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Dr. Nancy Snyderman talks to NOW's President Terry O'Neill about how the Stupak amendment caught NOW off guard, but that the issue has galvanized young women. O'Neill said she felt the amendment essentially over rules Roe v Wade. And I agree completely with O'Neill when asked by Dr. Nancy if this was a 'most fundamental violation of church and state' that the Catholic bishops inserted themselves into this political debate.

O'Neill: You know that's the first thing that I said. I don't know where the Internal Revenue Service is, but I hope they're paying attention.

And as Dr. Nancy noted again, it's two white men making policy about women's reproductive decisions.

While we're on the subject, what Digby said...

I have a moral objection to paying for any kind of erectile dysfunction medicine in the new health reform bill and I think men who want to use it should just pay for it out of pocket. After all, I won't ever need such a pill. And anyway, it's no biggie. Just because most of them can get it under their insurance today doesn't mean they shouldn't have it stripped from their coverage in the future because of my moral objections. (I don't think there's even been a Supreme Court ruling making wood a constitutional right. I might be wrong about that.)

Many of the men who are prescribed this medication are on Medicare, so I think it should be stripped out of that coverage as well. And unlike the payments for abortion, which actually lower overall medical costs (pregnancy obviously costs much, much more) banning tax dollars from covering any kind of Viagra would result in a substantial savings.

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This is, to say the least, strange. Crazy enough that Hatch inserted it, odder still that Ted Kennedy and John Kerry supported it. But if passed, this will open the floodgates to every fringe group out there:

Reporting from Washington - Backed by some of the most powerful members of the Senate, a little-noticed provision in the healthcare overhaul bill would require insurers to consider covering Christian Science prayer treatments as medical expenses.

The provision was inserted by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) with the support of Democratic Sens. John F. Kerry and the late Edward M. Kennedy, both of Massachusetts, home to the headquarters of the Church of Christ, Scientist.

The measure would put Christian Science prayer treatments -- which substitute for or supplement medical treatments -- on the same footing as clinical medicine. While not mentioning the church by name, it would prohibit discrimination against "religious and spiritual healthcare."

It would have a minor effect on the overall cost of the bill -- Christian Science is a small church, and the prayer treatments can cost as little as $20 a day. But it has nevertheless stirred an intense controversy over the constitutional separation of church and state, and the possibility that other churches might seek reimbursements for so-called spiritual healing.

Can you say "Scientology"? I knew you could!

Phil Davis, a senior Christian Science Church official, said prayer treatment was an effective alternative to conventional healthcare.

"We are making the case for this, believing there is a connection between healthcare and spirituality," said Davis, who distributed 11,000 letters last week to Senate officials urging support for the measure.

Don't get me wrong, I happen to believe this myself. But I wouldn't dream of asking other people to pay for my spiritual beliefs without their full knowledge and consent.

And since many Christian fundamentalists consider Christian Science to be a cult, I suspect the uproar will get this pulled out of the bill.

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Countdown's Worst Persons for Aug. 18, 2009 with winner, the Texas State School Board. Runners up Glenn Beck and Tom Coburn.

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This weekend on his Fox News program, Mike Huckabee -- who probably still harbors some kind of presidential ambitions -- brought on a special guest named David Barton to talk about the separation of church and state. Barton brought with him a number of cool colonial-era artifacts that he used to bolster his claims that "the separation of church and state is a myth."

Among them, for example, is a document signed by Thomas Jefferson that reads "in the year of our Lord Christ." Barton uses this to point out that Jefferson was an ardent believer in Christianity.

This is fairly typical of Barton's dishonest approach to the matter: It's unremarkable that Jefferson would sign his documents that way, since he was indeed a Christian -- but he was moreover a Christian Deist:

Individual deists varied in the set of critical and constructive elements for which they argued. Some deists rejected miracles and prophecies but still considered themselves Christians because they believed in what they felt to be the pure, original form of Christianity – that is, Christianity as it existed before it was corrupted by additions of such superstitions as miracles, prophecies, and the doctrine of the Trinity. Some deists rejected the claim of Jesus' divinity but continued to hold him in high regard as a moral teacher (see, e.g., Thomas Jefferson's famous Jefferson Bible and Matthew Tindal's 'Christianity as Old as the Creation').

