I’m no economist, but for the purpose of this article, I’m playing one on the Internet. Clearly, you don’t need me to tell you that there are some major economic problems in America today. Instead of playing the who’s-to-blame game, we should be looking for solutions to what caused this problem.

Most people point to the sub-prime mortgages and the housing collapse as being the instigator, as well as the current banking problems that have their own causes. But I think that people are overlooking two major issues that have put us where we are.

The root of these issues is that people as individuals were not able to afford things that the bought. Perhaps it was their house, perhaps it was a car. But the reason they couldn’t afford them is because of other necessities (at the time) that they had to pay for that put them in their financial predicament.

This doesn’t go for all people, but for a lot of Americans, there are two causes to their lack of money, and reform in these fields could be a major step in fixing the economy.

Again, it’s just my amateur opinion, but I think these two reforms could go a long way towards fixing individual family’s finances, which would go a long way towards fixing the economy as a whole.

College Tuition

How many people go to college, and pay their way through with student loans? A lot. College students all too happily pay $30,000 a year for a four year education, voluntarily putting themselves $120,000 in debt before they even get a job. Paying your way through college with loans and getting a degree in art history is going to leave you in debt for years and years. You will spend the rest of your life chasing back that money.

Since many colleges are private, there is nothing that can be forced on them to lower tuition costs, but for state schools, perhaps a little relief to students would help the economy. More government grants and scholarships could help keep those who need the loans to get through school out of debt, or at least less in debt.

Colleges receive a lot of funding for research. Finding a way to lower tuition, and giving high school students more affordable options for higher education could help keep the next generation from fighting a losing battle with student loans for the rest of their lives.

If you were to hypothetically forgive every student loan in the country, think of how much additional money would be spent on reviving the economy and/or getting mortgage and other payments in line. It’s not realistic to forgive these debts, but if we worked towards a goal of lessening the burden on graduating students, we’d be helping everyone who benefits from a strong economy.

Health Care Costs

Sure the catch phrase for every politician in “health care reform,” but I’m not talking about socializing medicine, and I’m not talking about fixing Medicare. I’m talking about making basic health care more affordable, with or without insurance.

A visit to the doctor for a cut on my hand should not cost me as much as it does. If you have no insurance, a trip to the family doc to get a script for Ammoxicilian shouldn’t be a major purchase.

And more importantly, one major health issue should not bankrupt you. All too often, people (even with insurance) are sent to financial hell with one catastrophic situation, either to them or a family member. Car accidents happen, as do diseases. One case of bad luck is enough to deal with physically, but it should not ruin your entire financial future.

I have a friend who needed an angioplasty. He was told that he needed to wait for up to a month to get approval from the insurance company to have the procedure. He ended up getting the surgery when he needed to be rushed to the hospital two weeks later. The insurance companies pissing around with “regulations” nearly cost him his life, and, as health care goes, the more dire the situation, the more costly.

I have another friend — a friend of my mother’s to be exact — who has breast cancer. She was recently diagnosed and was set to begin chemo this week. Then she got a call from her insurance company that said she can’t start chemo yet, as they want to investigate whether or not this was a preexisting condition (her insurance was only a year old). Do they really believe that someone would cover up their cancer, get new insurance, then go through the discovery and diagnoses stages again to trick the company? Maybe someone has done that, but the fact is they are delaying crucial treatment for a cancer patient to save themselves a few bucks (possibly), a move that could end up costing the patient far more money by delaying the treatment.

I understand that medical procedures are costly, and the equipment is costly, and the doctors need to be well paid. But why should a room at a hospital have increased 70 percent in the last 26 years?

The three major reason that are always given for why health care costs so much here is 1) overuse of resources by patients (ie. unnecessary MRI’s); 2) administrative and paperwork messes; and 3) fear of malpractice suits resulting in costly over-testing.

