Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of Michigan Citizens for Science and co-founder of The Panda's Thumb. He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations and conferences, and appeared on nationally syndicated radio shows and on C-SPAN. Ed is also a Fellow with the Center for Independent Media and the host of Declaring Independence, a one hour weekly political talk show on WPRR in Grand Rapids, Michigan.(static)
Ed Brayton is a participant in the Center for Independent Media New Journalism Program. However, all of the statements, opinions, policies, and views expressed on this site are solely Ed Brayton's. This web site is not a production of the Center, and the Center does not support or endorse any of the contents on this site.
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An interesting conversation has begun on American Creation, where my friend Jon Rowe blogs along with several others from every side of the question of religion and the founding fathers (including frequent Dispatches commenter King of Ireland). The discussion is largely with Tom Van Dyke, who has commented here as well. The discussion is over conservative originalism in its various forms vs. the kind of liberal originalism (or more accurately original principle originalism) that I and others (Jack Balkin, Randy Barnett) advocate.
Let me give some of the background on this discussion so you can see how the discussion has developed so far. This is the partial text of a comment I had left in response to a post by King of Ireland:
FunnyOrDie has an amusing video in response to Kirk Cameron's crusade to hand out 50,000 copies of The Origin of Species with a creationist introduction. Video below the fold.
And they're quite proud of doing so, announcing it on their blog. The Lafayette County, MO Republicans have put up a billboard calling for revolution. And the banner on the billboard says "PREPARE FOR WAR--LIVE FREE OR DIE!" Here's the picture:
The Supreme Court has denied cert in the case of McComb v. Crehan, the 2006 case where a valedictorian had her microphone cut off by the school during her speech at a graduation ceremony because she began to talk about her Christian faith, a deviation from the script they had approved (they had rejected the original script and forced her to take out the religious elements).
The district court had dismissed her case and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that dismissal. Now the Supreme Court has refused to hear the appeal, leaving the lower court rulings in place. That means there were not 4 votes on the court to hear the appeal and that is the end of the case.
The Charleston Gazette of West Virginia documents a whole bunch of police officers breaking the law over and over again and just changing to a new department. The chief example is a cop named Matthew Leavitt, who was finally sentenced to two years in prison for assault after a long history of illegal behavior - none of which ever kept him from getting a new job at a different police department.
A second article gives the timeline for Leavitt, which shows just how easy it is for a police officer to continue to get jobs no matter how many times they get caught breaking the law.
This will show you just how strong the faith is for many Catholics. An Italian man has invented a hands-free holy water dispenser for Catholic churches because congregants were afraid of dipping their hands in the holy water urns:
Clever Catholic inventor Luciano Marabese created the electronic holy water dispenser -- a terracotta wall-mounted urn with a sensor-controlled spigot underneath -- after hearing that fellow Italians, wary of contracting the swine flu, were afraid to dip their fingers in the holy water fonts at the entrance of their churches.
So, uh, what exactly makes holy water different from regular water? Surely if it has divine properties, at the very least it should be sterile and free of viruses that can kill you, right?
About 8 people emailed me a link to this article from the Onion: Area Man Passionate Defender Of What He Imagines Constitution To Be. If you haven't seen it, it's worth a read. It's just barely a parody.
Spurred by an administration he believes to be guilty of numerous transgressions, self-described American patriot Kyle Mortensen, 47, is a vehement defender of ideas he seems to think are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and principles that brave men have fought and died for solely in his head.
"Our very way of life is under siege," said Mortensen, whose understanding of the Constitution derives not from a close reading of the document but from talk-show pundits, books by television personalities, and the limitless expanse of his own colorful imagination. "It's time for true Americans to stand up and protect the values that make us who we are."
Just when you think things can't get any more loopy on the right, a new poll has found that a majority of Republicans actually believe that Obama is not the real president because ACORN stole the election for him. TPM Muckraker reports:
The poll asked this question: "Do you think that Barack Obama legitimately won the Presidential election last year, or do you think that ACORN stole it for him?" The overall top-line is legitimately won 62%, ACORN stole it 26%.
Among Republicans, however, only 27% say Obama actually won the race, with 52% -- an outright majority -- saying that ACORN stole it, and 21% are undecided. Among McCain voters, the breakdown is 31%-49%-20%. By comparison, independents weigh in at 72%-18%-10%, and Democrats are 86%-9%-4%.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued a strongly worded policy document (PDF) blasting the various defamation of religion resolutions that have been passed by the United Nations over the last few years. It begins:
Although these resolutions purport to seek protection for religions in general, the only religion and religious adherents that are specifically mentioned are
Islam and Muslims. Aside from Islam, the resolutions do not specify which religions are deserving of protection, or explain how or by whom this would be determined.
