Science Victory: Supreme Court Rules Against Christian School

Here's some great news – a victory for education! The United States Supreme Court ruled against an association of Christian schools that were trying to force the University of California to dilute its entrance requirements to accommodate creationist views and historical revisionism.

The University of California didn't think that creationism is science. Imagine that. UC also rejected the Christian "literature" program, which was apparently designed to shield the students from anything that might cause them to think. And I'm guessing that their "history" program was equally biased by the typical evangelical "Christian nation" theory.

The Ignorance-Is-Bliss meme, something I wrote about extensively in The Religion Virus, is one of the most dangerous memes of all. It's the idea that knowledge is dangerous, that the Bible is the source of all truth, and that by shielding yourself from learning you'll avoid temptation and sin. When combined with the Anti-Rationalism meme ("Faith, not reason, is the source of truth"), we end up with a society where rational thought is despised and knee-jerk obedience and ignorance are praised.

Many argue that other Christian memes such as the Monotheism meme ("Your god is fiction") and the Intolerance meme ("It's OK to kill nonbelievers") are the most dangerous. I disagree.

It's certainly true that the Monotheism and Intolerance memes are directly responsible for a lot of the wars and terrorist acts that we see in the world today.

Good News for Gay Rights: Gay Marriage Ban Unconstitutional

It looks like the religious right got its clock cleaned on this one. U.S. District Court judge Joseph Tauro said that the federal law banning gay marriage is unconstitutional. If it's upheld by a higher court after the Obama administration appeals it, it will have far-reaching implications. It could send shock-waves across the country.

Why, you might ask, would Obama's administration appeal it? Good question! Because even though Obama is a supporter of gay rights, an appeal would strengthen this ruling. As it stands, it only applies to Massachusetts, but if the law is upheld on appeal, the precedent would become the law of the land for a much wider area. Plus, it will almost certainly be appealed clear up to the Supreme Court.

Crybaby Christian Threatens to Destroy Atheist Groups

The Religious Right lost a major Supreme Court decision last week, and now Mike Adams, their attack-dog blogger, is being a crybaby about it.

The Supreme Court ruled that the University of California was within its rights to ban a group of lawyers for their anti-gay policies. It's OK for such groups to meet in private, but there's nothing that requires a public school to endorse such discrimination.

Well, here's what Mike Adams had to say:

"I can’t stand atheists. And I plan to do something about them. Thankfully, the U.S. Supreme Court has given me a powerful tool to use in my war against the godless. ... I plan to round up the students I know who are most hostile to atheism. Then I’m going to get them to help me find atheist-haters willing to join atheist student groups across the South. I plan to use my young fundamentalist Christian warriors to undermine the mission of every group that disagrees with me on the existence of God... [We] will seek to destroy groups whose names are even remotely suspicious. If I see any words like “atheist,” agnostic”, or even “free-thinker” I will know they are a group of godless heathens. Then we’ll move in for the kill.

When I first read this, I thought it was a joke, a dumb attempt at humor. It is so over-the-top preposterous that it took me a minute or two to realize, "Wow, this guy really means it."

But here's the truth: crybaby Mike Adams won't dare do this. You see,

Justice Kennedy Disgraced by Simple Soldier: Mojave Desert Cross Story Continues

It's a disgrace. A simple veteran, living somewhere out in California's desert, has put Supreme Court Justice Kennedy's legal reasoning to shame. Kennedy and the other justices who sided with him can use all the convoluted legal contortions they like to justify keeping a Christian cross on public land, but a veteran's simple, honest and heartfelt words have made mincemeat of Kennedy's legal reasoning.

The Desert News received a letter from a guy I'll call "Joe Veteran." Read for yourself.

5. The cross was erected illegally on public land in 1998 by a private individual named Henry Sandoz. Since then the government has actively worked to promote the continued existence of the cross, even as it excluded other monuments from differing religions. This favoritism and exclusion clearly violates the establishment clause of the US Constitution.

6. Anthony Kennedy desecrated and marginalized the memory and sacrifice of all those non-Christians that died in WWI when he wrote: 'Here one Latin cross in the desert evokes far more than religion. It evokes thousands of small crosses in foreign fields marking the graves of Americans who fell in battles — battles whose tragedies are compounded if the fallen are forgotten.' The irony and tragedy of that statement is unique.

7. Justice Kennedy’s words in particular and others like them from the other Justices caused me to act.

8. At the time of its removal there was nothing to identify the cross as a memorial of any kind, and the simple fact of the matter is that the only thing it represented was an oddly placed tribute to Christ. This cross evoked nothing of the sort that Justice Kennedy writes of, it was in the end simply a cross in the desert.

9. Discrimination in any form is intolerable, as is hatred.

10. Discrimination or hatred based upon religion should be despised by all Americans, and offering that this event was caused by hatred or malice is simply ignorance of the actual intent.

11. Despite what many people are saying, this act was definitively not anti-Christian. It was instead anti-discrimination. If this act was anti-Christian, the cross would not have been cared for so reverently. An anti-Christian response would have been to simply destroy the cross and leave the pieces in the desert.