Cleaning up our health care industry could save people fortunes. Rather than socialized health care (which many people falsely believe to be the cure), we need to add large numbers of government subsidized free health clinics. When you have an infection, and you know you have an infection, everyone would be better off if you just went to the clinic to get a prescription, rather than a doctor’s office. The staff at the clinic would still be qualified to confirm your original belief, but also be qualified enough to tell you if you need to see a more capable office for more treatment. Eliminating the backup at doctor’s offices, as well as the large amounts of wasted paperwork on trivial conditions could do wonders for helping the medical economy issues.

There are far more changes that could be made to the medical industry, like cutting down the costs on major treatments, finding ways to cut prices on MRIs, anesthesia, hospital stays and other things could help keep one accident from killing all of your finances.

If the government wants to improve health care, and get everyone insured like they say they want, then why not allow private citizens to buy into the government’s health care program for their employees. Or why not create a new insurance system just for the uninsured? Some people are happy with their current health care and don’t want to wait 10 weeks for their tests, as they do in England, Canada or Cuba. Some people just want to not be bankrupt when they are done getting treatment.

Conclusion

Again, I’m not economist or doctor, but I think that these are two major causes for people not having money. Everyone is spending so much time placing blame on why the housing bubble burst or why the market collapsed, but they fail to ever mention the obvious — people were short on money. Once you acknowledge that, then it comes down to why they were short on money.

I think I’d be proven right if you asked people why they were in debt that a majority of Americans are in debt either because of student loans or health care costs.

Fixing those two issues would go a long way towards fixing the economy.

*****
Tuition photo by uwdigitalcollections
Doctor’s office photo by Brittany G

President Obama has tabbed a 26-year old Pentecostal minister to run his faith-based programs, a White House aide announced Thursday.

Joshua DuBois worked for Obama during his time in the Senate and the president considers him a close adviser to the president. Prior to getting involved with Obama, DuBois was educated at Princeton and is an associate minister at a Pentecostal church in Massachusetts.

For those of you not familiar with Pentecostalism, here are some tidbits from your neighborhood Wikipedia:

• Pentecostals are characterized by their practice of speaking in other tongues. A Pentecostal believer in an ecstatic religious experience may vocalize fluent unintelligible utterances (glossolalia) or articulate an alleged natural language previously unknown to the speaker (xenoglossy).
• Pentecostals generally adhere to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, believing that the Bible has definitive authority in matters of faith, and adopt a literalist approach in its interpretation.
• The gift of tongues may be exercised anywhere, but many denominations believe that it must only be exercised with a person who has the gift of “interpretation of tongues” present whether that be another person or the one who gives the tongue. The interpreter may interpret the tongue into the language of the gathered Christians so that they can understand the message.

They sure seem like a fine group, one that should fit right in with an extremely liberal president and Congress. Oh, they’re also against gay right, same-sex marriage and abortion rights. Perfect for Obama’s camp.

According to the Washington Post, President Obama is planning on expanding the role of faith-based programs in his administration.

Obama aides have said the president’s effort will expand the faith-based office at the White House. President George W. Bush’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives made a priority of placing faith offices within federal agencies and was criticized by some former high-ranking staff members for becoming politicized.

While many on the left fully expected the new president to shut down the office of faith-based initiatives, instead he chose to choose a very conservative Christian to head it up and expand the office.

That Obama sure is winning friends in Washington, isn’t he?

Back in July, Obama said in a campaign speech that he wouldn’t allow the discrimination that is currently legally allowed in this office to continue, but has been suspiciously mum on the topic since it became his job to have an opinion on it.

We’ll see how this one plays out, but I have a feeling that the liberals in Washington are not going to be real happy about this one. Conservatives will be getting what they want, but they’ll never admit to approving of something Obama does, so it’s really a lose-lose for him.

Since the days of Taft, one of the “honors” that comes with being the President of the United States is that you are also the honorary president of the Boy Scouts of America. While it’s really just a title with no real meaning, secular groups are uniting to ask President-elect Obama to deny receiving the honor for religious reasons.

