ARLINGTON, Texas (ABP) — A prominent African-American pastor says Southern Baptist leaders should publicly repudiate comments by a former Southern Baptist Convention officer that he is praying for President Obama to die.

Dwight McKissic, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, said he had not heard an interview on Fox News Radio in which former SBC second vice president Wiley Drake said he is praying “imprecatory prayer” against Obama.

McKissic, who is asking the SBC this year to adopt a resolution celebrating the election of the nation’s first African-American president, said if Drake was identified in the interview as a Southern Baptist, then his remarks should not go unchallenged.

McKissic, a former president of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention pastors conference and speaker at the group’s evangelism conference, personally denounced Drake’s comments and said he would ask SBC president Johnny Hunt to do the same.

“They need to be repudiated by Southern Baptist leaders,” McKissic said.

McKissic said Drake’s views “are in the same ballpark” as Rush Limbaugh saying he hopes that President Obama’s administration will fail.

“Southern Baptists don’t need to line up with the Rush Limbaughs and Wiley Drakes in attacking Barack Obama,” he said.
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Drake said Southern Baptists have lost belief in “imprecatory prayer” — praying passages from the Psalms where the Psalmist is asking God to bring death and misfortune on his enemies — and need to regain the practice.

“It is in the Bible, and we are proud to say as Southern Baptists that we believe the Book,” he said. “You’ve got to believe the whole Book, brother, or you don’t believe any of it.”

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I’ve always said that “I’ll pray for you” from a Christian is a form of religious intolerance, because even though there is no god to hear their prayers, THEY are trying to change you and THEY think it will work. Here is an instance where the preacher is literally trying to kill the president. Get that? He thinks it will work, too. Isn’t there a law somewhere about trying to kill the president?

Last weekend, as I mentioned in a previous post, the Secular Coalition for America accepted American Atheists as a member.
Press Coverage

This was frankly long overdue, and I give full credit to our president Ed Buckner and to our Board of Directors for this very smart move, because it allows the secular movement to concentrate on the big picture — real influence in politics, acceptance of atheists in the American public, and the defeat of the liars and charlatans who use their religion to justify bigotry and immorality.

American Atheists is a non-profit organization, which means our end-goal is to go out of business because our cause is satisfied. To reach that goal, we must grow as an organization and as a movement until we reach the critical mass needed to affect real change. This long-overdue alliance between American Atheists, the FFRF, AAI, and most of the other major players (“friendly competitors”) of this movement will further this goal. It should be noted that the vote in the Secular Coalition was unanimous, which means our former adversaries mentioned above voted us in. We are evolving, not only as an organization, but as a movement, and I’d like to thank each and every member for their vote.

The Secular Coalition is a vital component to our movement’s future, and our membership means we at American Atheists are committed to helping them, financially and otherwise. It is my hope that this will lead to donations and memberships to American Atheists (remember, the Helen Mitzman Challenge doubles your donations, and most of our activists, myself included, are volunteers).

American Atheists has stepped up. Rock and Roll.

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AFP) — Nevada Senator John Ensign, a rising star of the Republican Party regarded as a possible contender in the 2012 presidential election, admitted an extra-marital affair here.

Ensign, 51, a staunch conservative with a record of strong family-values stances, vowed to remain in office after describing the affair as “absolutely the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life” at a news conference.

He said he and his wife, Darlene, have reconciled thanks to marital counseling and that his marriage is “stronger than ever.”

Darlene Ensign, with whom the senator has three children, also issued a statement insisting their marriage was sound but was not present at her husband’s news conference.
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Last year, Ensign was rated the most conservative US senator by the National Journal magazine and led the unsuccessful charge in 2007 to force Idaho Senator Larry Craig to resign from office after Craig was caught in a gay sex sting operation.

In the past year, Ensign has raised his national profile with numerous national TV appearances and is chairman of the Republican Policy Committee.

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Just to be clear… I’m not knocking the man for having an affair, because it’s really none of my business. I’m knocking him for being a complete hypocrite. I’m attracting attention to the fact that this guy was a Promise Keeper (a men-only Christian cult known for misogyny and anti-Jewish, anti-atheism rhetoric). Yes, Just as the Promise Keepers are trying to regain their relevance (which they had for about 5 minutes), hardline Christians keep coming out as gay, or man-whores, or druggies, or druggie customers of gay man-whores, or the like. Then it’s all about apology and “I have sinned against my family and my lord” and counseling and we’re all better now.

You’re not all better now. You’re a liar and a hypocrite (see Newt Gingrich).

It’s not that he cheated — It’s that he cheated while he was rallying against gay marriage in order to “save marriage”. It’s that he cheated while pointing an accusatory finger toward others, including atheists, for being immoral.

Democrats cheat too. They have their scandals, but it’s not as scandalous because they aren’t taking the moral high ground while they do it. At least not nearly as often.

In a scene which appears to have been lifted straight out of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, a group of Christians in Wisconsin has launched a legal claim demanding the right to publicly burn a copy of a book for teenagers which they deem to be “explicitly vulgar, racial [sic], and anti-Christian”.

The offending book is Francesca Lia Block’s Baby Be-Bop, a young adult novel in which a boy, struggling with his homosexuality, is beaten up by a homophobic gang. The complaint, which according to the American Library Association also demands $120,000 (£72,000) in compensatory damages for being exposed to the book in a display at West Bend Community Memorial Library, was lodged by four men from the Christian Civil Liberties Union.

Their suit says that “the plaintiffs, all of whom are elderly, claim their mental and emotional well-being was damaged by this book at the library,” and that it contains derogatory language that could “put one’s life in possible jeopardy, adults and children alike.”

“The word ‘faggot’ is very derogatory and slanderous to all males,” the suit continues. “Using the word ‘Nigger’ is dangerously offensive, disrespectful to all people. These words can permeate violence.” The suit also claims that the book “constitutes a hate crime, and that it degrades the community”.

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Ahh. Christianity returning to its roots of book burning. How Swell!

So, for the record, a note to the good people of the “Christian Civil Liberties Union”. The Bible is offensive to us. It has instances of glorified genocide, murder, rape, pedophilia, dung-eating, slavery, and hatred. It is derogatory toward atheists and wiccans, and actively recommends we be banished, ignored, or murdered. It hurts us that it is in your libraries. It causes us mental distress. We demand the right to burn a bible in your city, and we also demand you give us money for our troubles.

We will also throw into the fire Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, because it sucked so bad it insults all humanity. Moreover, we demand the right to burn everything ever written by Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’reilly, Sean Hannity, and Ann Coulter, on the grounds that they make everyone on the planet look stupid.

More on this later, but it IS official.