August Matthew Stucky Award: Steven Anderson

This was pretty much inevitable, really. Steven Anderson, pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church and the personal pastor of our award's namesake, recently gave a charming sermon subtly titled "Why I Hate Barak Obama". It should really have been titled "Why (faggots are evil) I (really hate fags) hate (fags: they're trying to rape me in my sleep) Barack (Sadddam Al Qaida Muslim Atheist Communist Fascist Fag-Lover) Obama (Oooh! I really feel dirty saying that name!)". It's a textbook example of paranoid uber-christian delusion. An example of his "teaching":

How are they multiplying? Do you not see that they're multiplying? Are you that blind? Have you noticed that there's more than there were last year and the year before, and the year before that? How are they multiplying? They're reproducing right? No, here's a biology lesson: they're not reproducers, they're recruiters! And you know who they're after? Your children. Remember you dropped off your kids last week? That's who they're after. You drop them off at some daycare, you drop them off at some school somewhere, you don't know where they're at. I'll tell you where they're at: they're being recruited by the sodomites. They're being molested by the sodomites... Because each sodomite recruits far more than one other sodomite because his whole life is about recruiting other sodomites, his whole life is about violating and hurting people and molesting 'em.

Sounds like sodomites are an awful lot like christian ministers.

Can We Just Stop Having These Stupid Town Hall Meetings?

I just about fell over backwards when I watched this. An Israeli man is talking to reporters about Israel's national health care system, and some vile harridan starts yelling "Heil Hitler".

This is the face we're showing the world. My God.

I'm opposed, for the most part, to nationalized health care: but at this point, I'd kind of like to see the Dems just push it through just to stick a great big thumb in the collective eye of the people at these "meetings".

June 2009 Matthew Stucky Award: Scott Roeder

Well, that didn't take long.

Asshole.

May 2009 Matthew Stucky Award: Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor

Haven't given an award out lately, but I felt I needed to when I read this. The good cardinal who oversaw a Church which systematically brutalized generations of Irish children has declared that the greatest evil facing us is... atheism.

Really.

Not priests who anally violate little boys.

Atheism.

Fucker.

Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi "commits suicide": oh, isn't that convenient?

Just when the hue and cry for an investigation is heating up... this.

Can we send Bush and Chaney before the Hague NOW?!

March Matthew Stucky Award

The coveted Matthew Stucky Award for the month of March 2009 goes to archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho of Rio De Janero Recife, Brazil, whose callous, cruel condmenation of a 9-year old girl for being raped by her stepfather very nearly equals the insane misogyny of the Muslims who execute sexual assault victims for adultery. A condemnation which is being defended by the catholic church's chief perpetuator of pederasty, pope benedict xvi.

Jose! Why don't you pull out all of the stops, bury her up to her neck, and hit her in the head with rocks? Oh, wait: stoning is to quick and painless for her, isn't it? Much more fitting for her to be slowly torn apart by the development of twins her body is not physically capable of bearing.

Fucker.

---

Update:
I'm tempted to add, mostly out of pique, the Sydney Morning Herald as co-recipients for this headline:

Vatican defends excommunication for 'raped' nine-year-old girl's abortion

Why exactly is the word raped in quotes? Is there some uncertainty about whether a 9-year old girl is capable of validly consenting to sex? WTF?!

---

Update II:
The Herald has removed the quotes.

How Not to Advocate Gay Rights

A recent Ed Brayton post described a protest by a Gay-Rights group at a mega-church outside of Lansing, MI, in which the protesters went beyond civil demonstration and infiltrated and disrupted Sunday services. I agree with Ed's take on the incident, but on checking out the group's web site (which I won't link: Google 'Bash Back' if you wish to check it out), I've just got to shake my head in disappointment. This sort of nonsense is not what the gay rights movement needs:

Bash Back! Olympia Trashes Mormon Church

Last night, under the veil of fog, we visited the Church of Latter Day Saints. We left their locks glued with anarchist messages scrawled in spray paint over their boring veneer.

We did this to show our solidarity with all who are resisting heterosexism everywhere, hopefully to spur them into action

This is just the sort of thing that is picked up by the conservative echo-chamber and used to paint the entire gay community as a group of radical, deluded ass-hats (which the members of Bash Back obviously are). Unfortunately, a great many Americans listen to that echo chamber and put far too much credence in its claims. I hope that the folks in the gay community are as vocal about condemning this idiocy as they are about condemning Prop 8, or groups like this will always hold them back.

Ted Haggard is Really Totally Un-Gayified

Old Ted "Buttocks-and-Meth" Haggard is back on the pulpit, apparently.

He gave a pair of sermons at a small church in Illinois where the pastor is an old friend of his.

Hey, another reason for me to dislike Illinois!

