Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1789

Obama-Bashing Victoria Jackson Wasn’t on SNL’s Anniversary Show, but Here She Does Her Own “Comedy” Thing

Gay-hatingTea Partier and rape apologistVictoria Jackson was at Saturday Night Live‘s 40th-anniversary showthis past weekend, but not in it. Jacksondenies that her political viewshad anything to do with being kept off the special episode,and I hope that’s true. She shouldn’t be excluded because she’s a right-winger. Rather, she should be excluded because, as Jessica Bluemke wrote on this site two years ago,

What I …naïvelymistook forquirkiness[in her SNL days] was just thinly-veiled legitimate...

In Idaho, Christian Woman Attempts To Beat Jesus’s Love Into Her Jewish Neighbor

What are some bruises and sorenesscompared to the eternal agonyof hell?Getting beaten up for Jesusreally was for the victim’s own good, don’t you see?

Marguerite Haragan [pictured], 58, pressed her foot into the throat of a Jewish woman while saying she’d “better accept Jesus,” an Ada County prosecutor said during Haragan’s arraignment Thursday.

Haragan’s verbal harassment of the woman –identified in court by her initials, “AG” –had been ongoing, including through phone calls, according to the...

Dutch Court OKs Extradition of Fugitive Rabbi To Israel, Where He Is Wanted for Sex Crimes

Eliezer Berland has done more globetrotting in the last couple ofyears than many peopledo in a lifetime. But it hasn’t all been walks onthe beach. Berland, 77, a HasidicIsraeli rabbi who fled his country in 2012 when he was credibly accused of sexual and physical abuse, has been shuttled from one locationto the next.

Reports Dutch daily Trouw:

His two-year odyssey across the world reads like a Jules Vernes novel. The rabbi goesfrom Miami Beach to Marrakech by way of Rome and Zurich. After seven...

ISIS Beheads 21 Coptic Egyptians at the Beach, Feeding the Persecution Complex of American Christians

My friend Ben Corey, an Anabaptist blogger here at Patheos, has called out the ridiculous persecution complex of American Christians before.

But not like this.

Just ask yourselves, he pleads with Evangelicals and other Christian conservatives,

… what you’d say to those 21 Coptic Christians who were beheaded on the beach this weekend.

Corey isreferring to the words-fail-me crueltythat ISIS perpetrated in its latest video: the brutal mass killing of EgyptianChristianswho had reportedly migrated to...

Friendly Atheist Podcast Episode 42: Peter Boghossian, Author of A Manual for Creating Atheists

Our latest podcast guest is Peter Boghossian, author of the book A Manual for Creating Atheists.

Boghossian is a philosophy professor at Portland State University and his book discusses the idea of “street epistemology” — essentially how to talk people out of their faith. He’s currently working on a phone app that’ll guide people through that process.

We spoke with him about why his approach isn’t just “atheist evangelism,” why smart people can believe silly things, and whether his techniques w...

Arkansas Legislature Pulls Out All the Stops to Block LGBT Equality — and Other Civil Rights, Too

The Arkansas House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a bill that will block cities and counties from enacting their own policies to protect LGBT people from discrimination — or, for that matter, creating any civil rights ordinances outside those put in place by the state.

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson

SB202bars cities and counties in the state of Arkansas from ensuring civil rights protections for any group not already specified in the state law. Currently, the Arkansas Civil Rights Act...

The Associated Press Describes Mild-Mannered Atheism Memes as Carriers of “Vitriol”

In this news article, we learnfrom the Associated Press that triple-murder suspectCraig Stephen Hicks, according to his Facebook profile, loves his wife,his dog, hiking, nature, history, target shooting, and riding a motorcycle.

Then AP writers Allen G. Breed and Michael Biesecker need a segue to talk aboutHicks’ atheism. So they came up withthis:

But such descriptions stand in stark contrast to the vitriol Hicks espoused online.

Sounds serious. Make sure you’re sittingdown as youbeholdthese ter...

There’s a Christian Version of Fifty Shades of Grey in Theaters Right Now

You all saw the big Valentine’s Day movie, right?

No, not Fifty Shades of Grey.

I mean the movie featuring another Christian:

The movie Old Fashioned is about a young woman who meets a man and “finds herself surprisingly drawn to his strong faith and noble ideas, which are new and intriguing to her.”

Because if you’re not into BDSM yourself, it’s perfectly fine to fall for someone who worships the ultimate pain-giver. (Jesus just forgot the safe word.)

The movie has taken in more than $1,000,000 s...

New Jersey Judge Rules Ex-Gay Conversion Therapy is Consumer Fraud

For the first time ever, a United States judge has affirmed what theAmerican Psychiatric Association has been saying since 1973: Homosexuality is not a mental illness.

Michele Bachmann is one of the nation’s biggest proponents of “praying the gay away.” Photo by Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Judge Peter F. Barsio Jr. of the New Jersey Superior Court ruled last weekagainst the conversion therapy providerJews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH). Here’s the official ruling, short and sweet:

It...

Professor Accuses “Irrationally Hateful” New Atheists of Being Zionists and Supporting Palestinian Genocide

False impressions ought to be corrected. One of mine was that if you teach at a university, you have learned how to think, and you’ve accepted that while youhave a right to your own opinion, you’re not entitled toyour own facts.

I see now that I was wrong. Jamil Khader, a dean of research and professor of English at Bethlehem UniversityinPalestine, hasopened my eyes.

In an op-ed piece for Al Jazeera,Khader’sfirst conclusion-jumping mistake is to assert as fact that theChapel Hill victimswere mu...