Public Hearings on the Mississippi Personhood Amendment

Efforts to end reproductive rights for women in Mississippi have been underway for some time. Back in 2009, the American Family Association made it known that they considered our state to be a perfect battleground. Personhood Mississippi held a press conference in February 2010 to unveil their plans to impose a "personhood" amendment on Mississippi. And in earlier this month, we saw that the proposed amendment was before our State Supreme Court.


Mims has just informed me that the "personhood" amendment (Amendment 26) is now headed for public hearings around Mississippi. The hearings are scheduled to start on July 7 in Southaven and conclude on September 6 in Cleveland. You can see the schedule here. Mims noted that both Hattiesburg and Gulfport are on the schedule.

Mims reminds us why we should care about this:

If you know anything about this Amendment, you know that it is the product of a very conservative christian world view committed to social engineering through our legal system. If you have any doubt that this is a religiously motivated, go to the Personhood Mississippi website.

If you oppose efforts to abolish reproductive rights for women in Mississippi, please consider attending a public hearing near you to make your voice heard.

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Mississippi Judge Suspended for Requiring Church Attendance as Condition of Bail

A reader sent this one in, and I really appreciate it because I had not heard about it yet.

Mississippi Justice Court Judge Theresa Brown was recently suspended for 30 days following a Mississippi Supreme Court decision this week in Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance v. Dearman. According to the decision, the reprimand and 30-day suspension was justified for — among other things — requiring church attendance as a condition of bail.

You can find the court's opinion here as a .pdf file.

Contributed by Debra Burnsworth

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Louisiana Legislators Must Reject Ten Commandments Display At State Capitol

From Americans United for Separation of Church and State:

The Baton Rouge Chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State has urged the state Senate to reject a bill calling for the display of the Ten Commandments at the state capitol.

A government-sponsored religious display such as this, says the AU affiliate, would divide Louisiana residents and possibly lead to litigation.

"The Louisiana state government should not meddle in religious matters," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. "If legislators want an educational display about the law at the capitol, I'd recommend they put up a monument to the Bill of Rights."

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Personhood Amendment Before Mississippi Court

WDAM is reporting that the dreaded "personhood" amendment to insert the perspective of fundamentalist Christianity into Mississippi's constitution is now before our State Supreme Court. Supporters want to get it on the November ballot. Opponents are arguing that this is an inappropriate means by which to pass an amendment to our state constitution.

Is there any doubt that this will pass if it ends up on the ballot?

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Bigotry is Alive and Well

I was on Twitter last night for a bit when someone I didn't recall seeing before told me that I should leave the South because my kind (i.e., atheists) was not wanted here. This particular bigot turned out to be from Atlanta. He (I'm assuming the person was male) went on to say that I should leave not just the South but the entire country.

We went back and forth a few times. The argument about why I should leave - as close as I could get him to articulate it - was that my quest to remove "under god" from U.S. currency, a quest I was unaware I was on, was doomed to fail. I'm still not sure what this had to do with my leaving the U.S., but I suspect this was merely a variant of the tiresome "we're a Christian nation" claim.

I've always found this line of argument (i.e., atheists should leave because they are a minority) to be one of the most absurd planks of the Christian extremist platform. But I suppose many of these folks would just as soon kick out members of all minority groups.

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