LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY evil_genius)

Marine’s father sues funeral demonstrators
Protesters say soldiers' deaths are God’s penalty for U.S. tolerance of gays

GREENBELT, Md. - The father of a Marine whose funeral was picketed by anti-gay protesters from a fundamentalist Kansas church filed an invasion-of-privacy suit against the demonstrators Monday.

It is believed to be the first lawsuit brought by a serviceman’s family against Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., whose members routinely demonstrate at military funerals around the country.

Albert Snyder of York, Pa., the father of Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder, is seeking unspecified damages. The younger Snyder, 20, died March 3 after an accident in the Anbar province of Iraq. He was buried in Westminster, Md.

More here

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

It isn't a proper week unless Mark Morford checks out the headlines and has a little rant about them. This week: that horrible Left Behind video game.

Jesus Loves A Machine Gun

Are you a true believer? Do you just know deep down in your black Wal-Mart socks that every word of the Bible is the absolute literal truth and nothing dare be doubted and anyone who thinks that God is merely an ambisexual omniblissful bloom of moist divine nondenominational honeydew melon should be strung up by their small intestine and beaten with sticks sharpened by Mel Gibson's teeth?

Do you feel, furthermore, that human cretins like, say, gays and Jews and Wiccans and all those hippie weirdos with their iPods and low-cut jeans and easy laughter are a plague upon this fine and holy land?

Do you think that contemptible books like "The Da Vinci Code" are not only blasphemy, but that you should probably go out into the street right now and behead a few lambs and perhaps mow down some Taoists with a Gatling gun just to deflect its horrible notions of the sacredness of the feminine divine? You do?

Praise Jesus! Your video game has arrived.

Behold, blessed children, the new and upcoming "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" video game, based on the freakishly best-selling series of apocalyptic trash-lit books. It's an ultraviolent, hilariously inept, wondrously accurate portrayal of what every true right-wing Christian fundamentalist really fantasizes about after they've had one too many pink wine spritzers and have logged a few hours in the gay chat rooms and have sufficiently indoctrinated their happily numb kids with tales of vile homos and scary "progressive" liberals who want to buy them candy and tattoo their sacrums and feed them organic hot dogs.

Good old Mark. Master of hilarious hyperbole and obnoxious truth telling.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY seshen)

Senate vote rejects Constitutional gay marriage amendment.

Whether you are for or against gay marriage, this is a triumph for civil rights and the push to put specific religious doctrines onto a multi-religious society.