Onward Christian soldiers

Just when you think that what you know about the George W. Bush administration's depravity, rank hypocracy and sadististic bullying masquerading as patriotic piety has hit the bottom of the barrel, someone comes along and points out that there is a whole other barrel underneath this one. Apparently Donald Rumsfeld, not content to have things like prayer meetings going on at the Pentagon and a chief of Special Forces who make Gen. Jack T. Ripper look like the moderate wing of the GOP/military axis, took it upon himself to make special title pages for the regular top secret briefing he delivered to the president and handful of others. Pages with heroic, glamorous images of America's Heroic Glamorous Defenders of Heroic Freedom Heroically Defending Freedom in Glamorous ways, overlaid with stirring passages from, yep - you guessed it - the Bible.
(Image shamelessly lifted from Jesus' General)

See them all here

Keep in mind that this was not an attempt to play to the religious rubes out there in the hinterlands or a pose adopted to curry favor with the evangelistic electorate. These covers were for super-secret executive level only reports that were circulated only to the most senior people.
One wonders what the "Prince of Peace" would make of that. One also wonders why none of these pictures were included with suitable biblical quotes:

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth

Whatever you do to the least of my brothers, you do to me.

Suffer the little children to come unto me

If you are American, write your president, your congressman, your senator, your newspaper and demand that the people responsible for starting this hideous human meatgrinder on false pretenses for their own selfish reasons be brought to trial.

Gratitude to fellow Fez enthusiast Atta J. Turk, this is all crossposted from the Woodshed.

Popline makes abortion a dirty word

Don't know what Popline is? Popline is a reproductive health data base funded by USAID. In their own words:

POPLINE^®(POPulation information onLINE), the world's largest database on reproductive health, containing citations with abstracts to scientific articles, reports, books, and unpublished reports in the field of population, family planning, and related health issues. POPLINE is maintained by the INFO Project at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health/Center for Communication Programs and is funded by the United States Agency for International Development. (USAID).

POPLINE contains nearly 360,000 records and has been maintained since 1973 by the INFO Project (formerly Population Information Program). The majority of items are published from 1970 to the present, however, there are selected citations dating back to 1827. The database adds 12,000 records annually and is updated every Monday.

In addition to free text searching, the database can be searched by keywords from the POPLINE Thesaurus , a controlled vocabulary of 2,400+ terms used to index documents in the database.

POPLINE's special features include links to free, fulltext documents; the ability to limit your search to peer-reviewed journal articles; RSS feeds for topical searches; and many abstracts in French and Spanish.

But it seems, on April 1st, USAID and Popline adjusted their search function to add a few stopwords and some researchers noticed. (An email exchange you won't want to pass over.)

This is where you get to play a bit of a game. Go to the Popline search page and type in "Abortion".

The answer you'll receive from the world's largest reproductive health database is No records found by latest query. This, despite the fact that Popline has a library brimming with articles and peer reviewed papers on abortion. Popline has blocked search access to over 25,000 records.

Now go to Popline's search page and type in "Abstinence".

Result: 3940 records returned.

As Jurassicpork says,

The Cristopaths win again. Please play again after the elections!

And do hit Jurassicpork's link to the Mexico City policy of the Reagan era which was neatly resurrected by George W. Bush and his theocratic masters.

UPDATE: It appears Popline made a small adjustment to their search function. Searches for "Abortion" and "abortion" are now suddenly returning records. Slowly they are increasing in number with each subsequent search. Thanks to Mike in comments.

Your government is being run by Christian Dominionists

Yeah. Thanks for taking the shroud off the agenda. Christian dominionist, Charles McVety, is taking full credit for a change in the Income Tax Act which allows the federal government to censor anything McVety finds doesn't meet his Christian zombie brigade agenda.

A well-known evangelical crusader is claiming credit for the federal government's move to deny tax credits to TV and film productions that contain graphic sex and violence or other offensive content.

Charles McVety, president of the Canada Family Action Coalition, said his lobbying efforts included discussions with Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, and "numerous" meetings with officials in the Prime Minister's Office.

This slimy piece of work is exactly what the Harper government is all about. In January 2006, just before election day, I wrote this about Harper and the coalition of Christian right-wing freaks that had gathered around him.

Harper gathers support, either through candidates or directly, from groups which will expect their social issues to receive priority on any Conservative government order paper. Vote Marriage Canada, The Promise Keepers, Focus On The Family Canada, R.E.A.L. Women of Canada, Canada Family Action Coalition and Campaign Life Coalition are some of the groups which support the Harper campaign by either promoting their candidate or openly supporting the Conservative Party of Canada platform. All of these groups are homophobic, most are anti-abortion and most pursue an extreme right-wing christian agenda. While some claim to be non-partisan, that suggestion is quickly dispatched with one look at their election literature. Many of these groups are Canadian branches of larger US bodies led by proselytizing christian extremists.

[...]

