stcynic
Posts by this author
June 8, 2006
A fascinating thing has been going on in the Louisiana legislature: they've been busy trying to edit the ten commandments. They are working on a bill that would allow the posting of the ten commandments on public property and in public buildings, but they're having a bit of trouble deciding which…
June 8, 2006
I'm a week or so late on this one, but let me extend a hearty "welcome to the blogosphere" to Conservatives Against Intelligent Design. The founder, Indian Cowboy, has been an occasional commenter here. He has a petition that has already garnered almost 300 signatures. A valuable voice in the…
June 8, 2006
I'm thinking of sending a box of cheese to the Discovery Institute, to match with their perpetual whine. Identify them as creationists, as they themselves often have, and you will hear a chorus of whines emenating from Seattle. Last week it was Luskin complaining about Science magazine describing…
June 8, 2006
While we're talking about anti-gay bigotry and the religious right, how about this oldie but goodie from Pat Robertson. Last summer, he declared that gays are responsible for no-fault divorce and abortions:
ROBERTSON: I had interviewed a lady who was a sociologist who says "I am a lesbian," but she…
June 7, 2006
Fundamentalist Christian nutball Roy Moore lost the Republican primary race for governor by a landslide. Unfortunately, atheist nutball Larry Darby came much closer to winning the Democratic primary for attorney general, getting 43.5% of the votes. I have no idea what that means.
June 7, 2006
Via Crooks and Liars, you can watch the video of Jon Stewart making Bill Bennett babble like an idiot trying to defend a ban on gay marriage. Stewart makes a great point about Dick Cheney. Cheney is a social conservative right down the line, yet he is against the gay marriage amendment. Why?…
June 7, 2006
We've got a sudden rash of ID activity here in Michigan. The MCFS board got word yesterday that the House Education Committee in Michigan was going to hold a hearing this morning on HB 5251, a bill that would require the teaching of all the major ID arguments in public school science classes. We…
June 7, 2006
Roy Moore was thrashed in the Republican primary for governor of Alabama, as expected. With 97% of the precincts reporting, Bob Riley was leading 67-33. Here's my favorite quote, from an MSNBC article:
Riley said voters saw state government has changed while he has been in office. "People…
June 7, 2006
I love it. In 2004, the anti-gay marriage amendment only got 48 votes in the senate, far short of the 67 votes required to send it to the states. This year, supporters crowed that it would at least pick up votes, but not only could they not get the 2/3 vote required to pass the amendment, they…
June 7, 2006
Among the many silly arguments made by the religious right about gay rights, the one found in this article by Charles Colson may take the cake. He says that the court will mandate gay marriage within 2 years without a constitutional amendment, and he traces three cases that allegedly prove this -…
June 7, 2006
In the creation/evolution debate, the religious right loves to argue about missing links; in the debate over gay marriage, they seem to specialize in arguments with missing links. In column after column, we see the same argument repeated - gay marriage will "destroy" marriage - without any of them…
June 6, 2006
More of that "activist judges" hypocrisy on gay marriage, this time from Jay at StopTheACLU:
My first concern on the issue is limiting the courts from usurping the will of the people. This legislation will do that.
But why is that your "first concern" only on this issue? I don't recall seeing any…
June 6, 2006
Jon Rowe and Jason Kuznicki both have excellent posts at Positive Liberty about responding to arguments against gay marriage. These essays are both well reasoned and politely reasonable, and devoid of any shrill or exaggerated rhetoric. Great examples of why I hold them both in such high esteem.…
June 6, 2006
Okay folks, I'm going to make a prediction here on the substance of the next attack on Judge Jones. In an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about Jones' recent speeches defending judicial independence, we find this little tidbit:
Edward Madeira, a senior partner with Pepper Hamilton L.L.P.,…
June 6, 2006
Well folks, the ACLU is at it again. Not content to undermine this good God-fearing nation by forcing terrorists to burn flags while having sex with underaged children and reading aloud from The Origin of Species, they are also flagrantly and wantonly undermining the simple-minded caricatures of…
June 6, 2006
The more I see from Judge John Jones, the man who presided over the Dover trial, the more I like him. He recently gave a speech to the ADL and they've put the transcript of that speech on their webpage. I urge you all to read it. He doesn't get into the specifics of defending his ruling, which…
June 6, 2006
The White House has been kind enough to put the text of President Bush's speech advocating the "Marriage Protection Amendment" yesterday on their webpage. It would make a perfect example of illogical argumentation for a logic course.
