Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1975

This Woman’s Testimony Is Exposing a Sex Scandal in the Catholic Church

Twin Cities (Minnesota) Archbishop John Nienstedt (below) spent years arguing against LGBT rights. In 2007, he wrote that “those who actively encourage or promote homosexual acts… formally cooperate in a grave evil and, if they do so knowingly and willingly, are guilty of mortal sin.” He condemned Brokeback Mountain when it came out. And he spent $650,000 of the Church’s money trying to convince Minnesota voters to pass an amendment banning same-sex marriage — an amendment that ultimately failed.

Cover it up, Archbishop… cover it up

It’s hardly surprisingly, then, to learn that Nienstedt was under investigation for having sex with other priests. More importantly, he retaliated against anyone who didn’t respond in kind or questioned what he was doing. He denies all of these allegations, of course.

But it gets worse. One of the men promoted by Nienstedt to become a pastor, Curtis Wehmeyer, ended up molesting kids while in that role. It was discovered that Nienstedt knew about Wehmeyer’s criminal history when he promoted him to that position.

It’s just astonishing how any of this could have happened. And we haven’t scraped the bottom of the barrel yet, since Nienstedt’s “archivist and top adviser on Roman Catholic church law” Jennifer Haselberger is finally speaking out against the cover-ups that took place while she was there:

Haselberger said that when she started examining records in 2008 of clergy under restrictions over sex misconduct with adults and children she found “nearly 20″ of the 48 men still in ministry. She said she repeatedly warned Nienstedt and his aides about the risk of these placements, but they took action only in one case. As a result of raising alarms, she said she was eventually shut out of meetings about priest misconduct. She resigned last year.

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Auxiliary Bishop Andrew Cozzens said in a statement that Haselberger’s “recollections are not always shared by others within the archdiocese.” He said the archdiocese was taking steps toward “greater transparency and accountability.”

Well, that’s convenient. The recollections may not be shared, but the Church is known for just dismissing things that make it look bad. They love sweeping naughty/molest-y clergy members under the rug.

You can read Haselberger’s full affidavit here. It’s more than 100 pages of information the Church doesn’t want you to hear. Haselberger deserves a lot of credit for shining a light on this information. It’s an incredibly courageous move, given the size and influence of the institution she’s up against.

If any of this bothers you — as it very well should — then remember this: The cycle isn’t going to end unless people who belong to the Church stop attending, stop enrolling their children in Catholic schools, and stop giving the Church money. Church leaders can afford to ignore these problems because they know they have anxious sheep awaiting their return. Until those followers stop enabling the priests to do as they please, legal or not, it won’t stop.

(Portions of this article were posted earlier)

Bible Stories for Corporations

Finally, Ruben Bolling has written the book we’ve all been waiting for: Bible Stories for Newly Formed and Young Corporations!

You can see more panels from the book (that seriously needs to be published) at Boing Boing.

This is a Sign of Church Desperation, Isn’t It?

Wanna vote for Charlotte’s hottest selfies?

Of course you don’t. But that’s what Elevation Church thinks will get you to come to a service. (If that doesn’t do it, the poor grammar will.)

The fact that your here means that at least a small part of you thought this was real and wanted to check it out. Either way, we can all agree that our culture has a serious problem with self-perception and identity. So how do we fix it?

(Spoiler: Jesus)

It’s not surprising for this church in particular to resort to bait-and-switch tactics, trying to fool people into giving them a shot. This is the same church, after all, responsible for fake “spontaneous baptisms” and where Pastor Steven Furtick‘s salary is kept secret even from the congregation.

They thrive off of deception. Makes sense, I guess. If they fool you once with the smoke and mirrors, they’ll gladly fool you again with everything that’s in the Bible.

