This month, I want to write about some words important to the atheist movement that are frequently misused and abused by religious apologists. The first of these words is secularism.

In the rhetoric of spokespeople for the religious right, secularism is often assumed to be the desire to ban all forms of religious expression from public view. As is usual in these polemics, this is a falsehood, created by taking a true statement and then twisting and distorting it almost beyond recognition. The polemicists who make this accusation have invented a far more sinister and far-reaching goal that we've never advocated or supported, and assumed, without any evidence, that it must be our secret desire.

To be secular means, simply, to be without religion. But this adjective applies very differently to countries than it does to people. For a person to be secular means that they do not subscribe to the creed of any existing religion (as in "secular humanist"). A secular person, by the usual and conventional meaning of the term, is therefore a nonbeliever, an atheist.

For a state to be secular has a superficially similar meaning: that that state is not ruled by a religious authority, nor are its laws derived from the tenets of a religious creed, nor are its citizens required to give assent to a particular set of religious beliefs. A secular state is one that has no official religion, no favoritism or preference shown by the government for one church over another, or for religious belief in general as opposed to nonbelief.

But this does not mean that a secular state must be one that officially bans the holding of religious beliefs among its citizenry or takes positive steps to disadvantage religion. Just because a state is secular says nothing about the religious affiliations of the people who make up that state. The people themselves may be devout followers of any number of faiths. Even the elected leaders can hold whatever beliefs they like, so long as they make laws based on religiously neutral considerations of public policy, and not on the edicts of any particular sect.

The difference is a crucial one, and partisans of the religious right have effectively stirred up confusion on this point in order to argue that because a secular person has no religion, a secular state must also contain no religion whatsoever. But this is not true. Because people are unified wholes, a secular person has no religious beliefs and that's that. But states and countries are not single entities, but assemblages of large numbers of people who may believe all sorts of different things. The key is that the different beliefs of all these people "average out", so to speak, producing a government that treats them all as equals before the law, regardless of their religious beliefs or lack thereof.

The Army veteran and atheist Ron Garrett put this point succinctly in an essay on Ebon Musings:

Who gets to decide we have to believe in one god, or many gods, or no gods? Under our Constitution, only I get to decide that for me, and you for you, and neither of us gets to use our temporary control of the government to bully others into agreement, or program children in a public school classroom to believe in someone else's gods and prophets against the parent's wishes, or even in accordance with them, because the government can't do that under our law.

The problem arises when the government does not treat all people as equals, but begins to show special favoritism or grant official privileges to certain religious beliefs and not others. This is when advocates of secularism - who may, or may not, be secular people themselves - step in to demand that the government cease this favoritism and return to its neutral position. And this, inevitably, is when the religious right partisans appear to create confusion. They argue that what we secularists (secretly) want is not neutrality of government towards religion, but official support for atheism and positive hostility of government towards religion.

Phrased in this way, the argument is absurd. First of all, as I previously mentioned, many people who support secularism are not secular people themselves: they are religious believers who recognize the value of government remaining neutral toward religious beliefs. (For example, Barry Lynn, the current director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ.) Second, if that was what secular people wanted, we wouldn't merely be demanding that the government cease its official endorsement of religions we don't belong to; we would be demanding that the government take our side. We would be demanding not that "under God" be stricken from the Pledge of Allegiance, but that it be replaced with "under no God". We wouldn't be asking for an end to official prayer before city council meetings; we'd be asking for an official reading from the books of Richard Dawkins or Robert Ingersoll.

The rampant dissemination of falsehoods about secularism has led to absurd situations where religious fundamentalists and secularists have exactly the same goal, only the former group doesn't realize it. For instance, there have been many cases where a state or township put some intrusive religious monument on public property like a school or a courthouse, was sued by a church-state separation group, and after a protracted and bitter legal fight, finally agreed to move the monument to private land, like a church lawn, in exchange for the dropping of the complaint. Inevitably, religious fundamentalists cheer this outcome as if it represented a victory over those evil secularists, when in fact it's the very thing we were asking for all along.

Private individuals and religious groups can promote their religion to their heart's content, on their own property and with their own money. But the government is supposed to represent all of us, to respect everyone's freedom to believe or not believe as they see fit, and to refrain from any action which sends the message to a particular religious (or atheist) group that they are favored, privileged insiders, or that they are disfavored, rejected outsiders.

