Atheist News Sep 22 2018: Straight People Don't Do Oral or Anal? Indian Court Dismisses Blasphemy

Armin and Jim discuss the latest news on religion and atheism in the past week 😃

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1. The founder of Mission: America, Linda Harvey, said in a piece about the dangers of sex education that straight people would never engage in oral or anal sex. She made comments before that homosexuality is the result of legal abortion and the first openly gay character of Disney should have been molested first in order to be more realistic.

2. Father Jonathan Morris, a Roman Catholic priest, said that God had a purpose and meaning for the death of a mother and a baby who were struck by a falling tree during the Hurricane Florence. He was speaking on FOX & Friends when he commented that the hurricane was a way of God to test us.

3. Rev. Paul Kalchik, a Roman Catholic priest at Resurrection Parish in Chicago, burned a rainbow flag that was displayed at the church. The rainbow flag had been hanging in Resurrection Parish since 1991 as a symbol of respect to the local LGBTQ community. Despite the Archdiocese of Chicago telling him not to proceed in burning the flag, he destroyed it.

4. In an effort to “streamline” public school learning plans, the "work groups" suggested to remove Hillary Clinton from history classes. The "work group" also suggested the removal of evangelist and Baptist pastor Billy Graham and Moses in discussions but the state board ignored that. The final vote is in November.

5. In the Netherlands, more than half of the leaders of the Catholic Church either cover up the abuse or they abused children themselves between 1945 and 2010. The cardinals and bishops knew there was child sexual abuse in the Church but did nothing.

6. After suffering a stroke, Bill Hayden, a retired Australian politician, converted to Catholicism from atheism. He was nearing death when he decided to be a Christian after having spent most of his life as an atheist. Earlier this month he was baptised at St. Mary's Church in Ipswich, west of Brisbane.

7. An email urging people to contact their senators in support of Brett Kavanaugh was sent by the Focus on the Family to its mailing list. The letter states that Brett Kavanaugh denied the sexual allegations.

8. Zainab Abdirahman-Khalif, a 23-year-old Adelaide woman, has been found guilty of being a member of Islamic State in South Australia's Supreme Court. In July 2016, she was detained at Adelaide Airport trying to board a plane to Turkey with just hand luggage and $170 but she was released without charge. She was again arrested and charged by being a member of a terrorist organization last year in May. 378 audio files associated with IS were found on her phone, along with 125 videos from an IS media organisation, 62 of which contained extremist material including vision of buildings being blown up, captives being executed and dead bodies on the ground.

9. A hotline was set up in New Jersey to report abuse by priests. The hotline allows victims to speak with investigators and since then has been receiving a high volume of calls. More staffs were assigned to receive the calls.

10. Three judges in Aurangabad Bench of the Bombay High Court, agreed that it was ridiculous to punish people for making "“objectionable” Facebook posts that offended religious people. A complaint was raised when a Facebook post comparing Lord Parshuram, an avatar of the god Vishnu, to a character from the Indian blockbuster film Sairat. The complainant considered the post blasphemous. The judges said there was nothing wrong with it and they mocked the complainant for not having a sense of humor.

Suggested news:

Nuns march with placards warning that their lives are in danger in Kerala. The man charged with rape, Bishop Franco Mulakkal, who raped one of the nuns 13 times between 2014 and 2016, has only been interrogated once while the victim was questioned five times. No arrest has been made. The congregation to which the victim belongs to, the Missionaries of Jesus, handed out a certificate of innocence to the accused bishop and accused the victim of having a relationship beyond acceptable standards with a local taxi driver.