As much as Harper preaches "less government" he only means it in terms of taxation and delivery of programs. When it comes to social governance, a Conservative government would be in your face, in your bedroom and likely listening to your phone calls.

At the time several readers responded suggesting I was overstating the situation and being deliberately hyperbolic.

So, tell me which part of that prediction isn't now coming true?

After Harper's narrow minority victory in 2006, McVety was one of the first people invited to the Prime Minister's office. In September 2006, Marci McDonald wrote the cover story for The Walrus providing a glimpse of how ingrained the Christian dominionists had become in the Harper government. She too, was largely dismissed as exaggerating the problem even though we now knew what McVety was all about.

During the last election, as head of a handful of pro-family lobbies including the Defend Marriage Coalition, McVety emerged as a power to be reckoned with. He bought up the rights to unclaimed Liberal websites such as josephvolpe.com and stacked a handful of Conservative nomination contests in favour of evangelical candidates adamantly opposed to same-sex matrimony, a campaign he has vowed to repeat. As Harper navigates the tricky waters of minority rule—keeping the lid on any eruptions of rhetorical fervour from the rambunctious theo-cons in his caucus—it is noteworthy that he has continued to cultivate a man regarded as the lightning rod of the Christian right. Last spring, those around the prime minister drafted McVety to help sell the government’s contentious child-care policy, and on budget day he was the personal guest of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty in the Commons’ vip gallery.

This latest move is intended to shut down Canadian film and television productions which don't pass the "Disney" test of McVety's living room. But worse, far worse, is the absolute fact that a rabid Christian dominionist has penetrated government and is now writing policy.

If you think McVety wasn't behind Bill C-484, think again. It's right on the front page of McVety's Family Action Coalition website.

McVety clearly has a strategy: Get the thin edge of various Christian dominionist wedges into government policy and when the time is right, drive them in as deep as possible. McVety wants a Christian evangelist theocracy and Harper is more than happy to lead it for him. Anything for power.

And while McVety is proudly taking credit for his attack on Canadian freedoms via the Income Tax Act, there is this whiny little line off his group's website:

(NOTE: Due to CFAC's political actions to support family, religious freedom and democracy, Revenue Canada will not allow us to issue charitable tax receipts.)

Take note of the attempt to portray themselves as "persecuted". If Harper ever gets a majority, you can expect that McVety's groups, hardly beacons of freedom and democracy, will find a way to further amend the Income Tax Act to make themselves tax-exempt.

This isn't just dangerous. This is very dangerous. Bill C-10 should never have gotten out of committee. It is up to the opposition, the majority in Parliament and on parliamentary committees, to be aware that Harper is serving the Christian dominionist agenda. It's time they get off their asses and stop the creep towards a theocracy.

No more playing hooky from committee meetings, no more missing votes. Read every line of every piece of proposed legislation and do the required research. Do otherwise and we'll be in the same condition as the train-wreck that rests against our southern border.

Did they learn book covers from Jonah Goldberg?

OK... some things just catch your attention, and that is exactly what the cover of this book is intended to do.

As Pam says, this is from the I shit you not department.

This is a production of the U.K. conservative Anglican community which contains, among other entertaining chapters,

>* Pastoral Considerations for Homosexuality

* Post-Gay: The Transforming Power of God

* Post-Lesbian: My Testimony

* Same Sex Attraction. Is it innate and immutable?

* A Faithful Church: The Bible and Same-Sex Sex

* Civil Partnerships: Advice to UK Parishes and Clergy

* Unexpected Consequences: The Sexualisation of Youth

The book is published by the Latimer Trust... a registered *cough* charity.

One Body. One Person. One Count.

Conservative MP Ken Epp has a private member's bill before the Canadian House of Commons entitled "The Unborn Victims of Violence Act".

Epp has stated that this proposed legislation is intended to give Canadian judges the power to try those who perpetrate violence against pregnant women for a second count of violence against a fetus.

This is, at best, fuzzy law. The Supreme Court of Canada has already resolved (Section 223(1) of the Criminal Code) that a fetus is not a person until it has exited the birth canal alive. Dobson v. Dobson, heard by the Supreme Court of Canada affirmed that a woman and fetus are physically "one" person and all rights accrue to the woman.

This bill has, in reality, one purpose. It is an attempt by the likes of Epp to sneak around Canada's established abortion laws by finding a way to declare a fetus a "person". Make no mistake, Epp's constituency is the Christian dominionist lobby and if this bill doesn't end up where it belongs, trampled on the floor of the House, women will immediately loose rights established under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the rulings of the Supreme Court.

Epp's bill will do absolutely nothing to stem the violence against women, pregnant or not. It will however fly in the face of existing law by creating a separation of a pregnant woman from a fetus. In the US this same kind of legislation has been used to take action pregnant women themselves if the state determined that a pregnant woman did not act in a manner the legal system deemed appropriate.

