LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

I really like Spong. He tells it like it is. This Daily Kos post talks about Spong's latest comments about the misuse of the Bible by the religious supremacists.

Political pulpit: The Bible as weapon in the culture war

By John Shelby Spong

May 15, 2005

In recent years the Bible has emerged as a major force in the political arena.

For example, devotees of the Scriptures have quoted this sacred source to justify religious support for the war in Iraq. In fundamentalist Christian communities this war is seen as bringing peace to the Middle East and securing Israel's establishment, which they believe are the conditions for the coming of "the rapture" and thus the end of the world.

It is worth noting that part of the code language used by these millenarians is that in the rapture "no child is left behind!"

The Bible regularly is quoted by conservative Christians to argue that what they call "the homosexual lifestyle" is contrary to Scripture. Politically this takes the form of seeking to amend the Constitution to discriminate against our citizens who are gay or lesbian.

In this basic charter nearly every previous attempt at amendment has been to expand freedom. Now these Bible quoters want to reverse that trend, failing to see that if today's majority can amend the Constitution to discriminate, then no one is safe from tomorrow's majority.( Read more... )

I want to highlight something he said in the body of this essay, something that reflects the purpose of this, and many other boards that are starting to turn up online:

Theocracies always turn demonic because they justify everything in the name of God.

Non-religious people and people whose religious tradition is different from the prevailing point of view should be alarmed at these trends, especially when their voices, raised in protest, are dismissed as anti-Christian.

That is why I urge those who like myself are Christians, steeped in this religious tradition that we love, to speak publicly in powerful opposition to this current use of religious power.

Varied religious voices need to remind the leaders of this nation that no single person speaks for and no single perspective captures the ultimate truth of God.

If we do not remind them about this, and if we do not act to halt their steamrolling over our rights, they will take over. They are a minority. We must remember that. But they have systematically climbed into power, using deliberately deceptive means to get good Christians to ride along and fund them, and to disguise their real goals- until now. Their triumphalism has revealed their hand. Are we going to let them walk in and destroy what we've had for 229 years? It's up to us, and others like us, to say, "Wait a minute! Your vision is not mine!" Do we have the courage to stand up to them and their fear and hate? They might listen to fellow Christians before they listen to a Jew or a Pagan. Let's get the word out.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY hummingwolf)

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) -- The Kansas school board's hearings on evolution weren't limited to how the theory should be taught in public schools. The board is considering redefining science itself. Advocates of "intelligent design'' are pushing the board to reject a definition limiting science to natural explanations for what's observed in the world.

Instead, they want to define it as "a systematic method of continuing investigation,'' without specifying what kind of answer is being sought. The definition would appear in the introduction to the state's science standards.

The proposed definition has outraged many scientists, who are frustrated that students could be discussing supernatural explanations for natural phenomena in their science classes.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY kalibex)

Evangelical Doctor to Leave FDA Advisory Panel

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This American Street blog has an interesting take on the juxtaposition of Kansas and its rich paleological past, and the present day ignorance in trying to deny it ever happened with 'intelligent design'.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY deridetenebras)

Frank Rich had a great editorial in yesterday's NYTimes giving a summary of the Conservative Right's campaign against homosexuals, including accounts of closeted anti-gay activists.

Today's judge-bashing firebrands often say that it isn't homosexuality per se that riles them, only the potential legalization of same-sex marriage by the courts. That's a sham. These people have been attacking gay people since well before Massachusetts judges took up the issue of marriage, Vermont legalized civil unions or Gavin Newsom was in grade school. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, characterizes the religious right's anti-gay campaign as a 30-year war, dating back to the late 1970's, when the Miss America runner-up Anita Bryant championed the overturning of an anti-discrimination law protecting gay men and lesbians in Dade County, Fla., and the Rev. Jerry Falwell's newly formed Moral Majority issued a "Declaration of War" against homosexuality. A quarter-century later these views remained so unreconstructed that Mr. Falwell and the Rev. Pat Robertson would go so far as to pin the 9/11 attacks in part on gay men and lesbians - a charge they later withdrew but that Mr. Robertson repositioned just two weeks ago. In response to a question from George Stephanopoulos, he said he now believes that activist judges are a more serious threat than Al Qaeda. [...] Which judges do these people admire? Their patron saint is the former Alabama chief justice Roy S. Moore, best known for his activism in displaying the Ten Commandments; in a ruling against a lesbian mother in a custody case, Mr. Moore deemed homosexuality "abhorrent, immoral, detestable, a crime against nature" and suggested that the state had the power to prohibit homosexual "conduct" with penalties including "confinement and even execution."