President Obama just attended the National Prayer Breakfast. It is a breakfast, with prayer, attended by members of Congress and the president, since the 1950s. I was thinking how awesome it would be for President Obama to attend a convention of the American Humanist Association. Imagine the publicity for the humanist movement! Well, President Obama would be bashed by the far religious right-wing without end, but what would be new? This prayer breakfast by the way, is organized by a secreative religious right-right organization called, The Family.
Yeah, I know it sounds like something out of the Sopranos. David Bahati, a Uganda (Africa) legislator who is a member of The Family, floated the idea of executing gay men during a prayer breakfast sponsored by this group in Uganda. Now, while I don't think are many members of this organization in the U.S. who fear and detest gays to this extent, it is troubling who they support (and have as members) in nations where the Christian right-wing thoroughly dominate.
By the way, President Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, was according to the president, "a lonely witness for secular humanism." Since Obama does not have to run for re-election, and since much of his upbringing is deeply influenced by his humanist mother, it would be very fitting for him to attend a humanist convention. President Obama would never get a better reception.
In another story, there is a picture of Jesus hanging from a school entraceway in a rural Ohio public school. If there was a picture of a famous Muslim hanging in this school, you can be sure that the religious right-wing wouldn't be fine with that. In fact, there would probably be death threats against the school adminstrators of this school. Heck, there were death and rape threats against a 16 year old Rhode Island student who objected to a prayer banner hanging at her public high school.
The religious rightwing are perfectly fine with religious figures in public schools, along as they are their religious figures. If the portrait were removed though, and the principle of government neutrality enforced, they would scream their rights are violated. But, there is no right for the government to promote someone's religion. The government isn't an arm of any religious belief system.
Finally, in Tennessee, a state lawmaker named Stacy Campfield wants teachers to report gay students, at least those who have gay boyfriends/girlfriends, to their parents. So you know, they can "pray away the gay." He stated during an interview that gays are "the biggest bullies in the world." Yes, they are so much bullies, for you know, bullying people for being, or perceived as being, not gay in high schools. Schools are well known for gay students bullying non-gay students, even beating them up.
Oh wait, it's the other way around. Gay students are the one bullied, by people like Campfield. It makes you wonder, did Campfield ever bully students who he thought were gay, you know, for Jesus. Campfield is either in the closet waiting an inevitable gay sex scandal or someone weirdly obsessed with the sex lives of gay men.
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