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New Crime Drama Show Will Feature Episode About Murdered Founder of American Atheists

Investigation Discovery is the crime-porn channel that’s home to shows like Ice Cold Killers (about crimes in Alaska), Wives with Knives (about women who kill their partners), Blood Relatives (about people who kill relatives), and Southern Fried Homicide (take a wild guess).

Soon, it’ll premiere a series called Vanity Fair Confidential about crime scandals that were covered in the pages of the magazine.

Check out the focus of one of the first episodes:

THE LADY VANISHES by Mimi Swartz

Madalyn Murray O’Hair is deemed one of the most hated women in all of America for being responsible for banning school prayer. When O’Hair, her son, Jon, and her granddaughter, Robin, suddenly vanish, some people believe they’ve been killed by religious fanatics. Others are convinced she’s embezzled money from American Atheists, the organization she founded, and has started a new life abroad. Her eldest son, William J. Murray, and family friend, Phil Donahue, are concerned and start the manhunt to find the Murray O’Hairs, which Vanity Fair writer Mimi Swartz quickly joins. Did the Murray O’Hairs flee to Europe with embezzled money? Were religious extremists responsible for their disappearance? The truth of the family’s whereabouts is something that no one could have predicted.

Spoiler alert: They were killed by a former ex-con employee of American Atheists who was more interested in their money than in their religious views.

(Also, O’Hair didn’t ban school prayer. She only helped put a stop to mandatory recitations of Bible verses.)

Even though Swartz’s article about the murder appeared in the magazine in 1997, it included false information that was given to her by David Waters, one of the men eventually held responsible for the murders. He led Swartz to believe the family had run off to New Zealand with their money. (In fact, the murders had taken place more than a year earlier.) So when the show description says “Others are convinced she’s embezzled money from American Atheists, the organization she founded, and has started a new life abroad,” it’s literally referring to the Vanity Fair reporter.

It’ll be interesting to hear what Swartz has to say decades later about getting duped by the killer.

For what it’s worth, nobody currently involved with American Atheists was interviewed for the episode (as far as I can tell).

(Thanks to Brian for the link)

In Portland, Full-Page Newspaper Ad Challenges “Religious Extremists” Coming to “Recruit Our Public School Children”

If you turn the pages in the latest edition of the Portland (Oregon) alt-weekly Willamette Week, you’ll come across this full page ad:

A national religious group called the Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) is targeting Portland this summer with an aggressive recruiting campaign. They are bringing in over 100 missionaries from July 14-26 to “harvest” children as young as 4 years old. Their plan is to work with local churches to start after-school “Good News Clubs” in our public elementary schools this fall.

Extreme doctrines harm young children

Good News Clubs are not about mainstream bible study or the Golden Rule. They are hardcore fundamentalist indoctrination. They terrorize children too young to understand with vivid warnings of eternal punishment. They teach children that they are born wicked and “deserve to die” instead of building self-esteem. They teach children submission to authority instead of critical thinking. These toxic, fear-based doctrines can cause traumas in children that last into adulthood.

Protect Portland’s children

Do you believe that the Child Evangelism Fellowship is entitled to use our public schools to indoctrinate young children with harmful ideas about who they are, and hate- ful ideas about who nonbelievers are? If not, take action. Talk to your friends. If you’re a parent, talk to other parents and administra- tors in your school. Contact Protect Portland Children for more information.

The ad was published by a group called Protect Portland Children which hopes to inform parents about how these Christians plan to indoctrinate local children who are barely old enough to think for themselves.

“We think if people have enough information, they’ll choose not to do it,” said Robert Aughenbaugh, a co-founder of Protect Portland Children…

…

“We believe that these doctrines are harmful to 5-year-old children,” Aughenbaugh said. “They teach fear. They teach shame.”

They won’t be able to stop the clubs from meeting at local schools, but members of Protect Portland Children hope that parents will at least be able to make an educated decision about whether to allow their children to attend the meetings. The Good News Clubs thrive on uninformed parents who just hear “Good News” and “Bible” and assume everything will be just fine. They have no idea the club’s M.O. is to use fear and manipulation to gain religious converts who are too young to know any better. (Katherine Stewart wrote the definitive book on the group: The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children.)

