Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1786

North Dakota GOP Reacts to Muslim Invocation: We Shouldn’t Be Forced to “Listen to a Prayer [We] Don’t Agree With”

When we talk about invocations at government meetings, we know the reality of the situation is that they are almost all Christian prayers… with an occasional non-Christian thrown in there to keep things legal.

But the North Dakota District 24 Republicans found reason to freak out when Dr. Nadim Koleilat, a local Muslim leader, was scheduled to deliver the House invocation this past Wednesday. Ash Wednesday. So not only was he supposed to deliver his prayer on a Christian holiday, he was a Musl...

South Dakota Republican Thinks Planned Parenthood is Worse Than ISIS

South Dakota Republican State Rep. Isaac Latterell (below) has an important message for the people of his state. Dilation and evacuation abortions are basically “beheading unborn children” — and since you don’t like when ISIS beheads other people, you should be outraged that Planned Parenthood offers abortion.

To that end, he has put forth House Bill 1230, the Preborn Infant Beheading Ban of 2015, which would outlaw the procedures and jail violators.

Yes, really.

No licensed physician may knowin...

Neurologist and Author Oliver Sacks Is Slowly Dying. True To Himself, He Wrote A Beautiful Piece About It

Oliver Sacks, who is toneuroscienceand psychiatry what Carl Sagan was to astronomy and astrophysics, is staring into the maw of death. Cancer has already taken over a third of his liver, and it is certain the disease spells the end for the famed neurologist,now 81, who took us on many a wondrous trip through the marvels and terrors of the human mind.

A prolific, consummate chronicler of other people’s states of mind, he’s now written about his own in what areliterally his dying days.

Since hear...

Help a Christian Researcher Studying Why Young People Lose Their Faith

A researcher from Liberty University (yes, really) is doing research on how young people develop or let go of their religious beliefs. It’s legit research, not some trick to proselytize to you, and your help would be appreciated.

If you’d like to participate, all you have to do is fill out this questionnaire, which should take no more than 20 minutes. If you include a mailing address, you could receive an Amazon gift card.

An African-American Atheist is Running for a California State Senate Seat as a Write-in Candidate

Last November, California State Senator Steve Knight was elected to the U.S. Congress, obviously requiring him to vacate his State Senate seat. But because he wasn’t up for re-election, that meant a special election had to be held in the Antelope Valley area to find his successor.

That special election, which takes place on March 17, currently has only one candidate in the race: Sharon Runner. She’s a Republican who, not coincidentally, was in the State Senate until Knight beat her in the 2008...

Kentucky Student Privacy Act, the Anti-Transgender “Bathroom Bill,” Dies In Committee… Barely

Kentucky’s anti-transgender SB76, or the Kentucky Student Privacy Act, failed by a single vote in a Senate committee hearing Thursday. And ironically, the failure of a bill with “privacy” in its name will actually do more to protect Kentucky students’ privacy than if it had passed.

SB76 was the brainchild of Republican Senator C.B. Embry Jr. (below), who introduced the measure back in January. Under the guise of “privacy,” the bill would have banned transgender students from using bathrooms th...

Mr. Deity and the Shellfish Gene? Ken Ham’s Not Laughing

Recently, Mr. Deity bumped into Richard Dawkins. It was a case of mistaken identity, but no one’s perfect — not even God — and the results really were quite funny. At least, I thought so.

Answers in Genesis’ Ken Ham was less amused. In a response to the video, Ham spends some time explaining that the video is “very” and “clearly” mocking faith. There’s more to it than that, but let’s not quibble: so far, he’s off to a decent start.

After establishing that (and, presumably, once readers have fet...

A 10-Hour Walk Through Paris Wearing a Yarmulke Yields… Not Very Much in the Way of Overt Discrimination, Actually

Was Iwatching the same viral video as the writer for the New Zealand Herald did?

Zvika Klein, a reporter for Jewish news outlet NRG, silently walked in the city for ten hours wearing a kippah — also known as a yarmulke — on his head and a tzitzit (knotted ritual tassels). …He spent a day in Paris with a bodyguard while photographer Dov Belhassen documented the day using a GoPro camera hidden in his backpack. …

And the shocking hidden camera footage shows antisemitism is rife in the French capit...

GOP Congressman: The Problem with America’s Fight Against ISIS is That They Believe in God More Strongly Than We Do

According to Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL), the problem with our nation’s fight against ISIS is that our enemies love God, and we don’t love God enough, and God’s gonna decide who wins this war. Therefore, #ChristianNation and #BiblesEverywhere.

Something like that.

I’m sure it makes sense to conservatives, but all I’m hearing is “Our God has a bigger dick than their God, so let’s show them!”

Yoho made the comments on Newsmax to host J.D. Hayworth and guest Michael Flanagan, both of whom used to serve in...

Two Men Were Stabbed After Giving the Wrong Answer To “Are You Muslim?” Guess How the Media Responded

A Muslim man stabbed two people at a Detroit-area bus stop the other day because he was upset that his victimsdidn’t share his faith.

I wonder if thatcrimewill prompteditorial writers and much of the Twittersphereto askwhether Muslims “pose a threat to civil society.” I also wonder ifthepundits willpublishheadlines that say“This should be a wake-up call to Muslims.”

I kid. Of course they won’t. Today’s bien pensants would never (and they’d be right).But areatheiststhe subject of those exactrecr...