Church and State: March 2004 Archives

United States: Always eager to bend over for the loony fundies, Bush has bowed to their wishes and will allow these total wankers to fire employees based on their sexual preference.

Despite President Bush's pledge that homosexuals ought to have the same rights as all other people, his Administration this week ruled that homosexuals can now be fired from the federal workforce because of their sexual orientation.

United States: An Oregon county has decided to stop issuing all marriage licences after it was threatened with legal action if it did not stop doing so to same-sex couples. The ban will remain until the Oregon Supreme Court has ruled on the constituionality of same-sex marriages. The County Commissioners said they had decided to treat everyone equally:

So to be fair, Dixon said, the three commissioners voted to stop issuing licenses to anyone until courts resolve the matter.

That treats everybody equally, he said. It was a question of treating everyone the same. It won't hurt anybody. They can still get licenses in other counties.

Fundies are not happy

Tim Nashif of the Defense of Marriage Coalition, which has been fighting same-sex marriages, blasted the Benton County decision.

It's just crazy, he said. I don't understand it. We're happy that they're not giving out licenses that violate the law, but how do they get to the point that they're not issuing licenses to anybody?

Nashif, whose group is involved in the Multnomah County court case, said if a heterosexual couple is prevented from getting a license in Benton County, we would be very open to representing their rights in a lawsuit.

But presumably, if marriage is a right and not a privilege, giving straight and gay people different rights goes against the Oregon constitution? Benton stops all marriage licensing - The Oregonian, 23rd March 2004.

The Church of England bishop has warned that the church faces becoming a minority sect because it is not annoying enough.

Bishop McCulloch said the clergy were being diverted from their true mission of evangelism by the debate over sexuality, 25 years of Church legislation and more red tape caused by secular regulations.

Odd, I thought the only reason the Church of England existed at all was so the monarch could get a divorce and shag someone else.

Figures published in The UK Christian Handbook: Religious Trends show that, at the current rate of decline, total Church membership will have fallen to 5,598,000 by 2005, down by more than a million people in 15 years. Over the same period, the number of church buildings will have fallen by 1,400 to 48,600 and the number of ministers by 1,000 to 35,400.

Even if there is no further decline, by the turn of the next century, there will still be thousands of churches and ministers, but they will have no Christians to minister to.

The bishop did not give examples of the secular red tape that bothers him, and the Church is already exempt from most legislation concerning planning and the protection of historic buldings. Church may end up as sect, warns bishop - The Guardian, 20th March 2004.

Australia: It would actually be amusing that Australia has Abbott and Costello loose in parliament if they weren't such a pair of tossers. Abbott, in particular, is a loony fundie who has been on a Bush inspired god-bothering bent of late, insisting on sharing (by law if he had his way) his weird little beliefs on how his imaginary friend thinks we should live our lives.

United States: The loony fundies are pushing through a law that will make their invisible friend sovereign of all, and if you dare to take offence at anything done in the name of said invisible friend, you can expect swift and vengeful punishment for your heathen attempt at original thought.

One of the sticking points in crafting the just-signed interim constitution of the Pentagon cash cow formerly known as Iraq was the question of acknowledging Islam as the fundamental source of law. After much wrangling, a fudge was worked out that cites the Koran as a fundamental source of legal authority, with the proviso that no law can be passed that conflicts with Islam.

We in the enlightened West smile at such theocratic quibbling, of course: Imagine, national leaders insisting that a modern state be governed solely by divine authority! Governments guaranteeing the right of religious extremists to impose their views on society! What next — debates about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Oh, those poor, ignorant barbarians in Babylon!

Well, wipe that smile off your face. For even now, the ignorant barbarians in Washington are pushing a law through Congress that would acknowledge God as the sovereign source of law, liberty [and] government in the United States. What's more, it would forbid all legal challenges to government officials who use the power of the state to enforce their own view of God's sovereign authority. Any judge who dared even hear such a challenge could be removed from office.

United States: Terrified at the thought their hatred of homosexuals being condemned by the mainstream, a bunch of loony fundies, with the help of the notoriously bigoted American Family Association, is fighting Mayor Greg Nickels official recognition of same-sex marriages.

A group of ministers, troubled that Mayor Greg Nickels has signed an executive order recognizing same-sex marriages from other states, will gather today at the King County Courthouse to support a lawsuit demanding an end to it.

The American Family Association, a conservative advocacy group based in Tupelo, Miss., has dispatched lawyers to file legal papers challenging local governments from California to New York that have endorsed gay unions, and Seattle is their next stop.

United States: Thank you to the correspondent who mailed me with a pointer to this PUBLIC NOTICE REFERENCING THE FUTURE LEADER OF OUR TOWN, published by the eventual winner in an election in a northern Louisiana town. Written in all caps (which, as 'Contributor B' of Mistakes Were Made observes, can make anything more important.) it features the excellent grammar we have come to associate with loony fundies:

TO ALL THE FATHER'S, MOTHER'S, DAUGHTER'S, SON'S, BROTHER'S, SISTER'S & CHRISTIAN PEOPLE OF []

The purpose of the flyer? To point out that another candidate isn't an uncircumcised, but righteous, person.

