While some Dems are joining with Republicans to try to prohibit even private insurers from covering abortions in the new "reform" effort, other Dems are joining with Republicans to ensure Christian Science Prayer sessions are covered by insurance:

Backed by some of the most powerful members of the Senate, a little-noticed provision in the healthcare overhaul bill would require insurers to consider covering Christian Science prayer treatments as medical expenses.

Natasha:

The health financing reform fight has been no exception to this trend, and I don't know if I'm even capable of conveying how angry it makes me that Obama's signaling he's willing to gut reproductive health coverage in even private insurance plans, and almost certainly to exclude it from any public option, just so he can stake a claim to being the "last" president to deal with health care.

That's the cool thing about conformity. It really brings people together!

The head football coach at Breckinridge County High School took about 20 players on a school bus late last month to his church, where nearly half of them were baptized, school officials say.

The mother of one player said her 16-year-old son was baptized without her knowledge and consent, and she is upset that a public school bus was used to take players to a church service — and that the school district's superintendent was there and did not object.

Just what everybody needs — more religion in public life:

In Jordan, Pope Benedict XVI sought to stress the importance of religion in public life as a way to find common ground with Jewish and Muslim groups.

Isn't it kind of a "tell" when religionists act all deferential to other religions?

Either they've got a direct pipeline to God's Truth, or they don't — in which case, this is just professional courtesy among con men.

I like my beer cold, my music loud, and my religionists intolerant!

Next up, biology classes where they show that women are fashioned out of men's ribs:

A US teenager has successfully won a lawsuit against a teacher who described creationism as "superstitious nonsense".

Chad Farnan, a devout Christian studying at California's Capistrano Valley high school, persuaded a judge that his European history teacher, James Corbett, violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which courts interpret as banning government employees from promoting, or displaying hostility towards, religion.

Since I'm not a government employee, I'll continue to call bullshit "bullshit."

President Obama calls the new law "abhorrent."

That's awfully disrespectful of religion. After all, "God's in the mix."

Transcript:

Sorry, but someone had to break this to you.

Religion... is just make-believe. Sorry.

It would be reassuring to know there’s an eternal afterlife and a big super-guy in the sky fixing everything. But the fact is, nobody knows whether there's a supernatural and, if so, what it is.

Conservative Christianist wingnut Cal Thomas is always good and reliable for a crazy laugh when you need one...or two.

Is nothing sacred? For example, freedom of expression?

A United Nations forum on Thursday passed a resolution condemning "defamation of religion" as a human rights violation, despite wide concerns that it could be used to justify curbs on free speech in Muslim countries.

The U.N. Human Rights Council adopted the non-binding text, proposed by Pakistan on behalf of Islamic states, with a vote of 23 states in favour and 11 against, with 13 abstentions.

lhttp://kwout.com/cutout/u/a5/8s/2uk_bor_rou_sha.jpg

Business Lecturing Anyone on Moral Issues
March 8th, 2009 by SocProf and tagged Religious Fundamentalism
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/...

Brazil rocked by abortion for 9-year-old rape victim - Americas, World - The Independent via kwout

Let me see if I get this straight: the Church has excom

I have got to say that saving the life of a 9 year old rape victim as opposed to a forced pregnancy was really out of the realm of of common sense, but , this is the Catholic church ....Right?

"Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself."
So goes the Golden Rule, and the kids at Shawnee Mission East High School are proving the worth of love, and its power to overcome hate. The school's got a Gay/Straight student alliance; this year their Homecoming King is openly homosexual.

Austin Hunzeker counters Westboro Baptist protesters by raising money for AIDS research. Kansas City Star photo by Tammy Ljungblad

Which set off the Pavlovian signals to bring "Reverend" Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church hate-march to the school's doors to picket. As usual, the WBC contingent included some children (where the hell is Kansas' CPS in this?) -- children who should have been in school themselves (and preferably NOT homeschooled by the WBC cretins) instead of out on the hustings for hate.

As is not usual, the protesters were met with an organized counter-demonstration, made up of students from the school Phelps targeted -- along with parents and other supporters. The counter-protest shouted down the Phelps frenzy-mongers.

This should make Lambert's cold go away faster:

Courtesy of Harvard professor Niall Ferguson in Vanity Fair:

The motto “In God we trust” was added to the dollar bill in 1957. Since then its purchasing power, relative to the consumer price index, has declined by a staggering 87 percent.

I bet we could turn this economy around by replacing "God" with "FSM." Just sayin.

I'm down on my knees right now, praying that the FSM keep and protect these poor, simple pastors of the flock:

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. -- Once one of the nation's most popular televangelists, the Rev. Robert H. Schuller is watching his life's work crumble.

His son and recent successor, the Rev. Robert A. Schuller, has abruptly resigned as senior pastor of the Crystal Cathedral. The shimmering, glass-walled megachurch is home to the "Hour of Power" broadcast, an evangelism staple that's been on the air for more than three decades.

The church is in financial turmoil: It plans to sell more than $65 million worth of its Orange County property to pay off debt. Revenue dropped by nearly $5 million last year, according to a recent letter from the elder Schuller to elite donors. In the letter, Schuller Sr. implored the Eagle's Club members _ who supply 30 percent of the church's revenue _ for donations and hinted that the show might go off the air without their support.

"The final months of 2008 were devastating for our ministry," the 82-year-old pastor wrote.

