Combating Bigotry & Hate
August 15, 2019
The KKK and the Power of Symbols
I wasn’t surprised to read that members got the idea from D. W. Griffith’s 1915 silent film The Birth of a Nation. Fire...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
August 3, 2019
How Psychology Lost Its Soul
Psychology’s “soul” was a casualty in the war between the spiritually alive and the spiritually dead.
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
August 3, 2019
The Swastika in the Bathroom
You walk into the bathroom and a large, black graffitied swastika greets you. It’s big, it’s ugly and it exudes an almost...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
July 29, 2019
What Happens When You Live?
The late astronomer and teacher, Carl Sagan, requested that the Voyager 1 spacecraft, in its journey through the cosmos, pause...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
July 29, 2019
Is This Who We Really Are?
I, for one, don’t believe it. Don’t get me wrong. I believe the statistics, the surveys and the opinions. I believe the...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
July 4, 2019
The Aftermath of the “Aftermath”
Most people are decent: They are constructive, creative, welcoming and social…
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
July 1, 2019
Love In the Age of Granfalloons
My Facebook brothers and sisters have become tribes, or more precisely, granfalloons. A granfalloon, as defined by the coiner...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
June 25, 2019
Everyday Actions to Combat Bigotry
Help End Religious Intolerance Wherever You Are Some of the moms I know are total superheroes, and I recently felt compelled...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
June 20, 2019
Terrorism: Let’s Change the Conversation
It is undeniably true that there are terrorists in the world and they are well named: they try to bring about terror, chaos,...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
June 12, 2019
Religion vs. Religious Freedom
Would you honor these unbelievers for being religious in an otherwise materialistic world and respect their sincerely held...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
April 7, 2019
The Answer to Hate Is Love
“Love one another.” It’s an adage so common it can seem trite. So simple that it’s hard to believe it can matter....
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
April 2, 2019
Anti-Semitism 101, Part 2:
Modern Anti-Semitism
Old lies die hard. A recent survey by the Anti-Defamation League revealed that 13 percent believe that “Jews are more likely...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
March 14, 2019
Twenty Minutes From Hate
We don’t take these things lightly anymore. We can’t. Not in a parade, not in Mardi Gras, and certainly not 20 minutes...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
March 14, 2019
House Passes Anti-Bigotry Resolution
No matter what the politics were behind it, no matter what backroom deals and compromises spawned it, no matter what debates,...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
March 1, 2019
One Method of Handling a Bigot
It’s OK to be honestly irked. It’s OK to have a zero-tolerance policy for bigots and bozos. And you don’t need eloquence...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
February 26, 2019
Et Tu, Disney?
What happened to Disney? And when I say Disney, I am not referring to the man, Mr. Walt Disney for whom I have the utmost...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
February 19, 2019
Islamophobia 101
Pope Urban II set the tone for a millennium-long identification of Muslims as direct enemies of Western values, culture and...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
February 14, 2019
Religious Persecution in South Africa—A History Lesson
I know whereof I speak because I was an investigative reporter in the 1980s. I wandered into one of these camps in Randfontein,...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
February 9, 2019
Tolerance for Intolerance: Burning Down Your Own House
Like setting your neighbor’s apartment on fire, it worked; but as historian Dan Carlin points out in his Blueprint for Armageddon...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
February 7, 2019
The Path to Violence Is Paved With Lies
It is not “normal” for people to hate each other because they look different, come from a different place or have different...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
February 6, 2019
The Bite-The-Hand-That-Feeds-You Syndrome
“If a man’s religion does not make him averse to sin, sin will make him averse to religion.”
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
January 30, 2019
Where Propaganda Leads: Holocaust Remembrance Day 2019
I was born April 19, 1945, the same day that, British soldiers in Germany pushed 13,000 decaying bodies into trenches with...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
January 29, 2019
Fun vs. Hate: The Difference Between Songs & Psychos
1964. For most Americans, vegetables at the dinner table were an afterthought. What vegetables there were, were certainly...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
January 22, 2019
An Open Farewell Letter to the Makers of Family Guy
Your recent mentions of Scientology make Comedy Central’s “Drunk History” look like the World Book Encyclopedia.