And lastly, why do we advocate secularism in government? The answer is that, in the long run, it's better for everyone regardless of what beliefs they hold. Prominent advocates of state secularism, like America's founding fathers, had the lessons of history to draw from, and knew full well that when a state is not secular, when its religious belief is determined by its rulers and competing beliefs are outlawed or persecuted, the inevitable result is bitter, bloody religious war. Europe was convulsed by warfare between Catholics and Protestants for centuries for that very reason. Today we see similar strife between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, in countries where the rulers demand allegiance to one or the other of those sects.

One doesn't have to be an atheist to recognize that it's better for everyone when the state doesn't attempt to coerce uniformity among its citizens. Religious belief is and must be a matter of individual conscience, not of coercion imposed by law. That's why secularism in government is good for us all, both for religious people and also for people who are secular themselves.

But I would add that, for individuals, secularism is a good thing as well. Being a secular person means being free from the superstitious and arbitrary impositions of religion, from the chains of senseless dogma and from archaic and irrational rules. Secularism means the freedom to live your life as you see fit, pursuing whatever purpose you choose for yourself, subject only to the limitation that you allow others the same freedom and not interfere with their equal right to set their own course. As Robert Ingersoll put it in his usual poetic style:

Secularism believes in building a home here, in this world. It trusts to individual effort, to energy, to intelligence, to observation and experience rather than to the unknown and the supernatural. It desires to be happy on this side of the grave.

Secularism means food and fireside, roof and raiment, reasonable work and reasonable leisure, the cultivation of the tastes, the acquisition of knowledge, the enjoyment of the arts, and it promises for the human race comfort, independence, intelligence, and above all liberty.

Secularism, in government and in individual life, is something the human race needs more of. We should work to make it so.

I'm happy to report that there's quite a lot of good news this week:

• The U.K. government recommends that primary school religious education classes should teach about "secular beliefs such as humanism and atheism", in addition to learning about major world religions like Christianity, Buddhism and Islam. This is just one more symptom of how far ahead of us our European friends are in some respects - can you imagine the religious right frenzy that would ensue if a U.S. politician recommended teaching about atheism in public high schools?

• In a story that made me especially happy, Andrew Wakefield, the pseudoscientific doctor who's almost single-handedly responsible for the anti-vaccination movement, was found to have seriously abused his trust as a medical practitioner by a U.K. ethics panel. According to the ruling, Wakefield ordered unnecessary and invasive tests on autistic children (including spinal taps and colonoscopies), without securing proper ethical approval, in the paper that claimed a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. He also failed to disclose major conflicts of interest (he was being paid by trial lawyers looking to file claims against vaccine manufacturers). The General Medical Council ruled that Wakefield was "dishonest, irresponsible and showed callous disregard for the distress and pain" of the children, and is still evaluating a charge of professional misconduct that could lead to Wakefield's losing his license to practice medicine.

• And lastly, I'm glad to report that Scott Roeder, the Christian terrorist who shot and killed Dr. George Tiller, was convicted of first-degree murder by a Kansas jury this week. The judge rejected the defense's ludicrous request that the jury be allowed to consider voluntary manslaughter, and they returned the verdict after just 37 minutes of deliberation. Roeder faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison, the most fitting punishment for a cold-blooded and vicious killer like himself.

Although the cause of justice was served, this verdict can't undo the damage; Dr. Tiller's clinic will be closing for good, which means in a way that Roeder got exactly what he wanted. Still, the verdict sends a message that anti-choice zealots cannot commit these crimes with impunity. It may not be enough to discourage future acts of terrorism against abortion providers, but at least we have assurance that the rule of law is still operative in America.

By Sarah Braasch

Representative Bart Stupak from Michigan was paraphrased in a recent New York Times interview as saying that his resolve to defeat the healthcare reform bill, unless the bill includes his anti-abortion amendment language, is a straightforward matter of Roman Catholic faith. The article states that Representative Stupak said that he actually urged the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to toughen its stance on the legislation. Representative Stupak is also quoted as saying: "It's not the end of the world if it goes down."

What?!?! Let me say that again. WTF?!?!

I don't understand how something like this goes unnoticed and unmentioned.

How does he get a free pass on saying something like that in his capacity as a US Representative? How does he not get called out on that?

He just proclaimed to the press that he holds religious law in higher esteem than the US Constitution. He just stated, unequivocally, that he intends to impose religious law upon the American citizenry. He just asserted that he intends to defeat healthcare reform unless religious law is deemed the supreme law of the land, usurping the position of the US Constitution.