As an aside, Epp is resigning from politics and has no intention of running in the next federal election. This proposed legislation is actually a land mine he intends to leave behind.

This legislation has no other purpose than to execute a sneak attack on the rights of women.

Stop it now.

This legislation is scheduled for debate in the House on February 29th and for a vote sometime around March 5th. The Bloc and the NDP are going to whip the vote of their parties against it. The Liberals are leaving it a free vote to their members. That needs to change. Write Liberal leader Stephane Dion and demand a whipped vote.

Crush this bill. On February 25th, write about it.

More... much more, at Birth Pangs.

Video by Pale.

UPDATE: Get out and sign the online petition. Make your voice heard. (Thanks to Fern Hill in comments)

It's not a puzzle. It's a trait.

Stageleft has made another excellent observation and finds the consistent propagandizing by right-wingers something of a puzzle. (You must read the examples)

I used to find this kind of thing genuinely confusing. But the answer, of course, is simple. These folks are simply propagandists. They have no interest in “truth” or “accuracy”. Facts are tools, not the foundation of an argument, to be selectively deployed as raw material for propaganda and ignored when inconvenient.

But then we were handed the evidence in two US elections. The ascendancy of George W. Bush to the presidency of the United States had nothing to do with reasoned debate or facts or accuracy. It had everything to do with cherry-picking information and weaving misrepresented data into what amounted to a continuing campaign to smear opponents and anyone who did not blindly accept everything Bush stood for.

That is why when, in Canada, Harper's brand of conservativism took over the right-wing of Canadian politics rational people started to get nervous. This was not the old form of fiscal conservative which made up the bulk of Canada's conservative parties of the past. This was a group of movement conservatives and an amalgam that we had not previously experienced in this country.

The writers and propagandists that Stage Left finds puzzling represent the coming together of two significantly dissimilar groups which, despite their differences, shared a common goal which they could not achieve on their own: The socially conservative "religious right" and amoral authoritarian politicians who found participative democracy an impediment to rule - and their own comfort and enrichment.

Their common goal? Political power.

At first glance the "religious right" might appear to be a bad fit with the politically ambitious. Not so.

Christian dominionists have always sought political power. They once possessed it, but as human rights and progressive government took hold, the place fundamentalist Christian dominance once held over the people was eventually replaced by democracy and, something no fundamentalist Christian accepts, political and religious dissent.

The "religious right", a group which inherently submitted to authority, found in the amoral political establishment a kinship. The amoral politicians, on the other hand, found a body of votes by simply offering to "share" power if they received the support of the "religious right".

Further, the politicians saw an advantage in garnering, if not the affection, then at least the positive response of the "religious right" - this was a large block of people who were given to accept the dictates of who ever held power, without question. In fact, the authoritarian nature of fundamentalist churches would work well in containing any dissent for whatever undemocratic policies the politicians were likely to pursue, regardless of how immoral they may be.

While the politicians shared none of the religious "faith" of those with whom they formed a political bond, they simply had to provide them access to domestic social policy while the politicians pursued their own interests and provided the same guarantee that the "religious right" demanded of all leaders - protection from outside forces. Enemies, foreign and domestic, could be defined as anyone the "religious right" viewed as a threat to the pursuit of their faith and the expansion of their power.

The politicians, out to serve their own purposes, had but to present the illusion of a threat and then promise to do everything to protect their followers from it. It didn't matter if there was, in fact, a real threat. The politicians simply had to create one, or expand on something otherwise insignificant and then promise to provide protection. In short, if they had to resort to lying to maintain the support of their "religious" followers, that would serve their purposes handily.

Of course, the amoral politicians in government had a failing. Far from adhering to the "pure" lifestyles dictated by the churches of their followers, these people, steeped in an overwhelming sense of personal entitlement, regularly stepped over a moral line even secular humanists found objectionable. Luckily for the politicians however, the constituency which brought them to power had provided a convenient and virtually painless safety valve: confession and repentance.
Those politicians caught up in, for example, a sex scandal, had simply to "go public", shed the appropriate tears, ask for "God's" help (on national television), declare themselves cleansed of the "devil" that had possessed them, accept the forgiveness of the fundamentalist Christians who supported them and go back to their comfortable lifestyle. Being a protector, it followed, brought a lot of pressure.

The politicians were, of course, lying. Why? Because it worked. Far from having to explain themselves or vanish in disgrace, they were assured that the lie would be accepted. What made them so certain? Because the leaders of the churches of the "religious right" were also a pack of liars. Every single one of them who had claimed to have had a conversation with "God" was a liar. It was in the best interest of the church leaders to convince their followers that the errant politician was indeed being truthful. There was, after all, more at stake than, say, banging some intern; there was power.

