Why were individuals and organizations as diverse as Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, Tim “Left Behind” LaHaye, George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, the Washington Times, James “Four Spiritual Laws” Kennedy, Rex Humbard, Hal “Late Great Planet Earth” Lindsey, Oliver “Iran-Contra” North, Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, and a long list of Congressmen willing to associate their names and reputations with the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. It’s simple, the good Rev. made the drop, he greased the wheel, he put his money where his mouth was.
And what a strange mouth it was. Moon claimed to have been in communication with luminaries such as Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler (both of whom he personally “saved”), the founders of the five great world religions, and, of course, Jesus Christ himself. He led crusades in the United States dedicated to ripping down the crosses from Christian churches (he didn’t like the competition), and claimed repeatedly to be the Son of God, the king of the world etc. etc.
It wasn’t just the money, of course. Rev. Moon was a passionate anti-communist who believed strongly in free market capitalism (a system he worked with great success). He was also virulently anti-homosexual, claiming that gays should be eliminated in the way Stalin disposed of his enemies. In short, his politics, if not his theology, lined up with that of the Christian Right on a number of hot-button issues.
And then there was the tax evasion issue. Moon did 13 months for the crime and Christian televangelists like Jerry Falwell and Tim LaHaye, realizing their own legal vulnerability, rallied to his support. It didn’t hurt that Moon had donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to prop up Falwell’s faltering Liberty University.
In short, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon was an insane rich man. While most mainstream religionists wrote him off early and often, it is surprising to witness the degree of support he received from American religious leaders long after his heretical (and downright bizarre) beliefs had become public knowledge.
Politics does indeed make strange bedfellows.
By the way, the Washington Times has been very kind to Moon because he bought the paper (he also owned United Press International at his death). The Times has published a laudatory obituary for their owner which tells you all the good stuff while cleaning up the weirdness. Sort of what FOX news does for the religious right.
Seven years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans has become a national laboratory for government reforms. But the process through which those experiments have been carried out rarely has been transparent or democratic. The results have been divisive, pitting new residents against those who grew up here, rich against poor, and white against Black.
Education, housing, criminal justice, health care, urban planning, even our media; systemic changes have touched every aspect life in New Orleans, often creating a template used in other cities. A few examples:
– In the weeks after Hurricane Katrina, more than 7,500 employees in city’s public school system were fired, despite the protection of union membership and a contract. Thousands of young teachers, many affiliated with programs like Teach For America, filled the empty slots. As charters took over from traditional public schools, the city became what then-superintendent Paul Vallas called the first 100% free market public school system in the US. A judge recently found that the mass firings were illegal, but any resolution will likely be tied up in appeals for years. (more…)
When I say that Ayn Rand was a wanna be Antichrist who inspired The Satanist Bible, I am not suggesting that Paul Ryan, a huge Ayn Rand fan, shares that distinction. Ryan is struggling to be a good Catholic Christian and a devotee of a woman who turned the teaching of Jesus on its head.
Fortunately, a long list of conservative politicians and Christians has no illusions about Ayn Rand. The late Charles Colson, shortly before his death, made a last ditch attempt to warn fellow conservatives that Ayn Rand and Jesus are antithetical. “Atlas shrugged,” Colson said, “and so should you.”
Colson wasn’t alone.
In a biting article in First Things, a conservative Christian journal founded by Richard John Neuhaus, Joe Carter addressed the link between the Satanism of Anton LeVey (the author of The Satanic Bible) and Ayn Rand’s Objectivist philosophy.
. . . to be a follower of both Rand and Christ is not possible. The original Objectivist was a type of self-professed anti-Christ who hated Christianity and the self-sacrificial love of its founder. She recognized that those Christians who claimed to share her views didn’t seem to understand what she was saying.
