ProgressOhio

Just 22% of Alaskans in a Pew Research survey said they attend religious services at least once a week, making Alaska the least religious state judged by this measure.

In Utah and a handful of Southern states, more than half of those surveyed said they were weekly service attenders.

After having to let go of 8% of its staff — nearly 500 people.in September of last year due to budget shortalls, Focus On the Family, the ultra-right Christian group,  dropped $4 million on a Super Bowl commercial aimed at promoting its anti-choice propaganda.

As it turned out that money would have been better spent focusing on the retaining the jobs of their former employees.

Neilsen Media Research estimates that the Tebow spot was the least-watched commercial of the entire Super Bowl, reaching "just" 92.6 million viewers. By comparison, the most watched ad of the day, a Doritos commercial, had an estimated audience of more than 116 million viewers.

Focus on the Family says the ad was aimed at getting people to view the entire presentation on their website and claims that 750,000 have done so, but that's like paying $5.00 per person to have them click to watch a video online. And no stats on how many actually watched it all the way through.

Clearly, very bad investment of "God's" money.

As have Presiidents before him, Barack Obama has issued a Proclamation declaring January 16th Religious Freedom Day.

Religious Freedom Day celebrates the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom arguably the philosophical, historical and legal taproot of religious freedom, equality and separation of church and state -- and a powerful argument against Christian nationalism. As the Proclamation states "... it was the genius of America's forefathers to protect our freedom of religion, including the freedom to practice none at all."

"No man shall ... suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess ... their opinions in matters of religion."

When Thomas Jefferson first proposed the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom in 1777, he stated that this right of individual conscience must be extended to everyone, including: "the Jew, the Mohametan, and the Hindoo." Jefferson was not arguing the demographics of majority and minority religions, but first principles of equality.

It took time to advance them, even then. James Madison as governor of Virginia managed to push Jefferson's bill through the legislature in 1786--the year before the drafting the federal Constitution, of which Madison is credited with being the principal author--as well as the principal author of the First Amendment. Virginia had already disestablished the Anglican Church, the day after it joined the revolution in 1776.

There is no mistaking the meaning of formally extending religious liberty to all in the wake of disestablishment and as a famous forerunner to the Constitution itself.

History is powerful, which is why the Religious Right is so vigorously fighting to revise it to suit their contemporary political and religious interests.

On the Christian Broadcasting Network’s “700 Club” today, after a lengthy interview with a missionary who talked about helping the victims earthquake in Haiti, Rev. Pat Robertson had some interesting thoughts as to why the earthquake struck the impoverished nation:

"And you know, Kristi, something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it.

“They were under the heel of the French, uh, you know Napoleon the 3rd and whatever, and they got together and swore a pact to the Devil.

“They said, 'We will serve you if you'll get us free from the French.'

“True story.

“And so the Devil said, 'Okay, it's a deal.’

“And, uh, they kicked the French out, you know, with Haitians revolted and got themselves free.

“But ever since they have been cursed by, by one thing after another, desperately poor.

“That island of Hispaniola is one island. It’s cut down the middle. On the one side is Haiti on the other side is the Dominican Republican.

“Dominican Republic is, is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etcetera.

“Haiti is in desperate poverty.

“Same island.

“They need to have and we need to pray for them a great turning to God and out of this tragedy I’m optimistic something good may come. But right now we’re helping the suffering people and the suffering is unimaginable.”

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The latest issue of WorldNetDaily's "Whistleblower" magazine exposes how the Obama administration and the Democrats are intentionally creating crises so that they can turn America into a "full-fledged socialist state" .... apparently by using their omnipotent, God-like powers to control the weather: 

HT: Right Wing Watch

President Obama has named Amanda Simpson to be a senior technical advisor to the Commerce Department.

That wouldn't be especially noteworthy were it not for the fact that Simpson is one of the first-ever transgender presidential appointees to the federal government, and is a member of the National Center for Transgender Equality's board of directors.

