Monday, June 25, 2007

SCOTUS Sums Up This Entire Administration

SCOTUS struck another blow to the separation of Church and State, finding, in the case of Hein vs. Freedom From Religion Foundation, that taxpayers lack standing to challenge expenditures and activities of President Bush's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The court ruled 5-4 (Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas) with the Majority Opinion being written by Justice Alito.

It's not surprising, but it's certainly disappointing. In the dissenting opinion, Justice Souter wrote (I assume) without irony
I see no basis for this distinction in either logic or precedent....
Ironically, this can be said for 99.75% of all decisions made by this mad administration.

More reaction and analysis:
Law.com
WaPo

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Quote of the Day

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
---Steven Weinberg

I don't agree. Evil people use religion to try to convince others that the evil things that they are doing are good things.
Afterall, they are doing these things because God has spoken to them. How could that be evil?

Thursday, June 14, 2007

I'm In; I'm Out; I'm In; I'm Out

Two weeks ago, the Christian Civic League announced that they were turning their attentions to something other than sex:
The League's Board of Director's decided recently to make defeating this gambling expansion referendum its top priority until November. This is the first time since 1994 that this Christian ministry has allowed her deep concerns over sexual morality to drop from its top priority ranking.
Seemed like a reasonable redirection of focus--gambling's something most folks can agree to hate, especially in Maine. Neon lights and the ding-ping of the slots just doesn't reinforce the state motto. And besides, most folks in Maine are getting tired of the CCL's constant bleating about the "homosexual agenda"and its non-existent threat to "family values" so they stopped listening to the daily bleat. Like the neighbors say, "Live Free or Die".

How quickly good intentions are abandoned. Less than two weeks later, Mike Heath and his League are back on the sex band wagon. Today's press release about a state other than Maine (the Commonwealth of Massachusetts) declares
And the truth is that homosexuality is perverse, deviant and disgusting sexual behavior that isn't a topic of discussion in polite and civil societies. If people want to do it in the privacy of their home then shame on them, but I'm not interested in stopping their boorish bedroom antics anymore than I'm interested in hearing about it."


Idunnomike. It sounds like you really are interested in stopping their boorish bedroom antics, even though you said you were going to stop obsessing about "their boorish bedroom antics" . Either that or you're just hateful.

Pam is blogging this, as is Good As You.

Update: I'd be totally remiss not to link to Peter LaBarbera's thoughts on the matter
It's scary that MassResistance, Mike Heath (in his podcast today) and Americans For Truth all place the blame for this loss--their view, not mine--on compromise.
What's that quote?
"To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead."
----Thomas Paine

Friday, June 01, 2007

Faith, Reason and Illogical Thoughts

Yesterday, Sam Brownback contributed an OpEd piece to the New York Times, in which he argued that he was for Science and Evolution. Sort of. Excepting where science creates a conflict with his faith; then faith wins out. Sigh.

More of the same from the Christianists: a position that echoes the current administration's positions (think Global Warming and Birth Control) and that has seemingly little intelligence guiding it.

Today, the Times published eight thoughtful responses to Senator Brownback. As one writer said:

By subjecting scientific observation to a theological litmus test, he drives the very wedge between faith and reason that he purports to avoid.
As a scientist, I would say that God is much more subtle than to force us to close our eyes to what we see in deference to what another may choose to believe is his guiding hand.

Amen, brother.