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James A. Haught

James A. Haught James A. Haught is longtime editor of West Virginia's largest newspaper, The Charleston Gazette-Mail, where he has won two dozen national newswriting awards. He is also a prolific and important voice in the nontheist movement. having won 21 national newswriting awards.

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Civil Rights
90 Years of Secular Progress: As Fundamentalism Weakened, I saw America grow Strong and Diverse

90 Years of Secular Progress: As Fundamentalism Weakened, I saw America grow Strong and Diverse

James A. Haught

Charleston, WV (Special to Informed Comment) – I’ll be 90 on my next birthday. My long life is sinking, shrinking, slip-sliding away. My wife is worse: bedfast, under Hospice care. Soon, our world will end, not with a bang but a whimper. Looking back over nine decades, I’m proud and pleased because secular humanism – […]

Fundamentalism
Right Wing Laws to “protect religious freedom” Enable Fundamentalists to Discriminate

Right Wing Laws to “protect religious freedom” Enable Fundamentalists to Discriminate

James A. Haught

Charleston, W.Va. (Informed Comment) – Across America, right-wing politicians pass “religious freedom” laws that have a single purpose: to let narrow-minded believers discriminate against gays — an intolerance that is illegal for other people under human rights laws. In other words, only born-again Christians are allowed to express prejudice and hostility, while other Americans live […]

Christians
How did Washington State get sensible Sex Education Passed?  The Religious Right is Collapsing

How did Washington State get sensible Sex Education Passed? The Religious Right is Collapsing

James A. Haught

Here’s a dramatic example of the growing power of Americans who say their religion is “none”: Last spring, progressives in the Washington state legislature, backed by Planned Parenthood, mandated that all public schools must teach sensible, practical sex education. The goal: to prevent teen pregnancy, reduce sexual disease, save girls from “date rape,” caution grade-schoolers […]

Donald Trump
Is America Flowing Demographically to the Left?  Why Trump’s White Evangelicals aren’t the Force they were under Reagan or Bush

Is America Flowing Demographically to the Left? Why Trump’s White Evangelicals aren’t the Force they were under Reagan or Bush

James A. Haught

Charleston, W.V. (Special to Informed Comment) – Maybe 2020 is a turning point – one that won’t be clearly visible until the future. Maybe it marks the end of the four-decade epoch when the white evangelical “religious right” had enough power to tip American elections to the GOP. White evangelicals fought fiercely for Republicans this […]

Christianity
In this Election, make no Mistake: White Evangelicals Lost, as “Nones” and Religious Liberals saved the Day

In this Election, make no Mistake: White Evangelicals Lost, as “Nones” and Religious Liberals saved the Day

James A. Haught

Charleston , W. V. (Special to Informed Comment) – Donald Trump taught America a great lesson. He showed that this nation has a huge number of racist, sexist, jingoist, gay-hating, Muslim-hating, Hispanic-hating bigots – those Hillary Clinton called a “basket of deplorables.” Trump attracted them by millions through his endless attacks on blacks and other […]

Christianity
Are the Days when White Evangelicals can Swing the Election Passing?

Are the Days when White Evangelicals can Swing the Election Passing?

James A. Haught

Charleston, W.V. (Special to Informed Comment) – In the classic movie “Citizen Kane,” a ruthless newspaper tycoon runs for high political office. In advance, his publishing chain prepares two possible alternative headlines for the morning after the election. One crows: “Kane Wins.” But if that won’t work, the other says: “Fraud at the Polls.” Well, […]

Evangelicals
Is the Rising Generation of Unchurched Secularists pointing to a post-Trump Progressive America?

Is the Rising Generation of Unchurched Secularists pointing to a post-Trump Progressive America?

James A. Haught

Someday, the coronavirus tragedy will be gone, wiped out by scientific vaccines. And Donald Trump will be just an unpleasant memory, an absurd reminder of what can happen when bigotry contaminates democracy. This part of the 21st century will be remembered chiefly, I predict, as the era when supernatural religion died among intelligent western people. […]

Christians
Why are Americans abandoning Religion in Droves?

Why are Americans abandoning Religion in Droves?

James A. Haught

Charleston, W.Va. (Syndicated to Informed Comment) – Religion is fading more quickly in the United States than in any other nation, according to a forthcoming research book. Religion’s Sudden Decline: What’s Causing It and What Comes Next, by University of Michigan scholar Ronald Inglehart, is to be released in January by Oxford University Press. Writing […]

Donald Trump
How Can 43% of Americans Support a crude, vulgar, shallow, petty, self-worshiping, obnoxious racist ?

How Can 43% of Americans Support a crude, vulgar, shallow, petty, self-worshiping, obnoxious racist ?

James A. Haught

Sometimes it seems like we live in a huge loony bin where things make no sense. How could the world’s richest, strongest nation give its highest office to a crude, vulgar, shallow, petty, self-worshiping, obnoxious, racist schmuck? How can Donald Trump draw so much political support? Is it raw racism – widespread approval of his […]

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