Recently, St. Louis-area junior high school students Tori Shoemaker and Cheyenne Byrd were suspended for two days because they wore home-made t-shirts that read “safe sex or no sex.” The shirts were decorated with condoms, and were meant to protest the school’s abstinence-only sex education curriculum. The students said their shirts were a form of free speech, but a superintendent said that the shirts were inappropriate and a distraction at school (so, apparently free speech is only permissible when appropriate). Watch the CNN report here.

Haven’t we seen this kind of thing before, with students punished for wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam war? In 1969 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District that symbolic speech and political expression were protected under the First Amendment. How are Shoemaker and Byrd’s t-shirts any different from those black armbands, to which the 1969 ruling applied? As the Court wrote, “it can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

The well-publicized Jena story started on September 1, 2006, when a black high school student in Jena, Louisiana asked an administrator if he could sit underneath a tree in the courtyard where traditionally only white students sat. The administrator told him that he could sit wherever he wanted. The next day there were nooses hanging in the tree. No action was taken as the nooses were written off as a prank and not a threat aimed at the students who had dared to sit under the tree the day before. When black students protested, the local district attorney threatened that he could take their life away with a “stroke of my pen.”

After a series of alarming altercations where authorities time after failed to do the right thing, a black youth named Mychall Bell punched Justin Barker, a white youth who had taunted him with racial slur. Several of his friends joined the fray. They would become the Jena 6. Barker,who hit his head on the pavement went to the hospital, but was released that day and even went to a school function that night. The six black students were for some reason charged with attempted murder. It took a national outcry to reduce the charges to conspiracy and battery.

The impact of this case, especially from a Humanist perspective is summed up brilliantly by Bell’s Lawyer, Louis Scott:

Immediately after the facts were explained, I can remember thinking, Wow, this is a 1957 case that jumped into 2007. This is my second reaction, that the tree symbolized America. And the question was, Can all Americans share the shade of the system that we operate under? But the next thing that happened was the most frightening thing of all: They cut the tree down. I was hoping that didn’t symbolize the attitude of America, that before we allow some Americans to share the same rights, the same privileges and the same responsibilities, we’ll just get rid of the whole thing. It seemed to me that that was the message to be conveyed. If Americans allowed this to occur, that would be the first step toward unraveling the civil rights gains of the last fifty years.

Scott may not be a Humanist, but his question resonates: Can we all share the American system? Are we so frightened that we have to tear the things we love apart or break them down rather than let people who are different from us share even the tiniest piece?

This weekend the New York Times reported on a startling occurance in Utah, whereby teenage boys are being abandoned by their parents for having engaged in the “deadly sin” of watching blockbuster movies.

Consider these passages from the story on members of a polygamous settlement largely controlled by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and ponder for a second how depraved and outright “messed up” this is.

When his parents discovered his secret stash of DVDs, including the “Die Hard” series and comedies, they burned them and gave him an ultimatum. Stop watching movies, they said, or leave the family and church for good.

With television and the Internet also banned as wicked, along with short-sleeve shirts — a sign of immodesty — and staring at girls, let alone dating them, Woodrow made the wrenching decision to go. And so 10 months ago, with only a seventh-grade education and a suitcase of clothes, he was thrown into an unfamiliar world he had been taught to fear.

Is it really all that surprising that people this fanatically devoted to a religion would do something so horrendous to their own family members?  After all, this is the same group/cult whose leader was recently arrested for having sex with minors–whom he considered to be his wives. 

I’m tempted to wonder if the First Amendment’s protection between the church and state applies to a group like this?  If so, is any group allowed to claim themselves a religion and then engage in any sort of unlawful activity–all the while proclaiming it “official church doctrine”?  It makes one wonder whether the framers had this in mind when they were writing the Constitution–then again, one has to consider that such crazy religious activity has been with us for centuries (e.g., the Puritans burning of witches).

In an online piece titled “Liberals Love the Sin and Hate the Sinner,” conservative columnist Star Parker tells us that:

“Democratic politicians, who now are quietly luxuriating in the Craig scandal and Republican Party woes, will tell us that what they’re about is fairness, income gaps, two Americas and the poor.”

