Read the Google Cache of the "Arizona Sentinel" blog cut-and-paste hack job that right-wingers are claiming "proves" that Barack Obama applied to Occidental College as a foreigner. As you'll see with a quick read and the most minimal effort to find the faked sources referred to within, it's a hoax. Also a hoax, therefore, is the claim by right-wingers that the "Arizona Sentinel" is a newspaper website taken down by The Man because conspiracy theorists were TOO CLOSE to the truth! See here for a debunking of the fake "article."
Had it up to here with the silence of the Speaker of the House during years and years of U.S. Government torture? Then shout it to the highest clouds: Nancy Pelosi, Resign!
What if someone told you that military training should be 94 percent religious worship and 6 percent physical fitness? That’s the idea that U.S. Representative Zach Wamp is promoting with his latest earmark, a whopper at more than 15 million dollars for construction of a new facility at the Army’s Fort Campbell.
Congressman Wamp is fond of saying that his proposed new facility will be a combined worship chapel and physical fitness center, but that kind of description doesn’t reflect the nature of facility Wamp and his supporters have designed. Wamp’s earmark provides fourteen million dollars for the religious worship facilities at the “chapel complex”. Only nine hundred thousand is allocated for the physical fitness center.
Think about the expensive equipment that’s required for a physical fitness center, as opposed to the relatively simple requirements for a chapel, and the funding becomes even more baffling. Wamp says that the chapel complex is designed for soldiers and their families as a “facility in which to worship and practice their religious faith”. What do people really need to worship and practice religious faith, though, other than a comfortable, dry place (and sometimes not even that)?
Looking at this earmark, you’ve got to wonder if Zach Wamp regards the military as a means of national defense, or a tool for religious conversion. If Wamp were allowed to design the entire U.S. military, you’d have a force of flabby, out of shape soldiers who could recite any Bible verse by heart.
Supporters of this project from around the Fort Campbell area, such as Deanna McLaughlin, member of the Clarksville City Council, smell a lot of money coming their way. So, they’re coming up with some ingenious arguments about why the U.S. government should pay for the construction of a 14 million dollar church. She says that current conditions are intolerable. “If somebody needs spiritual counseling, they have to drive to individual chapels looking for somebody,” she complains.
So, you mean that, if someone wants to find a church where they can engage in religious worship, they have to go to different churches before they find one that’s right for them? How is that a problem? It sounds pretty normal to me.
McLaughlin, Wamp and her ilk might want to consider a little old piece of legislation called the First Amendment. It’s in the Bill of Rights. That’s in the Constitution. The first clause of the First Amendment reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
Legislation passed by Congress ordering the federal government to pay for the construction of a 14 million dollar church complex certainly qualifies as “an establishment of religion”. That means that the Wamp earmark is not only grotesquely wasteful and out of balance, but unconstitutional as well.
If soldiers at Fort Campbell want to engage in religious worship, that’s their private business. They can go to a church in one of the communities near the military base if they want to. Nobody, whether in Clarksville or in Fort Campbell, has the right to demand that the American people spend 14 million dollars just to make a new big government church.
People have become used to publicity events in which Christians debate atheists. These contests are set up with the idea that the person who is able to make the most crowd-pleasing arguments will establish some sort of credibility for either religion or lack of religion. The debates haven’t actually settled the disagreement, however, but have served very well to give the people participating in the debates an opportunity to hear themselves speak.
Another sort of philosophical challenge is going on in Syracuse, New York this Wednesday as the Freethinkers of Upstate New York face off against the Central New York Skeptics… in a game of miniature golf. This contest should settle once and for all whether a skeptical outlook or a freethinking perspective on life makes a person better suited to push a ball with a stick so that it can evade the rotating blades of a model of a dutch windmill.
Isn’t that the ultimate foundation of all philosophical debates?
Alan Colmes: When you say you are praying for the death of someone using imprecatory prayer, you then said — I asked, then, “for whom else are you praying in that fashion?” And you said “President Obama.” Are you praying for his death?
Wiley Drake: Yes.
Colmes: So you’re praying for the death of the president of the United States.
Drake: Yes.
Colmes: Do you, are you concerned that by saying that you might find yourself on some kind of a Secret Service call or FBI wanted list or, uh, do you think it’s appropriate to say something like that, or even pray for something like that?