You see, the Boy Scouts are a very religious and discriminatory group. Sure they do some good for those that are in the group — knot tying and such — but they also exclude members or parents based on their religious views or sexual preferences.

Since they are a private group, they are free to include and exclude whomever they want to, but for that same reason, they should also not be tied in with any government duties or people. By accepting the title of honorary president, Obama would be condoning the Boy Scouts discriminatory ways.

Here is the full text of the letter being sent to Obama by a collection of secular groups who oppose his acceptance of the Boy Scouts honor.

January 13, 2009

Dear President-Elect Barack Obama:

In light of your campaign promise to bring the nation together in a spirit of change we need, we, the undersigned nontheist organizations, urge you to take this opportunity to signify that discrimination against atheists, agnostics, humanists, and other nontheists will not be condoned.

Thus we write to urge you to decline the title and role of honorary president of the Boy Scouts of America. The BSA has acted vigorously in recent years to expel atheist and agnostic members and employees. This policy expresses the Declaration of Religious Principle, Bylaws of Boy Scouts of America, part. IX, § 1, cl. 1:

The Boy Scouts of America maintains that no member can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God. In the first part of the Scout Oath or Promise the member declares, “On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law.” The recognition of God as the ruling and leading power in the universe and the grateful acknowledgment of His favors and blessings are necessary to the best type of citizenship and are wholesome precepts in the education of the growing members.

The BSA has elected to set itself apart as a private organization that may discriminate in ways contrary to the laws and practices required of local, state, and federal authorities. Accepting the title and role of honorary president of the Boy Scouts of America would thus send the message that institutional discrimination against people who don’t happen to believe in a god is acceptable.

Many presidents of the United States have taken on the title of honorary president of the Boy Scouts of America. However, this tradition was established when discrimination against nontheists was, unfortunately, socially acceptable. Given that nontheists now make up a sizeable minority of the American population-­having more numbers than Mormons, Buddhists, Hindus, and Jews combined-­the BSA is clearly out of touch with the spirit of pluralism, tolerance, and inclusiveness that compose today’s American values. By contrast, in 1993 the Girl Scouts of the United States of America adopted more inclusive policies.

Therefore, please decline the title and role of honorary president of the Boy Scouts of America until such time as the organization reforms its bylaws and practices to be non-discriminatory.

Yours in Unity,

American Atheists
American Ethical Union
American Humanist Association
Atheist Alliance International
Atheist Nexus
Camp Quest
Center for Atheism
Center for Inquiry
Center for Naturalism
Council for Secular Humanism
Freedom From Religion Foundation
FreeThoughtAction
HUUmanists
Institute for Humanist Studies
International Federation for Secular & Humanistic Judaism Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers Secular Coalition for America Secular Student Alliance Society for Humanistic Judaism

Normally, I’m of no opinion on superficial matter such as this, but I agree with the letter, and any support or endorsement of a group like this, no matter how popular they are, is wrong at a presidential level.

Normally, I’d say it’s just a tradition and does no harm, but the awareness this rebuke could raise is important. The Boy Scouts mean well but do wrong, similar to groups like Alcoholics Anonymous. The message of their goals is lost in the narrow mindedness of their ways. For this reason, I too support the words of this letter.

After nearly two months of speculation, it’s official — Al Franken has stolen the election from Norm Coleman in Minnesota.

The amazing thing isn’t that an election can be stolen so blatantly in this day and age, it’s that it can be done after everyone was told it is going to happen. Everyone in their right mind knew that Franken and his state official cronies from the Democratic party were planning on stealing the “recount”, but no one did a damn thing.

Where was Keith Olbermann on this one? You know damn well if the ‘R’ and ‘D’ were reversed on all of the main players in Minnesota, MSNBC and their friends would be all over Minneapolis like it was Wasilla, AK. But this didn’t involve a since defeated VP nominee, it was just an important Senate seat.

