Clipmarks | Honoradele's Comments

Five Years for a Joke About the Pope?

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 01:20:02 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

A popular Italian actress has avoided a possible five-year jail term over some off-color comments she made about Pope Benedict XVI.

An Italian prosecutor had vowed to take comedian Sabina Guzzanti to court on charges of religious slander.

At a July demonstration in Rome organized against the government of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Guzzanti said, "Within 20 years the Pope will be where he ought to be -- in hell, tormented by great big poofter devils, and very active ones, not passive ones."

Rome prosecutor Giovanni Ferrara initially threatened to prosecute the actress for offending the honor of the sacred and inviolable person of the pope.

Under Italian law, courts can sentence people to up to five years in prison for "offending the honor" of the Pope.

Tags: pope, catholic, church, italy, law, legal, comedy, religion

Doctors Can't Deny Lesbians Care on Religious Grounds

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:56:45 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: abcnews.go.com

The California Supreme Court today ruled unanimously that doctors cannot cite their religious beliefs as grounds to deny gay and lesbian patients medical care.

Justice Joyce Kennard ruled that two Christian fertility doctors who refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian couple cannot claim a free speech or religious exemption from California's anti-discrimination law.

The ruling extends a state law barring sexual orientation-based discrimination to the medical profession.

In 1999, after a year of surgeries and hormone treatments — all covered by insurance — Benitez was finally ready to get pregnant. But at the crucial moment, her doctor refused to do the procedure for "religious" reasons.

Benitez is a lesbian and sued her doctors under California's civil rights laws, charging that they discriminated against her because of her sexual orientation.

Tags: medical, gay, lesbian, religion, belief, discrimination

When 'The Blob' came to town

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:54:50 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

There is a man. He carries a can, and inside it is a weird, blood-red hunk of goo the size and consistency of a generous bowl of lumpy raspberry Jell-O.

The town, Phoenixville, is a place of history, too. Fifty years ago, this place was touched by the spotlight. A small production company two towns over made a film that no one expected to go anywhere. Instead, it became one of the iconic sci-fi horror flicks of the 1950s and introduced the world to an actor named Steve McQueen.

In real life, this happens: Each summer, hundreds of locals and folks from as far away as Oregon and Jamaica come to the center of Phoenixville. They visit the house where the doctor "died," stop by the strip mall where the market once stood, eat at the diner on the site where the alien met its frozen end. And, on Phoenixville's main drag, on a warm summer evening, more than 400 of them run screaming from the same theater, the Colonial, in a joyous re-enactment of the movie's big scene.

Tags: horror, movie, film, classic, history

Doctors Can't Deny Lesbians Care on Religious Grounds

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:56:45 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: abcnews.go.com

The California Supreme Court today ruled unanimously that doctors cannot cite their religious beliefs as grounds to deny gay and lesbian patients medical care.

The ruling extends a state law barring sexual orientation-based discrimination to the medical profession.

Benitez is a lesbian and sued her doctors under California's civil rights laws, charging that they discriminated against her because of her sexual orientation.

Tags: medical, gay, lesbian, religion, belief, discrimination

When government prays, religion loses

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 02:40:31 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.firstamendmentcenter.org

Not surprisingly, Rev. Turner wants to pray in the name of Jesus Christ — including when it’s his turn to offer the opening prayer at council sessions.

But on July 23, Turner lost the latest round in his battle to invoke Jesus when the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Fredericksburg City Council’s policy requiring that prayers at meetings be nondenominational.

In an opinion written by retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (asked to take part in the case as a visiting judge), the court ruled that the prayers at issue are “government speech” and therefore the prayer policy does not violate Turner’s free speech or free exercise of religion.

If we must have an invocation at government functions, then let’s do it in silence. That way the Rev. Turners in the room can pray freely in the name of Jesus — and everyone else can pray (or not) according to the dictates of conscience.

Tags: government, religion, free speech

Woman injured by sword in Wiccan ceremony

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 01:47:23 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.jconline.com

A woman accidentally stabbed herself in the foot with a 3-foot-long sword while performing a Wiccan good luck ritual at a central Indiana cemetery.

Katherine Gunther, 36, of Lebanon, pierced her left foot with the sword while performing the rite at Oak Hill Cemetery, police said.

Gunther said she was performing the ceremony to give thanks for a recent run of good luck. The ceremony involves the use of candles, incense and driving swords into the ground during the full moon.

Gunther said was aiming to put the sword in the ground, but hit her foot instead.

"It wasn't the first time I performed the ritual, but it was the first time I put a sword through my foot," she said.

No charges were filed, police said. The Wiccans were warned that being in the cemetery in the city about 20 miles northwest of Indianapolis after posted visiting hours constitutes trespassing.

Tags: religion, wicca, pagan, humor, ceremony, ritual

'Pull Your Pants Up' Movement Draws Critics, Supporters

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 01:53:50 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.christianpost.com

For a small but increasing number of Americans, the song “Pull Your Pants Up!” by gospel rap artist Dooney “Da Priest” is not just a song.

“It’s a movement,” as the rapper told the Jackson Clarion Ledger of Mississippi last week after his album “Pull Your Pants Up!” released.

And with new laws recently passed or being considered in a handful of U.S. cities, it might be.