Many conservatives admire Rand because she was anti-collectivist. But that is like admiring Stalin because he opposed Nazism. Stalin was against the Nazis because he wanted to make the world safe for Communism. Likewise, Rand stands against collectivism because she wants the freedom to abolish Judeo-Christian morality. Conservative Christians who embrace her as the “enemy-of-my-enemy” seem to forget that she considered us the enemy.
Even if this were not the case, though, what would warrant the current influence of her thought within the conservative movement? Rand was a third-rate writer who was too arrogant to recognize her own ignorance (she believed she was the third greatest philosopher in history, behind only Aristotle and Aquinas). She misunderstood almost every concept she engaged with—from capitalism to freedom—and wrote nothing that had not been treated before by better thinkers. We don’t need her any more than we need LeVay.
Few conservatives will fall completely under Rand’s diabolic sway. But we are sustaining a climate in which not a few gullible souls believe she is worth taking seriously. Are we willing to be held responsible for pushing them to adopt an anti-Christian worldview? If so, perhaps instead of recommending Atlas Shrugged, we should simply hand out copies of The Satanic Bible. If they’re going to align with a satanic cult, they might as well join the one that has the better holidays.
Faux historian David Barton wasn’t publicly unmasked until conservative Christian scholars, embarrassed by being associated with blatant lies and distortions, went into full revolt. I am hoping the same dynamic plays out in connection with Paul Ryan’s boyish infatuation with a woman who hated his Jesus with the darkest passion.
This debate transcends partisanship. The big problem is that Ayn Rand’s Antichrist philosophy drives a business culture where, by design, only the strong survive. Unless you argue that Christian ethics have nothing to do with the teaching of Jesus, or that the teaching of Jesus should be dissociated from business ethics, this is a problem. Paul Ryan like Ayn Rand because, like most American politicians, red and blue, he shares her take-no-prisoners, profit-driven outlook. The only people exempted from this survival of the fittest social Darwinism are your family of origin, your spouse and your children. Everyone else is on their own.
That is the philosophy of Antichrist.
If you find it hard to believe that Ayn Rand was (a) the inspiration for popular Satanism, or (b) philosophically opposed to the empathy and compassion of Jesus, you should peruse this extensive list of telling quotations compiled by Bruce Wilson of Talk to Action. You will notice that virtually every Rand critic quoted is a card carrying conservative.
But before you scroll down the list, check out this video Bruce Wilson put together:
Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan (to Kim Klein of the Washington Post, 1970), as cited on page 2 of Contemporary Religious Satanism: A Critical Anthology, by Jesper Aagaard Peterson (Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2009)
“Ayn Rand, more than anyone else, did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism, the morality of individualism.”
Congressman Paul Ryan, 2009 official Ryan For Congress video ad.
Mike Wallace: “You are out to destroy almost every edifice of the contemporary American way of life, our Judeo-Christian religion, our modified government regulated capitalism, our rule by majority will. Other reviews have said you scorn churches and the concept of God. Are these accurate criticisms?”
Ayn Rand: “Yes. I am the creator of a new code of morality.”
Mike Wallace 1959 CBS interview with Ayn Rand
“Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand, is an acknowledged source for some of the Satanic philosophy as outlined in The Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey… Satanism has far more in common with Objectivism than with any other religion or philosophy. Objectivists endorse reason, selfishness, greed and atheism. Objectivism sees Christianity, Islam and Judaism as anti-human and evil. The writings of Ayn Rand are inspiring and powerful.”
from the essay Satanism and Objectivism, republished on the website of the Church of Satan
“My great friend, the late Bill Buckley – one of his greatest contributions to modern conservatism was his effort to purge it of cranks and crypto-cultists and for Buckley, Ayn Rand and her followers certainly fit that description… [Ayn Rand’s] patently anti-Christian ideas seem to be gaining steam… powerful committee chairmen on Capital Hill make their staffers read her tracts.”
former Nixon Administration member Charles Colson, May 2011 installment of his “Two Minute Warning” video series, titled Atlas Shrugged and So Should You
“I just want to speak to you a little bit about Ayn Rand and what she meant to me in my life and [in] the fight we’re engaged here in Congress. I grew up on Ayn Rand, that’s what I tell people..you know everybody does their soul-searching, and trying to find out who they are and what they believe, and you learn about yourself.