Focus on the Family issued a report on this to its membership on Monday. As you may have guessed, he religious right is apoplectic.

"Is there going to be a transgender quota now in the Obama administration?" asked Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth. "How far does this politics of gay and transgender activism go? Clearly this is an administration that is pandering to the gay lobby." [...]

"We should consider what transgender activism is about," he said," which is essentially recognizing civil rights based on gender confusion."

Matt Barber, associate dean at Liberty University, said the appointment "boggles the mind."

"This isn't like appointing an African-American in order to try to provide diversity and right some kind of discriminatory wrong," he said. "This is about political correctness."

As usual, the Christionists miss the point entirely in their making their case for violating Ms. Simpson's constitutional rights. 

The only question that actually matters here is, "is she the best person for the job?".

"If you look at the job she's taking and at her résumé, this is not a quota appointee," Mara Keisling, of the National Center for Transgender Equality, told the New York Post. "She's unquestionably qualified for the job. The story is . . . not that [Obama] appointed one of us but that finally we have an administration for which that's not a deal breaker."

You have to love right wing hypocrisy

The Columbus Dispatch reports that Parsley is claiming to be the victim of a "demonically inspired financial attack":

The Rev. Rod Parsley, megapastor and televangelist, has issued a desperate plea for money, telling his flock that he is facing a "demonically inspired financial attack" that is threatening his ministry.

Parsley is asking for donations by Dec. 31, calling that date an "unavoidable deadline" during an episode of Breakthrough posted yesterday on www.rodparsley.com. Breakthrough is Parsley's television show.

A message titled "Crisis -- Urgent" on the Web site says ministries such as Breakthrough and World Harvest Bible College are "in jeopardy."

The headline of the appeal for donations reads: "Will you help me take back what the devil stole?"

When asked to comment, Parsley's World Harvest Church issued a statement saying the recession caused a decline in member giving in 2009, which has led to a fourth-quarter deficit of $3 million despite a 30 percent reduction in the budget.

This year, the church settled for $3.1 million with a family whose son was spanked at its day-care center in 2006, to the point his buttocks and legs were covered with welts and abrasions.

The boy, then 2, said he was spanked with a "knife" by a substitute teacher. His parents, Michael and Lacey Faieta, believe it was a ruler.

The Faietas said the payment was made this year. During yesterday's Breakthrough broadcast, Parsley referred to a $3 million check he had to write from the ministry.

"The Faieta decision imposed against us earlier this year has made our circumstances more serious," the statement said. No indication was given as to why the money must be raised by Dec. 31 or what specifically could happen if it's not.

The Faietas said Parsley refused to meet personally with them and that the church did not apologize or take accountability for the beating.

The Faietas said today that they had seen Parsley's Web appeal.

Mr. Faieta said he and his wife were "disgusted" and "saddened" by Parsley's words.

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In Toledo yesterday . . .

Police arrested a man on suspicion of swiping a Salvation Army kettle full of donated money and pushing one of the Christian charity’s bell ringers to the ground when she tried to take it back.

But the "real Spirit of the Season, War on Christmas" question is . . . was the Salvation Army planning on using that money to not hire gays?

CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS, who don't believe in conventional medicine, are nonetheless keen to grab some of the cash the government will soon be splurging on health reform.

Church leaders want health insurers to reimburse "spiritual health" practitioners who pray for the sick, reports the Washington Post. 

A proposal to that effect was stripped out of the House health bill, but the Church is lobbying to have it re-inserted into the Senate version.  

Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, taught that sickness is a delusion. Rather than consulting a doctor when you are ill, you should pray, she advised. Her modern-day followers sometimes take this literally.

United Coalition for Reason's "Don't Believe in God? You Are Not Alone" billboard campaign -- an exceptionally uplifting message in my opinion -- seemed to go over well here in Columbus. In Cincinnati, not so much. Because of threats to property owners, the Over-The-Rhine billboard had to be relocated.

