ACLU:

The American Civil Liberty Union announced today that President Obama’s decision to mandate coverage for birth control does not violate religious liberty.
The ACLU’s Alicia Gay warns that the “powerful lobbying arm of the Catholic Church” mistakenly claims that the HHS contraception mandate violates their religious liberty.
Individuals who choose not to pay for employees’ contraceptives, the ACLU counters, are forcing their beliefs on their employees.

“The fundamental promise of religious liberty in this country doesn’t create a right to impose those views on others, including ignoring civil rights laws or denying critical health care,” Gay insists.

Somehow in the ACLU’s backwards world they think that the “wall of separation” between church and state is only for the church to not infringe upon the government. It is laughable because the founders’ clear intent was to keep government out of religion. It isn’t shocking, they’ve held this belief forever. If an individual wants to mention Jesus in a graduation speech they think it is the beginning of the end, but government forcing a religion to violate its own beliefs is A OK with this dangerous organization.

Just look at this sentence: “Individuals who choose not to pay for employees’ contraceptives, the ACLU counters, are forcing their beliefs on their employees.” So, according to ACLU illogic individuals who do not pay for other people’s contraceptives are somehow forcing their beliefs on others. But somehow on the same coin….the government forcing people who do not believe in contraceptives to pay for those that do are not forcing their beliefs on others. It makes your head spin.

Ed Morrissey is all over this:

The rights in the Constitution are not granted to American citizens because the government decided to offer them beneficently at their discretion. They exist in the document as a testament to our natural rights, part of our innate humanness, and are detailed in the Constitution as a bar to government’s overreach in trampling them. If the ACLU can’t figure that much out, then not only have they jumped the shark, they’ve nuked the fridge and made themselves entirely irrelevant except for the elitist crowd that cheers on tyranny. And that is exactly what has happened with this HHS mandate.

Rhymes With Right:

The ACLU seems to thinkt that if Catholic institutions are not forced to pay for the birth control, sterilization, and abortions of their employees that some substantive right is being violated. That is nonsensical – as nonsensical as arguing that a Jewish nursing home with a kosher kitchen failing to provide bacon and pork products to its non-Jewish employees is somehow an unlawful and illegitimate imposition of Judaism upon those employees.

The reality here is that the ACLU isn’t concerned about the First Amendment here. It is instead concerned about the perpetual extension of the abortion culture in America. As a result, they are willing to see the federal government require that those with moral scruples against abortion be forced to burn a little incense at the altar of Margaret Sanger – or be crushed by the instruments of the state in the same way that the ancient Romans sought to crush the early Christian community for refusing to make such sacrifices at the altar of the emperors.

This isn’t new for the ACLU. They have always been hypocrites when it comes to the first amendment, especially if it conflicts with the abortion agenda. Abortion has always trumped the 1st Amendment as the ACLU’s top priority.

Also see: PJ Tattler
The Barber Shop

(Marjorie Clifton at HuffPo) I am the product of 14 years of Catholic school and am a practicing Catholic, actively involved in the church all of my life. As a woman with a career in politics and women’s leadership, I have quietly worked within the church to make change and have cautiously offered my voice only when I felt it was essential. But, I can be quiet no longer.

You are welcome to speak out. It’s your Constitutional right. You are not free to push your beliefs on others by government law. That is against everything this country was founded on. Oh, and violates the portion of that same 1st Amendment regarding religion

Recently, the Catholic leadership came out in opposition to the mandate in our new healthcare law that all health insurance providers offer coverage for prescribed birth control, even for employees in some Catholic Institutions. But, let’s be clear about what the real issue is here. It is not about government controls, and it is not about infringement of our religious beliefs. It is about a church that has lost touch with reality. The leadership of the Catholic Church either is ignoring or is unaware of the disconnect between Catholic teaching and Catholic reality.

