Again with the Claim that Critics of Catholic Bishops' "Religious Freedom" Crusade Use Scare Quotes to Attack Religious Freedom: Michael Sean Winters' Continued Misrepresentation of Discussion of Bishops' Betrayal of Religious Freedom

As I've noted previously, National Catholic Reporter's Michael Sean Winters just doesn't get it when it comes to understanding why many of us commenting on the "religious freedom" crusade of the U.S. Catholic bishops and of their right-wing white evangelical allies place the phrase "religious freedom" or "religious liberty" in quotation marks as we issue our comments. Again yesterday, Winters repeated what he's said about this before: he maintains that people are using quotation marks in such commentary because they want to put the notion of religious freedom itself into "scare quotes."

I Celebrate My Birthday, I Encounter "Oh, Mary, Don't You Weep" All Over Again: Continuing Challenge of Confronting Racism in American Culture

Charles Wilber White, "Oh, Mary, Don't You Weep," Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

(My apologies that the Salon video embedded in this posting below seems to be set to come on automatically when you open the posting. I wanted to let you know this may happen before you click to open the posting, so that you can, if you wish, mute it immediately.)

Thanks to all of you esteemed readers who left birthday greetings for me yesterday. I'm slow to respond to comments, because Steve had planned a small trip for us in celebration of my birthday and I've been on the road yesterday and today. Yesterday, we drove to Crystal Bridges Museum (some 215 miles northwest of us), and spent the afternoon walking around the museum, enjoying its always intriguing collection of American art, strolling on the beautiful wooded grounds of the museum, and then enjoying a birthday meal at the museum restaurant overlooking the Crystal Springs from which the museum takes its name. A perfect birthday meal for me — a deviled Scotch egg followed by a chipotle Caesar salad, with a glass of the Australian white wine offered for the restaurant's happy hour (they called it a "culture hour," but they didn't fool me: it was a happy hour) . . . .

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: Koch-Funded Business School of Catholic University of America Holds Neocon Conference on Catholic Social Teaching with Nightly "Cigar Reception"

Note the nightly Cigar Reception for those attending the recent neocon-spun conference on Catholic social teaching at the Koch-brothers-funded business school of Catholic University of America. I'm grateful to Tony Annett in a recent Commonweal essay for pointing to it and suggesting how wildly incongruous it is in the kind of church we're told Pope Francis wants. (Annett's suggestion was, of course, ridiculed by a Commonweal regular who routinely flaunts [and loves to do so] symbols of heterosexual male phallic power — manliness, he calls it — in the faces of men he deems quasi-female due to their sexual orientation and of women.)

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: LGBTQ Human Beings, "the Church Doesn't Owe You Understanding or Mercy, but Recognition"

Basque Franciscan theologian Jose Arregi tells LGBTQ human beings (his statement in Spanish is at the ATRIO site, and has been translated into English by Rebel Girl at Iglesia Descalza),

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: "Instead, We Are Left with the Likes of John Allen and Rocco Palmo Who Are Just Pole Dancers at Bishop Conventions"

In response to Kaya Oakes's recent article about John Allen's decision to turn to the Knights of Columbus to fund his Crux journal, which I discussed yesterday, Tony Adams writes, 

As Crux Turns to Knights of Columbus for Funding, A Reflection on Catholic Heterosexism and Lack of Solidarity with LGBTQ People Among Heterosexually Privileged "Liberal" Catholics

Tomorrow's my birthday, but Steve has informed me that the Birthday Rules dictate that one's birthday begins at sundown the day before, so I'm settling into the start of my birthday celebration as I type this posting, and hope that will make me more douce than usual. I doubt it.

Easter and the Longing to See Pharoah's Army Drowned: A Project in Which Atheists, Agnostics, and People of Faith Should Be Able to Collaborate

In this Easter Sunday's New York Times, philosopher William Irwin describes a strategy for people who question the notion of God who want to contribute to meaningful conversations in the public square — especially in the public square of a culture like that of the U.S., which is saturated with religion that is often downright demonic. For many of us who really want a viable alternative to demonic religion that has harmed us, and who welcome the persuasive critique of religion offered by our atheist or agnostic friends, the absolute, dogmatic certainty of those same friends places us between a rock and a hard place: it's the mirror image of the dogmatic religious demon from which we want to escape, in order to find safety.