Left-wing writer mocks turning to God in response to Uvalde massacre with 'faith that allowed brutal enslavement to be the law of the land'



An opinion columnist for the Los Angeles Times penned a Wednesday piece mocking the act of turning to God following the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, with the "kind of faith that allowed brutal enslavement to be the law of the land."

What are the details?

LZ Granderson begins his Times op-ed by lambasting "so-called religious conservatives" who "like to explain away national tragedies — be they natural or man-made — through the lens of God’s wrath, or at least indirect punishment for 'sins.'"

After picking on the likes of Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and evangelical pastor John Hagee, Granderson writes that "they clearly have a period in mind in which they believe God was happier with the direction of the country, but our history makes it impossible to pinpoint a date without looking racist. So they tend to talk in nostalgic Judeo-Christian generalities."

He then invokes the aftermath of last week's mass killing in Uvalde, particularly the funerals for elementary school students beginning to take place — and adds that at these services "we’re going to be hearing a lot more of these generalities."

"With each passing day, it is clear that conservatives want to move the national conversation surrounding these mass shootings away from gun access and toward God," Granderson writes in his Times op-ed.

Specifically, he says conservative Christians like Hagee, Santorum, and Gingrich believe evil is to blame for massacres like Uvalde rather than guns: "The adherents of this thinking say after any horror: We have to fight evil."

"My question is how a nation that romanticizes, even monetizes, its own evil beginnings can even start to fight the kind of evil some of these politicos speak of," Granderson continues in his Times op-ed. "This is the country that turned Christopher Columbus from being lost at sea into a folk hero who 'discovered' a land full of people. We are the ones who rebranded slave labor camps as plantations."

He also suggests there's a "desire to see ourselves as good people," which is "much more pleasant for us than acknowledging we were never as holy as we like to tell ourselves."

Granderson then declares in his Times op-ed that "we don’t need to return the kind of faith that allowed brutal enslavement to be the law of the land for centuries. We don’t need to return to the kind of faith that allowed Jim Crow laws to follow."

After quoting Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — "You just cannot change character without changing a heart, and you can’t do that without turning to God" — Granderson writes that he'd ask Patrick, "When exactly did a nation built on stolen land, kidnapping, and enslavement turn away from God?"

He concludes his Times op-ed by saying "many of us don’t wonder how this evil came in. We wonder why people ... won’t admit it’s been here since the beginning."

Bibles removed from Easter display at veterans medical center gift shop after atheist group objects to them



Bibles recently were removed from an Easter display at a New Mexico veterans medical center gift shop after the Military Religious Freedom Foundation — an atheist activist group — objected to them.

What are the details?

The MRFF noted Wednesday that it managed to convince leaders at the Raymond G. Murphy Veterans Administration Medical Center in Albuquerque to remove a display of Bibles and related Christian reading materials on "prominent display" in its Patriot Store facility on the first floor of the main medical building.

The MRFF said 10 employees and patients — seven of whom "identify as avid practitioners of the Christian faith" — complained and reached out to MRFF "for help regarding the unconstitutionality of that sectarian Christian literature display; especially as it was juxtaposed right next to an otherwise non-objectionable display of 'secular-ish' chocolate Easter bunnies, related holiday candy. and Easter bunny cutouts, et al."

According to MRFF, the displayed Bibles "completely violated the time, place, and manner restrictions of the VA’s own regulations as well as the No Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights and its construing Federal caselaw."

The Bibles and other religious items were gone within 24 hours of the request, the MRFF added while praising the VA's quick actions.

Hold on a second

The American Center for Law & Justice caught wind of the issue and said it penned a legal letter — dated March 31 — to the interim director of the VA to "inform her that her decision, rather than upholding the Constitution, actually violated it" and "to demand that the display of Christian literature be returned forthwith to the gift shop."

The ACLJ insisted that the Constitution "requires the government to be neutral toward religion, to neither favor it nor inhibit it. By removing only the religious display while leaving the secular display of Easter bunnies, the government singled out religion for special detriment — which it may not lawfully do."