And when I say stolen, I don’t mean, “darn, the Democrat won after all,” I mean STOLEN.

For example, from the Wall Street Journal:

Under Minnesota law, election officials are required to make a duplicate ballot if the original is damaged during Election Night counting. Officials are supposed to mark these as “duplicate” and segregate the original ballots. But it appears some officials may have failed to mark ballots as duplicates, which are now being counted in addition to the originals. This helps explain why more than 25 precincts now have more ballots than voters who signed in to vote. By some estimates this double counting has yielded Mr. Franken an additional 80 to 100 votes.

There are also inequalities in many other aspects of the recount. In two separate counties, recount vote totals differed from election night totals. In the case where less votes appeared in the recount, they went with the election night totals, which was a +46 for Franken. In the case where 133 additional ballots appeared in the recount, the board opted to include all of them, rather than the election night total like they did in the previous case, which resulted in a +37 for Franken.

The Wall Street Journal continued:

The question is how the board can certify a fair and accurate election result given these multiple recount problems. Yet that is precisely what the five members seem prepared to do when they meet today. Some members seem to have concluded that because one of the candidates will challenge the result in any event, why not get on with it and leave it to the courts? Mr. Coleman will certainly have grounds to contest the result in court, but he’ll be at a disadvantage given that courts are understandably reluctant to overrule a certified outcome.

To anyone who has been following this since election day, there is no doubt that not only did Franken do everything in his power to steal this election, but he had help from many friends in high places. This is one of the most obvious attempts at political theft in this generation.

Now, I know what many of you are thinking: what about George W. Bush in 2000? Good question. Well, the difference is that under any recount rules and models, Bush still won that election. At no point did Gore win. Not on election day, not in any recount. When multiple newspapers, including the Miami Herald and New York Times did their own recounts, Bush still won. In fact, his lead kept getting bigger.

In Minnesota, Coleman was declared the winner, and only by using slight-of-hand and political chicanery did Franken “win” the election.

I don’t care what your political affiliation is, you should be outraged. The day that a citizen of the United States sits back and supports this kind of election theft is the day that we have lost our place as the world’s greatest democratic nation. We live in a republic, and in doing so we should be above blatant election theft.

If you’ve ever (falsely) accused George W. Bush of stealing the 2000 election, or subsequently (even more falsely) the 2004 election, you have no right to sit back and watch this happen. What Al Franken and friends are doing in Minnesota is so much worse and obvious that no right-minded American should sit back and allow this to happen.

I’m sorry Minnesota, you are about to be wrongly represented, and your state will be much worse because of it. But I suppose that any state that puts Mark Ritchie in office only has itself to blame for its self-destruction.

As you may have heard, president-elect Barack Obama has chosen a pro-life, anti-gay marriage pastor to speak at his inaugruation. If he was going for “can’t make anyone happy,” he succeeded.

Let’s face it, no decision Obama makes for a while is going to please conservatives. Giving Rick Warren a microphone to make a speech isn’t going to do it for sure.

And already, liberals are growing wearisome that Obama won’t stick to the left and pass all of their bills. A large part of Obama’s base is supportive of women’s birth control rights and gay marriage. Pissing them off before you even take office is not the best idea either.

So how does he win?

Could he just stick to the party lines? That obviously won’t help with the right, but he knows that before his time in office is up, he will need to work with the Republicans. This choice is a good faith way of getting their approval on at least one thing.

Could he continue to pander to his base? He’s already won their vote, now he needs to do his job. But beyond the voters is the Congress that he will lean on to get his ideas turned into laws. Alienating your liberal Congress is not the best foot to start out on.

So what was the right call?

For me, an atheist, it would be to simply omit the pastor part of the day, but I understand that in today’s day and age that is simply not an option.

So for what his options were, I think he made the right call. It’s more important to reach some level of bipartisan discussion than it is to continue to preach to the choir and please his base.

