Recently in religion Category

I had heard about the ridiculous Trump rally last Thursday, but hadn't seen the video until now:

There are so many things wrong with this Cretin-in-Chief that I scarcely know where to begin, but John Fea notes that none of them affects the support he still receives from 'intellectually lazy' Christians. "For the last year," he writes, "I have been thinking deeply about why so many of my fellow evangelical Christians support Donald Trump:"

I have wondered why they backed his zero-tolerance immigration plan that separated families at the border. I have tried to make sense of why some of them give him a "mulligan" (to use Family Research Council President Tony Perkins' now famous phrase) for his alleged adulterous affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels. Why did so many evangelicals remain silent, or offer tepid and qualified responses, when Trump equated white supremacists and their opponents in Charlottesville, Virginia last summer?

What kind of power does Trump hold over men and women who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ? Evangelical support for Trump goes much deeper than simply a few Supreme Court justices.

"Trump's win," he continues, "was just the latest manifestation of a long-standing evangelical approach to politics:"

Ever since World War II, white evangelicals in the United States have waged a desperate and largely failing war against thickening walls of separation between church and state, the removal of Christianity from public schools, the growing ethnic and religious diversity of the country, the intrusion of the federal government into their everyday lives (especially as it pertains to desegregation and civil rights), and legalized abortion. [...]

Evangelical support for Donald Trump is also rooted in nostalgia for a bygone Christian golden age. Instead of doing the hard work necessary for engaging a more diverse society with the claims of Christian orthodoxy, evangelicals are intellectually lazy, preferring to respond to cultural change by trying to reclaim a world that is rapidly disappearing and has little chance of ever coming back.

Trump's constant exhortations to "Believe me" may factor into their gullibility, but Fea's succinct analysis is this:

Why do so many evangelicals believe in Donald Trump? Because they privilege fear over hope, power over humility, and nostalgia over history.

Godless Mom suggests that atheists get more joy out of life than theists. "The other day," she begins, "I noticed this tweet:"

Aside from the fact that Mary seems to have missed the point of the poem, Mary has offered up the same sentiment I hear from so many theists: atheists are joyless.

"Here are seven ways atheists are free to feel joy," she continues, "without the burden of dogmatic shame or guilt." I've excerpted some of her explanations, but they're worth reading in full:

1. Sex!

2. Celebrating the joy of others!

We find profound amounts of joy knowing we are on the right side of history, and even more joy can be derived from being able to separate ourselves from those who would judge another based solely on who they have fallen in love with. You see, trying to actively prevent certain people from loving certain people, is an act against love and against joy. It defies the very idea of joyful living.

3. Discovery!

4. Saying "I Don't Know"!

Saying, "I know for certain that God created us" gives you no need to further investigate our origins and eliminates the possibility of you learning something new about it. Saying we don't know, leaves us open to discovering something new about our existence... and that would be a discovery that would bring a great amount of joy to those who were open to learning about it.

5. Sunday mornings!

Godless Mom lists several sub-items, and then comments that "These are just a few of the things that bring more joy than a sore-bum from being stuck in a cold, hard pew, surrounded by corpses on crosses, listening to a man warn you of the eternal fires of hell."

6. The joy in knowing this life is all we have.

7. Masturbation!

8. No Hell to fear!

An atheist is free to live their lives without the fear of hell [...] believe in compassion and empathy and love, not torture. It's not so hard to believe that choosing compassion over eternal torture is a far more joyful way to live, is it?

9. We are not being watched!

Today's most populous religions come with deep shame. They make people feel guilty for who they are, and how their bodies function. Fear is driven into the devout and obedience is cultivated via threats of damnation. These things are directly incompatible with joy.

Facing facts is not cold or hard or joyless. Facing facts gives us freedom. It gives us the freedom to live with far more joy than your book would have you experience. It gives us the freedom to live life in reality and celebrate our own humanness.

Are atheists more joyful than religious people? I doubt we can prove that... but to assert that we are joyless is completely unfounded. We live with a great deal of joy... joy that many of you will never know.

Friendly Atheist looks at those who fall for fake news:

A new working paper by researchers at Yale University finds that the kind of people more likely to believe stories that are literally "fake news" -- who fall for the hoaxes, if you will -- are those who believe in delusions (like telepathic communication), are dogmatic in their thinking, and are just flat-out religious fundamentalists.

It makes a lot of sense. After all, the paper notes, evidence "suggests that religious fundamentalists may engage in less analytic and actively open-minded thinking." I believe that. They already believe in huge amount of nonsensical garbage -- a talking snake, a young Earth, God watches over you, Jesus performed miracles, etc. -- in large part because they live in bubbles where those stories feel convincing despite not measuring up to reality. When pastors tell you those lies with conviction, and a sacred book reiterates the lies, and your parents teach you that doubting the lies could lead you down the path to eternal punishment, it makes a lot of sense that news articles that appear legitimate would just be taken as gospel.

The study "Reduced Analytic and Actively Open-Minded Thinking Help to Explain the Link between Belief in Fake News and Delusionality, Dogmatism, and Religious Fundamentalism" explains that "delusion-prone individuals display an increased belief in fake news, which often features implausible content, and that this increase was partially explained by cognitive style:"

Exploratory analyses showed that dogmatic individuals and religious fundamentalists were also more likely to believe fake news, and that these relationships were fully explained by cognitive style.

Two studies with over 1000 participants suggested that individuals who endorse delusion-like ideas (e.g., thinking that people can communicate telepathically), as well as dogmatic individuals and religious fundamentalists, are more likely to believe fake news. These studies also suggested that two related forms of thinking may protect against belief in fake news: The first, actively open-minded thinking, involves the search for alternative explanations and the use of evidence to revise beliefs. The second, analytic thinking, involves deliberate thought processes that consume memory resources.

Here's the tl;dr version:

In conclusion, the present studies suggest that delusion-prone and dogmatic individuals, as well as religious fundamentalists, are more likely than others to believe fake news in large part because they exhibit reduced analytic and actively open-minded thinking.

[See here for a previous look at analytical thinking and religiosity.]

Adam Lee points out that Christian conservatives are the real snowflakes, beginning with Oklahoma Wesleyan University president Everett Piper and his 2015 editorial called "This is Not a Day Care, It's a University!" "Our culture has actually taught our kids to be," Piper claims, "self-absorbed and narcissistic:"

Any time their feelings are hurt, they are the victims. Anyone who dares challenge them and, thus, makes them "feel bad" about themselves, is a "hater," a "bigot," an "oppressor," and a "victimizer."

