"The Doctor and the Shiksa"

Thanks Uncle Mich!

All Religions Are Fairy Tales...

...or so said a billboard in Orange County, Florida. MediaNet, the company that leases the billboard for $1400 per month, claimed ignorance saying that the sign was put up illegally at night without their knowledge. That's a hard sell considering the sign's six-week run starting the week before Easter and ending April 25.

According to a local TV station, restaurants in the sign's shadow reported a decline in business over the same period, attributing their losses to the controversial billboard. Some locals even thought nearby business had a hand in the sign.

Above the pavement, vehicles and pedestrian traffic this sign boldly delivered its message for over a month. It might have caused some to question their faith and actually examine their beliefs. Others, feeling persecuted, may have been fortified in their godly convictions.

Harvard professor Steven Pinker writes "...there has been an inexorable trend: The deeper we probe these questions, and the more we learn about the world in which we live, the less reason there is to believe in God." We still do not know what motivated the provocateur behind the billboard but in light of the 'trend' to which Pinker refers, it doesn't seem out of place.

ULC Minister Kathy Griffin Weds Couple

In a decidedly unconventional ceremony, actor and comedian Kathy Griffin used her recent ordination through the ULC Monastery to officiate the marriage between her friends Brian Anstey and Elka Shapiro.

The Houston Chronicle has the story here.

Griffin, an infamous provocateur, often finds herself the target of protests by conservative religious groups for her jokes about Jesus.

Griffin was able to perform in her function as minister in New York in spite of the city's cumbersome registration process, thanks to paperwork provided by the ULC.

The ceremony was a light-hearted affair. At one point the bride was asked to recite the reception menu. The wedding was filmed and will appear in a forthcoming episode of Griffin's reality show, "My Life on the D-List".

"I might be hurting the cause I was trying to help."

The Enquirer ran the story:

Sam Lapin, who teaches communications mostly at the university's Grant County campus and says he is a minister through the Internet-based Universal Life Church, withdrew from the Feb. 19 event at NKU organized by Common Ground, a group for gay and lesbian students.

Lapin might have been breaking the law if he had performed a ceremony labeled "official" by the Common Ground invitation. Kentucky voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2004 banning same-sex marriages, and state law says that any minister who performs an official wedding knowing that it would not be recognized could be charged with a misdemeanor.

The irony is quite saddening: that a well-meaning minister could damage his or her cause by performing the act they are fighting for.

Make February 29 a Holiday

The buzz seems to be gaining some steam. Wags on Reddit have been hashing it out since this morning.

In the English folk tradition, Leap Day was the only day when it was acceptable for women to propose to men.

Happy February 29!

Press Release: ACLU Files Civil Action to Defend ULC Marriages in PA

The ACLU filed three civil actions in Philadelphia County Court today on behalf of three couples whose marriages are jeopardized by a separate ruling in York County, PA last September.

The saga began last September after Universal Life Church minister Adam Johnston's ordination was declared invalid by Judge Maria Musti Cook. Johnston contacted the ULC who enlisted the support of the ACLU of PA and responded to Judge Cook's unconstitutional ruling with a press release. In addition to assisting the ACLU in research and putting them in contact with its ministers, the ULC retained the counsel of Davis Wright Tremaine to explore its own options and legal recourse for their PA ministers.

The actions filed by the ACLU and the law firm of Drinker Biddle & Reath on behalf of three couples, two married by Universal Life Church ministers and one by a Jesuit priest, seek to declare "...that their marriage is valid under the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania", effectively overturning Judge Cook's ruling.

“What we want is to fix a problem that never should have existed in the first place,” said Mary Catherine Roper, staff attorney with the ACLU of Pennsylvania. “The state has no business invalidating marriages just because it doesn’t like the kind of minister who officiated them.”

Chaplain Freeman at the Universal Life Church Monastery stated that "...any decision affecting a minister's right to perform marriage rituals, as well as funerals and baptisms would be in violation of existing case law established under the only Federal decision to date in Universal Life Church v. The State of Utah."

The Martyrdom of St. Rowan

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury has been taking heat lately for comments he made recommending that parts of Sharia law be incorporated into the British legal system. Martin Rowson editorializes above.

Hitchens was not sparing in his derision of the Archbishop, writing:

"...just look at how casually this sheep-faced English cleric throws away the work of centuries of civilization."

While we here at the Universal Life Church respect each religion and strongly advocate freedom of practice, we are equally strongly opposed to religions meddling with the state and vice-versa. The domestic abuse and misogyny that Sharia sanctions and codifies aside, there are so many different interpretations and implementing one strain would disenfranchise Muslims from different sects, not to mention secularists and other non-Muslims.