The easy way to convince the followers? The intern was a manipulative whore who had led the now repentant politician down the path of "evil". To the followers of the "religious right" that more than made up for the sin, not because it made any particular sense or was even close to the truth, but because those in authority said it was true and one simply did not question authority. The only factual data was that there was sex involved. The rest was molded around that piece of data to fit a convenient and comfortable belief.

To both the "religious right" and the amoral political crowd, lying works for them. They don't engage in argument or debate. They enter a situation with a preconceived view and then either pick the facts that fit to support that view or, if the facts refute their belief, ignore them altogether.

If you want to read more on this there is no place better than the research of Bob Altemeyer and his 2006 book, The Authoritarians. The whole book is available online and is downloadable at no charge. Every word is worth the read.

I'll leave you with an excerpt from one of Bob's notes to chapter two. It highlights an incident which may help explain what I was saying. On August 22, 2006, The Winnipeg Free Press contained a story:

My local newspaper recently carried a story about a woman in a nearby city who wrote a letter to the editor criticizing the mayor and city council. She said the present council lacked initiative and acted too often in the interest of “boys with money and toys.” A few days later the pastor of the Pentecostal church she attends wrote her, saying her letter was an embarrassment because good Christians do not publicly criticize their leaders. He told her to find another church if she was not going to change her ways.

So yes, they lie. Because it's a trait. And those who do not possess the trait are ostracized.

Trent's Lott

Hmmmm, radical right-wing social conservative and close personal friend of definitely-not-gay-because-he-persecutes-gays Larry "tap dance" Craig Trent Lott is resigning to spend more time with his family or some other obviously bullshit reason.
Would it be irresponsible to speculate? No, it would be irresponsible NOT to speculate.

Max does the Christian Zombie Brigade

Max Blumenthal goes sleuthing again and finds himself at the Value Voters Summit, an event organized by James Dobson's, Focus On The Family and Dobson's Washington D.C. lobby shop, the Family Research Council.

You really need to watch the video on this one. It would be great entertainment if it wasn't for the fact that the pure wingnutty bile spewing out of the mouths of this lot is what they really believe.

Executions for blasphemers and gays. Public schools closed in favour of religious education.

What makes this lot any different from their constructed Islamofascist threat?

Absolutely nothing.

If it's your JOB to support the troops...

You should be supporting the troops. Not making a fucking proselytizing video for your phoney Christian fundamentalist downtown crusade.

Two organisations, Veterans for Common Sense (VCS) and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), demanded an investigation Tuesday of Daniel Cooper, President George W. Bush's undersecretary for benefits at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Their complaint stems from an appearance Cooper made in a fundraising video for the evangelical group Christian Embassy, which carries out missionary work among the Washington elite as part of the Campus Crusade for Christ. In the video, Cooper says of his Bible study, "it's not really about carving out time, it really is a matter of saying what is important. And since that's more important than doing the job -- the job's going to be there, whether I'm there or not."

Well, hell! He just gave me one fucking wonderful idea. Go be a fucking minister and practice your superstitious bullshit where it isn't going to affect people who need real help. Take your fucking sky-god with you.

Since Cooper was appointed the head of the Veterans Benefits Administration, the number of veterans waiting on their disability claims has increased dramatically, from 325,000 in 2002 to 600,000 today. On average, a U.S. war veteran must wait six months for an answer to their application. If a vet decides to appeal a denial, the process often drags on as long as three years. In addition, Veterans Administration hospitals, clinics and counseling centres report that more than 52,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). But under Cooper's leadership, only 19,000 of those veterans were approved for service-connected disability compensation for PTSD, a significant discrepancy.

The US government is actually using taxpayers' money to support this useless sonofabitch.

"He's prostituting his position," argued Mikey Weinstein, the head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. "We could have done just as poorly as he's done by sticking a German Shepard (sic) or a cactus in that job."

Weinstein is wrong. They would have done better with a dog or a cactus in the job. The closest thing a dog has to superstition or religion (same thing) is worship of the human who feeds it. And a cactus isn't a waste of good air.

Long time observers of the religious right say the controversy surrounding Daniel Cooper is part of a pattern. "Evangelicals have been working through the military and government agencies since the Cold War as part of the fight against 'Godless Communism', but they tried to follow certain boundaries" said Chip Berlet, a senior analyst of Political Research Associates in Boston. "With the Bush administration we've seen many egregious examples of officials stepping way out of line of any kind of boundary, of which this promotional video is a particularly notable example."

That is putting it mildly. This is a link to the Christian Embassy in Washington, DC. The effort of that organization is nothing short of turning the United States government into a phoney Christian-dominated, fundamentalist-compliant, edict issuing printing unit. They are trying to create a Christian theocracy. And Bush has been happy to let them proceed unchecked. Just ignore the rules and use your tax-exempt organization and your taxpayer funded position to pave the way for the end-times.

And what goes along with all these phoney Christians?

Unbelievably incompetent government.

