Russ McBee

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops is issuing a statement which characterizes any pro-choice legislation enacted under the Obama administration as an ''attack on the church.'' By some bizarre twist of logic, they also assert that any such legislation would ''reduce religious freedom.'' Whatever. The Catholic Church, one of the most retrograde ...

On the drive home from work today, I saw a church sign that read simply, ''Proverbs 29:2.'' That was it. There was no expository text beyond the bare citation. When I got home, I looked it up: When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn. Appearing just one week after the election ...

David Neiwert, who has written extensively about eliminationist rhetoric from the right wing against liberals, had this to say about Sunday's tragedy in Knoxville: In reality, of course, rhetoric like this has historically played a critical role in some of the ugliest episodes in American history, as well as thousands of little acts of ...

Yesterday, a senseless act of non-random violence struck this city. A man, mad at the world and blaming liberals for his personal ills, targeted the innocent congregants of a progressive church in Knoxville, killing two and wounding seven. Like everyone else in Knoxville, I've spent the last couple of days in a state of shock over this. Described ...

A couple of days ago, the Pope apologized again, this time in Sydney, for the Catholic Church's global sex abuse scandal: Speaking in Sydney, where he is participating in World Youth Day celebrations, the pontiff called the abuses 'a grave betrayal of trust' that deserved condemnation and called for the victims to receive 'care and ...

Thirty-one members of the US House of Representatives seem to think the establishment of an American theocracy is a more urgent matter than any of the economic, military, or environmental problems we face. Those 31, including Tennessee's own resident wingnut Marsha Blackburn, have co-sponsored HR 598; the bill's stated purpose is: Supporting ...

Despite the fact that creationism and its dark twin intelligent design are nothing more than religious dogma tarted up to look like science, a disturbingly high number of science teachers in US schools insist on presenting that propaganda to their students as a scientifically valid theory. A Penn State researcher has conducted a study of US ...

Pope Benedict gave an address in Washington today in which he derided our country's founding principle of separation between church and state. Our nation's firewall between clerical and legal authority really seemed to bother him. Arguing for an even more aggressive intrusion of religious dogma into the sphere of public policy, he actually said ...

In a fairly surprising move, leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention have adopted a position on global warming which stands in direct contradiction to their position taken only a year ago: Signaling a significant departure from the Southern Baptist Convention’s official stance on global warming, 44 Southern Baptist leaders have decided to ...

Here's reason #1 Mike Huckabee is absolutely unfit to serve as President of the United States (Raw Story via HuffPo): ''I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution,'' Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. ''But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the ...