feelings—what am I, chopped liver?

What baffles me most about the whole South Park affair is why the person who threatened the show’s creators is walking free. This is America—the litigious society. Why is there no lawsuit? An American named Abu Talhah al-Amrikee (aka Zachary Chesser, a resident of Virginia) threatened violent death to Trey Parker and Matt Stone. In many states, the common law tort of assault is defined as “an attempt to menace (or actual menacing) by placing another person in fear of imminent serious bodily injury,” and victims are allowed to sue for damages. If al-Amrikee/Chesser wants to try his snarky defense that he didn’t mean to threaten or incite, just to warn of what some other mean-spirited Muslim group might do, let him. At the very least, having to defend a lawsuit would surely bankrupt al-Amrikee/Chesser and his little hate club. Of all people, you would think Mr. Wall Street Journal Taranto would know that, this being America, little guys can’t tweak giant corporations with impunity. South Park is indirectly owned by Viacom—where’s Goliath when we need him?

Monday’s LATimes contained an interesting piece on the Bald Eagle. In essence, many Indian tribes have religious practices, such as the Sun Dance, that require Bald Eagle… ahem…parts. The Bald Eagle is a protected species—even more so than other listed species due to a special act of Congress—and so an obvious tension emerges; how can the federal government protect the animal while simultaneously protecting the religious rights of native Americans?

Currently, the federal government runs a depository of dead birds and has a licensing program. The licensing program has been plagued with problems—many people are apparently unaware of it—and the depository has a long waiting list for many Eagle parts. To avoid long waits, some Indians occasionally shoot birds without a license and find themselves fugitives as result of their religious beliefs.

Larger than the Indian issue, this does raise some moral and political questions for those of us who avow a separation and church and state. I think many people would agree the Indians have a right to these birds; Indians have been hunting and shooting the birds since before the Europeans arrived. Simultaneously, government has an interest in protecting all endangered species. How do we rectify these conflicting priorities?

We could make like the soviets and just outlaw religion. Problem solved. But, of course, that’s absurd. On the opposite end of the spectrum we could say any religious belief is a right, but that’s a slippery slope. The government would then be in the business of defining what is and isn’t a religion (granted they already do this for tax purposes but look at the fight it causes over things like Scientology). Also, someone could have some insane beliefs that direct them, for example, to extinguish a species that is the devil incarnate or to practice human sacrifice. Do we really want to play an even worse version of the snake-handler game?

Obviously, then, the answer lies somewhere between these two extremes. At some degree between zero and 180 is where we have been situated throughout history. The attempt to move the needle slightly one way is why groups like that AHA exist. Even though we claim to be proponents of religious liberty we cannot sit here and seriously say all peoples with a religious need have a right to shoot Bald Eagles at will. Defining that need is the purpose of the licensing program. To eliminate that is to open a can of worms so messy as to all but sign an extinction warrant for the Bald Eagle.

The current Bald Eagle services provided to the Indians by the federal government are pretty reasonable; they are by no means perfect, but the only other option I can see is to farm raise the birds. We do it with fish, why not birds? Is it even feasible, or will it devolve into the shame that is poultry production? Does a farm-raised bird even have the same essence as a wild one? Is that better, is that worse?

File this story from Florida under “you can’t make this stuff up.” Except, apparently in this case, they could (h/t to Friendly Atheist):

A Hillsborough public policy group whose Christian platform included a push for a state ban on gay marriage has embraced a new attack on an old target: the separation of church and state.

Ten billboard advertisements against what activist Terry Kemple called the separation “lie” are being put up across Pinellas and Hillsborough counties. Seven or eight of the billboard messages already are in place, and the rest will be by the end of this week, Kemple said.

What do the billboards say? They have quotes from our founding fathers, of course, each explaining why we shouldn’t separate religion from government. For example, the photo included with the article shows a billboard, black with white text, that says, ‘”Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle” – George Washington.’

Apparently, though, there is a dearth of anti-separation quotes by the founding fathers — the billboard sponsors admit that some of the quotes that they use are completely fabricated!

Others carry the same message but with fictional attribution, as with one billboard citing George Washington for the quote, “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.”

“I don’t believe there’s a document in Washington’s handwriting that has those words in that specific form,” Kemple said. “However, if you look at Washington’s quotes, including his farewell address, about the place of religion in the political sphere, there’s no question he could have said those exact words.”

Pardon me? Fictional attribution is a rather diplomatic way of saying that the quote is a lie. Making up a quote out of whole cloth, no matter if it’s plausible or not, and then attributing it to George Washington is a complete lie.

Certainly doesn’t put Christianity’s best foot forward, does it?

They may feel justified by some sense that their anti-separation cause is best served by lying. But I think it’s safe to say that most of us, whether we follow the Ten Commandments or secular morals, believe that lying is wrong, even for marketing purposes.

Their willingness to put lies on their billboards is ultimately a matter for their own consciences (some might say that it is between them and their respective god, which is another way of saying the same thing). Remember this, though, the next time a humanist billboard campaign is denounced for being somehow immoral — I promise you that it won’t feature fabricated quotes!

