Sinful goats * Sexpo Salvation * American ATHE1ST : Thursday’s Religion News Roundup

(RNS) More wackiness from Pat Robertson. There's signs of the End Times if you just look up in the sky (near an airport). And how could such a cute little goat be so sinful? All that and more in today's Roundup.

The eScapegoat, an online creation of a San-Francisco non-profit to help people get ready for Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. Photo courtesy G-dcast

The latest crazy thing to come out of Pat Robertson’s mouth: Gay people in San Francisco wear special rings that will cut you when you shake their hands and transmit HIV. Or something like that.

Crowds flocked to D.C. yesterday to recall MLK’s “I Have a Dream Speech” 50 years on, including a reminder that King was a pastor before he was a prophet.

Our own Omid Safi says there’s still work to be done in “connect(ing) the dots between what Martin called the triple giant of evil:  racism, materialism, and militarism.”


The eScapegoat, an online creation of a San-Francisco non-profit to help people get ready for Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. Photo courtesy G-dcast

The eScapegoat, an online creation of a San-Francisco non-profit to help people get ready for Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. Photo courtesy G-dcast

Favorite story of the day: Why do real atonement for Yom Kippur when you can get an animated goat to do it for you?

A Massachusetts church is facing a whodunit after someone broke in and stole “everything but the pews.”

An appeals court in Ohio sided with a hospital that wants to force an Amish family to do chemotherapy for their 10-year-old daughter, who has leukemia.

Fast food workers are staging a nationwide strike today, and some religious groups are backing them. NPR offers a portrait of what they’re up against. Juicy Ecumenism takes the opposite POV, arguing that churches should leave the fast food industry alone.

New Jersey picked the wrong guy to pick a fight with over an ATHE1ST license plate application; the state relented after American Atheists head David Silverman promised a loud and long public fight.


The Catholic bishop of Honolulu is asking his flock to pray the rosary around the state capitol building to prevent same-sex marriage, which he says will lead to polygamy and incest.

Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, attorneys for Gov. Tom Corbett are trying to stop one county from issuing marriage licenses to gay couples, saying same-sex couples have as much a right to marriage as a 12-year-old.

Across the border in New Jersey, Democrat Cory Booker’s somewhat ambiguous sexuality is becoming a campaign issue, with his GOP opponent calling Booker’s private life “kind of weird.”

Here’s something you don’t see every day: the Sexpo convention featuring “porn stars, pole dancing, hypnotists and an amateur strip show” … and the Salvation Army.

Not religious per se, but perhaps a sign that the End of Days is nigh: Hello Kitty-themed airplanes are coming soon to the U.S. God help us all.

Ring, ring: It’s Pope Francis on the line, this time spending a half hour counseling a rape victim from Argentina who had written to the pope.


Orthodox Jewish men in Israel are demanding gas masks that are beard-friendly in case of a retaliatory chemical attack from Syria.

The Dominican Republican is now recognizing religious weddings outside the Catholic Church, but a note to The AP: Jehovah’s Witnesses ≠ evangelicals.

And with that, it’s back to work. Before you go, make sure we have your email address so you can receive the daily Roundup every day for free …

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