I am trying to imagine the reaction if Representative Keith Ellison from Minnesota were to say something similar. Keith Ellison is the first Muslim member of the US Congress. I am trying to imagine the resulting tumult and uproar if he were to defy his Democratic Party and vote in opposition to its platform, all the while maintaining that he was doing so as a straightforward matter of his Islamic faith, because he holds the tenets of Islam in higher esteem than the US Constitution, because the Quran and the Hadith demand that he impose Sharia (Islamic Law) upon American citizens, as a matter of principle and conscience. Does anyone honestly believe that a comment like that would go unnoticed in a New York Times interview?

Representative Stupak took an oath to support and defend the US Constitution. He is openly admitting to violating the Establishment Clause of the Constitution by attempting to establish religious law as US Federal Law. He may not seek recourse under the Free Exercise or Free Speech Clauses, because federal congressional legislation is textbook government speech. He is not acting as a private individual citizen when he acts in his capacity as a US Representative in Congress.

Is there something about the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution, which Representative Stupak fails to understand? I find it fairly straightforward myself. In case you had forgotten, I am including our glorious First Amendment to the United States Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

There is no religious test for public office, but there should be a competency test for public office, to determine if one is capable of maintaining the separation between church and state, if one is capable of NOT violating the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution, if one is capable of comprehending the difference between government speech and the private speech of an individual citizen.

If immigrants desiring citizenship must take a test that demonstrates their knowledge of the United States Constitution, then maybe we should require the same of our Representatives and Senators, since they are also being asked to take an oath or affirmation to support and defend the Constitution and all.

For the record, I am not Catholic. I reject Roman Catholicism. And, I am deeply and personally offended that Mr. Stupak would abuse his position as a US Congressman by attempting to force me to kneel to Roman Catholic doctrine as a matter of US Federal Law in direct violation of our Constitution.

And, even if I were Catholic, what entitles Representative Stupak to interpret the tenets of Roman Catholicism on my behalf? I didn't realize we had a Theologian Laureate in the United States of America. Thank God for Representative Stupak from Michigan. Thank God we have Representative Stupak to interpret Catholic doctrine and then legislate accordingly on our behalf.

I can sleep easy now. Congress is looking after my spiritual wellbeing. Congress is looking after my soul.

Of course Representative Stupak doesn't care if healthcare reform passes or no. Of course he doesn't care how many American citizens continue to die unnecessarily. He isn't interested in saving our lives. He's interested in saving our souls. For Jesus. Nothing unconstitutional about that.

While we Americans have been focusing on this week's elections, there was another important piece of the news from across the Atlantic you might have missed: the European Court of Human Rights has ruled against displaying crucifixes in state-run Italian schools.

A panel of seven judges in Strasbourg said the display of Christian crosses, which is common but not mandatory in Italian schools, violated the principle of secular education and might be "disturbing" for children from other faiths.

It upheld a complaint filed by Soile Lautsi, a Finnish woman with Italian citizenship, who complained that her children had to attend a state school in northern Italy which had crucifixes in every classroom.

..."The presence of the crucifix could be ... disturbing for pupils who practised other religions or were atheists, particularly if they belonged to religious minorities," the court said in its ruling.

Bravo! This is a well-reasoned and obviously correct ruling. Of course the crucifix may be disturbing to people of other faiths or atheists. It is, after all, a graphic depiction of a man being brutally tortured to death by one of the most sadistic and agonizing methods of execution ever invented by human beings. Imagine the unhappy parent who has to explain to her young child what this symbol means and why it's on the wall at their school!

The presence of the crucifix in a state-run classroom is an obvious violation of secularism, an obvious intrusion of religion into the government, and it stands in opposition to parents' right to direct the religious education of their own children as they wish. Any parent who would express outrage if their children were required to attend a school where the Muslim star-and-crescent, or the atheists' scarlet A, was prominent on the wall of every classroom, should understand why the crucifix is equally problematic.

But just as in the U.S., Europe too has its religious supremacists who've grown used to official state support and sponsorship of their beliefs, and who resort to obvious sophistries to deny the reasoning behind this ruling. For example, this blogger from the Telegraph:

Ms Soile Lautsi, a Finnish-born Italian national, felt that the crucifixes were "contrary to the principle of secularism by which she wished to bring up her children", and asked for them to be removed. The school – quite rightly – refused her request on the grounds that crucifixes have been in Italian state schools since the 1920s, and are as much a national symbol as they are a religious one.