On a personal note, it’s great to see an organized pushback against these clubs. It would be even better to see similar groups popping up in other cities before CEF arrives. Remember: This isn’t about censorship. It’s about informing parents about what they’re actually signing their kids up for. If they really knew about the tactics used by the CEF, no rational parents — including many Christian ones — would allow their kids to be subject to this sort of emotional abuse.

Christian Bigot Whines About How Independence Day Parades Included LGBT Groups and Their Supporters

The Illinois Family Institute’s Laurie Higgins, whose mind immediately turns to genitalia when the topic of homosexuality comes up, is furious that local Fourth of July parade organizers allowed LGBT supporters to walk in them:

Angry parents of young children in Wheaton, a conservative community which is home to Wheaton College and a dozen theologically orthodox churches, contacted me to express their frustration that for the second year in a row, the homosexuality-affirming organization Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) had marched in the parade. No one opposes friendships with homosexuals, but, of course, that’s not really what this deviously-named organization is promoting.

So many questions…

Who are these angry parents who can’t handle LGBT groups merely existing in the community?

Why does it matter that there are a lot of conservative churches in Wheaton?

What’s so “devious” about gays and lesbians having parents and friends?

(By the way, you know how I know Higgins doesn’t have any gay friends? Because she uses the phrase “friendships with homosexuals.”)

Communities now take pride in affirming shameful behaviors, with our elected leaders marching pridefully in celebration of that which no man or woman should celebrate let alone celebrate on Main Street in front of children. What a barbarous affront to families and an insult to our veterans. No Christian should bring their children to any event that celebrates and affirms soul-destroying sexual perversion. If Christians are unwilling to make even this small sacrifice, they are woefully unprepared for what’s coming.

Got that? It’s an insult to our veterans — many of whom are gay and lesbian — that we honor their existence and celebrate the march of progress.

This is why so few people take these bigots seriously. Where you and I see a parade full of joy and celebration, they see “soul-destroying sexual perversion.” Gay people aren’t people to Christians like them; they’re just deviants reduced to what they do in the bedroom.

And Higgins knows exactly what will happen if we don’t go batshit insane at the mere sight of a rainbow in a parade:

There will be no square inch of life that will be left untouched by the sullied hands of homosexual perversity — no celebration, no public school, no career path, and no church will be left unmolested.

*Snicker*… Too easy with that one…

Her fear is that LGBT people will just become part of the American fabric. They’ll be included in community events, teach your children, and become your colleagues. And that’s how Teh Gay is spread!

I will say, I have no idea why she’s so worried about gay people joining Christian churches that want nothing to do with them. The churches would be lucky to have them. As it stands, not only are gay people not joining those churches, people like Higgins are the reason so many young people are leaving them.

It helps that liberals never have to create a nasty caricature of conservatives (not that some people haven’t), as they’ve done with LGBT people and their allies. All we have to do is quote people like Higgins verbatim and the seething hatred is right there for all to see.

(via Right Wing Watch. Image via Olga Besnard / Shutterstock.com)

Why Evangelical Christians Ignore the Science Behind Birth Control

After the ruling on Hobby Lobby came down, the biggest question in the minds of those outside of the Christian Right may have been: Why is the science behind birth control irrelevant to the Christians involved in this case?

A quick Google search reveals that the objected-to forms of birth control don’t cause abortions, but the fearful visceral response from Hobby Lobby supporters was entirely driven by the idea that these contraceptives cause early abortions.

The bewilderment from those who premise their reasoning on things other than Biblical inerrancy is profound:

There is no evidence that Plan B, Ella, or the Mirena cause abortion by any definition. The evidence that the ParaGard might affect implantation for a small percentage of women, thus leading to what some conservatives would call abortion, is thin. But we don’t have the information to discount it completely.

Is that a rational basis for refusing to pay for these contraceptives — and reducing the reach of a health care initiative that provides enormous benefits? Religious conservatives think so. And thanks to the Supreme Court, they will get their way.

What you may not realize is that the reasoning on this issue traces back to Christians’ essential assumptions about what the Bible is and is not.

Belief that the Bible is inerrant — and 30% of Americans agree with that statement — requires suspicion of scientific theories, fear of scientific unknowns, and the threadlike hope that relied-upon data might be wrong.

This flies in the face of how science works. But because they’re afraid of their faith unraveling if the literal six-day Creation account isn’t found to be 100% factual, they have no choice but to cling to the tiny chance that science is wrong. Probability has no value here.