Drake: I think it’s appropriate to pray the Word of God. I’m not saying anything. What I am doing is repeating what God is saying, and if that puts me on somebody’s list, then I’ll just have to be on their list.
Colmes: Uh, you would like for the president of the United States to die?
Drake: If he does not turn to God and does not turn his life around, I am asking God to enforce imprecatory prayers that are throughout the Scripture, uh, that would cause him, uh, death, that’s correct…. I think we’ll see, in the days ahead, other imprecatory prayers answered. God says clearly in his word that we are to continue to pray, and he will answer our prayers.
I don’t see why anybody should really by upset by this; to be upset by Wiley Drake’s words they have to have some power. It’s not that Wiley Drake is an unconnected pastor… he’s a former vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention and he ran on a presidential ticket last year with Alan Keyes. So Wiley Drake has some earthly connections, yes.
But really, any “imprecatory prayer” Wiley Drake makes for a person’s death should be giggled at rather than condemned. Drake has a track record of imprecatory death prayers that have gone utterly unfulfilled. Back in August of 2007, Wiley Drake reported that he’d begun casting his magical imprecatory prayers for the deaths of Barry Lynn, Joe Conn and Jeremy Leaming, three individuals who work for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.
Two years later, are these targets of Wiley Drake’s death prayers dead? No, they’re alive and well. That makes Wiley Drake’s God either a fiction or a feeble wimp. Every time he makes a big ol’ death prayer for someone prominent, it’s like Drake is putting up a billboard that reads, “The God of the Southern Bapitsts is a Joke!” And while there are a lot of Southern Baptists out there, and while Wiley Drake is connected to them, it’s not like one of them has gone out and followed Drake’s theatrics by firebombing Barry Lynn’s home. As feeble or fictional as the Southern Baptist God is, Wiley’s Southern Baptist supporters are inactive and inert.
Silly, silly Wiley Drake says the Just Wrath of his Mighty God character will strike any day now: “I think we’ll see, in the days ahead, other imprecatory prayers answered.” OK, fella, we’ll keep an eye out. Every day that Barry Lynn and Joe Conn and Jeremy Leaming and Barack Obama keep walking around doing what they’re doing, we’ll laugh at you more heartily and stick in an extra few snorts. That’s what Wiley Drake deserves: not a condemnation that pretends his power is real, but a laugh.
Last week, before the business of the the House of Representatives was allowed to begin, Reverend Kenneth L. Simon of New Bethel Baptist Church in Youngstown, Ohio rose to give the following, the official congressional prayer of the day:
“Gracious God, we come thanking You today for all of Your blessings and the privilege You have given each of us to serve You by serving Your people. We thank You for our President, Barack Obama, who You have called and appointed to lead this Nation for such a time as this.”
This prayer was not merely a religious ritual. It contained a political message straight out of Medieval Times. It reaffirmed the ancient political philosophy referred to by historians as the divine right of kings. This political theory claims that leaders are not accountable to the people over whom they exercise power, because leaders are chosen by God.
It’s unnerving that such prayers are routinely presented before the U.S. Congress, as an official act of government. Yes, it’s an unconstitional violation of the First Amendment, which clearly states that Congress must not engage in any action that establishes religion, as these prayers do. Beyond that problem, the nature of prayers such as the one made by Reverend Simon last week are a problem.
I shudder to think of the impact it could have upon members of Congress to be told, day after day, that they have been personally chosen by God, and that the government of the United States of America exists to enforce the will of God.
New Hampshire has passed a law that establishes marriage equality within its borders, legalizing same-sex marriage. I’m glad for that, but there’s a small, bitter corner of this victory that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
The governor of New Hampshire would only agree to sign the bill into law if an exemption granting churches the right to deny the legal validity of their employees’ same-sex marriages. In New Hampshire, a same-sex couple can get married, but if one of them works for a church, it will be as if their marriage doesn’t exist.
Creating a special exemption for churches, to allow them to remain as sanctuaries of discrimination and bigotry, is a nasty thing to do, but I suppose I can see the constitutional justification of it. There is, according to the First Amendment, supposed to be freedom of religion. I understand how that freedom can be interpreted to apply, not just to individual choice of religious identity, but also to the organizational powers of churches.
