Now, let me state outright that if the grade was due to the quality, this would not be on my blog.

It wasn’t.  It was because the religious artist had the audacity to include a scriptural reference on his. 

See the pictures below.  First, the failing art:

Now the two that passed:

And:

So all three are of fairly equal quality and show great talent by the artist.

The problem?  The bible verse in the first picture.  

Via Michelle Malkin:

Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed a federal lawsuit Friday against the Tomah Area School District over an unconstitutional policy that bars religious free speech. Citing a policy prohibiting depictions of “blood, violence, sexual connotations, [or] religious beliefs,” officials penalized a Christian student for his artwork depicting a Bible verse and a cross but did not penalize students who included demonic illustrations in their artwork.

“Christian students shouldn’t be penalized for expressing their beliefs. It is unconstitutional for the school to punish students simply because they choose to exercise their First Amendment rights,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel David Cortman. “Further, teachers are not permitted to censor Christian religious expression in artwork while at the same time allowing other types of religious depictions.”

A student at Tomah High School drew a landscape picture for an art class containing a road, clouds, and mountains with a cross in the background and the words “JOHN 3:16 – A sign of love” written in the sky. The teacher of the class told the student to either remove the scriptural reference or cover it up with a border.

The teacher cited a document that the student and all other students in the class had been required to sign at the beginning of the semester which prevented them from creating artwork with the prohibited depictions. After the teacher said that the student had “signed away his First Amendment rights,” the student respectfully protested by tearing the signed document in half.

This is a tribute to someone you may not have ever heard of but he had a much greater influence on music then you may know.

Back in the 60’s and 70’s there was a revolution in music that many people may have seen but they may not have understood it.  Religion found its way into modern music and the Christian rock genre was born. 

If you recall the 70’s group People, and their top 20 hit “I love you”, you knew this man.

If you have heard Amy Grant, Collective Soul or Jars of Clay, or the more recent offerings by Flyleaf and Fireflight you have heard music born of that era.

And the person who is generally considered the father of that era was Larry Norman.

Larry took the raw energy of Rock and Roll and fused it with the power of the Christian Gospel, and thus was a new kind of music born.

His work was not born quietly, he faced opposition in the Church by people who saw his music as ungodly and sinful.  His strongest critics often enough were the people in his camp as it were.

Larry died early this morning of heart failure, a condition he had struggled with for years.

Christian music was a central part of my life for many years, and I can still remember that one of his songs was the very first I had heard in the genre. 

He will be missed by friends, family and fans alike.

It is a serious question and one I am admittedly bothered by.  Let me explain, but first I want to make it clear that I abhor Phelps and his protests at Soldiers funerals, and his entire anti gay campaign.

To be double clear, Phelps and his church are among the most vile extremists to ever call themselves Christians.  For those who are not in the loop, Phelps and his church are on a campaign against gay people.  In their infinite insanity, they decided that God hates gays, and there for anything bad in American is God punishing America for tolerating gays.  This includes the war in Iraq, so they put 2 and 2 together, split it 6 ways till Tuesday then multiply the result by the number reasons they think God hates fags, and they take to the streets.  Their goal?  Military funerals for soldiers killed in Iraq.

Now would someone tell me how it makes sense to protest a funeral of a dead straight Marine and claim that God hates fags, and that’s why the Marine died.

Needless to say no one really likes them much.  See what happened to them at one such event here.  In another of my blogs, Free Speech? Not at a friggin funeral, for crying out loud, I noted that:

I  am easily a huge believer in free speech, both in using it, and in defending others rights to use it in ways I find outrageous.   But there are a few types that push me to limits and make me want to slap the daylights out of the people.

One of those is taking advantage of an event like a funeral to make a political statement.  It kills me that people can disregard the feelings of grieving families and think they are morally justified in making their politics override good manners and sensitivity.  Someone died, show some respect.

The problem is, you cannot expect people to show respect when they think they can make a PR splash.  States have tried to ban them, only to have the bans challenged in court.

Ann Coulter versus Alan Colmes on her Comments about Jews.  I post this not because Ann is a great theologian, but because Ann is a fighter.

Ann was pressed by Alan on her anti Semitic comments and he attempted to toss off a an underhanded insult about 4 minutes into this.

What I like is that Ann will have none of his condescension.  About 1 minute left in the clips she reverses the attack, and pins him to the wall.

In other words, she fought back instead of accepting the insult.

Whether she is on sound doctrinal footing or not in the classic Christian v Judaism debate is not relevant, what is relevant is that she believes what she does and defends it.

In a world where many Christians defer to political correctness and soft sell, I find anyone who stands firm somewhat invigorating.   I may not always agree with her, but I have to respect her passion.

And I wish more conservatives would take a page from her book (no pun intended) and stop making nice and fight for their beliefs.  Too often the liberals win by default when the conservatives fall back on sensibility and politeness.

Maybe that is the path of moral authority in some cases, but in others it is surrendering without a shot being fired.

