Todd Starnes’ Latest Outrage that World Net Daily Happily Parrots: May God Bless America!

I have a headache and the airplane I’m in as I’m writing this has hit some turbulence, so forgive me for a short post. There are three links for this one. First, there’s the WND post, which is “Student Reprimanded for Saying ‘God Bless America.'”

There actually is no story. Nada. No description in the RSS feed, no three-paragraph snippet. Just a link to “Read the full story” which takes you to Fox “news” and an article by Todd Starnes: “Student Reprimanded for Saying ‘God Bless America.'” The Fox story has nearly 10,000 comments when I loaded it in the airport.

“Similarly,” the WND story has 53 comments when I last loaded it. The top-rated comment is by “daleetaylor” who wrote: “I wonder if we realize how close we are to a national collapse. The leaders of this nation are doing whatever they want and they could care less what the American people want. That is the sad truth. They LIE, LIE, LIE and LIE about their lying. We as a nation must pray to the only true God and repent or we will perish. That is the truth. God forgive us.”

Without even reading the story or anything else, my knee-jerk reaction is pretty much what “kim” said in response: “The american people don’t want god in the classroom. They decided 230 years ago and reaffirm that every election since. Maybe you should move to a theocracy.” “kim” was attacked, as expected.

But, the whole reason that I found this story and even clicked on it was because Hemant posted about it on his The Friendly Atheist blog: “Todd Starnes Flips Out After Student Told Not to Say “God Bless America” During Morning Announcements.”

Here’s the real story:

1. Students at this school (Yulee High School in Florida) are allowed to read the morning announcements. Over the loudspeaker. To a captive audience. At that point, they legally become an agent of the school. More on that later.
2. Students were adding “God Bless America” to the end of the announcements.
3. Two students who are atheists, fearing reprisal, told their parents and the parents complained to the American Humanist Association’s Appignani Humanist Legal Center.
4. The legal center wrote a letter to the school explaining the problem.
5. The principal wrote back within hours saying that “the theistic assertion was not part of the scripted announcements but was added by a student without the school’s approval.” And, “The principal reassured the legal center, “It is our desire and intention to respect the belief and constitutional freedoms of all our students at Yulee High School.””

Enter Todd Starnes. Who “asked Jeremy Dys, an attorney with Liberty Institute to weigh in on this nonsense and he said the atheists don’t have a prayer:”

“Whether a student is being patriotic or engaging in religious speech, there is no law in this country forbidding a student from telling his or her classmates, ‘God bless America’ and it is illegal for a school to censor a student for doing so,” he said.

Dys also wonders why atheists are so hell-bent on trying to censor the patriotic speech of a red-blooded American high school student.

“Regardless of this attempt by secularists to white wash over this demonstration of patriotism by a teenager, America’s students do not give up their right to free speech and the expression of their religious beliefs when they go to school,” he said.

Here’s the issue: Students don’t give up their First Amendment rights to free speech when at school. They can tell fellow students anything they want about their religious beliefs or wear clothing that does – provided they do not create a hostile environment or interfere with learning – during school hours and on school property.

The issue goes to my first enumerated step in the story: They are giving this to a captive audience over the public address system as agents of the school. The school – and its agents – cannot advocate a religious belief. Therefore, the students saying “God Bless America” over the loudspeakers to a captive audience as part of the morning announcements is illegal.

Another part of the comments are people screaming about the “atheist students” and how they feared reprisal, and how they should have just come forward on their own. Um, this is high school. Do you really want to be even more of a pariah if, say, you’re the person already with few friends, and it’s the school’s prize quarterback who’s the one saying this in the announcements? Really?

And, I can personally relate: In my elementary school (grades 3-5), we were allowed, two at a time, for fifth graders, to go to the office in the morning and read the Pledge of Allegiance over the loudspeakers. Like good little minions, everyone in their homerooms would stand and recite it along with us.

I was fairly atheistic from a young age. I would say the pledge (I stopped in high school, for which I got bullied even by friends for not saying it when everyone else would during assemblies), but I would remain silent during the “under God” part. I was going to skip over it when I read it to the school. But even I, who already at that age didn’t have too many friends to lose anyway, chickened out and just read it as I was “supposed to.” Though because I didn’t chicken out until literally the word before it, I tripped up anyway and instead of a proud statement of church-state separation, I just was laughed at because I stumbled over several words in front of the entire school. The girl who did it with me (since it was boy-girl pairs) just shook her head, and the secretaries administrative staff looked at me with pity.