I’m sure you’ve heard of Randall Terry, who for years was the face of the anti-choice movement in the United States. Even though he hasn’t been the head of Operation Rescue, an organization that he founded, since 1989, he has managed to keep his name out there as a prominent anti-abortion and anti-reproductive choice activist. Although his star has faded in recent years, he is trying harder than ever to make a comeback to national prominence.

The Washington Post has an article today about some of Terry’s recent efforts to stay relevant and keep his face on the national anti-abortion brand. It begins with the startlingly creepy image of Terry and his acolytes smearing fake blood all over their hands and copies of the Roe v. Wade ruling while standing outside the confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor. And it’s all downhill from there, as Terry tells the journalist that using fake blood for his protests came to him in a “vision” (is that what he vaingloriously calls having a thought?) while he was planning ways to disrupt the hearings.

It turns out, though, that this was not his first vision; as the Washington Post article states, in reference to the founding of Operation Rescue:

Terry, 50, was in his 20s when he founded Operation Rescue — the result, he said, of a vision from God that appeared before his eyes at a prayer meeting. The vision was, he said, a scroll with instructions to stop abortion. Along with the scroll, he saw thousands of people gathered in front of abortion clinics to save babies, and he saw himself being interviewed on “Donahue,” the popular TV talk show hosted by Phil Donahue.

After serving as a primary spokesperson in favor of federal interference in the Terri Schiavo case in 2005, the Post states that Terry had more or less faded from view for several years. But he is on the upswing once more, getting his name back in the press for the demonstrations against President Obama’s speech at Notre Dame University and his unbelievably hateful comments after the assassination of Dr. George Tiller. (Amongst other things, he said, “George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God…Those men and women who slaughter the unborn are murderers according to the Law of God.)

And now he is attempting to lead the charge against President Obama’s middle-of-the-road Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor. Adele M. Stan of AlterNet attended Terry’s demonstration this past Sunday on the steps of the US Supreme Court, and reported on Terry’s demand that the anti-abortion senators filibuster Sotomayor’s nomination:

Terry made the camera operators move forward and adjust their mikes. “Pro-life senators have a moral obligation to filibuster Sotomayor,” he began. “Pro-life Republicans, pro-life Democrats seduce us with their words. They use our money, they take our man-hours, they take our votes, and then throw us away like a used-up mistress after an election. It’s disgusting! If Sen. [Sam] Brownback and Sen. [John] McCain and Sen. [Knute] Nelson and Sen. [Bob] Casey believe that Roe v. Wade must be overturned, then they must filibuster Sotomayor. You can’t say you want to overturn Roe on the one hand, and then vote for somebody who will uphold Roe on the other. It is treachery, hypocrisy, laziness and betrayal.”

He certainly sounds frustrated! Perhaps this ties into Amanda Marcotte’s assertion in the Guardian that Republicans overall have not made abortion front and center in Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings, opting to focus on race and gender-based attacks against her instead. Says Marcotte:

Anti-choice activists used to own the issue of Supreme Court nominations so thoroughly, they were able to bully George Bush out of nominating Harriet Miers, despite her anti-choice views, in no small part because they simply don’t trust women not to stick by their own. Obviously, with Republicans out of power, anti-choice activists can’t block the nomination, but now they can’t even get Republicans to consider their demands a top priority.

The most obvious reason is that gender has been demoted to a second-tier issue so that Republicans can work more efficiently with arguments over race against Sotomayor, playing off anti-Hispanic sentiment and rightwing folk beliefs about a Latino “takeover” to inculcate resentment in their base. Anti-choicers are feeling the sting of falling out of fashion in the circles of rightwing nastiness and resentment.

Marcotte goes on to say that she also believes Republicans may be a little more toned down on anti-choice rhetoric this time around because of the recent murder of Dr. George Tiller. Perhaps they don’t want to be associated with a movement that is so violent in the eyes of many Americans. She’s not optimistic, though, that this distance will last.

I would be shocked if the Republicans filibuster Sotomayor, and I’m sure she’ll sail through confirmation. So the real question here is, what does the future hold for Randall Terry after his stunts at the Capitol are over? The Post notes that some anti-choice activists are less than enthusiastic about his desire to be a more public figure once again:

Leaders of the antiabortion movement are cringing at Terry’s sudden return. They say his incendiary rhetoric and showy tactics turn off ordinary Americans and reflect Terry’s struggle to regain his glory years.

“It’s sad in a way,” said Fredericksburg antiabortion activist Patrick Mahoney, who was close to Terry at one time but, like others in the movement, is now estranged from him. “It’s almost like a heavyweight boxer who’s past his prime. The movement has gone by him.”

While I fear the harmful consequences of his horrific rhetoric and stunts, particularly because they could inspire further violent acts, nevertheless I do feel that Randall Terry serves a useful function for those of us that favor reproductive rights. With his stunts, his jugs of fake blood, his followers disrupting Senate Judiciary Committee meetings, and his references to having “visions” that guide how he organizes his protests, he does represent one idea very well: that his anti-choice position is on the outer fringe. He makes it clear that his strong belief that women should not have control over their own bodies is in fact an extremist position to be defended by fringe and even dangerous characters such as him, operating on the margins of society. His extremist tactics lay bare the extremist nature of the entire anti-choice stance. Even so, we cannot discount the constant threat that Terry’s ugly and explosive language poses. He represents the worst of the intertwining of religion and social activism, when a fanatic believes that he speaks on behalf of his god and that his actions bear a holy endorsement. And we certainly know what kind of trouble that can lead to.