No, it is about government, and using the out of control force of government to make Catholic institutions, and other religious institutions, offer birth control. Also, sterilizations and the morning after pill. Ms. Clifton rationalizes this as “well, Catholics have sex, so, their health insurance provider should be not only forced to offer this products, but do so with a zero deductible.” So, the church is left with the choice of either offering the health insurance which violates their beliefs or dropping coverage.

Essentially, it boils down to people forcing their beliefs on other people. This is America. The religious institutions have the right, and the constitutional right, to offer insurance that adheres to their beliefs. The people who work for them have the freedom to go out and get their own insurance if they want free birth control and morning after pills. Liberals do not want anyone to have a choice. It’s their way or no way. They aren’t very tolerant of opposing viewpoints.

One has to wonder how the Obama admin. and liberals would react if the Muslim leaders came out against this decree.

Of course, these mandates are not direct: they require insurance carriers to offer the measures, but, then the religious institutions won’t have choice themselves. All are forced to offer birth control, sterilization, and abortion pills.

“Unless this rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled to either violate our consciences or drop health care coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing so),” according to a letter from Archbishop Joseph Naumann of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas.

He and other church prelates asked that the message be read from pulpits over the weekend.

“We cannot — we will not — comply with this unjust law,” Naumann’s letter stated.

An Obama appointee muzzled Army chaplains from reading the letter over the weekend, a clear violation of the 1st Amendment.

Liberals constantly tell us about this mythical separation of church and state. Funny how all of a sudden the State is allowed to dictate to the church.

Superintendent Todd Carlson of Shawano High School in Shawano, Wisconsin is sorry a student observed his First Amendment rights and had his article published in the school newspaper that denounces homosexuals adopting children. And so Superintendent Carlson is making amends by punishing this Christian kid for being so darn Christian. Superintendent Carlson has also decided in his infinite wisdom to censure this article by having it sent down the memory hole so that no one else will be confronted with this evil Christian’s views.

That’ll show that darn Christian kid, won’t it?

The article, “Should Homosexual Partners Be Bale to Adopt?,” was written by Brandon Wegner who was assigned the task of writing a counter-point to another student’s pro-homosexual adoption article. The piece was then published as an insert in the school newspaper, the Shawano Leader.

Shortly after the newspapers containing the insert were distributed, Superintendent Carlson issued a formal apology to the school and parents, removed the insert from surplus issues of the paper, and censured young Mr. Wegner claiming his article violated the school’s “anti-bullying” policy.

Wegner says that Carlson grabbed him up out of class and began to brow beat him in an attempt to get the kid to disavow his religious-based beliefs. According to Liberty Counsel, a First Amendment law firm, Wegner was quixotically bullied by Superintendent Carlson in an attempt to deter bullying.

Brandon was hauled before the superintendent on charges that he had violated the school’s bullying policy. Superintendent Todd Carlson told him that the column “went against the bullying policy,” and asked him if he “regretted” writing it. When Mr. Wegner stated that he did not regret writing it, and that he stood behind his beliefs, Superintendent Carlson told him that he “had got to be one of the most ignorant kids to try to argue with him about this topic,” that “we have the power to suspend you if we want to” and that the column had “personally offended me, so I know you offended other people!”

Carlson’s action is itself “ignorant.” Ignorant of our American laws, ignorant of tenets of tolerance, ignorant of public comportment, ignorant for abuse of his position as an authority figure, and just plain ignorant in a moral fashion.

Carlson’s bullying also makes the lie to the claim that our schools are meant to teach our children. The truth seems to be that Mr. Carlson simply wants to indoctrinate, not help students come to their own conclusions when offered all sides of the issues.

In fact, the school newspaper deserves kudos for having handled the issue properly. It gave room to advocates of both sides to air their views so that readers could make up their own minds. But Carlson doesn’t want any of this horrid teaching going on. He wants to tell kids what to think based on his own warped, left-wing ideology. None of this freedom of choice nonsense in HIS school, I’ll tell you what.

Superintendent Carlson should be fired. Not because he’s an extremist liberal, but because he has violated this kid’s rights at worst and violated the principals of actual teaching at best. He is no educator. He is an indoctrinator and that is just un-American.