Lee notes that, despite Piper's indignation, Oklahoma Wesleyan is "a private Christian college that puts far more and harsher restrictions on its students than any of the places he's criticizing:"

It's not just Oklahoma Wesleyan that indulges in this hypocrisy. This recent article in the New Republic is a timely reminder that, for all the hand-wringing over no-platforming and students protesting controversial speakers, there are hundreds of conservative religious colleges that are openly intolerant of differing views and have been suppressing speech for far longer and on a much grander scale.

Incidents at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Wheaton College, Liberty University are mentioned, and Pensacola Christian College, Lee says, "exercises a draconian, North Korea-like authority over its students' lives:"

It doesn't end with the colleges, either. Don't forget the "Benedict Option", a call for Christians to withdraw from the world and form their own isolated, ideologically enclosed communities where they don't have to deal with a culture they can no longer control.

Most of all, there's Christianity's longstanding support for book-burnings, blasphemy laws and other theocratic intrusions into everyday life. What is the purpose of this censorship, if not to turn all of society into a "safe space" for them and their ideas?

This long history of censorship shows that religious conservatives are and have always been "snowflakes", in the pejorative sense of the word - people whose worldview is so fragile that they immediately melt in the face of criticism, whose overriding desire is to go through life swaddled in a protective cocoon so they never have to see, hear or think about anything they disagree with. And if they do get unexpectedly confronted by criticism, they're swift to cry persecution and claim that they're the victims of bigotry against their beliefs. (But remember, Everett Piper mocked students who claim to be victims any time their feelings are hurt!)

In addition to noting that Religious Correctness is far more pervasive than Political Correctness, I also suggest that there might be more than a little bit of projection involved in the rabid anti-PC denunciations conservative Christians...

Today I came across several pins that purported to show George Soros wearing an SS uniform. Recognizing the absurdity of such a claim, and wanting to combat its hateful accusation, I replied to a number of them with this note:

FALSE: "this one was neither plausible nor hard to disprove. Given that Soros -- born in 1930 -- was only nine years old when World War II began and 14 when the war ended in Europe in 1945, he couldn't have joined the SS, whose minimum age requirement was 17, even if he had wanted to. Moreover, Soros would never have met the SS requirement for pure "Aryan" heritage. Soros grew to adolescence as a persecuted Jew in Nazi-occupied Budapest." http://www.snopes.com/george-soros-ss-nazi-germany/

One clown responded with Snopes I dont believe a two thirds what they say!!!!, to which I responded:

You don't have to just "believe" what Snopes says...it's not as if they simply make up stories to libel people, like whoever wrote the text for this pin clearly did. The information provided is linked to primary sources and can be easily verified.

Another one dropped this load of bovine excrement:

If you saw the interview he gave to 60 minutes he admitted to them that he was given an honorary SS position since he helped them to take the Jews belongings from the ones being sent to the camps or the ghettos. He claimed it was the best time of his life.

By the way, never believe anything from Snopes either. Most of the supposed things they've checked are also false.

I replied with a [citation needed] on the second claim, and this comment on the first one:

The "60 Minutes" video is here, but it doesn't back up your claims. Soros said that (at the age of 14 in Nazi-occupied Hungary, using forged papers identifying him as a Christian) he had "no role" is taking the possessions of other Jews. There is no mention of an "honorary SS position" either. (See 6:40 to 10:15 for the relevant section of the interview.)

Despite the circumstances, Soros referred to his childhood as "the happiest of my life" because "it had provided him with an opportunity to observe a man he adored and admired [his father] acting bravely and well."
Source: Michael Kaufman, George Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire (2002, p. 5)

One would hope that people wouldn't be so hateful liars about Holocaust survivors, regardless of any political disagreements...but that does not appear to be the case.

David Masciotra discusses the ideological bubbles and wonders, don't all American live in their own little worlds?

It is likely true that many liberals live insulated lives of cultural and intellectual isolation, but it is equally true of conservatives. The construction of a bubble around an individuated life is part of human nature, but with typical idiocy and hypocrisy, American culture has issued a one-way, exclusive indictment against isolation for liberals and no one else. To condemn people of progressive politics for insular thinking and living is the equivalent to prosecuting a petty shoplifter for theft, while ignoring the bank robbery spree of a modern-day John Dillinger. Liberals, by any criteria, are the mildest offenders.

When was the last time any mainstream commentator suggested that a rural, white Christian conservative Sunday School teacher escape her bubble and befriend a group of black lesbians? Can anyone recall ridicule of a right-wing, suburban housepainter who believes God watches his every brushstroke for not attending a public lecture from an award-winning evolutionary biologist?

The absence of criticism against the conservative bubble, which is undeniably smaller and tighter that the liberal bubble, demonstrates that American culture has condescended to the conservative with, to resurrect an old George W. Bush chestnut, "the soft bigotry of low expectations."

"The entire framework of the 'bubble' conversation reinforces, unintentionally or not," Masciotra continues, "the bias that the 'real America' is white, rural and Christian:"

White Christian conservatives, according to what appears is the dominant assumption, have no bubble to escape because they have ownership over the social norms and cultural conventions of American identity. The atheistic, lesbian nurse in Chicago or the Muslim schoolteacher in Los Angeles should not have the expectation that the "real America" will make accommodations to understand her, but she does toil under the pressure to appreciate the "real America," even as mainstream discourse implies that she is not part of that parochial precinct.

His conclusion is spot-on:

White Christian conservatives, especially outside major metropolitan areas, occupy their own bubbles and from the distorted view of their self-imposed ignorance mistake the media as representative of all liberals and adopt the posture of persecution. Their false sense of oppression -- visible every December with protests against the "war on Christmas" -- inspires them to act defensively against anything that strikes them as "un-American."

Just as many right-wing Christians believe they are soldiers in a cosmic war between God and the devil over the fate of the universe, they also believe that they are the last line of defense against the destruction of the "real America."

They could check out the "Real American" majority in this country--all those communities that voted (with an impressive surplus of votes) to put Hillary Clinton in the White House. Pretending that most Americans are some variety of "un-American" is perhaps the most noxious bubble of all.

Anti-Defamation League's head Jonathan Greenblatt has a strong reaction to Trump's Muslim ban:

"If one day Muslim Americans will be forced to register their identities, then that is the day that this proud Jew will register as a Muslim," Greenblatt said.