Obama’s job is to be the president of all 50 states, not just the ones that voted for him. I see this as a good faith act of inclusion to those on the other side of the aisle, and if the liberals in this country are upset, so what?

The sooner the Congressional Democrats realize that they are not getting a blank check and a “yes man” in office, the sooner they can draft solid legislation, not just liberal pleasing legislation.

Including the Republicans, even if it’s only in a symbolic way like this, is an important step in the Obama administration.

I was not an Obama voter, but as an American I respect him for being my president. As such, I will judge him openly and honestly, and in this situation, I think Obama made the right call.

Suck it up, liberals.

American Atheists is suing the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security to remove language that directly gives credit to God for protecting the state from terrorism.

The actual law as written reads: “The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God.”

According to the Lexington Herald-Leader:

“The requirement to credit God for Kentucky’s protection was tucked into 2006 homeland security legislation by state Rep. Tom Riner, D-Louisville, a Southern Baptist minister.

‘This is recognition that government alone cannot guarantee the perfect safety of the people of Kentucky,’ Riner said last week.

Riner said he expects Homeland Security to include language recognizing God’s benevolent protection in its official reports and other materials — sometimes the agency does, and sometimes it doesn’t — and to maintain a plaque with that message at the state’s Emergency Operations Center in Frankfort.

In the suit, American Atheists argues that Homeland Security should focus on public-safety threats rather than promote religion. The suit notes that the federal and state homeland security agencies were created as a result of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by Muslim fundamentalists, and it refers to those attacks as ‘a faith-based initiative.’

The plaintiffs ask for the homeland security law to be stripped of its references to God. They also ask for monetary damages, claiming to have suffered sleeping disorders and ‘mental pain and anguish.’”

So what the fine people of Kentucky are saying is that as humans, we are powerless to protect ourselves from danger without God. If there is safety, it is because of God. Do you think that Rep. Riner is willing to also add that God must be blamed when terrorism strikes the Commonwealth of Kentucky? Clearly, if the first thing to do is praise God for the security that you have, then you must blame God when that security is broken.

I have a hard time thinking that this language will show up.

From a different article, same paper:

“State Rep. Tom Riner, a Southern Baptist minister, tucked the God provision into Homeland Security legislation as a floor amendment that lawmakers overwhelmingly approved two years ago.

As amended, Homeland Security’s religious duties now come before all else, including its distribution of millions of dollars in federal grants and its analysis of possible threats.

The time and energy spent crediting God are appropriate, said Riner, D-Louisville, in an interview this week.

‘This is recognition that government alone cannot guarantee the perfect safety of the people of Kentucky,’ Riner said. ‘Government itself, apart from God, cannot close the security gap. The job is too big for government.’

Nonetheless, it is government that operates the Office of Homeland Security in Frankfort, with a budget this year of about $28 million, mostly federal funds. And some administrations are more religious than others.”

Here is the bottom line. If the people of Kentucky want to protect themselves with the use of federal funds for their Office of Homeland Security, the God language must go. This one is about as clear as clear can be.

If you want to praise God when you go to church for keeping you and your family safe, go right ahead. But if you want to take my tax dollars and require that plaques be place honoring God and require that God be given credit for protecting your people, you must be crazy.

These are federal funds being spent on this. That means I am paying for you to praise God for protecting Kentucky from terrorism? My money is better spent elsewhere.

I think the American Atheists have got an easy one on their hands here, but when it comes to ousting religion from the Bible Belt, who knows.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is not too happy about the new Capitol Visitor Center, the $621 million underground museum that traces the history of the Capitol, as well as the Senate and House of Representatives.

The U.S. Capitol Visitor Center features exhibits, videos, historical artifacts and restaurants, but according to Sen. DeMint, it is missing something.

That something is God. DeMint is upset that the Center does not honor the history and tradition of faith and religious heritage in the United States.