That people actually sat there and listened to this hypocritical jagoff just illustrates the depth of evangelical Christian stupidity. I love this part:

"There I was, 50 years old, a conservative Republican, loving the word of God, an evangelical, born-again, spirit-filled, charismatic, all those things," he said. "But some of the things that were buried in the depths of the sea from when I was in the second grade started to rage in my heart and mind."

No, Ted: there you were, a closeted gay man, loudly advocating venomous bigotry against other homosexuals, but you couldn't bury your own sexual nature any more than you can heal through prayer.

"There came a moment in my life when we were so alone and there was so much despair that I was suicidal," he said. "And I'd figured out how I was going to kill myself and rid the world of the horrible curse of Ted Haggard."

My ass you were going to kill yourself. If there's one characteristic that all con artists like you share, it's an unshakable belief (and a correct one, unfortunately) that there's always another mark just around the corner. I look forward to your next scandal, Teddy.

The New GOP (or, Distillate of Retard)

As the powers driving the Republican party work feverishly to alienate any remaining intellectuals in their movement, they give us a glimpse of its future makeup:

Honestly: are there really that many bigoted ass-hats left in the US, or is the RNC trucking these people from site to site to make it look like they still have some support?

Attack on Mosque Day-Care "Not a Hate Crime" According to Keystone Dayton Cops

"Nothing to see here, move along".

A mosque in Dayton, OH, was attacked Saturday, in an act that was obviously motivated by hatred and triggered by the distribution of the DVD "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West", an anti-Muslim screed promoted by McCain campaign supporters. Obviously, that is, to anyone but some clueless twit on the Dayton Police force.

Now, I oppose the idea of attaching extra penalties to a criminal act if the perpetrator is motivated by hate. Punishing someone more for doing something because they felt passionate about it rather than dispassionate doesn't make sense to me. But if you're going to have these types of laws on the books, exactly what is it about launching a chemical assault on children and infants based solely on their religious affiliation that doesn't apply?

Oh, and the careful word selection in the stories is not surprising, either. It's chemical "irritant", not agent or weapon. The men "sprayed a chemical into the mosque", they didn't "attack the mosque". And, of course, the word "terrorist" would never be used.

Imagine if a 10-year old Christian girl were sprayed in the face at church by two Arabic men during Advent. How much howling and outrage would there be? What kind of flashy graphics and 24-hour update crawls would accompany our newscasts for the next week?. Of course these are just little brown Muslim people: they don't count.

HT Pharyngula

Gillman Vs Holmes County School Board

Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars, a decision has been handed down ( read it here) in the Florida case of a school principal who went on a one-man witch hunt against student political expression at his school. David Davis, in responding to a complaint by a 12th grade student that others at the school had harassed her for being a lesbian, ridiculed and condemned her rather than taking action against her aggressors. He then called her parents and outed her to them (which nearly resulted in her being kicked out of her home), and drove her out of his office in tears. Real nice guy.

But that was only the start. Other students got wind of what happened and tried to simply show their support for her by wearing messages on their t-shirts and indulging in other mild forms of self expression (there was talk of walking out of an emergency "Morality Assembly" that Davis called, but nothing ever came of it). Davis called this activity membership in an "illegal/secret organization", and suspended several students for a week. A student named Heather Gillman, a friend of the original victim and cousin of another of Davis's targets, complained to the School Board, which basically told her to take a hike. So she sued, and won. Handily. The decision went entirely against the school board.

But all this has been covered elsewhere. The little tidbit that made me go "WTF?" can be found on page 4 of the complaint:

Following the assembly, Davis began investigating what had come to be known as the “Gay Pride” movement at the school. He interviewed approximately thirty students, interrogated them about their sexual orientations, and questioned them about their involvement in the planned walk-out of the assembly and their activities in relation to the movement. During those meetings, Davis instructed students who were homosexual not to discuss their sexual orientations. He also prohibited students from wearing rainbow belts or writing “Gay Pride” or “GP” on their arms and notebooks. He required students to wash “GP” or “Gay Pride” from their arms and hands and lifted the shirts of female students to verify that no such writings were present on their bodies.

So we have an adult male in an authority position, during a disciplinary process, singling out female students and partially disrobing them. And the Board didn't feel that this warranted any attention: not even a phone call to Davis to clarify what happened. I don't think either the investigation or the law suit went far enough here: this guy is not someone I would want around my daughter.

Update: Oh the irony. I never saw this part (HT: Pam's House Blend). According to Davis, it's OK to wear a Confederate flag. A symbol of a group of people who tried to destroy this nation isn't divisive or offensive. Supporting a friend, however, is.

I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again in the future: if homosexuals spent one tenth as much time thinking about gay sex as evangelical Christians do, homosexuals would never get anything done.