IT IS A FACT THAT ONE CANDIDATE, IN THE OCTOBER 5, 2002 ELECTION, DOES NOT BELIEVE IN JESUS CHRIST. BECAUSE IF SHE DID, SHE WOULD NOT LIVE THE LIFESTYLE (ROMANS 2:26) THAT SHE DOES. HOW DOES THIS CANDIDATE THINK THAT ANY GOD FORGIVING PERSON WOULD CHOOSE THEM FOR A LEADER.

Oops. Or perhaps he got the wrong quote, as his real problem seems to be that she is a lesbian.

IT IS A FACT THAT THIS CANDIDATE LIVES WITH ANOTHER WOMAN WHO IS KNOWN TO BE HER GIRLFRIEND AND CONTINUOUSLY SAYS THAT SHE WILL MARRY THIS WOMAN ONE DAY. WHERE IS GOD IN THIS LIFESTYLE???

And, perhaps giving a hint as to how he planned to behave when elected, he continued:

LADIES, WHAT DO YOU THINK IS GOING TO HAPPEN IF THIS CANDIDATE IS ELECTED CHIEF OF POLICE AND YOU ARE PULLED OVER ON A ROUTINE TRAFFIC STOP. DO YOU THINK THAT YOU WILL JUST GET A TICKET, OR DO YOU THINK THAT YOU WILL GET PROPOSITIONED?

Is she cute? Oh, hang on, she's in a stable committed relationship, isn't she? Drat.

FATHER'S AND MOTHER'S; THINK ABOUT YOUR TEENAGE DAUGHTERS JUST LEARNING TO DRIVE. WHAT DO YOU THINK IS GOING TO HAPPEN IF THEY ARE PULLED OVER BY THIS CANDIDATE? WHAT IF THEY ARE IN DISTRESS AND NEED A WORD OF COMFORT. WHAT KIND OF COMFORT DO YOU THINK THIS CANDIDATE IS GOING TO OFFER?

HUSBAND'S, BOYFRIEND'S, JUST FRIENDS; THINK ABOUT THIS. WHAT IF YOU AND YOUR LADY FRIEND HAVE A DISAGREEMENT ABOUT SOMETHING AND SHE CALLS FOR THE POLICE AND THIS CANDIDATE ANSWERS THE CALL. WHO DO YOU THINK SHE WILL DEFEND, REGARDLESS OF WHO IS RIGHT OR WRONG?

United States: The son of a Californian senator who penned a law banning same-sex marriage has married his boyfriend in San Francisco. David Knight and Joe Lazzaro had previously had a civil union in Vermont.

Knight explained the difference between civil unions and marriage to the Chronicle.

Although Vermont recognizes the 400 or so rights granted by that state, if we lived in Vermont, we'd have those, but we'd still lack the thousand or so rights a married couple, a heterosexual couple, receives from the federal government.

It was his father's homophobic actions which inspired Knight to come out. Sen. William "Pete" Knight was not present at the ceremony. Son of anti-gay politician Knight marries same-sex partner - Gay.com News, 10th March 2004.

United States: Every wondered how so many insane, brainwashed fundies end up in US politics? Ever thought that there must be some farm where the terminally spineless were moulded into Pat Robertson clones? Turns out there is — the evil, little bastards are churned out of a specialist Hitler Youth style college controlled by evangelical wingnuts.

As one of 12 siblings taught at home by their parents in St. Croix Falls, Wis., Abram Olmstead knew he would fit right in at Patrick Henry College, the first college primarily for evangelical Christian home-schoolers. But what really sold him was the school's pipeline into conservative politics.

Of the nearly 100 interns working in the White House this semester, 7 are from the roughly 240 students enrolled in the four-year-old Patrick Henry College, in Purcellville. An eighth intern works for the president's re-election campaign. A former Patrick Henry intern now works on the paid staff of the president's top political adviser, Karl Rove. Over the last four years, 22 conservative members of Congress have employed one or more Patrick Henry interns in their offices or on their campaigns, according to the school's records...

United States: By getting married with a license in a church or synagogue, many couples are hoping to chip away at opposition to same-sex marriages among religious people.

For three weeks, the grand marble staircase at City Hall has been wedding central in San Francisco, with thousands of gay and lesbian couples lining up to be married by city officials.

But many of the couples are not stopping at the staircase. They are taking their marriage licenses and heading to a church or synagogue for a second ceremony or, in some cases, for an alternative to the civil proceeding.

The decision is driven largely by the religious convictions of the gay couples, clergy members who perform the ceremonies say. But there is also a deeply political undercurrent to the religious weddings that is creating divisions in some institutions, even those with a history of blessing gay and lesbian partnerships.

By getting married with a license in a church or synagogue, many couples are hoping to chip away at opposition to same-sex marriages among religious people, and thereby advance the broader goals of the gay rights movement.

United States: Apparently deciding that black people are a lesser evil than gay people, the loony fundies from the Family Research Council are trying to enlist black Christians to believe the lie that opposing gay marriage isn't a breach of civil rights.

Speaking recently to a group of black evangelical ministers and lay people here, Genevieve Wood of the conservative Family Research Council made an impassioned plea. Black Christians, she said, must speak out against advocates of gay marriage.

They are wrapping themselves in the flag of civil rights, said Ms. Wood, who is white, as visitors from across the country shook their heads in dismay. I can make arguments against that. But not nearly like you all can.

Both Sides Court Black Churches in the Debate Over Gay Marriage - New York Times [BugmeNot], 1st March 2004.