However, if we in the United States are now to adopt the idea that religious organizations have the same rights as individuals, and that churches can therefore do whatever they want without interference by the government, let’s be consistent in the application of this principle. If a church wants to set up a casino, let’s not interfere. If a church wants to keep slaves, let’s allow it. If a church stones women to death for adultery, let’s not prosecute. When a church helps its priests sexually molest thousands of children, let’s look the other way. If churches want to kidnap people and hold them in captivity in church basements, who are we to say no? It’s religious liberty.
The alternative is to hold that individuals have First Amendment religious liberty, but that religious organizations need to follow the same laws that apply to everyone else. That, clearly, is unacceptable.
In his speech in Cairo, President Obama just declared, “I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”
That sounds nice, doesn’t it. I mean, who likes negative stereotypes?
Actually, the people who hold negative stereotypes appreciate them. Only, they don’t think of them as negative stereotypes.
What one person calls a “negative stereotype” might be considered a principled criticism by another person. It’s a matter of perspective.
It’s also a matter of free speech. All those who fall under the jurisdiction of the US government are supposed to have the freedom to criticize what they will, whether their criticisms are popular or not. There is nothing in the Constitution that indicates that religion ought to be exempt from criticism.
There is also nothing in the Constitution that suggests that it is part of the duties of the President of the United States to fight against criticisms of religion in general, or criticisms of particular religions. Barack Obama has it wrong when he says that to fight criticisms of Islam is his responsibility as President.
In fact, it’s Obama’s responsibility as President of the United States not to fight against criticisms of Islam, or of any other religion. The President is the Executive leader of a secular government that is supposed to respect the religious liberty of everyone in the USA and its territories. An essential aspect of that religious liberty is the right of people to criticize religions without government suppression of their dissent.
Please, President Obama, do not “fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear”. It’s none of your business.
Today is the first day of June, and June is Torture Awareness Month, but May was the month that Americans became aware that the issue of torture had not died with the end of the presidency of George W. Bush. President Barack Obama extended his efforts to cover up evidence of torture under his predecessor, bewildering Democrats who thought that they had voted for change in the election of 2008.
Still, Obama has broken many campaign promises this year, including the promise to reform the Office of Government Religion (faith-based initiatives) by ending its funding of religious discrimination. Obama’s broken promises have a common thread throughout them - the same disregard for the law and the Constitution that made George W. Bush generally recognized as the worst President in American history.
But there’s another link between Obama’s torture cover ups and his fondness for breaking the separation of church and state. The results of a survey conducted by the Forum on Religion and Public Life show that the more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the use of torture.
54 percent of respondents to the survey who attended church at least once a week indicated that they believe that torture is justified “often” or “sometimes”. For those respondents who attended church “monthly or a few times a year”, that support dropped slightly to 51 percent. Those respondents who attended church either seldom or never, however, were much less likely to support the use of torture - 42 percent of those respondents indicated that they believe that torture is justified “often” or “sometimes”.
There are many possible interpretations of this chart. Association and causation are not the same thing. Perhaps going to church leads people to support torture, but it could also be that sadists who already have the propensity to support torture also find satisfaction in what church has to offer.
However, it’s clear that this survey profoundly undermines the contention that churches are agents of compassion in American society. The statistics here do not support the idea that churches lead people into forgiveness. Turning the other cheek seems to happen more among those who don’t go to church than among those who do.
This survey goes some way to explaining for me why Barack Obama has broken his promises both on torture and on the separation of church and state. If Obama is seeking to create a base of political support using America’s churches, institutions that he used as campaign tools in 2008, then he can solidify that base by acting in support of torture. Obama would endanger his hold on America’s voting churchgoers by opposing torture.
When I read the phrase “This site is not to be used in the hunting of vampires or any other type of otherkin,” I admit that I had to suppress a chuckle. Though the site OtherKin.com tends to take itself very seriously (“if it comes down to a fight between a vampire and a “slayer,” I hope you can run fast.”), its self-consciously ominous character is a little silly, when it comes down to it.
Otherkin are people who believe that they are, in some kind of way, not ordinary humans, but somehow, are actually some kind of mythical creature, such as a nymph, a demon or even a Pooka.
I am not one of those people who find the Otherkin interesting because I wonder whether there really are dragons, elves, werewolves and vampires. I don’t believe that there ever have been such things. I also wonder why faeries and undead creatures with special powers would need to have web sites in order to establish a sense of community amongst those of their kind.