And so it goes throughout the segment -- Barton trotting out bits of arcania with which he bolsters his claim, and Huckabee credulously lapping it all up.

But it take only a little research to uncover the fact that Barton has a history of specious research. For years his book, The Myth of Separation -- which he's been selling since the early '90s -- has featured bogus quotes, made-up nonsense, and flat-out falsified history that has been dismantled time and again. Rob Boston debunked Barton thoroughly back then, and his methodology has not improved measurably since. (Here's a page devoted to exposing Barton's multitude of bogus quotations from the Founding Fathers.)

Moreover, as Boston notes, Barton has a long history of dalliances with the extremist fringes of the far right:

Barton also has ties to extremist elements. In his literature, Christian Reconstructionist authors and organizations are sometimes recommended. Reconstructionist activist Gary DeMar's book God And Government is suggested reading, and Reconstructionist-oriented groups such as the Plymouth Rock Foundation and the Providence Foundation are touted as resources.

Perhaps most alarming, Barton also has had a relationship with the racist and anti-Semitic fringes of the far right. According to Skipp Porteous of the Massachusetts-based Institute for First Amendment Studies, Barton was listed in promotional literature as a "new and special speaker" at a 1991 summer retreat in Colorado sponsored by Scriptures for America, a far-right ministry headed by Pastor Pete Peters. Peters' organization, which is virulently anti-Semitic and racist, spreads hysteria about Jews and homosexuals and has been linked to neo-Nazi groups. (The organization distributes a booklet called Death Penalty For Homosexuals.)

Peters' church is part of the racist "Christian Identity" movement. and three members of The Order, a violent neo-Nazi organization, formerly attended Peters' small congregation in LaPorte, Cole. After members of The Order murdered Denver radio talk show host Alan Berg in the mid 1980s, critics of Peters' ministry in Colorado charged that his hate-filled sermons had spurred the assassination.

Barton also campaigned in Washington state for Ellen Craswell, the 1996 GOP gubernatorial candidate, who ran on a "Reconstructionist" platform and later became involved the far-right Constitution Party.

The Myth of Separation similarly was a staple on the book tables at Patriot/militia gatherings in the 1990s, and was sold prominently through mail-order outfits like the Militia of Montana.

It sure is interesting to watch all this militia stuff from the '90s come bubbling back up in the post-Bush era. And it's even more interesting to see how it's getting mainstreamed by cable-TV talkers.

Speaking as a believing, praying Quaker, I gotta say a little Bush-era Lewis Black is the perfect antidote for today's National Day of Prayer mumbo jumbo.

Open thread below....

From Hardball April 8, 2009. Ken Blackwell tries to make up for being clueless by not shutting up when he has no idea what he's talking about. He's so outgunned by Hitchens that this is hardly a fair fight. I'm surprised Blackwell even agreed to this debate at all.

Blackwell said he'd gladly come back and debate Hitchens again with some facts to back up his talking points. Anyone want to take odds on whether that will ever happen?

Blackwell's tactics in this segment are typical for Republicans. When someone tries to stop you from lying, get snitty and accuse them of trying to "Bogart" your time if they interrupt you, as he did here. Then talk and talk to run out the clock in these ridiculous debate boxes the MSM thinks passes for some sort of "balance". Once you've run out as much of the time for the segment as you can get away with, the other person has thirty seconds to try to debunk the last few minutes of B.S. you just spewed. Which of course they can't do. And then...oh so sorry we're out of time from the host. Come back later and we'll do it again.

From Americans United for the Separation of Church and State:

President Barack Obama [recently] named a new executive director for his White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and signed an executive order creating a 25-member advisory council of religious and community leaders.

But civil rights and civil liberties advocates were disappointed to see that Obama left completely untouched five Bush-era executive orders and numerous agency regulations and rulings that allow publicly funded religious groups to discriminate in hiring on religious grounds and permit public funds to pay for construction and renovation of buildings used for worship.

