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.
The creationist lawsuit against the JPL is getting better and better: the Glendale News Press reports that lawyers for David Coppedge tried—unsuccessfully—to bar the press from their client’s religious discrimination lawsuit. [Update: No, I read that wrong, it was attorneys for JPL who requested the press ban, citing privacy concerns for the witnesses.]
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ernest Hiroshige denied their request without explanation as the trial delved deeper into the beliefs of the plaintiff, David Coppedge, and how the space exploration agency based on scientific research can accommodate employees who wear their faith on their sleeve.
Gonna be Dover all over.
This is really not going to end well for the ID creationist community…
“David Coppedge alienated his co-workers by the way he acted with them, and blamed anyone who complained about those interactions,” according to JPL in their response. “He accuses his former project supervisor and line manager of making discriminatory and retaliatory employment decision, when they had in fact protected him for years.”
via CNN.com Blogs.
One of the problems with being reality-averse is that you also corrupt your ability to assess your own circumstances. I’m sure Coppedge went into this suit convinced that he was going to show the world how prejudiced and unfair everyone else was for resisting his attempts to convert them to his own beliefs. He should have learned his lesson from Bill Buckingham.
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.
Sadly, I thought I was too busy to be able to attend the Reason Rally. But now I might just have to go anyway.
Members of the secular community are expecting to see Richard Dawkins, James Randi, PZ Myers, Hemant Metha, Greta Christina, David Silverman, Jessica Ahlquist and many more well-known personalities at the Reason Rally, an event slated to be the largest gathering for the secular community in history, but some other unexpected guests — in addition to the list of speakers and performers — from the Westboro Baptist Church will also be in attendance.
Wait, “Hemant Metha”?
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.
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.
A controversial billboard has disappeared 24 hours after being posted.
The Pennsylvania sign, which was first vandalized and then taken down, bore a verse from Colossians 3:22: “Slaves, obey your masters.”
While intended as a message against Keystone State legislators who designated 2012 as the “Year of the Bible,” many felt the sign — which also featured a shackled black man — were racist.
via NY Daily News.
A recent study suggests that morality may owe more to biochemistry than to authority or social convention.
Diverse lines of evidence point to a basic human aversion to physically harming others. First, we demonstrate that unwillingness to endorse harm in a moral dilemma is predicted by individual differences in aversive reactivity, as indexed by peripheral vasoconstriction. Next, we tested the specific factors that elicit the aversive response to harm… These simulated harmful actions increased peripheral vasoconstriction significantly more than did witnessing pretend harmful actions or to performing metabolically matched nonharmful actions. This suggests that the aversion to harmful actions extends beyond empathic concern for victim harm. Together, these studies demonstrate a link between the body and moral decision-making processes.
The study was published in the journal Emotion by the American Psychological Association.
An Intelligent Design creationist is suing Caltech for allegedly firing him for espousing his beliefs at the workplace.
David Coppedge has sued Caltech, which operates Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA, claiming religious discrimination and retaliation, harassment and wrongful demotion. Officials removed Coppedge from a lead system administrator position on the Cassini mission to Saturn in 2010, and was let go in 2011. Some 200 workers were laid off that same year due to budgetary constraints.
Denying the allegations, in documents filed with the Los Angeles Superior Court, JPL officials allege that Coppedge received a written warning because Coppedge allegedly harassed co-workers about his beliefs.