The Trumpites are lying, of course, when denying "that he had ever advocated establishing a registry for monitoring people based on their faith." As the Guardian notes:

...in a video shot at a campaign event in Iowa in November last year, Trump said he would certainly implement a database for tracking Muslims, and that Muslims would be legally obliged to sign up.

I've been declaring for years that I will join Muslims when they're in danger, and this is one of those times.

This ban must be not allowed to stand.

Jeet Heer calls the late Jack Chick the Leni Riefenstahl of American cartooning:

Beloved by his fellow fundamentalists, who bought his tracts by the hundreds of millions and seeded them in bus stops and diners all over the world, Chick was widely derided by the world at large where he was seen, accurately, as a producer of hate literature.

Chick's tracts had a disturbing power to make you see the world through his eyes, a squirrelly and sweaty vantage point where everything is a demonic conspiracy to rob you of your soul.

Here, Heer makes the Riefenstahl comparison in detail:

Like the Nazi filmmaker who made Triumph of the Will, Chick was an artist of genuine skill who put his talent in the service of an odious ideology. Both Riefenstahl and Chick raise perennial and unsolvable problems about the relationship between content and form: Can art transcend the intentions of the artist? Can we separate out the message of a work of art from the artistry it contains? Art that helps us understand the mind of another is valuable, but what do we do with art by a mind like Chick's, whose sheer hatefulness numbs empathy?

It does seem an apt comparison, although I'm wary of Nazi analogies.

The evangelical cartoonist Jack Chick, author of innumerable Chick Tracts, has died. Jezebel notes the following:

Chick Productions announced Monday that their founder Jack Chick has died at 92, which is big news for anyone who's ever been fascinated, horrified, and occasionally delighted by his comic books. Chick was the creator of Chick Tracts, a long-running series of evangelical mini comics designed to bring people to Jesus through a combination of insane, bizarre, fairly campy storylines and extremely middling art.

An independent 2008 documentary on Chick, God's Cartoonist, calls him "the best-selling underground artist and publisher in the world."

For a taste of Chick's biblical bile, see Unicorn Booty's list of his top 5 homophobic rants--and shudder at their reminder that "Chick's tracts have been translated into over 100 languages."

The Religious Right loves to foster fears of pogroms based on religious belief, worrying that differences of theological opinion will lead to oppression. It appears that they were right:

As America becomes increasingly accepting of same-sex marriage, many conservative Christians have feared that their stand on gay marriage could cost them their reputations or even their jobs. This week, it actually happened: Hundreds of workers were formally notified by their employer that they could be involuntarily terminated for their religious beliefs. But, ironically, those at risk are progressive Christians who support the consecration of gay marriages.

What's that you say? Conservative Christians are the oppressors, not the oppressed?!

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship USA, a large ministry operating on 667 college campuses nationwide, has announced that it will begin dismissing employees who disagree with its theological stance on human sexuality...

"If an employee interprets the Bible in such a way that makes space for LGBT marriage," the article continues, "[IVCF is] asking them to leave:"

The policy imposes a doctrinal standard to which employees never consented. The decision to work for a non-profit ministry often means forfeiting a cushy job in the business world and accepting a lower level of pay in order to serve others. Untold numbers of InterVarsity's 1,300 staff members have made sacrifices to donate their best years to this ministry. Now the organization they love is moving the theological goalposts. [...]

It is not extreme to hold the conservative Christian position on marriage and sexuality. But it is extreme to think that those who don't, but are otherwise committed to your mission, should be fired. And while opposing LGBT marriage is not necessarily hateful, punishing those who support it can hardly be called loving.

08:53/09:03
Peter Hitchens has http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3520932/PETER-HITCHENS-Privatisation-Free-trade-Shares-great-ruined-Britain.html lost faith in free-market orthodoxy, and he appears to be no longer worshiping the invisible hand of Adam Smith:

I am so sorry now that I fell for the great Thatcher-Reagan promise. I can't deny that I did. I believed all that stuff about privatisation and free trade and the unrestrained market. I think I may even have been taken in by the prophecies of a great share-owning democracy.

I thought - this now seems especially funny - that private British Telecom would be automatically better than crabby old Post Office Telephones.

I think anyone who has ever tried to contact BT when things go wrong would now happily go back to the days of nationalisation. Soviet-style slowness was bad, but surely better than total indifference.

Hitchens expresses disillusionment with the real-world effects of free-market dogma, but one wonders--will this empiricism serve him just as well elsewhere?

The coffee and the restaurants are better - but the essentials of life are harder to find than ever: a good life and an honest place; a solid, modest home big enough to house a small family in a peaceful, orderly landscape; good local schools open to all who need them; reasonably paid secure work for this generation and the next; competent government and wise laws.

"These have become luxuries," he notes, "unattainable for millions who once took them for granted:"

And now the remains of our steel industry are vanishing, not because nothing can be done (any determined government could save it if it really wanted to) but because we're all still worshipping that free-market dogma that captivated us 30 years ago.

How much longer until he absolves himself of that other great modern myth, and converts from Christianity to agnosticism or atheism?

Hemant Mehta shares an excerpt from Phil Zuckerman's new book The Nonreligious: Understanding Secular People and Societies, wherein Zuckerman remarks that "Perhaps the ultimate existential threat to control, certainty, meaning, purpose, and social connection is the inevitability of death:"

Given that, for seculars, there is no comfort of literal immortality, does this mean that cultural worldviews do not play the same death-denying function for them? [...] For seculars, self-esteem and symbolic immortality may be derived from cultural accomplishments (such as writing a book!), artistic work, material possessions, or an ideology such as humanism. But are these forms of immortality less satisfying than eternity itself?

"When faced with death," he reminds us, "religious and secular alike often search for meaning:"

In a study about end-of-life concerns, atheists expressed a desire to find meaning in their own lives, to maintain connection with family and friends, and to experience the natural world through the experience of dying.

Derek Beres asks which holy book is more violent?, pointing out that "The Bible is not short on violence" and that "It's impossible to escape violence in any book from that era," including the mythologies of Greece and India:

We can imagine but not understand the regularity of violence in such a world, except perhaps if you live in a war-torn country today. Your outlook would be much different, which is the point: the predominant amount of violence in America is internal, be it through excessive gun violence or pharmaceutical addictions. We don't have the concerns of other nations.

Still, we turn to scripture when it suits us. Anti-gay and anti-abortion agendas rest on selective interpretation of biblical readings.