Therefore, if there’s even a slight chance that a fertilized zygote will be expelled from the uterus while a female body is employing some form of birth control, it means there is a known risk of causing an abortion, and a baby’s death will be on your conscience if that happens.

Everything we know about how birth control lowers the rates of abortions, child poverty, food insecurity, and social safety net dependents is irrelevant because of the small chance those things would come at the expense of a potential child due to birth control.

Christian writer Rachel Marie Stone wrote about this at Faith Street:

… I get stuck when that conviction is taken from the personal realm — “I choose not to do this myself” — into the realm of policy — “I will take measures to make obtaining this method more difficult.” Here is why:

It results in too many deaths — not quiet cellular deaths, but the loud deaths of grown women and the whimpering deaths of children.

It seems very clear to me that if we put most methods of reversible birth control besides condoms and diaphragms off the table, ethically speaking, we exchange the very hypothetical failure of a blastocyst to implant for the definite reality of visible, screaming, bloody deaths of women and children worldwide.

According to data at USAID, “family planning could prevent up to 30 percent of the more than 287,000 maternal deaths that occur every year, by enabling women to delay their first pregnancy and space later pregnancies at the safest intervals. If all babies were born three years apart, the lives of 1.6 million children under the age of five would be saved every year.”

That doesn’t include the lives saved due to death from malnutrition in areas where population growth far outstrips the food supply.

As this reasoning goes, if you pay for the birth control, the blood is on your hands, too — you knew the risks but you disregarded them for the sake of convenience. Christians of all sorts value intellectual integrity (really), and this extended line of reasoning is their way of honoring that. The premise may be a million miles off, but it’s at least consistent to itself.

(Image via Shutterstock)

Atheist TV Channel Will Launch by the End of the Month

After first mentioning the idea this past spring, American Atheists has announced that a TV channel dedicated to atheist programming will launch on Tuesday, July 29.

Atheist TV will be available via Roku, the Internet-streaming service that attaches to your television like a cable box. Viewers will also be able to stream the content at atheists.tv:

“The launch of Atheist TV is history in the making,” said American Atheists President David Silverman. “There are hundreds of TV channels dedicated to religious programming, but nothing like this has ever existed before for atheists, and yet the demand is overwhelming. For the first time, atheist video content—from firebrand speeches, to stand-up comedy, to documentaries, to real science-based educational programming, and more—is now available to atheists worldwide, on the air and all in one place. Atheist TV brings consistent, quality, superstition-free programming for children and adults, on the air and on-demand, right from your regular television. This is an idea whose time has come and we’re celebrating.”

There’s no word yet on exactly what content will appear on the channel, but it’s tailor-made for videos already available on YouTube.

As it stands, the only original programming on the channel will be The Atheist Viewpoint (AA’s own in-house show). Additional content will be licensed from the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science and the Atheist Community of Austin (which produces The Atheist Experience).

Will ratings matter? Internally, yes, though it’s not like Roku requires a certain viewership to remain on the network. AA Communications Director Dave Muscato told me via email that “As a nonprofit, part of our mission is education and we are doing this as part of that activism, to make a new resource available to atheists and curious fence-sitters and even non-atheists. We want to reach as many people as possible and that is a goal for us.”

The cost for the venture is currently being covered by a donor who wants to see this channel become a reality. However, AA will explore other revenue streams at a later time.

Why Are Conservatives Defending the Woman Who Posted a Picture of Herself Holding a Gun and a Bible?

By now, you’ve inevitably seen the picture of a Christian woman holding a gun in one hand and a Bible the other, while standing in front of an American flag. Because that somehow relates to Hobby Lobby:

The picture went viral after it was juxtaposed with a similar image of terrorist Reem Saleh Al-Riyashi (often including the phrase: “Explain the difference”):

Conservatives are giddily defending Holly Fisher, the woman on the left: Of course we can explain the difference. She’s a good patriotic Christian woman who wants to defend her family!

As if that’s everyone’s first reaction when they see the picture.

David French, a conservative blogger at Patheos, doubled down on that idea (while naming the wrong terrorist, because facts don’t matter when you’re defending the faith):

Truth be told, no sentient leftist would feel threatened by Holly Fisher if he met her, but most would be terrified to the point of incoherence by any true encounter with a woman like Ms. Lewthwaite. No, the visual comparison between a peaceful American intentionally trolling the Left and a vicious terrorist is all about shame and stigma, trying to place the Holly Fishers of the world outside the pale of civilized discourse.

