On Monday, August 10, Waller County Sheriff R. Glenn Smith, in what seems to be an attempt to insult United Methodist pastor Hannah Bonner, said: “Why don’t you go back to the Church of Satan that you run?” Reverend Bonner has been active for roughly the past month in an ongoing protest against the death of Ms. Sandra Bland in the Waller County Jail, maintaining a presence with fellow activists of varying belief systems in the nearby parking lot. A few minutes later Sheriff Smith pointed to Bonner, who was filming him with a camera, and referred to her as […]
religious persecution
3 posts
Rabbi Jason Miller quite aptly points out the pitfalls of Michigan’s pending “Religious Freedom and Restoration Act” which would serve as a license for legalized bigotry. When I discussed the US Supreme Court’s decision in favor of Hobby Lobby in my essay “Mask Slippage,” I stated “Let this revealing behavior that has emerged since the SCOTUS decision be a clear warning to secular people that many religions are simply biding their time until the opportunities arise to recapture their dominance over those who are not of their ilk.” It seems “biding time” is ending. This emerging trend is also ringing […]
The United States’ militia has assisted Yazidi refugees—a sect long reviled for misperceived “devil worship” by Muslims and Christians—to escape from Mount Sinjar where they fled persecution by the extremist Islamic State militants. Some still remain near their shrine at the summit. Magus Anton Szandor LaVey paid the Yazidis tribute with a meditative ritual based on their sacred texts published in his THE SATANIC RITUALS (1972) celebrating their peacock angel, Melek Taus. Religious persecution of those deemed to be devotees of The Devil by theists is quite active in the 21st century—some things never seem to change. —Magus Peter H. Gilmore