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Have you gotten up to speed yet on Bob McDonnell, Virginia’s theocratic governor who is being touted as a serious contender to be the GOP Vice Presidential nominee? If not, Rachel Maddow’s report is eye opening, troubling, and must-see: Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Your Thoughts?
Archive for the ‘Law’ Category
Virginia’s Aggressively Theocratic Governor
February 23rd, 2012 
Daniel Fincke Too Big to Jail
February 21st, 2012 Daniel Fincke I’ve been reading through Glenn Greenwald’s With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful and it is as appalling as the title promises. Here’s a salacious and infuriating taste:
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie Vetoes Gay Marriage Bill
February 17th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Infuriating: Gov. Chris Christie has followed through on his promise to reject a bill allowing same-sex marriage in New Jersey by quickly vetoing the measure Friday. “I am adhering to what I’ve said since this bill was first introduced — an issue of this magnitude and importance, which requires a constitutional amendment, should be [...]
Posted in Civil Rights, Civil Rights, Gay Marriage, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Gay Rights, Law, Law, Law & Politics, LGBTQAA, Politics, Politics, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Same Sex Marriage, Same Sex Marriage 
Tags: Chris Christie Vetoes Same Sex Marriage Bill, Governor Chris Christie, New Jersey Same Sex Marriage Bill 
9 Comments »No, Not Everyone Has A Moral Right To Be Offended By Just Any Satire or Criticism
February 15th, 2012 Daniel Fincke 4 Misconceptions About the Nature of Offense Here are four common sense assumptions about giving and taking offense that I think are fundamentally mistaken and which atheists need to argue against: “You have every right to be offended, but you don’t have the right to censor others just because you’re offended.” “You cannot blame people [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Free Speech, Free Speech, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Religion, Religion, Religious Satire, Religious Satire, Virtues, Virtues Tags: "You Have The Right To Be Offended", Andy Drennon, Denial of Atheists From Gelato shop, Gelatogate, In Defense of Blasphemy, Moral Rights, Offense as a Moral Category, Offense As Value Judgment, Religion, Religious Offense, Satirizing Religion, Skepticon IV, Values Perceptions 53 Comments »Virginia Expected To Allow Religious Adoption Agencies To Discriminate Against Gays
February 11th, 2012 Daniel Fincke More special, unconstitutional, protections of religious conscience bigotry, to the exclusion of equal protection: On Friday, the Virginia Senate passed SB 349, which gives private adoption agencies the power to deny the placement of children with same-sex couples on religious grounds. Known as the ‘conscience clause’ bill, the bill allows adoption agencies to deny same-sex couples the [...]
Posted in Civil Rights, Civil Rights, Gay Rights, Gay Rights, Homophobia, Homophobia, Law, Law, Law & Politics, LGBTQAA, News, News Discussion, News Discussion, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics Tags: Adam Ebbin, Discrimination Against Gay Adoption, Gay State Senator, State Senator Adam Ebbin, Virginia Law Allowing Adoption Agency Discrimination, Virginia State Senator Adam Ebbin 4 Comments »Are You One of the Millions Who Support Ellen?
February 10th, 2012 Daniel Fincke The “One Million Moms” (who actually only had around 40,000 Facebook likes) tried to get Ellen Degeneres fired as a JC Penney spokesperson on account of her being gay. A counter Facebook page looking to garner an actual 1,000,000 supporters for Ellen started fishing for likes and has received over 100,000 in a hurry. If you happen [...]
Posted in Gay Marriage, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Gay Rights, LGBTQAA, Pop Culture, Pop Culture, TV, TV Tags: Ellen and Portia on Oprah, Ellen Degeneres, Facebook, Portia Degeneres, Portia DiRossi 6 Comments »“Gay Marriage Doesn’t Threaten Our Marriage”
February 9th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Friend of Camels With Hammers George Waye has passed on to me information about a photo campaign by Heterosexuals for Same Sex Equality. Preferably by Valentine’s Day they’d like to get a bunch of heterosexual couples to pose with signs that read “Gay Marriage Doesn’t Threaten Our Marriage”. Here are the founders of the group, [...]
The Forgotten Women of Health Care Reform
February 9th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Lawrence O’Donnell does a bang up job articulating the case for a single payer health care plan and the unacceptable consequences of the path we have chosen instead: Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Your Thoughts?