Sometimes school sucks. Trying to make a political, religious, or a-religious statement – even if you’re in the right – can make you a social pariah right at that age where you’re trying to figure out who you are, what your values are, and just fit in.

Religious Freedom Ruling *for* Muslim Inmate Has WND Commenters Dazed

Well, perhaps not “dazed,” but certainly very split in their opinion. This was one of those stories, just a few hours old as I’m posting it, that I clicked on just to see how people would react: “Supremes Rule for Bearded Muslim Inmate.” The rule was in place in Arkansas and 9 other states based on the idea of easy inmate recognition amongst guards and ability of inmates to hide contraband in their beards.

On the one hand, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled 9 to 0 that a prison in Arkansas (and among all Arkansas state prisons) that prohibited inmates from growing facial hair could not prohibit that. The Muslim inmate, Gregory Holt, wanted to grow it as part of his religious observance.

But on the other hand … he’s a Muslim!! And that’s enough for WND commenters to just hate it. Well, that and he’s a prisoner (“TruBluAmerican” wrote: “You’re in prison you pig, you have no rights beyond 3 squares and a roof over your head, which is MORE than a lot of law abiding people have!”)

And so, on the one hand, you have “kingdad” who wrote:

Be Glad that they chose to uphold Religious Liberty as their are more and bigger Religious liberty cases coming down the pike. Important cases compared to this minor case of insignificance. All the other states have rules that permit State Prison inmates to grow beards esp. if it is a part of their Religious beliefs. Other religions have beards that are also mandatory, some Jews, the Sikhs for example.

But you have a reply by “Elena” who wrote: “You think the SCOTUS will come to the rescue of the former Atlanta Fire Chief? Keep dreaming. Only non-Christians are protected.” (This is in reference to an Atlanta fire chief who was fired by the mayor because of his virulently anti-gay statements.) A view echoed by “SATCitizen” who wrote: “OK Supreme Court. . .now you better remember this ruling when it comes to CHRISTIANS’ beliefs and the violation of.”

Or, you have “freedom defender” who wrote: “The rules on beards is rediculous to say the least. But once again, these liberal judges side with the muslim. This country has gone to hell in a hand basket, to use an old term.”

It’s interesting, sometimes, to see how cognitive dissonance plays out with this sort of thing.

No Muslims Need Apply?

Larry Klayman, perhaps better known as the guy who led thousands tens of people in Washington, D.C. in an attempt to get President Obama to resign, really doesn’t like Muslims. Which is like saying “water is wet” when talking about most columnists on World Net Daily.

In this case, after his failure, perhaps Klayman thought he’d have better luck spreading his Islamophobia by attaching it with a paperclip to anti-immigation sentiment among the broader conservative movement. For now, Klayman is advocating what America did to the Irish and then the Chinese and many other ethnic groups a century ago— limit immigration: “Time to Limit Muslim Immigration.”

Here’s the opening paragraph:

The time for political correctness is over. It is time to call it like it is. The nation hangs in the balance, and making excuses for the destructive conduct of President Barack Hussein Obama and his American Muslim constituency no longer cuts it. His acts are not the result of someone who is ill-prepared and disconnected from the office of the president. He and his racist, anti-white, socialist, anti-Semitic and anti-Christian minions – from Attorney General Eric Holder, to Secretary of State John Kerry, to closet Muslim Director of the Central Intelligence Agency John Brennan – know exactly what they are doing. To complement the race war Obama and Holder have stoked at home, Obama and Brennan are bent on furthering an Islamic caliphate in the Middle East and around the globe. These are evil men, bent on taking the United States and its allies down. For Obama’s part, he not only identifies with his Muslim roots, he acts on them. Brennan is simply the white stooge who, among others, helps Obama carry out the plan.

That’s an impressive amount of hate in a single paragraph. It seems like anyone he hates is a Muslim. Doesn’t matter if they’re not, to Larry Klayman, they’re just hiding it.