I find Otherkin interesting because it’s curious to consider what motivates human beings to believe that they are not human beings, and to accept a mythological identity as the internally-real core aspect of themselves. I also think that it’s remarkable that people are willing to express these ideas to other people and interact in this shared symbolic reality. I have some respect for their imaginations, and I’m glad that we have a culture for people like this, who, though they may not be griffins or changelings, are definitely, really Otherkin.
It’s a pretty fair bet that the Unity08 experience — aging political consultants using their media contacts to whip up a hypestorm and engineer their own presidential candidate — will not be repeated as Unity2012. I say this with confidence because the website Unity2012.com has already been claimed — with a rather different agenda:
Even before the election took place it was very inspiring to hear that Tobias channeled through Geoffrey Hopped of the Crimson Circle, gave some interesting insight into Barak Obama being.
Tobias reveals - “Abraham Lincoln comes back as Barack Obama to help take not only this country, but the world on to a new level.” (source)
This happened on August, 2, 2008, and at first I didn’t think too much of it, but then shortly afterwards, little things started popping up all over the place…
How many ‘New Energy’ Creators does it take to change a lightbulb? (Three - one to screw the new light bulb in, one to describe the aura of the light bulb, and one to channel what the vibration of the change means.)
We are at the grassroots of a spiritual revolution based on our personal awakening and the
transcendence that is created when we connect together with intent, high consciousness, and an
uncompromised, united vision. We are compelled at this time of change to use our gifts for the cocreation
of a harmonious and sustainable cosmic future.
Will you join us? Will you answer the call to join with other lightworkers in Switzerland this February
at the first international GATHERING—an International Conference of Spiritual Leadership?
This conference will be like none others. You, who are already awakening to your personal gifts
and powers, are invited to join others from around the world to create a group alchemy that opens
the potential of human consciousness. Our goal is to give birth to the highest energies possible and
to build a sustainable field of consciousness that enables the rapid growth of human potential. We
cannot predict what the outcomes that emerge from this Gathering will be. Please help us spread
the word! We have 220 people signed up so far, and we envision at least 350—and have room for
500 people!
The organizers of Unity2012.com articulate a vision that does not fit snugly within the 30-minute newscast or 50-minute punditry format, like Unity08’s press releases did. I wouldn’t be surprised if Unity2012 accomplished more than Unity08 did.
It is time that I, the original force behind Irregular Times, reveal myself. It has always been me creating all the articles and pictures and movies at Irregular Times.
That’s not to say that the other authors are not real. They are real. I created them too.
I, after all, created everything. I am Herbie the Cosmic Iguana, and I created the Universe!
I also destroyed the Universe last Thursday, and then created it again by evening time, which accounts for the troubles you had with your workday.
I have been forced to bow my knee to Irregular Times reader Jacob, who doubts my existence, and instead worships the false deity, God. Let’s just think about this for a moment. If you were to be the creator of the entire universe, would you give yourself such a short, boring name as God, or would you instead choose the funky name of Herbie the Cosmic Iguana? Well, I know what I’d do, which is why I did it! Proves my point!
Anyway, here I am, formally announcing myself in a personal way to Jacob, because, hey, that’s what a real personal relationship with your creator means, you know?
Aw, let’s dispense with the formalities, Jacob. I have a very important family secret about your heritage to tell you, if you’ll just watch my video introduction…
Thank golly that Apple is monitoring the applications people develop for the iPhone. They seem to have diverted cosmic catastrophe through their vigilance against blasphemy in iPhone apps.
Some infidel code warrior out there created an iPhone app called Me So Holy, a little program which allowed people to superimpose pictures of their own faces on a picture of Jesus. It was kind of silly, but it actually had a kind of religious point - that people could see the divine as created in the image of humanity, rather than regarding humanity as created in the image of divinity.
Apple Computer, it seems, couldn’t tolerate this kind of theological experimentation. Regarding itself as the enemy of all blasphemy, Apple banned the Me So Holy app from the iPhone, saying that the app had to go because it might be offensive to some people.
Apple Computer is being rather selective about what it deems to be offensive, however. It seems that while heretical religious ideas get banned by Apple, orthodox religious apps are allowed by Apple to persist, though surely the religious ideas in those apps are also offensive to some people. What’s the Apple standard - that it’s okay to offend, just so long as you have a big church backing you up?
