Browsing Tag

Politics

Lucien Greaves, Spokesperson for The Satanic Temple

Lucien Greaves is the spokesperson for The Satanic Temple. You know his organization because they’ve been very active recently regarding church/state separation issues. In Oklahoma, where there was a Ten Commandments monument near the Capitol building, Greaves’ group requested putting up a statue of Baphomet… leading to all sorts of chaos. They’ve also tried to put up a Satanic display in the Florida Capitol building. And, my favorite, after a Florida school district allowed an outside group to do a Bible giveaway for students, they requested to distribute a Satanic coloring book… which may lead to an end to outside book distributions for good in that district.

We spoke with Lucien about how he doesn’t actually believe in Satan, what his group’s relationship is like with other Satanic groups, and why they conducted a Pink Mass over the grave of Fred Phelps’ mother.

December 13, 2014 by

Jeff Lewis, Illinois Christian Home Educators

Jeff Lewis is a board member of the Illinois Christian Home Educators (ICHE). ICHE is a group that promotes faith-based home-schooling and provides a variety of resources to Christian parents who want to do that. He’s an attorney who specializes in topics including estate planning and guardianship issues. He and his wife have five children, all of whom have been home-schooled.

We asked him to join us to give us an insight into a world we know little about, not to debate him on aspects of homeschooling. Still, the conversation will likely infuriate some listeners (you’ve been warned).

We spoke with Jeff about whether homeschooling should be regulated by the state, why public schools are a problem for some Christians, and what to do about kids who fall through the cracks.

December 13, 2014 by

Liz Cavell, Freedom From Religion Foundation

Elizabeth Cavell graduated from Tulane University Law School in 2009 and worked for a while as a deputy public defender in southern Colorado. She currently works as a staff attorney with the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

We spoke with Liz about which kind of complaints are the most numerous at FFRF, how persecution has become a way to protect privilege, and whether she ever speaks with her cultural counterparts.

December 13, 2014 by

Juhem Navarro-Rivera, Research Associate with PRRI

Juhem Navarro-Rivera is a research associate at the Public Religion Research Institute. PRRI publishes some of the most important and credible surveys when it comes to tracking religious demographics in the United States. Before joining PRRI, Juhem was a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at Trinity College, where he served as the lead analyst for many studies, including the landmark American Religious Identification Survey. He also taught political science and Latino Studies at the Puerto Rican and Latino Studies Institute at the University of Connecticut.

We spoke with him about how PRRI collects its data, whether the results themselves can draw criticism, and how to grow the diversity within the atheist movement.

December 13, 2014 by