In other words, this argument is saying that Italy is a Christian theocracy - the central symbol of the Christian religion is also a "national symbol" - and that this state of affairs is good and desirable and should continue. I'll give him credit for being so explicit about his desire for theocracy, but his claim is false: Italy's Constitution says that all citizens "are equal before the law, without regard to... religion". A violation of secularism does not become more acceptable just because it's been going on for longer.

Imagine an atheist mother in Britain - or, for that matter, a Muslim or a Hindu one – deciding that her local state school's Nativity play was imposing a "particular religious belief" on her children. Would she be able to persuade the ECHR to ban it?

If the state sponsors religious activities for children and requires them to participate? Yes, absolutely! Religious functions directed and sponsored by the government absolutely should be banned. This author is essentially complaining, "If we correct one violation of state-church separation, we'll have to correct all the violations of state-church separation!"

Whether this ruling will actually go into effect is more doubtful: at least so far, Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has vowed to defy it. What the consequences of doing so might be are not yet clear. But regardless, we can celebrate this ruling as one clear victory for reason and common sense: state-sponsored religion is a medieval relic that has no place in a modern, secular democracy.

While we in the West work to defend secularism against creationists, pro-lifers and other would-be theocrats, it's worth remembering from time to time how good we have it. Our church-state wall may be an embattled boundary, but in most of the world, it's nonexistent. This is especially true in most of the world's Muslim-majority countries, where a few heroes of secularism are fighting against nearly impossible odds. Take Kuwait, where two courageous female MPs are refusing to wear headscarves in Parliament, in defiance of Islamist lawmakers who want to force all women to obey sharia:

"You can't force a woman going to the mall to wear a hijab and you can't force a woman going to work to wear the hijab," the MP, Rola Dashti, told The Daily Telegraph. "This is not Iran or Saudi Arabia."

Although Kuwait has taken some small steps forward as compared to its neighbors - women gained the right to vote and to run for office only in 2005 - the Islamist parties that still exercise major influence in its government are doing their best to roll back that progress. Granting women the vote was a major advance, since female Kuwaitis now have a say in how they are governed. Rest assured, however, that the Islamists will take away that power if they can. Their demands to impose sharia and the hijab even on elected female lawmakers are doubtless their way of testing the waters for more restrictive laws. Rola Dashti and her colleague, Aseel Al-Awadhi, deserve great credit for having the courage to stand up to them, but victory is far from certain.

And when Islamists can't win at the ballot box, they've proven time and time again that they'll eagerly resort to violence to get their way. Just so is this story, about a suicide bomber who targeted the Pakistani office of the World Food Program:

The bomb exploded without warning about noon, said Saadia Abbasi, a Pakistani lawyer and former senator who lives across the street. "There was a terrible blast, and everything shook and smoke started pouring out" of the compound, she said in a telephone interview.

...Five people -- an Iraqi man and four Pakistanis, two of them women -- died by early evening, said Wasim Khawaja, spokesman for the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences hospital.

Attacking hotels and embassies is bad enough, but this savage assault on a purely charitable organization shows that our enemy has truly abandoned any trace of humanity. The only thing the WFP had done was try to help hungry, homeless Pakistani citizens displaced by internal conflict. If that makes them a target for terrorism, then we can see all the more clearly how those who planned and carried out this attack have given their allegiance to a religious cult of death and mayhem.

Finally, I wrote in January about the Taliban takeover of Pakistan's Swat Valley. Shortly thereafter, the Pakistani government found the will to launch a counteroffensive and drove them out, thankfully. Now they're targeting the true power center of the Islamist insurgency, the tribal region of South Waziristan. But the coming battle may be a costly one, as reported in this article from the Telegraph:

"If the soldiers come to our land I am ready to fight them," said one of them, a teenager called Ijazullah, who only had one name. "I am ready to die. I am even ready for a suicide mission if that is required."

..."There are thousands more like me who have come here to join our Muslim brothers," he said. "We are ready to fight these Pakistani soldiers who are doing the work of the American unbelievers."

I've often said that beliefs can't be defeated by force alone, that the only way to truly overcome an idea is with a better idea. I still hold that to be true. But when violent extremists of any kind come together in an organized center of power, when they terrorize the populace and seek to impose their way of life on everyone, then the use of force is necessary as a means of self-defense.