The Washington Post reports today on how pro-marriage equality organizations have recently been targeting the Mormon Church with advertisements and campaigns:

As more states take up the debate on same-sex marriage, some advocates of legalization are taking a very specific lesson from California, where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints dominated both fundraising and door-knocking to pass a ballot initiative that barred such unions.

With the battle moving east, some advocates are shouting that fact in the streets, calculating that on an issue that eventually comes down to comfort levels, more people harbor apprehensions about Mormons than about homosexuality.

In particular, the article mentions web ads sponsored by the anti-Proposition 8 organization Californians Against Hate. The ads (which can be viewed, along with their accompanying documentation and campaign information, here), appeared on newspaper websites in three states on the East Coast but were apparently rejected by at least some newspapers for being insulting against the Mormon Church.

Why is the Mormon Church in particular being targeted by pro-marriage equality ads? The Washington Post explains how it may have played a big role in the narrow margin of passage for Proposition 8:

A torrent of last-minute contributions from church members across the country financed well-framed TV ads in the final weekend of the campaign. Opponents’ analysis of campaign-contribution reports indicated that Mormons contributed more than half of the campaign’s $40 million war chest.

The Mormon Church seems to be reluctant to actually take public credit for working for the passage of Proposition 8. The Washington Post notes that the Mormon Church was involved with an anti-marriage equality campaign in Hawaii in 1998 and spent $400,000 of church money but requested that the Catholic Church take the lead when it came to the public image of the campaign. This may have something to do with Mormons’ overall low favorability ratings with the American public in general, which declined to 37 percent last year. Perhaps, for this reason, the Mormon Church doesn’t feel that the most effective public face for the anti-marriage equality movement would be a Mormon one.

When it comes to marriage equality, is it fair to target the Mormons? While I am certainly against stigmatizing any particular individual based on his or her religion, the institution of the Mormon Church is fair game for criticism for its strong support for the suppression of LGBT civil rights. The institution has inserted itself into this issue to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of funding and resources for anti-gay campaigns. This is a campaign of bigotry, and the institution must be held accountable for it in the court of public opinion. In particular, Californians Against Hate has been working to illuminate areas that the church seems to prefer keeping quiet, such as the participation of top Mormon leaders in the creation of the the National Organization for Marriage, the national anti-marriage equality organization that drew attention for its laughably poor attempts to frighten people about same-sex marriage.

My one caveat is that I do not want to see this particular focus on the Mormon Church come at the expense of looking at the broader picture of anti-LGBT bigotry. In the end, for a successful campaign to reinstate marriage equality in California and to bring it to other states, the religious and non-religious alike are going to need to understand marriage equality as an issue that is fundamentally about civil rights and equality. This will require massive outreach, but it can be done; indeed, a movement to repeal Proposition 8 is already under way.

James Dobson is such a pessimist these days. From God and Country, this is what Dobson recently told his radio listeners (hat tip to PZ Myers):

I want to tell you up front that we’re not going to ask you to do anything, to make a phone call or to write a letter or anything.

There is nothing you can do at this time about what is taking place because there is simply no limit to what the left can do at this time. Anything they want, they get and so we can’t stop them.

We tried with [Health and Human Services Secretary] Kathleen Sebelius and sent thousands of phone calls and emails to the Senate and they didn’t pay any attention to it because they don’t have to. And so what you can do is pray, pray for this great nation… As I see it, there is no other answer. There’s no other answer, short term.

He sounds frustrated.

I was skeptical the last time James Dobson’s pessimism was on full display — it seemed to me that he was just trying to energize his supporters with a little doom and gloom. But his words now express more of a sense of capitulation. He’s not even asking his supporters to take action, just to pray (I suppose that they might consider that to be taking action, but the Dobson has never been shy about demanding much more worldly acts from his followers).

I am extremely reluctant, however, to ever count the Religious Right out of the political picture. What do you think? Will the Religious Right make a comeback? Or are Dobson and his ilk destined for permanent marginalization in an increasingly secular America?

The House of Representatives voted yesterday 249-175 to expand federal hate crimes laws to include crimes that were motivated by the victim’s gender, sexual orientation, sexual identity, or disability. The bill also lifts the previous restriction that the victim had to be engaged in a federally protected activity when attacked, such as voting or attending school. Additionally, the bill expands federal assistance to state and local authorities for the investigation of suspected hate crimes.

The measure has yet to be taken up by the Senate. It has proven to be quite controversial, with the House vote coming in almost entirely along party lines. Religious Right organizations mobilized their constituents to speak out against the measure. Focus On the Family claims to be responsible for 5,000 messages to Congress against the bill.

Why is it controversial? Let’s look at a few of the objections to this legislation:

Representative of the Religious Right case against hate crimes laws is an editorial from today’s edition of the right wing newspaper the Washington Times, which concluded:

Once homosexuals become a special class protected by hate-crime legislation, the back door is open to prosecuting those who speak out against homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Yesterday’s House vote was really about creating thought crimes to further the liberal agenda.

