By Dave Dentel

The first freedom guaranteed in the Bill of Rights—that list of liberties without which the Constitution may never have been enacted—is a pledge that the federal government will never presume to dictate in matters of faith.

Under the current president, that promise has been broken. Voters should take note.

That religious liberty should still matter during an election campaign where millions of Americans are jobless and fanatics overseas are plotting new ways to attack us is more than a truism. Freedom of religion remains paramount because it is so closely tied to our next guaranteed liberty—freedom of speech. This in turn undergirds a freedom meant to prevent us from sinking into subservience: the right to assemble and address the government with our grievances.

After all, if the government won’t respect deeply held convictions in matters of faith, why should it feel bound to respect the views of citizens in any other matters?

This question illustrates why the Nov. 6 election is so crucial for American freedom.

President Obama has already shown that he considers religious values of secondary importance to his own goals. Worse, when he does speak regarding religious issues it is not so much to affirm the rights of his fellow citizens as it is promote his own views as more enlightened. His posturing makes it clear he does not view himself as first among equals, but as pontificator-in-chief.

Oppressive Health Care

Consider Obamacare. This massive, partisan reworking of the nation’s health care system was controversial enough to begin with. For whatever reason, the president’s administration felt it necessary to turn the legislation into a direct assault on religious values.

Ostensibly to benefit women, the federal Health and Human Services Department decided that even certain classes of religious employers who offer health insurance should include in their employee benefits coverage of contraceptives. This ruling applies even to medications intended to terminate very early pregnancies.

Of course, religious views on contraception vary. But among Christians—Roman Catholics especially—there exists a long-held consensus regarding the sanctity of life and the importance of child-rearing. The government’s decision to force even some religious employers to subsidize the termination of life and to devalue the conception of children represents an intolerable blow against faith.

Again, voters should take note.

Overruled

Akin to the president’s blithe attack on Christian values, and perhaps to a degree explaining it, is a personality trait that expresses itself as a sort of ecumenical condescension. Obama not only dares to overrule religious Americans, he draws on what he apparently sees as his own uniquely diverse upbringing to justify chiding individuals of many faiths.

The president’s speech to the United Nations in September is a good example. The address was meant in part to help quell Middle East protests against an obscure American film that denigrates Islam. To that end Obama spoke first in defense of free speech, but then went on to denounce specific acts against specific faiths, including “those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

To be fair, the president did try to equate the alleged slander of Islam with the destruction of churches or holocaust denial. But in the attempt his logic ended up as convoluted as his rhetoric.

Which brings us to this salient question: Just when did it become the president’s business to judge in matters of faith? Why invoke Sufis and Shiites, Copts and Jews at all?

All Obama need say in defense of American values is to affirm that our nation stands as a haven to all faiths. Our law treats citizens as equals in that violence by one private individual against another is not tolerated for any reason.

For a president to say more in regard to faith is at best an exercise in fatuity, at worst the intimations of tyranny.

Once again, voters should take note. Neither characteristic makes for a good chief executive of the United States.

Dave Dentel is author of The God Imperative: Why We Need Faith to Safeguard Reason, Science and Liberty.

By Dave Dentel

It’s hard being an atheist in America. That was one of the themes thundered from the podium at the inaugural “Reason Rally” in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, March 24, though the moral force the message was somewhat undermined by the copious Christian-baiting, God-hating and general anti-religious invective that dominated every presentation.

Billed as a national platform at which atheists could showcase their gentility and cool reason, the event abounded in irony. Here were speakers and their supporters gathered in the heart of the nation’s capital, freely lambasting enemies real and imagined while simultaneously complaining of how their First Amendment rights are being curtailed.

Of course, part of the duplicity apparent Saturday stemmed from the modus operandi of today’s atheists in primarily picking fights not with thoughtful opponents, but with straw men. Then there’s the fact that mass rallies are not designed to provoke careful consideration, but to agitate crowds into a mood for receiving a call to action.