The Taliban, al-Qaeda and their allies can't be permitted to have a safe haven or to exercise uncontested control over any region of a sovereign nation, and there's ample evidence that trying diplomacy only gives them a chance to consolidate their power. This hornets' nest has to be cleared out, lest the fundamentalists overthrow Pakistan's fragile democracy or get their hands on the country's nuclear arsenal. This isn't a recommendation I make lightly, but if ever there was a just war to uproot dangerous extremism, this is it. Pakistan's army has tried and failed to uproot them in the past; whether they will succeed this time is something that time will soon tell.

Since I wrote about the Center for Inquiry's Blasphemy Day last week, this is a fitting followup. By participating in events like those, we demonstrate our commitment to defending the right of free speech. But we can also show that commitment in a more tangible way: by taking action on behalf of the prisoners of conscience around the world who've been imprisoned and punished for exercising that right.

In this case, I'm speaking of Kareem Amer, an Egyptian blogger and law student who in 2007 was sentenced to four years in prison for writing posts that criticized Islam and the repressive Egyptian government and defended secularism and women's rights. Naturally, these were judged intolerable crimes in the authoritarian, theocratic dictatorship that modern Egypt has become. Even his own parents disowned him, although this may (or may not) have been the result of coercion.

You can read Kareem's writings for yourself, translated into English, on the site that's been set up to lobby for his freedom. Some of them are astounding in their boldness and courage, especially "There Is No Deity but the Human Being", a ringing endorsement of secular humanism:

Verily, we must return to the beginning and define the function of the law in our lives. And before that, we must convince the human being of his individual sanctity, and that nothing surpasses him in importance and standing besides himself. Following that, the law is a follower, protector, and organizer of his life. It is not a tool of suppression with which whoever is behind it aims to create a new deity the human being will prostrate to and sanctify.

If you're willing to help, the Free Kareem website has an action center with a list of what you can do. As I'm not familiar with the people behind this site, I can't say whether donating money will go to a good cause, so I'd advise some skepticism on that. Instead, of all the actions listed, I think the most effective is sending letters and faxes to the Egyptian government (their link to Amnesty International's webpage for this purpose is broken, so here's a new one).

This may seem like an unlikely way to bring about change in a corrupt theocracy, but Western pressure can have an effect. For instance, Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, the Afghan student sentenced to death for the great crime of downloading writings on women's rights from the internet, was pardoned by President Hamid Karzai after heavy international pressure and safely escaped the country.

To support this brave and unjustly imprisoned ally of free speech, writing a letter is the least we can do. This is why we have events like Blasphemy Day, to let oppressive religions and tyrannical governments know that they can't escape criticism no matter how they try. But while blasphemy laws are useless in the long run, in the short run they destroy innocent lives. By taking action on this cause, we have a chance to mitigate at least some of that harm.

Because this strategy worked so well for Elizabeth Dole, another conservative politician has decided to make a play for the bigot vote by stirring up anti-atheist prejudice against a challenger. In this case, it's on a smaller scale: a race for city council in Albuquerque, New Mexico. You can read about it in the New Mexico Independent, a local paper. (HT: Daylight Atheism reader Brian Westley, who was also the first one to tell me about the Dole ads. He's good at finding this stuff!)

According to the mailer, sent out by city council member Don Harris:

David Barbour, recently moved here from San Francisco. He is a donor to Atheist organizations and speaker at Atheist events and attends radical political protests even in foreign countries. [italics and caps as in original —Ebonmuse]

Evidently, Mr. Barbour was a presenter at a 2004 event titled "The Importance of Being Atheist," hosted by a Unitarian Universalist group, and contributed to a scholarship essay contest run in 2008 by San Francisco Atheists (source). And I say, good for him! We need more civically minded, politically engaged atheists taking part in our great democracy. We have as much right to participate in the electoral process as any other citizen.

Mr. Harris, on the other hand, has a great deal to be ashamed of. Making a campaign issue out of someone's religious beliefs, or lack thereof, is a disgusting, despicable tactic. Whether someone is atheist, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, or anything else makes no difference in their ability to serve their country, and trying to imply otherwise is a form of out-and-out bigotry no different than urging voters to defeat a candidate because they are black or because they are female. Whether in races for Senate seats, city council seats, or anything in between, this naked and shameless appeal to prejudice is an evil that no one should tolerate.