(H/T Moonbattery.com)

“Google has removed hundreds of web pages relating to former motorsport boss Max Mosley’s sex life from its search results index, Britain’s Leveson Inquiry on press standards has heard.

But the internet giant said it dealt with requests for material to be excluded on a country-by-country basis, meaning articles and videos might remain accessible on other national versions of its site.

Mr Mosley told the inquiry in November he had spent over £500,000 ($750,000) trying to restore his reputation after a March 2008 News of the World article alleging he had a “sick Nazi orgy”, something he strongly denied.

He described his strenuous efforts to get articles removed from websites, adding: “The fundamental thing is that Google could stop this appearing but they don’t or won’t as a matter of principle.”

Google legal director Daphne Keller on Thursday confirmed that someone in Mr Mosley’s position would have to apply individually to have web pages, known as URLs, removed from the company’s sites in different countries. She told the inquiry: “I would hope that wouldn’t be a terribly difficult thing to do, and I can tell you that in his case we have removed hundreds of URLs.”

Ms Keller said a defamatory video could be removed from one of Google’s national sites but remain up on another. “If there is a country whose law says that that should stay up, then in that country we would comply with that law,” she said.

But the lawyer rejected a suggestion that Google should block certain search terms. She said: “In the Max Mosley case, obviously there has been all kinds of news coverage about this very inquiry, and other coverage that’s legitimate, and that you wouldn’t want to disappear from search results.”

Source

The libel judgment in his favour obtained by Mosley was handed down in London by The Hon. Mr. Justice Eady. Mr Justice Eady is well-known for leaning towards the plaintiff in libel suits, bringing that entire area of British law into disrepute. His notorious judgments often lead to censorship of material that most people would think should remain uncensored. His ruling was particularly obnoxious in the Rachel Ehrenfeld case, causing the NY legislature to pass a special law to protect her from any consequences of Eady’s judgment. So I have no confidence in Eady’s ruling favouring Mr Mosley

That lack of confidence is strongly supported by the fact that Mosley has made strenuous efforts to have the video of his behavior suppressed. If the video just showed him having a cup of tea, why would he want it suppressed? Clearly it does at least in part support the allegations made.

To help circumvent the Mosley/Eady censorship attempts, I have made a copy of one report of the matter that is still up and reposted it here. Under U.S. law it would be regarded as in the public interest for public figures to have information about their deeds known.

I am not in fact particularly critical of Mr Mosley’s actions in this matter. As I see it, it is Mr Justice Eady who has poisoned the well in the matter. He appears to have developed de novo a law of privacy that has no regard to the truth or merit of the allegations. The USA is not alone in having unelected judges who create law that would never pass muster before a democratically-elected legislature.

So until the British parliament steps in, I will continue in skepticism towards British libel judgments. The problem is well-known in Britain and the present government has promised corrective legislation — but no such legislation appears to be on the horizon yet.

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

(Think Progress Green) Currently, fossil fuel industry lobbyists, flacks, allied pundits, and government officials are far too comfortable dismissing concerns about what their pollution does to other people. What if we had a system that required those who are advocating, defending or producing large sources of pollution to be one of the other people? What if they had to drink the dirty water, breathe the polluted air, and have their livelihoods compromised by (their) status quo industries. It wouldn’t be fun for them. But they’d be accountable, deeply accountable, for what they are doing.

I think it’s time to explore what Deep Accountability would look like. I’ll start here, with this Modest Proposal for University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Professor Karl Smith. He’s the newest addition to the crowd that believes global climate disruption isn’t a problem because we can all move to the top of the world.

Mike, who represents Tigercomm as president, a company involved with the failed and wasteful use of stimulus money to “weatherize” homes, writes a letter to Alexander Konovalov, Minister of Justice of Russia, and comes up with

With that in mind, I’d like to raise with you an idea I’ve had for a while, one that I call “Deep Accountability.” Under this concept, the foolish and the reckless in American punditry – and they seem to increasing, even as the climate science gets more damning – would be forced to actually sample the realities they advocate for others.

