religion

On Monday, both the North Carolina House and Senate adopted resolutions honoring the Boy Scouts of America in recognition of their 101st anniversary yesterday.

Unsurprisingly, neither resolution (House, Senate) mentions the Scouts' anti-gay and religious discrimination against youth members and adult leaders. And, unsurprisingly yet again, not a single member of the legislature had the courage or conviction to vote against the resolution.

Dear state lawmakers, do you actually care about children -- all children -- or just the straight and religious ones?

(Crossposted from InterstateQ.com)

It was about a week ago that we saw the ruling throwing out California’s Prop 8; that decision has now been appealed, and we will see, at some point in the future, how the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals handles the matter.

A couple of days later, I had a story up that walked through the ruling, describing the tactics used by the Prop 8 proponents, which, in the opinion of the Judge who looked at the evidence, were basically to try to scare Californians into thinking that gay people, once they’re able to get gay married, will somehow now be free to evangelize your kids and make them gay, too.

In the course of answering comments on the several sites where the story is up, I noticed that there were those who felt the Bible should be guiding our thinking here...that if it did, we would be better off than where we are today, with all those immoral gay people running around free to do all those immoral gay things.

This led me to an obvious question: are those who have been using the Bible as a sort of “divining rod” to figure out who is immoral and who is not...actually any good at it?

Duke Energy announced this week that it would move the planned location of an electrical substation it's building out of the direct view of the sacred Cherokee site of Kituwah in western North Carolina.

The decision comes after protests from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, who consider Kituwah their mother town. The site adjacent to the Tuckaseegee River in what is now Swain County, N.C. has been inhabited for nearly 10,000 years and long used as a center for religious rituals.

"Finding a new location for this important infrastructure allows us to deliver on our commitment to customers, without impacting the landscape around Kituwah," said Brett Carter, president of Duke Energy Carolinas.

So I’ve been away for a couple of weeks, and it’s time to get back to a more demanding schedule…but before I do, I have a story to tell you that is so hilarious that we need to put it on the front burner so we can get the weekend off to a truly great start.

To protect the innocent we’ll leave out all the names, but suffice it to say that this story takes us to the intersection of religious evangelism, childlike innocence, and the idiosyncratic nature of autism.

Some of you are going to think I made this up, but I promise, this is an actual, true, “really, honest, it really happened” story, and every word is as accurate as it could be, considering that it was a tale told second-hand.

And with all that having been said, let’s go to Spokane, where our story has been waiting for us.

Here is one church that is not losing touch. The minister encouraged its congregation to twitter Easter Sunday services as a way to spread the word of God. He was responding to a suggestion from the youth of the church.

Found here.