Pastafarians, Wiccans, Others Banned from Green Bay Pack

Appearing at The Jaundiced Eye, the Independent Bloggers' Alliance, and My Left Wing. Pastafarians may not participate in a holiday display in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Mayor Jim Schmitt described the proposal as "silly." He declared a moratorium on additional displays after a Wiccan wreath displayed with the nativity scene was vandalized. After police announced Monday someone stole and damaged a Wiccan display overnight that had been placed on the roof Friday, Schmitt ordered that it wouldn't be replaced and that no other displays would be permitted until the City Council debates the issue tonight. Schmitt's declaration means that the nativity scene, placed by Council President Chad Fradette last Tuesday, is the only holiday display over City Hall's northwest entrance. Schmitt said he and City Attorney Allison Swanson developed proposed guidelines governing the size and style of future religious displays. His list limits such displays to December and attempts to limit such displays to legitimate religious symbolism. In fairness, the mayor may be well within his rights to put a stopper on the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Seinfeldian Festivus (for the rest of us). But there are serious constitutional questions when the only remaining display is a Christian one. "Who is to say what is a legitimate religious institution?" said Maureen Manion, a retired St. Norbert College professor of political science, with a specialty in constitutional law. "Is there a check-off list? That's shaky constitutional ground, as far as I'm concerned." The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is purposely ambiguous in that it tries to protect religious practices without establishing a religion, and "the courts have always bent over backward to not define religions," Manion said. "I think that's what the framers (of the constitution) were trying to protect — not having a sanctioned church. . . . Limiting displays to December is clearly an attempt to put Christian ideals first, which ignores minority religions that may have important holidays at different times of the year, said Terri Johnson, a professor of American government and politics at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. "The Bill of Rights was about protecting minority rights," she said. "Freedom of speech, of religion, all of those weren't to protect the majority, they were to protect the minority." Faced with a law suit, after its Tuesday night vote to restrict the display, the city is scrambling to cover its bases. Schmitt on Wednesday directed city maintenance workers to move a Christmas tree and wire reindeer next to the nativity display. True, the christmas tree is one of the many vestigial pagan symbols that remain in the Christmas tradition. I doubt that it sufficiently replaces the damaged pentacle. Schmitt said Monday he didn't realize until that day that the wreath and pentacle involved witchcraft. Wicca is a nature-based religion based on respect for the earth, nature and the cycle of the seasons, but Schmitt said he believed it was wrong to allow a Wiccan display next to the nativity scene. "Wrong" to allow a Wiccan symbol near a Christian one... Well then, I guess we can be pretty sure that no bias went into his decision to restrict all but the nativity scene. Not a fan of nativity scenes, myself. Although every year I play with the idea of putting up a display of the newborn Mithras in his cave, surrounded by the magi and shepherds, just to see if anyone notices the difference. I doubt Mayor Schmitt would catch on. After listening to this interview on NPR, I'm not sure he's ever heard of any religions other than Christianity. Certainly, he has never been touched by the noodly appendage. For my part:

Iowa - Smells Like Edwards Country

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlargeI have always considered Iowa as being volatile when it comes to elections. When Dean charged through the state in 2004, Iowans turned to a war hero and picked John Kerry. I doubt they knew he would take abuse laying down. So as we inch closer to the election we begin to see the volatility all over again. This time it is springing up in the InsiderAdvantage poll: John Edwards has leapfrogged over his rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and leads the Democratic field in Iowa, according to the latest InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion poll. In the Republican caucus race, Mike Huckabee continues to hold a narrow lead over Mitt Romney. The race among the three top Democrats is extremely close, with the potential for any of them to finish first – or third. Edwards leads with 30 percent in a poll of Democratic voters who said they intend to participate in the Jan. 3 presidential caucuses, followed by Clinton with 26 percent and Obama with 24 percent. When the sample was narrowed to the most likely caucus-goers, based on several questions, Obama leads Edwards by less than a percentage point with 27 percent, with Clinton in third place at 24 percent. I bet Huma is on bartender duty today.

