London Bridge Has Squalling Clowns: The Catholic Church Anti-Gay Squad Gets Slapped Down

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis
Shit like this just tickles me pink (figuratively speaking, that is):

Boris Johnson faces legal action over banned anti-gay bus adverts

Evangelical Christian groups who funded ads say they may seek judicial review, claiming their human rights have been breached

Boris Johnson is facing legal action after cancelling bus adverts paid for by evangelical Christian groups that promoted the idea that gay people can be converted from homosexuality.

The groups behind the "Not gay … and proud" adverts, which were pulled by the London mayor earlier this month, said they were likely to seek a judicial review of the mayor's decision on the grounds that it breached their rights to freedom of religion and freedom of expression as guaranteed under the European convention on human rights.

Anglican Mainstream and the Core Issues Trust, whose supporters advocate that gay Christians seek counselling and treatment to curb or even reverse homosexual instincts, said it might also take legal action for breach of contract against the advertising company that booked the adverts, CBS Outdoor.

"Since Boris Johnson intervened, there seems to be a much broader issue about freedom of speech at stake and that is weighing heavily upon us," said the Rev Lynda Rose, a spokeswoman for Anglican Mainstream. "We feel it is not right that people are not able to express legitimate views that are not an incitement to hatred."

The adverts were due to start running last week on London buses. The slogan, "Not gay! Ex-gay, post-gay and proud. Get over it!", was a response to an ongoing bus advertising campaign being run by the gay rights group Stonewall which states: "Some people are gay. Get over it." Within two hours of the Guardian revealing that the ads had been booked, they were cancelled by Johnson, who said: "It is clearly offensive to suggest that being gay is an illness that someone recovers from and I am not prepared to have that suggestion driven around London on our buses." His rivals in the campaign to become the next London mayor, Ken Livingstone and Brian Paddick, also condemned the adverts.

Critics of the evangelical groups have claimed that "reparative therapy" for gay Christians can cause considerable distress and stores up problems for people who suppress their homosexuality and enter into marriages or have children in heterosexual relationships. But the leader of the Core Issues Trust, Mike Davidson, has said: "Homoerotic behaviour is sinful."

The row over the adverts blew up during the government consultation on opening up marriage to same-sex couples, which continues until June, and Anglican Mainstream and the Core Issues Trust are set against the proposals. On Tuesday, they accused liberal bishops of imposing a "neo-pagan worldview" by supporting gay marriage and claiming there should be "a recognition of God's grace at work in same-sex partnerships".

On Saturday, a group of Church of England bishops wrote to the Times complaining that recent statements by church leaders had given the mistaken impression that the Anglican church was universally opposed to the extension of civil marriage to same-sex couples.

"The fact there are same-sex couples who want to embrace marriage should be a cause for rejoicing in the Christian church," said the letter, signed by the Very Rev Jeffrey John, dean of St Albans, the Right Rev Alan Wilson, bishop of Buckingham, and 13 other senior clergy and lay members of the General Synod.

In response, Anglican Mainstream and the Core Issues Trust issued a statement warning that the liberal clergy were trying to "unacceptably redefine Judeo-Christian belief".

"They do not have the standing either to rewrite or reinterpret the clear teaching of the Bible, which the Church has always understood to prohibit any and all sexual relations outside the union for life of one man and one woman," said Canon Dr Chris Sugden, executive secretary of Anglican Mainstream.

All sorts of (ridiculous) questions arise: how are their ‘human rights’ being violated? Freedom of speech? Seriously? Homophobia isn’t a right, anymore than bragging about it is. Claiming that there’s another side to the argument in the 21st century is just pig-headed stupidity.

Good on Boris Johnson for handing these ass clowns their walking papers. Of course the idiots in question are carrying on – it’s that frakkin’ martyr complex again, the one that seems to get embedded in their brainaries when they start doing the epileptic Watusi upon embracing the ‘unconditional love’ of their imaginary pal jebus. 

Really, all religion is, is raging narcissism coupled with bad self-esteem.

Till the next post then.

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Prosecuting The Papist Perverts In Pennsylvania: Time To Throw The (Correct) Book At Them

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis

Et ses mains ourdiraient les entrailles du prêtre,
Au défaut d’un cordon pour étrangler les rois.

And his hands would plait the priest's entrails,
For want of a rope, to strangle kings.

