A progressive political blog that highlights the infringement of religion upon today’s government.

Michael Newdow is taking his fight to remove the words “under god” from the Pledge of Allegiance and U.S. Currency back to federal appeals court.  The case asserts that forcing children to recite the pledge is unconstitutional as it infringes on their freedom of religion.  He had already won significant court cases on the issue before the Supreme Court threw out the case on a technicality.  Now it appears that he may have overcome that and will be able to get the words removed.

As I strongly support religious freedom for everyone, not just you Christians, I understand how offensive this can be to those of other faiths.  For that reason I support Michael Newdow in his quest and sincerely hope that he is successful.  However I am not a militant atheist (not an atheist at all actually) and on the rare occasions when I have cash I don’t take the opportunity to make a political statement.  I feel that religious freedom is the most important freedom we have, and that freedom should be extended to everyone equally.  Having our government and schools promote one religion over others is unfair and should be ended.

I’m sure that the Religious Right is sure to jump on this again as they did last time, resorting to personal attacks and slander.  It seems that there is still a large portion of the country that still believes that we live in a Christian nation.  Of course this is a silly thought that anyone with even a passing knowledge of our constitution or history would recognize as absurd.  Sadly the Right has a strange obsession with holding onto its absurd ideas.

In fact as originally written by Francis Bellamy in 1892 the Pledge of Allegiance did not contain the words “under God”.  Those were not added until some 60 years later and Bellamy’s granddaughter protested the change.  However since the words have been added Christians have been quick to fight against their removal, just like they are quick to fight against their removal from our nations currency.

I have a lot of respect for the teachings of Christianity, and there are many many Christians who are good people.  Yet I do not understand this obsession over saving an old socialist pledge and the word “God”.  I’m hoping someone can explain to me why so many Christians have so little faith in their religious beliefs.  Do they really feel like if they don’t see the word God every time they buy something they will loose their faith?

Living in Topeka, KS, I am subjected almost daily to the bigotry and hatred of the Phelps’ clan. If you don’t know who they are they are the members and leaders of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka that are in the habit of picketing pretty much anything with day-glo signs graphically depicting anti-gay messages. [...]

A couple of weeks ago William wrote a story about how the Pope had praised Nicaragua for passing a law effectively outlawing all abortions. Now the Nicaraguan doctors are fighting back after witnessing the deaths of over 80 women directly related to this quasi-ban.
WIBW.com ran this Reuters story today detailing the tragic death of Olga [...]

This gem just showed up in my RSS reader from Seeing the Forest and I thought I would pass it along to all of you. Pretty good stuff from Leah Kauffman, you may recognize her from “I Got a Crush on Obama”. If you haven’t seen that one yet, or you want [...]

To promote tolerance, a diversity group in Oklahoma bestowed gifts on Oklahoma lawmakers, copies of the Quaran. At least 18 of the state legislators will return the books. They feel that the Quaran condones killing innocent people. State Representative, Rex Duncan stated;
“most Oklahomans do not endorse the idea of killing innocent women and children in [...]