It seems like Klayman’s argument is one of self-defense: “While Muslims have thus far not succeeded in wiping us off the face of the earth, much less exterminating Israel – the land of Jesus and Moses – the bottom line is that most of them hate our guts.”

And, there’s almost no such thing as a good Muslim: “If American Muslims had tried to play a constructive role with their terrorist brothers, that would be one thing. But by and large they sit back and silently cheer events like September 11, or the beheading of American journalists.”

So, he wants to stop all immigration for anyone who is Muslim, “unless there are proven and legitimate family or humanitarian reasons for entry.”

He claims he’s not being racist, he’s just trying to protect America! Never mind that less than 2% of Americans are Muslim. Or that the largest, most comprehensive survey of Muslims show that they are just as likely to reject radical and militant Islam as the average American.

But don’t let facts get in the way of bigotry.

Meanwhile, WND’s Lord Monckton decides to tackle the Issues of Our Day in a different way: “The Quran Is Illegal.”

Since I’m a big advocate of the First Amendment and Freedom of Speech, even if it’s speech I don’t like, I was interested to see what Monckton’s reasoned justification would be. His first sentence made me dubious I would find it: “For obvious reasons, incitement to murder is a serious crime.” When I read that, I figured he was going to say that because there are verses in the Quran that advocate violence, it should be illegal.

Along the way looking for this passage, I came across this sentence, which directly contradicts Larry Klayman: “The great majority of Muslims, wherever they are in the world, do their best to live in peace with their neighbors.”

He points these out:

For instance: “Fight and kill those who join other gods with Allah wherever you find them; besiege them, seize them, lie in wait for them with every kind of ambush” (Sura 9, Verse 5).

Or: “Make war upon such of those to whom the scriptures have been given who believe not in Allah, or in the last day, and who forbid not what Allah and his apostle have forbidden, until they pay tribute” (9.29).

Or: “When you encounter the infidels, strike off their heads, until you have made a great slaughter among them” (47.4).

And here’s his justification, just as I predicted:

Given the venom on every page of this extended incitement to murder anyone who does not follow Islam, it is surprising that there is not more Islamic terror than there is.

Craven public authorities have failed to act against the circulation of the Quran in its present form because they fear a violent backlash.

How, then, is this manifestly illegal text to be dealt with? It is not our custom to ban books, for freedom of speech is guaranteed by the Constitution.

However, it is our custom to prosecute for incitement to murder. And the fact that incitement is on every page of what is said to be a holy book does not diminish, still less extinguish, the offense.

So, the Quran is a person and he or she is inciting murder. Well, I guess if corporations are people, too …

Here’s the problem: Monckton is correct. Not that it should be illegal, but that “freedom of speech is guaranteed by the Constitution.” If it weren’t, then most of the writers from World Net Daily would be in prison for calling for, among other things, overthrows of the US government and various incitements of violence against non-straight people and against anyone who isn’t Christian or Jewish. Some of them on WND itself, but for the most part, they tend to confine their outright calls for such things to other media outlets.

If that explanation doesn’t work, I think that “Rm Mize”‘s top-rated comment is also good justification:

How’s this for incitement to murder?

If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them. You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone them to death, because they tried to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again.

Oh, but that’s not the Qu’ran. That’s Deuteronomy 13:6-11 (NIV)

Do you plan on making the Bible illegal as well? Or just the Torah? You do realize that Islam is related to Christianity in the same way Christianity is related to Judaism, right? I’m not advocating it as a belief system, I’m just saying that your knee-jerk reactions are hypocritical. You come off looking more like Pharisees than followers of Christ–who was actually pretty accepting of diversity if his closest friends are anything to go by.

Supreme Court Decision Eliminating Abortion Clinic Protest Buffers Has WND Crowing

The Supreme Court (of the United States) handed down several rulings last week, many of them truly significant in their reach. These included limits and capabilities of what the EPA can regulate, limits on Executive Orders, limits on Recess Appointments, a unanimous decision for civil liberties in that police now need a warrant to search the contents of your cell phone (which SCOTUS pointed out was now a “mini computer” with your life stored on it), and they eliminated the buffer around abortion clinics on First Amendment grounds (another unanimous decision, and one that I’m less happy with).

