Civil Commotion

• Activist pastor will go to trial on child molestation charges

  A Glynn County magistrate judge on Friday found probable cause to order Pastor Ken Adkins to stand trial in Superior Court on two counts of child molestation.

  Adkins, 56, pastor of the Greater Dimensions Christian Fellowship, has drawn fire in the past for his remarks about homosexuals.

• Priest guilty of sexual abuse stripped of clerical duties

  Former Green Bay Diocese Priest Michael Carroll has been stripped of his duties following being found guilty of sexual abuse of minors.

  Carroll has been permanently restricted from priestly duties by the Vatican and can no longer administer sacraments, wear clerical attire or present himself publicly as a priest.

• Mother: Special needs son forcibly baptized

  Parents of an 11-year-old boy are up in arms over his baptism they say they never signed off on.

  April Defibaugh, of Hambden, filed a police report with the Geauga County Sheriff’s Department asking for criminal charges to be filed against the child’s mentor from Big Brothers Big Sisters, as well as the church that baptized him.

• Ohio Christian Activists Trying to Get Abortion Prosecuted as Aggravated Murder, Punishable by Life Sentence

  A group of Christian activists in Ohio unaffiliated with any of the major pro-life groups are attempting to amend the state constitution to say abortion will be prosecuted as “aggravated murder,” attracting a sentence of up to life in prison.

  Ballot language in a proposed constitutional amendment submitted to the office of state Attorney General Mike DeWine last Friday wants to “prohibit abortion of all human beings, without exception, and classifying it as aggravated murder in the State of Ohio.”

• Pastor Rapes Teen, Church Asks Victim To Apologize To Pastor’s Wife

  After a youth pastor in Ohio raped a teen girl, church officials asked the young victim to apologize to her rapist’s wife.

  Brian Mitchell, a North Olmsted youth pastor, will spend a decade in prison for raping a 16-year-old girl who was also a member of his church.

• Former Newspring pastor Perry Noble says he is done with alcohol rehab

  The founder and former senior pastor of the NewSpring Church in South Carolina, Perry Noble, told his followers on Facebook last Tuesday that he is now out of rehab and is expecting that he could soon return to ministry with the aid of his therapist. Noble was removed as a pastor in July for issues of alcoholism and other reasons indicated by the Church’s board of directors.

• Pastor Allen Joyner Calls for the Shooting of Those Who Refuse to Stand for National Anthem

  Allen Joyner is the pastor of Sweet Home Baptist Church in McKenzie, Alabama. Joyner is also the football game announcer for McKenzie High School. Prior to the start of yesterday’s game, Joyner told the crowd:

  “If you don’t want to stand for the National Anthem, you can line up over there by the fence and let our military personnel take a few shots AT you since they’re taking shots FOR you.”

“It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe
anything upon insufficient evidence.”   — William Clifford

If you can believe without evidence that men are born evil and deservedly condemned to eternal torture, and that Jesus was crucified as a blood sacrifice to a barbaric Bronze Age god in order to expiate that innate guilt, then you can just as easily believe that Mohamed galloped off to Paradise on a white horse and expects believers to kill those who doubt his teachings. The content of those beliefs is different, but their sanction is identical: Faith, belief without evidence, belief in spite of evidence.

Domestically and internationally, faith is the moral evil that must be confronted and defeated.

The tax-exempt status of churches needs to be fully revoked. To the extent a church or religious organization actually engages in true charitable work of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and providing shelter to the homeless and similar activities, those specific operations should be tax-exempt. Other than that, church property and revenues need to be taxed just like every other business. Yes, without forced public support via tax-exempt status, many churches would be forced to shut down or consolidate with other churches — just like any other business that peddles a product for which there is lack of a public demand. For those who want the “fellowship” they find at church, join a club or fraternal organization. It would likely cost them less and give them the same social opportunities. I for one am sick and tired of being forced to indirectly support parasitical institutions.

Michael Hamar

Just so. Anybody with two eyeballs connected to a properly-functioning mind can look at the headlines and see it is past time for the grown-ups to step-forward and stop indulging pious idiots. Enough is enough.

This election year, the country is analogous to Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania on 9/11.

“This country is the equivalent of that plane right now,” Bauer said, citing a recent column posted on the Claremont Institute website. “We’re heading for a disaster unless we can get control of the cockpit again and then maybe, just maybe, we’ll have a chance.”

The passengers on that plane “took the only shot they had,” Bauer stated. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is a Flight 93 election. This may be our last shot. It’s time to roll. It’s time to run down the aisle and save Western civilization.”

The tastelessness of the analogy is breathtaking. Is there nothing these cynics won’t try to exploit?

There is only one good thing about this election year: Only stupidity or plain-vanilla blindness can obscure the malice, the ignorance, the grasping predation of the evangelical right and their cohorts on the lunatic fringe. These people simply are not part of the decent, educated world, and deserve nothing but contempt.