In addition, the ACLJ said "Easter is a time when many Christians exchange gifts. It makes sense for a gift shop to offer the type of items popular at Easter. Offering a religious product that visitors to your gift shop are looking for and wish to purchase — even in a gift shop in a federal facility like a VA Medical Center — does not mean that the government is either endorsing the message contained in the literature offered or favoring the faith group the literature reflects. To suggest otherwise is nonsense."

'Fighting Christian nationalism'

It isn't clear how or if the VA has responded to the ACLJ's demand to place the Bibles back on display in the gift shop. But the MRFF added on its website that the ACLJ is "constitutionally ignorant and religiously bigoted" and that the ACLJ's post about the controversy "repugnantly libels MRFF as 'anti-religion crusaders.'"

The MRFF added that it has "consistently – 24/7/365 – been at the forefront of fighting Christian nationalism in the military and our veterans' facilities."

As readers of TheBlaze are well aware, this is far from the first time the MRFF has raised objections of this sort:

Democratic NYC Mayor Eric Adams forces Christian minister — who wrote book that 'called homosexuality a sin' — to resign from education panel



Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams forced Christian minister Rev. to resign from an education panel — to which he recently appointed her — because it was discovered that she had authored a book that "called homosexuality a sin," the New York Times said.

Rev. Kathlyn Barrett-Layne, one of Mayor Adams\u2019s appointees to the Panel for Educational Policy, was forced to resign hours after it was disclosed she had written a book that called homosexuality a sin.https://nyti.ms/36h7HhD
— NYT Metro (@NYT Metro) 1648074002

What are the details?

Barrett-Layne leads Staten Island’s Reach Out and Touch Ministries, the New York Daily News said, adding that she had been one of Adams’ picks for the Panel for Educational Policy, which approves contracts for the city's Department of Education.

While Adams’ office had lauded Barrett-Layne as a minister who "spends her time inspiring people with her speaking and teaching in Bible studies," just hours after the Daily News published a story about her "anti-gay rhetoric," the paper said Barrett-Layne got the boot.

In her 2013 book “Challenging Your Disappointments,” Barrett-Layne wrote that Christian leaders "struggle with the same temptations of drugs, alcohol, homosexuality, fornication, adultery, pedophilia, stealing, lying, envy, covetousness, and every other sin" that people in the congregation "struggle with,” the Daily News said.

The Daily News characterized the aforementioned passage as placing "same-sex relationships in the same category of 'sin' as pedophilia and other crimes."

'A virulent homophobe'

LBGTQ advocates were furious and demanded Barrett-Layne's ouster.

Allen Roskoff, a longtime LGBTQ rights activist, told the Daily News he texted as much to Adams a few hours before Barrett-Layne was asked to resign.

Roskoff added to the paper that her firing was “only a partial victory" and that Barrett-Layne's "replacement needs to be someone from the LGBTQ community. We’re only halfway there.”

Ex-Queens Councilman Daniel Dromm, who's gay, told the Daily News prior to Barrett-Layne's ouster that the mayor "appointed a virulent homophobe to a panel that will have direct impact on LGBTQIA+ students and staff; it’s unbelievable." The Panel for Educational Policy has say over public school curriculums, the paper said.

What did Barrett-Layne have to say?

"I feel bullied," Barrett-Layne told the Times in an interview. "I believe that the city is being bullied. I feel as though my character, my name, my church have been defamed with lies, and that everything was taken out of context.”

She also told the Times her comments were based on interviews with people she had counseled or conducted for the book and that she's considering legal action against the city.

“I’m not homophobic. The answer is no, absolutely not,” Barrett-Layne added to the Times.

Anything else?

Christian commentator Michael Brown took issue with Barrett-Layne's ouster, asking "was she equating homosexuality with pedophilia? Obviously not — that is, no more than she was equating lying with pedophilia, or envy with pedophilia, or 'every other sin' with pedophilia."

Brown added that "her grave transgression was that she simply stated that homosexual practice was a sin. In other words, she agreed with the Bible. She affirmed what Christians have taught for two millennia. She wrote what Paul (and others) wrote in the pages of Scripture. For this, she was promptly dismissed."

(H/T: FaithWire)