That means billions of tax dollars in the federal pipeline are being allocated today under the controversial Bush-era rules.

“I would rather there be no ‘faith-based’ office,” said Americans United Executive Director Barry W. Lynn. “But if it exists, it must comply with long-established protections guaranteeing civil rights and civil liberties.”

AU’s Lynn urges every American to contact the White House. Read more.

From Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, which has:

...joined a legal brief asking the California Supreme Court to nullify Proposition 8, a November ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage in the state.

The friend-of-the-court brief, filed today by Americans United, the Anti-Defamation League and 30 other civil rights and civil liberties groups, argues that a bare majority of voters should not be permitted to remove fundamental rights from a minority group.

“Prop. 8 was conceived, funded and promoted by the Religious Right with the aim of eviscerating the rights of others, and it should not be allowed to stand,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “Allowing powerful religious groups to take away minority rights by referenda is fundamentally at odds with what America is about.”

...The case, Strauss v. Horton, is pending before the California Supreme Court and is being closely watched. Read more...

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From The Situation Room Oct. 30, 2008. While discussing the response of Kay Hagan to the Elizabeth Dole ad calling her Godless, Wolf Blitzer actually asks Donna Brazile and Bill Bennett if it's okay for candidates to be associating with atheists. I'm not sure what's more disturbing, his question, or their answers.

Blitzer: But did she make a mistake Donna by going to that fundraiser at the home of the woman who professes that there is no god?

Brazile: You know Wolf there are a lot of believers. I'm one of them. And there are people who just don't believe in an existence of a god. I don't know why because clearly there's strong evidence that there's a god but I believe that you serve all the people. Not just those that profess to have faith but those with little or no faith. That's how you convert them.

Blitzer: Is it a problem Bill to associate with atheists?

Bennett: Well this is an active atheist. This is a woman, ah, people who are campaigning to get "In God We Trust" off the currency. You know it would have been sensible for Kay Hagan or Kay Hagan's advisers to say let's just pass on this one. That's just going to get you into the association game. You know the "house of" like Barack Obama's been tagged with for the last six months or six years.

This is just so wrong on so many levels it's hard to know where to begin. First of all Donna Brazile, yes if you hold a public office you should serve all and not just those who profess to have faith, but that's not how you convert them!! Are you kidding me??!! There are plenty of people out there who don't care to be converted thank you. I know George Bush and the GOP have blown a hole right through this but we are supposed to have separation of church and state in this country, and we don't need to have two theocratic parties. One is one too many already. And Wolf, there is nothing wrong with being an atheist or heaven forbid associating with them. There's nothing wrong with atheists that might want to..gasp.. run for office. Just like there's nothing wrong with Muslims who want to run for office, or agnostics, or Jews, or Catholics. And Bill Bennett, we do still have a thing called free speech in this country and if someone doesn't like the words "In God We Trust" on the currency, they have every right to express that view without being treated like commie pinkos. Shame on all of you for this interview.

            MAJIKTHISE
"Currently, churches* who seek government contracts must promise not to discriminate or proselytize when they deliver social services. Sects who reject these reasonable terms disqualify themselves for federal support. Now, Bush wants to loosen the standards for government-funded charities. Some liberals are sympathetic to the proposed changes, including Matt Yglesias and Steve Schiffrin. They argue that it is more important to provide for the poor than to insist on the separation of church and state. If this were a real dichotomy, I might agree. But the Bush administration is ransoming the poor to weaken the separation of church and state."

In a set that is astoundingly cheesy, Hannity and most other cable "news" shows are now only using athiests to  exemplify the definition of "separation between Church and State" The standard they are trying to set is that if you disapprove of a separation than you are an atheist!

Also in keeping wiht FOX's "fair and balanced" mantra, all five questions to Hannity and Colmes by the studio audience were from religious conservatives.

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Thomas Jefferson:

This is why the founding fathers proposed a seperation of church and state.

Tom DeLay: