A lawsuit that atheist groups will file Tuesday demands that the words "so help me God" be excluded at the end of the president’s oath of office, though oddly they aren’t suing Obama for using those words during the Inauguration.

Among plantiffs is Michael Newdow, a California doctor, lawyer and atheist who is oxymormoically a minister of the Universal Life Church which states:

We are advocates of religious freedom.

The Universal Life Church wants you to pursue your spiritual beliefs without interference from any outside agency, including government or church authority.

 Newdow has filed similar and unsuccessful suits over the two previous inaugurations. Joining him are 17 other individuals and 10 groups representing atheists who are suing:

Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts; the Presidential Inauguration Committee; the Joint Congressional Committee on Inauguration Ceremonies and its chairwoman, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California; and the Armed Forces Inaugural Committee and its commander, Maj. Gen. Richard Rowe Jr.

along with Pastor Rick Warren and Rev. Joseph Lowery. The suit says that references to God during inauguration ceremonies violate the Constitution’s ban on the establishment of religion and:

There can be no purpose for placing ’so help me God’ in an oath or sponsoring prayers to God, other than promoting the particular point of view that God exists.

The suit points out that "so help me God"–used in every Inauguration since FDR–is not is not part of the oath as specified in the Constitution, which is a pretty valid point. Unless person being sworn in has a personal belief in God and would like a little help, in which case  that’s the exercise of free speech and freedom of religion.

In the suit, the atheists claim references to God will ruin their experience of watching the Inauguration IRL and on the teevee (oh noez!). Per CNN:

Newdow and other plaintiffs say they want to watch the inaugural either in person or on television. As atheists, they contend, having to watch a ceremony with religious components will make them feel excluded and stigmatized.

"Plaintiffs are placed in the untenable position of having to choose between not watching the presidential inauguration or being forced to countenance endorsements of purely religious notions that they expressly deny."

Just plug your ears during that part, sheesh!

But there’s some cognitive dissonace in the lawsuit. The atheists aren’t suing Obama–who is technically responsible for choosing the speakers and will be uttering the G-word–because as an individual, he has the right to express his religious belief. Newdow said:

If he chooses to ask for God’s help, I’m not going to challenge him. I think it’s unwise.

So um, maybe I am confused, but shouldn’t Newdow, as an atheist, have said something along the lines of:

If the President wants to be superstitious, that’s his right

since basically Newdow admitted in the existence of a God who helps, and that interfering with God might be um…risky?And that seems to run counter to atheists’ beliefs/non-beliefs.

 (WARNING:  EXTREMELY DISTURBING IMAGES)

Christian religious extremism hits the American psyche when a fundamentalist church– Assemblies of God, which thinks Harry Potter is the gateway to Satanism, while facing charges of child abuse requests a $500,000 earmark from the federal government.  Or when Sarah Palin is cleansed of witchcraft by a Kenyan Assemblies of God minister. 

This form of religious extremism when exported to Africa is killing people and causing rampant child abuse.

For decades, fundamentalist evangelical churches have sprung up throughout Africa. Some are affiliated with American congregations, while others are a bit more free form; all claim belief in Jesus. Many of them of share a common hysterical belief in "witchcraft."

"Witch" gets misinterpreted as anyone who is different, weaker, who can be scapegoated for one’s troubles. Heck Sarah Palin and her pals "prayed a witch" out of Alaska. And the prayer group gleefully recounted the results.

In Akwa Ibom State, the center of the Nigerian child witch hysteria, the State Governor, Chief Godswill Akpabio, lamented:

The church will torture children and some of the churches will pretend to use oil to try and remove witchcraft from a child. So far we have we have 165 children some of them are not up to 9 months old who have been thrown away by their parents because the church said those children will bring them misfortune.

The Governor  has taken a firm stance, declaring

The churches are busy deceiving people in many aspects including avoiding deaths. We have to do something to re-strengthen the Child Right Law. We must fight against the abuse of children and ensure proper education for them.

AllAfrica news service reports:

Analysts trace the phenomenon to poverty which drags parents to Churches and other spiritual centres to seek prosperity…Further investigations show that such parents are usually ready to pay anything to the spiritualists to "deliver" their children from the "grip of the devil."…In some cases, all that is needed for parents to begin to suspect their children of witchcraft, is a manifestation of certain "strange" behaviour. Others are "identified" any the presence of an "inexplicable" illness afflicting them.