Over the past few weeks, I've written about a particular aspect of Rick Warren that has so far seen very little formal media attention--his extensive connections to groups and persons connected to the "New Apostolic Reformation" aka "Joel's Army", a particularly virulent "Christian Nationalist" movement (which had its initial origins in neopentecostal dominionist churches but has since spread via "cuckoo" cell-churches to even some mainstream denominations).

Rick Warren's Clout

How much clout does Rick Warren have?

The California megachurch minister and opponent of gay marriage who will deliver the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration had his income tax returns audited in 1996. When the IRS tried to collect the taxes it claimed he owed, Warren went to court. Congress then passed a law granting Warren's tax deduction, pre-empting the US Court of Appeals from even taking up the case against him. The votes in the House and Senate were unanimous.

Nearly two and a half years to the day, I wrote an early article detailing Rick Warren's connections with Paul Yonggi Cho nee David Yonggi Cho--a figure who is practically at Ground Zero regarding the continued perpetuation and promotion of what has been termed "Latter Rain", evolved into "Joel's Army", and is known now as the "New Apostolic Reformation".

This early post has gained sudden relevance now with Rick Warren now being chosen as the pastor to give the inauguration prayer on 20 January.

This is also rather unfortunate, as it turns out that Rick Warren's connections to "Elijah's Army" go farther than trading tips with Cho on megachurch growth...far deeper.

Obama apologist Clarence Page let's us know in his December 21, 2008 column that progressives need to get over Obama's pick of Rick Warren as his invocation leader. Now, a few gems, and please count the number of times he uses "pragmatic":

Although some gay activists and other left-progressives might try to dismiss Warren as a hard-line troglodyte, he actually is a pragmatic moderate compared with right-wing evangelical activists like Pat Robertson or the late Rev. Jerry Falwell.

Diskeeper Accused of Scientology Indoctrination

"Two ex-employees have sued Diskeeper Corporation in Los Angeles Superior Court after being fired, alleging that the company makes Scientology training a mandatory condition of employment (complaint, PDF). Diskeeper founder and CEO Craig Jensen is a high level, publicly avowed Scientologist who has given millions to his Church. Diskeeper's surprising response to the lawsuit (PDF) appears to be that religious instruction in a place of employment is protected by the First Amendment."

Finally, many bloggers are beginning to understand what should have been obvious for some time, Barack Obama is a bully who is attracted to his fellow bullies. He despises progressive idealism even as he exploits it. Obama is not the first community organizer to sell out, and he won’t be the last, only the most famous.

But let us return to the vile Rick Warren, because Obama has made that necessary. First of all it is abundantly clear that neither Warren, nor any other proponent of the proposition 8 hate amendment cares the snap of their fingers about marriage. If you were truly interested in strengthening marriage you would examine societies with a track record of success.

Ho, ho, Correntians. I'm fairly sure I'm the first here to link to this. And galdurnit, don't tell me if I'm wrong, in the holiday spirit of Don't Ask Don't Tell. Baby Jeebus cries if you do. Even so, Haw! I love this kind of shit:

A gay version of the Bible, in which God says it is better to be gay than straight, is to be published by an American film producer.

New Mexico-based Revision Studios will publish The Princess Diana Bible – so named because of Diana's "many good works", it says – online at princessdianabible.com in spring 2009. A preview of Genesis is already available, in which instead of creating Adam and Eve, God creates Aida and Eve.

"And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Aida, and she slept: and he took one of her ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from woman, made he another woman, and brought her unto the first. And Aida said, 'This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of me. Therefore shall a woman leave her mother, and shall cleave unto her wife: and they shall be one flesh.' And they were both naked, the woman and her wife, and were not ashamed."

The film studio said it would also adapt and direct the revised Bible as a two-part mini-series, The Gay Old Testament and The Gay New Testament, once it is completed.

"There are many different versions of the Bible; I don't see why we can't have one," said Max Mitchell, who directed the science fiction comedy Horror in the Wind, in which an airborne formula invented by two biogeneticists reverses the world's sexual orientation.

Haw.

An atheists-rights group is suing the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security because state law requires the agency to stress "dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth."

American Atheists of Parsippany, N.J., and 10 non-religious Kentuckians are the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, set to be filed Tuesday in Franklin Circuit Court.

Edwin Kagin, a Boone County lawyer and the national legal director of American Atheists, said he was appalled to read in the Herald-Leader last week that state law establishes praising God — and installing a plaque in God's honor — as the first duty of the Homeland Security Office.

The state and federal constitutions both prohibit government from getting involved in religion, Kagin said Monday.

"This is one of the most outrageous things I've seen in 35 years of practicing law. It's breathtakingly unconstitutional," Kagin said.

Yes. Yes, it is. Go KY atheists! And FSM be praised for McClatchy for bringing us this news.

Isn't this the ideal time for a Christian-in-Chief who promises this?   Read more…

There's nothing like faith-based initiatives:

MOGADISHU, Somalia - A 13-year-old girl who said she had been raped was stoned to death in Somalia after being accused of adultery by Islamic militants, a human rights group said.

Dozens of men stoned Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow to death Oct. 27 in a stadium packed with 1,000 spectators in the southern port city of Kismayo, Amnesty International and Somali media reported, citing witnesses. The Islamic militia in charge of Kismayo had accused her of adultery after she reported that three men had raped her, the rights group said.

  Read more…

While a number of the more cowardly VRWC mouthpieces in the MSM have abandoned the usual the Republican lockstep approach to candidate support solidarity while they try to climb on the Obama gravy train, others in the Party see this schism as a chance for purification and an opportunity to seize the apron strings of power.