We have seen how religious individuals and groups are using the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and state versions of it to try and avoid complying with laws that they feel infringe on their religious beliefs, such as issuing same-sex marriage licenses or providing contraceptive benefits in health insurance polices or selling various goods and services to the public.
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The attempts by opponents of same-sex marriage to stall the inevitable continue. There was a pathetic effort by a Catholic youth group called Catholic Vote to produce a video that mimics the It Gets Better Project and video series that encouraged young gay people who felt victimized to not lose hope. The Catholic Vote video shows young people hesitantly revealing their belief that marriage should only be between a man and a woman, implying that young people who feel that way nowadays suffer the same level of ostracizing that gay teens feel.
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It was bad enough that on June 26, a day that will live in infamy, the US Supreme Court rammed same-sex marriage down the throats of righteous Christians, but just four days later the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled by a 7-2 margin in the case of Prescott et al. v. Oklahoma Capitol Preservation Commission that the Ten Commandments monument that was placed on the state capital grounds in 2012 has got to go. (I had not been aware that someone drove a car into the old monument last November and wrecked it and a new one was constructed and put up this January.)
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Via Darren Smith, I learn that Iceland has repealed its blasphemy laws. The bill that was introduced by the Pirate Party (how cool is it to have such a party in parliament?) and passed by an almost unanimous vote repealed Article 125 that stated that, “Anyone who publicly ridicules or insults the dogmas or worship of a lawful religious community in Iceland, shall be fined or imprisoned for up to 3 months.”
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As America celebrates the anniversary of its declaration of independence from England today, we will hear many expressions of patriotism. Mixed in with all of them will be sentiments that suggest that America is god’s favorite country. These sentiments are repeated all the time in public life and are pretty much obligatory for any politician in the US running for elected office. Anyone who as much as hints that perhaps god does not care much for national boundaries would be doomed to defeat.
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The title of this new book provides further evidence, if one needed it, of the self-assurance that the atheist community now exhibits. We have come a long way from the days when atheists were unable to speak of their lack of faith due to feat of persecution. That state of affairs still exists in a few places, mainly in some Muslim-majority countries, but in the rest of the world nonbelievers have progressed steadily: from being in the closet, to coming out to publicly, to making the intellectual case for atheism, to taking more or less for granted that atheism is the better way of understanding the world. The final stage is looking at practical ways to help atheists deal with coming out, discussing morality and death and other important and existential questions from an atheist perspective, and taking the battle to religion with the confidence that they can defeat it.
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The religious right has been successful at chipping away at the right of women to get abortions and contraceptives, putting in one restriction after another. The US Supreme Court has generally gone along with these moves but at the very end of the past term the court issued two rulings that, at least in the short term, seemed to go the other way.
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Both The Daily Show and The Nightly Show celebrated the decisions on Obamacare and same-sex marriage made fun of the dire warnings of the opponents that these developments heralded the coming of the Apocalypse.
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The anti-gay bigots are feeling under siege. Not only are they are upset that the word ‘gay’ has been appropriated so that it can’t be used to mean happy anymore, they find it an abomination that gay people are now publicly visible and openly present everywhere, adopting children, and otherwise acting like ordinary people. They see the Supreme Court decision to legalize same-sex marriages as an ominous sign and as first step towards the day when the only marriages that can take place are gay marriages.
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It is not only evangelical Christians who oppose same-sex marriage. Orthodox Jews also dislike it and were upset by the Supreme Court verdict. One group of Orthodox Jews decided to protest New York’s Gay Pride parade held over the weekend but an acute observer noticed that there was something not quite right about the man clad in traditional black Orthodox garb and hat and with long hair.
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