We’re bringing reason into the season. Its away with the manager on city property! Professor Stephen Hirtle of the University of Pittsburgh will give us an eyewitness account of one city’s Holy War against the Constitution.

Radio from the Secular Point of View

Freethought Radio, from the secular point of view, broadcasts weekly and is hosted by Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-presidents of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The show offers programming for nonreligious listeners, as well as countering the religious-right domination of our public airwaves. Freethought Radio features a regular “Theocracy Alert,” Dan’s “Pagan Pulpit,” “Freethinkers Almanac,” music and interviews with authors and activists. Check out Freethought Radio’s illustrious list of guests, including Richard Dawkins, Julia Sweeney, Janeane Garafalo, Ron Reagan, Betty Rollins, Christopher Hitchens, Steven Pinker, Ursula K. Le Guin and so many other fascinating freethinkers, newsmakers and thinkers.

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Podcasts are usually available here Mondays by mid-morning. Or listen to Freethought Radio on iTunes. (Check back here for our weekly podcasts.)

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You remember Mr. Sherman — Illinois Representative Monique Davis interrupted him while he testified before the Springfield House State Government Administration Committee to spectacularly flip her shit:

I don’t know what you have against God, but some of us don’t have much against him. We look forward to him and his blessings… I’m trying to understand the philosophy that you want to spread in the state of Illinois… This is the land of Lincoln where people believe in God… What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous… It’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists… Get out of that seat! You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon.

This is just a sample of Mr. Sherman’s experiences. Come out and join the discussion this Tuesday!

When: Tuesday, May 5th 2009, 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Where: Quaker Meeting House, 4836 Ellsworth Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15213 (Oakland/Shadyside)

• 1000 Plaintiffs for Newdow v. Roberts — Friends of Mike Newdow, a group of PA Nonbelievers, has set up a website to assist Constitutional activist Mike Newdow “demonstrate that there is a lot of support for ending the offensive, exclusionary references to God” at future inaugurations, by finding 1,000 people to sign up as plaintiffs. You can go to their site for more information. (Thank you, Bill K.)
• Arab headgear causes stir in Gateway — The Post-Gazette is reports that two students at Gateway High in Monroeville were told to leave school yesterday if they would not remove their kaffiyehs. News video from last night’s WPXI coverage of the story can be found here. (Hat tip, Mel.)
• Dead of Winter — Pittsburgh City Paper reported on the spread of  white-nose syndrome, a deadly epidemic affecting bats, to Pennsylvania. Don’t care if we lose our bat population? Think giant swells of insects (and also, get a clue). Yeah. I said it. (Via my Google alert for bat news. Why are you making that face?)
• Darwin 2009: A Pittsburgh Partnership — An educational partnership promoting citywide events led by Duquesne University. Why should a prominent Catholic University do this? They explain with their own bullet list.
• Skeptical of Pittsburgh’s ability to evolve and to retain it’s youth population? I feel you. The Port Authority is taking a step in the direction of modernity with their RouteShout beta. Now at popular college stops you can text for the next bus arrival.

And I gotta take this oppurtunity to remind you about Drinking Skeptically this Friday night.

What’s wrong here is painfully obvious. In his typical fervor to infuse politics with non-partisan religious activism on social issues like poverty, Jim Wallis forgets to mention the black-and-white issue that puts this needless debate to rest: it’s your tax-exempt status, stupid.

Nobody’s saying that American citizens and normal, tax-paying businesses can’t make political endorsements. The whole point is that churches are typically non-profit organizations that are voluntarily limited by the same laws that apply to other organizations that get those tax breaks: they can’t be politically partisan. CNN mentioned this question at the beginning of the interview, but then no one addressed it at all until they read a random message board comment at the end–which ended up speaking more clearly about what’s really going on than Wallis and Stanley combined.

Besides awkwardly waltzing around the real issue, here’s what really bothered me about this video: Erik Stanley predictably set up the debate as a religious persecution issue, and no one called him out on it. Instead of acknowledging that pastors/churches are voluntarily surrendering their freedom of speech in this one area in order to attain tax-exempt status, he pretends like pastors are being persecuted by a government that is hell-bent on suppressing the free exercise of religion and crossing the “boundary between church and state” that he’s now so willing to talk about in a positive light (surprise!). I can’t imagine a set of circumstances that would make his plea appear more disingenuous: if you want separation of church and state, give up your special federal status, pay your taxes like everyone else, and watch this issue magically disappear.