The full text of DeMint’s statement is here, from TheHill.com:

“The Capitol Visitor Center is designed to tell the history and purpose of our nation’s Capitol, but it fails to appropriately honor our religious heritage that has been critical to America’s success. While the Architect of the Capitol has pledged to include some references to faith, more needs to be done. You cannot accurately tell the history of America or its Capitol by ignoring the religious heritage of our Founders and the generations since who relied on their faith for strength and guidance. The millions of visitors that will visit the CVC each year should get a true portrayal of the motivations and inspirations of those who have served in Congress since its establishment.

“The current CVC displays are left-leaning and in some cases distort our true history. Exhibits portray the federal government as the fulfillment of human ambition and the answer to all of society’s problems. This is a clear departure from acknowledging that Americans’ rights ‘are endowed by their Creator’ and stem from ‘a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence.’ Instead, the CVC’s most prominent display proclaims faith not in God, but in government. Visitors will enter reading a large engraving that states, ‘We have built no temple but the Capitol. We consult no common oracle but the Constitution.’ This is an intentional misrepresentation of our nation’s real history, and an offensive refusal to honor America’s God-given blessings. As George Washington stated clearly in his first inaugural address:

‘…[I]t would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official Act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the Universe, who presides in the Councils of Nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the People of the United States, a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes: and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success, the functions allotted to his charge.’

“The fundamental principles of the freedom we enjoy in this country stem from our Founding Fathers’ beliefs in a higher power, beliefs put forth in the Declaration of Independence and manifest throughout our Constitution,” said Senator DeMint. “If we cease to acknowledge this fact, we may cease to enjoy some of the freedoms we take for granted. We must not censor historical references to God for the sake of political correctness. And we must truthfully represent the limited form of government the Constitution lays out so that our ‘government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.’ So help us God.”

I’ve written at length in the past about the myth of the United States being a “Christian Nation,” but DeMint is right that there is faith and religion in the history of the United States. I just don’t know where it would fit into a museum. Thomas Jefferson’s edited Bible on display?

I understand what DeMint is saying about ignoring the facts about America’s history, but I think he is making something out of nothing.

Sure, some of the Founding Fathers relied on faith to get them through troubled times. They also relied on oxygen and the French, but I doubt either of them have exhibits in the Center.

The exclusion of religion from something is not necessarily an attack on religion or an attempt to suppress history. In my opinion, it’s simply a matter of picking and choosing what is not only important and relevant, but what can be displayed appropriately in museum form.

If what DeMint is saying about the architect promising the inclusion of faith in the final product is true, then he has a legitimate complaint. But nevertheless, I don’t think this is an example of us angry atheists forcing God out of everything.

I think Sen. DeMint needs to lighten up a bit and enjoy what the museum does offer. No museum is perfect. Hell, the Museum of Natural History doesn’t even have a creation exhibit and the Creation Museum doesn’t even have any facts. Take what is there and enjoy it.

If the museum does a good job at accurately representing the history of the Capitol and Congress without including the personal beliefs of those who worked there, then the Capitol Visitor Center is doing its job.

With the sound defeats suffered in this year’s elections, the Republican Party is taking a long look in the mirror. They need to regroup if they want any chance at having some say in the direction of this country.

Here’s where they went wrong:

Republicans hatched a plan that would win over more than half of the country, playing to the religious base of middle America, with the plan being that once they’re in, they’re in for good.

The religious were catered to by the right, transforming a party of fiscal responsibility, strong defense and small government into a party of Christian ideals and specific fundamental beliefs. This was working for over 20 years. It started before the Reagan administration and continued through the re-election of George W. Bush. The Republicans had it all going their way.

But they went too far.

They made gay marriage, abortion, stem cells and evolution more important than fiscal responsibility and small government. The party of fiscal responsibility forgot how to put away the checkbook. They created a whole they couldn’t climb out of, and they did it by trying to convert people into their party, rather than trying to include people in their party.