World Net Daily was ecstatic about the last one, posting no fewer than four stories about it. My view is perhaps best characterized by their snippet from The Guardian, which they included under their “Out of Left Field” section: “Supremes’ Ruling Protects Gauntlet of Horror.” Basically, a woman is going to have an abortion, making a very difficult decision, and she is harassed in the last few feet trying to get in the doors of the clinic. Harassed by people showing photos of bloody infant corpses, saying she’ll burn in hell, being screamed at through a megaphone, etc. What many states (16, I think, including Massachusetts which was the subject of the SCOTUS decision) have tried to do – to strike a balance between right to free speech and right to access to the abortion clinic – is to establish a buffer zone. You can scream and rant outside that zone, but those last few feet are off-limits. So at least you can get to the door without needing to fight through people.

Now, SCOTUS has ruled that buffer zone unconstitutional. Though I don’t think the decision invalidates the “bubble zones” that they upheld as constitutional, that are 8 ft from the clinic’s door. Personally, I don’t see how 35 ft is that much different from 8 ft — you can still see all the signs, hear all the protests, etc. It seems like more of a free-access and anti-violence thing to me, which was the whole point of the Massachusetts law (enacted in the wake of violence at a Boston clinic).

WND did a three-paragraph snippet from NBC News when it first came out (“Supremes Hand Huge Victory to Pro-Lifers”), and then Bob Unruh published his column on it (“Pro-Life Forces Consider Next Step in Free-Speech Fight”), and later in the day, Greg Corombos did his (“‘Huge’ Supreme Court Ruling ‘Boggles the Mind'”).

Sigh.

Interestingly, Unruh’s column only has nine comments, which is very surprising to me. His stuff about The Gay typically gets 20 times that. Corombos’ column got many more comments, with 164 when I wrote this post. I’m not going to get into the comments, they are what you would expect from WND.

What I’ll end with is what some of the more liberal bloggers (and Rachael Maddow) have somewhat ironically pointed out: SCOTUS’ hypocricy in this issue. The Supreme Court itself forbids all protests on the plaza to their building, roughly 252 feet wide. To quote Boston Magazine:

The court’s rules about protests on their grounds don’t apply to the sidewalks surrounding the building, but those areas are roughly 252 feet from the court’s doors. The buffer zone separating the plaza from the sidewalks is meant to keep the area clean and safe, and maintain “suitable order and decorum” on the property, according to the regulations.

WND Commenters Clueless About Atheism, Separation of Church and State

That subject line is a bit redundant, I know. But, such is the story from March 20, “Atheist Group Demands Guv Delete Bible Tweet.” All you really need to know is that the Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, from his official government Twitter account, tweeted “Philippians 4:13” which says something in some translations along the lines of “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Great, who cares? Right? I mean, I certainly don’t care that he thinks that, though I kinda wish that politicians didn’t believe in magic sky fairies. The problem is that it’s illegal. The Constitution’s First Amendment states that the government can make no law establishing any religion. The courts have interpreted that very consistently to mean a separation of church and state, and that a government entity cannot make even the appearance of supporting one religion over another, or advocating one over another. If Walker had done this with his private Twitter account, fine. But he didn’t.

This isn’t an issue of being offended or not, or the right to not be offended (which doesn’t exist). This is about a religious statement respecting one religion over another coming from an official government outlet.

And then of course there’s the total (and persistent) ignorance of what an atheist is, such as “isallwon”‘s comment (2nd-highest-rated): “What is an atheist except a person who believes in nothing, because he came from nothing, and will go into nothing, so from them I hear, nothing.” Sigh.

World Net Daily Is Warned by Google: Back Off on Hate Speech Regarding “Black Mob Violence”

I just mentioned two posts ago (macro-post on climate change stuff) that one topic I would not talk about anymore on this blog that WND publishes frequently on is the “black mob violence.” I did one post on it back in September regarding how WND was cherry-picking random stories with at least a weekly cadence to try to show that “black mobs” were attacking “whites” and hence there is an epidemic of racial violence against the poor innocent whiteys.

