And in the end, who pays?

The school board at Cranston RI racked up a $150,000 legal bill in their foolhardy attempt to defend the blatantly unconstitutional prayer banner in the Cranston High School. And now they’ve decided it’s unfair to expect them to pay the whole thing. Their solution? Split the bill with the taxpayers, 50/50. [UPDATE: A commenter informs me that I’ve got it exactly backwards: the city has already paid, and the school board is volunteering to pick up half of the tab. That’s marginally better, but still, that’s $75,000 that could have been spent on educating students, and it’s going to pay off a very foolishly-incurred debt instead.]

The vote was unanimous in favor of the proposed fee split proposal submitted by School Supt. Peter L. Nero.

The school district will pay $75,000 toward the legal fees owed the ACLU for representing Cranston High School West student Jessica Ahlquist, 16, in a challenge to the constitutionality of a prayer banner which used to hang in the school’s auditorium.

Yeah, I know, it’s taxpayer money either way. But still, why should the general public (including atheists, agnostics, and other non-Christians) get stuck paying for Christian evangelism efforts? Give that bill to the local churches and let them split it up. They’re the ones who were driving the original push for Christian supremacy in the public schools. Let them pay their own damn bills.

Pentagon-sponsored identity theft

USA Today is reporting a disturbing and blatantly illegal propaganda campaign apparently being conducted by Pentagon contractors.

A USA TODAY reporter and editor investigating Pentagon propaganda contractors have themselves been subjected to a propaganda campaign of sorts, waged on the Internet through a series of bogus websites.

Fake Twitter and Facebook accounts have been created in their names, along with a Wikipedia entry and dozens of message board postings and blog comments. Websites were registered in their names.

A Pentagon spokesman denied being aware of any such activities on the part of its contractors, but the sites mysteriously disappeared after the contractors were asked about them.

No God? No charity.

The good folks at Rock Beyond Belief have been given the final word: no, absolutely positively no atheists will be allowed to feed homeless vets in connection with their secular, godless concert.

This means that the evangelicals surely had to follow this law too, right? Of course not.

They were permitted to raise funds (in the form of cash!) for months on post. They raised $54,000 in tithing at every chapel on post – there are several. That is a colossal fundraising effort, repeatedly violating the regulation – at multiple locations on post.

But atheists won’t be allowed to collect a few canned goods to help out their fellow soldiers. Because really, what’s the well-being of a bunch of starving, homeless heroes (who have sacrificed so much for the rest of us) compared to the awful and terrifying prospect of having the public realize that atheists are—gasp!—nice people?

Good to see the leadership at Ft. Bragg making such a plain and forthright statement of their priorities.

The equal rights bill you never heard of.

There is a major human rights bill under debate in Canada. You’ve probably never heard of it, which is a bad sign, because it’s important.

It is about what happens to actual human beings. Human beings whose rights are being denied, identities being invalidated, ability to participate in our society being hopelessly compromised, ability to live without fear of assault or harassment being taken away, and pursuit of simplest forms of happiness, fulfillment and life’s rewards being rendered untenable, impossible. Real living, breathing Canadians being denied their chance at anything resembling a full, rewarding and safe life by the complacency of an uninformed public.

Read the full story at Sincerely, Natalie Reed.

God’s definition of marriage

God’s definition of marriage, according to a lot of people today, is given in Genesis 2:24: “For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” But there are a few problems with that. For one thing, the word “wife” does not appear in the original text. The word used there is “ishshah,” or woman–the same word Adam uses in the previous verse when he says, “She shall be called woman (ishshah), for she was taken out of man (ish).” There was no license, no priest or rabbi, no vows, or in short, no wedding. Eve was a woman, and Adam just took her and started sleeping with her, without marriage. If you want to find the earliest Biblical reference to actual marriage, you have to go to Sodom.

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I had no choice, he was packing a whole bag of Skittles

This is old news by now, but the passing of time has only made it even more outrageous. A white vigilante named George Zimmerman has shot and killed an unarmed black teenager, and hasn’t even been arrested.

Zimmerman, 28, claims he shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin last month in self-defence during a confrontation in a gated community in Sanford, Florida.

Zimmerman spotted Martin as he was patrolling his neighbourhood on a rainy evening last month and called the police emergency dispatcher to report a suspicious person. Against the advice of the emergency dispatcher, Zimmerman then followed Martin, who was walking home from a convenience store with a bag of Skittles sweets in his pocket.

via guardian.co.uk.

As the Guardian reports, this has now led to an investigation by the US Justice Department, joined by the FBI and the US attorney’s office. But he still has not been arrested. If you happen to be passing by the Action Request form for the Sanford police department, you might want to ask why not.

“The real bigots are the liberals”

Writing for Mail Online, one Simon Heffer spews:

I believe that the only people who should be able to marry and have a wedding are those of different genders.

Well I believe that people should only publish opinions that do not make them look like narrow-minded twits, but you don’t hear me calling for the outlawing of Simon Heffer, now do you.

Sheesh.

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In bed with the Church?

They say that politics makes strange bedfellows, but this one seems a bit stranger than most.

David Coburn, the openly gay spokesman of Great Britain’s U.K. Independence Party, claims that Prime Minister David Cameron is “picking a fight” with the religious community over same-sex marriage, insisting that pushing such legislation “shows a lack of toleration towards others who look on marriage as a holy sacrament between man and woman.”

Coburn and UKIP made their opposition to the same-sex marriage legislation known last week, arguing that civil unions are a superior alternative that would not hinder religious freedom.

via the Christian Post.

Allowing everybody the same rights is a lack of tolerance? I suppose it is, in the same way that allowing McDonalds to sell hamburgers shows a lack of tolerance for vegetarianism.

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Crossing the government

This one seems pretty cut and dried.

The British government asserts that Christians have no right to wear a cross or crucifix at work and is eager to prove it in court.

The case was initiated by two British women Nadia Eweida and Shirley Chaplin, after they were punished for refusing to take off their religious symbols.

via Cross to bear? UK denies Christians right to wear crucifix — RT.

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My years in the pro-life movement

So Doonesbury is taking on the medical rape bill this week, and there’s all the associated uproar you’d expect. Maybe now would be a good time for me to reminisce about my experiences as a pro-life advocate.

This was back during my evangelical Christian days, of course. As a conservative evangelical, I was automatically pro-life, almost without thinking. And yet, I did think too, which got me into a bit of trouble. Creationism was the biggest factor that ultimately made me question my faith, but my pro-life experiences made no small contribution to that outcome.

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