City Councilman Kenneth Stokes, who proposed the sagging ban in Jackson after talking with Young, further told the newspaper: "Young people are emulating the dope boys, gang bangers and criminals they see and the community doesn't want them to go down that road."

There are some, however, who oppose the “movement.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, for example, said the new policy in Flint gives police authority to conduct unconstitutional searches and seizures, promotes racial profiling, violates due process and interferes with individuals' freedom to express themselves in their appearance.

Tags: social, fashion, free speech, music, legal

Americans: My Religion Isn't The Only Way

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 00:15:09 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.cbsnews.com

(CBS/ AP) America remains a nation of believers, but a new survey finds most Americans don't feel their religion is the only way to eternal life - even if their faith tradition teaches otherwise.

The findings, revealed Monday in a survey of 35,000 adults, can either be taken as a positive sign of growing religious tolerance, or disturbing evidence that Americans dismiss or don't know fundamental teachings of their own faiths.

In all, 70 percent of Americans with a religious affiliation shared that view, and 68 percent said there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their own religion.

"There's a growing pluralistic impulse toward tolerance and that is having theological consequences," he said.

"I think that organized religion could find this also a little bit threatening in the sense when dogma and doctrine become less and less important, it doesn't matter belonging to one church or another," Williams said on the CBS Evening News.

Tags: religion, faith, american, belief, life, death, theology

Congress Loses Spine - Again

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 21:20:16 GMT

clipped by: AtlLiberal
clipper's remarks: What iota of respect I held for the US Congress has evaporated due to their actions this past week. Their utter capitulation to the Bush Imperial Presidency was utterly despicable and reprehensible. Our Constitution is the true victim in their cowardly and incomprehensible action. Shame on them.

Clip Source: www.dailykos.com

The Imperial Senate

Tacitus, writing of the first Senate meeting after the death of Augustus Caesar (Annals 1.8):

Messala Valerius further proposed that the oath of allegiance to Tiberius should be renewed yearly, and when Tiberius asked him whether it was at his bidding that he had brought forward this motion, Valerius replied that he had proposed it spontaneously, and that in whatever concerned the State he would use only his own discretion, even at the risk of offending. This was the only style of adulation which yet remained.

All of this is brought to mind by the supine behavior of the US Congress during the last week, especially its precipitous abandonment of the Fourth Amendment in exchange for mere assurances that the President will have to consult them now and then in the future about his rationales for spying upon citizens without warrant. To be consulted is to be important.

Tags: politics, congress, fisa, immunity

The World According to Americans

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 23:22:31 GMT

clipped by: traesgirl

Clip Source: www.demonbaby.com

N.T Wright on the Kingdom of God

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:22:59 GMT

clipped by: migcmc03
clipper's remarks: From the best scholar and theologian in the world!

Clip Source: www.christiancentury.org

by N. T. Wright

In his new book, The Great Awakening, Jim Wallis describes how as a young man growing up in an evangelical church, he never heard a sermon on the Sermon on the Mount. That telling personal observation reflects a phenomenon about which I have been increasingly concerned: that much evangelical Christianity on both sides of the Atlantic has based itself on the epistles rather than the Gospels, though often misunderstanding the epistles themselves.

Indeed, in this respect evangelicalism has simply mirrored a much larger problem: the entire Western church, both Catholic and Protestant, evangelical and liberal, charismatic and social activist, has not actually known what the Gospels are there for.

Kingdom come

The public meaning of the Gospels

This article is adapted from a lecture N. T. Wright gave at a meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in November 2007.

N. T. Wright is bishop of Durham in the Church of England.

Church and State Collide On the Highway

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:17:25 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan
clipper's remarks: "More to the point: If your faith is so strong that it would inspire you to voluntarily stand in line at the DMV — and let’s face it, that’s strong — then why do you need it stamped in cold, hard metal on your vehicle’s ass?"

Clip Source: www.independent.com

This just in: Rational thought is backed up for miles along South Carolina’s roadways, where a serious traffic collision between Church and State has left our Constitution in critical condition.

The state recently approved a series of government-issued license plates bearing the words “I BELIEVE” and the image of a Christian cross in front of a stained-glass window. In addition to boasting their state-sanctioned love for square dancing, wild turkeys, and Dale Earnhardt Jr., South Carolina residents can now share their devotion to Jesus Christ with anyone lucky enough to be eating their dust.

The plate was proposed by Republican state Sen. Larry Grooms “to allow people of faith to have an expression of their belief.” Apparently ichthys fish and “God is my copilot” bumper stickers just weren’t converting heathens like they used to.

Critics, including the ACLU, say the state-issued plates are a government endorsement of religion.

Tags: church, state, cars, government, religion

Obama on religion and public policy

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 04:15:16 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: obama, politics, religion, belief, government

Here’s a new wrinkle on male chauvinism

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:19:45 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

An Italian man was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping his ex-girlfriend from a pub, taking her home and forcing her to iron his clothes and wash the dishes, police said Monday.

The 43-year-old man dragged the woman out of a pub in the port city of Genoa, shoved her into a car and took her to his home, where he made her iron and wash dishes after threatening her, they said.

Police arrived at his house after being tipped off by a friend of the woman who watched the scene at the pub.

The man, who was apparently furious at his ex-girlfriend for leaving him, was arrested on charges of kidnapping, police said.

Tags: weird, news, kidnapping

Obama on religion and public policy

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 04:15:16 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: obama, politics, religion, belief, government