The raised lettering on the red, yellow, and blue sculpted "Freethought Action Hero" award declares its first recipient: Jennifer Lovejoy of Asheville, North Carolina. It will be conferred during the forthcoming Carolinas Secular Conference, September 28-30, at the Charleston Marriott, 170 Lockwood Boulevard, Charleston, SC. FreeThoughtAction Vice President Joseph McDaniel Stewart will make the presentation Saturday evening, September 29, as one of the highlights of the banquet.
FreeThoughtAction is best known for its “Don’t Believe In God? You Are Not Alone” and “One Nation Indivisible” billboard campaigns and is an independent marketing adjunct of the American Humanist Association.
“With this award," said Stewart," Jennifer Lovejoy is being recognized as a true Freethought Action Hero for her courage, persistence and willingness to take a stand. Her ability to weather withering local criticism during the controversial 2010 North Carolina ‘One Nation Indivisible’ billboard campaign has been an inspiration to all of us who work for a more rational and secular America.”
"I've never considered myself a hero," Lovejoy said. "To me the billboard campaign was an opportunity to reach people who may have otherwise felt alone. It is people who matter to me."
Jennifer Lovejoy is a disabled Army veteran, wife and mother of two boys. She currently resides in Asheville, North Carolina, where she has been the spokesperson for Western North Carolina Atheists for three years. She is also founder and current president of Western North Carolina Humanists, a group involved in several community service projects, including Relay for Life and Light the Night. (For more information visit WNCHumanists.org .)
The award is a colorful, sculpted 10.5 inch representation of an androgynous action hero with arms and hands raised, and the letter “A” for "Action" emblazoned on its chest. “We'll be presenting more of these awards in the future," added Stewart, "but I’m honored to be able to confer the very first on Jennifer Lovejoy. This one is long overdue.” The Carolinas Secular Conference is being organized by the Carolinas Secular Association, a regional coalition consisting of secular freethought organizations across the Carolinas. Other awards to be presented during the conference include the “Carolinas Freethinker of the Year” award, to be presented to Amy Monsky, president of the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry and Camp Director of Camp Quest–South Carolina; and the “Special Achievement” award to be presented to Justin Griffith, creator of the "Rock Beyond Belief" festival last year at Fort Bragg.
Featured speakers and special presenters at the conference include: Maggie Ardiente, director of development and communications for the American Humanist Association; Edwina Rogers, executive director of the Secular Coalition for America; and Mike Werner, former president of the American Humanist Association. Also in attendance will be Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association. This will be its second annual Carolinas Secular Conference. The first was held in Carolina Beach, NC, in November, 2011.
The Carolinas Secular Conference ( http://CarolinasSecularConference.org ) is organized to provide an opportunity for learning and sharing, bringing in speakers to inform and train, as well as to award grass roots achievement by individuals across North and South Carolina. Attendees will join in a live network of planning to meet the challenges of the next year and the coming decade. Beyond its role as a working event, the Carolinas Secular Conference aims to be a joyous celebration of the growing secular movement and culture and an opportunity for nontheists of all stripes to make new friends across the region.
The Carolinas Secular Association ( http://CarolinasSecularAssociation.org ) is a recently incorporated regional “coalition of reason” consisting of secular freethought organizations across the Carolinas and is responsible for organizing the conference.
David Niose, president of the American Humanist Association and author of Nonbeliever Nation: The Rise of Secular Americans, will be speaking at the first-ever congressional briefing on "The State of Secular America," hosted by the Secular Coalition for America on October 1.
The red letter "A" that Nathaniel Hawthorne's heroine was forced to wear as a badge of shame in the classic novel "The Scarlet Letter" is now proudly chosen by atheists to wear on jewelry made from ceramic, silver, gold and wood.
In a provocative move within a religious organization that has sought to display strict political neutrality, an official of the Mormon church has disseminated a presentation across the key swing state of Nevada that urges members to vote and speak "with one voice" in the coming Presidential election that pits Mormon Mitt Romney against President Barack Obama.
The Alliance Defending Freedom is a dishonest organization playing fast and loose with the tax exemptions of churches in order to gain power and control elections.
