2014: The Year In God-Bothering

God had another big year in 2014, especially right near the end, when His Servant on Earth, Bill O'Reilly, finally declared victory in the War on Christmas. So we can look forward to a 2015 that's free of that particular topic, we bet. Even so, it would appear that there are still a few areas of American life where religion has caused a wee bit of a ruckus. Like, let's say, the courts, where the Supremes declared that the Hobby Lobby corporation's sincerely held religious beliefs can exempt them from following laws they don't like. Not that there's going to be any weird fallout from that decision, like people suing for the right to ignore child labor laws because God says it's OK.

In religion rulings that didn't involve ladyparts, the Court also ruled that it was no big if towns want to open their public meetings with explicitly Christian prayers, as long as, on paper at least, representatives of all faiths are allowed to give invocations. We don't imagine any other communities will take that as an excuse to go to extremes, no we do not. Also, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia explained that in his special copy of the Constitution, the state is actually allowed to promote religion as long as it doesn't endorse one particular sect over others.

Elsewhere in the United States, the Christian majority continued to be oppressed by not being allowed to treat all areas of public life as part of a church service. In Florida, a little girl told a very convincing, not-coached-at-all story about a mean teacher who wouldn't let her pray at lunch, and we believe it really happened, even though her dad just happens to publish Todd Starnes's books about oppressed Christians. And in Tennessee, a high school senior insisted she had been given an in-school suspension for saying "Bless you" when someone sneezed. Except maybe the real problem was that the girl had beenshouting "BLESS YOU!!!" and disrupting the class? No, that's silly, because why would anyone ever make up a story about being a poor oppressed Christian just to get on Fox News?

Christian oppression actually got so bad in 2014 that Rick Santorum made a crappy documentary about it, which we suppose we will have to watch once it hits video. And an Idaho couple is ready to go to jail for being Christian (and not allowing gays to get married at their for-profit wedding chapel), not that anyone's actually planning on jailing them.

The religious commitments of our political leaders continued to be a thing, with the Washington Times speculating that Hillary Clinton is not so much a Christian as a worshipper of Baal, because she opposed the Hobby Lobby decision. Worse, Barack Obama made some wingnuts very angry indeed when, at a National Prayer Breakfast, the President said that religious liberty is a good thing that he supports. But how can he actually believe in religious freedom when he is a proven Democrat and has personally aborted a million babbies to death? Also, too, Michele Bachmann took umbrage when Obama declared himself "theologian in chief" by saying that the actions of ISIS are not in accordance with the principles of Islam. Hey, Obama, if you really cared about Islam, you'd be fighting it!

Needless to say, the Islamic Threat continued to be an enormous problem, what with Muslims beheading people all over the country -- which is to say, one guy in Oklahoma committed a horrible murder after losing his job, and he was a Muslim convert. Never mind that the local prosecutor and the FBI both considered the crime to have more to do with the killer's dislike of white people; it was clear evidence of Jihad in the Heartland, because only Muslims behead people. And then a deranged Christian, also in Oklahoma, partially beheaded a guy who he thought was a witch, which just proves that Muslim murder methods are spilling over into the Christian community.

The imminent threat of beheadings in Oklahoma contributed to other freakouts over Muslims, of course. Dead Breitbart was simply horrified that Barack Obama congratulated the mosque where the killer occasionally attended services, although they never quite explained what it was he was congratulating the congregation for, leaving readers free to assume the mosque was being commended for its fine job of breeding terrorists. In reality, the commendation was for the mosque's help in cleaning up after the Oklahoma tornadoes of 2013.

Elsewhere, a brave businesswoman in Arkansas announced that she would ban Muslims from her gun range, because they scare normal people and their phones have scary Islamic ringtones, and also it wasn't discrimination because she had permission from the ATF (she did not). And in Georgia, the congressional seat once occupied by Paul "Evolution is a lie from the pit of Hell" Broun was won by Jody Hice, who is quite certain that Islam is not protected by the First Amendment because it is not really a religion. It is a floor wax, and possibly a dessert topping. And above all, it is a punching bag.

And finally, there was some pretty interesting God Stuff happening over in the Vatican City, where Pope Francis did a whole bunch of cool stuff, as well as some seriously   not cool stuff. Considering that the Catholic Church has long been one of the most rotten institutions on the planet, we think it's pretty impressive that New Pope has raised our opinion of Mother Church all the way up to "ambivalent," which is the highest it's been in decades.