"Les Éleuthéromanes", in Poésies Diverses (1875) – Diderot

The sooner they jail these scuzballs, the better I say:

Pa. priest-abuse trial painful, poignant for Catholics

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – Graphic testimony in a Philadelphia clergy-abuse trial this month has ripped open secret church files and reopened old wounds among Catholics as scarred men and women tell jurors that priests groped, molested or raped them as teens.painful and poignant, especially that of a 48-year-old man who said he had been in love with his parish priest during a five-year sexual relationship that began in ninth grade — and jealous when the priest allegedly bedded down at his farmhouse with other teens.

The stories have been told before, in two Philadelphia grand jury reports and in lawsuits filed around the country.

But Monsignor William Lynn's decision to go to trial on child-endangerment charges stemming from his 12 years as secretary for clergy has brought the grand jury reports to life — and seemingly put the archdiocese on trial. The judge is allowing testimony about more than 20 accused but uncharged priests, because Lynn knew of complaints lodged against them or took part in internal church investigations.

The accused priests were left in ministry, often transferred to unsuspecting parishes.

Nearly a dozen alleged victims have testified, while internal church memos and Lynn's 2002 grand jury testimony have been read aloud. And jurors will soon hear from a former altar boy who says he was raped by two priests and his fifth-grade teacher.

"None of these scandals rock my faith. I believe in church teaching and these scandals don't cause me to doubt it. But it's very discouraging in terms of the Catholic hierarchy in the American church and its inability to deal" with abuse allegations, said Joseph Fuisz, 41, a Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, native who now lives in Florida and Washington, D.C., and is following the trial closely.

Lynn is the first U.S. church official charged with helping the church cover up complaints of child sexual abuse. He faces up to 28 years in prison if convicted.

"A lot of the information may not be new, but it's got a particularly salient impact … because it's personal testimony — in court, under oath, on the record, with a lot of media coverage," said Timothy Lytton, a University of Albany law professor who wrote a book on Catholic clergy abuse. "I think it turns the heat up."

One father of six belatedly told the archdiocese that his son had been "extremely upset" about playing Jesus as a child in a sadomasochistic Passion play — but he and his wife "let it go." In another instance, the man allegedly abused at the farmhouse of the Rev. Stanley Gana said he confided to his mother years later about the abuse, only to be told she planned to remain friends with the priest.

A woman said she had asked to quit a weekend rectory job where the pastor groped her as a teen, but her parents wouldn't hear of it. Her sisters followed her into the job — and were also fondled, she said.

"People nowadays are simply much more questioning of authority," said Nick Ingala, spokesman for Voice of the Faithful, a Boston-based group formed in the wake of the abuse crisis to try to empower lay Catholics. "The accountability here, and the transparency coming about (in the trial) … is really the most important thing that's happening."

Many of the women who have testified this month to being fondled sound angry. But the male accusers are shattered. They were more often emotionally entangled with the priest, and say the abuse involved oral sex or sodomy.

"The hope is that this is the last incident we ever hear of in this archdiocese," lawyer Jim Ledyard said Friday, after noon Mass at the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Philadelphia. "I think many of us would be devastated if any further abuse is uncovered."

The cathedral sits beside the archdiocesan offices where Lynn worked from 1992 to 2004, most of it under the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua.

Lynn, 61, is on trial with the Rev. James Brennan, 48, who is charged with sexually assaulting a teen in 1996. Each has pleaded not guilty. Defrocked priest Edward Avery, 69, pleaded guilty to sexual assault charges days before trial, and is serving a 2-1/2 to 5-year prison term.

Avery admitted to a 1999 attack on the altar boy. Another priest and former teacher from the northeast Philadelphia parish will go on trial separately later this year. That means disturbing revelations about the church will continue to shake out, even after Lynn's scheduled 12- to 16-week trial.

And it remains unclear if prosecutors are finished with the decade-long investigation of the Philadelphia archdiocese. One of Gana's accusers said he was once raped at a house owned by Bishop Michael Bransfield of West Virginia. Bransfield, a former Philadelphia priest and Gana friend, issued a statement saying he wasn't home at the time. And he forcefully denied trial allegations that he may have molested someone.