…

The Left can mock, shame, and rage all it wants, but the fact remains — if a leftist ever does encounter a Sherafiyah Lewthwaite, he would feel far, far better if a Holly Fisher was nearby.

Got that, everyone? Stop confusing the woman with the holy book and weapon with the other woman with the holy book and weapon. One of them is holding a Bible, therefore she’s the good one. Got it?!

Christopher Hitchens wrote about this exact kind of setup in God is Not Great:

I was to imagine myself in a strange city as the evening was coming on. Toward me I was to imagine that I saw a large group of men approaching. Now — would I feel safer, or less safe, if I was to learn that they were just coming from a prayer meeting? As the reader will see, this is not a question to which a yes/no answer can be given. But I was able to answer as if it were not hypothetical. “Just to stay within the letter ‘B,’ I have actually had that experience in Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, Belgrade, Bethlehem, and Baghdad. In each case I can say absolutely, and can give my reasons, why I would feel immediately threatened if I thought that the group of men approaching me in the dusk were coming from a religious observance.“

Needless to say, Christianity was the religion of choice in many of these cities.

The fact is, when I look at Holly, I don’t feel safe. I don’t know her. I don’t know how she interprets certain passages in her holy book. I don’t know how safely she handles guns. I don’t know how easily provoked she gets. I don’t know how she acts around atheists. The only thing she has going for her is that she resembles all those other right-wingers who, at worst, believe and say idiotic things but don’t necessarily resort to violence. But if I didn’t live in this country, then how the hell would I know that? Not to mention that if the best thing conservatives can say is, “At least Holly won’t kill you,” that’s hardly a compliment.

The point of the image is that both women believe a sympathetic audience would find them admirable. Their religious books are meant to symbolize goodness to other people who already think the words in them are true. They both hold weapons they believe represent strength and freedom. They’re both just daring us to mess with them. Both sides think the other side is batshit crazy. And neither is doing anything useful. (Though this Canadian dude is kind of awesome.)

As Sinclair Lewis is said to have written, “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” It’s frightening that conservatives are working so hard to defend Holly, acting like her picture is no big deal at all. It’s a terrifying response, even if we’re supposed to “know” Holly doesn’t want to kill us.

(Update: Sinclair Lewis may not have written the quote often attributed to him. My apologies.)

Christian Pastor Who Tortured a Child Will Spend No More Than Two Years in Prison

Here’s what I know about the Heart of Worship Community Church in Corona, California: Its members love Jesus, its website needs a lot of help, and the pastor is fucked up.

This is what Pastor Lonny Lee Remmers (below), along with two church members, did to a 13-year-old boy in 2012 because he needed to be “disciplined”:

… The alleged incidents occurred in March and included [church members Nicholas James Craig and Darryll Duane Jeter Jr.] driving the unidentified boy to a desert and forcing him to dig his own grave for more than an hour. They allegedly hit him with a belt and threw dirt on him before returning to the group home.

While the boy was showering, one of the men allegedly rubbed salt into the cuts on his back. Witness Steven Larkey, who lives in the group home, told investigators he could hear the boy screaming and saw blood all over the shower the next day.

The boy, who was later taken into protective custody, also told police he had been stripped, tied to a chair and sprayed with Mace. Because he was not allowed to wash or cool off with water for half an hour, his nose began to bleed, and his thrashing from the pain caused the blood to splatter.

…

At a Bible study later that evening at Remmers’ home, Remmers asked the boy to sit in the middle of the group and then squeezed his nipple with pliers.

What’s the proper punishment for the abuse and torture of a little boy? A life sentence? A couple of decades behind bars?

Not even close. The men of God will receive, at most, up to two years in prison and some probation. That’s it. In most states, you get a harsher penalty for selling weed.

The lesson is clear: If you’re committing a crime, just remember to do it in the name of Jesus.

(via Christian Nightmares)

Minnesota Interfaith Group Changes Its Name to Become More Inclusive of Atheists

When you mention the word “Interfaith” around atheists, you often hear a lot of pushback against the word itself. Even if an interfaith dialogue is supposed to represent a conversation between people of all different beliefs, I’ve heard atheists say something like, Atheism isn’t a faith, so “interfaith” excludes us by definition.