I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are, and what my beliefs are. It’s inspired me so much that it’s required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff. We start with Atlas Shrugged.”
U.S. Congressional Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI), 2005 keynote speech in honor of Ayn Rand’s birthday, held by the Atlas Society.
“As for his ‘religion,’ he called it ‘just Ayn Rand’s philosophy with ceremony and rituals added’ ”
Bill Ellis, quoting Anton LaVey on the intellectual source of his form of satanism, from page 180, Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions and The Media (2000, the University Press of Kentucky)
“To imply or state that the Church of Satan was the first to clearly state the Satanic ethic is to ignore the continuing impact of Ayn Rand…
To illustrate this historical precedent, let us examine the Nine Satanic Statements [from The Satanic Bible] in view of the Rand work Atlas Shrugged. In Galt’s speech (pages #936-993) is the written source of most of the philosophical ideas expressed in the Satanic Bible… Note that the sequential order of these Atlas Shrugged quotations parallels the order of the Nine Satanic Statements.”
Essay by George C. Smith, “The Hidden Source of the Satanic Philosophy”, republished in The Satanic Bible (link to PDF file of Anton LaVey’s book)
“[T]he reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism…
…you can’t find another thinker or writer who did a better job of describing and laying out the moral case for capitalism than Ayn Rand.
It’s so important that we go back to our roots to look at Ayn Rand’s vision, her writings, to see what our girding, under-grounding [sic] principles are. I always go back to, you know, Francisco d’Anconia’s speech (at Bill Taggart’s wedding) on money when I think about monetary policy. And then I go to the 64-page John Galt speech”
Paul Ryan, 2005 speech to the Atlas Society
“What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue.”
Ayn Rand, 1964 interview with Playboy magazine
“Today you’re supposed apologize to every naked savage anywhere on the globe because you are more prosperous.”
Ayn Rand, 1980 interview with Tom Snyder
“1. Blessed are the strong, for they shall possess the earth – Cursed are the weak, for they shall inherit the yoke!
2. Blessed are the powerful, for they shall be reverenced among men – Cursed are the feeble, for they shall be blotted out!
3. Blessed are the bold, for they shall be masters of the world – Cursed are the righteously humble, for they shall be trodden under cloven hoofs!”
from The Book of Satan, part V, in The Satanic Bible
“I am not attacking Rand for the overlap of her views with LaVey’s; I am saying that, at their core, they are the same philosophy. LaVey was able to recognize what many conservatives fail to see: Rand’s doctrines are satanic…
“[P]erhaps instead of recommending Atlas Shrugged, we should simply hand out copies of The Satanic Bible. If they’re going to align with a satanic cult, they might as well join the one that has the better holidays.”
from The Fountainhead of Satanism, by Joe Carter, published June 8, 2011 in the Neoconservative Catholic-affiliated monthly journal First Things
“[I]f a man smite thee on one cheek, SMASH him on the other!” — Anton LaVey, from The Satanic Bible (Section III, paragraph 7)
“It’s hard for me to imagine a worldview more antithetical to Christianity – also difficult to imagine a more juvenile one”
the late Charles Colson, May 2011 installment of his “Two Minute Warning” video series.
“Rand’s novels are vehicles for a system of thought known as Objectivism. Rand developed this philosophy at the length of Tolstoy, with the intellectual pretensions of Hegel, but it can be summarized on a napkin. Reason is everything. Religion is a fraud. Selfishness is a virtue. Altruism is a crime against human excellence. Self-sacrifice is weakness. Weakness is contemptible…
If Objectivism seems familiar, it is because most people know it under another name: adolescence.
