MSNBC’s Willie Geist unveils Jesus on a frying pan
(video: Atheist Media Blog at YouTube)

— Henry Rollins, poet, activist and punk rock legend, on the Catholic church’s expulsion of the pre-school-aged child of two Boulder, Colorado lesbians, from his editorial It’s Time for Gays to Start Discriminating Against the Catholic Church

Two Peas Same Liberal Pod – Tom Campbell Barbara Boxer Proposition 8 California (video: NOM at YouTube)

They’re back! The carpetbagging con artists of the Washington DC-based National Organization for Marriage are back in California trying to win friends and influence elections.

According to Eric Ross, writing at The Examiner:

On March 15th, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) launched a new TV ad to attack a Republican candidate for supporting marriage equality. Their new video titled, “Two peas, same liberal pod,” compares Republican Senate candidate Tom Campbell with Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer.

NOM’s strategy is as transparent as its interstate double-dealing is not. The California candidates aren’t extreme enough on marriage equality? Surprise. And, for good measure, NOM thinks they can sucker a few fiscal conservatives into supporting the lunatic theofascist wing of the Republican party by mentioning the right’s great Satan — taxes.

Fancy that coming from the comedy team of Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown — the radical religious reich’s go-to grifters when it comes to the elimination of the fundamental rights of gay and lesbian Americans. Gallagher and Brown are two peas in a pod that’s barely managing to stay a step ahead of the IRS and their ethics and legal challenges in multiple states.

Last March, I blogged about the case of the christians-only campus club demanding recognition and, thereby, funding at UC Hastings College of Law:

These anti-gay, Christians-only campus groups are not willing to abide by established non-discrimination policies that cover race, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, disability, etc, although these non-discrimination policies apply equally to all other groups on campus.

These days, one is unlikely to find a whites-only fraternity or a no-Latinos chess club on any campus in the US. So why should these Christian groups be handed an exemption, not to mention receive official recognition and funding — some of which is derived from fees paid by GLBT and non-Christian students?

Backed by their Alliance Defense Fund legal goon squad, the poor oppressed christianists, who claim it’s their First Amendment rights that are being violated, milked their 15 minutes of infamy all the way to the US Supreme Court.

It’s gratifying to learn, via Americans United for Separation of Church and State, that AU has joined the American Jewish Committee and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in filing a friend-of-the-court brief on 15 March urging the justices to rule in favor of the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law in the pending case.

Rachel Maddow calls manure on the GOP’s JD Hayworth
(video: The Rachel Maddow Show)

Last night, Rachel Maddow called out Arizona’s potential candidate for the US Senate, JD Hayworth, for making shit up about marriage equality in Massachusetts. The MSNBC host pointed out that despite Hayworth’s insistence, the Massachusetts Supreme Court never defined marriage solely as “the establishment of intimacy.” It’s clear the Republican wannabe candidate made his remarks about marrying horses for no reason other than to denigrate gay and lesbian relationships and to score big brownie points with the GOP’s freaky, animal-sex-obsessed theofascist wing.

— Mark Morford, San Francisco Gate columnist, reacting to the virulently bigoted response to the Washington Post’s publication of a photograph of two gay men kissing on the day marriage equality arrived in our nation’s capitol,
from Hey, sickos! Real men marry women!

Top Ten Creationist Arguments (video: The Thinking Atheist at YouTube)

Sunday schoolin’ but with a significant difference: more facts, less fairy dust. Here’s a brilliant video two-fer for a gorgeous Sunday morning. Find more Thinking Atheist videos at the link.

Top Ten Creationist Arguments – Part 2 (video: The Thinking Atheist at YouTube)

God’s Favorite TV Shows (video: Current at YouTube)

Face it, culture watchers: By the time the born-again superstitionists finally get around to usurping any cultural trend, that trend, whatever it is, will have doubtlessly jumped the shark long before.

(tip: Atheist Media Blog)

Don McLeroy: The Creationist in Charge of Education in Texas
(video: Atheist Media blog at YouTube)

Religious fundamentalists are rewriting American History in the state of Texas. Among decisions not emphasized in the video above: The third President of the United States and the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson is out. A 13th Century Roman Catholic theologian, Thomas Aquinas, and John Calvin, the 16th Century protestant theologian are in.

According to David Knowles, writing at AOL News:

Widely regarded as one of the most important of all the founding fathers of the United States, Thomas Jefferson received a demotion of sorts Friday thanks to the Texas Board of Education.

The board voted to enact new teaching standards for history and social studies that will alter which material gets included in school textbooks. It decided to drop Jefferson from a world history section devoted to great political thinkers.

According to Texas Freedom Network, a group that opposes many of the changes put in place by the Board of Education, the original curriculum asked students to “explain the impact of Enlightenment ideas from John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Jefferson on political revolutions from 1750 to the present.”

That emphasis did not sit well with board member Cynthia Dunbar, who, during Friday’s meeting, explained the rationale for changing it. “The Enlightenment was not the only philosophy on which these revolutions were based,” Dunbar said.

The new standard, passed at the meeting in a 10-5 vote, now reads, “Explain the impact of the writings of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and Sir William Blackstone.”

By dropping mention of revolution, and substituting figures such as Aquinas and Calvin for Jefferson, Texas Freedom Network argues, the board had chosen to embrace religious teachings over those of Jefferson, the man who coined the phrase “separation between church and state.”

And so the dumbing-down of American education continues unabated, accelerated by blatant historical revisionism by the extremist American Taliban. Their appalling ignorance is exceeded only by their arrogance, because these tea-bagging, birth-certificate-chasing, self-deluding patriots have also seen fit to write themselves — the radical religious reich — into America’s history as the good guys.

Texas, do the rest of the country a favor and secede.

Over at Change.org, the Stonewall Democrats are asking for support (and signatures) for United States Congressman Jared Polis’ Student Non-Discrimination Act:

By now many have heard about the drama surrounding Prom at the Itawamba Agricultural High School in Mississippi. After a lesbian student named Constance McMillen was told she wouldn’t be able to bring her girlfriend as her date to Prom, the ACLU intervened on her behalf and the school eventually cancelled the Prom altogether. School officials are currently encouraging a private prom be organized that can continue to deny Constance and her girlfriend entrance.

What’s happening in Mississippi unfortunately happens all too often around the country, and not just during Prom season. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students — and those students who are perceived to be LGBT or who associate with LGBT students — are subjected to discrimination, including harassment, bullying, violence; and are deprived of equal access to educational opportunities.

Congressman Jared Polis took a stand earlier this year to fight for LGBT students when he introduced the Student Non-Discrimination Act. “Like Title VI for minorities in the 60s and Title IX for women in the 70s,” Congressman Polis said at the time of the bill’s introduction, “my legislation puts LGBT students on an equal footing with their peers, so they can attend school and get a quality education, free from fear.”

Tell your Representative in Congress to co-sponsor the Student Non-Discrimination Act (H.R. 4530), so Constance McMillen — and every student — can have equal access to public education.

(emphasis: from the source)

Take a minute to read the petition, sign it and pass it along to your friends, family members and co-workers.