Now, the Republicans are hated by an entire generation. The plan to have a permanent majority was broken by the new batch of adults eligible to vote. There will always be voter turnover. Each election, more people die and more people turn 18. If you aren’t always attempting to include both ends of the spectrum, you’ll always be leaving people out.

And now, the GOP must make a major decision.

Should God and religion be a major focal point in their party’s platform? The answer, of course, is no. But will the Republicans see the reality of their dire situation.

A religious base is certainly nice to have if you are running for office, but it’s obviously not bullet proof. What the party is missing is that there are many, many people (like myself) who are conservative in the true sense of the word (small government, strong defense, low taxes) who don’t prioritize their political beliefs with the Bible in mind.

I have views on abortion, stem cells, the environment and gay marriage, but I don’t think that any single issue like that is A) party dependent, or B) big enough to be worth ostracizing so many people.

Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post had this to say on the matter:

“Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth — as long as we’re setting ourselves free — is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that.

The choir has become absurdly off-key, and many Republicans know it.”

I know there are many religious conservatives out there, but they are losing elections because they are practically requiring religious beliefs just to feel like you’re a part of the party.

Treat issues like issues, each individually. Trust the American people to make up their minds on issues and how to make up their minds. There is no need to stick to the party line with every issue on the table. The Democrats are just as bad as Republicans with their partisan views on some topics (like global warming), but they are the party that is at least acting inclusive.

The Republican Party needs to remember what one them so many elections. This is a center-right nation, but it’s not a completely Christian nation. It never was. The foundations of the party still work and can still win elections. It’s the talking down to us godless folk that is losing you votes.

Whether they want to admit it or not, there is a whole generation of agnostics reaching the voting age every year. Religion is becoming less important in this country every year. For some, that’s the problem, but for many, it’s just a reality that is both good and bad.

If the Republicans want to win any elections any time soon, they can’t just try to point at Obama as a failure and play off of it (though it just worked for Obama, so they’ll probably give it a shot). They need to regroup and become a party of inclusiveness, not the VIP GOP that it is these days.

I was once a Republican. If they lighten up on the religion, I might be again someday. But in their current form, my voter card still has the ‘NP’ box checked.

Not that you needed to be told this, but atheists are not going to win an election for president anytime soon. Shocking, right?

Mark Oppenheimer said in Slate that atheists are the least likely of any group to win the presidency, falling behind such political favorites as Muslims, Hindus and homosexuals.

The order Oppenheimer placed the “minority candidates” in based on liklihood of winning the presidency was: Women, Mormons, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, gays and lesbians, atheists.

From Slate, via Friendly Atheist:

“When the lion lies down with the lamb, when the president is a Republican Muslim and the Democratic speaker of the House is a vegan Mormon lesbian, when the secretary of defense is a Jain pacifist from the Green Party, they will all agree on one thing: atheists need not apply. A 2007 Gallup poll found that 53 percent of Americans would not vote for an atheist for president. (By contrast, only 43 percent wouldn’t vote for a homosexual, and only 24 percent wouldn’t vote for a Mormon.) As Ronald Lindsay, executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism, told me in an e-mail: “Atheism spells political death in this country.”

Indeed. Only one current congressman has confessed to being an atheist: Rep. Pete Stark, a Democrat from the lefty East Bay region of Northern California. If he ever ran for president, he would need God’s help just as surely as he wouldn’t ask for it.”

That’s right — 53 percent of Americans would not vote for an atheist for president.

Here’s what that means:

• They would rather vote for someone who believes in a different religion to them than no religion.
• They would rather vote for someone who does not believe in their principles than someone who may, but does not believe in a god.
• It’s more important to believe in any religion, no matter which one, than none of them. (Does the Flying Spaghetti Monster count?)

If the Obama’s a Muslim emails are any indication, an atheist surely stands no chance of even making it to the debates of a primary, much less winning a nomination. Then, to win an election…impossible.

The funny thing is if these 53 percent of Americans sat down with me or any other atheist, they wouldn’t know it unless we told them, and they would have no reason to consider any of us unqualified other than how we (don’t) spend our Sunday mornings.