Posted in Law, Law, Law & Politics, News Discussion, News Discussion, Politics, Politics Tags: Affordable Care Act, Anti-Obamacare, Catholic Church Birth Control Exemption, Catholic Church Contraception Exemption, Negative Consequences of Affordable Care Act, Single Payer System, Virtues of Single Payer System 1 Comment »Ellen Responds To The “Million Moms”
February 8th, 2012 Daniel Fincke This organization doesn’t think I should be the spokesperson because I’m gay. For those of you who are just tuning in for the first time, it’s true. I’m gay. I hope you were sitting down. I hate to break it to you this way. I usually don’t talk about stuff like this on my show [...]
Posted in Civil Rights, Civil Rights, Gay Marriage, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Gay Rights, Homophobia, Homophobia, Homosexuality, Homosexuality, LGBTQAA, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, TV, TV Tags: Ellen Degeneres, Ellen DeGeneres's Reply To One Million Moms, JC Penny, One Million Moms 10 Comments »Religious Privilege and Grievance-Based Catholic Identity Politics on Full Display
February 7th, 2012 Daniel Fincke In a column last week, Melinda Henneberger criticized the Obama administration’s refusal to exempt the Catholic Church from requirements it provide for its employees health insurance which would cover birth control at organizations it runs which have secular functions. The column is an extraordinary exemplification of religious entitlement, identity politics, and anti-secular, anti-democratic demands for [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Barack Obama, Barack Obama, Christianity, Christianity, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Faith, Feminism, Feminism, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Law, Law, Law & Politics, News Discussion, News Discussion, Philosophy Of Religion, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Rape, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religious Moderates, Religious Moderates, Religious Rights, Religious Rights, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State, Theocrats, Theocrats, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Issues Tags: Affordable Care Act, Bart Stupak, Birth Control, Catholic Identity Politics, Catholic Voters, Conscience Exemptions, Faith and Politics, Grievance Politics, Liberal Protestant, Melinda Henneberger, Obama National Prayer Breakfast, Obama's Faith, obamacare, Religious Rights, Religious Tests For Office, Reproductive Rights, Ressentiment, Secularism 11 Comments »“What Are The Limits of Church Authority In the Public Sphere?”
February 5th, 2012 Daniel Fincke This is part 2 of a debate with Roman Catholic theology graduate student named Mary. In part 1, we introduced and began to debate the topic of whether or not universities, hospitals, and social agencies run by the Catholic Church should be exempted from laws requiring employers to provide their employees health insurance that covers [...]
Posted in Abortion, Abortion, Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Authority, Authority, Autonomy, Autonomy, Barack Obama, Barack Obama, Bio-Medical Ethics, Bio-Medical Ethics, Christianity, Christianity, Civil Rights, Civil Rights, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Feminism, Feminism, Gay Marriage, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Gay Rights, Homophobia, Homophobia, Law, Law, LGBTQAA, News Discussion, News Discussion, Personal, Philosophy, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religious Moderates, Religious Moderates, Religious Rights, Religious Rights, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Issues Tags: 1st Amendment, Affordable Care Act, Conscience Exemptions, Discrimination Against Gays, Free Exercise, Freedom of Religion, Gay Rights, Health Coverage For Gay Spouses, Mary C. Young, Pharmacists Rights of Conscience, Relig, Religious Discrimination, Reproductive Rights, Roman Catholic Adoption Agencies Refuse Gay Adoptions, Roman Catholic Charities, Roman Catholic Church 55 Comments »Learn More About SOPA
January 18th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Your Thoughts?
PIPA Co-Sponsor Senator Marco Rubio Withdraws Support For PIPA
January 18th, 2012 Daniel Fincke From his Facebook page:
10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Rules Against Bans on Shari’a Law
January 11th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Andrew Cohen highlights and explains key sections of a ruling by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (which you can read in full here) that considers attempts to outlaw all use of international law in legal judgments in the United States and which places special emphasis on outlawing considerations of Shari’a law as any [...]
Openly Bisexual and Non-theist Woman (Who Rejected Parents’ Mormonism) Runs For U.S. Congress
January 7th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Kyrsten Sinema is a Democrat from Phoenix who has resigned her seat in the Arizona state senate to run for the state’s new 9th Congressional District. She is a bisexual with a history of advocacy for gay rights. She is also a non-theist of some variety who openly participated in a 2010 event marking the creation [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Civil Rights, Civil Rights, Gay Marriage, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Gay Rights, Law, Law & Politics, LGBTQAA, News, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State Tags: Kyrsten Sinema, Kyrsten Sinema atheist, Kyrsten Sinema non-theist 23 Comments »Christian Children: The True Victims of the War on Christmas
December 10th, 2011 Daniel Fincke This is so well done: War On Christmas PSA Your Thoughts?