For that matter, there’s a huge amount of violence in iPhone apps. In the Castle Wolfenstein app, players run around murdering people, shooting them with a pistol, watching the virtual blood splatter. The Top Gun game tells me that I have four “kills needed” before I can win.
How about the iPhone app iSniper Lite? It’s a game in which you practice to be a sniper, sitting hidden with a rifle while you shoot people in the head, picking them off one by one. Oh, but it’s okay, I guess, because the Sniper is Lite. You know, like Murder Lite.
What kind of sickos are on Apple Computer’s censorship board, who think that murder games are fine and dandy, but putting your own face on an image of Jesus is so morally reprehensible that it must not be permitted? Don’t misunderstand me - I’m not calling for the censorship of the killing games. I’m calling for Apple Computer to stop the censorship - period. If Apple is going to make a little computer phone for people to use, then it needs to allow people to actually use the devices, and not be a corporate nanny listening in on every word to make sure that it complies with the moral codes of the pious and powerful.
I have never been so glad that I have refrained from buying an iPhone. I just talked to Jesus, and he says that he’s not going to buy an iPhone either.
Right wing Christians have been using their religion as a kind of sledgehammer in political debates, slamming apart the efforts of loving couples who want to get married by saying that their religion’s God does not approve. They oppose equality under the law for same-sex couples, saying the Lord of the Universe is on their side.
The foundation of their claims is Christians know how to make stable families better than everyone else. They say that if everybody else would just follow extremist Christian rules about marriage, we’d all be better off.
Is it true? Do Christians have better marriages than the rest of us? Would we do better if we just listened to them, and all followed their rules?
In order to try to answer these questions, I looked at divorce statistics and the results of the latest American Religious Identification Survey. (As I mentioned last night, the divorce statistics are a few years out of date and not absolutely complete, but they’re the best information we’ve got.) I looked for a pattern to indicate a relationship between religious identification and rate of divorce - and I didn’t find one.
Comparing states where the prevalence of Christianity is relatively high to states where the prevalence of Christianity is relatively low, there doesn’t appear to be much of a difference at all in divorce rates, on the average. The 10 states with the highest rates of Christianity have a divorce rate of a little bit more than 4 per 1,000 inhabitants. The 10 states with the lowest rates of Christianity have a divorce rate of a little bit more than 4 per 1,000 inhabitants.
Rate of Christian religiosity in a state doesn’t seem to have much relationship to the divorce rate in the state. The claim by right wing Christians that their religion holds all the secrets to successful marriage isn’t supported by the facts. So, when we’re discussing marriage policy, why don’t we leave religious opinions out of the matter, and base our deliberations on what actually works?
Bishop Richard Malone, who claims Maine as under his jurisdiction for preaching, is working to gain publicity for himself by making wild statements about the legalization of marriage equality for all couples, regardless of sexual orientation, in that state. So, I’ll throw Mr. Malone a bone - I’ve mentioned his name here, and given him some publicity. That’s as far as I’ll let his egotistical little game go, however. I’m not going to pretend that Mr. Malone’s rant makes any sense.
Malone calls legalization of same-sex marriages a “dangerous sociological experiment”. He complains that it will damage heterosexual marriage, which he says “has served as the cornerstone of society”.
Malone doesn’t seem to have reflected on the inept nature of his architectural metaphor. Sure, maybe heterosexual marriage has been a cornerstone of society, but the thing about cornerstones is that people expect other stones to be laid next to them, and on top of them. That’s what makes a building a building. If we just kept Malone’s favored cornerstone, and didn’t add to it as time went on, then our society wouldn’t have any structure to it. It would just be a big stone, sitting out there, all alone. If heterosexual marriage really is a cornerstone of society, then its significance is enhanced as we lay the stone of same-sex marriage next to it. How could that cornerstone be damaged by having another stone near it, unless it were a weak, insipid stone in the first place?
Besides all that, Mr. Malone seems not to have reflected very broadly upon just what makes marriage the cornerstone of our society. Is it that it brings a man together with a woman, to sexually reproduce? Not really. Malone’s ideology may not yet recognize this fact, but it’s been a long, long, time since the survival of society was put in crisis by a low rate of sexual reproduction.