"In a contradictory book such as the Bible, just like the Quran," Beres reminds us, "you will find messages of peace and charity as quickly as violence and rampage:"

Yet each time one flips through a Quran (or more likely finds a quote posted on their friend's page) to display the violence sanctioned in that book, recall our own theological foundations. America stands on equally shaky ground. Forget the texts and investigate our history and terrorism makes constant appearances.

Dave Armstrong claims that there is an atheist obsession with insulting Christians, writing that "It's always been as highly amusing as it is annoying to me to observe the constant stream of atheist invective and epithets hurled at Christians and Christianity:"

I take pains to note that not all atheists act in this fashion; but online, it sure seems like those who don't are a tiny minority of, maybe 10-15%. Many have opined that the frequently unsavory nature of Internet discourse tends to bring out the loudmouths and jerks of any given group (including Christians; very much so).

At particular issue for him is the fact that, as he puts it, "the brand of Christianity featured in [atheist] deconversion stories is almost invariably some version of 'fundamentalism' which features anti-intellectualism and hostility to culture and science:"

This is then (also invariably) projected onto all of Christianity, as if this is what Christianity is; when in fact it is a tiny fringe, extreme portion of Christianity. Thus, the atheist arguments (if in this vein) become a huge exercise of fighting straw men.

Despite the fact that this tiny extremity wields enormous political power in the US, Armstrong persists in asking, "what causes [atheists] to overreact in such an extreme fashion?"

I submit that it could very well be a strong insecurity in one's own position, or a sort of faux-pride that it is stronger than it is. [...]

But why can't atheists be content in talking about their own worldview, in their own circles; preaching to the choir, rather than constantly bitching and complaining about what they are not / what they used to be? Can't they ever "get over" that?

If doing so would leave the public square in exclusively Christians hands, I think that's not going to happen.

Here's your chance, atheists (i.e., of the angry, obsessed irrational sort) to try something different for a change: to make a calm, rational reply and explain (hopefully, condemn) the phenomena that everyone observes in your ranks. Here's your golden opportunity to actually display the tolerance and reason that you are always talking about.

I'll turn that around, and challenge Christians to discuss atheism with "tolerance and reason"--without an analogy to evil, or a suggestion of nihilism, or a claim that atheists don't have a conscience, etc. I submit that those he's complaining about a a fringe extreme portion largely consisting of straw men.

Peter Mosley offers the Christian obsession with insulting atheists as a parallel, and comments, "I get why these kinds of insults get on Dave's nerves; I really do:"

I have been, as an atheist, told I deserve eternity in hell. And not just by the random Christian. But by their book. A straightforward reading of their book says that I deserve eternity in hell. [...]

You can do all the theological gymnastics you want, but when it comes right down to it most Christians are saying that because I don't believe (or don't have this special "Holy Spirit" making me believe, or whatever the theology) that some godman died on a cross for the sins listed in the Old Testament, walked out the tomb three days later, and floated up to heaven...I'm going to hell. And because they believe this, they aren't.

That's insulting. That's saying, when you get right down to the brass tacks, that I deserve to go to hell, but you don't because Christ has "saved" you. I know a lot of Christians don't like it in that raw form, but if you look at the raw facts of the case, from our perspective -- you think you're going to spend eternity with Jesus, and that we're going to go to hell. That's insulting. You can remix it and arrange it any which-way you like. But when it comes to this insulting business, y'all started it, not us.

"There's the Bible," he reminds us, "which has jewels like this (from Revelation 21, NIV):"

"But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars--they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur."

I would never, ever, ever, ever say something so insulting about anyone as what's in Revelation 21. And, contra David Armstrong, who tries to say these are "fringe" Christians (where he seems part of this "fringe" himself), the more conservative form of Christianity, which most likely to believe the most offensive forms of this nonsense, is not the side exception to US Christianity, but the largest and most stubborn of its forms.

Then he really gets on a roll:

We "insult" you by saying your beliefs are wrong and harmful. You've been actually insulting us over the past couple thousand years by not only saying our stance is wrong and harmful, but that we, personally, deserve to go to hell for all eternity.

And we've been relatively silent here in the West for most of Western history. It's only recently that we've begun to talk back -- but for thousands of years y'all were burning us at the stake and torturing us if we even dared utter that we doubted a godman rose from the grave 2000 years ago.

As A.C. Grayling remarked:

Religious apologists complain bitterly that atheists and secularists are aggressive and hostile in their criticism of them. I always say: look, when you guys were in charge, you didn't argue with us, you just burnt us at the stake. Now what we're doing is, we're presenting you with some arguments and some challenging questions, and you complain.

He continues by writing, "here are the facts:"

Christians who think I'm going to hell (however you define it) because I deserve it (however that fits into your theology) are pissed off at ME for being upset at that theology -- a theology directly affecting my family, friends, and culture.

That's really fucked up.

When it comes to the insulting business, you started it, and you're perpetuating it. For you to complain when people verbally fight back is thoroughly hypocritical.

Or, arguably, in other words, Christianity as usual.

The Thinker asks, what's going on with CJ Werleman? as a means of examining "a rift [that] has opened up and deepened among liberals over the way we view Islam:"

On the one side, some liberals think that Islam is a religion of peace and that criticizing it offends millions of Muslims and amounts to racism, or anti-Muslim bigotry. On the other side, another group of liberals stands opposed to any ideology or religion that flagrantly violates basic liberal values, and they recognize Islam as doing so.

The piece continues by noting that Werleman's "views on Islam make him a member of what Maajid Nawaz and Sam Harris call the regressive left:"

Regressive lefties are basically liberals who blame the regressive beliefs of extremist groups like those of radical Islamists entirely on Western imperialism and socio-economic factors. [...]

To them, Muslims are always the victim of the white imperialists, and to acknowledge that Islam is the source of at least some of the violence among Muslims ruins the simple black and white world that they want to see this issue as. They want to see it as evil Western imperialists vs repressed innocent Muslims. But by doing this, they turn a blind eye and give cover to the real life extremists in the Islamic world and their regressive morality that in many ways is antithetical to everything liberalism stands for. They are blinded by their intense hatred of Western foreign policy and the neocons that any criticism of Islam in their mind becomes racism and tacit support for Western imperialism.

"What Werleman doesn't get," The Thinker continues, "is the nuance involved in such a complex subject. Yes, Western foreign policy has done some terrible things. [but] Islam is sometimes the motivator for violence committed by Muslims:"

ISIS is not killing Yazidis and selling the women into sexual slavery over the Israeli occupation of Palestine. They are doing it because a literal reading of the Koran allows women to be taken into sexual slavery during wartime. You can be against the neocons who spearheaded the invasion of Iraq, and the Christian fundamentalists who support Israel's brutal occupation of Palestine, and acknowledge that Islam can motivate Muslims to kill in its name. It is not one or the other. [...]