This really is a sad statistic in this country.

Proposition 8 in California was perhaps the most talked about ballot measure in all of the 2008 election. The prop overturned the legality of gay marriage in California, making it once again illegal for same-sex couples to be wed.

I am not an activist, and this topic is not my highest priority (sorry gays), but I do believe firmly in equality for all, and gay marriage is something I strongly support. If civil unions and the like offered complete legal equality to hetero-married couples, then I’d be fine with the “one man-one woman” definition. But it doesn’t. Legally speaking, gay couples are not afforded the same rights as their more “traditional” counterparts. From a legal and equality standpoint, gay marriage should be allowed.

Now this topic has become a religious debate. The religious factions in this country want marriage to be between one man and one woman, and they want homosexuality to be “cured” rather than accepted and made equal. Gay people whose life’s are affected every day by these decisions are being told that they are not equal by people with a moral objection, many of whom have probably never met a gay person, minus all of the closeted ones they see in their church every Sunday (perhaps even the one preaching to them!).

So what do we do when the churches in this country start getting too involved in influencing legislation?  The answer is black and white, but nothing seems to be getting done about it.

You see by copy and pasting, I can point out to you that:

Section 501(c)(3) of US Code Title 26, which governs tax-exempt organizations, reads (emphasis added):

(3) Corporations, and any community chest, fund, or foundation, organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes, or to foster national or international amateur sports competition (but only if no part of its activities involve the provision of athletic facilities or equipment), or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals, no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual, no substantial part of the activities of which is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation (except as otherwise provided in subsection (h)), and which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.

It can’t be more clear than that. “no substantial part of the activities of which is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation.” No attempting to influence legislation. Just what do you think telling your church members to donate money from out of state to fight this cause is? It’s attempting to influence legislation, plain and simple. The Mormons are not the only ones who have broken this rule, but they are the ones that I am talking about right now.

The fact is that the Mormons were a huge factor in why Prop 8 passed in California. The LDS church pumped in $20 million to help defeat it. LDS leadership had been planning Prop 8 for 11 years, and considered this to be a high priority for some time.

You can say all you want about the black and hispanic votes being the downfall of Prop 8, but it’s also true that they voted against it for religious reasons. This vote was about religion, not equal rights. Until the churches stay out of it and the people vote (as they should) only based on humanity and equal rights, this proposition, and all of its brothers in other states, will continue to pass. Gay marriage cannot exist until it is a civil rights and not a religious matter.

The irony that one of the most vocal supporters of banning this “non-traditional” form of marriage is the Mormon church. A church that has held a reputation for quite sometime as being the church that supported polygamy. It’s been 118 years since the LDS church abandoned polygamy, but the reputation is still there. You’d think that they would have some sympathy for a group of people that want to have a non-traditional marriage.

Urging members of your church to donate money to an out of state cause goes against what the tax exemption is there for. If this is not “attempting to influence legislation”, I don’t know what is. This is a clear breaking of the rules, as defined in the US tax code.

The IRS needs to take a serious look at who is taking their tax exemptions. Churches are flaunting their political views, challenging the IRS to revoke their tax exempt status, and the IRS is letting it happen.

I don’t care how many members these churches have, they need to play by the same rules. When people donate to them tax free, and they pay no taxes on their land, buildings, income or anything else, they essentially have a blank check to do what they want. When they use that blank check for legislative or political purposes, they are at an extreme advantage over the groups they are fighting against, who don’t have the church’s tax exemption in their favor. There are a lot of tax free groups that also fall into this category, but the churches are mocking the IRS with their new style.

The United States government and the IRS need to take a stand. You can either dabble in politics and pay your taxes, or you shut your mouth and stick to religion. The Mormon church clearly broke this rule, and they should lose all tax exemptions for 2008 for breaking this code.

To file a complaint or get involved, follow this link and follow their instructions.