Stephen Colbert Takes On Chick-fil-A's Anti-Gay Stance

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'Miracle' Spares Aurora Shooting Victim, Insults Those Left Grieving

While any positive news regarding those injured in the Aurora theater shooting is certainly welcome, I find proclamations of miracles in the aftermath of such tragedy to be a slap in the face to those whose family members and loved ones did not survive.

Via Christian Post:

It is still unclear as to what exactly about Colorado shooting victim Petra Anderson's physical makeup helped save her life after one of four shotgun pellets went through her nose and into her brain cavity.

Was it a previously undetected birth defect? Was it a brain abnormality? Or was it simply the more common trait of having a channel or "void" that winds through the brain?

Brad Strait, who is the senior pastor at Cherry Creek Presbyterian Church in Englewood, Colo., where Anderson attends, and who was along her side in the emergency room, believes the 22-year-old's life was spared by a miracle.

"It seems as if the bullet traveled through Petra's brain without hitting any significant brain areas," Straight wrote in his blog post "A Miracle Inside the Aurora Shooting: One Victim's Story."

He continued, "The doctor explains that Petra's brain has had from birth a small 'defect' in it. It is a tiny channel of fluid running through her skull, like a tiny vein through marble, or a small hole in an oak board, winding from front to rear. Only a CAT scan would catch it, and Petra would have never noticed it."

He writes that the doctor talked about Anderson's recovery in "Hallmark Hall of Fame" terms, but that he and her mother, Kim, "know a miracle when we see it."

What are the faithful, church-going folks who lost their loved ones to believe? Did they simply not pray hard enough? Did their loved ones not deserve divine intervention?

These miraculous proclamations beg other questions: If God is powerful enough to ensure that stray buckshot enter at this precise brain location, why couldn't he simply have caused the guns to jam before any shots were fired? Or, better yet, why didn't God jam the exit door so that the shooter could not enter the theater? Why allow 12 deaths only to deftly navigate buckshot through an abnormality in the brain?

While it is certainly great news that Petra survived to see another day, is it necessary to lob metaphysical baggage into the laps of grieving families who were nut as lucky?

After he describes an awestruck surgeon explaining his analysis of what happened with the bullet in Anderson's head, Strait writes, "In Christianity we call it prevenient grace: God working ahead of time for a particular event in the future. It's just like the God I follow to plan the route of a bullet through a brain long before Batman ever rises. Twenty-two years before."

If we are to entertain this notion of "prevenient grace," we have no choice but to also entertain the notion that God planned the massacre.

Does that not make God a terrorist?

There is a part of me that says, "Whatever helps you get through the day." However, when that very thing that helps you get through the day insults those left grieving in the wake of such a horrible tragedy, people ought to consider keeping their miracles to themselves.

NC Pro-Amendment One Group: 'Stop Bullying' Chick-fil-A!

The North Carolina Values Coalition is the new moniker of the anti-LGBT organization Vote For Marriage NC. If you were signed up to receive their 'pro-family' emails leading up to the May 8 vote, you now are receiving emails like the below, signed by Tami Fitzgerald. Same crap, different name.

In the bizarro-world of the NC Values Coalition, the bullies are not those who aggressively discriminate against others because of their sexual orientation. The real bullies, according to this group, are the those who stand up for kids who are made to feel that they are not wanted, who are told that they are "twisted,""audacious,"and unwelcome.

Here is the latest email from the NC Values Coalition, asking that Bible-loving, anti-LGBT individuals support the August 1 Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day by opening their pocketbooks up to the company that funnels millions into anti-LGBT hate groups.

(Note: a protest against the Appreciation Day has been scheduled for the same day -- a National Same-Sex Kiss Day At Chick-Fil-A.)

More Chick-fil-A Bigotry From CEO Dan Cathy: 'Redefinition' Of Marriage Is 'Twisted'

via Good As You:

DAN CATHY, president and COO of Chick-fil-A:"It's very clear in Romans chapter 1, if we look at society today, we see all the twisted up kind of stuff that's going on. Washington trying to redefine the definition of marriage and all the other kinds of things that we go—if you go upstream from that, in Romans chapter 1, you will see that because we have not acknowledged God and because we have not thanked God, that we have been left victim to the foolishness of our own thoughts, and as result, we are suffering the consequences of a society and culture who has not acknowledged God or not thanked God—he's left us to a deprived mind. It's tragic and we live in a culture of that today."

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Chick-fil-A Backpedals Bigotry After Backlash

Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy

Just a few days after their CEO made anti-gay remarks you'd expect to hear from Pat Robertson, Chick-fil-A posted a note to their Facebook page affirming their commitment to "treat every person with honor, dignity and respect – regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender." Chick-fil-A claims this is part of their "tradition." Right.

Here is the message in its entirety:

The Chick-fil-A culture and service tradition in our restaurants is to treat every person with honor, dignity and respect – regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender. We will continue this tradition in the over 1,600 Restaurants run by independent Owner/Operators. Going forward, our intent is to leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena.