Her thesis is that Senator Larry Craig’s (R-ID) personal behavior has nothing to do with the validity and relevance of the traditional values he espoused before the scandal he is now embroiled in. I agree with her, it’s just that I don’t think they were valid to begin with. I think raising healthy, happy children who will grow up to fulfilled by being active in society and by following their own gifts are the best family value. I think this can be achieved in a one- or two-parent household, and I don’t think it matters what sex the parents are.

She sites Lawrence Mead, a professor of politics at New York University and author of seven books on poverty and welfare reform. He provides his conclusions as to the roots and causes of poverty:

“Although impediments to working may still affect some people, poverty is overwhelmingly a result of dysfunctional patterns of life. Families are poor in America in 2007 typically because unmarried parents have children and then do not work regularly to support them. … It has become difficult to avoid the conclusion that serious poverty in America is rooted in the culture of the poor.”

Read the rest of this entry &raquo

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. )

I decided to read up on the Second Amendment after reading this week’s Reuters report stating:

The United States has 90 guns for every 100 citizens, making it the most heavily armed society in the world, a report released on Tuesday said. . . . U.S. citizens own 270 million of the world’s 875 million known firearms, according to the Small Arms Survey 2007 by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies.

In my reading and searching, Wikipedia tuned me into a disturbing grammatical fact surrounding the Second Amendment. There was a discrepancy in comma usage between the version ratified by the US House and Senate and the version ratified by the first states.

House and Senate version: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

State’s version: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

I read the original text as ratified by the House and Senate to inextricably link the right of the people to bear arms to the formation and functioning of militias. The version then sent to the states for ratification removes the non-restrictive participial phrase by deleting the second comma. All of the sudden, the right to bear arms is the central element of the sentence, rather than the ability to maintain well-armed militias. The discrepancy between the two versions, all over a simple comma, has muddled the full understanding of the Second Amendment.

Do you agree with me that this is the comma that armed America?

The past few weeks have witnessed an amazing turn in global stock markets. As recently as this June the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached an all-time high of just over 14,000 points, however it has since lost nearly 1,000 points.

Financial experts have pinned the losses on turmoil in what is known as the sub-prime housing market. Namely, foreclosures and late payments on these loans are reaching historic highs and that is having an adverse effect on the banks that issued these loans and, perhaps more importantly, on those investors who bought the divided packages made from these loans–known as “mortgage-backed securities.”

So, you may be wondering, what does this have to do with me or humanism? Maybe your IRA has dropped a few points, a temporary blip in an otherwise healthy market. But is it? Recently, prominent Democratic senators such as Chris Dodd, Hillary Clinton, and Charles Schumer have suggested that they intend to allow the Federal Housing Agency (FHA) to take on the mortgages of those who are at risk of defaulting in order to preserve the “American Dream.”

Is this right? Why should the government be responsible for protecting people from foreclosure? It seems to me that many of the people who were buying homes in the past three to five years were doing so because they thought that home-buying was the ticket to getting rich quick. I understand that it’s possible that some people were victims to predatory lending, but I believe the overriding responsibility of the government is to allow people to suffer for their poor decision making so as to prevent it from happening again.

What do you think? Is this a cold-hearted, conservative position at odds with a Humanist philosophy, or is it a rational, reasonable response to the excesses of the past few years? Let me know.

A battle is brewing in the Congress over SCHIP, a program designed to cover the health care costs of the nation’s poor children. Democrats want to expand coverage to include more children, often from higher income brackets. The bill just passed in the House 225-204. And, surprise surprise, there is intense opposition from the Republicans. Was it not the GOP that shuffled through a Medicare plan for the nation’s older citizens, putting lots of money in the health care industry’s pockets (they wrote the bill)? So, I can’t really understand the opposition to insuring the other vulnerable portion of our population.

“The real plan here is to set the stage for a movement of the next gigantic step in the direction of what should be called Hillary-care — national socialized medicine,” said Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-California.

Lame duck President Bush has already threatened to veto both House and Senate versions of the bill, sighting the high costs of such programs. With war in Iraq having cost $448.5 billion at the time of this writing, I don’t think Bush has any room to talk. $448.5 billion dollars could insure 268.5 million children for a year. And with about 75 million children under 18 in America, that would be insurance for each of them for 4 years. So I ask, where are this president’s priorities?

Today, homosexual couples in Oregon can register for domestic partnership, giving them the same legal rights as heterosexual couples in the state. While I believe that homosexuals are entitled to the same rights in every facet of life as everyone else (they are people, aren’t they?), this whole business of domestic partnership reeks of ’separate but equal’ treatment.