(via @StuffCCLikes)

Hobby Lobby Will Postpone Its Awful Public School Bible Curriculum

Earlier this year, before the Supreme Court decision came down, Hobby Lobby President Steve Green announced that he had developed a Bible curriculum for public schools and that Oklahoma’s Mustang Public Schools board had voted to approve it and become the first district to implement it. The course would focus on the “narrative, history and impact of the Good Book.”

Green said in a video that he believed the course should be mandatory, though it would only be an elective for the time being.

In case you’re wondering, there are already courses like this in public schools around the country and they’re legal because they don’t treat the Bible as a Holy Book. (Though even that line is crossed far more than it should.) I think most defenders of church/state separation would agree that there’s a lot of value in teaching about the Bible because of the role it plays in literature, culture, and our own history… as long as you follow a simple rule: You can teach the Bible, but you can’t preach the Bible.

That was the big question people were asking: Would Steve Green’s Bible curriculum really be objective?

Turns out women have a better chance of finding birth control pills sold in Hobby Lobby’s aisles.

A first look at the course’s textbook showed instance after instance of the Bible being taught as factually, historically true — making it illegal for use in a public school.

It didn’t help that the Freedom From Religion Foundation exposed the all-too-cozy relationship between the Greens and the district administrators.

Today, finally, the Green family announced they would postpone the curriculum:

“We have operated on an aggressive timeline to deliver the curriculum for the upcoming school year,” wrote Jerry Pattengale, editor for the projected four-year high school syllabus, in a prepared statement. But “unforeseen delays” necessitated postponing the debut until January.

“Unforeseen delays” must be the euphemism for “Damn! They caught us!”

David Van Biema notes in his article that it’s unclear if the “current glitches are technical or editorial,” but it’s hard for me to believe a few tech glitches couldn’t be cleaned up in time for the beginning of the school year. This problem goes much deeper than that. The course needs a complete overhaul — or it needs to be scrapped altogether.

Maybe the Green family should just take the hint: Stop injecting your theology in places it doesn’t belong. The Supreme Court gave you a gift when they allowed you to make the lives of some of your female employees that much harder. Don’t screw up the school system, too.

(Top image via Shutterstock. Portions of this article were posted earlier.)

Coalition of Church/State Separation Groups Urges Obama to Avoid Religious Exemption in Upcoming Executive Order

A couple of weeks ago, Pastor Rick Warren and more than a dozen other Protestant and Catholic leaders demanded that President Obama give religious companies with federal contracts the ability to discriminate against LGBT employees.

It all had to do with an upcoming executive order that Obama said he would sign, which would ban all federal contractors from discriminating against employees because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Since no one knows what the order will say, the Christian leaders were attempting to influence the order’s wording to include a religious exemption.

Yesterday, a coalition of nearly 70 religious and secular groups sent the President a letter urging him to do precisely the opposite. (A group of 50 law professors around the country have done the same.)

… All of our organizations have worked to preserve traditional safeguards that protect civil rights and religious liberty when government partners with religiously affiliated organizations — safeguards we defend for the good of both religion and government.

Religious freedom is one of our most cherished values, a fundamental and defining feature of our national character. It guarantees us the freedom to hold any belief we choose and the right to act on our religious beliefs within certain limits. It does not, however, provide organizations the right to discriminate using taxpayer dollars. When a religiously affiliated organization makes the decision to request a taxpayer-funded contract with the federal government, it must play by the same rules as every other federal contractor.

Groups that signed the letter include: the American Humanist Association, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Center For Inquiry, Council for Secular Humanism, Interfaith Alliance, and the Secular Coalition for America.

Keep in mind that what they’re asking for is equal treatment for everyone.

What the Christian leaders are asking for is special treatment for the sole purpose of discriminating against people. If that isn’t clear evidence of religion causing otherwise decent people to do awful things, I don’t know what is.

(Portions of this article were posted earlier.)

What the Fading “Mormon Moment” Means for Other Conservative Religious Groups

Cadence Woodland, writing for the New York Times, believes that the “Mormon Moment” — the wave of popular interest in the Church that included Mitt Romney‘s run for the presidency and The Book of Mormon musical — is finally ending. She says the Church is to blame for that by missing a valuable opportunity to capitalize on all the attention by righting its wrongs.

When they had the chance to reach out to LGBT individuals, Mormons supported Prop 8.

When they had the chance to reach out to women, Mormon leaders excommunicated Ordain Women founder Kate Kelly.

When they had the chance to reach out to African-Americans, they banned black men from the priesthood until 1978.

When everyone was watching, Church leaders did what churches leaders do: They became more exclusive and intolerant.

Woodland laments:

The church will continue to lose members like me until it realizes that messages about diversity and inclusion are hollow when excommunication and censorship are the responses to dissent. While the church invests in missionary work, especially overseas, an unwelcoming posture is likely to hinder its growth.

The true legacy of the Mormon Moment might just be that the church was given the chance that many religious institutions desperately need to stay relevant in the 21st century: the opportunity to open itself to criticism and inquiry. The church has chosen not to. And it has killed its own moment by doing so.

Mormons aren’t alone in screwing up their golden opportunity.

We live in a culture divided on social issues that shouldn’t be divisive at all. Opening up marriage to gays and lesbians? Easy call. Giving women the full range of options during a pregnancy? Obvious. In both of those cases (and so many others), the most powerful religious institutions in the world refused to lead the path forward. They chose bigotry and control over tolerance and freedom.

For all the power evangelical Christians, Southern Baptists, the Catholic Church, and the Mormons have today, can you imagine how much more they would have if they supported marriage equality and abortion rights a decade or two ago? Instead, their own actions have forced young people to leave the institutions, drop their religious labels, and search for more welcoming communities.

Woodland is upset about that. She shouldn’t be. She did herself a favor by leaving a Church that shows no desire to improve. If more people followed suit, maybe these institutions would finally rethink their policies.

(via Shutterstock)

In the Religion Popularity Contest, Atheists are in a Statistical Tie for Last Place… but There’s Hope!

According to a new survey published by the Pew Research Center, atheists are pretty much the least popular religious group in America, in a statistical tie with Muslims:

Among those who took the survey, atheists received a rating of 33 or lower from 40% of respondents. Only 20% of respondents gave us a rating higher than 67.

In one of the more interesting aspects of the survey, when you removed Evangelicals from the survey, their own approval rating dropped from 61 to 52, suggesting that Evangelicals think much more highly of themselves than the rest of us do. (No other group’s numbers dropped nearly as much when their own followers were taken out of the picture.)

We also found out which groups like and dislike which other groups.

No one loves themselves as much as Jews love other Jews, giving themselves an approval rating of 89.

Meanwhile, when it comes to dislike, Atheists really don’t get along with Evangelicals, giving them an approval rating of only 28. The only ranking lower than that was the one White Evangelicals gave to Atheists: 25.

You know who *really* doesn’t like us? Republicans. They gave us an approval rating of 34 (Only Muslims were lower with a score of 33).

But it’s not like Democrats are on our side, either. They gave us a 46 (compared to Muslims’ 47). I was surprised to see that Democrats ranked Mormons lower than us (44). Maybe that’s some Mitt Romney residue:

This is why it’s so hard for us to make political inroads with either group. We know we have very little chance of getting Republicans to listen to us… but even the Democrats want to keep us at a distance. If we can’t convince them to take us seriously, if we can’t provide one party with a solid voting bloc, it makes it that much easier for them to dismiss our issues.

There are some bright spots for us, though. Atheists are one of the few groups getting a higher approval rating among younger people. In fact, the younger the demographic, the higher our likability.

And more people know an atheist! We’ve long said that, parallel to the gay rights movement, people who know an atheist personally are far less likely to demonize us. And 59% of Americans say they know someone who’s an atheist, making us more visible than Mormons, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus:

(I should mention that the number is probably much higher than 59%. Atheists are everywhere, but many of us are closeted. So the vast majority of Americans probably know an atheist. They just don’t know that they know an atheist.)