Therefore, I am trying to confirm the viability of an unusual proposal. Would it be possible for my company to pay for the rental of unoccupied space in any of the estimated 476 former Soviet prison facilities, particularly those in northern Siberia? If such space is available, we would like to pay to house Professor Smith for a year or more as a guest of your great country. We are seeking to provide him with a direct experience of the vigorous Siberian climate firsthand, and see for himself what the future home of tens or hundreds of millions of global climate disruption refugees would be like.

Got that? If you don’t believe in the climate change hoax, to be specific, that Mankind is the major or sole cause of hot/cold/wet/dry (and snow, no snow, earthquakes, tsunamis, basically, everything that happens), you should be put in an old Soviet gulag. Nice of the Lefties to show yet again their fascist and dictatorial predilections.

And, yeah, I have the post saved as a text file, in case it disappears into the memory hole, as these types of posts tend to do.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

**UPDATED** Hammerman removes paragraph from story
**UPDATE 2** Rabbi scrubs offensive post

In the category of bigotry and hatred spares no religion, we find such hatred hiding behind religion in one “Rabbi” Joshua Hammerman of New York City. Hammerman has indulged his inner Father-Coughlin-in-reverse by proclaiming that if Tim Tebow wins the Super Bowl, why, Christians will go on a rampage that will result in the burning of mosques and the bashing of gays. Now, are you ready for some football?

Hammerman disgorged his absurd claims at his New York Jewish Week blog posted on December 12 titled, “My Tim Tebow Problem.” It is instead Hammerman’s civility problem. Tim Tebow has nothing to do with this neer do well’s extreme hatred of Christians.

Calling Tebow the “poster boy of the Christian right,” Hammerman is disgusted by the fact that the footballer — oh the horrors — “thanks Jesus after every game.” It all makes the “rabbi” expound upon his “fear” about “what will happen if the hulky Denver Bronco quarterback wins the Super Bowl.”

And what will happen you might ask? Let’s let this so-called rabbi take it from here:

If Tebow wins the Super Bowl, against all odds, it will buoy his faithful, and emboldened faithful can do insane things, like burning mosques, bashing gays and indiscriminately banishing immigrants. While America has become more inclusive since Jerry Falwell’s first political forays, a Tebow triumph could set those efforts back considerably.

Rabbi Coughlin is serious, here. He really thinks that Christians will riot in the street because Tim Tebow is part of a Superbowl winning team. Yeah, because there is such a long contemporary history of Christians taking to the streets and rioting because they are jubilant over football.

He goes on to hyperbolically wonder if “legions of Southern Baptist missionaries” will “hit the college campuses the very next day, spreading this new gospel of Tim?” And he laments that already there is a “Jews for Tebow” Facebook page. This nut will even hate fellow Jews just for admiring the inoffensive Tebow.

But it shouldn’t surprise that this anti-Christian bigot might come to these conclusions. The key to this is in how he mischaracterizes Tebow’s belief in his God and in himself. Hammerman claims that Tebow is, “absolutely confident that God is on his side.” I can see why he might be worried that Tim Tebow might be a new, destructive sort of charismatic leader if he thinks that.

But this is not what Tebow has ever said or even intimated. Tebow has said that God has guided his career but he has not placed himself as equal to God’s interests. Only a supremely arrogant man would think God has taken sides with him as opposed to simply being there for him. The arrogance to assume God reveres the man and his goals enough to “side” with him is not what Tebow has displayed. Tebow simply has never exhibited this kind of arrogance. In fact, just the opposite. Hammerman is just wrong in his characterization of Tebow’s Christian character.

This yutz winds up his anti-Christian screed claiming that he doesn’t fear Christians — a claim hard to square with the other ten paragraphs of his piece so chock full of loathing, mistrust, and hatred. Instead he claims he “fears people of certainty.”