Abortion is legal - even for those who only get them in an emergency

I know. The title sounds ridiculous. In fact, abortion, to most women, is done as a matter of emergency. Even to the religious fundamentalists, for whom abortion is morally wrong and violates the patriarchal instructions of their church, and; to Roman Catholics, for whom abortion represents a mortal sin and violates... the patriarchal instructions of their church.

But both those groups do acquire legal and safe abortions. Then many turn around and demand they be made illegal.

Birth Pangs highlights an article by Vancouver activist and writer, Joyce Arthur, in which she recounts the anecdotes of doctors and abortion clinic workers dealing with anti-choice women who were ignoring their own preaching.

Go read. It's good.

Which one of these is peddling crap?

For the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, these people are getting weirder with each passing day. Max Blumenthal crashes the Christians United for Israel conference and leads it off with disgraced former US congressman Tom Delay hoping for the second coming of Christ. Further on, the leader of this Christian organization calls for an immediate US strike on Iran.

Salvage points out that in Canada the same type of nutball doesn't get to lead the wingnut party of Canada. (But he gets to be the Public Safety Minister).

In other Christian events:

The mail-order minister of a Hollywood church that burns marijuana during services and allegedly sells it to members says that's protected under federal law because the drug is a religious sacrament. But Judge Mary Strobel has ruled that the Reverend Craig X. Rubin can't use federal law as a defense because he faces only state charges. Rubin, who's representing himself at his drug trial, says members of his Temple 420 believe that marijuana is the tree of life mentioned in the Bible. Though ordained in 1990 by the Universal Life Church, police and prosecutors describe Rubin as a drug dealer. He faces up to seven years in prison if convicted of possessing marijuana for sale. The 41-year-old Rubin has no legal experience, and says he spent last weekend praying and smoking marijuana with Indians in a sweat lodge at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

I have a lot to say about this, but I need to deal with a plantar wart.

Remember the Rapture? The pastor spells it out.

In keeping with the theme of the lunacy of the rightwing christofascists, Cernig picked up on this telling bit of superstitious crap from MichNews.

Prophecy continues to unfold. The Bible has warned about Middle East turmoil increasing "in the latter times." In Ezekiel 36-39, God speaks of bringing Jews from around the world to Israel, not because they deserve their own land but to vindicate His holy name. They besmirched deity's holy name by repeatedly sinning over centuries; but God will not tolerate His holiness smeared without vindication, hence Jews gravitating to Israel "in the end times." So look to the divine miracle: May 14, 1948, when Israel became a nation for the first time in centuries. Jews from all over the globe went to Israel, their homeland. Ezekiel predicted Israel's flourishing: herds, flocks, fruitage, ruined cities rebuilt. With Israel having settled in, however, biblical predictions go on to state that the enemies surrounding Israel attack Jews mercilessly. Blood flows like rivers. Natural calamities come also upon Israel, convincing Jews and Gentiles alike that God is God and that His holiness must be recognized. At the close of the Church Age — "in the latter days" — Israel will then come under the blessing of the returned Messiah Christ's peace. ...What is particularly interesting is that the Ezekiel Israel-signs are in place — Jews returned to Israel as their own nation, Israeli enemies staged to attack Israel, and threats of global holocaust coming from the chief killing antichrist on the planet — Islam. Put the more generic signs of Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21 alongside the specific Israel signs of Ezekiel 36-39 and you have the converging of the "latter day" signs.

Now, you may not have heard J. Grant Swank, Jr. There's no reason you should have. Aside from MichNews, Swank writes for the Magic City Morning Star. Yeah, I know, you've never heard of that either. It's an online newspaper, written by volunteers in Millinocket, Maine.

A whole bouquet of Swank's writing can be found here. Within his columns you will find the standard christofascist fare: bigotry, gay-bashing, anti-choice vitriol and a healthy dose of religious hypocrisy.

Swank doesn't spend all his time in Maine. He owns 50 acres in Kennetcook, Nova Scotia which he inherited from his wife's parents. He makes rather a point of thanking his dead father-in-law for the bequest and tells us it's all part of God's master plan. You know, killing off his in-laws so he could enjoy those Bay of Fundy breezes.

Why would Israel want to ally themselves with this mob? Their whole focus is to annihilate the Jews.

H/T Brilliant at Breakfast

Recognition!!

ChristianGovernment.ca has a newsletter!

Cool!

It's a little late, but there it is for all to read. Apparently, because we don't subscribe to the site owner's version of Christianity... or any other organized religion for that matter, we're all a bunch of Marxists.

Umm... no. I'm a democrat. I don't believe anybody's religion has any place in government. And if you don't believe what theocracies do to the people of a country, you only have to read this.

No matter. The newsletter goes on to describe a speaking engagement (the cause of the delay in getting this critical newsletter out) with the Kitchener-Waterloo chapter of the homophobic defendMarriage Canada.