Americans United, for one, does not seek, and has never sought, to restrict religious beliefs and practice in the United States. All we want is for religion to be kept out of the government (and government to be kept out of religion) because that's what the U.S. Constitution requires. Our founders did not base our government of "biblical values," as Perry claims, but on the values of freedom and equality. You can be a good American regardless of your views about religion.
NEWTON, N.C. -- A pastor from the Victory Empowerment Center, International, has been accused of building a relationship through text messages with a 13-year-old girl.
(CBS News) A north Texas school board voted Monday to change its corporal punishment policy to allow district employees to paddle students of the opposite sex, CBS DFW reported.
Religious travel generates at least $8 billion a year for shrine-centered economies and provides employment for thousands, according to academics -- and being able to measure the celestial and spiritual elements of pilgrimage in monetary terms is far from a modern phenomenon; it's as ancient as the act of spiritual travel itself.
Schlafly labors through 6000 words and many equations trying to debunk one of the best-tested ideas in all of science, making ridiculous claims that "relativity has been met with much resistance in the scientific world". This may have been true when it was first proposed in 1905 and 1915, but it was widely accepted by nearly all physicists by the 1920s, when numerous experiments confirmed it.
ScienceDaily -- Like photographers assembling a portfolio of best shots, astronomers have assembled a new, improved portrait of humankind's deepest-ever view of the universe.
Thousands of images from Australia's Great Barrier Reef and other coral locales are being stitched together into an eye-popping array of 360-degree panoramas for Google Maps' Street View feature -- but this million-dollar-plus project isn't just about pretty pictures. It's about sharing the wonders and the woes of the world's coral reefs with people around the globe.
London (CNN) -- He once described Britain as a "toilet" -- now, radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri is to be flushed out of the UK legal system and into a potential life sentence in America, the end of an era for perhaps London's most famous anti-Western preacher.
Benghazi, Libya (CNN) -- Ten days after four Americans were killed in their Libyan city, hundreds marched in Benghazi and took over the headquarters of a radical Islamist group tied to the attack.
In June, the Boko Haram militant Islamist group claimed responsibility for a series of church bombings that killed dozens.
The group, whose name means "Western education is forbidden," has referred to itself as the "Nigerian Taliban." It seeks to overthrow the government and replace it with a regime based on Islamic law.
Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- A Pakistan government minister has personally offered a $100,000 reward for anyone who kills the man who made the anti-Islam movie that is drawing ire throughout the Muslim world.
(CNN) -- A 14-year-old Pakistani girl who had faced life in prison for allegedly burning the Quran will have her case heard in juvenile court, the girl's lawyer told CNN.
CAIRO: Egyptian activists are angry after a court in the country on Monday said it would try Coptic Christian Alber Saber for blasphemy after he posted an anti-Islam video online that had led to widespread protests in Egypt and across the Islamic world.
Republicans and Democrats can still come together on one issue: God. Both parties showed us during their presidential conventions just how much they absolutely love God, and how much they wanted the rest of us to love God, too.
(CNN) - A newly revealed, centuries-old papyrus fragment suggests that some early Christians might have believed Jesus was married. The fragment, written in Coptic, a language used by Egyptian Christians, says in part, "Jesus said to them, 'My wife ..."
FULTON -- With armed police guards stationed at each exit, a pastor-turned-atheist made a case against God yesterday at Westminster College's annual fall symposium.
Cranford, NJ -- American Atheists today announced the addition of atheist Jay Jay French, founder, manager, and guitarist of the international, multiplatinum selling rock-and-roll band Twisted Sister, to the roster of speakers headlining the 2013 National Convention in Austin, Texas, March 28-31, 2013.
(AP) TULSA, Okla. - A 17,000-member megachurch deep in Oklahoma's Bible Belt has been rattled by allegations that five employees waited two weeks to report the rape of a 13-year-old girl in a campus stairwell, allegedly by a church worker. Tulsa police say the girl is among at least three victims of alleged sex crimes by two former employees of Victory Christian Center who face criminal charges. A child crimes investigator says more victims could surface as police continue to investigate.
The cheerleaders at Kountze High School in Kountze, Texas, (about 90 miles northeast of Houston) had been using banners with Bible verses to motivate the football team during games. School administrators, however, received an anonymous complaint and rightly ordered the practice stopped.
Examples of signs included: “But thanks be to God, which gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ,” “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me” and “If God be for us who can be against us?”