Rich on O'Donnell on Mormonism

Appearing at The Jaundiced Eye, the Independent Bloggers' Alliance, and My Left Wing. I love the smell of a Lawrence O'Donnell meltdown in the morning. He goes off the rails better than any talking head in memory. Last Sunday may have been his best tirade ever; if for no other reason, the fact that he did not later retract it. If you're not a fan of The McLaughlin Group, you might have missed it. I grew up on John McLaughlin and it's something of a tradition in my house. Every Sunday my husband and I drink our morning coffee to the mingled sounds Pat Buchanan's bloviating and my daughter's complaints of boredom. She sounds just like I did way back when my grandmother sat on her perch in front of the kitchen black and white. There are so few constants in the world of mass media. The McLaughlin Group is one to savor. At least once during every show, my husband or I will proclaim, on cue, "Wraaaahhhnng! I had oatmeal and banahnaaaaahs." It's kind of like "Hi Bob," only without the booze. After last Sunday's McLaughlin offering, I searched the tv line-up for another airing. It was too good not to watch at least twice. YouTube to the rescue. (see above) Here's what Frank Rich had to say, yesterday, about O'Donnell's anti-Mormon rant. THIS campaign season has been in desperate need of its own reincarnation of Howard Beale from “Network”: a TV talking head who would get mad as hell and not take it anymore. Last weekend that prayer was answered when Lawrence O’Donnell, an excitable Democratic analyst, seized a YouTube moment while appearing on one of the Beltway’s more repellent Sunday bloviathons, “The McLaughlin Group.” Pushed over the edge by his peers’ polite chatter about Mitt Romney’s sermon on “Faith in America,” Mr. O’Donnell branded the speech “the worst” of his lifetime. Then he went on a rampage about Mr. Romney’s Mormon religion, shouting (among other things) that until 1978 it was “an officially racist faith.” That claim just happens to be true. As the jaws of his scandalized co-stars dropped around him, Mr. O’Donnell then raised the rude question that almost no one in Washington asks aloud: Why didn’t Mr. Romney publicly renounce his church’s discriminatory practices before they were revoked? As the scion of one of America’s most prominent Mormon families, he might have made a difference. It’s not as if he was a toddler. By 1978 — the same year his contemporary, Bill Clinton, was elected governor in Arkansas — Mr. Romney had entered his 30s. O'Donnell, for his part, followed his shocking television appearance with a more moderated, but still scathing write-up on Romney's Mormonism. Romney felt politically forced to give the speech specifically because evangelical Christians seem to know a little too much about the faith of his fathers. Many evangelicals believe and have said publicly that Mormonism--contrary to Romney's assertions--is not a Christian religion but an abomination of Christianity. Here's a sampling of why: Mormons believe that the Garden of Eden was in Missouri; that Jews were the first people in America; that Indians descended from Jews and are a lost tribe of Israel; that Jesus came to America; that after the next coming of Christ (which will be the second or third, depending on how you count his trip to America), the world will be ruled for a thousand years from Jerusalem and Missouri; and to answer Mike Huckabee's now famous question, yes, they believe "Jesus and Lucifer were brothers, in the sense of both being spiritually begotten by the Father." When Matt Lauer asked Romney the Huckabee question about Jesus and the devil being brothers, Romney refused to answer and handed the question off to the Church of Latter Day Saints. The Church issued a deceptively worded statement that most reporters incorrectly read as a denial of the brotherhood of Jesus and Satan. In fact, the Church could not and did not deny it. The Church did correctly point out that attackers (meaning critics) of Mormonism often use the brother bit. Critics also use the Church's 70 year delight in polygamy and sex with very young girls, which also happens to be true. Critics of Mormonism have plenty to work with without inventing anything. The pundits had no idea how deliberately misleading Romney's speech was. They loved the bit about Romney's father marching with Martin Luther King. None of them knew that if at the end of the march with George Romney, Martin Luther King was so taken with Mormonism that he wanted to convert and become a Mormon priest, George Romney would have had to tell him that they don't allow black priests. George Romney might also have had to explain to the Reverend King that Mormons believe black people have black skin because they turned away from God. I find it disturbing that this is a conversation we even need to have. I agree with Eleanor Clift that all religions have some kooky notions; especially before they've had millenium or two to mature. But Romney opened the door with his passionate defense of his religion. I would have a far higher comfort level with Romney's Mormonism if he had forcefully stood up for separation between church and state, in his speech. He failed to meet that bar, saying instead: Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom ... Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone. He put his religion in play. We all have a right to know exactly what he believes, as it seems he doesn't know how to separate those beliefs from his governance. Lawrence O'Donnell had the balls to call him on his duplicity. That's exactly the kind of righteous indignation we need.

Ron Paul, more of an anti-war leader than Pelosi!

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlargeRon Paul is the new Six Million Dollar Man: Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, raised an astounding $6 million and change Sunday, his campaign said, almost certainly guaranteeing he'll outraise his rivals for the Republican nomination in the fourth quarter and likely will be able to fund a presence in many of the states that vote Feb. 5. Paul's campaign spokesman late Sunday announced the campaign had eclipsed the $5.7 million that John Kerry raised the day after he locked up the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination – arguably the largest single-day fundraising haul in U.S. political history. Paul's single driving position behind the fundraising, including the November 5th, $4.2 million haul is his stance on the Iraq war and his rallying against the Bush civil liberty destruction machine. His supporters see themselves as true patriots and many of them are. Paul has the highest number of active military as donors than any other candidate. Go figure. Should we be surprised others in the GOP are fed up with BushCo and the war? For instance, he said 24,940 new donors contributed during the Dec. 16 haul. It was timed for the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, a day meant to resonant with the Libertarian sensibilities of his supporters. What is terminally sad is he is doing more to get us out of Iraq than Nancy Pelosi. The mind boggles.