Dispatches from the Culture War

Thoughts From the Interface of Science, Religion, Law and Culture

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May 15, 2008

09:30
Bush's Latest Power Grab
Nat Hentoff writes of a new rationale the Bush administration is using to justify virtually unlimited authority to rewrite the law without ever telling anyone: At this very Senate hearing, John R. Elwood, the Office of Legal Counsel's deputy assistant attorney general, provided a startling example of the Bush administration's justification for the imperious essence of secret law. As reported in the May 1 New York Times, Elwood "disclosed a previously unpublicized method to cloak government activities." The Bush administration believes, he said, "that the president could ignore or modify existing executive orders that he and other presidents have issued without disclosing the new interpretation." Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
09:23
Huge Victory in Student Speech Case
Remember the case from Florida a few months ago where the principal forbid students from wearing anything pro-gay to school, including even rainbow stickers on their notebooks? Well he just got a major smackdown in federal court. But before even getting to the judge's statements, you have to see some of what the principal testified to in court the other day. A local TV station reports: The string of incidents began last September, when a student who was ridiculed for being gay approached Principal Davis to file a complaint. Monday in court, Davis says he told the student not to discuss her sexual orientation with other students. Days later, Davis heard of students making gay rights signs, and reports of 25 of them coming to school with the letters "GP" or "Gay Pride" written on their hands. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
09:16
No Abortion! No Exceptions!
To show you just how extreme the Republican platform is on abortion, McCain wants to change the plank on abortion to include an exception for rape, incest and the life of the mother and all hell is breaking loose. ABC News reports: Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., faces enormous pressure from social conservatives to ignore his repeated commitment to change the GOP's platform on abortion. "If he were to change the party platform," to account for exceptions such as rape, incest or risk to the mother's life, "I think that would be political suicide," said Tony Perkins, the president of the conservative Family Research Council, to ABC News. "I think he would be aborting his own campaign because that is such a critical issue to so many Republican voters and the Republican brand is already in trouble." Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
09:09
Clarke Drops Frankenmuth Cross Campaign
Lloyd Clarke has decided to drop his campaign to get a Lutheran cross removed from the city shield in Frankenmuth, Michigan. I just had a long conversation with him on the phone and he is both relieved and disappointed. He got absolutely no support from anyone in the community, which really weighed on him. The only support he got was from folks like me from elsewhere in the state, and our support may well have made things worse for him (in the sense that small towns like this tend to frown on "outsiders" coming in to tell them what to do). He told me that he'd gotten a lot of heat from his friends and family, who were embarrassed to be associated with his actions. In particular he was concerned that his sister, who works for the county, might have her job put in jeopardy. But he really struggled with whether to go forward or not. In the end, he told me: Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
09:02
Back to the Future on Evolution
This time in Maine, where at least one resident wants to party like it's 1967: The decades-old controversy over the teaching of evolution in public schools is resurfacing in Somerset County. A director of SAD 59 in the Madison area is urging the board to drop evolution from high school science curriculums on grounds that it's an unprovable theory that shouldn't be taught as fact. Matthew Linkletter of Athens says neither evolution nor creationism belongs in a science curriculum. Sorry, Matthew, the courts already ruled on this. Look up Epperson v Arkansas. Read the comments on this post...