Catholics Can Be Morons, Too

Protestants don't have a monopoly, that's for sure.

Melanie Kroll has lost her job with 1-800-FLOWERS. Why? Because her idiot husband, Charles Kroll, sent a death threat to Dr PZ Myers of UM-Morris from her corporate email account.

Now why would a nice Catholic boy do such a thing?

Well, it all started when a University of Central Florida student took a non-Catholic friend to Mass. The friend was curious about the host. The student, to satisfy the visitor's curiosity, tried to bring the host back to the pew to show it before eating it. He was then accosted by the church-police, who harassed him and chased him out of the church (still with the uneaten host).

Not satisfied with this, Bill-The-Perpetually-Offended Donohue and his drooling band of Catholic League sycophants began raising a stink, and, along with a lot of help from the "faithful" in the area, harassed and threatened the student, and tried to get him suspended from school. OK, that's the beginning...

PZ caught wind of it, and as is his wont, eviscerated the perpetrators on Pharyngula. Donahue's minions were alerted, and began sending PZ email threats. PZ posted them along with the header information, and the source of one of the more disturbing ones was traced back to Mrs. Kroll's account at 1-800-FLOWERS. HR at the company was notified, and Mrs Kroll's employment was terminated.

While I was growing up, it was taught to me that Catholics were more scholarly and introspective about their faith than many other Christians. What a load of crap. This is the threat at the center of this shit-storm:

Paul,

what I would like to know is how did you even
get a job at a collage.

when you are obviously a moron.
How would you feel if nice folks starting ranting against
Fags, and atheist like yourself.

well sir, you don’t get to blaspheme and walk away from this.
You have two choices my fucked up friend, first you can quit your job for the good of the children. Or you can get your brains beat in.

I give you till the first of the month, get that resignation in cunt

Such a nice Catholic boy.

Never mind that the doctrine of transubstantiation is silly on it's surface: this is a person who is ready to commit murder simply because someone has rightfully taken his church to task for doing something outrageously stupid and cruel. Then, when he's busted, he blames the people who busted him:

However, this whole incident has caused someone who had nothing to do with the email to mr.myers,.a wonderful, sweet person who would never threaten anyone terrible troubles. Great harm has been done to this wonderful lady, without proof or a question asked, you just accuse, and assume. Wow and I thought you liberal folks were supposed to be the open minded ones.

It is my hope that since the mystery is now removed, and now that the Identity of the horrible person who dared write such crude things to the mr. myers is known, that the same people who put so much effort into harming Melanie Kroll, will use as much effort to right the wrong that has been done to her.

If there is any wrong-righting to be done, Chuckie, it's to be done by you. You, and you alone, caused your wife's problems. 'Course, she shares some of the blame for marrying an idiot.

Ohio Torture-Teacher Goes to Court

Via Pharyngula

Back in April, I harangued regarding John Freshwater, an Ohio middle school teacher who was under investigation for, among other things, burning crosses into his 8th-grade students' arms as a 'demonstration' in science class. Apparently, the issue has now gone to court, and my prediction that there was going to be more ugliness revealed is being born out. From the Mount Vernon News:

(School superintendent Stephen) Short, (middle school principal William) White and the school board are named as defendants in the case because they allowed Freshwater to continue to teach religion, and violate school policy and the Constitution after being notified of the policy violations and unconstitutional activities. For example, after April 14, the suit claims, Freshwater assigned “extra credit” to his students for homework related to intelligent design and was not removed from the classroom.

White also, according to the court documents, disclosed the identity of the plaintiffs to Freshwater, although Short had promised them anonymity. After the parents raised concerns of retaliation against their son, a field trip was scheduled, with their son assigned to a certain group and chaperone. The suit claims that once the child’s identity was revealed, his group assignment was changed to the one led by Freshwater. As a result, the parents “were forced to prohibit their son from attending the school field trip.” That caused injury by depriving the son of a valuable educational experience and discouraging the plaintiffs from continuing to exercise their right to free speech.

Initially, I thought that the lack of action on the part of the school stemmed from either an aversion to scandal, or at worst, your typical Christian fundamentalist assumption that the "non-believers" were just being hysterical and over-reacting. That if they ignored the complaints, it would all blow over.

The above seems to indicate something far more malevolent. The plaintiffs may talk about "depriving the son of a valuable educational experience", but it had to creep them the hell out whan the school placed their son into the hands of the same teacher who saw fit to brand him as a demonstration of how spectrum analysis works.

Go read the whole article. This is blatant intimidation on the part of Freshwater and White. They should both be fired. Or perhaps Gene's solution over at PZ's house is more appropriate:

Perhaps Mr. Freshwater should have his apparatus applied to his testicles as part of his ongoing education about why he shouldn't use it on students.

God-damned pair of sleaze bags.

