Dealing with the Fringe

For the past hour or two, I have been engaged in a comment war on the Christus Vincit blog. Those who have read my last post will remember that the writer of this blog posted a statement to the effect that Jessica Ahlquist, the Rhode Island high school student, had the threats she has been receiving coming to her.

To be fair, the author states in a response comment that he does not condone death threats. That may be, but saying that someone has death threats coming sure as hell comes close, at least in my book.

Interestingly, the author of the blog complains that my posting completely civil objections to his ideas, without the use of any threats or profanity, is harassment. Let's take a look at the comments Jessica Ahlquist has been receiving over Twitter, which I would consider to be real harassment. Here are some quotes (warning: strong language):

"Let's all jump that girl who did the banner #fuckthatho"

"I want to punch the girl in the face that made west take down the school prayer... #Honestly"

"hail Mary full of grace @jessicaahlquist is gonna get punched in the face"

"Fuck Jessica alquist I'll drop anchor on her face"

"lol I wanna stick that bitch lol"

"We can make so many jokes about this dumb bitch, but who cares #thatbitchisgointohell and Satan is gonna rape her."

"Brb ima go drown that atheist in holy water"

""But for real somebody should jump this girl" lmao let's do it!"

"shes not human shes garbage"

"wen the atheist dies, they believe they will become a tree, so we shld chop her down, turn her into paper then PRINT THE BIBLE ON HER."

And to top it all off, a true classic from Christianity, the religion of love:

"gods going to fuck your ass with that banner you scumbag"

Is this what Christus Vincit thinks Jessica Ahlquist has coming? I certainly hope not.

Of course, Christus Vincit and its posters seem to have rather, shall we say, extreme views. Just take a look at this piece they wrote about President Obama, or as they refer to him, Barack Saddam Hussein Obama Bin Laden.

Atheists and Agnostics in the White House!

Representatives from the Center for Inquiry and the Council for Secular Humanism participated today in a conference at the White House. As the Center for Inquiry reports, the topics that were discussed with White House officials included preventing religiously motivated abuse of children and ending the preaching of evangelical Christianity in the military, including discrimination against non-Evangelicals.

My Take: It's about frakking time!

Analysis: For too long, secular humanists of all stripes have been denied a prominent place in the American public sphere. Even though some of the Founding Fathers were deists rather than Christians, Christians of various stripes have tried to assume a monopoly on American public discourse. Christians have portrayed arguments and lines of thinking that challenge or reject the commonly held Christian views as a threat to American society.

Luckily, under the Obama administration, there seems to be at least a willingness to listen to explicitly secular viewpoints. Although President Obama has continued some policies that secularists disapprove of, such as the funding of church organizations by the government, there is a greater openness to secularism on the whole. Progess comes in slow steps.