Poignant? I’m going to have to go with repugnant. What is it with these people? Is the concept of a state of innocence (as prescribed in their ‘holy’ book) inculcate a state of priapism for these celibates? Or are they just so incomplete, that they can’t establish any sort of adult relationships of an intimate nature?

And of course, there’s only two sides to this debacle:

Bransfield's diocese called the trial "a circus" and said Philadelphia prosecutors are trying to "smear individuals not on trial … to bolster their persecution of the church."

Fuisz disagrees.

"There is nothing wrong with this prosecution, nothing whatsoever," he said. "You don't take our love for the church and its teaching, and our wonderful tradition, and wield those around as artillery in a defense of Lynn."

The third option is better: if there was such a thing as a loving god, it sure as hell wouldn’t allow this to happen. Along with the uncounted other horrendous events that occur on a regular basis.

We need to be rid of these cherished institutions, these purveyors of hidden perversion, these antiquated anachronisms, these wearers of funny hats (though the hats can stay, come to think of it: some of them are hilarious).

Religion: the sooner our species is rid of it, the better.

Till the next post then.

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Luckily, This Inmate Is Not Running The Asylum: Rooster ClogBurn Revises History

Cross posted at the Atheist Oasis

I wish we lived in a place more like the America of yesteryear that only exists in the brains of us Republicans. - Ned Flanders

I don’ know about the rest of you, but I wiped some sweat from my brow and sighed with relief when this assclown didn’t quite cut  the mustard.

Santorum: Obama Has Put America On ‘The Path’ Of Executing Religious People By Decapitation

Rick Santorum continued to rail against President Obama’s so-called war against religion during a town hall in Plano, Texas Wednesday night. The former Pennsylvania senator — who has spent the last several days criticizing the government’s requirement that insurers provide contraception coverage and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal’s decision striking down Proposition 8 — accused the administration of “crushing” religion and setting the United States on the path towards executing religious people by decapitation:

SANTORUM: They are taking faith and crushing it. Why? Why? When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution. What’s left is the government that gives you right, what’s left are no unalienable rights, what’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do and when you’ll do it. What’s left in France became the guillotine. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re a long way from that, but if we do and follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed down that road.

No, Clogburn, we aren’t.  This is apples-to-oranges, a typical maneuver among the addle-pated Republicans. The closest parallel is here:

Louis XVI ascended to the throne amidst a financial crisis; the state was nearing bankruptcy and outlays outpaced income. This was because of France’s financial obligations stemming from involvement in the Seven Years War and its participation in the American Revolutionary War.

Oh, and this too:

Necker realized that the country's extremely regressive tax system subjected the lower classes to a heavy burden, while numerous exemptions existed for the nobility and clergy.

But there the analogy breaks. The French aristocracy ruled by divine fiat. In fact, there was a great deal of resentment because of the Church’s wealth and influence. And in fact, feudalism was abolished during said revolution.

Oh, and there was a national tithe, as well:

The National Assembly began to enact social and economic reform. Legislation sanctioned on 4 August 1789 abolished the Church's authority to impose the tithe.

Yes, the church charged 10%, and yes, some of that was re-distributed to the poor, but the Holy Cee was famous even then for their opulence, and – well, free money is free money.

A lot of this nonsense is revised and ridiculous. We are nowhere near putting the religious in the dire straits they imagine they are in. No one is trying to ‘de-Christianize’ anything. The reality of the matter is that people are far more knowledgeable, and knowledge is nigh well instant in this day and age.

In a nutshell: old Rooster is a cock-a-doodling at a gibbous moon and claiming it’s made of green cheese.

And in the following clip, Lewis Black demolishes Santorum:

Till the next post, then.

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Bunnies And Zombies? Can Religious Belief Get Any More Surreal?

Cross posted at the Atheist Oasis

Sweet Zombie Jesus! –Prof. Farnsworth from Futurama

Yes, it’s that time of year again, when zombies and rabbits combine to make thanatophobia more palatable to the unwashed masses.

And yes, Jesus was, by the strictest definition of the word, a zombie.

That is to say, that a zombie is:

(Haitian Creole: zonbi; North Mbundu: nzumbe)  an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means, such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli. Since the late 19th century, zombies have acquired notable popularity, especially in North American and European folklore.

The brain-eating nonsense came later. The question to that, is: why on earth would they eat anything? Bodily fluids have ceased to flow – by what logic would these shambling monstrosities even be hungry? No reason, it just makes a better story.

