Two activists, Mitch Kahle and Kevin Hughes, were assaulted and thrown out of the Hawaii State Capitol building for objecting to the morning’s prayer. After being thoroughly brutalized by security forces, Mitch was arrested for “disorderly conduct”. Luckily, there are still a few people with their heads screwed on right, and at his trial Judge Leslie Hayashi needed less than an hour to find Mitch not guilty.

“Number one, there was no disorderly conduct. Number two, he has a first amendment right to speak in a public forum such as he did. And number three, the legislature was violating our U.S. Constitution as well as the Hawaii constitution by having these invocations”

Harrison [Kahle’s lawyer] thinks this case may be enough to convince law makers to stop saying prayers during official state business.

“They make the law for the state, so they should recognize and understand what our constitution says. And in fact the court did express very much her (Hayashi’s) concerns with regards to invocations in this public forum. And so the legislature, the city council, any other public entity on public property should be concerned and should heed the warning of this court in its ruling”

Feels like a tiny victory, doesn’t it?

I often get asked by friends “what’s the big deal about not believing in God?” I happen to live in a fairly secular country where, for the most part, my lack of religious faith isn’t a problem. I think, however, these friends could benefit from travelling to different countries where this isn’t the case.

Turns out you don’t need to go too far to find people’s lives being affected by their lack of faith in a negative way. Craig Scarberry lives in Indianapolis and has 3 kids. Like most divorced dads, he shared custody with his ex-wife. Well, he did, until a judge found out he was an agnostic, and suddenly his time with his kids was cut to only 4 hours a week and every other weekend.

Searching to find out why, he found Judge George Pancol wrote, “the father did not participate in the same religious training as the mother, and noted that the father was agnostic. It goes on to say that when the father considered himself a Christian, the parties were able to communicate relatively effectively.

But surely, you ask, there are secular organizations that could try and help him out in this matter. Well, not so much:

The Indiana Civil Liberties Union says it has not been contacted regarding this case. Scarberry told Fox59 he tried to involve the ICLU but he was told the organization did not intervene in custody matters.

With the GOP back in power in the House, religious fundies are free to get appointed to important committees they are completely unqualified to run. Here we see Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) as he argues in 2009 humans have nothing to fear from climate change, as God has promised in the Bible not to destroy mankind again (except of course when he comes back down to earth to kill most of us). So what job does this idiot want? To chair the House Energy and Commerce committee, or course!

I can’t imagine a person more suited to help move America into the future with renewable energy than someone who thinks an invisible man in the sky pinky-swore not to kill us all, and will somehow fix all of our problems in the distant future. You fucking voted this idiot into office, America. Congrats!