A Ten Commandments monument that has graced the landscape of a Pennsylvania high school for decades is the latest target of the atheist attack group Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). The group has filed suit in U.S. District Court to have the granite display, erected by a local organization years ago, removed from the front of Valley High School in the community of New Kensington. The atheists claim that the parents of children who attend the school had complained about the unobtrusive display. The FFRF refers to the religious display as a “tombstone-like monument,” complaining that it is “directly in front of the main school entrance, near two footbridges that students and visitors use to enter the building.”
On Oct. 7, the ADF is sponsoring “Pulpit Freedom Sunday,” an annual event during which evangelical pastors are urged to openly violate the law be endorsing or opposing candidates for public office.
Two weeks ago, the weekly bulletin at the Church of St. Catherine of Siena on the Upper East Side of Manhattan carried a blunt political message from a priest on the parish staff.
The Lamoille Union School Board meeting started with the pledge of allegiance, but that sound of people reciting it, in unison, is one you won't again hear at every meeting. It was a decision that had many get up from their seats and walk out.
The leader of an Amish splinter sect and his followers were found guilty today of violating federal hate crime laws for conducting a series of bizarre attacks in which they shaved the hair and beards of other Amish whose religious beliefs they disagreed with.
New ads scheduled to appear in the New York City subway system call for support of Israel in its war against "the savage," a reference to militant Muslims.
The ads, put out by a group called the American Freedom Defense Initiative, are aimed at criticizing violent attacks perpetrated by radical Islamists, according to Pamela Gellar, the founder and director of the group.
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The American Freedom Defense Initiative is principally a venture made up of Gellar and author Robert Spencer, who runs the website Jihad Watch. The organization is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Gellar noted they have more than 30,000 Facebook followers, donors, and participants in their events.
The inflammatory film has been blamed for violent protests across the Middle East, including in Benghazi, Libya, where four Americans died, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, when militants attacked U.S. diplomatic facilities there on Sept. 11.
Gravity is literally forty orders of magnitude weaker than all the other known forces in the Universe. (That means the gravitational force is a factor of 1040 weaker than the other three forces. Or -- and I’ll write it out just this once -- we’d need to increase its strength by 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 in order to have it be comparable to the other known forces.)
ScienceDaily -- Genetically, culturally and ethically the Khoe-San have something special to add to this world. The largest genomic study ever conducted among Khoe and San groups reveals that these groups from southern Africa are descendants of the earliest diversification event in the history of all humans -- some 100,000 years ago, well before the 'out-of-Africa' migration of modern humans.
ScienceDaily -- It's an age old question: Why do we do good? What makes people sometimes willing to put "We" ahead of "Me?" Perhaps our first impulse is to be selfish, and cooperation is all about reining in greed. Or maybe cooperation happens spontaneously, and too much thinking gets in the way. MORE:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120919142144.htm
ScienceDaily -- Newly formed emotional memories can be erased from the human brain. This is shown by researchers from Uppsala University in a new study now being published by the academic journal Science. The findings may represent a breakthrough in research on memory and fear.
PARIS -- In its boldest development in a generation, the Louvre Museum has a new wing dedicated to Islamic art, a nearly $130 million project that comes at a tense time between the West and the Muslim world.
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Still, one of the Louvre's own consultants acknowledged that some Muslims could be "shocked" by three images of Muhammad with his face exposed in the new wing. Many Muslims believe the prophet should not be depicted at all -- even in a flattering way -- because it might encourage idolatry.
Paris (CNN) -- After a week of deadly international protests against an anti-Islam film, a French satirical magazine is pouring oil on the fiery debate between freedom of expression and offensive provocation.
MOSCOW -- Yoko Ono, the artist and widow of legendary Beatles singer John Lennon, and Amnesty International have announced that members of Pussy Riot will be among this year's winners of the Lennon Ono Grant for Peace. The group will be awarded an unspecified grant during a ceremony in New York City on Friday.
The Russian feminist punk collective became famous worldwide after Russian authorities put three members on trial for a subversive stunt in Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral. In February members of the group jumped on the cathedral’s altar and performed what they called a "punk prayer," begging for divine intervention to rid Russia of President Vladimir Putin.