That unsubstantiated assertion (that the bill creates “thought crimes”) was ominously illustrated with a photograph of George Orwell.

In a piece dripping with contempt towards the LGBT community, Matt Berber puts it in more drastic terms:

In short, this bill places newfangled “gay rights” in direct conflict with our enumerated constitutional rights. It becomes the first step in the official criminalization of Christianity. It’s a zero sum game and someone has to lose. Ultimately, what we lose are our First Amendment guaranteed rights to freedom of speech, religious expression and association.

Um…no. This is the often repeated lie of the Religious Right, but this simply isn’t the case. Let’s get a few things clear about this bill.

First, this is a hate crimes bill, not a hate speech bill. Commentator and attorney Glenn Greenwald explains the distinction:

Hate speech laws and hate crimes laws are entirely different, since the former punishes the pure expression of ideas while the latter involves the commission of actual crimes, usually quite violent and serious crimes. One can easily and coherently oppose the former but support the latter.

While critics have been drawing on cases from Europe where people were prosecuted only for what they said, what they are referring to are laws against hate speech, rather than hate crimes. Many countries in Europe have these kinds of laws; thankfully, the United States does not, because Congress cannot just legislate away the First Amendment. This bill does nothing to criminalize hate speech.

In fact, the language in the actual bill is clear that the defendent’s actions, not thoughts, are what will be on trial:

In a prosecution for an offense under this section, evidence of expression or associations of the defendant may not be introduced as substantive evidence at trial, unless the evidence specifically relates to that offense.

This law isn’t about punishing what the criminal thought; it’s about punishing what the criminal did. It does nothing to prevent a pastor from sermonizing against homosexuality from the pulpit, or for a newspaper to publish anti-gay editorials (don’t worry, Washington Times!), or anything relating to speech, freedom of the press, or freedom of religion. It does nothing to prevent religious activists from rallying against marriage equality. Anyone that tells you otherwise doesn’t understand the bill or is simply lying.

Another objection to the hate crimes bill is that, as an issue of fairness and equal protection, crime victims should not be treated any differently based on the motivation behind the crime. In other words the punishment should be the same for a criminal whether he committed assault because the victim was gay or because he wanted the victim’s wallet. This is reflected in the comments by Rep. Lamar Smith, R-TN, when he was speaking against the bill:

“All violent crimes must be vigorously prosecuted,” Smith said. “Unfortunately, this bill undermines one of the most basic principles of our criminal justice system — ‘equal justice for all.’”

“Justice will now depend on the race, gender, sexual orientation, disability or other protected status of the victim,” Smith said. “It will allow different penalties to be imposed for the same crime.”

What this argument fails to recognize is the particular threat that hate crimes have towards society. For one, when a person is attacked because he or she is identified as being part of a particular group, the attack is, in essence, against the entire group. For example, if racist graffiti was spray painted on the home of an African American family, would it not be clear that the action was taken to intimidate not only that particular family, but any other African American family in the area that may subsequently fear being victimized by a similar crime? The group of victims encompasses those that are given reason to fear after the attack. Hate crimes are a way of sowing terror among the particular group that is the target of hate. This is more detrimental to society than many other types of crimes, and the punishment for the perpetrator should reflect this accordingly.

The new hate crimes bill is, unfortunately, not going to end violence that is motivated by hatred. But it will give law enforcement and prosecutors additional tools to deal with these crimes and ensure that the criminals receive a just punishment.

(Crossposted at Friendly Atheist)

The Pew Forum is a reliable source of interesting surveys. This most recent one shows how strongly various religious groups believe that global warming is occurring and if so, whether the warming is caused by humans or not.

One number that does puzzle me is the 36% of Black Protestants who believe the Earth is warming, but due to natural patterns and not human activity. It’s twice that of the US population as a whole, and triple that of the unaffiliated. Why would that be?

But otherwise, the findings don’t surprise me. The most likely group to believe that humans are causing a global warming? Those unaffiliated with a religion, at 58%. Those least likely? The self-identified White evangelical Protestants, at 34%.

I’m guessing there are confounding factors – White evangelical Protestants are more likely to live in the South, so perhaps it’s their geographic location that causes them not to believe the Earth is warming instead of their faith. It’s a classic correlation vs. causation conundrum.

But I don’t think we can dismiss the notion that faith affects people’s environmental views. Not when we have examples like Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) who read from Genesis in a congressional hearing and proclaimed that “The Earth will end only when God declares it is time to be over. Man will not destroy this Earth, this Earth will not be destroyed by a flood.”

On the other hand, we have to ask: why are these Hong Kong Christians building a full-scale replica of the ark?

I began to research this post intent on writing about reports from last week that James Dobson, the longtime Christian right wing leader and recently retired head of Focus on the Family, had conceded in a farewell address to FF staff that the Religious Right had lost the culture wars. But I soon found that this really wasn’t the case.

The story seemed to emanate from a report by a UK newspaper, the Telegraph, that bore the provocative headline “US religious Right concedes defeat.” The article quoted Dobson as saying:

We are awash in evil and the battle is still to be waged. We are right now in the most discouraging period of that long conflict. Humanly speaking, we can say we have lost all those battles.

