​"Here they go again," Reverend Kyev Tatum said. He laughed, but stopped abruptly. He was talking, of course, about the atheists.

When we last caught up with the Dallas-Forth Worth Coalition of Reason, our local band of atheists, freethinkers and humanists, they were trying fruitlessly to get The Dallas Morning News to include a "secular perspective" in their weekly religion blog. Just in time for Black History Month, they're announcing their newest campaign: a billboard in South Dallas celebrating black atheists and freethinkers, both historical and contemporary. And considering the reaction their last ad campaign got -- those "Good Without God" bus ads in Forth Worth -- they're preparing themselves for a big reaction.

More >>

Merriman Associates Architects

​So, maybe you noticed: On Monday we checked in to see how progress, or whatever, was going with efforts to redo 1401 Elm Street. That's the George Dahl-designed building Mike Sarimsakci was going to spruce up with $30 million in TIF money from Dallas City Hall. Except, turns out, the Turk's parted ways with Istanbul-based developer Polidev and turned his attention to 500 South Ervay next to City Hall. We'll get back to that one later. Monday, probably. Waiting on some emails from Istanbul (not Constantinople).

Anyway. About 1401 Elm. We got an email today from Atil Karagoz, executive veep at Polidev, who took notice of Monday's item and wanted to fill in a few blanks. I sent him a missive this morning asking a few more questions; haven't heard back. Till then, though, this is what he says about how Polidev intends to proceed with the former Elm Place, which was shuttered two years ago:More >>

Lisa and Ed Young invite your into their bed Friday morning.

​Feels like three years since last we hopped into bed with Fellowship Church's senior pastor and resident sexpert Ed Young, who's been selling his religious sexperience since giving thanks for network morning talk shows in November 2008. But now, via the miracle of the Associated Baptist Press, we find this: Ed, whom Stephen Colbert called "The Sex Preacher," and wife Lisa will climb on the roof of Fellowship Church (and, one presumes, all over each other) starting Friday morning at 6 for a 24-hour bed-in, part of the sexperiment to see how many copies they can sell of their new don't-help-your-self-help book Sexperiment: 7 Days to Lasting Intimacy with Your Spouse, which is being published today.

Here's the video invite, in which Ed and Lisa invite you to dial in for the entirety of the bed-in scheduled to start when it's, oh, 25 degrees? "It's time to bring the bed back into church," says Ed, "and God back into bed." Which is what Robert Jeffress said right before he endorsed Rick Perry.
More >>

We're about four hours away from finding out who won those long, hard-fought caucuses in Iowa, which Rick Perry is trying like holy hell to win based on the newly minted video you'll find on the other side. It's quite the stars-and-stripes-and-church-cross spectacular -- like something Jerry Bruckheimer might have produced for an apocalyptic thriller starring Josh Brolin, Kirk Cameron and Robert Jeffress. It'll be a sad day when he leaves the campaign trail and heads back to Austin.

But Perry pal Jeffress went on FOX & Friends (oh, Gretchen) this morning to remind True Believers in Iowa they don't have to vote for Mitt Romney, that cult member. Says First Baptist Dallas's leader: "Anyone is electable if they get enough votes." Well, yeah.

Update: After his dismal, fifth-place showing in Iowa, Perry's headed back to Austin for "a little prayer and a little reflection." Good luck with all that.More >>

Photo by Danny Hurley

It's been a while since Fred Phelps's clan took a family vacation to Dallas ...

​In a New York Times piece this morning, Penn State's interim head coach Tom Bradley acknowledges: Many of the Lions wanted to skip their trip to Dallas on January 2, when Penn State's scheduled to play Houston in the TicketCity Bowl at the Cotton Bowl in Fair Park. The reason, so they say: A spot in Tom Starr's not-struggling-swear 2-year-old bowl game is reserved for the seventh-best team in the Big Ten, and Penn State's record is far better than that. Says Bradley, the players "had concerns," let's say, and looked to bail. But, no: "The team has come around to realize that the Cougars are a formidable opponent."

Speaking of: A Friend of Unfair Park sends word that Penn State and Houston will be greeted at Fair Park by none other than the Westboro Baptist Church, which is scheduled to bring its cavalcade of crazy to a bowl game that can always use a brighter spotlight. You can probably figure out why The Most Hated Family in America is out to get the Lions: "Penn State is like all of the universities in doomed USA: full of proud, fornicating, brutish sinners, bowing down to college sports. That's why Jerry Sandusky had full reign to rape little boys, under the noses of the likes of your hero Joe Paterno and his bosses." As for the Cougars? "Houston, meanwhile elected a dyke for Mayor." The day's shaping up to be a double-header: Occupy Dallas is prepping a counter-protest.

Seems Fred Phelps's clan is sticking around for a few days too: The only other item on their to-do list is picket the AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington on January 6. And what's their beef with Kansas State and Arkansas?

Your destruction is imminent! Instead of humbling yourself before your God, you worship your football. If you gave even a fraction of the time, money, or interest in serving God that you give to the players on the field, this country wouldn't be in the mess it is in. We are coming in warning to this foolish evil generation.

Which reminds me: God also hates Jason Garrett's play-calling. Picket that.

Shortly before word began circulating that the immortal Billy Graham has been hospitalized for the second time this year due to pneumonia, Athletes in Action posted to Vimeo the extraordinary artifact you see above: Graham teasing Explo '72, which Time called The Jesus Woodstock, that brought some 80,000 Campus Crusaders for Christ to Dallas for two weeks in June of that year. Graham was here, of course -- regardless of your religious affiliation, it was an epic moment in the city's history.

