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Dispatches from a Struggling Buddhist Studies Graduate Student

Monday, January 20, 2014

"Nones" a New Voting Bloc?

The Center for Humanist Activism Fund has started the Freethought Equality Fund PAC, creating the country's first ever political action committee dedicated to promoting the rights and concerns of non-believers.  According to The Huffington Post:
The PAC will back humanist, atheist and agnostic candidates at all levels of government. Freethought's coordinator, Bishop McNeill, told The Huffington Post that it would also be open to supporting candidates who identify with a religion if they are committed to protecting the separation of church and state and defending the civil liberties of secular Americans. 
Nonbelievers have expressed concerns about religious lawmakers who are hostile to legislation based on scientific research because it conflicts with their faith.
According to the latest findings from the Pew Forum, about one-in-five adults affiliate themselves as atheist, agnostic, or non-believers ("nones" for short).  That number rises to one-in-three for those of us under the age of 30.

Comparatively, a recent Gallup poll that indicated Americans who identified themselves as Republicans dropped to 25%.  With a five percent difference between Republicans and nones, it would seem that the demographic field between religious conservatives and nones is beginning to even out.  Unfortunately, an earlier Gallup study demonstrated only 54% of voters would be willing vote for an atheist for President.

What can we draw from these numbers?  If the polls are correct, it shows that despite a continuing growth in the non-religious population of this country since the 1980s, nones are still distrusted by a large segment of the American public.  Large enough that the ambition of fielding a candidate for a national office like the presidency is still a premature dream.

However, PACs representing nones like the Freethought Equality Fund could still prove to be useful in other electoral venues.  Many of the issues that concern nones, like science education, government sponsored prayer, and equal access to public forums stem from local elections.  If the FEF and other nones-aligned PACs helped to promote candidates - who were either non-religious or religious but respected a strong separation of church and state - in strategic local races where religious encroachment into politics was a problem, then these PACs could be a start of a larger effort for better political representation for atheists, agnostics, and other non-believers.  

(Hat Tip Roy Speckhardt)

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Magistrate Uses Judicial Power to Change Baby's Name for Religious Reasons

In August of last year in Newport, TN Cocke County Child Support Magistrate Lu Ann Ballew ordered a couple to change their newborn's name from Messiah to Martin.  The child's parents originally took the case to court to adjudicate their disagreement on which surname they should give the infant.  

The judge on her own volition decided to rule not that the baby should have the father's surname McCollough, but also that the parents must change the infant's first name to Martin, the mother's surname.   The ruling came as a shock to the parents, since they both agreed that the child's  first name should be Messiah.  Magistrate Ballew said that the name Messiah was inappropriate because:
"The word Messiah is a title and it's a title that has only been earned by one person and that one person is Jesus Christ."
Magistrate Ballew's order was overturned by a higher judge.  After Ballew's ruling was overturned, the parents filed a complaint against Ballew, and the State Board of Judicial Conduct agreed that she improperly let her religious views dictate the outcome of the case.

The magistrate's conduct was unbelievable and without a doubt constituted misconduct.  Her statement that messiah is only a title that has been earned by Jesus is also historically inaccurate.  Messiah means "anointed one," and in the Hebrew Bible it is a title that refers mostly to Jewish kings, but also used for some prophets and priests.  The title itself was expansive enough to be used in Isaiah 45:1 to refer not to the kings of Judah, but to the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great after he freed the Jews from Babylon.

So to Magistrate Ballew:  If you are going to use your position to impose your belief system onto people, you might want to make sure what you are saying at least holds some sort of historical accuracy.