The regressive left is made up mostly of white liberals like Werleman who know little to nothing about Islam. They often confuse Islam with a race and think that any criticism of it is therefore racist. Unfortunately, there is anti-Muslim bigotry in the world, mainly among the far-right in Europe and the US.

Greta Christina makes the case that religious fundamentalism leads to screwed-up moral relativism. Using "burning Giordano Bruno at the stake" as her lead example, Greta Christina points out that "religious fundamentalism and dogma doesn't just often end up being morally relativistic in some screwed-up ways. It positively demands it:"

If you're going to insist that a holy book written hundreds or thousands of years ago is the permanent and perfect moral guidebook written by God -- then you're stuck with defending behaviors that were considered ethical and even admirable at the time they were written, but that we now recognize as morally repulsive.

It's a funny thing. Religious believers -- especially the fundamentalist ones, or the ones attached to specific religious dogma or an authoritative religious structure -- are always going on about the horrors of secular moral relativism. They're always going on about how, without a belief in an ultimate divine moral arbiter, we would be morally lost: unmoored, unanchored, unable to distinguish right from wrong, basing our moral choices solely on what we find immediately self-serving or convenient.

But it isn't the atheists who are excusing, defending, minimizing, and rationalizing the burning at the stake of Giordano Bruno. [as did Peter Hess, co-author of Catholicism and Science]

Mark Russell & Shannon Wheeler's God Is Disappointed in You is reviewed by BigThink as possibly the first honest Bible:

Written by Mark Russell with illustrated by New Yorker cartoonist Shannon Wheeler, God Is Disappointed in You cuts to the heart of the matter, and sometimes down to the funny bone, to translate the Bible into terms that allow a modern reader to understand the wild, weird, and wonderful "essence" of the Good Book.

Paul Waldman at American Prospect discusses the super-sexy case against same-sex marriage, writing that "this amicus brief filed by Robert P. George and two colleagues...is so laughable that it shows how far his side has to reach." Waldman notes that "according to George's logic, if there isn't a penis going inside a vagina, they won't have a 'true marriage':"

So conservatives (at least some of them) have retreated to a point where they're arguing that marriage is only secondarily about things like commitment or responsibility or love. Most importantly, they say, it's about sex, and if there's no sex, or not the right kind of sex, then it isn't "true." Talk about redefining marriage.

On the hyperbole front, New Civil Rights Movement quotes RI state senator Harold Metts explaining that "a cosmic battle between God and Satan...is the reason he opposes same-sex marriage."

Zack Ford points out at ThinkProgress that the "greatest challenge for gay and lesbian civil rights [is] the fact that sexual orientation is an invisible identity:"

Unlike race or gender, it cannot so easily be superficially assessed. Thus, conservatives are counting on doubt and distrust, urging the Court to dismiss whatever gay people actually say about their lived experiences -- discount every individual's coming out story, ignore decades of gay culture and gay history, and disregard the scientific conclusions of the entire major medical community. In fact, opponents of equality regularly claim that "the gay agenda" is merely a conspiratorial quest to validate sinful behavior -- as opposed to an effort to allow millions of people to participate fairly in society. [...]

The magic words to look for if the Supreme Court legally recognizes gay people is "heightened scrutiny," which is how the Court determines that the government cannot target a specific group for unfair treatment without substantial justification. For example, classifications based on sex are subject to "intermediate scrutiny," and classifications based on race are subject to the highest level, "strict scrutiny."

Ford concludes:

The end result of these cases will determine the legality of same-sex marriage, but for the first time, the Court could actually acknowledge that gay people exist and thus deserve protection under the U.S. Constitution. On both a symbolic and legal level, the latter victory could be much more significant.

Lawrence Krauss explains why Creationism is child abuse, and suggests that we need to stop validating ignorance:

And if you think about it, teaching kids - or allowing the notion that the earth is 6,000 years old to be promulgated in schools is like teaching kids that the distance across the United States is 17 feet. That's how big an error it is.

"I've often said," he continues, that "the purpose of education is not to validate ignorance but to overcome it:"

Technology and biotechnology will be the basis of our economic future. And if we allow nonsense to be promulgated in the schools, we do a disservice to our students, a disservice to our children, and we're guaranteeing that they will fall behind in a competitive world that depends upon a skilled workforce able to understand and manipulate technology and science.

AlterNet wonders, what happens when atheists confront mortality?

"a new study, conducted by scholars from three countries, reports that death-related thoughts lead us to reaffirm whatever belief system gives our lives meaning--and for atheists, that's something other than religious faith."

Oxford psychologist Jonathan Jong. lead author of the paper "Foxhole Atheism, Revisited" writes that "reminders of death increase the religiosity of believers:"

According to TMT [Terror Management Theory], a basic function of religion is to provide a buffer against death-related anxiety. It does this, primarily, by promising believers an ongoing existence that transcends earthly mortality. So it's no surprise that both sets of researchers found a link between thoughts of mortality and increased devotion.

Some results explained how "non-believers wavered from their disbelief:"

Specifically, in one experiment, death reminders "motivated agnostics to increase their religiosity, belief in a higher power, and their faith in God/Jesus, Buddha, and Allah." Basically, they were more open to immortality-promising deities of any stripe.

But in a separate experiment, the notion of death did not increase atheists' very low levels of religiosity or belief in a higher power.

It seems that, for atheists, confronting the notion of death is no different from confronting any other aspect of reality

In slandering the heretics, DisInfo's Colby Hess laments how we atheists "are made outcasts from our own society:"

In trying only to achieve a free and open civilization based on facts and on reason, as reward for our efforts we are attacked by those on both the left and the right and smeared with the label "intolerant" or told that sharing our ideas amounts to nothing more than "proselytizing." [...]

Atheist opposition to religion doesn't stem from some deep-seated bias or unconsidered opinion. It's not derived from some ancient book immune to rational criticism. Modern atheism is built upon critical thinking and knowledge of objective scientific facts about the workings of the universe coupled with an unblinking awareness of the countless, clearly documented instances--both in the news and throughout history--in which religious believers have repeatedly sought to impose their own narrow ideology in ways that restrict other people's rights and limit their freedoms. [...]

When you think about it, this charge of intolerance against atheists is itself a form of intolerance, for if atheists are not allowed to expressly dispute the claims made by religion--if we are required to just sit there politely with our mouths shut while twiddling our thumbs--then essentially we are not allowed to exist.

Just like in previous eras--the ones about which they reminisce so longingly.

AlterNet maintains that Christians are good at getting people to convert--to agnosticism or atheism:

If the Catholic bishops, their conservative Protestant allies, and other right-wing fundamentalists had the sole objective of decimating religious belief, they couldn't be doing a better job of it.

Sometimes education does the trick, sometimes life experience opens one's eyes, and "[s]ometimes a believer simply picks up a copy of the Bible or the Koran and discovers faith-shaking contradictions or immoralities there." Institutional homophobia is a primary factor in driving people out of the church, as it "makes Fred Phelps a far better evangelist for atheism than for his own gay-hating Westborough Baptist Church." Biblical literalism fails because "it is easy to find quotes from the Bible that are either scientifically absurd or morally repugnant:"

But the more they resort to strict authoritarianism, insularity and strict interpretation of Iron Age texts, the more people are wounded in the name of God and the more people are outraged. By making Christian belief an all-or-nothing proposition, they force at least some would-be believers to choose "nothing."

One notable part of these spiritual successes is their long-standing war on gays. Mel White's new book Holy Terror: Lies the Christian Right Tells Us to Deny Gay Equality "examine[s] the innate cruelty and proto-fascism of the Christian right:"

"When I moved to Lynchburg it was a blue city, in spite of Liberty University being there," White said. "The reversal came with the collapse of our financial system [in 2008]. Suddenly everything blue was seen as costing too much money, including helping the poor. There was a revolt led by Fox News and its allies. It's difficult to find a restaurant or bar in Lynchburg that isn't playing Fox News. People quote Fox as though Fox is the arbiter of truth."

Tired of being scapegoated, White and his partner left:

"By the time Gary and I moved away from Lynchburg, a majority of Virginians seemed to be turning against gay people," White said. "They passed a constitutional amendment against marriage equality and new laws saying we cannot adopt [children] or provide foster care. More than half the people of Virginia seem to see us as the enemy." [...] "Too many of my sisters and brothers in the gay community don't seem to understand the power of religion," White lamented.

White points out that "[w]ithout religion there would be no homophobia:"

What other source of homophobia is there but six verses in the Bible? When Bible literalists preach that LGBT people are going to hell they become Christian terrorists. They use fear as their weapon, like all terrorists. They are seeking to deny our religious and civil rights. They threaten to turn our democracy into a fundamentalist theocracy. And if we don't reverse the trend, there is the very real possibility that in the end we will all be governed according to their perverted version of biblical law."

Here is Mr Fish's great illustration of religion's danger to humanity:

In 9 great freethinkers and religious dissenters, Adam Lee asks "What kind of world would we have if a majority of the human race was atheist?"

The defenders of the faith argue that atheism inevitably leads to selfishness and nihilism, and that only religion can justify charity or compassion, bind people together in community, or inspire a lively and flourishing culture. But this assertion can only be sustained by ignoring the accomplishments of famous nonreligious people throughout history, of which there have been many.

Lee lists Albert Einstein, Robert Ingersoll, W.E.B. DuBois, Zora Neale Hurston, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Asa Philip Randolph, Robert Frost, Emma Lazarus, and Yip Harburg; for more examples, he recommends Susan Jacoby's Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism and Jennifer Michael Hecht's Doubt: A History.

Reason Being discusses the Catholic Church's war on America, observing that "The Church is waging a war on women, religious freedom, and general American values." This war is not merely punishing their own nuns, but by restricting the rights of non-Catholics to obtain contraception, abortion, and same-sex marriage. Prime among these offensive campaigns is the Catholic Church's demand for special exemptions from healthcare laws:

One of the main problems that we are facing is the dishonesty of the Catholic leadership. Under the leadership of Pope Benedict and Cardinal Dolan the Church is trying desperately to frame this issue as a violation of their religious freedom. It is not. In truth, the goals of the Church would be a violation of the religious freedom of all non-Catholics in America. [...]

If the U.S. government were to pass a law that allowed Catholic institutions or businesses owned by Catholics to not offer contraceptive services it would violate the 'free exercise' clause of all non-Catholics. It would, in effect, be forcing people to live under the rules of Catholicism in many areas.

Commenting on the venality of the Vatican, RB cautions us to "not be fooled by the rhetoric of Rome:"

No one is forcing Catholic Churches to marry same-sex couples. Yet, this organization is fighting mightily to prevent unions between homosexuals. They are fighting against civil rights. When we remove religion from this conversation, the debate crumbles. The only opposition to same-sex marriage comes from religion in this country. That is wrong. [...] If a same-sex couple wishes to get married that is their business and none of the Church's. The Church should have no say in matters of civil rights.

Dennis Prager claims that "rational people" should fear big government, instead of big business, asserting that "You cannot understand the left if you do not understand that Leftism is a religion:"

It is not God-based (some left-wing Christians' and Jews' claims notwithstanding), but otherwise it has every characteristic of a religion. The most blatant of those characteristics is dogma. People who believe in Leftism have as many dogmas as the most fundamentalist Christian.

One of them is material equality as the pre-eminent moral goal. Another is the villainy of corporations.

Without a trace of irony, Prager blames these conclusions on "dogma - a belief system that transcends reason:"

Religious Christians and Jews also have some irrational beliefs, but their irrationality is overwhelmingly confined to theological matters; and these theological irrationalities have no deleterious impact on religious Jews' and Christians' ability to see the world rationally and morally.

This is, quite simply, patriarchal nonsense. Supporting it would require one to ignore religions' wars on sex education, contraception, marriage equality, stem-cell research, global warming, evolutionary biology, cosmology. Prager's conclusion is even weaker:

It is noteworthy that none of the 20th century's monsters - Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao - were preoccupied with material gain. They loved power much more than money. And that is why the left is much more frightening than the right. It craves power.

Ed Brayton (who refers to Prager as "Rush Limbaugh with a thesaurus") points out the false dichotomy in Prager's argument--where "the right insists that nearly all government action is evil:"

...except when it puts someone to death, goes to war against an enemy that does not threaten or harm us, tortures people or violates their rights in the name of stopping terrorism, of course -- but that it is "socialism" to advocate preventing corporations from violating the rights of workers, squandering the hard-earned money of investors and depositors, or destroying the environment?

