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In God We Trust

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Let The Outrage Begin: Atheists Get Meeting With Administration Officials

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on February 26, 2010 - 11:00am

When I saw this article this morning reporting that Obama Administration aides were scheduled to meet with representatives of the Secular Coalition for America today, I wondered how long it would take for some Religious Right group to throw a fit that the Administration was meeting with atheists.

Turns out, it took about an hour:

The advocacy group In God We Trust today ripped the Obama administration for meeting to plot political strategy with 60 atheist activists representing organizations comprising the Secular Coalition of America.

"It is one thing for Administration to meet with groups of varying viewpoints, but it is quite another for a senior official to sit down with activists representing some of the most hate-filled, anti-religious groups in the nation," says In God We Trust's Chairman Bishop Council Nedd.

...

"President Obama seems to believe that it is a good idea to have a key senior aide plan political strategy with people who believe faith in God is a disease," Nedd says. "Some of the people in this coalition believe the world would be better off with no Christians and no Jews and they aren't shy about it. The fact that this meeting is happening at all is an affront to the vast majority of people of all faiths who believe in God."

...

"The President should tell the American people whether he believes these groups' hate-filled views to be 'mainstream' and worthy of his supposedly inclusive administration," Nedd says.

Outrageous! 

President Bush would never have met with anyone who esposed "hate-filled views" ... would he? 

  • For the period April 2001 through June 2006, Focus on the Family Founder and Chairman Emeritus James Dobson visited the White House 24 times; 10 of those visits were to President Bush.
  • Andrea Lafferty, Executive Director of the Traditional Values Coalition, made an astonishing 50 visits to the White House starting on February 1, 2001, and continuing through March 16, 2008. Six of those visits were to President Bush.
  • Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America, made 43 visits to the White House between May 2001 and August 2006. Four of those visits were to President Bush.
  • Gary Bauer, President of American Values, made 10 visits to the White House, starting with a January 6, 2003 visit to Vice President Cheney and ending with a July 20, 2006 visit to President Bush.
  • The late Jerry Falwell, of Jerry Falwell Ministries, made eight visits to the White House between May 2001 and September 2004. Three of those visits were to President Bush.
  • Tony Perkins, President of Family Research Council, visited the White House 14 times between February 2001 and June 2006, including two visits to President Bush.
  • Louis Sheldon, Chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, made 19 visits to the White House between March 2001 and September 2006, including two visits to President Bush.
  • The late Paul Weyrich, the Founder of Free Congress foundation, made 17 visits to the White House between May 2001 and July 2005, including six visits to President Bush and one to Karl Rove.
  • Donald Wildmon, Founder of the American Family Association, made three visits to the White House between July 2001 and March 2003, including one visit to President Bush. 

Of course, this is different because it is Obama Administration officials who are meeting with the Secular Coalition of America today at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building while these Religious Right leaders only got to meet with President Bush at the White House.

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"Americans are Being Terrorized into Banishing Christmas"

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on December 2, 2009 - 12:11pm

Earlier this week, I wrote a post about the Liberty Counsel freaking out over this ad campaign from the American Humanist Association:

Liberty called the campaign a "temper tantrum" ... but the only ones throwing a temper tantrum are those on the Right, as the Texas Freedom Network points out by highlighting this statement from In God We Trust:

The national advocacy group In God We Trust today condemned efforts of national atheist organizations and left-wing legal groups aimed at terrorizing Americans into not celebrating Christmas.

“Americans have become accustomed to the whining and calls for censorship of anti-religion activists during the Christmas season,” says In God We Trust’s Chairman Bishop Council Nedd. “However, this year opponents of the holiday are escalating their ‘War on Christmas’ to a whole new level. Their goal is harass, mock and scare people into censoring themselves and hiding their Christmas celebrations.”

“Americans are being terrorized into banishing Christmas from public life,” Nedd warns. “The hate and venom spewing from some of these anti-religious groups is so great that some jurisdictions are tearing down even secular Christmas displays as fast as they can.”