This is a huge factor. Among people who knew an atheist personally, our approval rating is 50. Among those who claim they don’t know any atheists, it drops to 29, the lowest number among all groups. Visibility is *huge*.

Overall, the numbers aren’t very different from what I would’ve guessed, but it’s always striking to see them in context of other groups. The issue, to me, is one of ignorance and stereotyping more than anything else. Most people who dislike atheists feel that way because they equate godlessness with immorality and evil. That changes when they get to know us personally.

The exception to that rule? Evangelicals, who see us as ideological enemies. Atheists could be good people, but it wouldn’t matter to them, because our views on social issues tend to stand in opposition to everything they support. But that obviously goes the other way, too.

(via Religion News Service)

Editors’ Note: This article is part of the Public Square 2014 Summer Series: Conversations on Religious Trends. Read other perspectives from the Atheist community here.

A Judge Dismissed FFRF’s Lawsuit to Distribute Atheist Books in a Florida School District, but It’s Still a Victory

You may recall that, back in January, World Changers of Florida, Inc. held Bible distributions at a number of public high schools in Orange County. No student would be forced to take one, but there would be a table set up where interested students could take a copy if they wanted:

This alone could have been illegal, but the Orange County School Board agreed that non-Christian groups could also have a distribution if they wanted. The Central Florida Freethought Community (CFFC) called their bluff and planned their own giveaways.

The only problem was that the atheist giveaways were heavily censored:

Orange County Public Schools insisted on vetting the freethought literature from FFRF and other secular groups. It censored many of the materials, including “Letter to a Christian Nation,” Sam Harris’ book; “The Truth,” an essay by Robert G. Ingersoll; “Jesus Is Dead” a book by Robert Price, professor of philosophy and religion; “What on Earth Is an Atheist,” a book by Madalyn Murray O’Hair; “Why I am Not a Muslim,” a book by Ibn Warraq, and several FFRF “nontracts,” including “Dear Believer,” “Why Jesus?” “What Does the Bible Say About Abortion?” and “An X-Rated Book.”

The school board obviously had no issue with rape or violence since they allowed the Bible in… but why would anyone censor Letter to a Christian Nation or Why I am Not a Muslim?

In fact, the list of literature that was censored is long and much of it makes little sense:

The school board offered some flimsy explanations for their decisions, but the Freedom From Religion Foundation didn’t buy them — and they felt that the courts wouldn’t either since it really just boiled down to, “AHHH! ATHEISTS!” So, in June, FFRF filed a federal lawsuit against the district:

The school district prohibited one book because its message that Jesus was not crucified or resurrected “is age inappropriate for the maturity levels of many of the students in high school.” However, the bible that the school approved for distribution claims that [Jesus was] crucified and resurrected. “Permitting one viewpoint (the crucifixion and resurrection occurred) and censoring the opposing viewpoint (the crucifixion and resurrection did not occur) is unconstitutional,” FFRF’s complaint states.

…

The complaint lists dozens of factual examples of how secular materials and secular volunteers were treated differently from the World Changers and the biblical material:

The district objected to the Harris book for describing “the sacrifice of virgins, killing and eating of children in order to ensure the future fertility of mothers, feeding infants to sharks, and the burning of widows so they can follow their husbands into the next world.” FFRF’s complaint notes that the concepts flagged as age inappropriate all appear in the bible.
WCF put up interactive whiteboards, had volunteers staffing tables to talk with students and passed out invitations to worship at the Orlando Wesleyan Church. Plaintiffs attempted to pass out a pizza party invitation but were censored at several schools. Freethought volunteers had to wait up to an hour at some schools to set up.

