Shooting in the Name Of
Patrick Blanchfield on free speech, religion, and violence in Garland and Paris. Continue Reading →
Tag: first amendment
Legislating Holy Scripture in Ohio
Ashley Baxstrom: Ohio just keeps embarrassing the buckeye out of me (and that’s only on Jezebel). I can’t get a break. This week, however, it’s more of a middling sigh-and-shake-my-head feeling than an outright pounding in my temples.
The culprit? Anti-abortion demonstrators protesting at the state Capitol. What are they protesting? The fact that the Republican-controlled state Senate won’t consider a measure effectively banning all abortion once a fetal heartbeat can be detected.
No, you read that correctly. Republican-controlled. Won’t pass. Fetal heartbeat abortion ban. Continue Reading →
Ground Zero and The Founders' Civility
Akbar Ahmed is getting some praise for his piece at Salon that works to portray both Terry Jones and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf as men “adding fuel to the fire,” both exhibiting an insensitivity to a “civil” society that’s decided to make them media headlines.
Jones, you know by now, planned to burn the Quran yesterday, then decided he could get more publicity by putting the fire away and flying to New York for 9/11 events. He arrived at 11 pm Friday night wearing a Harley Davidson t-shirt. Definitely a tough guy. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is the sometime government go-to on Christian-Muslim relations who made plans to buy a vacant building downtown and got caught up in a storm of anti-Islam noise by proposing to open a community center in it. He’s been criticized for not explaining his intentions for the privately-owned site. Silence too can inflame, I guess. Continue Reading →
Ground Zero and The Founders’ Civility
Akbar Ahmed is getting some praise for his piece at Salon that works to portray both Terry Jones and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf as men “adding fuel to the fire,” both exhibiting an insensitivity to a “civil” society that’s decided to make them media headlines.
Jones, you know by now, planned to burn the Quran yesterday, then decided he could get more publicity by putting the fire away and flying to New York for 9/11 events. He arrived at 11 pm Friday night wearing a Harley Davidson t-shirt. Definitely a tough guy. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is the sometime government go-to on Christian-Muslim relations who made plans to buy a vacant building downtown and got caught up in a storm of anti-Islam noise by proposing to open a community center in it. He’s been criticized for not explaining his intentions for the privately-owned site. Silence too can inflame, I guess. Continue Reading →
Ground Zero and The Founders’ Civility
Akbar Ahmed is getting some praise for his piece at Salon that works to portray both Terry Jones and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf as men “adding fuel to the fire,” both exhibiting an insensitivity to a “civil” society that’s decided to make them media headlines.
Jones, you know by now, planned to burn the Quran yesterday, then decided he could get more publicity by putting the fire away and flying to New York for 9/11 events. He arrived at 11 pm Friday night wearing a Harley Davidson t-shirt. Definitely a tough guy. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is the sometime government go-to on Christian-Muslim relations who made plans to buy a vacant building downtown and got caught up in a storm of anti-Islam noise by proposing to open a community center in it. He’s been criticized for not explaining his intentions for the privately-owned site. Silence too can inflame, I guess. Continue Reading →
Science, the State Religion
Young-earth creationist and founder of Answers in Genesis, Ken Ham, is taking the Smithsonian’s Natural Museum of Natural History to task for their new Hall of Human Origins. “The purpose of this exhibit on the origin of man,” he writes, “is not only to indoctrinate children and adults in evolution, but also atheism.” Ham, who was behind the “high tech” Creation Museum in Ohio, is working up to an accusation of First Amendment violation:
Why won’t Potts and his researchers include that [the Bible’s account of human origins]? Well, they have arbitrarily defined science (which means “knowledge”) as having nothing to do with God. They will only allow explanations according to their view of naturalism, the religion of atheism.
And that, tax-paying citizens, amounts the Hall to government promotion of a state religion — atheism, a violation of the wall between church and state. Could a lawsuit be in the Smithsonian’s future?
A "Kook, Weirdo, Nutjob, Whacko" Gets His Gun
A Sioux City, Iowa man was denied a gun license by Sheriff Douglas Weber because, said the sheriff, Paul Dorr’s gun ownership was a “concern for the public. Don’t trust him.” Dorr and his son Alexander have been long known in their community for frequent political activities including distribution of leaflets, protesting, and letter writing to the local newspaper editor. Local residents have reported the two Dorrs as a nuisance. Dorr took his case to court and last week Judge Mark Bennett, considered an outspoken critic of conservative judicial activism, ordered Weber to issue the license to Dorr and to attend classes on the constitution. Continue Reading →
A “Kook, Weirdo, Nutjob, Whacko” Gets His Gun
A Sioux City, Iowa man was denied a gun license by Sheriff Douglas Weber because, said the sheriff, Paul Dorr’s gun ownership was a “concern for the public. Don’t trust him.” Dorr and his son Alexander have been long known in their community for frequent political activities including distribution of leaflets, protesting, and letter writing to the local newspaper editor. Local residents have reported the two Dorrs as a nuisance. Dorr took his case to court and last week Judge Mark Bennett, considered an outspoken critic of conservative judicial activism, ordered Weber to issue the license to Dorr and to attend classes on the constitution. Continue Reading →
Will BP Compensate Suffering Gulf Churches?
The AP reports that British Petroleum has not yet decided how to handle claims from churches and religious groups that have been hurt by the Gulf oil spill. Because many attendees have lost their jobs church organizations are suffering a loss of donations and an increase in aid requests. Continue Reading →
Constitutional Abstention
11 January 2006 In a lawsuit filed last month in Georgia, a 10th grade student, Jessica Bradley, and her father aresuing a private Christian high school, Covenant Christian Academy, for expelling Continue Reading →