This is probably the most ignorant part of Rabbi Hammerman’s muddled thinking. It isn’t “certainty” that causes the problem, rabbi. It is what people do with that certainty that causes the problem. Thomas Aquinas was probably one of the most certain Christians in history yet he is responsible for some of the most loving and peaceful explications of Christian belief in human history. No one is rioting after football games because of Thomas Aquinas!

In this, though, Hammerman proves that he employs a prosaic modernist’s lack of critical thinking. He displays the sort of empty, nihilistic, modernist’s blather that assumes that there can be no right or wrong, that everything is relative and anyone who believes in something with anything approaching certainty, then they must be dangerous, unstable, and prone to violence.

But, the problem with this sort of modernist’s “thinking” is that it is logically untenable. Hammerman is sure “certainty” is dangerous… yet he is certain that this is a fact! By his empty thinking, then, he is just as dangerous as those rampaging Christians that infests his fevered imagination because, well, he’s certain of something, isn’t he?

He is hoisted on his own petard with his lack of critical thinking. But his is a perfect example of why most universities and modern liberalism is both dumbing down our nation and growing hatred everywhere its baneful influence appears.

I don’t fear Tim Tebow winning the Super Bowl. I do fear morally deficient cretins like this rabbi infesting in others his rabid hatred of others.

**UPDATE**

Since my criticism of Hammerman’s Tebow anti-Christian screed, he’s gone into his post and edited out the paragraph I reported here. Hammerman did not note on the story that he edited the piece to remove offensive material. So, down the memory hole goes the truth once again.

I have a screen shot of the original, though. CLICK HERE to see it.

**UPDATE 2**
Hammerman’s edited piece has now been completely removed from The Jewish Week website. Hammerman has also removed the piece from his own blog and replaced by a message that reads: “The piece has been taken down and I apologize to all those whom it has offended. Some additional reflections will be forthcoming. Thank you.”

One hopes that the rabbi will reflect on his personal animus against both Tim Tebow and Christians and that a more acceptable apology is forthcoming.

**UPDATE 3**

Now “rabbi” Hammerman has deleted his entire blog. Talk about memory hole, now he’s trying to deep six everything he’s ever written! Driven out of the gates and into the wilderness!

**UPDATE 4**

The Jewish Week Has Issued the following statement:

We apologize for posting an Opinion column on Dec. 14 by Rabbi Joshua Hammerman entitled “My Problem With Tim Tebow,” the Denver Broncos quarterback who is an Evangelical Christian. The column, in fact, violated our own standards calling for civility in posting comments on our website. The policy statement notes that “name calling in any form will not be tolerated, and comments that denigrate any religion or Jewish religious stream will always be rejected.”

The column was removed from our website later that day.

Rabbi Hammerman is a respected spiritual leader and longtime Jewish Week columnist whose writing over the years has been exemplary. This column, however, was more inciting than insightful, and we erred in posting it, which we deeply regret.

Repentance and forgiveness are cornerstones of all major faiths, as is the recognition that we all make mistakes. We trust that the sincerity of our remorse, as expressed by the rabbi as well, will be taken into account by those whom we offended.

Hammerman has made his blog publicly visible again and has posted this statement:

This week I wrote an article for the Jewish Week in which I attempted to explore the phenomenon of Denver quarterback Tim Tebow to make broad points about society and extremism. I now realize that some of my statements had the reverse effect of what I had intended and for this I deeply and sincerely apologize.

As many of you know, I have spent my entire career engaged in dialogue with people of all faiths while speaking out passionately against all forms of bigotry. I have the deepest respect for those who are committed to their faith, including Mr. Tebow. I realize the way in which I attempted to make my points was clumsy and inappropriate, inadvertently suggesting the kind of intolerance and extremism my article was intended to disparage. I sincerely apologize to Mr. Tebow, his family, the Broncos and Patriots and all those whom I may have offended.

(H/T All American Blogger)

(Washington Post) The National Transportation Safety Board recommended Tuesday that all states and the District ban cellphone use behind the wheel, becoming the first federal agency to call for an outright prohibition on telephone conversations while driving.

