Atheists and Christmas and Hannukah

So some atheists in Washington State wanted equal space for their own message and they got it. Instead of giving some positive message of their own to counter other positive messages during this season, they posted a message claiming that religous people (apparently, Christians, Jews and Muslims) have hardened hearts and enslaved minds.

Way to go to convince religious people to agree and give up our "superstitious" ways.

Injustice Department

Not that it's Beth Chapman day, but I was also wondering why the Secretary of State would call the U.S. Department of Justice the "Injustice Department" just because they want to enforce the law regarding military voters. I thought she was all about ensuring military personnel could vote.

Scriptural Pigs?

Can you believe that the Alabama Federation of Republican Women would post to their a blog an entry calling Democrats "egotistical, hate mongering pigs" while also citing scripture from the Holy Bible?

Beth Chapman, Ethics Maven

I'm wondering why Beth Chapman felt compelled to hire her husband to do over $10,000 in design work for her campaign for Alabama Secretary of State when she was paying over $200,000 to a consulting firm for campaign work. She claims her husband could do the work cheaper than an ad agency, which makes me wonder what the consulting firm did for the big dollars they received.

I'm also wondering why she called her campaign a "grassroots" effort when paid so much to the consulting firm.

Science schmience?

I'm wondering, why people on the left contend we should rely on science to show that homosexuality and transsexuality are "normal", but refuse to accept the evidence from science that a fetus is an unborn human life?

To Please or Not to Plead

A state judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed by the ACLU. The suit questioned how the state is removing convicted felons from the voter rolls. I'm not sure which is the worse part about this: the convicted felons who sued before even trying to register (they didn't know if their crime disqualified them from voting) or the judge for throwing the case out when clearly there is a need for a better idea about which crimes are disqualifying.

To be, or Are They Already?

The Birmingham News ran an op-ed Sunday about Alabama's hate crimes law. The article was critical of Alabama for not having yet adding homosexuals and transgender people to the list of groups to be protected against hate violence.

I can see adding protections for homosexuals, since I can see how homosexuality is biologically based. I'm not so sure about transgender people.

"Transgender" usually refers to individuals who are born "male" or "female" but who do not believe that classification really fits them. As Wikipedia puts it, transgender people are those "who were assigned a sex, usually at birth and based on their genitals, but who feel that this is a false or incomplete description of themselves."

As we have learned through experiences with homosexuals and bisexuals, gender and sexual orientation are two separate issues. I find it difficult to afford enhanced protections for a group based upon their perceived sense of their own gender.