Such a call was clearly issued and eagerly received.

If not for this climactic, storm-the-battlements moment, the rally primarily would have resembled a collective tantrum, ranging from the merely annoying to the excruciatingly absurd. Consider these choice moments:

• In addition to misquoting Genesis and declaring Harry Potter more believable than the Bible, educator and magician James Randi disparaged the religious by calling them “woo-woos” (rhymes with moo-moos). “Constant vigilance cannot be relaxed,” he prophesied, “or the woo-woos will take over.”

• In a video presentation, comedian Bill Maher delighted the crowd by warning the Holy Spirit—the third person of the Godhead, present at the moment of creation, who convicts men of sin, points them to righteousness and draws them to salvation—to just leave him the fudge alone. (Only, like Ralphie in the classic film A Christmas Story, Maher didn’t say fudge.) We daresay the Holy Spirit will be glad to comply.

• Railing against attempts to restrict on-demand abortion, Elisabeth Cornwell of the Richard Dawkins Foundation told women in the crowd that religious fundamentalists were attempting to veil them in an “invisible burka.” She didn’t explain how to be certain something we can’t see is really there, but she did manage to persuade the mass of alleged freethinkers to chant with her in unison as they invoked the spirit of Thomas Jefferson to “build up that wall.”

Truly Pathetic

The rally also had its share of things to be sad about. One young man we talked to explained how his journey to atheism had been launched by early, bad experiences involving his mother and a member of a well-known cult. Likewise, speaker Nate Phelps recounted how his loss of faith was engendered by the bigotry of his father, a leader at the notorious Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas (the “God hates fags” people).

Incidentally, the Westboro agitators apparently were the only group to seek a permit for an official counter-protest to the rally, unfortunately providing the perfect caricature for the atheists to rail against.

Pathos and puerility aside, the rally illustrated that this new atheism should be taken seriously. The movement is not large, but is growing. USA Today cites a 2008 survey stating the percentage of Americans calling themselves atheists or agnostics had risen to 1.6 percent. And, as a lobbying session held in conjunction with the rally proves, these new atheists are bent on increasing their influence and pressing for change.

Specific agendas can be found on websites of organizations such as the Richard Dawkins Foundation, whose Director of Strategy and Policy Sean Faircloth revealed a 10-point plan to oust the religious officials in high places supposedly orchestrating the marginalization of atheists.

Meanwhile, issues these folks mostly keenly wish to see addressed were made quite apparent on Saturday. These include:

• Amending child welfare and childcare laws to eliminate so-called loopholes that allow for religious instruction or practices atheists deem harmful. (The planks of atheism are the only indoctrination that should be allowed. So much for free thinking.)

• Demanding strict secularization of government and public education. (Have they taken a look around recently?)

• Abolishing tax exemptions for churches and religious organizations.

In essence, by setting themselves up as the true arbiters of reason, the new atheists hope to gain a position by which they can marginalize all who disagree with them—particularly the religious. The supreme irony is that by adopting this approach, the atheists have already become the very thing they say they despise: militant fundamentalists.

And therein lies the danger.

By Dave Dentel

Dear ABC executives:

I’ve been advised by various activists with whom I am associated that I should protest your new television series, Good Christian Bitches. (Yes, I understand the moniker has since been bowdlerized to Good Christian Belles, and finally to the unintelligible initialism GCB, to which I can only reply, OMG! It still makes me GAG. But I digress.)

Though I’m certain that more about the series than just the title would offend me, I won’t pledge to boycott the show. Such a threat would mean little in any case as I have long avoided the stream of puerility your network attempts to pass off as entertainment.

What I do intend in return for your mockery of Christians is to respond in kind. Below you will find my creative interpretation of the kind of corporate lunacy required to produce such a blight as GCB. If it strikes you as all too real, don’t worry—the names have been changed.

