It's that time of year once again folks – we need you to put forward your nominations for our annual Bad Faith Award, where we recognise the person who has made the year's most outstanding contribution to talking unadulterated (and often destructive) nonsense about matters of religion.Last year over 5,500 of you voted, with more than 1,800 choosing the eventual winner, Sarah Palin. At this time last year most of us were blissfully ignorant of the existence of Palin, but by late September she'd emerged as the firm favourite to take the Bad Faith crown, if not the US vice-presidency.
So who will it be this year? We need you to let us know who you think deserves to be known as 2009's ultimate enemy of reason by leaving a comment on this post. We'll then whittle all suggestions down to a shortlist that we'll put to the public vote, with the victorious irrationalist announced in the January issue of New Humanist.
Let the nominating commence...
Posts
41 comments:
Bill Donohue without a doubt for this absolutely shocking response to the Catholic Church abuse scandal in Ireland:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6fwPcoX6UU
Should be watched with this for maximum effect:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jHqndf9Kx4
He's also made an idiot of himself for trying to get TV shows banned before he's seen them, and generally acting like a lunatic on American TV.
Sebastian Faulks.
Dan Hannan.
I'd second Bill Donohue but also worth a mention is Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor.
http://richarddawkins.net/article,3846,Atheists-not-fully-human-says-Cardinal-Cormac-Murphy-OConnor,BBC-Radio
But it is hard to think of anything worse than Bill's barefaced defense of rapists!
And a second for Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor!
I probably wouldn't vote for him, given choices like Bill Donohue, but Andrew Brown springs to mind for some reason.
Side note: the "Bad Faith Awards" logo would look nicer if you sorted out the kerning. Kerning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerning
I nominate Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for (Other) Marriage for her completely-bonkers embrace of the former Miss California --Carrie Prejean, her CNN screaming matches, and, above all, else her preposterous and oft-parodied Gathering Storm ad, which became a YouTube sensation.
I nominate Ken Ham, the president of Answers in Genesis, and director/owner of the Creation Museum in Kentucky. He's made a whole monument to denying the earths age and evolution without any science.
http://creationmuseum.org/
I nominate Archbishop José Cardoso Sobrinho of Brazil, who excommunicated the medical staff who performed an abortion on and the mother of a 9-year-old girl who was raped by her step father. The 80 pound girl was pregnant with twins. Medical authorities determined that the girl would probably die in childbirth if the pregnancy was not terminated. Abortion is legal in Brazil in cases of rape and/or to save the life of the mother. The church took no action against the rapist step father.
Co-nominees: Archbishop Sobrinho and Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re of the Vatican who upheld the Bishop's ruling.
Read more here: http://tirelesswing.blogspot.com/2009/03/christians-behaving-badly-8.html
I nominate the Reverend Wiley Drake from the First Southern Baptist Church, Buena Park/California for trying to kill Barack Obama by "imprecatory prayers": http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2009/06/25/pastor-asks-god-to-smite-president-obama/
What about the Pope for trying to stop people using condoms in places where AIDS is prevalent?
I nominate the UN
http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=1439
"Anything which can be deemed “religious” is no longer allowed to be a subject of discussion at the UN – and almost everything is deemed religious."
Another vote for Ken Ham (in the light of the recent skeptic invasion of his "museum").
Er... is this "first past the post" or "proportional representation"? In the case of the latter I'd also like to nominate the Irish government for their inane blasphemy law.
I dunno. These are all excellent nominations, and I'm tempted to second Bill Donohue...
But I think this year, for his wussy, accomodationist, "The problem with science education in America is all those mean atheists" nonsense, I'm going to have to go with Chris Mooney.
Fred Phelps surely deserves a shout - does this award have a "lifetime achievement" category?! If not, still plenty of work from the last year that deserves to be "recognised": http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4696132/US-Church-which-calls-for-homosexuals-to-be-killed-banned-from-UK.html
Ken Ham and Bill Donohue are top choices for me.