But shortly before the weeks-long wingding, there was a prelude of sorts when some 40 pro football players came to Dallas "for the same kind of training that will be given at Explo '72," per the narrator of the mini-doc above that shows the AIA's doings in Dallas during the days leading up to the revival. This has something for everyone, including nostalgists who want to see the city as it was 40 years ago (back when the Adolphus had a sign and the Statler was open for business) and sports fans eager for glimpses of Norm Evans and Lem Barney and other old-school ballers.

Also, I think it's time the city returns to its '70s slogan, "Dallas: The Time of Your Life City."

​In February, you may recall, 34-year-old Henry Clay Glaspell walked into federal court in Fort Worth and admitted: He was the man who, on July 25, 2010, set fire to the playground equipment and spray-painted "explicit images" and "obscene anti-Muslim graffiti" in the parking lot at the Dar El-Eman Islamic Center on Mansfield Road in Arlington. There was more: "Glaspell further admitted that he stole and damaged mosque property," according to the feds, and "threw used cat litter at the front door of the mosque and shouted racial or ethnic slurs at individuals of Arab or Middle Eastern descent at the mosque on multiple occasions." Glaspell was arrested in August 2010 for what then-U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas James T. Jacks referred to as "despicable acts of hatred."

Glaspell was due to be sentenced earlier this summer. But U.S. District Judge Terry R. Means handed down his punishment yesterday, per a heads-up from the U.S. Attorney's Office that arrived last yesterday: He got 14 months in federal prison for what the feds describe as "a hate crime charge stemming from the ethnically motivated arson." Glaspell has been free on bond, and must report to the Bureau of Prisons by November 21.

Says newly installed U.S. Attorney Sarah Saldaña, "Religious freedom is one of our most cherished rights, and that right includes the ability to build places of worship and assemble, free from discrimination. This office will continue to prosecute those who commit such reprehensible acts of hatred."

​Last night, in the comments below, a Friend of Unfair Park mentioned that Tom Leppert made Keith Olbermann's "Worst Persons in the World" round-up for his End Occupy website. Sure enough -- finally, some national pub for the former Dallas mayor and candidate for U.S. Senate, for whom a crazy-lefty slapdown is the just the sort of long, slow, deep, soft, wet kiss on national TV a loan from yourself can't buy. And: Leppert's lumped in there with Anita Perry, husband of Rick, who's been known to pray next to Leppert whilst standing in family-style Italian eateries at the mall.

Speaking of the Perrys: The Daily Show returned from a week-long hiatus last night and promptly tee'd up a segment on Perry's sudden and dramatic plunge in the polls thanks to his having to actually speak, or whatever that is he does, in public. At which point Jon Stewart flashed back to First Baptist Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress's endorsement of Rick Perry two weeks ago, after which the pastor once more called Mormonism "a cult." Jeffress, who once shared a big red button with congregant Tom Leppert, delivered what Stewart considers "the sweetest, most good-natured, pleasant shit on an entire religion I have ever seen." Following that, Jesuit College Preparatory School of Dallas's own Wyatt Cenac and Samatha Bee square off: Team Mormon vs. Team Normal. Spoiler: It doesn't end well for the Jew. Watch last night's teevee today on the other side.More >>

From First Baptist Dallas's home page

​Robert Jeffress endorsed Rick Perry Friday, but it's the gift that keeps on giving. As in: The Americans United for Separation of Church and State has sent a letter today to the Internal Revenue Service insisting that the First Baptist Dallas pastor's endorsement, and subsequent postings of videos to the First Baptist website, have violated federal election laws and put its tax-exempt status at risk. Writes Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, "Jeffress seems to be operating under the belief that he can post these endorsements as long as he includes some type of disclaimer." Which, far as Lynn is concerned, is nonsense.

The letter is part of a press release that adds this:

Lynn pointed out that an IRS publication called "Election Year Activities and the Prohibition on Political Campaign Intervention for Section 501(c)(3) Organizations" warns churches and other nonprofits to be careful about what they post on their websites. The IRS states, "A web site is a form of communication. If an organization posts something on its web site that favors or opposes a candidate for public office, the organization will be treated the same as if it distributed printed material, oral statements or broadcasts that favored or opposed a candidate."

This isn't Jeffress' first brush with this issue. In 1998, while serving as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Wichita Falls, Texas, Jeffress checked out two books with gay themes from the local public library and refused to return them. He then urged members of his congregation to vote against city council members if they refused to ban the tomes. A local newspaper reported that Jeffress challenged his congregation to "vote out the infidels who would deny God and his word."

Read the letter here.

Update at 8:27 p.m.: This just in from Jeffress via his Facebook page:

Tomorrow morning at 7am CT, I'll be on NBC's Today Show talking about the marginalization of faith in the presidential campaign and the importance of understanding the relationship between a candidate's core religious beliefs and their ability to lead.

Well, that's what they told him, anyway. Tomorrow's lead-off item, in case you hadn't guessed.

Karl Rove was on The O'Reilly Factor last night discussing the impact the First Baptist Dallas pastor's comments will have on Rick Perry's campaign, among other things. Alas, Bill O'Reilly was off, and instead Dubya's right-hand man was on with Laura Ingraham, who feels bad for Perry being associated with Jeffress. Whatever, says Rove. This is all on Jeffress:

This was a terrible mistake on the part of the pastor. It's the kind of thing that doesn't belong in politics. We want our candidates, we want our leaders to be people of faith, but, you know, we don't get into and we haven't gotten into since at least the 1960 presidential election into a determination over whether or not somebody's professed faith is acceptable to the vast majority of Americans.