Humanism on the Move

STAFF REPORT

For HumanistNetworkNews.org
Feb. 30, 2010

Since the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) broke the news that the U.S. Military was using high-powered rifle sights that had coded references to Bible passages, the company contracted to manufacture the sights has since declared they will voluntarily remove the citations. The sights were provided to the military by the Michigan-based company, Trijicon, who had a $660 million multi-year contract to provide 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps. In addition to removing the references, Trijicon will provide free modification kits to the Pentagon to enable the removal of the references on the current sights.

"Its about time!" said Michael "Mikey" Weinstein of the MRFF. "Trijicon's outrageous practice of placing bible verse citations on military-issued gunsights for weapons was an unconstitutional disgrace of the highest magnitude to our military and an action that clearly gave additional incentive and emboldenment to recruiters for our nation's enemies. It is nothing short of a vile national security threat that, despite our nation's efforts to convince the Muslim world we are not pursuing a holy war against them, our military and its contractors time again resort to unlawful fundamentalist evangelical Christian practices, even on the battlefield."  

The codes on the sights included references to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, and others to the books of Revelation.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is urging supporters to boycott a commemorative stamp featuring the Mother Teresa. According to an action alert urging supporters to protest the stamp, only about 25 new commemorative stamps a year are selected using 12 criteria, and it's against postal regulations to "honor religious institutions or individuals whose principal achievements are associated with religious undertakings or beliefs."

The group urges supporters to vote with their pocketbook and select other releases over Mother Teresa. They suggest the late actress Katharine Hepburn, a noted atheist, as a good alternative.  

United Coalition of Reason billboards have arrived in Tampa Bay, Florida. The billboards read "Are you good without God? Millions are," and appear near the University of South Florida and near the region's airport.

United COR partnered with the Tampa Bay Coalition of Reason to fund the campaign, which cost $7,600.

"We…want to let people know that we nontheistic folks belong to the larger community," said Rick O'Keefe, coordinator of Tampa Bay CoR. "Whether the public knows it or not, we can be found among family members, friends, neighbors and coworkers. We're just like everyone else, except we don't believe in a supreme being. It's about time we were as free as others to be open about our views."