Tehran, Iran (CNN) -- They may be a far cry from their Western counterparts fighting for the acceptance to breast-feed -- or go topless -- in public, but two girls clobbered a cleric recently in a small town in Iran when he admonished one of them to cover herself more completely.
An Egyptian atheist is in "serious danger" following his arrest and assault after protestors threatened to kill him and burn down his house in connection to the dissemination of a film insulting the Prophet Mohammed, his lawyer has warned.
(CNN) -- Several diplomatic facilities were shuttered Friday as many brace for intensified protests over the anti-Islam movie "Innocence of Muslims," as well as recently published cartoons in a
French publication of a figure resembling the Prophet Mohammed.
In August, Allen estimated about a quarter of the attacks are being carried out by infiltrators from the Taliban, the Islamic militia that ruled most of Afghanistan before the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
The National Union of Somali Journalists said the bombings took place just after sunset and that the al-Shabaab jihadist movement had claimed responsibility for the attack.
(CNN) -- A growing religion in southern Africa is posing a threat to the survival of wild leopards.
For the Nazareth Baptist Church, also known as the Shembe, leopards are seen as a symbol of pride, beauty and wealth, while their skins are viewed as essential attire for church elders who wear them around their necks during traditional ceremonies.
A mixture of Christianity and Zulu culture, the Shembe is one of the biggest traditional religious groups in South Africa with around 5 million members. There are fears from conservationists that as the church grows, Africa's leopards, already listed as "near threatened" by the International Union Conservation of Nature (IUCN), will be pushed towards extinction.
Greencastle, PA -- The Greencastle-Antrim School Board apparently has a problem with the United States Constitution. Mr. Ernest Perce V, acting initially as the Pennsylvania State Director for American Atheists, Inc. and a long-time (and s0metimes controversial) activist in Pennsylvania, had received multiple complaints about inappropriate prayers being recited at school board meetings. In fact, Mr. Perce had personally attended one of these meetings to verify these complaints. He had personally witnessed the recital of “The Lord’s Prayer” by the Board. The prayer had been recited after the meeting had already convened. As well, not only did the Board invoke the prayer,
This week a group of atheists, agnostics, humanists and other non-believers in Maine took the initial step toward flexing their collective political muscle in Augusta. They launched a Maine chapter of the Secular Coalition for America, a lobbying organization that has traditionally worked at the federal level.
The American Humanist Association, a Washington, D.C.-based group that advocates on behalf of humanist and atheist causes, filed a complaint last month with the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission saying that the cross, which falls on the commission’s land and sits at the intersection of Md. 450 and U.S. 1, is an unconstitutional use of a religious symbol on public land.
The group said it will take the battle to court if no action is taken.
(AP) LOS ANGELES - A newspaper investigation has found the Boy Scouts of America failed to report hundreds of suspected child sex abusers to authorities and often helped cover up the accusations over two decades.
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The newspaper found that in about 400 cases, there is no record of the Scouts reporting cases to police after parents, boys and staff members notified leaders.
Insanity, it has been said, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
In light of that, the state of Louisiana might want to get a mental health check-up. Legislators and some education officials there keep promoting creationism in public school science classes -- and they keep getting busted on it.
Linda Harvey of the Christian group Mission: America said she wants kids to know that bullying is wrong. She also wants them to know that "something called gay" is wrong too.
There are more than enough science-dependent issues in presidential politics to warrant a live presidential debate focused on those issues. A live debate would be much better than simply submitting written answers to questions. Read the answers the two campaigns submitted and you will see why -- they only sort-of answer the question, and as quickly as possible turn their answer to their campaign's talking points.
Spherical objects concentrated at an outcrop Opportunity reached last week differ in several ways from iron-rich spherules nicknamed "blueberries" the rover found at its landing site in early 2004 and at many other locations to date.
Opportunity is investigating an outcrop called Kirkwood in the Cape York segment of the western rim of Endeavour Crater. The spheres measure as much as one-eighth of an inch (3 millimeters) in diameter. The analysis is still preliminary, but it indicates that these spheres do not have the high iron content of Martian blueberries. MORE:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120914154003.htm
Researchers have debated whether viruses, which have genes but no cellular structure, should be considered forms of life. A new study suggests they should, showing that giant viruses have some of the most ancient protein structures found in all organisms on the planet.