Update:

Oh, and this is what he used to brand his students. Not sure how he got from "High Frequency Generator Tester for Leak Detection" to "A Cool Device to Burn Little Kids With", though.

What a nice man.

Mess in Ohio

When I first read about this story of a public school Bible brouhaha over on Ed Brayton's blog, I didn't think much of it: I assumed the teacher, John Freshwater, was just another creationist who thinks that his right to religious expression extends to using his position as a school teacher to impose his particular brand of fundamentalist tripe on other peoples' children.

Objectionable, of course: but hardly anything out of the ordinary for the Uber-Christian crowd. If anything, I thought that the school was over-reacting in telling him to remove his personal copy of the Bible from his desk during class. Having it on his desk would seem no more harmful to me than having a picture of a family member there, or any other personal effect.

Silly me. There's always another shoe waiting to drop with these people, isn't there? This just in from the planet WTF:

In a press release issued Tuesday afternoon, Superintendent Steve Short said, “The allegations against Mr. Freshwater are very serious. This is not about his personal Bible on his desktop. It is about the totality of his conduct.”

One of the complaints was that Freshwater used an electrostatic device to burn crosses onto students’ arms.

Now, color me intolerant, but I just think that's a mite over the top. These are 8th graders. And he's branding them?! This man should not just be disciplined. He should be fired and charged with assault. His name should be put on a public list of People You Want Nowhere Near Your Children. And as it seems, according to this article from the Columbus Dispatch, that the school knew last December about the branding and chose not to do anything about it, some heads on the admin side should roll, as well.

Of course, according to the WorldNetDaily, this is all just a case of discrimination against Christians. I guess Christian Fundamentalists have some hidden constitutional right to torture 14-year olds. Funny, my teachers at the religious schools I attended must have skipped over that amendment. Typical of those scheming atheist commie pinkos.

What a debacle. It will be darkly fascinating to see what develops from this. I can't imagine that with this popping up, that there aren't any more surprises to follow.

Oh, Those Kooky Evangelicals!

From the Chicago Trib comes a not-too surprising story of an Illinois State Rep castigating an atheist for trying to bring about the collapse of civilization. Or something like that.

Seems that the Illinois Governor, Rod Blagojevich, attempted to direct $1 million of state funds to a private school under rather shifty circumstances. A local secular activist, Rob Sherman, protested that such funding is unconstitutional. As Sherman testified before the Illinois House State Government Administration Committee, Monique Davis (D-Chicago), said the following:

I don’t know what you have against God, but some of us don’t have much against him. We look forward to him and his blessings. And it’s really a tragedy -- it’s tragic -- when a person who is engaged in anything related to God, they want to fight. They want to fight prayer in school.

I don’t see you (Sherman) fighting guns in school. You know?

I’m trying to understand the philosophy that you want to spread in the state of Illinois. This is the Land of Lincoln. This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God, where people believe in protecting their children.… What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous, it’s dangerous--

When Sherman asked her exactly what was dangerous, she screamed

It’s dangerous to the progression of this state. And it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! Now you will go to court to fight kids to have the opportunity to be quiet for a minute. But damn if you’ll go to [court] to fight for them to keep guns out of their hands. I am fed up! Get out of that seat!

You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon.

To a chorus of approving 'Amen's from other law makers present. Audio of the festivities can be found here.

I find attitudes like Davis' embarrassing, and more than a little exasperating. I may not agree with the stated philosophy and activism of some in the atheist and anti-theist communities, but the notion that, because they don't profess religious beliefs, they are a) a threat to society and b) not possessed of rights to fundamental participation in our society and the functions by which it is governed, is anathema to me. It demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of our rights, and invariably of the tenants of whatever religion is the basis of the rant du jour.

Mz. Davis is currently being pilloried in the blog sphere, as she should be, so I won't waste any more time on her obviously fisk-able rant. I just wish people in this country would elect representatives who understand what rights are and how they apply to government policy.

With Freinds Like These...

Somebody explain to me why we're allied with Saudi Arabia. These bastards take our money, and then do this to our citizens.

Jumped-up middle ages tyrants should not receive any aid or respect from this nation. I don't give a tinker's damn how much oil they have. We should cut all ties with these jackasses.

Update: Oh, and it's not any better in our new pet country, Iraq.

Stand up to Warrantless Wiretapping

The Downsize DC blog has a post regarding the "Protect America Act" (translation: the George Bush can Spy on Anyone He Damn Well Pleases Act) which is well worth a read. You can also, through the site's links, send your Senators and Reps an email asking them to oppose its passage. This is a dangerous bill which has serious 4th Amendment ramifications for us all. Anyone who values their liberty should oppose this legislation. Please take the time to do so.

Hat tip to Dispatches from the Culture Wars.