LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This article was originally published in the Calcutta, India Telegraph, but is no longer available. I am reproducing it here from atheism.

THE TROUBLE WITH RELIGION

Wherever religions get into society's driving seat, tyranny results
Salman Rushdie

I never thought of myself as a writer about religion until a religion came after me. Religion was a part of my subject, of course — for a novelist from the Indian subcontinent, how could it not have been? But in my opinion I also had many other, larger, tastier fish to fry. Nevertheless, when the attack came, I had to confront what was confronting me, and to decide what I wanted to stand up for in the face of what so vociferously, repressively and violently stood against me.

Now, 16 years later, religion is coming after us all and, even though most of us probably feel, as I once did, that we have other, more important concerns, we are all going to have to confront the challenge. If we fail, this particular fish may end up frying us.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY brigidsblest)

Apparently now it's not enough for some people to condemn 'activist' judges who they disagree with. Now they're trying to 'punish' them.

2 Evangelicals Want to Strip Courts' Funds

By Peter Wallsten Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Evangelical Christian leaders, who have been working closely with senior Republican lawmakers to place conservative judges in the federal courts, have also been exploring ways to punish sitting jurists and even entire courts viewed as hostile to their cause.

An audio recording obtained by the Los Angeles Times features two of the nation's most influential evangelical leaders, at a private conference with supporters, laying out strategies to rein in judges, such as stripping funding from their courts in an effort to hinder their work.

( Read on, if you dare... )

The article can be found at:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/latimests/20050422/ts_latimes/2evangelicalswanttostripcourtsfunds

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This article from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette talks about Sen. Mark Pryor's criticism of the evangelical attack on the US judiciary. Here's an excerpt:

WASHINGTON — Sen. Mark Pryor lashed out Wednesday at the Christian evangelicals who have joined the attack on Democratic filibusters of President Bush’s judicial nominees.
Their tactics threaten "to make the followers of Jesus Christ just another special-interest group," Pryor said in a conference call with Arkansas reporters.
"It is presumptuous of them to think that they represent all Christians in America, even to say they represent all evangelical Christians," added Pryor, 42, a first-term Democrat who has considered himself an evangelical Christian for 25 years.
The term generally refers to members of conservative Christian denominations that believe that proselytizing is an essential part of the religious experience.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY pansauce)

Mississippi lets religious documents be posted on public property

By The Associated Press
04.22.05

JACKSON, Miss. - Mississippi is among the first states in the nation to make it lawful to allow religious documents to be posted on public property.

The law gives permission to those in authority of public buildings to post the Ten Commandments, excerpts of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and the motto, "In God We Trust."

By signing Senate Bill 2486 on April 20, Gov. Haley Barbour "thrills" the Christian conservative base of the Republican Party, which he'll need if he plans to seek re-election or launch a presidential campaign, said Larry J. Sabato, director of the director of the Institute of Politics at the University of Virginia.

"Fundamentalist Christians can be a majority of those who turn up in caucus primaries. This would be very useful in seeking the Republican nomination for president," Sabato said.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Check out this television spot from People for the American Way. It's 25 years old, but could not be more topical if they'd tried.

Here's something interesting: a similar problem in 1980 created this ad, as well as the People For the American Way 25 years ago. Funny how history repeats itself.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY kalibex)

"Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., intensified his war of words with Focus on the Family on Thursday, accusing its evangelical Christian leaders of trying to turn the United States into a theocracy."