The point of the lawsuit was simple: If you’re letting Christians hand out materials promoting their beliefs, you can’t stop atheists (and others) from doing the same. To argue otherwise is viewpoint discrimination. The district must allow everyone or no one.

Yesterday, a district judge dismissed FFRF’s lawsuit — but not on its merits. Judge Kendall Sharp noted that the school district has since allowed FFRF to distribute all the books it previously prohibited, making this lawsuit irrelevant:

In this case, the circumstances are sufficiently clear that the alleged wrongful behavior — Defendant’s initial prohibition of a subset of the materials that Plaintiffs sought to distribute — will not recur in the future.

…

Defendant has unambiguously expressed its position that each of the materials Plaintiffs sought to distribute will be unconditionally allowed.

It should be noted that the school gave FFRF and CFFC permission to distribute their books in January, but neither atheist group chose to participate at the time. David Williamson of CFFC explained that they didn’t participate because he didn’t have enough time to prepare the materials and find volunteers.

FFRF’s Co-President Dan Barker sees Sharp’s decision as a victory, with only slight reservation:

“We disagree with how the court and the school district chose to handle this clear-cut discrimination, so we’ll likely be appealing on some issues, but overall, it’s a win.”

The best part about all this? It means other groups can join in on the fun. Satanists can distribute their literature. So can Wiccans. And Muslims who want to give away copies of the Koran. Scientologists? Why not. The more, the merrier. And it all drowns out the Christians who wanted to be there in the first place.

Maybe the district will finally realize it’s best to close the doors to outside religious groups altogether and let the students focus on getting a real education without outside intervention.

(Large portions of this article were posted earlier.)

Todd Starnes Thinks Michelle Obama, Who Writes No Laws, Has Banned Chick-fil-A from Public Schools

Michelle Obama, who doesn’t write or vote on any laws, wants to prevent childhood obesity. And a federal law passed in 2010 requires that school snacks contain fewer than 200 calories.

If you were Fox News’ Todd Starnes, how would you use that information to make up a completely bogus story designed to freak out gullible Christians?

First Lady Michelle Obama Declares War on Chick-fil-A

That would do it.

Michelle Obama wants kids to be healthy. Congress passes a bill to make meals in school more nutritious. That means avoiding Chick-fil-A sandwiches and fatty snack foods that go above the calorie count.

Therefore, Michelle Obama hates Jesus. (And the Keebler Elves, I assume.)

The new government regulations require snack items served in public schools to have less than 200 calories. That includes vending machines, lunch rooms and other campus food venues.

And that’s really bad news for kids at South Carolina’s Socastee High School. They’ve just learned they will no longer be allowed to buy Chick-fil-A sandwiches at school.

…

School leaders are bracing for the outrage when returning students learn that there won’t be any more bake sales. No more cupcakes. No more Cheese Doodles. Just bottled water and fat-free kale chips — all thanks to Mrs. Obama’s meddling.

This is what seething hatred looks like. The facts don’t support Starnes’ story — as usual — so he just makes up something inflammatory. (Which is too bad since his health would probably improve if he ate some of those kale chips instead of the alternatives.)

When a Christian “news” organization like Charisma promotes what he’s saying, it’s an admission that the truth doesn’t matter. They’re more than happy to embrace obvious bullshit.

I mean, I expect that description of Christianity from atheists, but not from Christians themselves.

By the way, students are still allowed to bring their own lunches to school. If parents want to feed them Chick-fil-A sandwiches or any other foods that’ll slowly clog their arteries, they’re welcome to.

Why Would Non-Christians Believe the Bible is Literally True?

The video below, part of The Atheist Voice series, discusses non-Christians who believe the Bible is literally true:

You can read more about the subject here.

A rough transcript of the video can be found on the YouTube page in the “About” section.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the project — more videos will be posted soon — and we’d also appreciate your suggestions as to which questions we ought to tackle next!

And if you like what you’re seeing, please consider supporting this site on Patreon.