Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1693

Cartoonist Stephan Pastis Draws a Strip That Will Offend Nobody

Happy “offense-free Friday,” fellow heathens!

Stephan Pastis, the cartoonist behind the brilliant Pearls Before Swine comic strip seems to have heard the “I believe in free speech, but…” crowd loud and clear. And he answered the call to avoid offense in a strip he shared today, explaining in the first panel, “In deference to those who say cartoonists should refrain from depicting anything that could cause offense to others, today we delete all the Pearls characters who have ever caused offense...

Franklin Graham: I’m Not a Hypocrite for Taking My Money to a Gay-Friendly Bank

Over the past few days, we’ve all been having fun pointing and laughing at Christian embarrassment Franklin Graham for taking his money out of Wells Fargo bank for using a gay couple in its ads… and moving it to North Carolina-based BB&T bank, which just so happens to be even more supportive of LGBT rights.

Hilarious. (Seriously, just watch the last 30 seconds of this Rachel Maddow clip.)

Now, Graham says he’s totally not a hypocrite, writing in USA Today that none of this caught him by surpris...

California Assembly Member Blames Her State’s Extreme Drought on Legalized Abortion

California State Assembly member Shannon Grove (below) knows exactly why her state is in the middle of a severe drought, and she explained her theory last week at a banquet sponsored by the California ProLife Council.

According to RH Reality Check’s Zoe Greenberg, the drought has everything to do with abortion.

“Texas was in a long period of drought until Governor Perry signed the fetal pain bill,” [Grove] told the audience, presumably referring to HB 2, the omnibus Texas abortion bill that inc...

Conservatives Freak Out After Pennsylvania School District Offers Inservice Workshop at Local Mosque

Earlier this week, about 50 staffers from the Lebanon School District in Pennsylvania chose to attend a workshop to learn more about Islam and Arabic culture. There’s a reason for that: the District has seen a rise in students from the Middle East and any experienced teacher can tell you it’s easier to reach certain students when you’re able to bridge a cultural divide.

[The] workshop… included a trip to the Lebanon Valley Mosque. While there they learned about the practice of Islam, watched a...

A Disturbing Look at Brazil’s Youngest Preachers

In this weekend’s New York Times Magazine, Samantha M. Shapiro has a fascinating and frightening lookat child preachers in Brazil:

[Pastor Adauto Santos] prepared the crowd to receive his daughter, who is now 11 and has been preaching since she was 3. On Monday nights, Alani lays on hands; on Wednesdays, she has a revelations service, in which she and other preachers make predictions about the future; on Saturdays, she hosts a radio show about the Bible. She also does Skype prayer sessions wit...

A Mother and Daughter Discuss the Lack of Atheist Presidents in This Beautiful Visual Story

Last month, I posted about a conversation between Kate Cohen and her nine-year-old daughter. She wanted to be the first female President, but since that box may be checked off by the time she’s old enough to run, Kate suggested she consider becoming the first atheist President instead.

The Washington Post took her story and animated it, and the result is just incredibly cool. Start here and scroll your way down.

How neat is that?!

Hats off to Samuel Granados for the imagery.

Judge Dismisses Anonymous Christians’ Lawsuit to Keep Giant Cross in Grand Haven, Michigan

Last year, I posted about a giant hydraulic cross that went up several times a year atop Dewey Hill in Grand Haven, Michigan:

You can read the history of that cross here but the question was whether this constituted government promotion of religion.

In October, atheist activists Mitch Kahle and Holly Huber began challenging the Hydraulic Cross. With residents Brian and Kathy Plescher and attorneys from Americans United for Separation of Church and State, they requested that the Cross be used to...

This is What the Secular Student Alliance Did for Me

This is a guest post written by Dave Churvis as part of Secular Students Week. Dave is Program Manager for the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

I first got involved with Secular Student Alliance after transferring colleges.

When I arrived at my new home, Georgia State University, I knew that I wanted to find some fellow atheist students. I had heard of the SSA through Hemant’s blog, so I looked at the group’s website to see if there was already an affiliate at my school. There...

Westboro Baptist Church Promised to Picket a Wizard Wedding, but They Were No-Shows When It Happened

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling was one of many celebrating Ireland’s historic vote to legalize same sex weddings last month. One of her tweets in particular, proposing a wedding between Dumbledore and Gandalf in Ireland, caught the eye of the Westboro Baptist Church. Keen to demonstrate their brilliant sense of humor, Westboro tweeted back an image replete with their typically vitriolic language, and a threat to protest such a wedding if ever it occurred.

So how do you respond to such a hate...

Springfield (MO) City Council Member Says “In God We Trust” Sign Isn’t About Religion

Justin Burnett (below) was elected to a seat on the Springfield (Missouri) City Council in April and he’s already a true politician, doing nothing to help the people he represents but making sure he’s scoring points for Jesus:

I have introduced a resolution in Springfield City Council to codify the words “In God We Trust” locally by displaying them in city hall. This bill should appear on the June 22nd agenda…

…

… So far, to my knowledge, this resolution has been passed in other cities through b...