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
January 17, 2019
Defamation Kills:
The True Authors of Religious Violence
Can it be that governments and commercial interests have knowingly used the lunatics who reside at the fringe of our society...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
January 7, 2019
Anti-Semitism 101, Part 1: The Roots of the Movement
The Jews, then, were set apart in the ancient world, a factor that worked both for them—preserving a unique and imperishable...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
January 7, 2019
The Mystery of Goodness
One diplomat in particular, a Japanese man by the name of Chiune Sugihara, worked day and night, against the wishes of his...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
January 2, 2019
The Case for Brotherhood
Last October, eleven worshippers at the at Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania were murdered during Shabbat...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
January 1, 2019
Hate, Inc.: The Marketing of Bigotry for Profit
Bricks through windows, swastikas scrawled on synagogues, charred African-American churches, knocked-over tombstones in Jewish...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
December 31, 2018
Racism & Bigotry: Is World War II Over Yet?
Jews number less than 14 million in the whole world—that’s 1/535th of the world’s population…
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
December 19, 2018
Leah Remini vs. Everyone: Welcome to the Dark Ages
A recent spate of hate-inspired fires in five Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Halls brings up a pointed question: Is Leah Remini...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
December 6, 2018
Never Let the Fox Guard the Chicken Coop
Why else would someone go so far down the road of attacking groups that have clearly demonstrated over and over again that...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
December 5, 2018
“Not in Our Town”—The Miracle of Magic City
That night, six more homes with menorahs, along with a Methodist church donning the same, were vandalized. But more menorahs...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
November 26, 2018
What You Can Do About Ignorance and Hate
We do not have to hate each other, we do not have to fight, we do not have to natter and criticize and we do not have to be...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
November 19, 2018
My Friend, the Jehovah’s Witness
He started bringing new people by and introducing them. I joked with him that he was training new people and I must be an...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
November 15, 2018
Big Bigotry Goes Mainstream: Remini & Disney Attack Jehovah’s Witnesses
How exactly do you ask, in politically correct terms: “What religious group can we profit from the most by misrepresenting...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
October 28, 2018
The High Tech of Hate
The mind can absorb 20 images per second. Video runs at about 25 images per second. That means that for every second of TV...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
October 25, 2018
Hang Together or we Shall All Hang Separately
We find that religion in general is under increased attack by the media, but mainstream religion still enjoys a certain level...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
October 16, 2018
The Cult of Anti-Cult Cultists
Back in the 80s and 90s, people who used Macintosh computers—myself included—were considered odd, as were the computers...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
October 10, 2018
How to Fight Fake News in the Post-Journalism Era
There are still plenty of problems to fix in the world, but stupefying viewers with incessant catastrophes on a 24-hour news...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
October 10, 2018
Leah Remini—the TV Personality Who Makes Disney’s Biggest Villains Look Like Tinkerbell!
Just like in any Disney movie, the villain always loses in the end, winding up with egg on his or her face. Visibly, this...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
September 20, 2018
A Word of Advice From Someone Who Used to Love Disney
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen of Disney, I am sure you have seen the stats in Hollywood. People are tuning out in droves. Hollywood...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
September 14, 2018
Disney’s Latest Family Value: Hate
How Disney feels comfortable coming down on that side of the fence is beyond me. Apparently, their real values are not family...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
September 14, 2018
Disney & Remini: You Picked a Bad Time to Be Haters
Out of touch. That’s how haters like Leah Remini can be described. Like all bigots and bullies, she is even proud of being...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
September 13, 2018
One Thing You (Few) Haters Don’t Know About Us
Hey haters! I know you tend to think you’re pretty sharp. That you know everything we’ll say and do before we say and...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
September 5, 2018
An Open Letter to the Executives of Disney and A&E
I have been a structural and specialty contractor for almost half a century and have helped build several of the very Disney...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
September 5, 2018
Why I Know Walt Disney Would Be Ashamed
I remember two things about Walt: one was that he was really tall and the other was that he was the kindest man I had ever...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
September 3, 2018
Disney: Oh, the Hypocrisy!
It’s almost like Disney wants to attack my religion. I mean, it claims to uphold “values of inclusion, tolerance, and...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
September 3, 2018
Remini: Methinks Thou Doth Protest Too Much
Think for yourself. And trust your “thou-dost-protest-too-much” alarm when it goes off.
