The site for ranting and reporting by John Masters
Religion is a frequent topic on this blog, and should not be confused with Christianity.
I seem to be called on often to give the prayer at the end of our Sunday School class. We just started a study of the Beatitudes, and of course the 9/11 commemoration services were all over the TV and radio this morning. Just before going into Church I heard President Obama at the Memorial in New York read Psalm 46. I try to make the prayer topical with current events and the lesson, so this is most of what I recall saying:
Read moreThe unfortunate reality is that we simply don’t want to have see this kind of poverty in our own neighborhood. We don’t want to be reminded of how many people are hurting, and how badly they hurt. We are simply afraid to look in the eyes of these people. It makes us uncomfortable, and we want to banish them so we no longer have to see what we have wrought.
Read moreSo, should I eat ice cream, or take a nap. I can appreciate the young man’s dilemma, they are both a pretty good way to spend an afternoon. They’re usually mutually exclusive, but he’s doing a pretty good job of multi-tasking. Call is the lazy, hazy days of summer I guess.
Read morethe Pope was busy Sunday in Spain speaking out to deny gay people equal treatment under the law. Unfortunately for Pope Prada, God wasn’t too happy with what he had to say. In a gesture that surely could only have been intended to say, “STFU,” God whipped up a surprise wind storm and knocked the hat right off of the pope’s smarmy head.
Read moreThe Senate today held hearings on the Defense of Marriage Act. There were a lot of poignant moments, but Senator Al Franken may have pulled off one of the best exchanges of the day. Franken is a smart guy, and these idiots from the hate organizations need to not sell him short. They may get away with making shit up with other Senators, but not much gets by Sen. Franken.
Read moreI admit to being a little late on this one, but head of SPLC designated hate group Family Research Council, Tony Perkins, is just all atwitter about marriage equality passing in New York State. Get this, he’s deeply concerned the law doesn’t “protect” deeply religious “divorce lawyers.” If, as Perkins and the other haters claim, they are just in this to “protect marriage,” why would there be any such thing as a “deeply religious divorce lawyer.” Wouldn’t their deeply held beliefs prohibit them enabling any divorce?
Read moreI returned once again to the Administrative Council at my church to ask them to pass a resolution adopting a non-discrimination statement. The last time I went in 2008, one of the members, Bill Josey, an attorney, objected because I had included a statement that we would, when reasonable, try to do business only with other organizations that had a similar statement. That was his only objection. I took it out, completely, but guess what, at January’s meeting he had a different objection.
Read moreI noticed over at Joe My God, Joe had listed a quote of the day from Anthony Verdugo, founder of Florida’s Christian Family Coalition. I went to their website and used their contact form to send them a message. I got an email from their webmaster who accused me of cherry-picking scripture because I cited Micah 6:8, and he decided to pick about seven verses, two of them from Leviticus. No person not abiding by the entire Levitical Code has the right to cite those two verses…so I responsded.
Read moreEach day brings even more astonishment at how low some people can go to make a buck or get their 15 minutes of fame. Certain Christianists seem hell-bent on creating a contrived “war on Christmas” where none exists all for the sake of either raising money, or making a name for themselves. And in the end, I fear it may destroy a wonderful and important time of the year.
Read moreAs I picked up my rental car here at Dulles Airport Monday morning, Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, was on C-Span Radio trying to defend TSA’s ridiculous and overly intrusive pat downs and use of the prono-x-ray machines. I noticed she kept talking about people who opt out of the backscatter machines can get a “same-gender” pat down. She kept saying “same-gender” over and over.
Read moretwo Sunday’s ago, I was teaching my Sunday School class (as I’ve done a number of times), and took a few minutes at the end of the class to deliver the following statement. I have been amazed at the outpouring of concern and support, and a number of them are willing to attend the Council meeting with me in November. I will reintroduce the resolution leaving out the section about trying reasonably to deal only with other organizations with similar statements. The council members previously used this as their primary objection.
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