Distracted driving, some of it due to cellphone use, contributed to an estimated 3,092 deaths in highway crashes last year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

So, only some of the deaths can be attributed to distracted driving. We should ban looking at scenery, since that is dangerous. And passengers. Listening to the radio. Drinking coffee. Eating. Brushing hair. Putting on makeup. Those mirrors that allow parents to look in the back. Kids. Oh, and CAFE standards, which increase the risk of death on the road.

The NTSB has no regulatory power, but

It would be up to state legislatures, which already have banned text messaging while driving in 35 states and the District, to decide whether cellphone use should be illegal. But in the past, Congress has not been shy about leveraging its control of the federal purse strings to bring states in line on issues such as seat belts and the legal drinking age.

“The NTSB recommendation may be a game-changer,” said Jonathan Adkins, spokesman for the Governors Highway Safety Association. “States aren’t ready to support a total ban yet, but this may start the discussion.”

A bunch of states ban texting/messaging in vehicles, which is, IMO, a good idea. People have their eyes off the road, two hands on the device. I spent well over a decade dealing with wireless devices, and I’m pretty darned good at sneaking a peek, but, I usually avoided any sort of messaging, including email, while driving. Many states also require the use of handsfree devices, which I have no problem with, since this keeps both hands free. I use a Bluetooth headset 98% of the time or so when in the car.

But, we shouldn’t ban the use of phones completely (one thing to note, the ban wouldn’t include emergency personnel). Los Federales could print a few good ideas for the use of electronic device use in vehicles, like

• use a handsfree device
• don’t stare at your GPS
• don’t use the phone in traffic
• avoid long and/or deep discussions
• avoid heated discussions
• can the call wait? Tell the person you’ll call them back

They could urge companies to put in place rules where employees are urged to stay off the phone while on the road, and won’t be in trouble if they do not answer calls from the bosses while on the road. Back at AT&T, that was the rule. There were many times when I didn’t answer when a superior was calling. But, they won’t. They’ll nag you and try and get Congress to pass some rules, or have the White House do it by executive fiat. It’s For Your Own Good.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

“Atheists and radical church-state separatists have taken particular offense to the continued uttering of the Pledge of Allegiance. To these individuals, the words “under God” have no place in the public square, even when utterances are voluntary in nature.

Now, there’s a new epicenter in the debate over the Pledge. Following the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the University of Connecticut’s interim athletic director, Paul Pendergast, decided to add the recitation as a viable way for individuals to remember both the nation and U.S. troops.

Following his decision, the Pledge was first uttered after a home football game on September 16 and the response was so positive that it was extended to all football and basketball games.

Geno Auriemma, UConn‘s women’s basketball coach, agrees with the decision to include it and has been open about his support for saying the Pledge. ”It’s like anything else, you’re gonna have people that complain about it and people that love it,” he said at a press conference last week. “And then you have the wackos that say ‘well we shouldn’t bring God into this,‘ because you have to say ’one nation under God’ right?”

The decision, which has now led to the Pledge being uttered before most athletic games, is angering fans who believe the action violates the nation’s separation of church and state sentiment. Others claim that it puts non-American athletes in an unfair position — even though these individuals are obviously studying on U.S. soil and can opt out of pledging any allegiance to the country.

Some legal experts, though they may personally disagree, claim that the university is within legal bounds — so long as the pledge remains optional.

Source

Hearing someone else say something patriotic is going to do some terrible damage to you? What rubbish! This is just the “hate America” brigade at work.

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

“The ACLU has managed to block North Carolina from issuing license plates with a “Choose Life” message because the state legislature declined to also issue “Choose Death” plates.

U.S. District Judge James Fox didn’t put it that way in his Nov. 28 injunction, but he did agree with the ACLU that the absence of an opposing plate violates the First Amendment. The problem arose because lawmakers refused to authorize the “Respect Choice” plate that Planned Parenthood wanted as part of its ongoing “Culture of Death” initiative.

