‘Religious Right’

More Religious Bullying—Around Sex, Of Course

The “First Amendment Defense Act”—who could quarrel with that? I do. Maybe you do, too. HR2802 prohibits the federal government from acting against anyone who “believes or acts in accordance with a religious belief” that gays shouldn’t marry or that sex belongs only in heterosexual marriage. Under this law, the feds couldn’t withhold tax exemptions, contracts, or loans from people or corporations defying federal laws prohibiting discrimination against GLBT people. The bill would protect a business denying time off for a gay employee to care for a sick spouse. It would protect a private school refusing a child just because…

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African-American Pastors Call for Discrimination

A coalition of conservative Christian groups has petitioned a federal court to support Michigan’s ban on gay marriage. No big surprise. Here’s what should surprise: the coalition includes hundreds of African-American pastors and churches. Gay marriage would “destroy the backbone of our society,” said Flint’s Reverend Stacey Swimp at a local rally of Black ministers. Uh, no. Here’s what’s destroying heterosexual marriage in the African-American community: Heterosexual African-Americans. They marry at a dramatically lower rate than any other ethnic or racial group in America. “We love everybody, but we don’t love the [gay] lifestyle,” said Reverend Rex Evans of Ypsilanti.…

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National Day of Prayer: Unconstitutional & Anti-Sex

To give America an extra edge during the Cold War against godless Communism, President Harry Truman designated the first Thursday in May as the National Day of Prayer. Every year since, that’s when government officials from city council to president ask citizens to join them in the most blatantly religious activity there is: pleading to a divinity to suspend the laws of the universe, and to bend destiny on behalf of the petitioner. In response to the unconstitutionality (and sheer offensiveness) of such a public ritual, the American Humanist Association created the National Day of Reason in 2003. The National…

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Camille Paglia: Wrong About Sex Ed

We never know which Camille Paglia is going to show up: brilliant intellectual, freelance anti-Christ, or tunnel-visioned provocateur. It was the latter Paglia who wrote a recent piece in Time Magazine cleverly titled “Put the sex back in sex ed.” Of course, we sex educators have been urging this for decades. But that’s not what her article is actually about. She says we should inject gender politics into sex education. As a bonus, she also exposes her ignorance about a number of common sex education issues. Harking back to the world of Leave It To Beaver, Paglia demands that “The…

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