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
September 2, 2018
A&E and the Clickbaiting of Information
Readers began jumping from sensational headline to sensational headline calculated to attract a response and rank high on...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
September 2, 2018
The Freedom From Religion Foundation: Attacking Those Who Help
Why attack or defame that level of commitment? Why would the FFRF see this as a threat to their organization? To humanity?...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
September 1, 2018
To Remini, Rinder, et al: Don’t Be a Leech
Why would anyone devote their life to tearing someone else down? In the last 45 years I’ve seen such people pop up occasionally,...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
September 1, 2018
Disney: How Do I Explain Bigotry to My Granddaughter?
Perhaps I could tell her that the movie characters she admires—those who stand up for their beliefs, who overcome obstacles...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
September 1, 2018
Disney & Remini: A “Tangled” Story of Lies and Doublespeak
Even the cynical staff at Disney and A&E would recognize that they had gone too far if Remini attacked their church, their...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
August 26, 2018
Disney and A&E: It’s a Small (-Minded) World
I find it difficult to envision Walt Disney trying to make a buck by inciting anti-religious witch hunts. However, if current...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
August 26, 2018
The Fragility of Hate
From the perspective of this planet and possibly the whole universe, then, Hate has existed for less time than it takes to...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
August 26, 2018
“Cult” Defined: Any Religion Practiced by Others
The effort to make these religious groups seem dangerous, threatening or just plain weird was prodigious. And didn’t really...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
August 25, 2018
From Bambi to Bigotry: Disney’s Steep Fall
My sons were raised on Disney. We watched movies like Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Toy Story, over and over and...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
August 21, 2018
What Is It That Bigots Hate? That You Communicate.
When you look at bigotry (or more succinctly “hate”) as one person’s desire to ensure the target of the bigotry stops...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
August 13, 2018
This Year’s Heroes Against Hate—The Real All-Stars
He sustained five severe wounds, lost one third of his lung, but miraculously survived. “I’m no hero,” he said, thus...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
August 7, 2018
The “C”-Word
I’m telling you to stop using the word “cult.” The “C” word. Just stop it. Why? I challenge you—if you can show...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
August 1, 2018
Disney: It Was Dopey All Along
Things looked rosy at the Disney Studio in 1938. Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs was boffo at the box office, and a new star...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
July 26, 2018
The Rabbi and the Bigot—A Story of Redemption
A few days later, the Rabbi found a package on his front walk containing anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi pamphlets and a card reading:...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
July 24, 2018
Leah Remini Dies and Goes to… ?
“Wait!!” Remini shouted. “Not THAT! Anything but THAT!! I’ll take fire and brimstone instead! Please! Mercy!”
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
July 12, 2018
White Supremacy: Alive and Well in Hollywood
You’ll find modern versions of these supremacists in the audiences of the likes of Jerry Springer, Tosh.0, South Park, Samantha...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
June 30, 2018
Interview with an Asterisk
Please, just call me “*”—that’s what my friends all call me.
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
June 27, 2018
Religion in Comedy—Where Do We Draw the Line?
When you want to bring up a faith that’s not your own, you better know what you’re talking about. You better be accurate,...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
June 17, 2018
Paul Haggis: From Crash to Burn
My purpose here isn’t to examine and comment on #MeToo per se—social media and the press are doing a good job of that....
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
May 15, 2018
Weeds—A Parable
And sometimes a whole culture realizes belatedly that it has weeds–bad, bad weeds—and endeavors to pull them out, through...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
May 1, 2018
Confessions of a Bigot
On the final approach to New York’s La Guardia airport at 8:40 a.m. we flew over the World Trade Center. I was marveling...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
April 26, 2018
Don’t Take It Personally Or, What I Learned From My Cat
My point is she didn’t take it personally. She actually didn’t take it at all. She stayed calm and reasoned and level-headed.
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
April 23, 2018
In Their Own Image: Psychiatry's Attack on Religion
A decade ago, the Royal Society of Medicine posited that psychiatry had become “the new religion,” replacing priests with...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
April 18, 2018
Is religion being hacked? Ask the Muslims
A religion is bad because of the horrible things done in its name. Right? That’s like saying that the institution of marriage...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
March 28, 2018
Bring It On
Scientology was the only thing I found that gave me practical, concrete answers to any and every question I could ask, from...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
March 20, 2018
Tear Down That Wall!
I had a very interesting thing happen to me recently. My church was sponsoring a Human Rights Symposium and I got a true look...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
March 13, 2018
A Truly Unoriginal Vanity Fair Con Job a/k/a Running Away from the Truth
A Truly Unoriginal Vanity Fair Con Job a/k/a Running Away from the Truth. Investigation Discovery is tabloid television at...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
March 12, 2018
Scientologists and Freedom of Speech
The person who would forbid you from free expression is the person who hopes to, at some point, have you in chains. As Scientologists,...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
March 8, 2018
John Trudell Rising Above Violence, He Stood for Freedom
John Trudell was a friend of humanity. At great personal cost, he stood against discrimination and injustice in all forms,...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
March 1, 2018
Remini: Taking Bigotry on the Road
According to recent Hollywood reports, with her show’s viewership numbers doing a nose dive into a parity with “Joanie...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
February 17, 2018
Don’t be an “ic” or an “ist”
I met a very nice Persian man who was Jewish. His family was driven out of Iran because they were Jewish. Then in America...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
February 16, 2018
Scientology Empowerment Versus Psychiatric Destruction
I can see it now—Indonesian and American physicists in a catfight over which direction an apple takes when it falls from...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
February 10, 2018
Why Scientologists Do the Right Thing—And Those Who Don’t Don’t Like Us
Some of the nicest people you know might be Scientologists, but people who weren’t very nice and were kicked out have made...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
February 3, 2018
How Fake News Got Its Start: The Circulation War of 1898
The demise of the newspaper is forcing many to have to figure out how to set up shop themselves; whether through online outlets,...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
January 27, 2018
The Lie that Pits “Us Against Them”
There is a lie that runs throughout the cultures and countries of Earth that pits “us against them.” This is not a recent...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
January 18, 2018
An Open Letter to Dwayne Johnson
You are an actor with some serious clout. You can open a movie, your co-stars cannot. You can force a re-write, a script revision,...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
December 31, 2017
Breaking News: Scientologists Eat Salad!
How well I remember that morning in 1985 when I awoke to see a piece produced by a local Portland, Oregon TV news show marveling...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
December 19, 2017
About Saving the World and Those Who Discourage It
By the time I was 13 years old, if someone asked me what I wanted to be or do when I grew up, I would’ve told them: “I...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
December 18, 2017
Was Jewish “Blood Libel” the First Fake News?
Libel means false accusation. For centuries, a particularly vicious libel has been leveled at Jews: that they sacrificed Christian...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
December 13, 2017
The Single Source of Conflict
Who doesn't love a good fight? I still remember junior-high cries of "Fight! Fight!" as kids rushed to circle two combatants....
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
December 12, 2017
Guilt by Association: Making Good People and Their Religions Look Bad
The prophets wanted their followers to believe in God and follow His Word. It’s true that some adherents to these religions...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
December 11, 2017
Why Is Scientology Treated “Unfairly?”
Cultures change slowly. I was born in 1945. When I was growing up in Washington, D.C., discrimination against African Americans,...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
December 5, 2017
Thomas Jefferson and the True Spirit of Scientology
As a 7th grader, I visited the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. The quote in HUGE letters around the inner dome reads:...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
December 4, 2017
“FaithLeaks” and the New Deprogrammers
The supposed purpose of FaithLeaks is to get anonymous tips of wrongdoing within churches and religions, “expose” them...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
November 30, 2017
Scientology: The Genie is Out of the Bottle
The frustration level of those desperately trying to shove the Scientology “genie” back in the bottle seems to be at an...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
November 30, 2017
Why Does It Have to Be “Science vs. Religion?”
Debates that pit science versus religion don’t usually end well. They can devolve into name-calling, sometimes on a national...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
November 21, 2017
Seeing Hamilton—And Why We Just Won’t Shut Up
When I was visiting New York last month, I got to see the Broadway phenomenon that has everyone talking: Hamilton. And I have...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
November 20, 2017
How Eric Idle Dropped Me as His Biggest Fan Because I’m a Scientologist
I’d like to share what it’s like to have a celebrity—someone you have admired and been a fan of your whole life—suddenly...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
November 17, 2017
Groping for Clarity in This High-Speed, High-Stakes World
With trending, “hashtaggy” topics now an easy way to measure public mood, product sponsors, employers and others hyper-sensitive...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
November 16, 2017
Bullying By Any Other Name… Is Still Bullying
So November is right around the corner and with it… one of my least favorites days… the annual Kick a Ginger Day. Now,...
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Combating Bigotry & Hate
November 15, 2017
Scientology, “Critics” and Critical Mass
Just start pounding an idea enough times into enough people until, hypnotically, they begin to believe it. Critical mass is...
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