Posted in Comedy, Comedy, Gay Rights, Gay Rights, Hilarious, Homophobia, Homophobia, Parody, Parody, Political Satire, Political Satire, Religulous, Religulous, Satire, Satire Tags: "War on Christmas" PSA, Rick Perry 6 Comments »Is Occupy Wall Street “Doing It Rong”?
November 28th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Crommunist argues no, challenging the historical validity of oft-heard memes how successful protest movements are “supposed to” work: “The Occupy people don’t have a plan! All successful protest movements have clear goals and plans that are defined before the protest starts!” I suppose the second statement there is pure implication from the first. The truth, [...]
Maryam Namazie Attacks Shari’a And Defends Muslim Immigrants Against The Far Right
November 20th, 2011 Daniel Fincke A great lecture and Q&A my estimable Freethought Blogs colleague Maryam Namazie: . An important excerpt from the Q&A: Look, George Bush says he attacked Iraq for women’s rights and I’m a women’s rights campaigner, but I don’t believe him. It’s possible that a politician will say something, that they’ve done something for a reason and, [...]
Posted in Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Civil Liberties, Civil Liberties, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Feminism, Feminism, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, George W. Bush, George W. Bush, Islam, Islam, Koran, Koran, Law, Law, Law & Politics, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religious Rights, Religious Rights, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State, Theocracy, Theocracy, Theocrats, Theocrats, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Issues No Comments »Is The Use of Pepper Spray Torture?
November 20th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Yesterday digby discussed various cases of the use of pepper spray to argue that it is obviously torture. Is it torture? If it is torture but in some cases it could foreseeably prevent an altercation with greater likelihood of long term physical damage could it be justified nonetheless? Is it only unjustified when applied to non-violent [...]
Religious and Moral Conviction Provision Dropped From Anti-Bullying Law
November 19th, 2011 Daniel Fincke On Sunday, I wrote a dialogue debating the pros and cons of specifically exempting statements of “sincere religious or moral convictions” from being taken as bullying in an anti-bullying law for schools. I’m only seeing now that on Monday there was big news about the proposed exception that sparked this debate: Gay and Muslim groups [...]
Bullying or Debating? Religious Privilege or Freedom of Speech?
November 13th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Jaime: Did you see the Republicans just endorsed the right to bully in schools as long as it’s done in the name of religion. Kelly: They did not. Jaime: Yes. They did. They perversely added to anti-bullying bill the right to bully as long as such bullying was based on “sincerely held religious or moral convictions.” [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Free Speech, Free Speech, Homophobia, Homophobia, Homosexuality, Homosexuality, Law, Law, Law & Politics, LGBTQAA, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, News, News Discussion, News Discussion, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy Of Religion, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Racism, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religious Rights, Religious Rights, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Same Sex Marriage, Same Sex Marriage, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State, Theocrats, Theocrats Tags: John Rawls, Libertarianism, Tolerance 33 Comments »A Critique of Noble Lies And The “Theologies” They Create
November 10th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In this long post, I begin by explaining Plato’s formulation of the concept of a noble lie for those unfamiliar with it and then I explain in detail numerous problems I see with employing noble lies and with attempts to persuade people through “theological” arguments. I think all theology is either an explicit or an [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Ethics, Ethics, Historical Ethics, Historical Ethics, Historical Philosophy, History, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Law, Law, Law & Politics, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, News Discussion, News Discussion, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Religion, Religion, Religion and Science, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religious Moderates, Religious Moderates, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State, Theocracy, Theocracy, Theocrats, Theocrats, Virtues, Virtues 34 Comments »Hurrah For The Justice System
November 8th, 2011 Daniel Fincke For a slightly more up to date account of the neurobiological bases of antisocial behavior, here is an account that goes brain region by brain region. And for more on the inner-workings of the justice system, Glenn Greenwald’s new book With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and [...]
“Persecuted Male Syndrome”
November 7th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Colbert highlights the newest civil rights hero: The Colbert ReportGet More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive Ed Brayton has the discouraging story of his latest unconscionable defeat in court. Your Thoughts?
How Scalia Judges Based On Faith-Based, Religious Metaphysics
November 6th, 2011 Daniel Fincke The blog Doggy Style quotes Justice Antonin Scalia making a disturbing analysis in 2002: “So it is no accident, I think, that the modern view that the death penalty is immoral has centered in the West. That has little to do with the fact that the West has a Christian tradition and everything to do with the [...]
Posted in Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Christianity, Christianity, Law, Law, Law & Politics, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Religion, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State 13 Comments »
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