So sad to see the jihadists get their way.

Not surprising that the home of the Creation Museum, Citizens for Community Values, Ken Blackwell and countless other ideologues would be so intolerant. I guess they just don't like free-thinking competition down yonder.

Being a free-speech advocate, I've got no problem with the plethora of religious signs and symbols I see every day. (Although I thought the exhortation to "Pray" on the back of a COTA bus as I breathed its exhaust fumes was a little weird. And the altered pro-life billboard in Sugar Grove off Rt. 33 that now says "Abortion Stops a Beating...." is really not funny at all.)

Go ahead, put your "Hell Is Real" and Ten Commandments billboards along I-71. This is Sarah Palin's "real" America, after all....But you might as well erect a big sign that says "High-Tech Companies, Keep Out!"

In particular, the Ten Commandments public displays puzzle me. That commandment about coveting -- you know, the entire basis of our economy. As a kid I learned that I should not "covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his ass...." Well, rest assured, I do not covet my neighbor's wife. But I'm not making any promises about his ass.

They have no women members -- a serious empathy vacuum. They do not pay taxes like corporations do. They have no medical expertise. They have extremist views on contraceptive use.

So why are we allowing this group to hijack democratic health care reform?

Because when the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops talks, Congress listens -- to the detriment of women's reproductive rights.

Apparently separation of church and state principles don't apply when you're talking about women.

Along with Planned Parenthood, I'm disappointed with the House's cave-in to pro-life extremists who seek to chip away at abortion rights established 36 years ago.

Over a century ago, proto-feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton recognized how religion keeps women down:

"When women understand that governments and religions are human inventions; that bibles, prayer-books, catechisms and encyclical letters are emanations from the brains of men, they will no longer be oppressed by the injunctions that come to them with the divine authority of 'Thus sayeth the Lord.'"

As I see it, everyone can live by his or her convictions on this contentious issue. It's easy -- If you're against abortion, don't have one.

If you own a uterus or love someone who does, here's why you should care about separation of church and state: Catholic bishops are doing all they can to force anti-choice amendments into the health care reform bill -- and they're instructing their congregations to help them.

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, writes: "A few days ago, it felt as if we were holding strong in achieving health care reform that would finally ensure comprehensive coverage for everyone. As the legislation began moving closer to a vote, I knew that our job holding on to our reproductive health victories would be hard ... and then I received a copy of a memo that the Catholic bishops sent to their congregations.

 "As I write this, the bishops have asked all the Catholics in the country to contact their legislators, asking them to alter current health care legislation to include anti-choice amendments. The bishops have inserted letters into church bulletins and asked priests to include their call to action in their sermons — and even in their prayers — during Sunday services.

 "It's clear that every group opposed to a woman's right to choose is pulling out all the stops this week to bring all the progress we've made on health care reform to a grinding halt. The results could be devastating to everyone who desperately needs health care, including the women, men, and teens that Planned Parenthood serves....

"One thing I know for sure — the bishops don't speak for all Catholics. From one Catholic Planned Parenthood supporter:

What bothers me most is this: Millions of people are uninsured and hundreds of thousands die every year as a result. And, to see my church sacrifice health care reform for the sake of this one issue is just going too far. They don't represent me, and they don't represent my beliefs. I'm speaking out, and I'm asking my Catholic friends and family to do the same.

Planned Parenthood urges us to stand up for women's health and tell our senators and representatives to reject this dangerous effort from Catholic bishops.

It's bad enough that Catholic hospitals deny clients basic contraceptives. Now these control freaks want to upend all women's health care.

This is outrageous, grossly undemocratic interference with deeply personal choices.

With two-thirds of the Supreme Court espousing Catholic bias and a burgeoning Catholic immigrant population, women's fundamental health care rights are being diminished and disregarded.

