Here are some of the week’s most notable quotes culled from news reports from across Texas, and beyond.
Former Arkansas governor and current Fox News host Mike Huckabee, attributing the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in part to restrictions on school prayer and religious materials in the classroom.
We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?
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American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer, offering his explanation of why God did not prevent the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn.
God is not going to go where he is not wanted.
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California Superior Court Judge Derek Johnson, continuing the recent spate of ridiculous statements by public officials regarding rape.
I’m not a gynecologist, but I can tell you something: If someone doesn’t want to have sexual intercourse, the body shuts down. The body will not permit that to happen unless a lot of damage is inflicted, and we heard nothing about that in this case.
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Texas Education Commissioner Michael Williams, indicating he will not personally lobby for private school vouchers in the upcoming session of the Texas Legislature despite being a longtime supporter of such measures.
I will not be walking the halls of the Capitol, going into the members’ offices, advocating for parental choice, vouchers.
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Maureen Dowd, on the Republican Party’s current self-sidelining.
Who would ever have thought blacks would get out and support the first black president? Who would ever have thought women would shy away from the party of transvaginal probes? Who would ever have thought gays would work against a party that treated them as immoral and subhuman? Who would have ever thought young people would desert a party that ignored science and hectored on social issues? Who would ever have thought Latinos would scorn a party that expected them to finish up their chores and self-deport?
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Elizabeth Graham, head of the far-right Texas Right to Life, discussing Gov. Rick Perry’s promotion of “fetal pain” legislation banning abortions after 20 weeks. The measure would include exceptions for women whose lives are in danger, but not for victims of rape or incest.
Those decisions for children who are conceived in rape or in incest will need to be made prior to the 20-week mark.
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Dr. Michael Farris, Patrick Henry College’s founder and chancellor, on the existence of gays and lesbians on his fundamentalist Christian campus. Unfortunately, “Queer at Patrick Henry College,” a six-month-old blog operated by three pseudonymous writers — all of whom graduated from or have taken classes at the school — shows otherwise.
We don’t think that there are any such students.
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As usual the maggots of the far right, in this case Huckabee and Fischer, are confusing morality with religiousness. Although the two are not mutually exclusive one need not refer to the Bible, or for that matter the Ten Commandments, to know that it’s wrong to kill your neighbor, steal his money and rape his wife.
The religious right also falsely claims that US law is based on the Bible. While it is true that US law is based on British Common Law, it is also a fact that British Common Law came into existence long before the arrival of Christianity in the UK.