The Unification Church believes that Jesus was divine, but that he is not God, a stance that puts it outside the bounds of traditional Christianity. The church follows Moon as its messiah.
American embassies were attacked in Libya and Egypt. Thus, Muslim extremists managed, through the expedient of riot and rampage, to bring attention to the very thing they loathe, a thing which, but for their help, would have been little noticed. The irony of that likely goes over their heads like a jet plane.
A man purported to be a filmmaker involved with the anti-Islam video sparking violent unrest in the Middle East and North Africa was escorted by deputies from his Cerritos, Calif., home shortly after midnight Saturday morning, NBCLosAngeles.com reported.
The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attack, calling it a response to the 14-minute movie trailer "Innocence of Muslims" that sparked protests in more than 20 countries. The trailer, which depicts the Prophet Mohammed as a child molester and ruthless killer, has roiled the Muslim world.
Angry protesters in the Sadr City district of northeast Baghdad carried banners, Iraqi flags and images of radical Shiite and anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as they railed against what they see as an insult to their faith.
(AP) KARACHI, Pakistan - Hundreds of Pakistanis protesting an anti-Islam film broke through a barricade near the U.S. Consulate in the southern city of Karachi on Sunday, sparking clashes with police in which one demonstrator was killed and more than a dozen injured.
(CNN) -- Global reaction to the attacks on U.S. diplomatic missions in Egypt and in Libya, where U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed amid Muslim outrage over a film mocking the Prophet Mohammed.
(CNN) -- A pro-al Qaeda group responsible for a previous armed assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi is the chief suspect in Tuesday's attack that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya, sources tracking militant Islamist groups in eastern Libya say.
Islamabad (CNN) -- In a period of about three weeks she went from being a virtually unknown 14-year-old Pakistani girl to making headlines around the world as a Christian teen facing a life sentence for allegedly burning pages of the Quran.
A semi-official religious foundation in Iran has increased a reward it had offered for the killing of British author Salman Rushdie to $3.3 million from $2.8 million, a newspaper reported, days after protests coursed through the Muslim world over alleged insults to the Prophet Muhammad.
A Taliban spokesman said Monday that the terror group would use "all our strength" to kidnap or kill the U.K's Prince Harry, who has just begun serving a four-month tour of duty as a chopper pilot in Afghanistan.
Baghdad (CNN) -- At least 79 people were killed and roughly 270 others wounded Sunday in a fresh wave of violence largely targeting Iraqi security forces and predominantly Shiite areas, government officials said.
Members of the Charlotte Atheists & Agnostics (CAA) spoke at the official city-approved speakers’ platform during the Democratic National Convention on September 4, 2012 in the pouring rain. They were advocating the separation of church and state. The speakers were: CAA member Piller Gregerson, CAA Vice President Mary Snow, and CAA President Shawn Murphy. Below is a video of excerpts of Mary Snow's speech. The first part of her speech was not captured in this video, however the full transcripts for each speech can be found at the links directly below:
I hope nobody tells the Religious Right honchos that there's no mention of God in the U.S. Constitution. They'll start a drive for a constitutional amendment.
Religiosity has declined in the U.S. by 13 percent since 2005, according to a new poll (PDF). The Millennial generation, born between 1981 and 2000, is the least religious yet, with one in four identifying themselves as religiously unaffiliated, atheist, or agnostic in a 2010 PewResearchCenter survey. That works out to about 15 million Americans who describe themselves as "convinced atheists," more than many mainline Protestant denominations, Jews, or Muslims.
Is there a market for merchandise for the godless? Retailers who cater to evangelical Christians with items including books, apparel, gifts, and Bibles represent $4.63 billion annually, according to the Association for Christian Retail. Those who sell to nonbelievers tend to be small business owners who are true nonbelievers. While bumper stickers and T-shirts are obvious favorites, books about evolution, educational games for children, and science-themed jewelry also hold appeal, says Derek Colanduno, an Atlanta computer programmer who hosts a podcast for skeptics.
The billboards now sit in a few locations in Tallahassee. The "Godless Billboards" are a part of a nationwide campaign to reach out to the millions of atheists living in the United States.
Thanks to a new law privatizing public education in Louisiana, Bible-based curriculum can now indoctrinate young, pliant minds with the good news of the Lord--all on the state taxpayers' dime.
