An Openly Gay Atheist is Running for Pennsylvania Lt. Governor

The fact that he's in the running at all is just incredible.

• The Biden administration is bringing back the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, a department that offers taxpayer-funded social services using faith-based groups as conduits. It sounds like a church/state separation blunder waiting to happen, but we’re optimistic after Biden appointed Melissa Rogers to lead the program. Rogers ran the same department under Obama’s second term and was met with praise from secular organizations.

• This kind of comment inadvertently says more about the Bible than the reader.

  Bryan Fischer @BryanJFischer

  If you do not come to the Bible with a teachable heart, it will harden your heart to everything connected with God.

  

  Alice Greczyn @alicefood

  Some attribute my loss of faith to "bad eggs in church." "People are broken, but God is love," "Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater," etc. But as I said to @hemantmehta on the #FriendlyAtheist podcast, it was the Bible itself that alienated me. https://t.co/ZKIXU49tsO

• Pennsylvania State Rep. Brian Sims, an openly gay atheist who doesn’t mince words when speaking against Republicans, announced his candidacy for Lt. Governor of the state and we’re here for it 110%.

  Here he is in 2016 speaking against an abortion-restricting law:

  We need more strong voices like Sims. Particularly in Tennessee this week, where a bill has just been introduced that would require women seeking an abortion to present a signed permission slip from the man who impregnated her in order to receive the medical procedure.

• Apostle Frederick K.C. Price, the California pastor who gained notoriety in 2008 for organizing an “army” of children to march in the streets against marriage equality, has died of COVID. We mention his bigoted history specifically because it was overlooked in his New York Times obituary. Price fought for his legacy to include treating LGBTQ community as second class citizens— so out of respect for the dead, let’s honor his wish.

• After botching the response during Hurricane Harvey years ago, it looks like Pastor Joel Osteen has learned his lesson. His Houston-based megachurch is offering shelter to those in Texas who don’t have power during the winter storm hitting Texas:

  Robert Downen @RobDownenChron

  Just in: Joel Osteen’s Lakewood church is open as a heating center for Houston. #Texas #TexasWeather “We have beds, blankets and other supplies. No one will be turned away.  Arrive at either entrance – Edloe or Norfolk streets.”

• If you live in Escambia County, Florida and only go to church on Sunday because the liquor stores are closed, we may soon have some good news for you. There’s consideration underway to repeal the county’s “blue law,” which prohibits Sunday alcohol sales.

• Finally, here’s how OmoIgbo deconverted from her Pentecostal upbringing to become one of the narrowest of demographics: a Black female atheist.