That seemed like pretty compelling evidence that Dobson, if he hadn’t seen the errors of his ways, at least admitted the inefficacy of his approach.

But Right Wing Watch provides a more complete view on it. With a little more context, it’s obvious Dobson didn’t say anything new:

The battles that we fought in the Eighties now, we were victorious in many of those conflicts with the culture, trying to defend righteousness, trying to defend the unborn child, trying to preserve the dignity of the family and the definition of marriage. We fought all those battles and really it was a holding action.

Dr. Mohler mentioned the pornography struggle; we made a lot of progress through the Eighties but then we turned into the Nineties and the internet came along and a new president came along and all of that went away and now we are absolutely awash in evil. And the battle is still to be waged. And we are right now in the most discouraging period of that long conflict. Humanly speaking, we can say that we have lost all those battles, but God is in control and we are not going to give up now, right?

The world has turned colder for the family in recent years and there is such hostility to anyone who holds to a faith and we’re going to take the heat. But I have been assured by the board and by many of you that we’re not going to cow, we’re not going to be discouraged. We’re going to continue to express the love for the Scripture and the principles that we find there and if we are made fools for Christ, that’s okay too because our purpose is to serve him and that he be pleased.

Really, this is just a typical Religious Right statement. To paraphrase: sure, we’ve had some victories, but they didn’t go far enough. Our enemies are strong, and we have lost some battles. So we need to redouble our efforts.

This is hardly an admission of defeat! It’s more of a request for donations.

There seems to be an eagerness to declare the demise of the Religious Right. But even as Americans overall are becoming more secular, the Religious Right persists and even thrives off the news that Christianity is slowly (and I do mean slowly!) waning in influence in the United States. It seems to me that reactionaries need enemies and threats everywhere in order to form a cohesive movement.

But there have been many encouraging signs lately that the Religious Right has been losing steam in recent years. Just one of many pieces of evidence I would submit to you is the fact that, following the ruling of the Iowa State Supreme Court in favor of marriage equality, legislators in Des Moines have so far been unable to gain any traction for their efforts to introduce a constitutional amendment reintroducing the ban on same-sex marriage. Even the formerly anti-marriage equality governor of Iowa, Chet Culver, so far refuses to support amending the state constitution.

We can be certain that, for the years to come, every advance in favor of marriage equality, the separation of church and state, religious freedom for all, and reproductive choice will be met with the hateful and apocalyptic language of the Religious Right. But I think that the overall trend is encouraging. And perhaps in a few years James Dobson will actually declare the Religious Right’s loss in the so-called culture wars. Or at least he’ll be a lot quieter.

I don’t support violence, except in self-defense. I’m appalled at terrorism. And I’ve been a civil libertarian for five decades — since picketing a segregated movie theater as a youth in the 1950s.

In this context, the Becket Fund’s ad in the New York Times in defense of Latter Day Saints is baloney to me. Yes, I am very aware that churches, under the tax code, can lobby (to a degree) on issues of importance to their faiths.

But the LDS and representatives of the Catholic Church (also a sponsor of the ad) are, in some respects, America’s version of Islamic extremists, by their attempts to impose their religious views on others. Their enormous wealth and use of religious doctrine coercively are weapons, not merely a shield.

When five Supreme Court justices, all Catholics (Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy and Alito) in the 5-4 Gonzales v. Carhart (2007) decision, side with a papal edict and deny women their reproductive rights, its time to stop kidding ourselves that religion isn’t dangerous. As the Surgeon General would warn, “religion is harmful to individual rights.”

I am equally troubled by Gordon Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, letting the signatories of the ad off so easy when he said in a press release today (Dec. 5) that: “I agree with the signers of the ad that they have every right to their opinion. ” My problem is the term “right to their opinion.” Opinion yes, but throw their considerable weight around with the purpose of denying people their rights — NO. At least not if there is any such thing as fundamental rights that should not be subject to public whim.

My point simply is this. We humanists, atheists and freethinkers are in a cultural war as is obvious from public ads or posters by the American Humanist Association (“Why believe in a god? …”), Freedom From Religion Foundation, American Atheists and others. We are fighting for more than a place at the table (i.e., equality), we are fight for fundamental rights — religious rights, gay rights, reproductive rights — you name it.

Rather than sit idly on the side, we should engage religious intolerants in the public square with our message for human rights. And then engage again and again — until the day we are free, free at last.

Minutes ago, I read a religious legal news story that read: “23-year old Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was executed by stoning after being convicted of committing adultery — an offense to which she had confessed.”

Duhulow was burred in the ground up to her neck and her head covered with a black sack before . . . (it’s too horrible to write). This occurred yesterday, on the 27th of October, in the Somalian port city of Kismayo.

I don’t claim to know or understand Shariah law. I guess I only hear about the bad side because that’s what typically makes the news.

But I have no hesitation in saying that the above punishment is way out of line with the offense — indeed, it was barbaric — and the judge who imposed the sentence and the stoners are guilty of murder, in my book.

