Fundamentally Atheist – The Chronicle of Higher Education May 26, 2015
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J
erry A. Coyne’s new book, Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible (Viking, 2015), is fighting words. Lamenting the “nice guy syndrome” he sees motivating many fellow scientists, refuting any form of accommodation
via Fundamentally Atheist – The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Humanist Foundation Reaches Out to Religious Groups, Testing a Divide – NYTimes.com May 18, 2014
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Six months after starting a humanist charity in 2010, Dale McGowan unveiled a philanthropist’s version of a beta test. He already offered donors to his organization, the Foundation Beyond Belief, the opportunity to designate their gifts for groups that worked in fields like refugee aid and environmentalism. Then, in an contrarian brainstorm, he decided to try adding a category for progressive religious bodies.
He thought he had found the perfect test case with Quaker Peace and Social Witness, part of the British branch of the Society of Friends. Here was a nondogmatic denomination with a longstanding commitment to pacifism, racial equality and economic fairness. What, even for atheists, agnostics and freethinkers, was there not to like?
via Humanist Foundation Reaches Out to Religious Groups, Testing a Divide – NYTimes.com.
Project ROSE Is Arresting Sex Workers in Arizona to Save Their Souls | VICE United States February 27, 2014
Posted by sandyclaus in Atheism, Religious Activists.1 comment so far
Project ROSE is a Phoenix city program that arrests sex workers in the name of saving them. In five two-day stings, more than 100 police officers targeted alleged sex workers on the street and online. They brought them in handcuffs to the Bethany Bible Church. There, the sex workers were forced to meet with prosecutors, detectives, and representatives of Project ROSE, who offered a diversion program to those who qualified. Those who did not may face months or years in jail.
In the Bethany Bible Church, those arrested were not allowed to speak to lawyers. Despite the handcuffs, they were not officially “arrested” at all.
via Project ROSE Is Arresting Sex Workers in Arizona to Save Their Souls | VICE United States.
SB 1062 should never have had to be written February 26, 2014
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The First Amendment was meant only to protect the Christian faith. When the founders spoke of religion, they meant the Christian religion. They did not have to keep saying the Christian religion because everyone knew that is what they were talking about.
Focus On The Family, Alliance Defending Freedom, NOM Leaders Reportedly Met With Author Of Russian ‘Homosexual Propaganda’ Bill | Right Wing Watch February 26, 2014
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Focus On The Family, Alliance Defending Freedom, NOM Leaders Reportedly Met With Author Of Russian ‘Homosexual Propaganda’ Bill
SUBMITTED BY Miranda Blue on Thursday, 10/24/2013 10:04 am
Last week, we reported that National Organization for Marriage president Brian Brown had just gotten back from a Moscow planning meeting for the 2014 World Congress of Families gathering in Russia. Brown confirmed his participation to Rachel Maddow, telling her “we are proud to work with our allies in Russia and around the world to protect marriage as the union as one man and one woman.”
We now have a clearer idea of who those allies are. In a press release yesterday, the World Congress listed many of the participants in last week’s planning meeting. They included leaders of several major American religious right groups including Brown, Benjamin Bull of the Alliance Defending Freedom, Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family, Justin Murff of the Christian Broadcasting Network, and Austin Ruse of the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (C-FAM).
Also on the list is Fabrice Sorlin, the far-right French activist who led a delegation joined by Brown to testify before the Russian parliament in May in favor of a broad ban on the adoption of Russian orphans by gay couples and single people living in countries that allow same-sex marriage. Sorlin is the one who told members of the Duma that Russia’s efforts to repel advances in gay rights (or “the suicide of our civilization”) was just like its role protecting Europe from the “the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan” in the 13th century.
Alliance Defending Freedom | Right Wing Watch February 26, 2014
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Alliance Defending Freedom
Alliance Defending Freedom Posts Archive
Alliance Defense Fund | Right Wing Watch February 26, 2014
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Alliance Defense Fund
Founded by a group of high-profile Religious Right leaders such as D. James Kennedy and James Dobson, the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) sees itself as a counter to the ACLU. As a legal group, it assists and augments the efforts of other right-wing groups to “keep the door open for the spread of the Gospel.” The ADF has been active on issues including pushing “marriage protection,” exposing the “homosexual agenda” and fighting the supposed “war on Christmas.” MORE >
Home » American Religious Freedom Program February 26, 2014
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18 State Religious Freedom Caucuses
Over 200 legislators in 18 states have formed bipartisan religious freedom caucuses across the nation.
Inside the Conservative Campaign to Launch “Jim Crow-Style” Bills Against Gay Americans | Mother Jones February 26, 2014
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According to the Wichita Eagle, the American Religious Freedom Program (ARFP)—which is part of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative organization founded in 1976—crafted the language for the Kansas bill. Brian Walsh, executive director of the ARFP, which supports religious freedom measures, acknowledges that his group consulted with the legislators on the bill, but he says that lots of other groups did as well: “We gave them suggestions and they took some of them.” Walsh says that ARFP was contacted by legislators who wrote the Tennessee bill and that the group frequently talked to legislators in South Dakota about “religious freedom” but not the state’s specific bill. Julie Lynde, executive director of Cornerstone Family Council in Idaho, one of many state groups that are part of Citizen Link, a branch of Focus on the Family, told Al Jazeera America, “We’ve been involved in working on the language” of the Idaho bill. Another member of Citizen Link, the Arizona Policy Center, has been active in supporting the Arizona bill. And the Oregon ballot initiative was proposed by Friends of Religious Freedom, a conservative Oregon nonprofit.
Culture Foam: Bubbling Up 