For the first time in recent memory, the Greencastle-Antrim School Board did not recite the Lord’s Prayer at its meeting Thursday, instead choosing a moment of silence.
Without missing a beat, the overflow crowd that filled the Greencastle-Antrim Middle School library broke the silence by reciting the Lord’s Prayer in unison.
Later this week, the Secular Coalition for America will open its phone lines to anyone and everyone in Maine who a) doesn't believe in God, b) can't be sure there is a God or c) believes, regardless of his or her spiritual underpinnings, that government at any level should not be doing anything in the name of the man (or woman) upstairs.
CARSON CITY - An organization that represents atheists is starting a Nevada chapter that will lobby legislators against holding the sectarian prayers that open each legislative session.
ALTO PASS, Ill. (CBS) -- Atheist activist Rob Sherman says the U.S. Supreme Court is his last chance to block public funding for repair of a massive cross in Southern Illinois.
ATLANTA -- Three states where members of the clergy and justices of the peace today marry gay couples argued on Friday that it's a violation of states' rights for the federal government to then "unmarry" those people under the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
Atheist. Biologist. Writer. Thinker. Richard Dawkins has developed an international reputation of spreading the word that evolution happened and that there is no "intelligent design" or higher being, as you might gather from the title of his book "The God Delusion."
(SPACE.com) Former president Bill Clinton has lent his support to the 100-Year Starship initiative, a project started by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA ) to research interstellar travel.
The exhibits will tell the shuttle program's history with interactive displays and other features that allow visitors to learn as much as they want about the spacecraft that carried astronauts into space for 30 years.
Arguing that it is "biased" for his children to be given free Gideon Bibles in class but not free atheist literature, an Ontario father is launching a human rights case that aims to drive the Gideons out of the province's public schools.
First time author, Robert W. Griffiths, describes writing Slaying the Dragon, his critique of what he believes is the negative role that religion has and continues to have on society.
They said the daughter of the late President Park Chung-hee has a strong bond with Buddhists due to the influence of her late mother, Yook Young-soo, who was a pious Buddhist. The aides added that she is also close to several prominent Protestants.
Because of this background, some analysts say Park is de facto affiliated with the three key religions and this would help her relationship with Buddhists during her presidential campaigns.
The phrase "Jesus is a monkey" was painted on the walls of Latrun Monastery in large orange letters, as well as the words "Migron" and "Maoz Esther," referring to two illegal Israeli settler outposts in the West Bank.
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Israeli extremists have previously retaliated against both Islamic and Christian sites when they were forcibly evacuated from illegal West Bank outposts or settlements.
In February, a Greek Orthodox monastery in Jerusalem was similarly targeted when Israeli extremists wrote "Death to the Christians" on the walls and slashed the tires of churchgoers' vehicles.
Many mosques in the West Bank have also been set on fire in recent years and racist graffiti sprayed on the walls, including the words "price tag" and "Mohammad is a pig."
After three weeks behind bars, Rimsha Masih, a mentally challenged Christian girl whose imprisonment drew condemnation from religious rights groups around the world, was released today.
"Our True Father passed into the spiritual world at 1:54 AM Monday, September 3rd, Korea time," a message on a Unification Church English-language website said.
This is a timely and important look at how growing numbers of nonbelievers, disenchanted at how far America has wandered from its secular roots, are emerging to fight for equality and rational public policy.
(CNN) - A prominent Catholic friar has apologized for saying that child victims of sex abuse may at times bear some of the responsibility for the attacks because they can seduce their assailants, and that first-time sex offenders should not receive jail time.
(CNN) -- Federal prosecutors revealed a photograph Thursday that they say show an Amish man attacking another Amish man by attempting to forcibly cut his beard.
The raised lettering on the red, yellow, and blue sculpted "Freethought Action Hero" award declares its first recipient: Jennifer Lovejoy of Asheville, North Carolina. It will be conferred during the forthcoming Carolinas Secular Conference, September 28-30, at the Charleston Marriott, 170 Lockwood Boulevard, Charleston, SC. FreeThoughtAction Vice President Joseph McDaniel Stewart will make the presentation Saturday evening, September 29, as one of the highlights of the banquet. 
