With Democrats winning control of the House, President Trump signaled Wednesday his support for Pelosi as speaker. In a tweet Trump said that Pelosi “has earned this great honor” and suggested the Republican party could help her secure the job. “If they (Democrats) give her a hard time, perhaps we will add some Republican votes,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Trump, though, showed an early interest in working with her, charmed at times by her deal-making prowess. If she returns as leader, it’s easy to imagine Pelosi courting Trump’s support on shared priorities ahead of the 2020 election, like a big infrastructure package or lower prescription drug prices that eluded past presidents — the kind of bipartisanship voters say they want from Washington.

Some of the pope's adversaries in the church, such as Cardinal Raymond Burke, have another explanation: Gay priests are to blame, they say. Most abuse incidents, Burke told an interviewer last month, consist of "homosexual acts committed with adolescent young men."

"It seems clear in light of these recent terrible scandals," Burke said, "that indeed there is a homosexual culture, not only among the clergy but even within the hierarchy, which needs to be purified at the root."

Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison, Wisconsin, writing to Catholics in his diocese last month, noted that the recent incidents of clergy abuse involved "deviant sexual — almost exclusively homosexual — acts by clerics."

"It is time to admit," Morlino wrote, "that there is a homosexual subculture within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church that is wreaking great devastation in the vineyard of the Lord." . . . "I would say that homosexuality is at the root of this," Morlino answered.

In response to the Supreme Court upholding Donald Trump‘s Muslim travel ban — technically, a ban on several Muslim-majority countries for purported reasons of security — a number of secular groups have spoken out against the decision, calling it a form of religious discrimination.

To put it another way, a whole bunch of atheists are defending Muslims and religious freedom, because discrimination on the basis of religion should concern all of us.

Here’s Larry T. Decker, Executive Director of the Secular Coalition for America:

By upholding President Trump’s travel ban, the Supreme Court has legitimized bigotry and threatened the rights of all Americans. This travel ban is nothing more than a thinly-veiled religious test and the fulfillment of President Trump’s repeated pledge to institute a ‘total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.’ Any reasonable observer assessing the travel ban in light of President Trump’s 2016 campaign will see it for what it is — an assertion of Christian privilege, anti-Muslim bigotry, a rebuke of our First Amendment, and a grave threat to religious freedom.

FFRF was more blunt on Twitter, calling the ruling “disgraceful”.... In a longer explanation, they said the ruling ignored very clear constitutional limits:

The travel ban blatantly disregards the Establishment Clause, as FFRF demonstrated in its “friend of the court” brief it filed before the Supreme Court against the ban. The Trump administration’s history of excluding from entry to the United States immigrants and non-immigrants from selected majority-Muslim countries violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, FFRF had contended. The travel ban also contravenes Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits a religious test for office or public trust.

...in her 2005 stand-up comedy special “Jesus is Magic,” she made a joke about killing Jesus: “I hope the Jews did kill Christ! I’d do it again. I’d fucking do it again in a second.”

That’s what known in comedy circles as a “joke.”

Silverman’s whole persona at that time was someone who said offensive things because no one expected them to come out of her mouth. Her fans knew she didn’t genuinely mean any of it, and her comedy has by and large shifted away from that in the years since.

"… have you heard of this comedian, Sarah Silverman? You guys know what I’m talking about? She brags about it! “I’d do it again!” Listen, she is a witch. She is a jezebel. She is a God-hating whore of Zionism. I hope that God breaks her teeth out and she dies. She is a wicked person and she is, like, the perfect representation of religious Judaism… I pray that God would give her an untimely death, and it would be evident that it’s at the hand of God…"

That’s… a lot of hate directed at someone who made a joke. He’s not saying her jokes will lead her to Hell in the afterlife. He’s calling for her death now.

A major court victory by the Freedom From Religion Foundation will save New Jersey taxpayers many millions of dollars by terminating an unconstitutional boondoggle.

The New Jersey Supreme Court, in a 7-0 decision today, upheld the state Constitution’s ban against taxpayer funds being used for “building or repairing any church or churches.” In Freedom From Religion Foundation v. Morris County, FFRF and member David Steketee filed suit in late 2015 against the county, challenging public grants of millions of tax dollars to repair or maintain churches. The state high court’s ruling corrected a lower court’s shocking refusal to apply the state Constitution’s plain command.

FFRF and Steketee originally protested more than $5.5 million in funding to churches since 2012 by the Historic Preservation Trust Fund. The lawsuit specifically challenged $1.04 million in allotments to Presbyterian Church in Morristown, which, in the words of the church, would allow “continued use by our congregation for worship services,” as well as disbursements to St. Peter’s Episcopal Church to ensure “continued safe public access to the church for worship.” All of the churches that received the grants have active congregations.

“This is not just a win for secular citizens, but for every New Jersey taxpayer,” explains FFRF constitutional attorney Andrew L. Seidel. “Governments in New Jersey cannot force Muslims to bankroll temples and yeshivas, compel Jews to subsidize Christian churches and Catholic schools, force Christians to fund mosques and madrassas or nonbelievers to support any religion. It’s a win for all.”