I’ve read some articles recently that in some non-Islamic countries Shariah law is cropping into judicial decisions involving Muslims. This, I must caution against, because Shariah law appears to lack fundamental notions of justice like equal justice under law (what happened to the man who participated in the offense) and that the punishment is commensurate with the crime (capitol punishment for sex?).

Guest post by the AHA director of communications, Fred Edwords:

A Public Religion Research poll commissioned by Faith in Public Life and Mercer University is most revealing. Released this past Thursday, September 11, and reported today in USA Today, the poll found that 57 percent of white Southern evangelicals regarded torture as often or sometimes justified in efforts to get vital information from suspected terrorists. This is a higher rate of acceptance than the 48 percent of the general public that expressed similar views in an earlier Pew Research Center poll. Only 38 percent of those in the latest poll regarded torture as never or rarely justified. But this figure rose to 52 percent when the Golden Rule was brought into play with the statement: “the U.S. government should not use methods against our enemies that we would not want used on American soldiers.”

Clearly, conservative religious doctrine and certain aspects of Southern culture seem capable of trumping one’s humanity. But it’s encouraging to learn that many of these individuals–when reminded of their humanity through a reference to empathy, fairness, and reciprocity–may be able to set that doctrine or culture aside.

As to how much these opinions are attributable to religion and how much to culture (itself influenced by religion in many ways), the new poll revealed that 28 percent of white Southern evangelicals said they rely on Christian beliefs or teachings to inform their views about torture while 44 percent said they rely on common sense and life experiences. So this study, taken by itself, doesn’t give strong evidence for any claim that Christianity is an inherently heartless belief system or that people are necessarily or largely made heartless by it. (Though Leonard Doyle comes close to this position in his provocative Independent blog post entitled “Who would Jesus torture?”) The study does, however, show that there’s something about membership in this demographic group that coincides with increased heartless attitudes on this subject.

What, then, would an appropriate humanist response be?

Well, first, we need to remind people that some form of the Golden Rule has existed in every culture and religion. It is thus regarded by humanists as a product of our evolved social nature, as further developed by reason and experience.

Second, we need to note that the American Humanist Association, as an organization, has taken official positions against torture in resolutions in 1978 and 1998, has supported basic human rights in numerous other resolutions, and has pointedly challenged the logic of torture in articles and essays published over the years.

And third, we need to be vigorous in our appeal to humane ideals as superior to religious doctrine, political doctrine, and culture. Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein put it most boldly in their closing paragraph to the Russell-Einstein Manifesto of 1955: “Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.” We thus call on white Southern evangelicals, and everyone else, to place their humanity first.

“A descendant of mine other than a child of mine who marries outside the Jewish faith (unless the spouse of such descendant has converted or converts within one year of the marriage to the Jewish faith) and his or her descendants shall be deemed to be deceased for all purposes of this instrument as of the date of such marriage.”

The wording above has created a bit of controversy in Illinois. Max Feinberg, who died in 1986, stipulated in his will that any of his grandchildren who married outside of Judaism would be considered dead for the purposes of his will. The Illinois Supreme Court may now get involved after an state appeals court (read the full ruling here in PDF) ruled that the above clause is invalid. The appeals court cited previous Illinois case law which invalidates any provision that “acts as a restraint upon marriage or … encourages divorce.” The wording is from an 1898 Illinois Supreme Court case, and the majority decision in that case cited other cases in which an Illinois court invalidated a provision in a will that had to do with the heir’s marriage.

At first blush, this decision seems to fly in the face of the idea that a person can dispose of his or her money as he or she see fit. One of the deciding judges admitted that she saw honoring the will as a way that would “open a door toward bigotry”. I hate to say it, but that door has been pretty wide open for a long time, even in the cases of wills, though it’s just usually not stated in this manner. How many LGBT people have been disowned? Or people who married outside their race? Or even married a Jewish partner? Are these wills illegal and should they be?

Does the State’s desire to protect marriage outweigh a person’s write to plan their estate as they choose? Does preventing bigotry outweigh the individuals right to bestow money as they choose at the time of their death? This case really highlights these difficult issues. This is an important question for Humanists to consider. Is freedom from bigotry more important than individual rights? Or is the case of a will somehow different from the everyday freedoms we hope to enjoy?

The Washington Post ran an opinion piece taking on Dobson’s critique of Obama’s theology.  While normally theology isn’t an issue that Humanists are going to jump in on it was curious to see the reaction to Dobson’s statement.  I generally agreed with the Post article, however, I found another article that really cut to the core of the matter.

While Landover Baptist isn’t the first place I would normally go for a hard hitting critique of the events of the day, I’m realizing how much the Reverend Fred and Landover really has to say.  The article “Focus on the Pharisee” points out in no uncertain terms the differences between Fundamentalist pronouncements and the words of Jesus. Just reading the table comparing Jesus’ words to an interpretation of the far rights position, is startling. While the comparison is meant for an non-theist group, it would resound for many Christians as well. Some might judge it too harsh in its general mocking of the church but read Jesus’s words and think about the opposing views. Think also about Obama’s statement:

“And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson’s, or Al Sharpton’s? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is okay and that eating shellfish is an abomination? Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount — a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let’s read our Bibles now. Folks haven’t been reading their Bibles.”