This post is not about a WND article about it. It’s about a few WND articles about a development late last week where they are being warned by Google to back off on the rhetoric:

• “When the Truth Is No Defense” – Joseph Farah (52 comments)
• “Google Accuses WND of ‘Hate Speech'” – unattributed (305 comments)
• “How Google Can Stop WND’s ‘Black Mob’ Offense” – Willie Shields (71 comments)
• “The Irony of Google’s Censorship” – Colin Flaherty (65 comments)

To quote Joseph Farah:

Recently, WND, my news organization, was accused by Google of spreading hate speech through the use of a two-word term – “black mob” in stories about, well, black mobs.

But this wasn’t just an accusation. It was also a threat to punish WND materially by the removal of Google ads and, more importantly, the suspension of an account that allows us to use Google’s technology to serve ads from other clients.

It all began two years ago when WND made the decision to begin tracking what appeared to be a rise in unprovoked black on non-black violence. Through the reporting, WND first alerted the nation to “the knockout game,” in which perpetrators seek to render unconscious innocent and unsuspecting victims usually with a single blow to the head. We reported on coordinated riots and seemingly spontaneous uprisings occurring in major cities and small towns from coast to coast.

[…] On Feb. 7, 2014, Google notified WND of its intent to begin blocking ads on the site. WND decided to take the pre-emptive action of removing Google ad tags on all stories and columns in which the phrase “black mobs” appeared, pending an appeal of the misguided decision.

But there’s an issue here that should be noted by all who value free expression and honest journalism that some may find offensive. Google’s policy attempts to censor words and phrases that are truthful and accurate from First Amendment-protected media on the basis of political correctness and faulty algorithmic methodology.

[…] Google is clearly assigning motives to our reporting on the basis of the linking of two words – black mobs. Euphemisms for two perfectly accurate words must now be found because Google has determined that the linking of these two words is hate speech. When one of the most powerful media companies in the world starts banning words and phrases and imposing its speech police standards on all those it does business with, we are headed down a dangerous, Orwellian slippery slope.

The term “black mobs” as used in WND is not a pejorative term.

It is not hate speech. In fact, it is the reporting of facts – facts that have been substantiated and reported by many other news sources since WND began reporting on the trend two years ago. WND Books’ “White Girl Bleed A Lot” is carried in bookstores across the nation and on Amazon.com. What’s next – burning the books?

I don’t think this is worth commenting on. I think the denial speaks for itself. And, while on this blog I have many times respected the First Amendment’s freedom of speech and freedom of the press, both of those come with responsibilities and come with consequences. Google is a company, not a government-owned organization. I may be wrong (I’m not a First Amendment lawyer), but I’m fairly sure they are allowed to make decisions about whether they choose to advertise on a certain site or not based on whatever criteria they want to set, including censorship of certain words.

It’s really not worth going into the ~500 comments across these stories. Nor is it really important to get into the denial in the other three. Perhaps relevant – or by way of summary – is to say that WND did a poll on the last one, asking, “Do you find the term ‘black mob’ unfair, racist or offensive?” With 301 responding, 52% said, “No, I find black mobs unfair, racist and offensive,” while 32% said “No, it would be racist to refuse to report the race of perpetrators in mob attacks across the country.” The token two people said it was unfair/racist/offensive or insensitive.

A Useless Proposed Law to “Fix” a Non-Existent “Problem”

Grand-standing and proposing bills and even passing laws that are useless and/or redundant in order to score political points is an American pastime. So, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at the latest that WND is promoting by Republican Senator Mike Lee (from Utah) in their story, “Bill Protects Churches from ‘Gay’ Bullying.”

Oye. Where to even begin?

Let’s try this: Religious institutions are sovereign in the US, able to do pretty much whatever-the-hell they want and accept or reject whatever they want. They are NOT a public accommodation and hence are not required to abide by public accommodation laws (that I’ve talked about before that prohibit discrimination based on things like sexuality). And, most legislation that has legalized same-sex marriages has provided even more, explicit (and redundant) language that specifically excludes religious institutions from being forced to do what they think is icky, such as be the venue for a same-sex marriage ceremony.

But, apparently that’s not enough. No, we need another law on the books to make triply sure that The Gayz can’t dirty the place where we go to hear about how God will come upon us:

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, is leading a congressional counter-offensive designed to protect churches and other religious institutions from being forced to perform same-sex ceremonies.