When we allow those ‘different’ from us similar access to services though under different circumstances, it is not equal treatment at all. Think back to when African-Americans had to drink from different water fountains throughout America. It was the same water, right? Yes, but access was restricted for “colored” folks to “white” water fountains. So then why can homosexuals not have access to the same marriage as heterosexuals?

The Jim Crow laws were officially overturned in 1954 with the Brown v. Board of Education decision. I would like to see a legal challenge mounted against these ’separate but equal’ domestic partnership laws on the legal precedent of the cases that desegregated America. As Humanists, we can’t sit idly by and be content with this segregationist legal logic being currently applied by the most liberal states in America.

“Deport the Pilgrims,” opines the graffiti on the mailbox at 18th and S St., NW in D.C. This urban art illustrates my point exactly. How does a nation WHOLLY comprised of immigrants decide that the doors are closed?

My family came to America in the period between 1860 and the 1880s (albeit legally). I am sure the Anglo-Saxon immigrants that had already settled in New York and Savannah were pretty unhappy when the boatloads of tired, weathered Eastern European Jews showed up on Ellis Island and elsewhere.

I don’t understand how today is any different. I believe the people and the organizations that represent those who have a fear of illegal immigration really have a fear of the un-whitening of America (one ex: http://www.mothersagainstillegalaliens.org). Help us all if America is not a white majority!!

The ongoing guestimate is that we have upwards of 12 million illegal immigrants in America, largely Hispanic. How does maintaining the status quo of the current system actually help to DEAL with this problem? Should we be rounding up hard working illegal immigrants who create a backbone of the U.S. economy (think seasonal agricultural workers in California)? Some of the fallacious arguments on the subject come to mind: illegal (and legal) immigrants stress our welfare system (we have one?), “they” refuse to learn English, “they” won’t assimilate (assimilate into a melting pot? hmm….), “they” don’t respect our laws.

We have to have a plan that deals with the ills of the current system. The status quo of underfunded U.S. agencies, massive raids and deportations, cities pitted against the feds, and splitting families up is just not acceptable. For once I actually liked a plan endorsed by G.W. Bush. Importantly, I think opposition to the plan had a heavily racist tinge to it. What do you make of this ongoing debate?

A new coalition of more than 100 largely evangelical Christian leaders and organizations asked Congress on Monday to pass bills to strengthen border controls but also give illegal immigrants ways to gain legal residency. The new group, Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, includes members like the Mennonite Church U.S.A.; the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, which represents Latino evangelicals; individuals like Dr. Joel C. Hunter, pastor of Northland, a megachurch in Longwood, Fla.; Sammy Mah, president of World Relief, an aid group affiliated with the National Association of Evangelicals; and Jim Wallis through Sojourners/Call to Renewal.

Wallis touched off a spark at a Sojourners press conference announcing the coalition, when he remarked, “If given the choice on this issue between Jesus and Lou Dobbs, I choose my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

Jim Wallis’s statement on Lou Doubs

Lou Dobb’s reply

The first 2 blog posts on Beliefnet responding to Wallis strongly emphasize his previous claims that, “religion does not have a monopoly on morality,” and that our public discourse be steeped in reason rather than trying to convince Congress to bend to scripture. It would be foolish, a blogger cautions, not to include those of other faith traditions (as well as the non-religious) in conversation about moral issues facing our county, and indeed you have to cherry pick one religion to find the points that support your side (as, admittedly, I’m doing here by only include two blog posts).

Dinesh D’Souza’s blog post “Where Is Atheism When Bad Things Happen?” asks, “Notice something interesting about the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings? Atheists are nowhere to be found. ” He later states: “To no one’s surprise, Dawkins has not been invited to speak to the grieving Virginia Tech community.” Nor was any other atheist or humanist, but silence doesn’t mean we weren’t there. And not being offered a podium doesn’t preclude our ability to mourn and offer words of healing. Even if it is clear that many people like D’Souza have no idea what a humanist or an atheist really is.

“I am an atheist and a professor at Virginia Tech,” posts a heartfelt response to D’Souza that is well worth reading and may bring tears as you realize what this man has to defend his own compassion even after he has lived through such a tragedy.