12. We as a nation need to change the dialogue and stop pretending that this is about a war memorial. If it is a memorial, then we need to stop arguing about the cross and instead place a proper memorial on that site, one that respects Christians and non-Christians alike, and one that is actually recognizable as a war memorial.

Could anything be more clearly reasoned?

Who Stole the Mojave Cross, Atheists or Right-Wing Nuts?

After all of the debate, intense legal work, and a defeat at the hands of religious conservatives who don't believe in the American Constitution, the controversial Mojave Cross was stolen!

Last week we had to listen to the idiotic Rush Limbaugh theorize that the BP oil spill was a left-wing conspiracy to destroy the environment so that they could get their left-wing environmental agenda through Congress. Now the shoe is on the other foot. At a meeting of secularists last night (more about that in a separate blog), several people told me they thought "right wingnuts" stole the cross to make atheists look bad!

Is everything fair in love and war? Is this a war? I hope not. I'd like to think we are a nation of laws, and that while we might disagree strongly about what the law should be and how it should be interpreted, at the end of the day we all obey the law of the land.

I vehemently disagree with the Supreme Court's "logic," which Justice Anthony M. Kennedy defended by saying the 1st Amendment calls for a "policy of accommodation" toward religious displays on public land rather than requiring a strict separation of church and state. If you ask me, that's pure political BS.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...

Do you see anything in there about "accomodation"? Do you see any exceptions to the words "no law."?

Christian Cross to Honor Jewish Soldiers? Scalia says yes!

I try to have respect for our Supreme Court justices even when I disagree with them, but Justice Scalia has once again shown a callous and contemptible insensitivity for religious minorities, and a shocking lack of understanding of the principles on which this country is founded.

Scalia can't see why the Christian cross, the very symbol of Jewish persecution down through the ages, might not be considered pleasing to Jews who died for their country:

"[The Christian cross] signifies that Jesus is the son of God and died to redeem mankind for our sins," [attorney] Peter Eliasberg told the justices. ... Justice Antonin Scalia sharply disagreed. "It's erected as a war memorial. I assume it is erected in honor of all the war dead."

This is so idiotic it makes my head spin. How could anyone, especially a Supreme Court justice, think that a cross is anything but a Christian symbol, and worse, think that Jews would feel honored by this symbol that to them represents hatred and persecution?

This isn't the first time Scalia has shown his true colors as a Christian bigot. In an interview recently, he admitted openly that he doesn't believe atheists and humanists deserve the same protection as religious people, according to his twisted view of the United States Constitution.

Justice Scalia is missing that essential element that every judge should have: empathy, the ability to put yourself in the other guy's shoes. He is so immersed in Christianity he can't even recognize that the cross is a symbol of Christianity, not a generic god-symbol.

Scalia reminds me of that idiotic Kentucky lawmaker who argued that, "God is not religion. God is God!" It's laughable when a backwards hick says something like this, but what Scalia is saying is every bit as dumb.

How did this man get on the Supreme Court?

Anti-Atheist Bias at the Supreme Court

Could a US Supreme Court Justice actually believe that religious people have more rights than non-religious people? In an interview with Harmodia ("The Daily Newspaper of Torah Jewry"),
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia virtually confesses to bias against non-religious people.

Justice Scalia, who is sworn to uphold our Constitution, writes:

My court has a series of opinions that say that the Constitution requires neutrality on the part of the government, not just between denominations, not just between Protestants, Jews and Catholics, but neutrality between religion and non-religion. I do not believe that. That is not the American tradition.

Huh? Did I get that right? It seems like he's saying atheists and agnostics don't have the same rights as religious people. The Constitution "requires neutrality," but "I do not believe that." No matter how many times I read this quote, I can't find any other interpretation.

This is shameful. I can find no other words for it. At the start of the interview, Justice Scalia purports to be neutral, claiming that, "my religious views do not affect my opinions at all." But this falls flat once you read the rest of the interview.

The interview ends with these chilling words:

"G-d protects," [Charles de Gaulle] said, "little children, drunkards and the United States of America." I think it may be true. And the reason may be because we honor Him as a nation. We invoke Him in our country, our Presidents invoke Him, my court open its sessions with "G-d save the United States." Those things are not insignificant.

In other words a Supreme Court Justice of the United States actually believes that God personally intervenes, and monkeys with the laws of physics, in order to change the course of history itself, to favor the United States above all other nations on this Earth, because a few dozen men and women happen to invoke his name each day.

Of course, those millions of Muslims in the Middle East who invoke God's name much more fervently, five times per day, certainly don't deserve God's attention. They're not Christians like Justice Scalia, are they?

This is such egotistical arrogance it would be funny, if not for the fact that people like Justice Scalia run our country. This is the stuff that wars and genocide are made of. This is how, for example, the American People get infuriated when 3,000 citizens were murdered by terrorists on 9/11, but have no trouble with the fact that 150,000 Iraqi civilians were killed by American bombs.

It's sad that a man can hold such un-American, unconstitutional views, and still become a United States Supreme Court justice.