Unfortunately, this story was reported too late for us to help out Barbour's campaign - the election was today, in fact. I'll post an update when I hear how it turned out. But let this be a reminder to us that we must always be vigilant in fighting prejudice wherever and whenever it rears its head. By volunteering and contributing to support atheist candidates for political office, we can dispel anti-atheist bigotry and erect a bulwark against the forces of theocracy that are always seeking to push their way into our government.

In my last post on the religious right view of marriage, some commenters took me to task for painting with too broad a brush. In this post, I'll consider how widely held such views are.

It's a fair point that not all conservative Christians hold views as extreme as those I criticized. Nevertheless, the views treated in that post are just one end of a spectrum that encompasses nearly the entire religious right. Almost all of them argue that men should always wield the authority in a home and that women be obedient and subservient, and whether they intend it or not, this belief inevitably results in more women suffering unnecessarily from domestic violence and spousal abuse.

The preeminent example is the Southern Baptist Convention, which in 1998 revised their official statement of faith, the Baptist Faith and Message, to say that a wife is expected to "submit herself graciously" to the commands of her husband. (Two years later, they revised it again to clarify that women were not permitted to be pastors either.) Over a hundred prominent evangelicals, including Franklin Graham, Charles Colson, Bill Bright and Mike Huckabee, later signed a statement praising the SBC for its sexism.

A common corollary to this belief is that, even in cases of abuse, divorce is not biblically permitted. Saddleback Church pastor Tom Holladay, for instance, says that the Bible only condones divorce for two reasons, adultery and abandonment, but adds "I wish there were a third" for domestic abuse (thus demonstrating that he recognizes the immorality of the biblical teaching on divorce, and would probably be a better person if he didn't feel bound by this cruel religion). Holladay added, "There is something in me that wishes there were a Bible verse that says, 'If they abuse you in this-and-such kind of way, then you have a right to leave them'" (source).

The most common teaching in "mainstream" churches like Saddleback is that spousal abuse can be solved by separation, so long as the woman is willing to forgive her abuser and move back in with him if he apologizes and promises to seek Christian counseling. This may sound like a reasonable compromise, but in reality it's anything but. Since it doesn't permit women to unilaterally end the marriage - to decide that enough is enough - it's an open invitation for endless cycles of abuse and violence. As any domestic-abuse expert knows, it's very common for an abuser to plead remorse, to apologize and pledge to make things better, only for the abuse to start again as soon as the woman is back in his power.

This viewpoint has been preached by powerful evangelical leaders such as James Dobson and John MacArthur, according to author and domestic-abuse survivor Jocelyn Anderson:

"We do see some very big-name evangelical leaders blaming the battered woman for the abuse," Andersen explained. "You know, talking about how she may provoke her husband into doing it; or that her poor, non-communicative husband can't handle maybe what she's trying to communicate to him and he lashes out and hits her -- [that] shifts the blame right off him and to her."

...In her book, Andersen cites an incident in which a battered wife wrote to Dobson telling him that "the violence within her marriage was escalating in both frequency and intensity and that she feared for her life." Dobson "replied that her goal should be to change her husband's behavior--not to get a divorce..."

...According to a tape titled Bible Questions and Answers Part 16, a member of Grace Community Church asked MacArthur how a Christian woman should react "and deal with being a battered wife."

MacArthur's answer contained "some very dangerous advice to battered wives. He said divorce is not an option to a battered wife, because the Bible doesn't permit it... He warned wives to be very careful that they were not provoking the abusive situations. Because, he said, that was very often the problem."

In another article, Andersen expands on this argument. Though a Christian herself, she blames "church teachings of wifely submission and male headship" for creating an epidemic of domestic violence within the church, by teaching women that leaving abusive relationships is not an option and that it is their wifely duty to obey their husbands.

Some authorities among the religious right go so far as to blame the victim, teaching that domestic abuse is the woman's fault for not submitting enough. This was the exact viewpoint advocated by Bruce Ware, a theology professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who said in 2008 that women often provoke their husbands to violence by rebelling against their God-given role of obedience. Ware described this view as "what Southern Seminary as a whole represents".

The twin views that women are expected to submit to men and that divorce is not an acceptable response to abuse are widespread in the religious right, advocated by major church denominations and influential evangelical leaders. Even when they don't explicitly defend domestic violence and abuse, these views go a long way toward establishing the conditions that make it more likely to happen.

Christian conservatives always talk about "defending traditional marriage" - which has that warm, homey, fresh-baked-apple-pie feeling to it - but never make it clear precisely what they're defending.