Personally, I think a group of celibate religious men is clueless as to the family planning needs of American women and has nothing worthwhile to offer in the current health care debate. Catholic views on birth control are radical and far from the American mainstream.

On a broader level, this is why separation of church and state matters -- why it is a big deal when a public school teacher insists on keeping a bible on his desk or a menorah is dispayed at Christmastime in a public square. Except in this case, it REALLY matters.

If we let religious leaders hijack health care access and deny reproductive rights to individuals, we are no better than oppressive Middle East theocratic nations.

Fight back for health care democracy!

Many people think separation of church and state issues are petty. It brings to mind uprooted nativity scenes in town squares, nutty Zoroastrians, Bible-toting public school teachers and seemingly harmless public prayer sessions.

So what's wrong with a blithely Judeo-Christian government?

Plenty.

If you happen to be a person who has never worried about getting pregnant, separation of church and state issues may never concern you. However, if you are a woman seeking emergency contraception from a holier-than-thou pharmacist you might feel differently.

In the highly charged politics of reproductive rights, religion usually trumps individual rights.

As Sandhya Bathija points out in Whose Conscious Counts?  in the Americans United for Separation of Church and State newsletter, this kind of religious favoritism can logically be applied to these situtations:

• a police officer could refuse to protect a medical clinic because it conflicts with his religious beliefs;

• a nurse at a public hospital would be free to lecture an AIDS patient and his partner that God “doesn’t like the homosexual lifestyle” and they must pray for salvation;

• a city bus driver could decline to drive a bus that displays an atheist advertisement because it offends her as an evangelical Christian;

• an on-staff counselor can refuse to counsel unmarried or gay and lesbian employees on relationship issues.

Interesting article Prayer policy divides Shelby by Mary Beth Lane in the Dispatch today. Is it just me, or is anyone else disturbed by this?

"The Columbus City Council rotates opening prayers between two Catholic priests, Monsignor John Cody and the Rev. Michael Watson. Their prayers are nondenominational, generally asking for council members to be given wisdom and guidance, spokesman John Ivanic said.

"On occasion, he added, Watson ends a prayer by asking for help for the Buckeyes, the Bengals and the Browns."

Obvious question aside -- Whose side is God on when the Bengals play the Browns? -- these super-paternalistic, anti-choice leaders are making a mockery of the prayer itself.

I don't think this undemocratic expression of religion through government entities is right. It's not petty, and we shouldn't be afraid to criticize our leadership about it.

Gambling is increasingly becoming an addiction for states trying to balance their budgets in the midst of an economic crisis. 

Giving in to the temptation by allowing casinos or expanding state-sponsored gambling would heap the financial burden on those least able to afford it, said several United Methodists on the front lines of the public policy debate.

Rev. John Edgar, Chairman of the United Methodist Anti-Gambling Task Force speaks on the social costs of gambling at a press conference on Issue 3 at ProgressOhio on October 5, 2009.

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From BeliefNet: Conservatizing the Bible

The eager young men at Conservapedia are p.o.'d that the Bible might be seen as too liberal. So they've come up with the Wiki-style Conservative Bible Project, to make sure the Lord doesn't go all wobbly on us. Excerpt:

As of 2009, there is no fully conservative translation of the Bible which satisfies the following ten guidelines:[1]

Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias

Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity

Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level[2]

Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop;[3] defective translations use the word "comrade" three times as often as "volunteer"; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as "word", "peace", and "miracle"

Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as "gamble" rather than "cast lots";[4] using modern political terms, such as "register" rather than "enroll" for the census

Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.

Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning

Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story

Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels

Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities
Thus, a project has begun among members of Conservapedia to translate the Bible in accordance with these principles. The translated Bible can be found here.

"The liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio"? Hoo-wee! Elitists like to use words, and lots of 'em! "Unnecessary ambiguities"? But how are you going to abide by the conservative mandate to avoid "dumbing down" Holy Writ while at the same time avoiding big words liberals use?