Chick-fil-A is a family-owned and family-led company serving the communities in which it operates. From the day Truett Cathy started the company, he began applying biblically-based principles to managing his business. For example, we believe that closing on Sundays, operating debt-free and devoting a percentage of our profits back to our communities are what make us a stronger company and Chick-fil-A family.

Our mission is simple: to serve great food, provide genuine hospitality and have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A.

Two things:

1. You can bet your sweet fried ass that Chick-fil-A would never have posted that note had the public response to CEO Dan Cathy's comments been overwhelmingly positive. The words ring hollow, like the plaintive voice of a young child who has angered her parents, and who will say whatever she has to say to regain their favor.

2. If Chick-fil-A truly intends to "leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena," they will not funnel one more dime into SPLC-designated hate groups such as the Family Research Council. They will not support the ex-gay ministry Exodus International. And they will open up their camps and retreates to the LGBT population (not that many would want to go). Anything less amounts to a hill of beans.

Chick-fil-A, to be sure, is free to run their business as they please. This is America. And the great thing about America is that we have the freedom to vote with our pocketbooks and to call out bigotry in the public space. But until they have proven that they are not actively participating in the discrimination of human beings based on their natural traits, they can expect the boycotts to continue, and they can expect to live with the repercussions of their public comments.

Chick-fil-A's Dan Cathy Super-Sizes Anti-Gay Rhetoric In Latest Interview

Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy confirmed earlier this week what many of us already knew: Chick-fil-A really doesn't like gay people.

The story gained a lot of steam yesterday as bloggers and news sources reported Cathy's "Guilty as Charged" response to the company's Biblical, anti-LGBT stance.

Where most companies would be in damage-control mode after such public revelations, Cathy has upped the ante.

Appearing on The Ken Coleman Show, Cathy stated the following:

"I think we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, 'We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage,'" Cathy said. "I pray God's mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about."

"We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that … We want to do anything we possibly can to strengthen families. We are very much committed to that," Cathy said.

"We need to be more faithful to depend on a God who does love us and wants to have a relationship with us, and wants to give us the desires of our hearts … We intend to stay the course," Cathy said. 

"We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles," Cathy explained.

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When Religious People Call Scientology Weird

In the wake of the recent split of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, there has been an increase in column inches devoted to Scientology. (The split also prompted some Twitter nastiness from Rupert Murdoch).

A recent Us Weekly article speculated on Tom Cruise's Scientology superpowers:

Having practiced Scientology for 30 years, Cruise has traveled the so-called "Bridge to Total Freedom" to achieve, through intense "auditing" sessions and other practices, a rarefied sense of enlightenment. Scientologists mark the path to the "Bridge" with ascending grades or stages, and, Janet Reitman's Rolling Stone story reports, Cruise is at the very advanced "OT VII" stage. Operative Thetans, Reitman says, have "have total 'control' over themselves and their environment. OTs can allegedly move inanimate objects with their minds, leave their bodies at will and telepathically communicate with, and control the behavior of, both animals and human beings." The more advanced Cruise and other Operating Thetans become, Reitman reports, they reach a God-like state: "At the highest levels, they are allegedly liberated from the physical universe, to the point where they can psychically control what Scientologists call MEST: Matter, Energy, Space and Time.

That's certainly some pretty weird stuff. Especially since there is no evidence whatsoever for psychokinesis. Magician and skeptic James Randi has offered $1 million to anyone who can produce a paranormal event, such as psychokinesis, in a controlled, mutually agreed upon experiment. Other organizations have come forth to offer prize money totalling $2.6 million for evidence of the paranormal. That money has been sitting there unclaimed, and I don't think it's going anywhere anytime soon.

So yes, we all get a good laugh out of Scientology, just as many of us get a good laugh out of Mormonism. A lot of what drives the skepticism and ridicule is the fact that these religions are based on dubious narratives and extraordinary claims for which there is no evidence.

Why, then, are adherents of other religions so quick to call Scientology kooky? Don't they embrace some fairly outlandish beliefs as well?

Part of what seems silly about Scientology is its newness (not to mention the fact that the founder was a science fiction writer). Humans also are heavily influenced by tradition, and many of us are born into our religions. Something can't be that kooky if it's been around for 2,000 years and if we were born into it, right?

That depends on your perspective. To those who do not entertain supernatural notions, religions are all different shades of unbelievable.

A Tom Cruise-related story over at Discovery touches on this observation:

Though many elements of Scientology theology (written by science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard) seem strange, it’s fair to note that many religions include paranormal or supernatural beliefs including virgin birth, walking on water, miraculous healings, garments and amulets that protect the wearer from harm, and so on. One man’s miracle is another man’s superstition.

Plus, there are many reasons for religious people to call Tom Cruise crazy without goofing on his religion.