I'll nominate Laurie Higgins for going after Hemant Mehta's job citing his atheist views from his blog at friendlyatheist.com. see:
http://friendlyatheist.com/2009/08/19/why-the-illinois-family-institute-is-angry-with-me/
http://friendlyatheist.com/2009/08/21/illinois-family-institute-goes-after-me-again/
http://friendlyatheist.com/2009/08/22/laurie-higgins-of-the-illinois-family-institute-issues-an-open-letter-to-me/
It's not as big a story as the others nominated so far, but going after someone's job for their views (and Hemant does excellent at keeping his views separate from his job as a teacher) goes against everything the United States should stand for.
I'm tempted to name pope Ratzo, because of his high profile and absolutely fabulous hat, but the recent business at the Creation "Museum" pushes Ken Ham to the top of my list. Ken it is!
I would like to nominate Tony Blair over his Faith Foundation, and for reasons Richard Dawkins explained better than I ever could in the most gloriously sarcastic article ever written.
Michelle Bachman, for ... everything she says about religion.
I second Laurie Higgins.
I would like to nominate the Governor of Texas, Rick 'The Hair' Perry for continuing to undermine the educational standards for Texas and most of the United States through the nominations of Chair of the State Board of Education.
The first name I thought of was Oklahoma’s Sally Kern whose “Proclamation for Morality” was the most egregious violation of church/state separation I’ve seen in 2009.
http://goodreasonnews.blogspot.com/2009/07/sally-kern-embarrassment-to-oklahoma.html
Second the nomination for Gov. Perry of Texas. The school system down there is just becoming more and more insane. Thanks largely to this guy.
Pastor Steven Anderson for his homophobic sermons and imprecatory prayers for President Obama.
I absolutely second Steven Anderson of Tempe, AZ, for his unapologetic, apoplectic call for the execution of my people (homosexuals) and his wish that "(he) could send (his flock) out with rifles against the sodomites (sic)" an explicit inciting of violence against a minority, supplemented by paranoid, long-discredited, tired spiteful lies about the gay community, not to mention his useless prayer for the death of our President.
Gov. Crist of Florida for this: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/AP/story/1196773.html
I second Sally Kern. Bill Donohue and Ken Ham are also top choices.
Can I have a second nominee?
Francis Collins
http://biologos.org/
For setting up the BioLogos foundation.
The government of Iran, for upholding corrupt theocracy by murder, rape, torture and wrongful imprisonment.
Much further down the scale...
Joint nomination: Terry Eagleton and Karen Armstrong, for attacking Enlightenment values from the well-padded comfort of Enlightenment institutions.
I nominate Stephen Green from Christian Voice.
(http://www.christianvoice.org.uk/)
He's the guy the BBC go to when they want a contibution from a religious nutter!
There are so many that are totally deserving of the award that it is hard to pick one out of the whole rotten bunch: I will say Ken Ham and Bill donohue are deserving of it along withz many others
Can I anti-nominate all these assorted american fundamentalist media-hogs? I know they're all very nasty, but they're all also a) rather obvious targets and b) publicity whores.
If we can't find someone from our own shores to nominate then my vote so far goes to the Brazilian archbishop.
ANother suggestion...Ann Coulter...what a total nut job!
I second the suggestion of Andrew Brown.
It's a shame that we can't go for random people on the internet, because the users orangeWIZARD and LivingSoul on here:
http://forums.gametrailers.com/forum/religion-and-philosophy/289
Would be perfect for this. Jehovah's Witness Creationists. Absolute IDiots.
I suggest anybody that wants a good laugh, take a look at the link and have a good look at the topic "the reason why we didn't evolve from apes."
Dermot Aherne for blighting Ireland with a blasphemy law!
I second the nomination of Tony Blair.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/foyle_and_west/8306222.stm
Rev Jonathan Campbell for calling Derry City's annual Halloween festival,which brings all communities together EVIL!!!!
I'm voting for Blair (now there's something I never thought I'd say, ever again) with Damian Thompson as a wildcard outsider for this sort of thing.
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