While Father Fred is waaaay over the top, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I don’t think you can accuse him of not reading his bible. Maybe if we all we’re more familiar with the bible we’d realize as the Washington Post’s author points out :

“…why the words of Scripture do not provide a ready policy blueprint for modern American society. Indeed, many of us have grappled with how to arrive at a theologically informed and fair-minded reading of the Bible that takes its moral principles seriously without simplistically applying to our time the cultural norms of previous eras.”

I don’t base my morals on the bible, but I’ve got a lot more to talk about with someone like the author of the Post article than with someone trying to impose the cultural norms of the bible onto the current world.  I hope they have an inclination to talk with Humanists as well. Til then, we can read Landover Baptist and smile while getting a pretty good education.

Did Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution advocate racism and genocide?

Ken Ham thinks so. He is the leader of the Christian group Answers in Genesis and the founder of the Creation Museum built last year in Petersburg, Kentucky. Ham just released a book titled, Darwin’s Plantation: Evolution’s Racist Roots.

The New York Times includes several of Ham’s comments:

”What Darwinian evolution did I would say is provide what people thought was a scientific justification for separation of races,” Ham said in an interview.

In the new book, Ham says that Darwin’s theory that natural selection caused gradual biological changes over time, puts some races ”higher on the evolutionary scale” and others ”closer to the apes.”

”Although racism did not begin with Darwinism, Darwin did more than any person to popularize it,” Ham writes.

Ham further contends that the theory fanned the flames of ”ethnic superiority.”

”Stalin, Hitler and Mao were responsible for the deaths of tens of millions — and it can be shown they did this because of the influence of Darwinian naturalism…,” Ham writes.

The Darwin Report has this to say:

Historically speaking, Charles Darwin came from a family of abolitionists. His grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, strongly disapproved of slavery. And Charles Darwin wrote negatively about the slavery he witnessed on his travels in his book, The Voyage Of The Beagle. Darwin’s The Descent Of Man is also an argument against racism, since one of the points in it is the common ancestry of all the humans races. And simply using the word “savage,” as Darwin did, in its 19th century context doesn’t make a man a racist. Political correctness and cultural sensitivity were more than a century away.

But of course, David L. Schultz, associate professor of biology at Nicholls State University in Louisiana, sees the bigger agenda, calling Ham’s attempts as “a ploy to get evolution out of the curriculum.”

”Of course everybody’s against teaching children racism, so if you call it racist, you can have it removed,” said Schultz. He testified before a Louisiana legislative panel that took up the bill that would have tied evolution with racism. The measure was eventually stripped of any reference to Darwin.

I think I’d rather take the words of a true biologist with scientific reasoning on his side instead of a non-scientist, creationism-loving nutcase who believes that humans and dinosaurs walked the earth together.

It just wouldn’t be the holiday season without Bill O’Reilly and his contrived ‘War on Christmas,’ would it?

The Fox News pundit is back again to yabber on and on about our attempts to “diminish Christmas for secular progressive reasons.” Apparently, the city of Fort Collins, Colorado, and their decision to choose white lights over the “more Christmas-y” colored lights has really gotten Bill all riled up (a video of the segment posted on the blog Think Progress can be seen here).

Despite what O’Reilly would have you believe, we Humanists do respect Christmas, as we respect Hanukkah, Kwaanza, Eid, and other December holidays (we even have our own in HumanLight). Every religious and nonreligious holiday in the month of December celebrate similar themes: happiness, peace, love, joy. However you want to celebrate is up to you.

O’Reilly is the only one fighting in this so-called ‘war.’ For someone who cherishes this time of year so much, his hate-filled mongering is about as un-Christmas as you can get.

The world is at a very strange place when a letter from 138 senior Islamic clerics and scholars to 25 Christian leaders, most notably Pope Benedict XVI, has seeming made little difference in the world. The 29-page letter was sent on October 11, 2007 from well-known figures from the Sunni, Shiite, Salafi, and Sufi branches of Islam representing more than 40 countries throughout the Middle East and beyond.

The letter states, in part, that “Christianity and Islam are the largest and second largest religions in the world and in history. The relationship between these two religious communities [is] the most important factor in contributing to meaningful peace around the world.”

This is good, maybe even wonderful, but why is no one really cheering? Well, it has been suggested that the Vatican is more attracted to creating diplomatic relations with Muslim governments than in engaging Muslims in theological dialogue.  

In an October 19 interview with the French Catholic daily La Croix (reported on by Reuters), French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, called the letter “an eloquent example of a dialogue among spiritualities.” He also noted that Christians would have to discuss curbs on building churches in the Islamic world.

While Tauran seemed to want to discuss important issues between the two religions, he went on to dismiss the possibility since “Muslims do not accept discussion about the Quran, because they say it was written under the dictates of God. With such an absolutist interpretation, it’s difficult to discuss the contents of the faith.” Interreligious dialogue can take place “with some religions,” Tauran continued, “but with Islam, not at this time.” Christians aren’t exactly meeting the group of Islamic clerics halfway if this is the attitude to be taken.

