The owner of Bistro at the Bijou in downtown Knoxville booted state Sen. Stacey Campfield from her restaurant Sunday over his controversial comments on homosexuality and the origin of AIDS. The sign in front of the Bistro on Monday read, “Today’s Special: Fried Chicken. Crispy Chicken Livers. No Stacey.”

I’m sorry but if she had booted a black man just because he was black, or a gay woman just because she was gay, she would be rightly pilloried. I don’t agree with Campfield’s ignorance and I find him deplorable. But he’s entitled to his views and I’m disgusted with this Bistro owner. Were I previously inclined to eat there I would be disinclined to do so now.

Restaurant owner Martha Boggs didn’t take kindly to Campfield’s XM radio claims. “It was a spur of the moment decision to ask Mr. Campfield to leave, which he graciously did,” she said on Monday. “I just think his comments have gone from controversial to plain dangerous to give out the kind of misinformation that he has. And I thought it was important to show my support for the gay community and stand up to a bully, which he is,” Boggs said. “I just hope Mr. Campfield will re-think some of the comments he’s made.” “I am not sorry for what I did,” she added. “I just didn’t want to serve him.”

So, Miss Boggs, you’re a bigot. Good to know.  And it’s good to know that you only serve people who hold your views.  That’s bias in the extreme.  And that’s depraved.

Related articles

• Bistro at the Bijou owner boots, bans state Sen. Stacey Campfield for AIDS remarks (knoxnews.com)

And if you, by chance, have a pdf of it, I’d be grateful if I could see it. Grazie!

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Via the twitterings of Religion and Media.

Peyton Manning remains on the Colts’ roster, and the Titans have three quarterbacks already.  Still, Titans’ fans of the NFL’s only four-time MVP expecting the injured QB to be released and healthy enough to play are starting an ad campaign in Indianapolis hoping to convince Manning to return to Tennessee.  Todd Mayo said Monday the website www.comehomepeyton.com went live Monday and had generated $700 in donations by midday.  A 30-second commercial is planned for an Indianapolis radio station during the Super Bowl, and they want to buy billboards and more local ads.

Come on down Peyton.  You know the State and you’d pack the stands every week.

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• Titans fans start campaign for Peyton Manning (profootballtalk.nbcsports.com)

A Gallatin woman with a lengthy history of writing worthless checks was arrested again on Jan. 17 after paying almost $1,500 worth of cable bills using the account of Gallatin’s First United Methodist Church.

Christa Smith, 37, faces two identity theft charges and one theft of service charge, following an investigation by the Gallatin Police Department from incidents dating back to July of 2011. She was arrested on Jan. 17 and released that day from the Sumner County Jail on a $5,000 bond, according to the arrest affidavits.

On Jan. 13, police received a report of fraudulent charges on the church’s bank statements. The investigation shows that all charges were made to the Comcast cable company for addresses on Jean Avenue and Laura Street in Gallatin.

During an interview, police said Smith used her 9-year-old daughter’s name to get cable. Smith told police she got the church’s account information when church officials wrote her boyfriend a check to help with bills.

Smith further said she kept the account information for future reference and later gave it to Comcast via the phone to pay for cable bills.

The four charges totaled to $1,440.92, police said.

Smith has a criminal history dating back to 2002 that includes more than 35 charges of writing worthless checks, theft of property in excess of $1,000, false report, driving without a license, two probation violations and two failures to appear in court. She was indicted on seven of those charges. Smith is scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 1.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120130/NEWS03/301300051/1969/NEWS.

She’s genuinely awful.

The volume consists of 27 surveys of research into the Dead Sea Scrolls in the past 60 years, written by 26 authors. An innovation of the volume is that it covers Qumran scholarship in separate countries: the USA, Canada, Israel, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Italy and the Eastern bloc. Each essay also carries a detailed bibliography for the respective country. Biographies of all the major scholars active in the field are briefly given as well.

Your excessively specialized research library which focuses only on Scrolls studies will definitely want to pick up a copy.

It has to be said, though, that the editor is top notch-

Devorah Dimant, Ph.D. (1974), Hebrew Univerity in Jerusalem, Professor (em.) for Ancient Jewish Literature at the University of Haifa, Israel. Has published extensively on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jewish Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. She has produced first editions of several Qumran scrolls in Qumran Cave 4.XXI: Parabiblical Texts, Part 4: Pseudo-Prophetic Texts (Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XXX; Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 2001)

The First Disputation took place on January 29th, 1523.  Schaff tells the story-

The first disputation was held in the city hall on Thursday, Jan. 29, 1523, in the German language, before about six hundred persons, including all the clergy and members of the small and large Councils of Zurich. St. Gall was represented by Vadian; Berne, by Sebastian Meyer; Schaffhausen, by Sebastian Hofmeister. Oecolampadius from Basle expected no good from disputations, and declined to come. He agreed with Melanchthon’s opinion about the Leipzig disputation of Eck with Carlstadt and Luther. Nevertheless, he attended, three years afterwards, the Disputation at Baden. The bishop of Constance sent his general vicar, Dr. Faber, hitherto a friend of Zwingli, and a man of respect, able learning and an able debater, with three others as counsellors and judges. Faber declined to enter into a detailed discussion of theological questions which, he thought, belong to the tribunal of Councils or of renowned universities, as Paris, Cologne and Louvain. Zwingli answered his objections, and convinced the audience.