Well, a group in Minnesota has finally taken a positive step toward becoming more inclusive.

The St. Paul Interfaith Network in Minnesota hosts a monthly meeting called the “Interfaith Conversation Cafe” (ICC) where different groups come together to talk about whatever that month’s theme is.

Two of those groups were the Secular Bible Study and First Minneapolis Circle of Reason. They lobbied for the ICC to change its name to reflect their participation… and it worked!

Say hello to the just-renamed “Inter-belief Conversation Cafe“:

As far as I know, that marks the first time an interfaith group has opted out of using that term in favor of something more inclusive to non-religious people.

Inter-belief still sounds a little clunky… but it’s the thought that counts. Let’s see if other like-minded groups follow that trend.

She Went from Attending a Victim-Blaming Christian College to Becoming a Church/State Separation Activist

The New York Times‘ Mark Oppenheimer, who in the past couple of months has profiled atheist author S.T. Joshi and ex-Muslim activist Heina Dadabhoy, continues that trend with a piece about Sarah Jones (below) of Americans United for Separation of Church and State who only a few years ago was a student at a fundamentalist Christian college:

“My parents identify themselves as fundamentalist Christians,” Ms. Jones said. “I was home schooled most of the way through. I didn’t have any contact with people outside my church or any friends who were in public school — little to no contact with the outside world.”

…

When she was 21 and a junior at Cedarville [University], she realized that she did not believe in God anymore, and she stopped going to church. She remembered thinking: “I am trying to put on someone else’s clothes. They were not mine.”

Part of what pushed her over the edge was how the school treated women, even suggesting in no subtle way that they were partly to blame in cases of sexual assault:

Ms. Jones said that she had lost her faith before the sexual assault, but that the school’s Christian culture had made it more difficult for her to seek justice. “One of the reasons I didn’t report it is because my boyfriend knew I was no longer a Christian,” she said. She feared that if he revealed her apostasy, she would be expelled.

One year, she said, the campus abstinence group held a panel on “modesty,” in which the male panelists castigated women for wearing pajamas to the dining hall and thus tempting men. “I was wearing pajamas when I was attacked,” Ms. Jones said. “To attach so much shame to something like pajama pants — how can you address something like sexual assault?”

It’s a profile that reveals both how brave Jones is and how frightening those kinds of Christian institutions can be when you have the audacity to think differently.

Colorado House Candidate: If Atheists Undergo Exorcisms, They’ll Be Fine with Graduation Ceremonies in Church

Last month, a Wisconsin school district was told it could no longer hold its graduation ceremonies in an evangelical church. (The Supreme Court refused to hear the case, effectively ending the legal battle.)

So what does Republican candidate for the Colorado State House Gordon Klingenschmitt have to say about it?

Simple: If atheists just got exorcisms, everything would be just fine.

If the atheist complainer is so uncomfortable when they walk into a church that there’s something inside of them squirming and making them feel these feelings of hatred toward the cross of Jesus Christ, don’t you think it’s something inside of the atheist complainer that’s wrong?

I have a solution. Let’s do an exorcism and cast the Devil out of them and then they’ll feel comfortable when they walk into church.

…

… They’ll be free to enjoy the worship of Jesus Christ. They’ll be free to enjoy Almighty God. Or even just a non-religious ceremony. They won’t at least be offended when they walk into a church. They need to be filled with the Holy Spirit of God.

I can’t tell if he’s serious about the exorcisms, but he sure as hell seems serious when he says the problem is that atheists feel hatred toward the cross.

It’s not that atheists hate Christianity. It’s that we love the Constitution. And the First Amendment. And the separation of church and state.

We don’t want public school graduation ceremonies in a Christian church for the same reason Klingenschmitt wouldn’t want them in a mosque.

And Klingenschmitt gave away the game plan in his own comments! By saying the exorcisms would allow us to worship Jesus and enjoy God, he’s basically admitting that the purpose of having such ceremonies in a church is to proselytize. (That’s precisely why the school was told it had to find another venue.)

This is a basic misunderstanding of why atheists file lawsuits in situations like this. It has nothing to do with hatred toward religion or people of faith. It’s about principle — and making sure these ceremonies are inclusive for everyone involved and not just the Christian students.

Klingenschmitt’s willful ignorance of that fact is precisely why he has no business getting elected to the Colorado House.

(via Right Wing Watch)