Daylight Atheism » Bigotry

The Foo Fighters Outsmart Fred Phelps

Ebonmuse — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 17:57:09 +0000

Last week, the Westboro Baptist Church (which is choosing increasingly random and bizarre protest targets, including a Swedish vacuum cleaner store) decided to picket a Foo Fighters concert in Kansas City, Missouri. As is their usual strategy, they were no doubt hoping to provoke police or counterprotesters into ... [visit site to read more]

The Real Meaning of Islamophobia

Ebonmuse — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 10:45:01 +0000

I don't usually say these sorts of things about Republicans, but good for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie:

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is defending his pick of a Muslim for a state judgeship, saying critics of a lawyer who represented suspects after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks are "ignorant" and "crazies".

..."This Shariah ... [visit site to read more]

Paving the Way for Equality

Ebonmuse — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 10:51:55 +0000

Wedding bells will soon be ringing in New York, thanks to the legislature's historic passage of marriage equality which goes into effect on July 24. And the echoes of that victory are still being heard. Soon after the passage of the NY bill, Rhode Island legalized civil unions, joining the several other states that have done so. (Despite the fact that the ... [visit site to read more]

There Are 10 Times as Many Atheists as Mormons: When Will Non-Believers Become a Political Force?

Ebonmuse — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 10:39:30 +0000

This essay was originally published on AlterNet.

The propagandists of the religious right shout it aloud as their battle cry: "America is a Christian nation!" And in the trivial sense that ours is a nation populated mostly by Christians, this is true. But in the sense that they mean it, that Christianity was intended to occupy a ... [visit site to read more]

To Win, We Just Have to Show Up

Ebonmuse — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 10:55:28 +0000

In the wake of marriage equality's victory in New York State last Friday, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Albert Mohler posted the following to Twitter:

Now, fully 1 in 9 Americans will live in a state with legalized same-sex marriage. Our mission field is getting more complicated.

On the surface, this is ... [visit site to read more]

Do the Right Thing, New York!

Ebonmuse — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 10:57:47 +0000

I wrote in May about the legalization of civil unions in Delaware (which has now been signed into law), and the ongoing push to pass a marriage-equality law in my own state, New York. Although New York already recognizes same-sex marriages performed in any of the neighboring states that allow them, passage of the bill would be a huge symbolic victory and would give more momentum to the national push for ... [visit site to read more]

Marriage Equality on the March

Ebonmuse — Tue, 03 May 2011 11:26:16 +0000

At the end of last month, the Delaware legislature voted to approve a civil union bill. If Democratic Governor Jack Markell signs the bill, as he's said he will, Delaware will become the newest state to grant same-sex partnerships all the same legal rights as heterosexual couples - joining, by my reckoning, ten others: Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey, Illinois, Oregon, Washington, New Hampshire, ... [visit site to read more]

Pro-Family Christians Support Child Kidnapping

Ebonmuse — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:46:42 +0000

Yesterday, I came across a story that was so appalling I had to write about it. It shows the true depths of the Christian right's hatred for gay and lesbian people, and the lengths they're willing to go to - up to and including defying U.S. law - in the name of that hatred. (HT: The Wall of Separation)

The story in a nutshell: A same-sex couple in Vermont, Lisa ... [visit site to read more]

Another World Creeps In

Ebonmuse — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 10:47:23 +0000

I'm an atheist, in part, because I'm a moral person.

When I first read the books that are called holy, what I found were countless passages that are abhorrent to the conscience: God drowning the planet in a global flood, massacring the innocent firstborn of Egypt, ordering Abraham to murder his son as a test of faith (and rewarding him for being willing to do it!), commanding the Israelites to wage genocidal war on other ... [visit site to read more]

Ending Religious Discrimination in Adoption

Ebonmuse — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 10:44:38 +0000

There's welcome news out of the U.K. this week: the government-established Charity Commission has ruled that the adoption agency Catholic Care must abide by anti-discrimination laws and therefore may not refuse to consider same-sex couples as prospective parents:

visit site to read more]

Anarchy in the U.K.: The Anglican Crackup Continues

Ebonmuse — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 10:51:49 +0000

I've written before about the ongoing schism within the Episcopal church, but those posts only concerned the goings-on in America. Now that battle has spread across the Atlantic and into the heart of Anglicanism, and it's looking more and more likely that the church will be cloven in two at its roots. visit site to read more]

Christianist Professor Calls for Religious McCarthyism

Ebonmuse — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 10:51:31 +0000

Although I've learned not to expect much from the right-leaning Supreme Court, I've been pleasantly surprised by some of their recent decisions. First was Holy See v. John Doe, in which the court upheld a ruling that the Vatican isn't immune from lawsuits over its protection of pedophiles. The second was Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, in which a Christian student group sued a California law ... [visit site to read more]