And of course, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League is weighing in as well, blaming mean-spirited secular elitists for ruining Christmas ... and urging people to sue: 

Disputes about Christmas displays, he charged, are “contrived by elitists of a secular mindset.” They are “bringing forth every possible secular holiday that might fall in December and trying to give it equal billing with Christmas.”

According to Donohue, many Jews will acknowledge that Hanukkah is a minor holiday. He added that the Hindus he knows celebrate Christmas as part of being Americans.

“Now in the workplace, in the schools, we have to be ever-conscious of offending people who are not Christians,” he charged.

Donohue blamed this situation on the “language police” and diversity consultants, whom he claimed to be part of a $1 billion industry active in the private and public workplace.

“These people are the ones selling the propaganda that non-Christians are offended by Christian symbols in December. There is no evidence to this,” he said, reporting that about 96 percent of Americans do not object to Christmas displays or greetings.

He blamed Christmas disputes on “a very small percentage of mean-spirited people year after year.”

He suggested Catholics respond to the suppression of Christmas displays by filing lawsuits or showing up at town hall meetings and school board meetings when the displays become an issue.

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“In God We Trust” Goes on the Offensive Against Non-Existent Threat

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on December 8, 2008 - 3:22pm

We’ve written about a group known as In God We Trust a few times before, first back when they were demanding that Barack Obama publicly repudiate a billboard put up in Colorado by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and then again when they freaked out when they learned that the American Humanist Association was going to be placing its own ads in Washington, DC.

Now, the organization is launching a pre-emptive effort to ensure that the FFRF doesn’t have a chance to place their “religion is a myth” sign, which is causing so much controversy in Washington state, in the nation’s capitol:

"In God We Trust will oppose any effort to place these signs in any state capital or in any government location in Washington, D.C.," promises Bishop Council Nedd, the organization's chairman. "These signs have nothing in common with a menorah, a nativity scene or a Christmas tree. They are an attempt by anti-religious bigots to equate a belief in God with enslavement and to ridicule the majority of Americans who believe in God."

"Why do these zealots have the right to post signs on public property attacking their countrymen?" Nedd asks. "Would anyone stand for an equally hate-filled message being posted by the Klan on Martin Luther King's Birthday? Of course not. Yet that is exactly what these atheist bigots want. And their next step will be to demand one of these signs be posted on the National Mall in Washington, DC."

Nedd says he is launching a national effort to preempt the posting of any more of these signs. The organization is mobilizing its 60,000 supporters to lobby their Governors and representatives in Washington urging them stop the atheist advertising effort.

Of course, this mobilization is rather pointless, as the FFRF currently has no intention of actually trying to place its signs in the nation’s capitol and no plans to do so.  I know this because I just called them and asked and was informed that their efforts in this regard are purely reactive and limited to situations where religious symbols are currently on display in state capitols.  

In essence, In God We Trust is merely trying to generate some press and hopefully raise some money off of a current controversy by announcing a mobilization effort dedicated to preventing something from happening that … well, isn’t going to happen.

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The Atheists Are Coming!

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on November 12, 2008 - 2:31pm

It looks like the Religious Right will have a new enemy to fight in their annual “war on Christmas” now that the American Humanist Association has announced its new ad campaign:

"Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake," proclaims a new holiday ad from the American Humanist Association. Already appearing today in the New York Times and Washington Post, the message will soon be blazoned on the sides, taillights, and interiors of over 200 Washington DC Metro buses.

It's the first ad campaign of its kind in the United States, and the American Humanist Association predicts it will raise public awareness of humanism as well as controversy over humanist ideas.

Needless to say, right-wing leaders and activists have already swung into action to warn unsuspecting Americans of the dangers of this new advertising campaign:

Peter Sprigg, vice president of policy at the conservative Family Research Council (FRC), told CNSNews.com that sustainable morality is grounded in a belief in a higher being.

