One Utah

The Salt Lake Tribune’s Robert Gehrke holds himself to the highest standard of objective journalism so rare in the Utah media. He should be commended for his objectivity.
in An ‘odious reminder’, Chaffetz’s plan for tent cities is lambasted: Candidate’s immigration plan likened to WWII internment camps (archive link)
“Jason Chaffetz’s comments are more than just [...]

I’ve read some dribs and drabs about the movement calling itself Joel’s Army. The upshot is:
Joel’s Army is prophesied to become an Armageddon-ready military force of young people with a divine mandate to physically impose Christian “dominion” on non-believers.
Large swaths of the rightwing conservative Christians seeing current events through an apocalyptic lens is dangerous [...]

So, the back story goes something like this: Old, white haired Catholic guy in Great Britain issues stupid statement attributing a host of things to demonic possession - which he deems contagious.
Promiscuity, as well as homosexuality and pornography, says 73 year-old Fr. Jeremy Davies, is a form of sexual perversion and can lead to [...]

Last night channel surfing I happened across a show on one of the Christian networks that are cropping up in the 200 range on the TV - it as an hysterical (as in characterized by hysteria) show about the way in which Christians are being - reach for your smelling salts girls - persecuted by [...]

A few years ago, the youth group from my congregation participated with the youth group from the mosque on a service project. At the end of the night, the kids returned to HUCC for debriefing. The Muslim youth later complained they felt it was wrong for boys and girls to sit together in [...]

A new site has popped up in the Blogosphere:
Save Me From My Senator - Chris Buttars Scares Me.
It was started as a result of dire frustration by a constituent of his. It’s chock full of really useful information, including
101 Reasons to Get Rid of Chris Buttars, Tools for Citizens to use in the Fight, [...]

The anti-abortion crowd has been, for a very long time, very quietly anti-contraception. Arguments against contraception range from the ludicrous (use of contraception leads to abortion) to the medically inaccurate (chemical contraception is actually a form of chemical abortion). Since 98% of American women will use contraception during their lives, arguing against it [...]

PZ Myers reports receiving:
somewhere well above 12,000 hate mail messages from religious people, mostly Catholic; two reasonable messages from Catholics who said that while they are unshaken in their faith, they approve of my opposition to cracker idolatry; and zero comments of any kind from admitted Muslims.

Sam Harris, in The End of Faith [...]

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is an absurd, counter productive policy. At Pam’s House Blend, she’s got some fun video of Elaine Donnelly doing her whackadoodle best to argue in favor of the policy. Donnelly raises the “unit cohesion” argument again and again and Rep. Patrick Murphy smacks it down -asking in essence, “Are [...]

For a long time now, the ridiculous right has been ginning up pointless controversies over claims that religious people have the right to refuse to do their jobs on the basis of their faith.
From Rob Boston, at Talk to Action:
Stories abound in the media of “pro-life pharmacists” who refuse to fill birth-control prescriptions and Muslim [...]

In our society, almost all minority groups face a complicated choice between being fully integrated and between self-segregation. At one time, women’s colleges were the only avenue for women to pursue higher education, same for the historically black colleges. Catholic schools were organized since many public schools openly indoctrinated students into protestantism. [...]

The history of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is a sordid tale of bigotry, ignorance and fear-mongering. The Clinton Administration tried to do the right thing and got blown out of the water. Congress - stampeded by a bunch of raving homo-bigots - decided to set military policy. DADT was the result.
DADT has [...]