An  amusing aside (apropos of very little but the topic itself), I recall many years ago reading about Solomon Kane, a Robert E. Howard character, who battled hordes of zombies, until his African shaman friend N’Longa summoned vultures to save him.

Which begs the next question: why aren’t birds, or other carrion feeders swarming over these things? Or insect life?

But I digress.

And the unanswerable question (unanswered because it cannot possibly make any sense), is how an immortal being can sacrifice himself to himself to correct the flaw built into the alleged creation?

Ridiculous is the word for it. And I’m being kind.

Anyways, I’ll leave you all with a clip of one of my all-time favorite comics, Sam Kinison, who talks about how crazy it might have been.

 

Enjoy your bunny day, and make sure to take advantage of all the post-Easter chocolate sales.

Till the next post, then.

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Wednesday Twofer–Arrested Development

I had actually forgotten all about this show, until I stumbled across it on Netflix. Definitely one of the funniest ever.

This first clip is a compilation of how the Bluth family can’t seem to imitate a chicken sound while calling someone a chicken (that is to say, ANY of them):

While the television market is almost saturated with the dysfunctional family sitcom, these fictional folks take the cake. Next clip illustrates how lame the Bluth’s echo chamber is:

Enjoy.

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Numbers Do Not An Argument Make: Homophobia In The 21st Century.

Cross posted  @ the Atheist Oasis

If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. – Anatole France

(Hat tip to Godlessliberals.com for this one)

Crazy Christians are consistent, if not logical. They lead with their indignation and their imagined righteousness. And when people shrug off their ridiculous rage, they immediately go to bully mode. Case in point:

Ellen DeGeneres responds to group opposing her new JC Penney job

Ellen DeGeneres publicly responded to One Million Moms, the self-described “conservative, pro-family” group who opposes her new role as JC Penney spokeswoman, on the day that California’s ban on same-sex marriage, Proposition 8, was ruled unconstitutional.

On an episode of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” taped Tuesday and airing Wednesday, the host said, “Normally I try not to pay attention to my haters, but this time I’d like to talk about it ’cause my haters are motivators.”

“This organization doesn’t think that I should be the spokesperson because I’m gay. For those of you are just tuning in for the first time, it’s true. I’m gay. I hope you were sitting down,” DeGeneres joked.

In a statement on its Web site, One Million Moms, who have previously objected to Chaz Bono’s inclusion on “DWTS” and Ben & Jerry’s Schweddy Balls ice cream, said, “By jumping on the pro-gay bandwagon, JC Penney is attempting to gain a new target market and in the process will lose customers with traditional values that have been faithful to them over all these years.”

DeGeneres responded, “Being gay or pro-gay isn’t a bandwagon. You don’t get a free ride anywhere. There’s no music. ... Occasionally we’ll sing ‘We Are Family,’ but that’s about it.”

As the comedienne pointed out, she had received an outpouring of support in the comments section on the One Million Moms’s Facebook page. DeGeneres was also defended by JC Penney, wh4ch said in a statement they “stand behind [the] partnership,” and by Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly, who called the boycott “a witch hunt.”

Holy shit – when Bill O’Reilly is the voice of reason, you know the other side should be titled ‘a million maniacs’.

What sets my nape hairs on end, is that there are actually only 40,000 of these ‘million’ nutters (as Ellen points out in her succinct and classy video) – and while she is more forgiving than is necessary, the non-surprise is that these busybody old biddies tacked on an extra 60,000 (give or take) in numbers, boils down to an odious, outright LIE. And that they use some millennial  magical merde to back up their alleged ‘traditional values’ (yeah, right, like lying is a ‘traditional value’ – oh wait, if you’re religious, it is).

This sort of thing gets right up my nose. While this dates back to February, it’s still fresh enough to dive-bomb their discriminatory Facebook page, and let them know just how the atheist segment feels about it.

Because obviously they prayed real hard, and nothing happened. So they likely went and started a tempest in a teapot. Chances are strong they’ll begin to whinge on about how they’re the persecuted people, if track records are any indication.

So go give them a holler, and give ‘em a little hell (pun intended). They don’t deserve any courtesy, for their homophobic ways.

Here’s the video response as per the article:

Till the next post, then.

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