The scene: A corporate boardroom in a Manhattan high-rise. A young man with tousled hair in a tan jacket and blue jeans fumbles with laptop. He’s surrounded by men of various ages in suits that differ only in the degree they reflect the fluorescent tubes overhead.

“Can’t you get that thing going?” grumbles the man at the head of the table. His greying comb-over marks him as the oldest of the group.

“Sorry, Mr. Whitehead. Should just be a minute.”

“Well, we can get started anyway,” Whitehead announces. “Have you gents considered my directive from our last session?”

Nods and grunts signal in the affirmative.

He continues. “I’m serious. That faith market is adding up to real money, and I want a piece of it. Can’t tell you what it does to my ulcer every time I see a promo for one of those church movies. Some amateurs down in Georgia score a deal with Sony and now they’re worth millions. What do they call those things? Fireball? Fearless?”

The jowly middle-aged suit to Whitehead’s right corrects him without looking up from his smart phone. “Fireproof. Courageous.”

“Right!” echoes the twenty-something on the opposite side of the table.

“Whatever,” says Whitehead. “The point is I want something that’ll tap into that audience. What have you got?”

The wall-sized video monitor behind Whitehead comes to life as the tech hands off the computer to another young suit with a dark beard. A digital pointer dances from icon to icon.

“Got some clips here I think you’ll like,” says blackbeard. “Couple scenes from what could be a pilot. It’s fresh. It’s edgy. Here’s the setup: Spunky single mom moves back to the Bible belt where she’s got to deal with a bunch of religious prigs.”

He clicks the computer mouse, and the men gape in silence at a series of visual caricatures, mostly involving women of unnatural proportions.

“I like it,” Whitehead bellows as the images go dark. “So what are we calling it?”

“I’ll let Phil fill you in on that,” says blackbeard, indicating the jowls still pondering the cellphone.

“Oh, I thought we’d run with the title of the book I saw my ex reading. It’s called Good Christian B—.”

“Whoa!” His sentence is truncated by an involuntary outburst from the techie, now seated in a corner by a phony rubber plant. “We can’t say that. Can we?”

Whitehead looks puzzled.“Why not?”

“Well,” poses the techie, suddenly unsure of his standing. “I mean, what about people with real religious convictions. Won’t they be offended?”

“Offended?” booms Whitehead. “Who cares? We’ve been offending religious nuts since before Archie Bunker. If they don’t like what we’re putting out on prime time, let 'em watch the Hallmark Channel.”

“Hallmark,” Phil parrots rather derisively. “Heart-warming shows, single-digit market share.”

Whitehead ignores the remark and continues.

“So how would we pitch this series?”

The bristles around blackbeard’s mouth form a shallow V.

“See what you think of this, J.B,” he says. “We’re calling it a cross between Desperate Housewives and Hope Floats.”

“Housewives is good,” admits Whitehead. “But I don’t get … Wait! Wasn’t that a chick flick with Sandra Bullock?”

“Right!” shouts the twenty-something.

“Yeah, I like Bullock. What was that movie she scored the Oscar for? About the football player. Now that’s the kind of thing I mean. Positive characters with a raw edge. Like a church lady who still looks good in a skirt.”

“Believe me, J.B.,” adds blackbeard. “In GCB the principals look pretty darn good in more than just skirts. Or should I say, in a lot less.”

A round of guttural laughter spirals through the room.

“OK, you got me,” says Whitehead. “Go ahead with a full pilot. And now for the next point of discussion. You know, if that Romney guy wins the election, there’s going to be a lot more interest in Mormons. Since they’re big on family, I thought we could work up a proposal for our ABC Family lineup—at least something we could pitch to sponsors.”

“Way ahead of you on that, J.B.” says blackbeard, the dark V on this face deepening. “You know the direction we’ve been heading with new Family fare.”

“I do,” concedes Whitehead. “Good work on that. I know we’ve grown our demographic. Refresh my memory on some of our big titles.”