“I don’t think it’s possible to sustain long-term morality without religion,” Sprigg said. “If there is no higher being obliging humans to act morally and ethically, why should we do it?”

Sprigg emphasized he thinks that atheists can act morally, but he also said that society would shift towards greed and selfishness without a belief in a higher power.

And you just knew that Bill Donohue was going to have something to say about it:

Codes of morality, of course, have always been grounded in religion. For those of us in Western civilization, its tenets emanate from the Judeo-Christian ethos. By casting this heritage aside, and replacing it with nothing more than the conscience of lone individuals, we lay the groundwork for moral anarchy. And that is because there is nothing that cannot be justified if the only moral benchmark is what men and women posit to be right and wrong. Indeed, every monster in history has followed his conscience.

The danger is so great in fact that even the moribund Christian Coalition was obligated to speak out against this effort to “ban Christmas and God from the public square,” saying the AHA “has an elitist contempt for Americans believing in God” and urging their “millions of supporters to call the city of Washington, DC and Congress to stop this un-Godly campaign." Even Mat Staver weighed in to call the campaign "insulting" while American Family Association president Tim Wildmon called it "stupid."

We had mentioned a group called In God We Trust once before when they inexplicably demanded that Barack Obama publicly denounce a series of “Imagine No Religion” billboards that the Freedom From Religion Foundation had placed around the country … and so it is no surprise that they would weigh in on this latest affront and do so by attempting to link the AHA to the Right’s most-hated nemesis – the United Nations:

"These ads are a deliberate attack on American traditions, beliefs and customs by a United Nation's affiliated group that espouses a radical anti-American agenda and is funded by an zealot who believes that the U.S. is a backwards nation full of imbeciles," says In God We Trust Chairman Council Nedd.

…

"This ad campaign is yet another attempt by America-hating snobs to mock and attack our nation's traditions and culture" says Nedd. "The AHA is not some harmless little atheist group. These people hate America and they are working with our nation's enemies to attack our heritage."

 

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For The Right, Obama’s Religious Test Now Includes Denouncing Unrelated Billboards

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on July 28, 2008 - 3:14pm

Throughout the summer, the Freedom From Religion Foundation has been placing billboards around the country reading "Imagine No Religion"

imagineIII.JPG

As the FFRF explains it: 

The Foundation is taking its irreverent message to what it calls the "unmassed masses" state-by-state. The billboard carries the Freedom From Religion Foundation's name and its website, ffrf.org.

"Wherever you go, our roadsides of full of religion and religious symbols," said Foundation copresident Annie Laurie Gaylor. "We think it's time to advertise an alternative." The Foundation has placed a second billboard message, with the same stained-glass motif, warning: "Beware of Dogma," in several states.

The Foundation's goal is to place billboards in every state. Currently, its "Imagine No Religion" message appears near the State Capitol in Denver. Billboards have appeared in Madison, Wis., Atlanta, Ga., Columbus, Ohio, and rural Pennsylvania and will be going up in Harrisburg, Pa., in September.

The ad has now gone up in Denver, though The Denver Post reports that “it will come down before the Democratic National Convention because the rate for that period was prohibitively high.”  But that hasn’t stopped a Virginia group called In God We Trust from trying to capitalize on it by sending a letter to Barack Obama telling him that he has an obligation to publicly denounce it and that failure to do so “will permanently damage your message of hope and inclusion with the American people”:

By placing their billboard in Denver, the FFRF hopes to ride your coattails to the Democratic National Convention and claim your success somehow validates their anti-religious views. The presence of this hate-filled message in a prominent location in the city where you will be nominated in just a few weeks has already garnered much media attention. Its message damages the Democratic Party's image with the 92% of Americans who believe in God. I urge you to publicly reject the stance of the FFRF. Failing to publicly denounce this attack on religion will permanently damage your message of hope and inclusion with the American people. Your silence will only show Americans that attacks on their beliefs will go unchallenged in an Obama administration.

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