The newsletter takes particular issue with Mike's post. Apparently they don't like the idea that there is a body of people in this country who don't like having "the one true religion" crammed down our fucking throats by a religious freak. (That's not blasphemy because Bloedow's theology is anything but Christian. It is profanity. Get over it.)

Anyway, it seems Mike isn't the only one being identified as dangerous. Bloedow's readers are being cautioned about these posts:

Unrepentant Old Hippie blog (The whole friggin' blog, mind you!);
The Galloping Beaver blog (Thanks! Love the attention!);
Canadian Cynic (You may get a Blogging Tory wound stripe from that);
The Eternal Gaijin's blog (That is a disambiguation from the newsletter);
Rational Reasons blog (Because Mike won't take any shit from him).

If you've come from ChristianGovernment.ca, welcome! Here, there is no true religion. Please observe that elsewhere.

I encourage you to pursue and practice your faith. It has nothing to do with government. And if you try to make your religion a part of my government, I will fucking-well stop you. Dead in your tracks.

Hmmm.... checking the statcounter and I'm getting this uneasy feeling. It's starting to look like ChristianGovernment.ca has one active reader. Aside from those of us listed above I mean.

That's hardly worth the profanity and blasphemy.

Fair Warning

Rest assured, all of you, Mike would not constitute an army of one.

From what I have read, you intend force your narrow interpretation of Christianity on all Canadians, whether people subscribe to that view or not and whether people want it or not. You preach in nice tones and talk about things like "subsidiarity" and "decentralization" and how strong central government is un-christian (I suggest you let the Vatican know about that one - or the Mormons in Salt Lake or the folks in Westminster Abbey). But you also talk of "secular humanism as a threat that must be suppressed" and that "Christianity is the basis for the rule of law, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, freedom of speech and equality before the law." In other words, you are stating that one can only have freedom if one agrees with your religious views otherwise they must be suppressed.

And this is the side most of us are on:

I personally promise you that you will be fought and defeated by any means necessary. I have every right and every intention of defending my family, my property and my liberty from attack. I will defend these things with every peaceable means available, but through violence if necessary. I will not sit back and let you tell my daughter she does not control her own body, or tell my wife she cannot do any job she wishes. I will never be subjugated by those who would condemn me or my friends because we choose not to believe your religious nonsense. I will not stand by while my neighbours are oppressed and forced to convert, or have their personal religions destroyed.

Any questions?

US Dept. of Justice. Religious rights trump civil rights

And just in case you thought the threat of the Christian fundamentalists taking over government is something we really shouldn't concern ourselves with, Jill tags this bit of information.

In recent years, the Bush administration has recast the federal government’s role in civil rights by aggressively pursuing religion-oriented cases while significantly diminishing its involvement in the traditional area of race.

No kidding!

The changes are evident in a variety of actions:

¶Intervening in federal court cases on behalf of religion-based groups like the Salvation Army that assert they have the right to discriminate in hiring in favor of people who share their beliefs even though they are running charitable programs with federal money.

¶Supporting groups that want to send home religious literature with schoolchildren; in one case, the government helped win the right of a group in Massachusetts to distribute candy canes as part of a religious message that the red stripes represented the blood of Christ.

¶Vigorously enforcing a law enacted by Congress in 2000 that allows churches and other places of worship to be free of some local zoning restrictions. The division has brought more than two dozen lawsuits on behalf of churches, synagogues and mosques.

¶Taking on far fewer hate crimes and cases in which local law enforcement officers may have violated someone’s civil rights. The resources for these traditional cases have instead been used to investigate trafficking cases, typically involving foreign women used in the sex trade, a favored issue of the religious right.

¶Sharply reducing the complex lawsuits that challenge voting plans that might dilute the strength of black voters. The department initiated only one such case through the early part of this year, compared with eight in a comparable period in the Clinton administration.

If that doesn't start sending a chill down your spine, it gets even better.

Along with its changed civil rights mission, the department has also tried to overhaul the roster of government lawyers who deal with civil rights. The agency has transferred or demoted some experienced civil rights litigators while bringing in lawyers, including graduates of religious-affiliated law schools and some people vocal about their faith, who favor the new priorities. That has created some unease, with some career lawyers disdainfully referring to the newcomers as “holy hires.”

And guess who one of them was?

Ms. Oliveri and several other law professors said placement officers and faculty at their schools found that graduates seeking work at the Justice Department had a better chance by cleansing their résumés of liberal affiliations while emphasizing ties to the Federalist Society, a Washington conservative group, or membership in a religious fellowship.

Ms. Oliveri recalled that when she was hired in 2000 by the Justice Department, she was impressed by the accomplishments of her peers. But once the political appointees controlled the hiring, she said, “The change in the quality of people who were chosen was very pronounced.”

When the front office sent around the résumés of those newly hired for the honors program, she said, “It was obvious what they had: conservative and religious bona fides.”

There were several cases where the US Dept. of Justice stepped outside their mandate. They engaged in ideological cases beyond the constitutional scope provided for by Congress.