Of course giving any government too much power is dangerous, but so is giving a corporation too much power. It wasn't the government that polluted hundreds of square miles of the state I live in with dioxin, or created more than 1200 Superfund sites in the US, or was so negligent that they caused a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It wasn't the government that created the Bhopal disaster or that used hired thugs to kill union organizers. Unchecked corporate power may be less dangerous on a global scale because they don't command armies, but that hardly justifies letting them do whatever they want to do.

Government also didn't lay off millions of workers, issue and then foreclose on fraudulent mortgages, and crash the global financial system.

Richard Dawkins wants all our kids to read the King James Bible. He calls Ecclesiastes "one of the glories of English literature," suggests that "[a] native speaker of English who has never read a word of the King James Bible is verging on the barbarian," and writes that:

European history, too, is incomprehensible without an understanding of the warring factions of Christianity and the book over whose subtleties of interpretation they were so ready to slaughter and torture each other.

He does admit to "an ulterior motive" in promoting Biblical literacy:

People who do not know the Bible well have been gulled into thinking it is a good guide to morality. [...] I have even heard the cynically misanthropic opinion that, without the Bible as a moral compass, people would have no restraint against murder, theft and mayhem. The surest way to disabuse yourself of this pernicious falsehood is to read the Bible itself.

After a tour of various OT atrocities and barbarisms, he writes that "'Sophisticated' theologians (what is there in 'theology' to be sophisticated about?) now treat these horrors as parables or myths, which is just as well." and concludes that:

Whatever else the Bible might be - and it really is a great work of literature - it is not a moral book and young people need to learn that important fact because they are very frequently told the opposite.

Jerry Coyne agrees with Dawkins about the Bible's necessity for educated individuals, and asks is it great literature? He notes that "So many allusions (and illusions), and so much of what we hear, derive from that singular work of fiction:"

If someone wanted to place a single book in all schools that has not only literary value but a tremendous influence in our culture, let it be Shakespeare--preferably the complete works as compiled in The Riverside Shakespeare. The Bible is already in most schools, reposing unread in the library; why not ensure that every school also has a copy of Shakespeare's great works? They have all the beauty and humanity of the Bible with none of the stupidity and superstition. (I suspect that Shakespeare has added as many phrases to our language as has the King James Bible).

The Guardian observes that, much like the Bible, Shakespeare has benefited from cultural imperialism. Confronting the culture-warrior claim that "All the world loves Shakespeare! His plays are universal!" The Guardian's Emer O'Toole nails it: "Universal my toe. Shakespeare is full of classism, sexism, racism and defunct social mores:"

The Taming of the Shrew (aka The Shaming of the Vagina-Bearer) is about as universally relevant as the chastity belt. I'm sick of directors tying themselves up in conceptual knots, trying to frame poor Katherina as some kind of feminist heroine. The Merchant of Venice (Or The Evil Jew) is about as universal as the Nuremberg laws. What's that? Shakespeare allows Shylock to express the progressive sentiment that Jews are people before confiscating his property and forcing him to convert to Christianity, therefore Merchant is actually a humanist text? Come off it, sister.

So where has the idea that Shakespeare is "universal" come from? Why do people the world over study and perform Shakespeare? Colonialism. That's where, and that's why. Shakespeare was a powerful tool of empire, transported to foreign climes along with the doctrine of European cultural superiority. Taught in schools and performed under the proscenium arches built where the British conquered, universal Shakespeare was both a beacon of the greatness of European civilisation and a gateway into that greatness - to know the bard was to be civilised.

One should note that no wars have been waged over rival interpretations of Shakespeare; would that religions were as consistently ennobling.

Waged on many fronts, the conservative war on marriage is driven by "a conservative economic program that has wreaked havoc on the family lives of struggling Americans:"

For many, [marriage] rests on a commitment of two people to share their lives, to create a permanent union that provides support for children, and to manage the tradeoffs between careers, finances and services necessary to manage a family. This is an ideal held by both heterosexual and same-sex couples who are more financially secure. But it no longer fits large numbers of working-class couples who conceive children together. That's because the foundation for their relationships has been destroyed by the very people who accuse President Obama of a war on marriage.

They've attacked wage and job stability (unions in particular), work/family balance (including unemployment benefits and paid leave), women's autonomy, reproductive freedom, and fostered high incarceration rates and income inequality--and, typical of their projection-laden mode of discourse, the Right accuses liberals of waging a war on marriage for--horror of horrors!--recognizing same-sex unions. Obama "cited his Christian faith as a motivating factor in his decision" to support marriage equality, but New Civil Rights Movement looks at religion-driven homophobia and asks can we trust Christians?

Homophobic Christianity is rampant in our culture and made even more virulent by a media culture that over-emphasizes conservative Christianity. It also understates (or all out ignores) its moderate and progressive Christian counterparts.

There are over 5,000 congregations in the U.S. that have declared their unequivocal affirmation of LGBT equality. Four of the seven largest mainline Protestant denominations have institutionalized LGBT equality measures - ranging from ordination of LGBT pastors to embrace of same-sex marriage.

The piece suggests that "we must support 'conflicted' individuals as they journey towards LGBT equality:"

Just as President Obama needed to "evolve" on this issue, so will countless others. Our support of this process is essential for true change to occur...supportive Christian voices are necessary to win full LGBT equality. So today, let's stand shoulder to shoulder with our fellow LGBT advocates-even those who are Christian.

Adam Lee discusses the religious war on women--including the youngest and most vulnerable. Catholic bishops, he notes,

...are widening their quest to find and root out dissent wherever it may hide, and their gaze has landed on the latest culprits preaching radical feminism and undermining sound doctrine: that den of vipers known as the Girl Scouts.

Why? Because, as noted at HuffPo:

Critics contend that Girl Scouts materials shouldn't contain links to groups such as Doctors without Borders, the Sierra Club and Oxfam because they support family planning or emergency contraception.

Lee observes that "It's stories like this that make all the church's lofty rhetoric ring hollow:"

They claim they want to help the poor, but they're rabidly opposed to empowering women and letting them control the size of their families, which is absolutely essential if you actually want to reduce poverty in the long run. They've taken the teaching of Jesus - "For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you will, you can do good to them" (Mark 14:7) - and turned it into a prescriptive statement, actively fighting efforts to reduce poverty and thus ensuring an ample supply of poor people upon whom they can bestow charity to demonstrate their virtue.

update (5/23):
Rmuse writes at PoliticusUSA that Republican traitors declared war on the American people, observing that "it started in earnest in January 2011 when Republicans assumed control of the House of Representatives and several state legislatures:"

Shortly after taking their oath of office, Republicans immediately singled out women for their initial assault, and then set out to increase hunger and poverty with vicious spending cuts affecting the poor, children, and elderly Americans. [...] Cutting food stamps, housing and heating assistance, healthcare, and aid to children cannot be misconstrued as anything other than a war on the poor because none of the cuts will reduce the deficit or create jobs, and in fact will eliminate hundreds-of-thousands of jobs if not millions.