“What we want to do is make sure that religious institution, churches, synagogues and other entities are able to maintain their own religious freedom and enable them to define marriage in the manner that they deem fit without the threat of adverse action being taken against them by the federal government,” said Lee, lead sponsor of the Marriage and Religious Freedom Act.

The vast majority of jurisdictions that have legalized same-sex marriage have included language in their laws to provide freedom of conscience for religious institutions and protect their right not to endorse activity or ceremonies contrary to their faith. Lee said more needs to be done.

I do find it slightly ironic that he entitled this, in part, the “Marriage … Freedom Act.” ‘Cause, you know, freedom to marry is the whole point of the same-sex marriage / marriage equality movement. And this bill is clearly against that.

Reading further down the short WND article, it appears as though “the primary goal of the bill is to protect the tax-exempt status of religious institutions.” That’s somewhat interesting, and I’m not sure what I think about it. Well, I actually do: I don’t think churches (and religion in general) should be tax-exempt. Them being tax exempt means, put another way, that I have to pay MORE taxes to subsidize their religion because the governments bring in less money than they otherwise would if religious stuff were not tax-exempt.

However, I think that THAT is why religious institutions should not be tax-exempt. Not that they don’t follow what’s PC in this day and age or for their beliefs. Ridiculed? Sure. Engage in political speech and so lose their tax-exempt status like anyone else who officially plays a role in politicking? Yes. But not because of their beliefs.

And, I’m not sure why any gay person would want to be married in an institution that hates who and what they are.

But, with that said, what constitutes a “church” or other religious establishment? I ask because of the following hypothetical scenario: This bill is passed into law. A secular wedding hall that is owned by a conservative Christian doesn’t want to follow the public accommodation laws in something like 31 states that ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. They declare themselves a church and have a priest there for breakfast once a week. They can no longer be required to follow the rules that apply to everyone else. Possible? Maybe.

Meanwhile, the story got 22 ratings (4.8/5 average) and 46 comments. The comments are about what one would expect for WND, just generally anti-gay and gay is immoral, etc.

Who Knew Religious Freedom Included Satanists? Certainly Not Legislators Sworn to Uphold It!

This is another story that I think is better told by The Friendly Atheist and then going to WND for commentary. Otherwise, you lose the important context. Here are the three TFA posts that are relevant, from December 4 and 10, 2013:

• The Satanic Temple Wants to Place a Monument Outside Oklahoma’s Capitol Building. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
• Not to Be Outdone by the Satanists, Now a Hindu Group Wants a Monument at the Oklahoma Capitol
• Oklahoma Legislator Who Supports Ten Commandments Monument Slams Satanic Temple’s Proposal for Being Too ‘Religious’

Let’s review the basics: In the USA, the First Amendment to the US Constitution requires that the government remain religiously neutral, that they cannot establish or hold one religion above another. Of course, many Christians think that this is just a wink-wink-nudge-nudge that THEIR religion DOES get special treatment, and that no others may be held equal to or above it. But, what the First Amendment means, and what it has been time-and-again held to require by the court system, is that when one religion has a favored position, other religions MUST be allowed to have the same type of position, in equal prominence.

So right now, we have:

The Satanic Temple, an established New York City-based religious organization, has offered to donate a public monument to Oklahoma’s Capitol Preservation Commission for display upon Oklahoma City’s capitol grounds. Described as an “homage” to Satan, the purpose of the monument is to complement and contrast the Ten Commandments monument that already resides on the North side of the building. The donation offer has been submitted and is currently awaiting the commission’s reply.

Ten Commandments Outside the Oklahoma Capitol

TFA has an interview with the Satanic Temple at that first link, and I recommend reading it if you’re interested in this. In the second article, we have this:

A week after the Satanic Temple said they wanted to put up a monument outside the Oklahoma Capitol building (in response to a Ten Commandments monument already on the grounds), a Hindu group is following in their footsteps. […]

The lawmakers in Oklahoma brought this upon themselves. If they wanted a Christian monument, they should’ve known that others would ask for representation of their religious beliefs, too. I guess they didn’t anticipate that the requests would come from normally silent groups.