But, what the hell. They're harmless, right? It's only the Constitution of the United States and we are all pretty much aware of what that means to the Bush administration.

And it's not like anyone predicted it or anything like that.

Jeebus would be proud

A few days ago Unrepentant Old Hippie posted this about a new website entitled CHRISTIANGOVERNMENT.CA.

Like JJ, I could see a reason for concern. As much as I have no use for organized religion in any form, as long as religion stays out of the secular operation of government, at all levels, I don't care what they preach or about who might choose to listen.

That's the guaranteed freedom they and I possess.

However, Christian Government has an extensive link list of organizations which make no secret of their desire to impose their so-called Christian values on the entire population by having a place in making government policy.

Their link list reads like a who's who of Canadian religious right douchebaggery: REALwomen, Focus on the Family, Institute for Canadian Values, Canada Family Action Coalition, Marriage Canada, and even the despicable NARTH (homophobic hate site) are just a few of the whackjobs "Christian Government" links to. Especially troubling is something called "Take Back Canada", a site which operates under the pretense of being "pro-family" but in fact is almost entirely devoted to gay-bashing. ("Gays want your children!" kind of stuff.)

This is the crowd that demands the right to shove their beliefs down your throat and then howls PERSECUTION! when you don't let them get away with it.

Well today, one of the Christian followers dropped by Unrepentant Old Hippie to leave a message of peace and Christian love.

Awesome.

Dissension in the ranks...

The anti-choice crowd are starting to chew on each others' legs. Apparently various groups of anti-choice activists view the US Supreme Court's upholding of the partial birth abortion ban differently and the criticism is aimed directly at Focus On The Family's, James Dobson.

In a highly visible rift in the anti-abortion movement, a coalition of evangelical Protestant and Roman Catholic groups is attacking a longtime ally, Focus on the Family founder James C. Dobson.

Using rhetoric that they have reserved in the past for abortion clinics, some of the coalition's leaders accuse Dobson and other national antiabortion leaders of building an "industry" around relentless fundraising and misleading information.

It took them long enough, but then those same groups were more than happy to ally themselves with Dobson when it looked like his group of Christofascists were useful to their cause.

Now, they're not happy.

In an open letter to Dobson that was published as a full-page ad May 23 in the Colorado Springs Gazette, Focus on the Family's hometown newspaper, and May 30 in the Washington Times, the heads of five small but vocal groups called the Carhart decision "wicked," and accused Dobson of misleading Christians by applauding it.

Carhart is even "more wicked than Roe" because it is "not a ban, but a partial-birth abortion manual" that affirms the legality of late-term abortions "as long as you follow its guidelines," the ads said. "Yet, for many years you have misled the Body of Christ about the ban, and now about the ruling itself."

The Christian groups don't accept that the decision of the US Supreme Court is tantamount to a group of old men telling women how their health is going to be managed and interfering with medical practice and decisions which should not extend beyond a woman and her doctor.

Another signer, the Rev. Bob Enyart, a Christian talk radio host and pastor of the Denver Bible Church, said the real issue is fundraising.

"Over the past seven years, the partial-birth abortion ban as a fundraising technique has brought in over a quarter of a billion dollars" for major antiabortion groups, "but the ban has no authority to prevent a single abortion, and pro-life donors were never told that," he said. "That's why we call it the pro-life industry."

In Rohrbough's view, partisan politics is also involved.

"What happened in the abortion world is that groups like National Right to Life, they're really a wing of the Republican Party, and they're not geared to push for personhood for an unborn child -- they're geared to getting Republicans elected," he said. "So we're seeing these ridiculous laws like the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban put forward, and then we're deceived about what they really do."

If there is anything stunning in Rohrbough's information it is that the fundamentalist Christian anti-choice groups are apparently only now becoming aware of the motivation of groups like National Right to Life and Focus On The Family. Rational thinkers have been aware for years that such groups and their leaders are motivated by money and political power. It makes one wonder how they weren't cognizant of that in the first place. And, if they were, why they provided cover for Dobson and his kind.

It should be interesting to watch and see how long it takes the Christian coalition to start calling Dobson a "liberal".

Hat tip reader Cat

Birth control denied to Montana woman... by a Canadian company

I could have taken Jessica's posting as another example of some Christian fundamentalist wacko stepping outside the bounds of reality and foisting his/her insane superstition on the public. This time it was in Great Falls, Montana where the owners of a Snyders drugstore refused to fill the prescription of a 49-year-old woman for oral contraceptives. Instead of her pills, (which she uses for medical reasons other than birth-control, and that doesn't matter), she got a note:

When she went to the pharmacy counter, she received a slip of paper signed by the pharmacy owners (Stuart Anderson, Kurt Depner and Kori Depner) stating that the pharmacy would no longer fill birth control prescriptions.