This is deliberate, of course, and a clever political strategy: they choose phrases with positive mental associations but otherwise leave their position vague. That way, ordinary people can project onto it whatever idealized notion of a happy family they happen to hold. By this tactic, the religious right makes it sound as if all they want is to protect millions of imaginary-1950s, smiling-wife-and-picket-fence families against the godless hordes who want to take this all away. (How would granting equal rights to same-sex couples take anything away from heterosexual couples? Don't ask!)

But when Christian conservatives talk among themselves, they're not nearly as concerned with disguising their true goals. And if we listen in to those internal conversations, we can see exactly what their model of "traditional marriage" is: what they want to defend, and more so, what they want to impose on everyone else. And it bears mention that the ideal religious-right model of marriage and family is nothing like ordinary people's conception of those things. In fact, most ordinary people would be shocked and revolted by their true plan and desire.

As Exhibit A, I present this utterly horrifying article (sent in by a Daylight Atheism reader - thanks, Stacey!) from No Greater Joy Ministries, a religious-right group. The article, by Michael and Debi Pearl, concerns how good Christian wives should deal with emotionally and physically abusive husbands, and all the cheerful imagery of smiling children on the masthead can't change the pure, unfettered evil it contains. If you think I'm exaggerating, just wait.

The Pearls' argument is that divorce is forbidden by the Bible, no exceptions. Therefore, if a Christian woman is in an abusive relationship, it is her God-ordained responsibility to stay with her husband, to obey his every desire, and bear his abuse without complaint or protest.

It's hard to decide which part of this is the most obscene, but there's no shortage of candidates. First, there's this, the eternal refrain of battered wives everywhere: "If I try even harder to please him, eventually he'll change!"

One day you will wake up, turn your head to smile good morning to your husband, and see the tears of thanksgiving glistening in his eyes as he tells you one more time how much he loves you and how proud he is to have you as his wife.

...This happened because day by day, minute by minute, you chose to believe God's Word and honor him even though your flesh wanted to scream in anger and defeat. And in that moment of weakness, when you bowed beneath the load, God reached down and gently reminded you to keep on because some day your children will "arise and call you blessed; your husband also, and he praiseth you. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all."

This promised carrot comes with a stick, a none-too-subtle threat to the woman: if you divorce your husband, God will condemn your children to eternal torture.

There is no promise in Scripture to spare your children if you leave your lost husband. I could give you a list of hundreds of godly Christians that chose to leave their unbelieving spouses and then married a believing spouse, had decent marriages, but lost their children to the world and bitterness. I have sat and listened to many say, "We sinned; our children suffered, and we lost them to the world. They hate us. My divorce was wrong. Oh if only..."

It extols the virtue of obedience to an abusive husband and demands that the woman suffer in silence without telling others about her situation (and note the clear implication that the man is also expected to control the finances of both partners):

God says that as a husband looks on and sees the way his wife responds to him, he will be won. He will hear and see her cheerful countenance... He will see her giving up her rights and not taking offense when he knows he has wronged her. He will see she honors him, obeys him, treats him with respect, and serves him with a non-rebellious, non-resistant attitude... He will see she doesn't puff up and talk incessantly in criticism of him — or others. He trusts her. He knows she is not going to discuss him with her pastor or friend. He sees she is wise with what little money he gives her. She is a remarkable woman, not because she is classy in the way she dresses or looks, but in the way she controls her spirit. She rejoices for an opportunity to bless him, and he knows her heart is good. He tries her; he deliberately tempts her into hurt or anger; he judges her unfairly; he demands things of her that he knows embarrasses her, yet she is in subjection to him in all things.

But if I had to pick the single most insane part of this entire horrifying screed, I'd choose this one. Although the authors say that divorce is never allowable under any circumstance, they do offer one way out for a woman who just can't take it anymore: pray to God that he'll kill your husband for you.

There have been occasions, both in Scripture and in our ministry, where a man was so vile that God has killed him. A woman can come to God asking Him to deliver her from a man if he will not repent, but a woman should be sure she has obeyed God in her relationship to her husband, before she asks such a thing.

The only slender reed of credit I'll give this article is that it does say a woman can go to the police and have her husband arrested if he's physically violent towards her or if he sexually molests their children. But even then, it says divorce is still forbidden, and the woman is expected to stay married (and alone and without companionship, one presumes) if her husband is serving a prison sentence.