“Off the top of my head,” says Phil, “I’d say our hits include Satan’s School for Girls and Pretty Little Liars.”*

“Right!”

“Which sets the stage for the kind of thing I’d like to see with a Mormon series,” adds Whitehead. “You know, HBO broke new ground with their Big Love. Why can’t we do a family show that’s funny, that’s sweet, but still has the guts to look honestly at polly, uh, polly ….”

“Polygamy?” gasps the techie.

“Not that! I mean having lots of wives.”

“I’ve had lots of wives,” Phil confesses glumly.

Whitehead is not amused. “I mean all at once, dummy.”

Blackbeard seizes the ensuing pause to once again take the floor.

“Like I said, J.B., the creative department has already thrown around some ideas on this one. Here’s the setup: A spunky teenage Mormon girl whose dad gets transferred to the Bible belt has to put up with a bunch of religious prigs.”

“I like it,” Whitehead bellows. “Got a working title?”

“Sure do. How does this grab you?” he asks, spreading his hands like an imaginary marquee. “My Three Moms.”

* To quote a much better satirist than me, I’m not making this up.

Dave Dentel is author of The God Imperative: Why We Need Faith to Safeguard Reason, Science and Liberty.

By Dave Dentel

When you’ve seen as many Christmases as I have, you come to realize the holidays often are anything but merry and bright, let alone carefree, rollicking, sprinkled-with-fairy-dust festivities. In fact, some years the Yuletide downright stinks.

And what’s the primary cause of all this unseasonable misfortune? I’ll give it to you in a single word: people.

That’s right. To paraphrase a good friend of mine, Christmas really would be a celebration of peace and joy if only you didn’t have to spend it with other human beings.

If this sounds more than a little Scrooge-ish, it can't be helped. We’ve all been there on those occasions when the family get-together is ruined by the uncle who shows up plastered on Wild Turkey or by the aunt who hides the English Christmas crackers because it’s beneath her dignity to wear paper crowns and swap groan-inducing jokes.

So don’t cringe if I confess that sometimes at the approach of late December I find myself sympathizing with old Ebenezer before the spectral social workers strong-armed him into reforming.

Wasn’t the old misanthrope onto something? From the bankrupt euro zone to hometown panhandlers, people tend to create their own misery through poor choices. Why should I be expected to cheerfully bail them out just because it’s Christmas?

Bah!

And for confirmation of this view I can turn to the most authoritative of sources—holy Scriptures. From Genesis to Revelation, you find God the Father almighty expressing disgust at creatures made in his own image. In Noah’s day the perversity of people prompted God to flood the earth. In St. John’s Apocalypse, God declares the apathy of a certain congregation makes him want to spew.

I read and re-read those passages, start to gloat, and then it hits me.

I’m a people.

I pout, fume and have been known to inflict a fair amount of misery—even on Christmas. As Dickens so aptly put it when describing Scrooge, I, too am a “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!”

So if I’m hoping for peace at any time of the year, let alone during the holidays, I can’t even count on myself to provide it. I’m stuck.

Until I remember that Christmas is about God overlooking his disgust and focusing on his grace. Christmas is when we commemorate Christ entering the world in order to save sinners and reconcile our souls to God.

Christ came to provide what we can’t attain for ourselves. In St. John’s Gospel, Jesus declares: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

So bear this in mind while you’re penciling in your great-niece’s holiday polka recital, and determine to muddle through somehow.

Joy to the world!

Dave Dentel is author of The God Imperative: Why We Need Faith to Safeguard Reason, Science and Liberty.

To my loyal and adoring fans:

I’m writing to you because I know you’ll understand.

This adoption gig: I promise you it was no publicity stunt. I didn’t drag my husband and the rest of my entourage to Africa on some personal whim -- it was because of poverty and AIDS and crap like that. I mean, what’s the point of being one of the richest, most powerful women anywhere if you can’t yank at least one poor kid out of a hellhole like Malawi?