On the same day the magistracy passed judgment in favor of Zwingli, and directed him “to continue to preach the holy gospel as heretofore, and to proclaim the true, divine Scriptures until he was better informed.” All other preachers and pastors in the city and country were warned “not to preach anything which they could not establish by the holy Gospel and other divine Scriptures,” and to avoid personal controversy and bitter names.  Zwingli prepared a lengthy and able defence of his Articles against the charges of Faber, July, 1523.

The 67 Articles were greatly expanded and thoroughly exegeted.

The disputation soon produced its natural effects. Ministers took regular wives; the nunnery of Oetenbach was emptied; baptism was administered in the vernacular, and without exorcism; the mass and worship of images were neglected and despised. A band of citizens, under the lead of a shoemaker, Klaus Hottinger, overthrew the great wooden crucifix in Stadelhofen, near the city, and committed other lawless acts.  Zwingli was radical in his opposition to idolatrous and superstitious ceremonies, but disapproved disorderly methods, and wished the magistracy to authorize the necessary changes.

In that way, he believed, Reform could be brought about in an orderly manner. It was at precisely this point that the Radicals wanted instant reform. And when it didn’t happen, they became true Radicals, engaging in violence and thuggery.

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The archbishop of York must understand we are not facing a ‘dictatorship’ on gay marriage but a change in popular morality.

Like it or not, we have to realize that popular morality has shifted and most of the people in our (Western) society now see moral issues not from the point of view of Orthodox Christianity but rather from the perspective of Secular Humanism.  Society has been de-Christianized to such an extent that morals from a Christian perspective are now ‘odd man out’ and morals (as if they could be called such)  from the perspective of evolutionary secular humanism are now ‘the in crowd’.

To put it bluntly- Christianity has lost the culture war. And as a Christian, I can only say that Mit brennender Sorge.  Nonetheless, I refuse to take my moral cues from a morally bankrupt ‘anything goes’ ‘if it feels good, do it’ culture.  Sorrow over the sorry state of society can’t lead to acquiescence or silence.

It may well happen that very few are willing to engage this ‘lost cause’ and those who do may seem as odd as the Japanese soldiers on isolated islands who continued to fight the Second World War long after it ended, but some of us can never surrender, and never will.

Freddie Mac, a taxpayer-owned mortgage company, is supposed to make homeownership easier. One thing that makes owning a home more affordable is getting a cheaper mortgage.  But Freddie Mac has invested billions of dollars betting that U.S. homeowners won’t be able to refinance their mortgages at today’s lower rates, according to an investigation by NPR and ProPublica, an independent, non-profit newsroom.

Freddie wants mortgage holders to fail.  And they’re making money every time they do.  Simply put- that’s immoral, and outrageous.  Do be sure to read the entire piece and then pick up your phone or open your email program and tell your Congressional delegation what you think of Freddie.

More than 400 people were arrested on charges ranging from failure to disperse to vandalism, police spokesman Sgt. Jeff Thomason said. At least three officers and one protester were injured.

Vandalism huh?  So #occupy is just a front for thuggery is it.

On Sunday, Oakland officials vowed to be ready if Occupy protesters try to mount another large-scale demonstration. Protesters, meanwhile, decried Saturday’s police tactics as illegal and threatened to sue.  Mayor Jean Quan personally inspected damage caused by dozens of people who broke into City Hall. She said she wants a court order to keep Occupy protesters who have been arrested several times out of Oakland, which has been hit repeatedly by demonstrations that have cost the financially troubled city about $5 million.

So the city is in the hole and people concerned, ostensibly, for justice and equity are costing the honorable tax payers of the town millions so that said occupiers can vandalize city property?  If they really believed in justice they would repay the city for the evils they’ve enacted.

Occupy has never had my respect and the thuggish deeds done by its members simply reinforce my distaste for the ‘movement’ which, by the way, is NOTHING like the freedom movements of the Arab world.  NOTHING.

Related articles

• Oakland Mayor Assesses Damage From Occupy Protests (sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com)
• After lull, Occupy protest resurfaces in Oakland (ajc.com)
• Oakland officials assess damage after Occupy protesters vandalize City Hall (latimesblogs.latimes.com)