Michael Gerson, Former Assistant to the President for Policy and Strategic Planning, and Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Presidential Speechwriting, under President George W. Bush, April 21, 2011 column in The Washington Post, Ayn Rand’s adult-onset adolescence
“I read Atlas Shrugged recently and respected its support for innovators… I also was amazed at the viciousness of Rand’s view of Christianity, leading up to its conclusion, where the book’s hero traces in the air the Sign of the Dollar, a replacement for the Sign of the Cross…
[…]
And this, sadly, is the book that a budget expert I admire, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., recommends–apparently without caveat–and tells his staffers to read. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., is also a Rand fan…
…Ryan and others, if they want support from Christians, cannot merely react to the left’s criticism with a shrug: They should show what in Rand they agree with and what they spurn. The GOP’s big tent should include both libertarians and Christians, but not anti-Christians.”
Marvin Olasky, intellectual father of “compassionate conservatism”, July 16, 2011, Take a stand against Rand, published in World Magazine
“I am afraid that Chairman Ryan’s budget reflects the values of his favorite philosopher Ayn Rand rather than the gospel of Jesus Christ. Survival of the fittest may be OK for social Darwinists but not for followers of the gospel of compassion and love.”
Jesuit Father Thomas J. Reese, as quoted April 24, 2012 in the Washington Times
“There are two novels that can change a bookish 14-year-old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”
John Rogers, screenwriter and comic
“I hope you picked it [Atlas Shrugged] up off the floor of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail.”
After telling a hometown audience that he and his wife were born in local hospitals he added, “nobody has ever asked to see my birth certificate.”
This wasn’t an inadvertent slip; it was a carefully considered attempt to ingratiate himself with people who think Barack Obama is a Kenyan Muslim who pals around with terrorists. Writing in Mother Jones, Adam Serwer put it this way:
This is a necessary device for a Republican politician who wants to rile up the base without seeming like a lunatic, because the belief that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States is still held by nearly half of self-identified Republicans even after the very public release of the president’s birth certificate. Birtherism remains the most frank and widespread evidence of racial animus among some of the president’s critics. As Ta-Nehisi Coates writes inThe Atlantic this month, the birthers, strapped in their waxen wings, aim for nothing less than the sun: “If Obama is not truly American, then America has still never had a black president.”
And here’s the beauty of it all. If a leftist or a representative of the lamestream media accuses you of questioning the authenticity of the president’s birth certificate you can issue a simple denial. I didn’t mean nothing by it. I was just telling the crowd where I was born.
If they press the issue, you tell them that you have never questioned the president’s Born in the USA claim.
Will journalists accept this explanation?
Not necessarily. Moderate reporters, fearful of having the L-word branded into their foreheads, may give the Republican presidential candidate a pass. They will ask the question, “Did he just make a birther joke?” But they won’t commit to an answer.
Conservatives, not wishing to discredit a still-useful birther movement, will try to shift the discussion to more “substantial” matters, like the deficit.
Nothing is more substantial than character. By pandering to the ignorance and bigotry of the most fearful segment of the electorate, Governor Romney has raised the character issue.
There is a simple reason why no one has ever questioned Governor Romney’s birth certificate–he’s a white Republican male.
If Romney was a black Democrat (hard to picture, I know) he would be derided on the Right as a Mexican national who wears funny underwear and worships a guy with magic glasses.
Everyone is vulnerable to urban legends and racist myths if people are inclined to invent and propagate them . . . except those of the Caucasian persuasion.
Several years ago it was reported that a document was circulated without identifying its source, and people were asked what they thought of it. Many thought that it was anti-American propaganda, probably circulated by Communists. The document in question was the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution.
I don’t know of any survey or poll concerning the American Civil Liberties Union, but if one were taken my guess is that the ACLU would not fare terribly well in public opinion for much the same reason that the Bill of Rights was suspect in the minds of a considerable percentage of those involved in the aforementioned informal survey. The Bill of Rights provides protection for people who might otherwise be subject to a harsh majority. The ACLU seeks to apply the Bill of Rights to all residents within our borders, popular or not.