The union of a man and woman in marriage is the most enduring and…
June 6, 2006
From the first day of the state Republican convention in Texas:
At Saturday morning's prayer meeting, party leader Tina Benkiser assured them that God was watching over the two-day confab.
"He is the chairman of this party," she said against a backdrop of flags and a GOP seal with its red, white…
June 6, 2006
I must be really predictable in what I write about. For the second time this week, someone emailed me a link to an article that I already had open on my screen with the intention of writing about. This time it was Josh Claybourn of In the Agora (and a belated congratulations to Josh on his…
June 5, 2006
"Stanley Kurtz is the 'EverReady Bunny' of the same-sex marriage debate, a character who moves forward unrelentingly on a quest to prove that same-sex marriages are harmful. He is sure that state recognition of lesbian and gay unions in Europe has harmed the institution of marriage. But he never…
June 5, 2006
This may be the weakest argument against gay marriage I've heard:
And Professor Robert George, a Princeton University constitutional scholar and co-founder of the Religious Coalition for Marriage, points to another danger to be avoided. In a recent Associated Press interview, he noted that if…
June 5, 2006
John Aravosis of AmericaBlog asks precisely the right question:
Bush says courts shouldn't be permitted to decide who can marry who. That's exactly what happened in Loving v. Virginia, and the public was NOT happy about it. So, rather than pull some cute argument about how blacks aren't like gays,…
June 5, 2006
Am I the only one who has heard more than enough about tomorrow being 6-6-6 on the calendar? They're releasing the new Omen movie tomorrow to take advantage of that date. Ann Coulter is releasing her new book tomorrow as well, which only goes to prove that she really is the devil (I've had my…
June 5, 2006
Crooked Timber has an astonishing chart comparing the incarceration rate per capita in the US to that of other nations in the world. The US rate is 738 per 100,000. No other nation in the world is above 540 and the vast majority of nations, even ones with terrible human rights records, are far less…
June 5, 2006
This weekend I got to watch the Comedy Central roast of Jeff Foxworthy. As my readers know, I'm a big fan of roasts in general and I'm pleased to see this old tradition from the Friar's Club be revived over the last few years by a younger generation of comics. The Foxworthy roast had all the usual…
June 5, 2006
One of the most frightening trends of the last few years is the alarming increase in anti-judicial rhetoric from the right. The courts, of course, are a convenient whipping boy for politicians who have to manipulate the populace to get elected to office. The courts are often in the position of…
June 5, 2006
Fake controversies like this just crack me up. The former Archbishop of Canterbury is raising a stink about the next coronation to take place in England, when Prince Charles takes over the throne from his mother:
In a television interview to be broadcast later this month, Lord Carey says: "When the…
June 4, 2006
Sandefur has an interesting post at Positive Liberty about what he calls hyperlexicophilia, the tendency of some, particularly political philosophers, to use language to appear to say something meaningful when, in reality, they've said nothing at all. He links to the absolutely brilliant postmodern…
June 4, 2006
I remember in the last couple years, it was announced that Paul Rodgers was going to join Queen to replace Freddy Mercury. Jon Rowe and Jason Kuznicki both posted on it, with Jon being mildly cautious about it and Jason calling the idea "insane". I recall at the time thinking that Jason was closer…
June 4, 2006
This took place in the comments on a thread below, so I want to move it up to its own post so it doesn't get lost. Steve S, a frequent commenter both here and at the Panda's Thumb, dug something up that is both important and highly amusing given Casey Luskin's recent post at the DI blog proclaiming…