The resolutions also do not define what would make a statement defamatory to religions or explain who decides this question. For its part, the OIC appears to consider any speech that the organization, or even a cleric or individual, deems critical of or offensive to Islam or Muslims to automatically constitute religiously defamatory speech. This view goes far beyond the existing domestic legal concept of defamation, which protects individuals against false statements of fact that damage their reputation and livelihood. Implementing this approach would violate provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and various human rights treaties that protect, with only narrow exceptions, every individual's right to receive and impart information and speak out.
From Sen. Jeff Sessions, promising to filibuster Obama's judicial nominees after screaming bloody murder at the horrible injustice of filibuster nominations by Democrats:
I cannot and will not allow the easy confirmation of an individual who seeks a lifetime appointment to use that power of office to advance their own social or political agenda.
Right. Because other people have a "political agenda" but we have only a brave and virtuous fight for truth and justice. As if conservative judges don't have an agenda. As if the virulently racist Jeff Sessions doesn't have an agenda.
Here's yet another example of a school administration completely missing the point of the First Amendment and violating the free speech rights of students because they don't understand either the free speech clause or the establishment clause. A student in Bridgeport, New Jersey is suing the schools there for not allowing her to participate in a one-day anti-abortion protest.
Oct. 20th was the date of the Pro Life Day of Silent Solidarity, a protest by students that is identical in form to the Day of Silence that seeks to speak out in favor of equal rights for gays and lesbians. The students who wish to participate remain silent during the day except when called upon in class. Some of them wear tape over their mouths. They also hand out pamphlets advocating their views.
Even Newt Gingrich is recognizing the danger of purging the Republican party of all but the most hardcore right-wing candidates running for office. In an interview with Politico, he says:
"If we get into a cycle where there are tea parties and there are conservative third-party candidates, we will make [Nancy] Pelosi speaker for life," Gingrich told POLITICO in an interview Thursday, calling the practice "totally destructive."
Neo-con rag The Weekly Standard has one of the most ridiculous and intellectually dishonest screeds against the ACLU that you will ever read. They are mad as hell that the ACLU released that video of former Guantanamo inmates detailing their mistreatment and abuse. That video was "anti-American propaganda," says Thomas Joscelyn, after inventing yet another quasi-clever alternative ACLU acronym:
It turns out that those rumors from an Alaskan activist about Palin being a creationist were true. Not that anyone should be shocked by this; given Palin's religious views it would be extremely shocking if she was not a creationist. But a CBN reporter cites more evidence from her book.
According to a review published Sunday in The New York Times, Palin knocks evolution in her new book.
Elsewhere in this volume, she talks about creationism, saying she "didn't believe in the theory that human beings -- thinking, loving beings -- originated from fish that sprouted legs and crawled out of the sea" or from "monkeys who eventually swung down from the trees." In everything that happens to her, from meeting Todd to her selection by Mr. McCain for the Republican ticket, she sees the hand of God: "My life is in His hands. I encourage readers to do what I did many years ago, invite Him in to take over."
Further, I would suggest to you the big "take-away" from any biblical study of the death penalty would suggest that it is the very basis of God's rules for governance on Earth. It's the very foundation. Take it away and you take away the very underpinning of a Judeo-Christian civilization.
Sounds like another good reason to get rid of the death penalty.
I have to disagree with this post by my friend and co-blogger Jason Kuznicki. This is not something I do lightly because I have such enormous respect for Jason, but I really think he's wrong on this. And he is directly addressing an argument I've made many times in the past:
Supporters of same-sex marriage like to say that opponents should enjoy their moment now -- because it's not going to last. Polls routinely show that older Americans oppose same-sex marriage, while younger ones support it. A cohort replacement effect will soon usher in solid majorities for same-sex marriage, the argument goes.
My CIM colleague John Tomasic notes that the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage has quietly dropped Carrie Prejean after so famously promoting her in the wake of her fake martyrdom in the Miss USA pageant.
Carrie Prejean, the decrowned Miss California and darling of the Christian right, appears to have been scrubbed from the National Organization for Marriage website. The move comes in the wake of a TMZ interview with the man whom Prejean reportedly met through MySpace and had a four-day hotel fling with in 2007. He alleges Prejean sent a series of sex tapes to him over the next couple of years. It's the latest chapter in the story of Prejean's partygirl past, which keeps leaking into the public sphere, ruining what had been her budding career as a Christian-values conservative politics spokesperson.
Matt Barber has his typically hysterical screed about how evil those infernal gays are and how Christians are truly the persecuted minority in this country. Referring to comments left on the JoeMyGod blog, he writes:
Blog poster "ColdCountry" wrote: "Will someone please give me a gun?" Poster "Fritz" warned: "What I fear is that once gay and lesbian people give up hope of achieving equality through nonviolent means, there will be radicals who will begin to hunt down haters... All it will take is a small group of radical zealots who are willing to kill for their cause."
In reply to Fritz, "tex" posted: "Fritz....you say this like it's a bad thing? Maybe a bit of well organized terrorism is just what we need."
Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