Adding insult to injury, the note goes onto say that they pharmacy will "continue to serve your prescription needs with utmost care and trust." The customer, who happens to be a 49-year-old woman who is unable to conceive and uses birth control for a medical condition, called the pharmacy and asked one of the owners why the pills were being discontinued. The owner told her that birth control pills are dangerous for women.

This is the judgment of a so-called health-care professional. What is actually happening is that Anderson and the Depners are shoving their personal brand of religious bullshit over the counter disguised as a safety concern.

That they would have the unmitigated gall to suggest they are health-care professionals is beyond the pale, until you realize that the same kind of thinking goes right to the top of the US health care system.

I could have, at that point just passed it off as one of those head-shaking moments. Women having their rights removed by some no-account, Christian dominionist pharmacist running an independent drug store in Great Falls. These are the same people who, if they are not permitted to impose their own religious beliefs on others begin to scream "persecution!". And all the while they persecute and endanger others while cloaked in their own superstitious nonsense.

I could have passed it off as one of those things that percolates up from the United States while muttering, "Damn. I'm glad I don't live there." But that would be to deny that Maria Bizecki got away with it in Calgary and still claims to be a health-care professional in Canada.

So, I looked a little deeper into the Snyders situation. Believing I would find nothing of any significance from an independent pharmacy in Montana, I was more than a little surprised to discover that Snyders is actually a fairly large chain of drugstores and is a well-known operation in the upper midwest of the United States. Snyders operates over 100 stores. Some are corporately owned and some are independently operated. The independents are franchises which must carry and dispense products in accordance with company rules. The owner of the Snyders chain of corporate and franchise drugstores is the Katz Group of companies.

And there's the kicker. KatzGroup is actually... Katz Group of Canada. The Snyders drugstore chain is owned by a Canadian retail pharmacy giant, constituting the fifth-largest drug retail operation in North America. Katz Group owns a major portion of the Canadian retail drugstore market with some highly recognizable names including Rexall, Guardian, IDA, Drug Trading Company, PharmaPlus, The Medicine Shoppe, Herbies for Drug and Food, Meditrust Pharmacy and the computerized pharmacy dispensing system, ProPharm, along with the entire Snyders Drugstore chain in the United States.

Katz Group is one of Canada's largest privately-owned companies, controlled by founder and chairman Daryl Katz. I doubt very much Katz has anything at all to do with the behaviour of Anderson and the Depners in Great Falls, Montana. By doing nothing to change that behaviour however, Katz Group is condoning the actions of the Great Falls Snyders drugstore and are complicit in denying health care to a person seeking it.

Whenever I have read this kind of story I have always wondered what the next step of the moralizing religious freaks will be. Will they, out of a sense of moral hauteur, substitute a worthless placebo for the actual prescribed drug?

I would be worried about that. So much so, that I won't do business with any pharmacy that is in any way related to the events in Great Falls. I'll go down the street, even if I have to pay a little more.

And, I'm going to let Daryl Katz know what I'm going to do, by sending an email to his company headquarters right here. If you decide to do the same, include this link.

The Devil made me do it!

A male comedian dressed up like a woman saying "the devil made me do it" in a comedy routine is funny.


A fundamentalist Christian teenage mother using it to defend her teenage would-be preacher's attempt to roast their toddler alive-- ehhh, not so much.


More progressive parenting in Jebusland:




Woman blames devil, not husband for burning daughter in microwave


May 20, 2007, 12:45PM
© 2007 The Associated Press


GALVESTON, Texas — A woman blames the devil and not her husband for severely burning their infant daughter after the 2-month-old was put in a microwave, a Houston television station reported.
Eva Marie Mauldin said Satan compelled her 19-year-old husband, Joshua Royce Mauldin, to microwave their daughter May 10 because the devil disapproved of Joshua's efforts to become a preacher.
"Satan saw my husband as a threat. Satan attacked him because he saw (Joshua) as a threat," Eva Mauldin told Houston television station KHOU-TV.
A Galveston County grand jury indicted Joshua Mauldin last week on child injury charges after hearing evidence that he placed his daughter in a motel microwave for 10 to 20 seconds. The infant, Ana Marie, remains hospitalized. She suffered burns on the left side of her face and to her left hand, police said.
Eva Marie Mauldin, the girl's 20-year-old mother, told the television station that her husband is "not the monster people are making him out to be."


(cross posted from the Woodshed)

Jerry Falwell Dead as US postal rates rise.

Televangelist Jerry Falwell, the man who blamed the September 11th, 2001 attacks at the World Trade Center on everyone except the people who did it, is dead.

"I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for an American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say `you helped this happen.'''

He eventually apologized for that, but he didn't stop waging a war on people that didn't fit his narrow world view.

For some very interesting reaction you can go here, here, here and here.

In other news postal rates in the US have risen again. And watch the shape of your envelopes.

No... there's no connection, but the new US first-class mail stamp is "forever".