Strange behaviors for the Assemblies of God?

Smoking
Drinking
Drugs
Homosexual behavior
Staying in room alone
Dressing in black (fingernails, lipstick)
Body piercings
Demonic symbols on jewelry & clothes
Music (Marilyn Manson, Godsmack, Korn)
Books (Majick, Harry Potter)
Unusual scars and burns on right hand

 Time to send Trey or Tiffie to Teen Boot Camp.

Or time to crack down on religious abuse of children at home and abroad.

It seems Congress is far more religiously aligned overall than their constituents–or at least more elected officials claim an actual faith than the population as a whole.

While over 16.1% of the U.S. population surveyed by Pew Research claimed to be unaffiliated with a specific faith, no members of Congress were churchless, though a weensy one per cent (5 members) said that they are "unspecified, "refused to state or  "don’t know" their faith. Congressman Pete Stark where were you?

I wonder what would make someone refuse to state? How can you not know what religion you are? And does unspecified mean "witch"? (One hopes!)

Christians, that combo platter of Catholics and the multiple denominations of Protestants, make up the majority of faiths on Capitol Hill and in America, according to the new report from Pew Research.  Mormons, though they would like to be considered Christians, were given their own category in the survey. "All other faiths" made up 4.5% of the U.S population, but only 3.3% of Congress, with the majority of "other" in the House.

The breakdown shows that there are four times as many Jews in Congress than in the U.S. population as a whole (8.4% vs 1.7%), as well as a higher portion of Mormons in Congress than in the U.S. population (2.6% vs 1.7%). Pluralism and ecumenical spirit are wider spread in the Senate than in House, with Mormons, Jews and other faiths accounting for 20.2% of the Senate, while the House has just 12.1% non-Christians (including Mormons).

None of the Senate (0 out of 100!) claimed they were  "unspecified,  refused, don’t know" though 1.1% (5 of 435) of the House claimed non-affiliation with a faith.

And by the way, a poll conducted last year had an openly gay person more likely to be elected President than a declared atheist. 

On the heels of her wife Tammy Lynne Michaels’ blog about Rick Warren, Melissa Etheridge posted her feeling about Pastor Rick on HuffPo.

After eloquently explaining the struggle for equal rights and her preconceptions of Pastor Rick, Etheridge describes her phone conversation with Warren:

He explained in very thoughtful words that as a Christian he believed in equal rights for everyone. He believed every loving relationship should have equal protection. He struggled with proposition 8 because he didn’t want to see marriage redefined as anything other than between a man and a woman. He said he regretted his choice of words in his video message to his congregation about proposition 8 when he mentioned pedophiles and those who commit incest. He said that in no way, is that how he thought about gays. 

She goes on to say that maybe instead of marching on his church

we can show up en mass [sic] and volunteer for one of the many organizations affiliated with his church that work for HIV/AIDS causes all around the world. Maybe if they get to know us, they won’t fear us.

Well, okay…not to nit pick, but his church doesn’t believe in condoms or family planning for HIV/AIDS prevention, and works hard in Africa to proselytize his message of Jesus and abstinence, using HIV outreach as an evangelical tool. His church believes that gays who are actively practicing homosexuality are not welcome as members. And Warren says gays should suppress their urges the same way other people suppress anger or shyness.

Melissa, Warren and his ilk aren’t "afraid" of gays: They think gays are sinners who are convertible to their belief system, which includes no gay sex and straight sex only in marriage. 

If you can get Warren to believe that civil marriage equality  does not mean a religious marriage..right on. If you can get him to expand his vision to have marriage be more than just a religious concept, that would be awesome. And, btw, he’s wrong about 5,000 years of marriage being solely between one man and one woman. There are plural marriages still in Islam, as there have been for 1500 years, as well as in the past history of the Mormon church and in current Mormon sects which allow for polygamy…

Many pray daily that closed minds like Warren’s are opened, that the scales will fall from the eyes of Pastor Rick and his ilk. But thinking that "they" are afraid is a wrong move. This type of Christian think they are right, and that (their) God is on their side. And there’s too much at stake in terms of worldly power and wealth to make a sudden sea change. But I do share Melissa’s view that:

…we are headed in the direction of marriage equality and equal protection for all families.

I just don’t share her views that Rick Warren could be a vehicle for that. But hey, if he gets Divine Revelation and sees the light–halla-freakin’-lujah!