The ACLU defends religious liberty. The ACLU has defended the right to freedom of expression of the very unpopular—justly unpopular in my opinion—Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, KS. In a case that began in Plano, Texas in 2003, the ACLU defended the right of an elementary school student to distribute candy canes with a religious message on them. More recently, in 2011, the ACLU defended the rights of school children, again in Plano, to wear rosaries or other clothing with a religious message. The ACLU vigorously opposes, on the grounds of the establishment clause of the First Amendment, government sponsored prayer in public schools.
The ACLU has defended other unpopular causes, probably most notable the right of the Ku Klux Klan to peaceably assemble.
My first personal involvement with the ACLU came in 2000 when Will Harrell, then Executive Director of the ACLU of Texas, called me regarding my take on the Tulia Drug Sting. I described my take on events and what I had learned of the activities of the undercover agent. Will Harrell’s response: “We’re gonna get that [expletive deleted]. Excuse the language, Rev.”
In subsequent months and years, I developed camaraderie with Will. Patricia and I made numerous trips to Austin working with ACLU of Texas people in lobbying for a bill to require more than just the testimony of a single witness to convict someone of a crime. We were amazed that we could actually go in representatives’ and senators’ offices. Rarely could we speak with a representative or a senator, but we were always cordially received by the staff person associated with our particular concern. With our cooperation the ACLU of Texas began quoting the Bible in some of its brochures! “A single witness shall not suffice to convict a person of any crime or wrongdoing. Only on the evidence of two or three witnesses shall a charge be sustained” (Deuteronomy 19:15). Both Jesus (Matthew 18:16), and Paul (2 Corinthians 13:1) alluded to the passage from Deuteronomy. One representative that I did get to talk to in person was what I would call a “law n’ order” person. She was also one who wore her religion on her sleeve, had a Bible visibly on her desk, and was fond of quoting it. She was in legislative session, but a staff person told her that a minister would like to speak with her. I was surprised that she came out of session to meet me. I told her that I hoped for her support on the bill to require more than a single witness, and cited the Bible verses above. She said, “Oh that was for those days. Things are different now.” Of course things are different now! But she was very selective in where she acknowledged the difference. She is a situation ethicist without knowing it! She did not support the bill.
I had opportunity to appear at a legislative hearing on the bill. I cited the above verses and commented, “Moses, Jesus, and Paul: seems like pretty good company to me.”
The police union had an army of paid lobbyists opposing the bill, but an amended version, exempting police officers but including so-called confidential informants did pass and was signed into law by the governor. That “Tulia bill” as it was called was influential in the overturning of the Dallas sheetrock scandal in which confidential informants turned in gypsum powder representing it as powder cocaine.
I subsequently became a member of the governing board of ACLU of Texas. I first filled a vacancy created by the retirement of a board member before his term had expired, and then was elected to a full four year term. I had a very good relationship with Jews, agnostics, secularists, Christians, and some Muslims on the board. I was known as “the Rev.” On one occasion Will Harrell was going through some troubling times, and readily accepted my offer to pray with him. The chairman of the board, a practicing Jew, came into the room where we were, saw that I was praying with him, and quietly left.
The quarterly travel to board meetings, usually in Austin but sometimes in other cities, became just too difficult for me, and I resigned my position on the board near the end of my elected four year term. The meeting where I tendered my resignation was in El Paso. When we had completed an afternoon session, we visited the fence. I saw children come running to the fence, hoping someone would slip a dollar or whatever between the chain link mesh. Then that evening we dined at a sumptuous restaurant within little more than shouting distance from the fence. I was conscience stricken by our opulence contrasted with the poverty no more than a few hundred yards from where we dined. At our session the next morning, I was given a few minutes to say farewell and took the opportunity to reflect on Biblical justice which is a part of the three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Do I agree with every position that the ACLU takes? Do I agree with every sentence in either the Republican or Democratic Party platforms? Do I agree with every position of the United Methodist Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, or any other religious organization?