Clip courtesy of Hot Air.

One of my all time favorite TV shows is the 80’s and 90’s sitcom Roseanne.

Roseanne when it came out could have been a portrait of my life.  At the time I was not well off financially, and was dealing with a lot of stress and unhappiness with laughter and sarcasm.

It was one of the first sitcoms to portray what life for most working class people was like:  A struggle with highs and lows. It also, as Roseanne Barr notes in her DVD commentary, clearly showcases the disconnect in class in America.

But.  One of the things I do struggle with is Roseanne herself, the actress, the comedienne and the activist.

I perused her blog and was shocked at how she can flip from crazy to wacky in no time at all.

Here are some examples from Roseanne World.   WARNING:  EXTREME LANGUAGE AHEAD

On Anne Coulter:

Ann Coulter

She serves a purpose, and a part of that is disturbing. When any woman with opinions speaks up - including Anne (the mouthpiece for Aryan womanhood) - she is the victim of verbal sexual assault. Her genitals and sexuality are gleefully insulted: she has an Adam’s apple, she likes getting fucked in the ass… This is wrong in any case, even hers. It demeans all women to do it. She can be debated intelligently, and if she would allow me that, I would be honored to do it, as I think she makes some valid points about the failures of the left in this country.

http://www.roseanneworld.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5192

A clear thinking, fair rational piece.  Now flip to:

Ann Coulter’s Anti-Semitism

The ultimate state of the perfection of Jews: they are all dead.

This is what is actually in the minds of Bush/Cheney and all Christians of the right who run this country, and ironically, are the major supporters of the state of Israel’s ride to ruin which is coming very quickly.

Just thought I would point out the obvious fact that is it getting harder to claim a consensus when over half of the scientists don’t buy the holy consensus.

Breaking: Less Than Half of all Published Scientists Endorse Global Warming Theory

Last week in his blog post, New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears, on the Inhofe EPW Press Blog, Marc Morano cited a July 2007 review of 539 abstracts in peer-reviewed scientific journals from 2004 through 2007 that found that climate science continues to shift toward the views off global warming skeptics.

Today, Michael Asher provides more details about this new survey in his blog post, Survey: Less Than Half Of All Published Scientists Endorse Global Warming Theory. Asher writes that the study has been submitted for publication in the journal Energy and Environment.

Face it, the glaciers are not what is melting.  What’s melting is the facade of lies about Global Warming. 

Granted this is hardly empirical, or a totally conclusive scientific fact, but it is interesting.

Face it, the glaciers are not what is melting.  What’s melting is the facade of lies about Global Warming.

Of course, this isn’t scientific either:

Priest offers ‘eco-confessions’ for environmental sinners

Forgotten to recycle any newspapers or tin cans recently? Feeling guilty because you neglected to carbon offset your flight to somewhere, anywhere, outside England this summer?

The Roman Catholic Church is at hand with a new line in “green confessions” to help eco-sinners to find forgiveness.

Dom Anthony Sutch, the Benedictine monk who resigned as head of Downside School to become a parish priest in Suffolk, will be at the county’s Waveney Greenpeace festival this weekend to hear eco-confessions in what is thought to be the first dedicated confessional booth of its kind.

Why not?  We already have eco indulgences, the so called carbon offsets…though those are not within the Church.

I was raised in no real faith.  My parents allowed us to pick our own.  My dad’s family was Mormon though he did not practice, and my mom had no real practicing faith, though she was baptized Catholic I found out years later.

My siblings and I started going various evangelical churches, settling on a Baptist church in Saratoga California.  I attended from 4th grade through college.

Later in life I went to Evangelical and Charismatic churches, 4 Square churches and other various flavours before deciding that I would look at Catholicism.   In 2002 I began a conversion but never finished it.  I stopped not because of the doctrine, but mostly because of some issues getting my first marriage annulled.  If anything about the catholics irritates me it is the strict legalism.

But I have to admit (not confess) that I admire the Catholics for their steadfastness of faith.  In a lot of respects the faith is unchanged from its early roots.  The Protestants, by comparison, have fractured, splintered and evolved from the beginning of their estrangement from the Catholics.

So this last week the Pope issued a proclamation about the Catholics being the true faith, to the usual uproar and disenchantment.

I’m not sure why.  First of all, most religions think their faith or sect or denomination is the true faith, and everyone else gets it wrong.  I found it interesting that the Pope did not step on nearly as many toes as the catholics in the past have.   Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus (No Salvation outside the Church) used to be the mantra.  But now the protestants and the Orthodox  qualify in some respect.

I found the evangelical’s outrage at his comment particularly funny considering how many evangelical and fundamentalist churches I have attended that pointedly and clearly proclaimed that Catholics are not saved, and say very unflattering things about the Pope.

But the subject of Catholics in modern society is intrinsically associated with abuse these days.  The accusations of sexual abuse against youth by priests appears epidemic and culminated in a 600 million dollar settlement in LA.