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	<title>Secular Sanity</title>
	<link>http://atheistsforhumanrights.com/sanity</link>
	<description>Religion in the News, as Viewed from the Moral High Ground of Atheism</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:13:27 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<item>
		<title>Needing to mind one&#8217;s own business</title>
		<description><![CDATA[By Marie Alena Castle
Tom Brock wouldn&#8217;t have needed to complain about John Townsend outing him if he had been minding his own business. (&#8220;Same-sex urges needn&#8217;t be acted upon&#8221; Aug. 4.) But no, he has been on a campaign to make his religious views about homosexual behavior the law of the land, and that is [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://atheistsforhumanrights.com/sanity/?p=72</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Why Catholics excommunicate for abortion</title>
		<description><![CDATA[By Marie Alena Castle
[I sent the following to the Strib. Of course it won't be printed.]
Reports of the excommunication of Sister Margaret McBride for allowing an abortion to save a woman&#8217;s life need to be understood in the context of Catholic theology.
Excommunication essentially consigns a person to hell and is the Church&#8217;s harshest punishment. Abortion [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://atheistsforhumanrights.com/sanity/?p=69</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Understanding right and wrong</title>
		<description><![CDATA[By Marie Alena Castle
[I sent this to the Strib. Don't hold your breath waiting to see it in print.]
When I read Katherine Kersten&#8217;s April 11 defense of the pope in the pedophilia scandal I was struck by how little value was placed on real people. It&#8217;s all about protecting religious institutions and saving imaginary souls. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://atheistsforhumanrights.com/sanity/?p=68</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Letter to the Minneapolis Star Tribune</title>
		<description><![CDATA[By Marie Alena Castle
[I sent this to the Strib, which will, of course, not print it.]
Your Jan. 30 Letter of the Day wondered why prochoice groups would complain about a Super Bowl ad featuring a woman who chose not to have an abortion. As long as abortion is a legal medical procedure, women will always [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://atheistsforhumanrights.com/sanity/?p=67</link>
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		<title>Why women are treated differently</title>
		<description><![CDATA[By Marie Alena Castle
Ken Herman&#8217;s Dec. 30 article questions why women aren&#8217;t treated the same as men regarding Selective Service. It&#8217;s because women are not free citizens; they are essentially social property because of their role as childbearers. Keeping them from full participation in military service preserves the availability of that property to society by [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://atheistsforhumanrights.com/sanity/?p=66</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Religion and health care</title>
		<description><![CDATA[By Marie Alena Castle
One special interest that should not be involved in the debate on health care reform is religion. Yet provisions are proposed that exclude abortion to accommodate religious belief in such things as single-celled persons, and others that disadvantage equitable coverage for same-sex partners out of ignorance of sexuality and its variations. Now [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://atheistsforhumanrights.com/sanity/?p=65</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Gov. Pawlenty&#8217;s authoritarian views</title>
		<description><![CDATA[By Marie Alena Castle
If Gov. Pawlenty had stated in his Sept. 18 Washington speech that his conservative values included marginalizing racial minorities, the uproar would be worse than what we have over health care reform. Yet, he shamelessly marginalized the majority of Americans who are non-Christian, liberal Christian or nonreligious by advocating that our laws [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://atheistsforhumanrights.com/sanity/?p=63</link>
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	<item>
		<title>God sentiments at U.S. Capitol Visitors&#8217; Center</title>
		<description><![CDATA[By Marie Alena Castle
The plan to etch &#8220;In God We Trust&#8221; and the &#8220;under God&#8221; version of the Pledge of Allegiance on the Capitol Visitors Center in Washington D.C. is not harmless civic piety. Yes, it is an unconstitutional establishment of religion, as the Freedom From Religion Foundation&#8217;s lawsuit charges, but in some ways it [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://atheistsforhumanrights.com/sanity/?p=61</link>
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		<title>Sharing the tax burden</title>
		<description><![CDATA[By Marie Alena Castle
Gov. Pawlenty&#8217;s budget cuts affecting local government are certain to require property tax increases to maintain essential services. If this burden is to be shared equitably, perhaps religious institutions, which are exempt from taxes, should be asked to contribute by paying a fee for the city services they receive at no cost. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://atheistsforhumanrights.com/sanity/?p=60</link>
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		<title>Atheist response to Katherine Kersten</title>
		<description><![CDATA[By Marie Alena Castle
On April 28, 1998, at a Minneapolis symposium on religion in public life that I attended, Lutheran theologian Martin Marty said in his keynote speech, &#8220;It is the role of unbelievers to force religions to be benign.&#8221;
That&#8217;s what we atheists try to do. The liberal Marty would probably be at odds with [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://atheistsforhumanrights.com/sanity/?p=59</link>
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