This post is part of Dr. Kiker’s life story which is currently appearing in weekly installments in a Tulia paper.
With every new election cycle, the Latino share of the vote in Texas rises by about 2 percent. If this trend continues, as it almost certainly will, Latinos will eventually dictate the shape of politics in the Lone Star State.
George W. Bush took the Latino vote seriously, both as governor and president. When Republicans reach out to Latino voters they can snare as much as 40% of the vote, enough to win easily in deep-red Texas. This is because the white middle class is overwhelmingly Republican; only 26% of white Texans voted for Barack Obama in 2008, (his fifth worst showing with this demographic behind Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana).
I attended the event described in this Star-Telegram article with my sociologist daughter, Lydia Bean. The day’s most telling quote didn’t make it into the paper. Gilberto Hinojosa, the first Latino Chair of the Texas Democratic Party, told the gathering that after Ann Richards lost the governor’s race to George W. Bush in 1994, Texas Democrats pinned the blame on the defection of conservative to moderate white voters. In consequence, it was decided that winning these people back was the key to electoral success. (more…)
In the past decade, American aversion of and hostility toward Islam and its followers have promoted campaigns of exclusion. We have seen protesters object the erection of a Mosque in New York City, politicians denounce those who seem sympathetic to the Muslim world, and pastors malign the Qur’an as a book of enmity and terror. Famous political commentators have announced to the world that “ten percent of Muslims are terrorists,” and rather than admonishing these commentators, their producers have only written extensively in support of such claims. However, while the vilification of all that represents Islam seems to permeate almost every discourse in America, we have neglected to scrutinize our own rebels.
On the frigid morning of December 3, 2010, The Westboro Baptist Church demonstrated in front of Hillel at Harvard College. A multitude of students, faculty, and staff gathered in front of four year olds holding signs that read, “God hates fags” “Your Rabbi is a whore” and “Pray for more dead soldiers.” Fred Phelps’s church has picketed Jewish centers, high schools, and soldiers’ funerals across America. In the wake of the shootings in Arizona, the WBC promised to protest the funeral of nine-year-old Christina, a little girl interested in public service. Yet, we insist the terrorists are in the Middle East while in truth, those who preach hatred at home have caused more danger and hostility. Every day, I am disturbed by the rhetoric against some religions while the same rhetoricians praise divisive Christian fundamentalist who have polarized our country to dangerous levels. We harbor our own evil-doers in the United States: those who picket little girls’ funerals, those who incite anger by promoting Qur’an-burning events, and those who use hatred and bigotry rather than love and reason to argue against abortion, same-sex marriage, and legalizing undocumented children devoted to this country. A few days ago, a man in his late twenties told me he disliked and distrusted all Muslims because “they bombed us in 9/11.” Muslims did not bomb us. Fanatics did. Extremists did. Just as the Ku Klux Klan employed Christianity to validate its violent enterprise, so did those who so callously attacked America in 9/11 used Islam to validate their malevolence.
In the last few years, I have become a more faithful, though disappointed, Christian. I have faith in the power of love and unity that our Lord taught us, but I am scared of Christian dogmatism eroding the message of Jesus Christ. Where is the compassion? What of the love for those who differ from us? I am hopeful that The Bible may serve as guidance for peace, but I am also afraid of its being used as a tool to promote odium. The late Reverend and theologian Peter Gomes argued that Christian churches today are not engines of change, but engines of conservatism. How far, I wonder, can this conservatism take us?
I am a Divinity School student who studies religion not only to strengthen my faith but also my theological understanding of Christianity so that one day I may encourage dialogue that is uniting, not divisive. In light of the commentator’s statements about Islam and the encounter with Phelps’s church, I wonder whether more people would benefit from learning the tenants of the world’s religions.