More seriously, the insane hubris of this really staggers the mind. These right-wing ideologues know better than the early church councils that canonized Scripture? They really think it's wise to force the word of God to conform to a 21st-century American idea of what constitutes conservatism? These jokers don't worship God. They worship ideology. As Mark Shea says:

Right wing dementia marches on apace. Some of this has a grain of sense to it, as ideological madness always does. For instance, the dumb attempts to feminize Scripture are pernicious and need to stop. But seriously: the story of the woman taken in adultery is "liberal"? Free market as Sacred tradition? Liberal wordiness?

You really need to read the whole Conservapedia entry to grasp how crazy this is. It's like what you'd get if you crossed the Jesus Seminar with the College Republican chapter at a rural institution of Bible learnin'.

Original Content From BeliefNet

Dave Harding posted this recently: "During the debate of health care amendments involving required coverage today, GOP Sen. Jon Kyl (AZ) made an unbelievable statement: 'I don't need maternity care. And, so requiring that to be on my insurance policy is something that I don't need and will make the policy more expensive.'"

Unbelievable is right. How painful that a congressman should have so little empathy for half of his constituency.

Personally, I'm a very empowered female -- so much so, I just might explode. But it seems to me that the extreme oppression of some groups of women internationally and the more subtle expressions of sexism in this country are no good for anyone. Especially babies.

In Africa, rape has become weaponized. In the Middle East where the Taliban rules, women are routinely beaten for fraternizing with men. Our smarmy, super-rich ally The House of Saud regards women as pieces of property.

Most troubling because of its international influence is the Vatican. According to The Vatican's Women by Paul Hofmann, the pope rarely has any contact with women, except for his nun-housekeepers. What kind of world view is that?

I don't know about you, but the idea of a celibate priest lecturing me on married life gives me the creeps. This church leadership doesn't excommunicate child molesters or even murderers, but it does excommunicate those who ordain women priests. Geez...how can I take anyone seriously who has such a low opinion of me?

Anyhoo, getting back to our democracy. Just to review, we never did pass the Equal Rights Amendment, women still get paid 77 cents on the dollar compared to men, a woman is sexually assaulted every 2 1/2 minutes in this country, there is extreme discrimination when it comes to maternity health care, sexist legal language, etc., etc.

As a woman I wouldn't want to live anywhere besides the USA. But the male-only leadership of certain powerful and often secret fraternal organizations is not advancing American humanity. Most frightening is the "key man theory" and other holier-than-thou beliefs of the politically influential Family. (I can't even explain how far the destructive tentacles of these guys reach. Please read the book by Jeff Sharlet.)

From Augusta National Golf Club to Catholic Church influence, democracy suffers when one group's ability to pursue happiness trumps another group's.

I believe men are better off with partners and coworkers, not subordinates. (Just ask David Lettermen.)

The Dayton Daily News Reports:

The leader of the United Methodist Church’s Ohio anti-gambling task force on Thursday, Oct. 1, said backers of the four-casino plan on the Nov. 3 ballot “bought” the support of the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police.

“It’s legal. It’s not a bribe,” the Rev. John Edgar emphasized at a Statehouse news conference called to outline church opposition to the casinos.

The FOP support came because some of the taxes the casinos pay would be used for law enforcement training and some would go to local governments which could use the money to pay for law enforcement, Edgar said.

If the FOP support could be gained that easily, “what do you think is going to happen in the halls of this building….?” Edgar asked.

Read The Full Story at The Dayton Daily News

At the press conference, Bishop Bruce R. Ough, leader of the West Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church, which includes the Dayton area, said efforts are underway to mobilize opposition to Issue 3 at nearly 2,000 Methodist churches in Ohio. The churches have about half a million members he said.

Representatives of the Ohio Council of Churches, which represents 6,000 congregations with about 3 million members, also attended the press conference.