Moving on, I highly recommend reading the last in the list of TFA posts. I’ll quote just a bit that I liked the most:

When a Christian display is allowed on government property, you might as well take advantage of the floodgates being open and demand a display of your own. Along the way, if legislators decide to ban religious and non-religious displays altogether, that’s just too damn bad… and if they ban your display, it’s an easy victory in court.

Oklahoma legislators are aware that the Satanists want to erect their own monument and they have no clue how to respond, so they’re just putting their collective foot in their mouth and crying “Christian privilege!” left and right:

“This is a faith-based nation and a faith-based state,” said Rep. Earl Sears, R-Bartlesville. “I think it is very offensive they would contemplate or even have this kind of conversation.”

Yes, how dare non-Christian groups contemplate using their First Amendment rights?! It’s totally a faith-based nation… even though nearly 20% of Americans use no religious label and even though our Constitution says it wouldn’t matter if 100% of them did. […]

“It is not going to get approved here without a court battle,” said Rep. Doug Cox, R-Grove. “I can assure you.”

… a statement no politician has ever said to a Christian group wanting to put a Ten Commandments monument.

“I am somewhat disappointed we are facing this sort of thing,” said Rep. Jeannie McDaniel, D-Tulsa. “We sort of knew this might happen. I know nothing of about this group. I have never heard of them. I think we opened the door and have to have a process to have it vetted.”

That may be the worst one of them all. We sort of figured other groups might want to take advantage of this opportunity, but I just can’t believe any of them actually did!

The story is almost good enough on its own, but this is the “WND Watch” blog, so what does World Net Daily think about it? They ended up doing two posts on the subject, but they were only the normal three-paragraph clips from other sources. The first was on December 8 from The Guardian, and the second was from ABC News and was posted on December 10: “Satanists Plan Statue Next to Ten Commandments,” and “Satanic Monument to Have Interactive Display for Kids?” The first has received 7 ratings (4.43/5) and 29 comments, and the second has garnered 5 ratings (3.80/5) and 17 comments.

Very, very surprisingly, the top-rated comment on the first post is by “American Standard” who got 19 up-votes and zero down-votes: “If you want faith in the public square you have to be prepared to accept all faiths in it.” What is a sane, reasonable, and competent comment doing on WND … and what is it doing as the highest-rated comment!? I’m actually thinking that the post was linked to on some popular atheist-leaning blog considering that all the top-rated comments are along this line.

We have to go down to comments like from “kingdad” with only 2 up-votes before typical WND thoughts start to come through: “I guess they might have the Right to do this, but that doesn’t make it right.
I would suggest the re-enactment of the opening Moments of the “Simpsons” Show where the two young men are disfiguring the “Big-uns” Statue. I’m sure such a lawless act of vandalism might be overlooked in this case. Since it is for the Public Good. That or a nightly egg toss to help decorate that Statue.”

Or, a comment from “Pi10107” with 2 up-votes: “I’m praying that lightning will strike the Satanists monument shattering it into tiny particles while leaving the Ten Commandments completely untouched.” And yet, the top-rated response to him was 7 up-votes and 1 down-vote, by “Shermer” who wrote, “I think you will be disappointed, but please keep us updated.”

On the second WND post, however, we get the typical WND thinking. “kingdad,” for example, has the highest-rated comment with 8 up-votes and 0 down: “Just another Satanic Object for Happy Pigeons to poop on! Dog’s to pee on! and People to Vandalize! Those Satanist will have to work overtime to keep that monument even standing much less free from fecal matter.”

Edited to Add (December 21, 2013): Another TFA post, pointing out that Oklahoma State Capitol officials have called a moratorium on all additional monuments. As Hemant put it, “we’re not saying yes or no to any of these other monuments because we’re already dealing with a lawsuit from the first one.” Though, “It’s interesting how the moratorium was declared now, even though the ACLU’s lawsuit was filed on August 20.”

Edited to Add (January 8, 2014): In “Satan Statue Unveiled for Oklahoma,” WND updates its readers.

Not So Help Me God (Unless You Want It)

I’m surprised it took WND so long to post this story, but they finally did their normal three-paragraph quote from FOX “news” under the headline, “Air Force Drops ‘So Help Me God’ from Oaths.”

