LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY wyldraven)

Battle to overturn S. Dakota abortion law begins

SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota (Reuters) - Abortion-rights supporters planned to launch an attack on Friday on a new South Dakota abortion law designed as a direct challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion 33 years ago.

An abortion-rights coalition, South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families, said it would lay out its strategy to take down the law in mid-morning news conferences in Sioux Falls and Rapid City.

The Sioux Falls local newspaper reported that the group would announce a petition drive to overturn the law through a referendum in November. The group has not publicly detailed its strategy, but participants in the campaign have said that a referendum had advantages over a lawsuit.
:::

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty has a new blog that addresses church/state concerns. It looks good- check it out.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY jehovahsfitness)

I've been perusing David Limbaugh's website and uncovered a bunch of links to the kinds of organizations that we should be paying attention to. Since Limbaugh is a lawyer, there are quite a few legal organizations among them. Most were obvious in their Domionist sentiments, but some just appear to be benign Christian organizations. It's hard to tell, because "religious liberty" has been used by the Christian Right, including Limbaugh, to mean Christian supremacy. The first organizations I've been unable to pin down is The Rutherford Institute which is pro-life in that it opposes abortion, but interestingly also in that it opposes the death penalty. There's also a lot about the erosion of civil liberties on their website. It looks like they're pretty independant and probably not related to Dominionism. The other is The Christian Legal Society. Their 'core purpose' is "Transforming the legal profession for good one heart and mind at a time by enlisting lawyers and law students everywhere to faithfully serve Jesus Christ in the diligent study and ethical practice of law by ministering to the poor, reconciling people in conflict, defending life and protecting the religious liberties of all people." From what I can see the organization itself is pretty neutral; it doesn't seem to hold any position on any of the issues that we and Dominionists are concerned with.

If you're wondering what a blatantly Dominionist legal organization looks like, see here

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY iniswitryn)

Tennessee pastor's wife confesses to his murder.

I'm posting this rather lurid story here because this family has "dominionist" written all over it, from a family history of evangelical ministers, to husband and wife both having attended an evangelical university, to the husband's ministry in a back-to-the-Bible-as-infallible-source church (Church of Christ).

I wouldn't be surprised to see forms of familial abuse and coercion crop up in the defense's presentation.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY brigidsblest)

By Sidney Blumenthal
The Guardian UK
Thursday 23 March 2006

Even some Republicans are now horrified by the influence Bush has given to the evangelical right.


In his latest PR offensive President Bush came to Cleveland, Ohio, on Monday to answer the paramount question on Iraq that he said was on people's minds: "They wonder what I see that they don't." After mentioning "terror" 54 times and "victory" five, dismissing "civil war" twice and asserting that he is "optimistic", he called on a citizen in the audience, who homed in on the invisible meaning of recent events in the light of two books, American Theocracy, by Kevin Phillips, and the book of Revelation. Phillips, the questioner explained, "makes the point that members of your administration have reached out to prophetic Christians who see the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism as signs of the apocalypse. Do you believe this? And if not, why not?"

Bush's immediate response, as transcribed by CNN, was: "Hmmm." Then he said: "The answer is I haven't really thought of it that way. Here's how I think of it. First, I've heard of that, by the way." The official White House website transcript drops the strategic comma, and so changes the meaning to: "First I've heard of that, by the way."

But it is certainly not the first time Bush has heard of the apocalyptic preoccupation of much of the religious right, having served as evangelical liaison on his father's 1988 presidential campaign. The Rev Jerry Falwell told Newsweek how he brought Tim LaHaye, then an influential rightwing leader, to meet him; LaHaye's Left Behind novels, dramatizing the rapture, Armageddon and the second coming, have sold tens of millions.

( The rest behind the cut... )

The article can be found here.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This Op-Ed column in today's LA Times says some interesting things about the sport of 'Christian bashing':

The connection between Christianity and political power is enough to make this believer hang her head. And yet to attack this Christianity as all of Christianity is, of course, an error. It ignores the fact that medieval Christianity was reformed — by Martin Luther and the Church of England, among others. But most of all, it neglects a history that includes someone such as the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who organized the Confessing Church to resist Nazi exclusion laws, joined the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler and paid for it with his life.

Bonhoeffer believed that the heart of what it meant to be a Christian was to act on behalf of the marginalized — the helpless, the sick, the poor, the friendless. He distinguished between what he called "cheap grace," that form of lip service I think we can all identify with, and "costly grace," meaning the kind that gets you into trouble.

If I think of costly grace, I remember the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks; the abolitionists; the Christians of Jubilee 2000 who successfully pressured Britain and the United States to forgive the developing world's crippling debt; the Quakers who protect and advise pacifists; the women and men who work daily in soup kitchens, for living-wage ordinances, against torture at Guantanamo Bay. None of us have done enough, and that is partly why so many people only know about the Christianity that cozies up to power.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY wyldraven)

Attempt to ban The Handmaid's Tale in San Antonio TX fails, for now.

Lyman said Thursday that he believed to book does not meet community standards. He said he would not want his own children to read the book.

More here.

Superintendent Ed Lyman pulled the book, saying it was too explicit for high school students.

Personally, I am convinced this is why it got pulled in the first place. Highlighting mine.

The Handmaid’s Tale centers on a fundamentalist Christian group that forces women to act as sex slaves. Those who sided with Lyman feel the book is sexually explicit and offensive to Christians.

I think this one bears watching.

BTW: The College Board exams given to advanced placement students for college credit include questions about the book.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY catvincent)

X-posted to my journal.

So nude pictures are bad and sinful - unless they're selling the pro-life agenda.

(Link to not-safe-for-work pics of the statue. Actually, it's pretty cute... and it's *art* so that's OK.)

' A nude Britney Spears on a bearskin rug while giving birth to her firstborn marks a ‘first’ for Pro-Life. Pop-star Britney Spears is the “ideal” model for Pro-Life and the subject of a dedication at Capla Kesting Fine Art in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg gallery district, in what is proclaimed the first Pro-Life monument to birth, in April.

Dedication of the life-sized statue celebrates the recent birth of Spears’ baby boy, Sean, and applauds her decision of placing family before career. “A superstar at Britney’s young age having a child is rare in today’s celebrity culture. This dedication honors Britney for the rarity of her choice and bravery of her decision,” said gallery co-director, Lincoln Capla. The dedication includes materials provided by Manhattan Right To Life Committee.

“Monument to Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston,” believed Pro-Life’s first monument to the ‘act of giving birth,’ is purportedly an idealized depiction of Britney in delivery. Natural aspects of Spears’ pregnancy, like lactiferous breasts and protruding naval, compliment a posterior view that depicts widened hips for birthing and reveals the crowning of baby Sean’s head.

The monument also acknowledges the pop-diva’s pin-up past by showing Spears seductively posed on all fours atop a bearskin rug with back arched, pelvis thrust upward, as she clutches the bear’s ears with ‘water-retentive’ hands.

“Britney provides inspiration for those struggling with the ‘right choice’,” said artist Daniel Edwards, recipient of a 2005 Bartlebooth award from London’s The Art Newspaper. “She was number one with Google last year, with good reason --- people are inspired by the beauty of a pregnant woman,” said Edwards. '