The next time you hear a right-wing fundamentalist start talking about "protecting traditional marriage", think of this article. This is what they want. They'd like to see every marriage and every family turned into a miniature dictatorship, where the man is the king and the woman (and children, one assumes) are slaves, expected to obey him without question and absorb whatever abuse and degradation he delivers without complaint.

Fortunately, we have a better vision of marriage: a harmonious joining of equals, a partnership embarked upon for the sake of mutual happiness. And if one partner is unloving or abusive, that marriage deserves to end, so that the innocent partner can seek the happiness they deserve elsewhere. The fundamentalists' vision is a nightmare, but we can still prevent it from coming to pass.

The next time you hear Christians complaining about being persecuted in America, remember this story.

You probably know Hemant Mehta, author of the blog Friendly Atheist. What you may not know, and what I didn't know, is that by day he's a math teacher at a public high school in Illinois. And it seems that a right-wing Christian group, outraged by the thought of an atheist being a teacher and potentially a role model, is now trying to get him fired.

You can read the story in Hemant's own words in three posts, Why the Illinois Family Institute Is Angry With Me, Illinois Family Institute Goes After Me Again, and most recently, Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute Issues an Open Letter to Me.

Hemant does a superb job of telling the story himself, but the summary is that he outraged the Illinois Family Institute, a gay-bashing religious right group, by writing a blog post sarcastically criticizing a "warning" they issued about same-sex couples kissing in public. The IFI was terrified that - gasp! - young, impressionable children might see gays and lesbians engaging in acts of affection!

In response, the IFI's director, Laurie Higgins, sent a letter to Hemant's school board to insinuate that he should be fired for being an atheist:

...He, of course, has a First Amendment right to write whatever he pleases on his blog "The Friendly Atheist" during his free time, but it’s unfortunate that a role model for students would write some of the things he writes.

When this failed to produce the desired effect, Higgins then sent letters to parents in Hemant's district, suggesting that they should be horrified by an atheist teacher and should demand that their children be removed from his class:

...as I mentioned in my earlier article, parents have the right not to have him as a teacher and a role model for their children. I want to be very clear about what I'm suggesting: I am suggesting that parents who have serious concerns about Mr. Mehta's potential influence on their children's beliefs politely insist that their children be placed in another teacher's class.

The IFI's fearmongering follows the usual religious right smear-job tactics: dig around for anything controversial that can be linked to the person they're attacking - especially anything having to do with sex, which the Christianists are obsessed with to the point of paralysis - and then describe it to make it sound as upsetting to mainstream sensibilities as possible. Gasp! Another poster on Hemant's blog answered an e-mail from someone who practices polyamory! Gasp! Hemant linked to the "obscene column" of "homosexual activist" Dan Savage! Heavens, won't someone please think of the children?!

Notably, not even Higgins has claimed that Hemant has said or done anything in the classroom to promote atheism to his students. Her sole concern is that he might be a good teacher, such that students will find him inspiring and look up to him, will then Google his name, find out he's an atheist, and be drawn to atheism themselves! (Really. I'm not kidding. That's actually what they say.)

I've heard nothing to indicate that Hemant's job is in jeopardy, but if the school board does take any kind of retaliatory action against him, he would have a very strong legal case for religious discrimination. I'll post an update if I hear anything more on that front, and I'd gladly help raise money in his defense.

In the meantime, to Laurie Higgins and the IFI: shame on you. How dare you, here in America, try to get a man fired for expressing his views? How dare you suggest that speech protected by the First Amendment makes him any less fit as a teacher or as a role model? You should be ashamed for such a sleazy and contemptible attack on a good American citizen who's serving his community by teaching its children.

You have no right to demand that students in public schools only be exposed to opinions that are exactly the same as their parents'. That is a foolish, reprehensible and ignorant expectation. The whole point of education is to expose kids to new ideas. And when was the last time you complained about a religious teacher expressing their views? Have you ever issued press releases trying to frighten parents into pulling their children out of some class because the teacher is a Christian or a Jew? Have you ever written to the school board to complain because a teacher wears a crucifix in class? Hemant doesn't even so much as wear an atheist pin!

No teacher, atheist or theist, should proselytize their students in class (although religious ones too often do). The First Amendment requires that public institutions be secular and religiously neutral. But what constitutionally-protected opinions a teacher holds and expresses on their own time, that's their business. The IFI, a gang of small-minded bigots if ever I saw one, thinks they have the right to close down the circle of opinions to only the ones that they approve of. It's too bad for them that they live in America, a nation founded on precisely the opposite ideal.