Rmuse analyzes Romney's 'first day in office' fantasy, and sees the underlying nightmare, commenting that "if Americans are not appalled at the blatant oligarchy Romney plans, then they are stupider than dirt," an opinion somewhat mitigated by the forces involved. "Republicans have the finest weapons their corporate money can buy," Rmuse notes, "racists, ignorant Americans, and the media:"

If Republican's supporters could get past their hatred of an African American President or their rank stupidity, they would ask Romney and Ryan what exactly they intended to do for the people. If their supporters were not stupid, they would ask why the GOP thinks giving the rich more tax cuts will have any different outcome now than it did eleven years ago when Bush tax cuts were first introduced. If the media did their jobs as advocates for the truth and transparency, they would ask Romney and Ryan how their economic plans benefitted anyone but the rich and corporations, but they do not and it is why Romney gets votes, and Ryan has support for his Draconian budget. The media is as complicit as Republicans in this war on America for never asking the right questions and failing to report what Republican legislation really entails, and if not for the Internet, few Americans would be aware of the looming crisis if Republicans prevail in November.

When asked what he finds interesting or surprising, Victor Stenger responded "I find it surprising that most scientists, believers and nonbelievers alike, refuse to apply their critical thinking skills to matters of religion:"

The rationale usually given by those who reject any role for science on religious matters is that science concerns itself, "by definition," solely with natural phenomena. Since the supernatural is unobservable, then, they assert, science has nothing to say about it.

However, while supernatural entities may not be directly observable, any effects these entities might have on the material world should manifest themselves as observable phenomena. Anything observable is subject to scientific inquiry. On the other hand, if the supernatural has no observable effects on the natural world, then why even worry about it?

Stenger concludes with the observation that "scientists and science organizations are being disingenuous when they say science can say nothing about the supernatural:"

They know better. Their policy of appeasing religion for presumably political reasons only empowers those who are muddling education and polluting public policy with anti-scientific magical thinking.

Jerry Coyne replies:

Can anybody really deny that? They do know better, or if they don't, they're dumb.

I wouldn't attribute this faith-driven blindness to an intellectual deficiency, but rather insufficient self-awareness. We all have blind spots, but it's odd that theists' blind spot is something so central to their psychological being.

Discussing the correlation between religiosity and well-being, Jerry Coyne points out that "those societies with higher levels of income inequality, child mortality, incarceration, and lower levels of health care ... are the most religious." Studies have documented "a pronounced (and statistically significant) negative correlation between the degree of religiosity of 17 Western nations (and Japan) and their 'success' as measured by the SSS [Successful Societies Scale]," which is "precisely the same relationship among states (using the HDI [Human Development Index]) as I found among countries: American states with lower HDIs are more religious:"

The HDI uses a set of traits that differ from those used in the SSS: the former amalgamates three traits (life expectancy, education, and income), while the latter combines 25 traits, including corruption, income disparity, child mortality, access to medical care, suicide rates, and so on.

Nevertheless, dead-end deists ignore the facts and insist that religion is indispensible.

An article asking why atheists align with Democrats finds a reason for the unsurprising "preponderance to be towards the left (Democratic) side of the political spectrum:"

The less religious a topic, the less atheists oppose it and the more divided they are in their opinion of it. The more religious a topic, the more atheists oppose it and the more homogenous their opinion of it. This becomes extremely clear with the following issues of women's rights, gay rights, and science [particularly evolution and stem-cell research].

The growth of atheists' numbers combined with their "align[ment] with Democratic policies and issues" has some positive implications:

As the voting block grows, there simply won't be the political support for right-wing religious issues anymore. No matter how hard they try, Republicans won't be able to ignore atheists. They can either fear them and lose or embrace them and change.

Or, more probably, they will do both. As demonstrated by the Uncle Tom Log Cabin Republicans, there could eventually be a group of atheist Republicans whose mere existence could be used as an alleged big-tent example while being demonized by the party's rank and file. The LCR problem is, of course, due to Republicans serving the Bible instead of the Constitution on LGBT issues:

The fact that Republicans immediately, in the dark of night, attached an amendment to a $51.1 billion Department of Justice and Commerce funding bill that reinforces the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) proves they are serving the Christian bible and not the Constitution. It is more evidence that Republicans are bible-inspired bigots who hate any American who is not a white Christian male and does not fit their paradigm of a good American married couple. The blatant hatred Republicans have for the LGBT community that they are willing to spend taxpayer dollars to defend discrimination and punish same-sex couples is nothing less than passive bullying. [...]

They may not be physically bullying gays like Willard Romney did in high school, but they are legislating state sponsored discrimination under authority of the Christian bible and they are breaking their oath of office to support the Constitution's guarantee of equal rights in the 14th Amendment, and failing to abide by the Separation Clause in the 1st Amendment. Their assertion that same-sex marriage is an attack on traditional marriage is fallacious in theory and practicality, but they are not known for objectivity when fear-mongering has worked so well for them in drumming up religious opposition to same-sex marriage.

The Boston Globe points out the evolution and de-evolution in presidential candidates' stances toward marriage equality. "By any objective standard," notes the article, "Obama's previous position was simply untenable:"

His administration ended "don't ask, don't tell" and stopped enforcing the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a union between and man and a woman. Privately, he supported gay marriage, and how and when he would make that clear was regularly discussed among his advisers and the press. But he was plainly in no rush.

"If Obama's evolution was awkward and embarrassing for a modern president," the article continues, "the same is also true of Romney's devolution:"

In 1994, he proclaimed himself "better than Ted Kennedy" on matters of gay rights. But by the time he began running for president in 2007, Romney had restyled himself, in typically heavy-handed fashion, as a staunch social conservative who favored a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage -- a shift in public emphasis no less expedient than Obama's.

In a sense, Obama and Romney are mirror images of one another: on gay rights, each is a cautious pragmatist trying to catch up to his party, although this entails their running in opposite directions.

Obama has progressed to meet both the Democratic majority position as well as that of the whole American people--while Romney has regressed to please Republican reactionaries in a stance that grows more embarrassing with each passing day.