May 14, 2008

09:30
NCBCPS Curriculum Surfaces in Texas Again
Since the Texas legislature passed a law encouraging (some say mandating) Bible electives in public schools, it was inevitable that the NCBCPS curriculum was going to be used in many of them. The Ector County schools in Odessa already tried it and was forced to settle a lawsuit by agreeing not to use that curriculum. Now it appears that at least one more is going to use that curriculum, in Pilot Point. Time to start looking for plaintiffs. Read the comments on this post...
09:30
NCBCPS Curriculum Surfaces in Texas Again
Since the Texas legislature passed a law encouraging (some say mandating) Bible electives in public schools, it was inevitable that the NCBCPS curriculum was going to be used in many of them. The Ector County schools in Odessa already tried it and was forced to settle a lawsuit by agreeing not to use that curriculum. Now it appears that at least one more is going to use that curriculum, in Pilot Point. Time to start looking for plaintiffs. Read the comments on this post...
09:23
Hagee "Apologizes" to Catholics
According to a Wall Street Journal blog, John Hagee has issued one of those fake "to anyone I might have offended" apologies to Bill Donohue and the Catholic Church: "Out of a desire to advance greater unity among Catholics and Evangelicals in promoting the common good, I want to express my deep regret for any comments that Catholics have found hurtful," Hagee wrote, according to an advanced copy of the letter reviewed by Washington Wire. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
09:23
Hagee "Apologizes" to Catholics
According to a Wall Street Journal blog, John Hagee has issued one of those fake "to anyone I might have offended" apologies to Bill Donohue and the Catholic Church: "Out of a desire to advance greater unity among Catholics and Evangelicals in promoting the common good, I want to express my deep regret for any comments that Catholics have found hurtful," Hagee wrote, according to an advanced copy of the letter reviewed by Washington Wire. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
09:16
Sadly Mistaken Post at Pam's House Blend
The post is by someone using the name dagon and it's entitled Free Debate or Freedom From Craziness. The author advocates shutting down free speech for those ideas he doesn't like. And he begins by showing his legal and historical ignorance: A decade or so ago a neo-Nazi group decided to hold a parade through a community heavily populated by survivors of Nazi concentration camps. There was a huge uproar. Progressives, veterans, and most sensible Americans came down on the side of "No Nazi March!" The ACLU and some progressives came down on the side of Freedom to Assemble and Free Speech - give 'em a parade permit. In the end a compromise was reached ... they marched in Chicago, I believe, and everyone ignored them. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
09:16
Sadly Mistaken Post at Pam's House Blend
The post is by someone using the name dagon and it's entitled Free Debate or Freedom From Craziness. The author advocates shutting down free speech for those ideas he doesn't like. And he begins by showing his legal and historical ignorance: A decade or so ago a neo-Nazi group decided to hold a parade through a community heavily populated by survivors of Nazi concentration camps. There was a huge uproar. Progressives, veterans, and most sensible Americans came down on the side of "No Nazi March!" The ACLU and some progressives came down on the side of Freedom to Assemble and Free Speech - give 'em a parade permit. In the end a compromise was reached ... they marched in Chicago, I believe, and everyone ignored them. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
09:09
An Examination of the DI's Dissent from Darwinism List
PZ posted this Youtube video and I had to put it up here as well. This guy emailed all of the biologists and biochemists named on the list and found that nearly all of them accepted common descent and several of them said they've demanded to be taken off the list. He also points out what many of us have pointed out before, that the DI dishonestly uses different standards for the institutional affiliation of each person on the list. An honest list would use either where they got their highest degree or where they work now, but the DI changes which it uses depending on which sounds more prestigious. Indeed, they seem to use any past affiliation that sounds prestigious, no matter how tenuous (for years they listed Richard Sternberg's affiliation as the Smithsonian, where he neither worked nor got his degree). Video below the fold. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
09:09
An Examination of the DI's Dissent from Darwinism List
PZ posted this Youtube video and I had to put it up here as well. This guy emailed all of the biologists and biochemists named on the list and found that nearly all of them accepted common descent and several of them said they've demanded to be taken off the list. He also points out what many of us have pointed out before, that the DI dishonestly uses different standards for the institutional affiliation of each person on the list. An honest list would use either where they got their highest degree or where they work now, but the DI changes which it uses depending on which sounds more prestigious. Indeed, they seem to use any past affiliation that sounds prestigious, no matter how tenuous (for years they listed Richard Sternberg's affiliation as the Smithsonian, where he neither worked nor got his degree). Video below the fold. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
09:02
One Giant Cross, Slightly Used.
This is a rather odd situation. The Holmen Village Board will have at least three offers to buy the land under the Star Hill cross/star display when it meets May 8, including one bid of 12 times the value of the property. The American Humanist Association based in Washington, D.C., sent an offer to buy the land for $1,000 and included a check for the full amount. The Madison-based Freedom from Religion Foundation topped that with a bid of $1,200. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
09:02
One Giant Cross, Slightly Used.
This is a rather odd situation. The Holmen Village Board will have at least three offers to buy the land under the Star Hill cross/star display when it meets May 8, including one bid of 12 times the value of the property. The American Humanist Association based in Washington, D.C., sent an offer to buy the land for $1,000 and included a check for the full amount. The Madison-based Freedom from Religion Foundation topped that with a bid of $1,200. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

May 13, 2008

09:30
God Angry at Oklahoma, Missouri and Georgia
Obviously so: Crews and search dogs hunted Sunday for survivors or bodies in piles of debris after tornadoes and storms rumbled across the region a day earlier and killed at least 23 people in three states. So how long before we hear what God was angry about this time? John Hagee, you discerned the signs and explained Hurricane Katrina. Any guesses here? Pat Robertson? You claim to talk to God on a regular basis. Gays again? The ACLU this time? Whatever it is, I'm sure those 23 people deserved it. Read the comments on this post...
09:23
Scientology Official Threatening Protestors?
L. Ron Brown has a frightening post at the Frame Problem where the leader of the Church of Scientology in Canada, speaking to protesters wearing masks, tells them "we could find you, just so you know. We could. If we wanted to." Sounds like a not-so-subtle threat to me. What other possible purpose could be served by saying that? He has video of it as well, which I'll post below the fold: Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
09:16
Evolution and Atheism: A Fascinating Exchange
Two old friends have left a fascinating set of comments on an earlier thread and I liked them so much that I'm moving them up here to make sure everyone sees them. I have known Henry Neufeld for about 15 years, since first meeting him in the Compuserve religion forum. I have known Sastra for probably 10 years, since meeting her in a religious debate channel on IRC. Henry is a Christian, a Hebrew scholar and the director of a Bible school; Sastra is an atheist and longtime activist. Despite those differences, they are two of the clearest thinkers I have ever known. I'll paste the exchange below the fold. First, Sastra's comment: Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
09:09
Dover and the ACLU Slur
I just finished reading The Devil in Dover by Lauri Lebo (if you only read one book about the Dover trial, this is the one to read - it's absolutely brilliant in every respect) and she discusses the background of Vic Walczak. Vic is the legal director of the ACLU of Pittsburgh and was one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs in the Dover trial. And his entire life puts the lie to this idiotic slur that the ACLU are communists. Before going to law school, Walczak went to Poland to give aid Lech Walesa and the Solidarity movement. He documented police brutality, wiretapping and other human rights violations as he dodged the secret police. He was detained by them and strip searched, but the documentation had been handed over to an American consulate worker who would ship them back to the US in a diplomatic bag. When he returned to the US, he knew that he had to become a human rights attorney. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
09:02
Two New Church/State Lawsuits
There are a couple of interesting new lawsuits that involve church/state issues. The first is in California, where the ACLU is representing a religious group that was prevented from feeding the homeless in a state park. They've filed suit against the California Department of Parks and Recreation. The second is in Pennsylvania, where the ADF is representing a Christian student group in a suit against Shippensburg University, claiming that the college is violating free speech rights through their anti-harassment/hate speech code. In 2004, the ADF had settled with the university in a similar case but they are arguing now that the university isn't holding up their end of that settlement. Read the comments on this post...