Church is as good as jail

Offenders in Alabama can be sentenced to attend church as an alternative to jail, according to this article.

Whatever happened to the separation of church and state? And how can they suggest that belief in God makes you more moral?

Or have I missed something, and did this originate in The Onion?

The power of words

There's a lovely article over at Laughing Squid about the power of words - even rather random words. Last week Westboro Baptist Church turned up with their usual hate-filled signs outside Twitter's San Francisco office to find a larger group of people were already there carrying random signs. (I have no idea why the WBC was protesting against Twitter but maybe they don't need a reason.)

I'm not sure what was most effective in countering the hate attack: the gentle mockery of the signs or the cheerfulness of the counter-demonstrators. Either way, the self-styled Baptists left earlier than planned, cutting out a scheduled protest against Fiddler on the Roof.

The article and more pictures are here. Thanks to Pewari for the link.

In mourning for civil rights

I have always believed that California is the place where hippies and liberals go when we die. Now my dream is shattered.

California has passed Proposition 8, which invalidates gay marriage. This is like taking the vote away from women, or re-instituting slavery, or outlawing racially mixed marriages.

The reasoning behind this Proposition is purely religious. Now, theology has a tendency to change over time to catch up with enlightened thought so there is hope for the future. The problem is that religious change happens on a geological timescale and meanwhile happily married couples are left in limbo with their marriages suddenly invalidated.

In the UK we got around the religious issue by having "civil partnerships" for gay people which are marriages in all but name. I would like to see this extended to everyone so that it is only religious ceremonies that are "marriages". That way gay partnerships would not be singled out as different from any others and believers could take their stand on the validity of gay marriage without imposing their beliefs on the rest of us.

I hope that this Proposition is overturned soon. Meanwhile, I watch the situation in California with horror.