Conservative critics have also jumped on this line from the letter:

As Muslims, we say to Christians that we are not against them and that Islam is not against them—so long as they do not wage war against Muslims on account of their religion, oppress them and drive them out of their homes.

This has struck some as a half-extended olive branch. Perhaps we need to get some humanist or atheist to moderate since we wouldn’t take a stance on the Quran or the Bible or Papal infallibility. Maybe I’m joking, but then maybe not.

1. “I am driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, ‘George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan’. And I did. And then God would tell me ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq’. And I did.”
Sharm el-Sheikh August 2003

2. “I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do my job.”
Statement made during campaign visit to Amish community, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Jul. 9, 2004

3. “I’m also mindful that man should never try to put words in God’s mouth. I mean, we should never ascribe natural disasters or anything else to God. We are in no way, shape, or form should a human being, play God.”
Washington, D.C., Jan. 14, 2005

4. “Well, first of all, you got to understand some of my view on freedom, it’s not American’s gift to the world. See, freedom is God — is God given.”
Interview with TVR, Romania, Nov. 23, 2002

5. “And there’s nothing more powerful in helping change the country than the faith — faith in Dios.” National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast, Washington, D.C., May 16, 2002

6. “God bless the people of this part of the world.”
Minneapolis, Minnesota, Aug. 4, 2007

(Thanks to Atheist Perspective for compiling the list from Dubya Speak and bringing it to my attention. The complete list can be found here. )

During the course of a recent online journey through the wonderful world of conservative blogs, I was distracted by an strange advertisement for “The Nazareth Cross: the World’s Largest Cross.” Based on the picture used in the ad I didn’t think it could be real. I was mistaken.

Yes, the Nazareth Cross Project aims to build a 60 meter (180 foot) tall cross in the northern Israeli city of Nazareth, which is widely considered to be the birth place of Jesus.The website for the project is mostly an effort to get people to donate the funds needed to build the cross. Donors will be able to include their personal engraving on one of the 7.2 million tiles that will adorn the cross. These tiles will be made of local stone, gold, silver, or platinum, depending on the generosity of the donor. Since the website exists primarily to bring in donations, I am somewhat comforted by the possibility that this is all a scam.

Of Nazareth’s 64,800 inhabitants, approximately 70% are Muslim. I wonder how they feel about this? Is it really helpful to have a 180-foot cross obstructing the skyline of this predominantly Muslim city? Sadly, the crusades of the high Middle Ages continue to serve as a powerful symbol and starting point in a long history of perceived Western meddling in the Middle East. Well, here we have a newer, more tangible 180-foot, gold/silver/platinum plated symbol of Western meddling.

That oughta win a few hearts and minds, not that we’re doing a very good job anyways.

The town of Ave Maria, Florida, isn’t just any old town. It’s a vision-turned-reality for Domino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan, whose lifelong dream was to create a community of residents who share his Catholic values. The town comes with its own Catholic church and university, while adult book stores, strip clubs, and even pharmacies that dispense birth control are strongly discouraged, of course.

Ave Maria is open to everyone, but does anyone else see how difficult it would be for an atheist, Muslim, Jew–anyone who’s NOT a Catholic, for that matter–to actually live there? Why can’t they just be honest and say that this is a Catholics-only community? To be honest, I’m not entirely opposed to it, as many Humanists have been in favor of creating Humanist living communities for years, but I fail to see the value in shunning diversity by restricting oneself to Catholic-only neighbors.

And what would a classified ad for housing in Ave Maria look like?

Spacious 3 bedroom/2 bath in quaint Florida town. Walking distance to church. Five minutes to public transportation, shops, and restaurants. Serious inquiries from Catholics only; others need not apply.

The Washington Post recently reported that a judge agreed to a $660 million clergy abuse settlement between the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles and alleged victims of clergy sex abuse. Cardinal Roger Mahony issued an apology an then said Monday that he would spend the rest of the day praying for those who claimed abuse. In reality, it seems that what made the most difference for the abused was not prayer but their taking action and telling their own stories.

Michael Hennigan, the archdiocese attorney, said private meetings with 70 of the plaintiffs made the most impact on him.”It changed us all, and it changed our perspective on what’s happened here,” he said. “I’d like to say that the church would have been reformed without these cases, but I don’t know that’s true,” he said. “These cases have forever reformed the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. It will never be the same.” Does it take 70 cases to change an Archdiocese? How many to change a church?

The Creation Museum’s “Adam” is an actor who’s played a number of roles, including that of owner of a porn website called “Bedroom Acrobat.” The Museum, which opened in May and tells the Bible’s version of how Earth was created, recently pulled a video featuring Eric Linden as Adam after learning from the Associated Press of his online appearances. The 27-year-old actor appears as Adam in 1 of 55 videos featured on visitor tours at the Petersburg, Kentucky museum and told the AP that he is no longer affiliated with the site.

If you failed to catch Wednesday night’s episode of Nightline, which pitted actor Kirk Cameron of Growing Pains fame and evangelical minister Ray Comfort against Brian Sapient (and someone known as “Kelly”) of the Rational Response Squad on the topic, “Does God Exist?” then you’re in luck: the segment appears online at ABC News.

What’s your opinion? Who presented the best arguments? Who was just downright awful? Let us know!