The Morning Heresy

CFI’s suit to allow secular celebrants to solemnize marriages in Indiana is sparking more attention.

Indy Star columnist Erika Smith looks at the state of marriage equality in Indiana, and says:

What Obama said was inspiring and what the Center for Inquiry is doing is amazing.

While millions celebrated yesterday what was a huge move forward, symbolically at least, for LGBT marriage equality, CFI championed marriage equality of another kind in Indiana.

She of the Heated Phone Interview, Greta Christina, talks to AHA’s Roy Speckhardt, who was part of the hiring committee that chose Edwina Rogers to head the SCA.  

Hearing Roy’s thinking on all of this reinforces for me what I noted in my reactions to Greta’s interview with Rogers herself, that the emphasis here is on raw realpolitik.

Greta Christina posts her audio interview (mp3) with new SCA chief Edwina Rogers, as well as a transcript

Prime takeaway from my perspective: Rogers seems adamant that there is more of a pro-secular attitude within the GOP than almost anyone else believes, and leans heavily on the idea that there’s not sufficient research on the question (she says, “I don’t agree that the Republican Party is pro-life,” which is really hard to square, but she insists that there is supportive research). I have to wonder whether this is somewhat a moot issue, because it seems to me that the question that is plaguing movement atheists is whether Rogers is truly “one of us” given her history, and while not totally irrelevant, the secularity of the wider GOP is not necessarily central to answering that. In other words, her own record and coming work will be a far better barometer than that of the Republican Party as a whole. 

Welcome to the work-week, folks. I just bought a bicycle yesterday, and it’s the first time I’ve ridden one in almost 20 years, so as you can imagine, it’s a whole new world for me (the whole gear-shifting thing was explained to me, but I only pretended to understand it). Perhaps to avoid hurting myself too badly, I should have taken my new bike to Milton’s Episcopal Church of Our Saviour in Massachusetts, where they were blessing bicyclists and motorcyclists with holy water from a bike helmet. It actually looked like it was kind of fun!