A Bush campaign religious advisor has resigned because his sexual harassment of a college student when he was a professor 10 years age has been dug up. Although the news coverage all calls it “alleged”, the result of the case ten years ago was that he “surrendered his tenure” and paid $30K. So, they were pretty compelling allegations, it would seem. From Bush Religion Adviser Quits Campaign Post:

Deal W. Hudson, publisher of the conservative Catholic magazine Crisis and a close ally of the Bush White House, has resigned as an adviser to the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign because … “a liberal Catholic newspaper” was about to publish an investigation detailing “allegations from over a decade ago involving a female student at the college where I then taught”…. The article… published yesterday by the weekly National Catholic Reporter… chronicled how Hudson’s once-promising academic career was derailed by the sexual misconduct charge in 1994…. The alleged victim, Carastona Poppas, was an 18-year-old Fordham freshman who had been in and out of foster homes since age 7. Hudson was her philosophy teacher, a tenured associate professor who had been a Baptist minister before converting to Catholicism. “He knew I was a ward of the court, without parents, severely depressed, and even suicidal,” Poppas told the Catholic newspaper. “He was extremely attentive and genuinely concerned.” That attention allegedly went too far one night in February 1994 when Hudson invited her and several older students to a bar in New York’s West Village. They all got drunk, and he had sex with her in his car and office, the paper reported….

A spokeswoman for Fordham, Elizabeth Schmalz, issued a statement yesterday saying “sexual harassment is not tolerated” at the Catholic university. Without naming either Hudson or his accuser, she said, “Fordham followed its policy rigorously and initiated an investigation into the matter upon the student’s complaint. The professor later surrendered his tenure and left the University.”

Good thing Bush has all those good religiously-grounded values on his side.

Oh, Canada! I love you more with every passing day:

Citizenship and Immigration Canada has banned the Canadian Bible Society from giving out Bibles at citizenship ceremonies, saying the practice is not consistent with the federal government’s secular nature. “We find that allowing holy books to be made available at citizenship ceremonies detracts from this message and could be construed as a tacit endorsement of certain religions,” the citizenship department told the society in a recent letter.

Read it: Bibles banned from citizenship ceremonies. Man; this kind of shit almost makes me wish I spoke French. OK, not really. But still.

Are you kidding? Church Says Girl’s Communion Not Valid

BRIELLE, N.J. - An 8-year-old girl who suffers from a rare digestive disorder and cannot eat wheat has had her first Holy Communion declared invalid because the wafer contained no wheat, violating Roman Catholic doctrine.[...]

“I’m on a gluten-free diet because I can’t have wheat. I could die,” she said last week.

Last year, as the third grader approached Holy Communion age in this Jersey Shore town, her mother told officials at St. Denis Catholic Church in Manasquan that the girl could not have the standard host.

After the church’s pastor refused to allow a substitute, a priest at a nearby parish volunteered to offer one, and in May, Haley wore a white Communion dress, and received the sacrament alongside her mother, who had not taken Communion since she herself was diagnosed with the disease.

Last month, the diocese told the priest that the church would not validate Haley’s sacrament because of the substitute wafer.

Oh, christ, just fucking get over it. She’s ALREADY fucked up cuz she’s catholic, and now you’re gonna fuck her up even more by not letting her participate in the ceremonies? And besides, if the whole thing is about transubstantiation and cannibalism anyway, who cares?

Who knew God was such an Olympics fan: ‘Our primary goal in life isn’t to win gold medals but to serve the Lord our God’

“God gave me this talent to use,” says Jenny Finch, the American softball pitcher, darling of the US media and the only athlete in Athens who claims with a straight face to have never sworn in her life. “He gave me this talent to use. He helps me daily to continue to pursue his will. He has blessed me with great parents, great friends, awesome teammates, so many great coaches, a great strength coach and so much more.”

Yes, you wouldn’t think it (I would personally like to see more people, like, you know, helping others that are starving or something), but pursuing God’s will even means trying to get medals in competition. Ah, the joys of such an empty concept…

Masood Faadil Muhammad of Lenasia, South Africa, writing a letter to the editor of The Star gives us yet another, humorous restatement of Pascal’s Wager in response to a previous letter from an atheist:

If you are right (which I am certain you are not) then we both will have the same end. But if I am right, then you are in big trouble.

Heh. Every time I listen to a religious person present Pascal’s Wager as if it were the absolute pinnacle of Christian apology, irrefutable and perfect in it’s argument, I have to chuckle. Masood sounds like an insurance salesman!

You hear that atheists? You’re all in big trouble if Masood is right! You better purchase that policy with the “no Hell” clause right away! Check our rates - we’re the lowest priced eternity insurance in the business! Don’t do it for yourself, do it for your immortal soul!

A recent poll done for the Barnabas Institute, a “non-denominational religious organization” says that 4 out of 10 Americans say religious beliefs of candidates are important in deciding wham to vote for. Interestingly, we know from other polls that about 50% of the public wouldn’t vote for an atheist for president. So even if you ignore the difference between “important” and “decisive”, it looks like at least 10% of the people who don’t think the religious views of a candidate are important in deciding who to vote for also think that being an atheist is sufficient reason to not vote for a candidate.

So, why the strange inconsistency? I gotta think that it’s because of a phenomenon that I think shows up in lots of “religious diversity” polls: There’s a bunch of folks who are so encased in their Xian world that “different religious views” gets heard only as “you know, Baptist, Presbyterian, or Catholic”; and being nice “open-minded” Xians, they like to think they wouldn’t hold against someone what flavor of Xianity they liked. But atheists, or perhaps Muslims — now that’s not just a “different religious view”, but some strange and evil heresy.

Some questions for theists:

If your god, or one of your god’s chosen representatives, told you that it was now moral to torture kittens - that in fact torturing kittens was the only way you were going to go to heaven - would you do it?

Now, replace “torturing kittens” with “killing unbelievers” or “raping monkeys”. Would you still do it?

Is something moral because your god says it’s moral - or are their certain things that you will not do under any circumstances, including what you believe is a direct order from your god?

If I can be a moral person without a god or gods, does that make you a barely-constrained moral degenerate who would torture kittens, kill unbelievers, and rape monkeys if it weren’t for your god telling you not to do those things? Is the excuse “god did it” really an excuse - or is it the complete abdication of personal responsibility? In my eyes, a person who is not willing to take responsibility for themselves and their own actions is not a moral person.

What are your thoughts?

A nice little study uncovers how far-reaching Bush’s faith-based changes have been.

“Religious organizations are now involved in government-encouraged activities ranging from building strip malls for economic improvement to promoting child car seats,” the study states.

Definitely worth a look…