What Malone can’t fathom is that the essential characteristic of marriage that has made it a cornerstone of society is that it brings people together in relationships of mutual caring. Marriage creates families, and families care for each other. That principle works just as well in a marriage created when two people of the same gender form a couple as when a heterosexual couple gets married.
Malone can’t see that same-sex marriage fits very well within the important traditional dimensions of marriage. Far from endangering the institution of marriage, legalizing same-sex marriage makes the institution stronger.
All Mr. Malone needs to do confirm that fact is to look across Maine’s southern border into Massachusetts. It’s been five years now since same-sex marriage was legalized there, and the majority of Massachusetts voters continue to support it. That’s because having marriage as a legal option for same-sex couples has not ruined heterosexual marriage in Massachusetts. Heterosexual couples continue to get married in Massachusetts, just as they did five years ago. Nothing has changed for them. Equality doesn’t hurt their relationships one bit, it turns out.
If the stability of same-sex marriages in Massachusetts hurts anything, it’s the reputation of the Catholic Church, which people can now see was making a big fuss about nothing. But then, the Catholic Church has plenty of other problems on its hands, such as that nasty tradition of pedophile priests. It may not be same-sex marriage that withers the Catholic Church, after all, but the weird sexual habits of the church’s own leaders.
There’s been a heavy, if not very intelligent, conversation going on at Irregular Times over the last few days, as readers of a website called NiggerMania.com have flooded onto this site, pushing forward the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama is not really an American citizen, and therefore is not legally entitled to the Presidency. Underlying their rather clumsy arguments is the idea that Obama couldn’t possibly be an American, because he’s not completely of European ancestry.
It’s a theme that runs throughout right wing ideology: The belief that there is some kind of cultural core of the American identity, and that people who deviate from that core are not truly American. They express it in terms of coffee - if you drink latte, you’re not a real American. They express it in terms of ethnicity - people descended from non-Europeans are not real Americans. They express it in terms of religion too - only Christians are real Americans.
Yesterday, speaking before the House of Representatives, Congressman Randy Forbes gave us a taste of that last attitude. He proclaimed, “Without God, there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first, the most basic expression of Americanism.”
Is Randy Forbes right? Is belief in the Christian God the most basic element of being an American? The answer is simple: No.
The United States has never, ever been a culturally homogenous nation. That applies especially to religion. There has never been a time when everyone in the United States believed in the Christian deity. Now, lack of belief in Christianity’s God is stronger than ever. The American Religious Identification Survey found that the strongest and most consistent current trend in religion is the increasing number of Americans living with no religion at all. In every state in the union, the number of Americans who don’t have any religion at all, much less the Christianity of Randy Forbes, has risen strongly over the last three decades.
In many places, non-religious Americans are a substantial minority. In Wyoming, for example, more than one quarter of the population lives without religion. Here’s a translation for you, Congressman Forbes: No religion means no God.
Yet, all those people remain American. Without God, without religion, they continue to live an American way of life, and to lend support to the American government.
Am I wrong about that? Did those people, people like me who live without any belief in God, renounce their American citizenship by refusing to join Randy Forbes in his conspicuous public worship? Are we not Americans?
It is a time of fear in the face of freedom, a time for the widening of previous roads and the opening of new paths, a time of an emptying country and swelling cities, yet a time when these paths are mined by knowing algorithms of the all-seeing eye. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection. These are the times when maps fade and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread. Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times.
So, you mean that, if someone wants to find a church where they can engage in religious worship, they have to go to different churches before they find one that’s right for them? How is that a problem? It sounds pretty normal to me.
I don’t see why anybody should really by upset by this; to be upset by Wiley Drake’s words they have to have some power. It’s not that Wiley Drake is an unconnected pastor… he’s a former vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention and he ran on a presidential ticket last year with Alan Keyes. So Wiley Drake has some earthly connections, yes.
The governor of New Hampshire would only agree to sign the bill into law if an exemption granting churches the right to deny the legal validity of their employees’ same-sex marriages. In New Hampshire, a same-sex couple can get married, but if one of them works for a church, it will be as if their marriage doesn’t exist.
How many ‘New Energy’ Creators does it take to change a lightbulb? (Three - one to screw the new light bulb in, one to describe the aura of the light bulb, and one to channel what the vibration of the change means.)
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