***
The truth is, views have begun to change, slowly but decidedly. As the picketers held signs, the rest of us sang songs of praise and love. A few minutes into the protest, my boyfriend and I held hands and walked to our rooms. On one side, I read the signs, “God hates fags” “AIDS is God’s punishment.” On the other side, a police officer smiled and took off his hat as John and I crossed the street. At that moment, I looked down at our grasp and reflected: perhaps, hatred can be combated with love; perhaps, there is still hope for God’s message.
In an effort to enjoy a genuine vacation this summer, I left off blogging for ten days and am just now back in the saddle. As a consequence, the Chick-fil-A controversy has run its course without benefit of my insights (how does the world keep spinning when I’m not paying attention?) I have been keeping abreast of the fire fight, however, and have decided to share a few highlights.
Fred Clark, a progressive evangelical, is perplexed by the guy who decided to counter the folks who are protesting Chick-fil-A’s gay-unfriendly stance by going after General Mills, the folks who market Honey-nut Cheerios, a product deemed to be near and dear to the hearts of the gay community. Maybe its because Omar, a cold killer made famous by The Wire, was a gay man with a predilection for that particular confection. At any rate, this guy decided to protest the gay-loving General Mills by taking a match to a box of Cheerios and ended up starting a grass fire.
The odd thing, though, is that everywhere I saw this video linked and posted initially, the man was identified as a Christian or a preacher or some kind of evangelical protester. (more…)
This brief article from Bob Allen of the Associated Baptist Press made my heart sick. It wasn’t because I was surprised. The only surprising thing about this pathetic episode is that the bad guys didn’t just mutter over their coffee and donuts like good Baptists should. They actually came right out and spoke the unspeakable. But this is Mississippi, folks, and lot of white people in the Magnolia State (and elsewhere) can’t look at a black person without being reminded of the indignities to which the white South was subjected in the wake of the civil rights period.
There are two ways of responding to racial resentment. You can repent and work for racial healing (this approach helped make Fred Luter the first African American president of the Southern Baptist Convention). Or you can double down. The folks at FBC Crystal Springs took the second route. Hardly surprising, but tragic nonetheless.
A Mississippi couple claims they were not allowed to get married in the Southern Baptist church they attend because they are black.
According to WLBT television in Jackson, Miss., Charles and Te’Andrea Wilson had already printed and sent out invitations to their wedding at First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs when their pastor called with some bad news.
“The church congregation had decided no black could be married at that church and that if he went on to marry her, then they would vote him out the church,” Charles Wilson told the NBC affiliate. (more…)
These photographs I took back in 2010 when I visited Red River County to investigate residents’ complaints of injustice. I was somewhat taken aback by the painted sign that reads, “Paid for by: the Convicted Criminals of Red River County Texas”. After speaking with some people, I realized such a sign may convey a very loaded and political message.
A number of citizens indicated that the town very much depends on probation fees. I was told that the District Attorney will not bring a case to court (by delaying the case as long as he wants) This alleged lingering of justice intimidates and frustrates individuals. To “make the case go away”, thus, the DA’s office offers a “deal”: a plea of guilty from the accused–which remains on the person’s criminal record–no jail time, and a commitment to pay probation fees for a determinate number of years. The above sign could point to the hypothesis that perhaps the “convicted criminals”—those who pled guilty—are, indeed, paying for the police cars through the probation fees. Though I was never able to confirm these allegations, there exists a possibility the interpretation is apt. Regardless, the mere signs seem tasteless.
When I say that Ayn Rand was a wanna be Antichrist who inspired The Satanist Bible, I am not suggesting that Paul Ryan, a huge Ayn Rand fan, shares that distinction. Ryan is struggling to be a good Catholic Christian and a devotee of a woman who turned the teaching of Jesus on its head.
Mitt Romney 
By Alan Bean
By Alan Bean
Friends of Justice 