Tag Archives: Islam

The new hate group next door… Ann Arbor’s American Freedom Law Center makes the SPLC “hate group” list

I may be wrong, but, a few years ago, when I interviewed Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) Senior Fellow Mark Potok about the activities of hate groups across Michigan, I don’t believe his organization, which monitors the activities of some 892 extremist groups across the United States, had identified any in our immediate region that […]

Posted in Ann Arbor, Civil Liberties | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

Charlie Hebdo, terrorism, and the attempted assassination of political satire

This was Stéphane Charbonnier, better known as Charb. He was a political cartoonist, and the editor-in-chief of the French satire publication Charlie Hebdo. Today, he was murdered in Paris by masked gunmen along with 11 others, including cartoonists Cabu, Wolinski and Tignous. The men who perpetrated the attack have yet to be found, but evidence […]

Posted in Civil Liberties, Religious Extremism, Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 87 Comments

Reza Aslan on looking for the real Jesus, the threat of fundamentalist literalism, and making white heads explode

If you spend any time at all on the internet, you likely saw a video making the rounds yesterday of religious scholar Dr. Reza Aslan repeatedly defending his decision to write a book about the life of Jesus to Fox News host Lauren Green, who clearly felt as though the subject should be off limits […]

Posted in Other, Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

What you should know about the uprising in Turkey

Saturday night, I posted something on Facebook about the recent uprisings in Turkey, expressing both my support and frustration. (My support because, from what I can tell, the people taking to the streets across the country are largely folks who, like me, are interested in fighting for secular government, and the rights of individuals to […]

Posted in Civil Liberties, Other, Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 34 Comments

Syed Taj, Muslim candidate for Congress, subjected to outrageous racist attacks

Last week, when I noticed that the American Medical Association (AMA) had started taking out television ads in support of our friend Syed Taj, I knew that racist attacks from the right were inevitable. The AMA ads signaled to me that the race was close (as the AMA doesn’t invest in races that aren’t winnable), […]

Posted in Michigan, Politics, Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 28 Comments

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