But like I was saying, I don’t know why the press and other whiners are making such a big deal out of it. This is purely a private family matter.

Sure, some people are saying I might not make the greatest mother. That other families trying to adopt internationally get scrutinized up and down about how much money they make, how they keep house, their physical and mental health, the friends they keep, and that the process can drag on and on and cost a bundle.

So we adopted David in about a week.

So what’s the problem? I’m an awesome mom. I’ve always had great respect for motherhood. Heck, I wanted to be a mother so bad that to get pregnant with my first kid I had sex with a paid employee.

Then there’s griping about some of the stuff in my past -- the nude photos, the coffee table book of porn, the general raunchiness. Hey, you know how hard it is to get ahead in this business. Sometimes you’ve got to stretch yourself -- take a few chances.

Besides, it’s like I said. That stuff’s in the past. These days my professional image is a lot more sophisticated.

Take my recent “Confessions” tour. The mock crucifixion, the crown of thorns, the leather and leashes -- that’s all art. And I think the Malawians appreciate that. At least, I know they sure appreciated all the miniature portraits of American presidents I passed around when I was in their country.

So please, don’t believe the lies about how I’m doing this just to be superficial and vainglorious. Honestly, I couldn’t be more sincere.

I’ve made up my mind. I’m keeping my baby. Oooh. Yeah.

M.

Who could make sense of the carnage? We wish we could take the news of unrelenting violence -- in London and Madrid, Baghdad and Mumbai, and now in Pennsylvania Amish country -- and filter it into some sort of easily understood morality tale, like an old Twilight Zone episode that jolts us for half an hour, then frees us to focus on life’s lesser banalities.

Then it would be easy to read reports of spreading mayhem and lie to ourselves and say that it’s OK, that these dark scenes were already evoked and explained away by actors on a tiny black-and-white screen.

In “I Am The Night, Color Me Black,” written by Rod Serling, residents of a small American town are so obsessed with a local murder that their hate somehow forms a palpable haze, blotting out the sun. What’s more, they find their experience is being mimicked on a global scale, that the manifestation of a general hatred threatens to plunge all humanity into impenetrable darkness.

Yet art reflects life only so much, and hatred, black as it is, is too simple an explanation for the violence that increasingly surrounds us.

Sure, we can say we know that Shiites have hated Sunnis since Islam’s bloody seventh-century schism, or that Arabs have hated Jews since Israel gobbled part of Palestine in 1947, then congratulate ourselves on a perfunctory understanding of distant cultures and conflicts that mean little to us anyway. But what simple answer can we give for why an American milk truck driver would choose to hate Amish schoolgirls?

Authorities say Charles Carl Roberts IV, the man who shot 10 Amish girls in Lancaster County, Pa. -- killing five -- was motivated by grievances about his past. He supposedly was party to some kind of molestation 20 years ago, and felt cheated in his adult life by the death of an infant daughter. Based on this he apparently came to feel that mass murder was his due.

And so we have it -- the link between the suicide bomber who targets wedding guests in Jordan, the rebel who kills schoolchildren in Chechnya, and the American maniac who deals death in Amish country.

Because what motivates these killers is more than hate. It is a sickness bred of arrogance, an egotism that insists that their rage, their anguish, their frustration somehow counts for more than the sufferings of others -- that their own dissatisfaction with a corrupt world is so sharp that it justifies whatever violence they choose to do in exchange.

They make gods of their own vindictiveness, and in doing so foment an evil so dark that -- just as Serling warned -- its shadow touches all of us, and encroaches upon every sanctuary.

Just ask the Amish of Lancaster County. Like their persecuted ancestors, they too foreswear violence and do their best to live apart from the world -- only to be reminded by the blood of their daughters that even in a place called Paradise, the world remains too much with them.

Hate, and the violence it spawns, seems everywhere. But few can agree on how to restrain it.