Since I’ve read this story before, I’ll summarize: The Air Force has several oaths that they require people to take. They contain, “So help me God” within them. Clearly, this is a violation of church-state separation, the act of requiring an affirmation as part of your governmental program, but part of that affirmation is to a deity. So, one who does not believe in “God” must either lie – which kinda flies in the face of an oath – or not participate in that job, which means the government has placed a religious barrier in the place of a public office/service.

So, the latest news from at least a week or two ago that WND is just catching up on is that the Air Force has now dropped the requirement that people include the words “So help me God” in their oaths. If you want to include them, you can. It’s just no longer required.

Which of course you would not know if you read the WND article. After all, the sub-title to the article is, “Academy claims ‘oversight’: ‘Whoever was doing the editing didn’t catch it.'” Not sure I understand, considering that on October 26, they were pretty clear about removing it, to the point that congressmen were complaining about it on November 9. (And WND’s story was put out on Nov. 20.)

As of this writing (3 days after posting), it has 10 ratings (4.20/5 stars) and 64 comments. The comments aren’t really worth going into, they all kinda go off on the false premise that this was an “oversight” or are anti-Obama.

Three Logical Fallacies Mean We Should Pray in Jesus’ Name

A logical fallacy is a logical flaw in someone’s argument. As in, the argument is not based on on facts/data or sound reasoning, but on something that is a known flaw. For example, if I say “ghosts are real because lots of people believe they are real,” hopefully regardless of whether YOU think ghosts are real, you can spot the flaw in this argument: I’ve provided no real evidence they are real, just an opinion of many people. This is known as the “argument from popularity” or, to use the Latin, “argumentum ad populum.”

It should also be stated in this discussion preface that just because one makes a logical fallacy does not mean their argument is wrong. To say so would be the “fallacy fallacy.” But, it does mean that the person making the argument should re-state it without committing whatever fallacy they did. (Many of these are actually sub-types of the “non sequitur” fallacy, meaning “it does not follow.”)

Such is the case that Jerry Newcombe makes in his WND article, posted yesterday, entitled, “The Non-Jesus Religion.” Jerry writes about the case before the Supreme Court now, Galloway v. City of Greece (which is not in Greece, but rather near Rochester, NY). The city opened council meetings with very strong, very Christian prayers. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is suing, and it has made its way to the Supreme Court because different circuit courts have issued different rulings.

In his article, Mr. Newcombe commits at least three logical fallacies that I noticed. The first two, and most obvious, are the argument from antiquity and argument from authority. He spends the majority of his article talking about how the Founding Fathers (an authority figure, hence the argument from authority) would often open legislative sessions with prayers. He also noted that this practice has been going on for hundreds of years (hence the argument from antiquity, meaning that you’re making the case for something just ’cause it’s been done that way for a long time).

The third logical fallacy is a straw man. This is an argument where you misrepresent (deliberately or by mistake) your opponent’s argument and then argue against that. The straw man argument that you argue against is usually a weaker one than was actually made. In this case, David Gibbs III of the National Center for Life and Liberty is the lawyer (or a lawyer) who is arguing this case against the ACLU. To quote from Mr. Newcombe’s article: “David told me, “What the ACLU is arguing is that praying in Jesus’ name is establishing a religion. The reality is that their goal is to establish a non-Jesus religion.” David noted the ACLU is advancing cases only against anybody praying in Jesus’ name, not in any other tradition.”

That’s a straw man. Their goal is not to establish a non-Jesus religion. It just so happens that it’s the Christians who are the majority in this country so nearly every single example of legislative session opening prayers is done by Christians (or “a Jesus religion,” anyway). Most counter-examples only exist because they were originally Jesus-only, but the town was sued and told they had to either let any religion do it or stop ’em all together.

The reason that David’s argument is weaker than the ACLU’s is because the First Amendment prohibits government establishment of religion. If the ACLU were arguing that Jesus should be out in favor of non-Jesus religions, then clearly that’s just as bad as Jesus-only. And (I would argue) unconstitutional. It’s harder to argue the constitutionality of public money being spent to hire chaplains for prayers, or, at the very least, to pay public officials out of public money to waste their time listening to those prayers.

Not that either of the two commenters pointed these logical fallacies out. And the three ratings are all 5/5.