The ruling prompts the question of whether every expression allowed on a license plate must be accompanied by a contrary view, sort of a Fairness Doctrine for motorists.

Tennessee also found itself in court over “Choose Life” plates in 2004 in ACLU of Tennessee v. Bredesen. In 2006, the 6th U.S Circuit Court overturned a district court ruling against the state, saying, “Government can express public policy views by enlisting private volunteers to disseminate its message, and there is no principle under which the First Amendment can be read to prohibit government from doing so because the views are particularly controversial or politically divisive.”

The court pointed out that nobody is forced to buy the “Choose Life” plates, unlike, say, New Hampshire’s “Live Free or Die” plates that all Granite State vehicles must bear.

The current controversy is likely to continue for years, as courts have been all over the map, with some ruling that message plates constitute a “public forum,” and others disagreeing. Twenty-nine states have “Choose Life” plates or have authorized them, according to the Winston-Salem Journal

Source

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

So, what problem do people have with Tebow? Consider this from Hot Air’s Howard Portnoy

Tebow is free to give “mad respect” to his lord, but I’d rather he do it on his own time. A number of players cross themselves on every play, but they do it discreetly — and expeditiously. Tebow’s prayer timeouts, by contrast, are as gratuitously in-your-face as the most flagrant end zone dance. And they last as long. Yet, according to his supporters, all of footballdom is supposed to give him a pass because his purpose is holy. Isn’t that what churches are for?

Many people, both left and right politically, seem to freak out because Tim is highly religious, and is unafraid to show his Christianity. Apparently, someone showing their deep religious beliefs apologetically freaks some people out. Tim isn’t preaching to them, he’s not attempting to get them to convert, he is just showing his deep beliefs. Now, if he was trying to convert people, that would annoy me. I do not mind people talking about religion, but, I do mind if anyone is attempting to convert me. Unless they are a priest, pastor, Imam, Rabbi, etc.

What also drives them nuts is that Tim was born when his mom was supposed to get an abortion, and that he is staunchly pro-life. And, that he was home-schooled, and supports home-schooling. These are two big no-no issues to hold and discuss with the oh so tolerant political left, and either one is enough to get them to hate a person they do not know. All three together? It creates Tebow Derangement Syndrome.

I want to make it clear that TDS is not simply for those on the Left, but for some on the Right as well. I know a few people, Conservatives and Libertarians (one emails me some pretty awful jokes and cartoons of Obama which I do not even read anymore), who get bent out of shape over Tebow and his religious displays.

Perhaps Tebow is just too wholesome. Consider this short interview with SI’s Peter King

Before I let Tebow go, I asked him if anyone after the game — coaches, players, execs — had said anything memorable to him. “Everybody was happy,” he said, “but I’ll tell you one thing that happened during the week that I remember … ”

Good, I thought. John Fox, maybe, sidling up to him and saying something sportingly profound like, “Son, we’re going to ride that left arm and those legs to the Super Bowl.”

” … I had an opportunity to talk with a kid named Blake Appleton, from Florida, on Thursday. He’s a leukemia patient who’s just been moved to hospice. And after the game, when I was being interviewed on TV, I got to say his name. That’s what I’m proud of today. I let him know people cared about him. I let him know God has a plan for him.”

And that was the end of the Tebow interview. He had to rush to get on the bus to the airport. Except …

“Have a good day, Mr. King. And God bless you.”

Perhaps it’s that Tim makes people feel unworthy. King was expecting something juicy about the Broncos, and instead, he heard about Blake Appleton, and about how deeply Tebow cares, and cares because he wants to help, not because it makes Tebow look good, but because he genuinely cares.

All the guy does is win. He won in college, and is now winning in the NFL. Is he the best passer? Not even close. That will hopefully come with time, or his NFL career won’t be more than a few years. He is one heck of a leader, which is what you want out of a highly paid QB. He inspires. And he makes things happen. He brings excitement. He’s also brought a 6-1 starting record for a team that some thought might be in the Andrew Luck hunt.

You tell me: why do people get so nuts over Tebow?

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.