Some, like Machiavelli, insist it can only be held in check by force -- through fear. Mystics like Tolstoy argue that true goodness can prevail only when it acquiesces fully to evil, a paradox that strikes romantic realists such as Charlotte Bronte as rather muddled. “If the good were always kind and obedient,” her heroine Jane Eyre declares, “the wicked would have it all their own way. They would never feel afraid, but would grow worse and worse.”

But if defiance and unkindness are the only tools for keeping the wicked at bay, how does one employ these without succumbing to wickedness itself?

The answer is hard to bear. It can be found in some of the worst places and worst circumstances ever inflicted by humans on their fellow beings. It was found, for instance, on a Japanese prisoner of war “hellship” during World War II.

On one particular vessel, writes historian John Toland, the filth and stench of a cramped cargo hold combined with hunger and general neglect to drive American prisoners into a homicidal lunacy. They fought over scraps of food. Some stole mats from the dying, others used corpses as stools.

Amid this hysteria, a few men failed to succumb. A trio of chaplains showed they were unwilling to abandon civility, self-restraint and a general regard for humanity no matter the cost. Their defiance cost them their lives.

But it purchased so much more. These chaplains -- and other like them -- prove in the most dramatic way that virtue can indeed be valued more than raw power or even mere survival. Even when the dark night of hate make such things seem hopeless, charity, humility and hope can endure.

“Senator Clinton’s office,” she intones as professionally as any young woman wearing flip-flops and a toe ring can. “Sorry, didn’t quite catch that. Beezle who?”

She listens a moment and nods.

“Oh. Well, if you’ll wait a second Mr. Bub, I’ll see if she’s available.”

The scene shifts to a private office. A much older blonde with a much harder face lifts the receiver.

“Senator Clinton,” she says.

“Hil, baby,” spouts the insidious voice at the other end of the line. “This is Lucifer. We need to talk.”

An awkward silence ensues.

“Lou?”

The caller is not amused.

“Don’t play coy with me, blondie,” he snarls. “You know darn well who this is. It’s me. Mephistopheles. The Prince of Darkness. Lord of the Flies. And I want to know what your people are doing about damage control since that jerk Falwell made the crack about you and the presidential race. Better call in the plumbers, baby, ’cause we got a leak.”

The denial is swift.

“What, you think someone on my end started that? As if things aren’t bad enough, I’ve got to deal with whacko evangelists stirring up their right-wing base.”

“How do you think I feel? You think I like it when some overrated pulpit-pounder says a junior senator from a liberal state scares his people more than I do? It hurts, Hil, it hurts.”

She is unmoved.

“So what do you want--sympathy? Look, I thought you were supposed to have powers. Destroyer of Souls and all that. Why don’t you just whack the guy?”

“I’d love to. But the thing is…” he trails off.

“The thing is what?”

“The thing is--look, I know you’re not going to believe this.”

“Get to the point.”

“The thing is, Falwell’s got connections. All the way to the top, if you know what I mean.”

Her next remark makes even the caller wince.

“Perfect,” she moans. “And you phone and want to give me grief. Look Lou, you know how it is in this business. You got to dance with who brought you. And frankly, these days you’re looking a heck of a lot like a wallflower.”

“Hold one second, doll,” he replies, though not without a hint of desperation. “Don’t think you can just stiff me like that. We got a deal--a relationship. Cross me and you’ll regret it. Remember what happened to Howard Dean?”

“What? His Iowa implosion? Like he needed help with that.”

She sighs.

“Look Lou, nothing personal, but oh-eight isn’t going to a picnic. I need someone who’s really got pull with the powers of darkness.”

“You don’t mean--“

“I do. Goodbye.”

She pauses a moment as a soul-rending shriek spirals through the office, then dies. With a single jab she summons her intern.

“Brit,” she asks nicely. “Can you put me through to Kofi Annan?”