David Atkins on Twitter: @DavidOAtkins David Atkins’ work at Washington Monthly can be found HERE. David’s remarkable Twitter thread that inspired this episode is here (read the whole thing including the CODA): You are watching in real time as mainstream conservatism warms itself up to embracing QAnon's "liberals are pedophiles" doctrine wholesale. The reasons are simple: 1) QAnon has been […]

Don’tchyoo worry ’bout a thing… While scientists warn us of the coming calamities that will result from the inexorable progression of global climate change, Republican Congressman Tim Walberg (MI-07) isn’t worried. He’s not worried about the famines or the loss of coastal cities or the flooding or the droughts or any of that. Why? Because, even though Tim Walberg believes […]

Peter Greene, the amazing education blogger at Curmudgucation, broke a story this week that should send a chill down the spine of anyone who values both public education and the separation of church and state. In his piece “The Hard Right’s Planning Document for Education”, he reveals a new report out from the hard right group Council for National Policy […]

NOTE: This post has been updated HERE. The worst-kept secret in Lansing is that theocrats and über-moralists Cindy Gamrat and Todd Courser are having a sexual affair. Republicans and Democrats alike have been trying to bust the two for months without success. This morning, however, we have definitive proof from Todd Courser’s own mouth that they have had an ongoing […]

NOTE: This post has been updated to include information about when Michigan abolished common law marriages. Republican Todd Courser took to the internet to defend “attacks” he’s facing over his package of legislation paving the way for “RFRA for Marriage” and making it harder for same-sex couples to get married. In a piece on his website titled “Breaking Courser Answers […]

June 24 event in Auburn Hills is open to the public — RSVP today to learn how to protect your rights. The ACLU of Michigan is hosting an educational event to help the community understand their rights at religiously sponsored hospitals. The June 24th event in Auburn Hills focuses on patients’ rights in hospitals operated by Catholic healthcare providers. As […]

Even before the fictional Elmer Gantry men of the cloth have tumbled from their high places beyond the altars whenever daylight exposed their secret lives. Last week Rev. Matthew Makela of St. John’s Lutheran church in Midland, Michigan, was forced to resign after Queerty.com posted screen shots of him from Grindr, a social app for homosexual men. Makela, an associate […]

Michigan state lawmakers Cindy Gamrat, Gary Glenn, and Todd Courser are openly theocratic, regularly expressing their desire and their intention to bring their religion into government, using their personal interpretation of the Bible to make laws and policy in our state. But the three of them have a mentor in this effort: 7th District Congressman Tim Walberg. A former Baptist […]

Legislation would give state-funded, faith-based agencies the right to refuse service to anyone on religious grounds. Those of us who support equality for all were hoping for the best, but were largely unsurprised by the 4-1 vote by the Michigan Senate Families, Senior & Human Services Committee to send a package of discriminatory adoption bills for consideration and a likely […]

This isn’t about religion. It’s about faith in humankind. I’m not a religious person. I’m spiritual — Buddhist-inspired — but not religious. But I have faith. I have faith that people are better than what we are seeing in those who would use religion as a license to discriminate. Laws like the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) passed in Indiana […]

My post yesterday, “Anti-trans* woman uses Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act to sue Planet Fitness for terminating her membership” (which I cross-posted at Daily Kos) provoked a response from the so-called “Christians” at RenewAmerica.com today. The piece is written by Ellis Washington, a founding board member of Salt and Light Global, and is titled “Salt and Light Global targeted for […]