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The Best Wife:
1. Listens to her husband and does her best to please him.

2. Always considers her husband’s well being.
3. Does not give the husband stress but gives him peace of mind.
4. Does not spend more than her husband earns.
5. Helps her husband at the time of problems.
6. Has patience when the husband doesn’t treat her justly.
7. Behaves and dresses modestly.
8. Learns and practises islam and teaches her husband too.
9. Does her best to raise their children in an islamic way.
Share Please — Nikahexplorer

1-5 would be ok advice for spouses – for spouses, I say. It would be ok for a couple planning to live together with affection and mutual whatnot – respect, concern, caring – just the basic requirement for sharing lives. Be good to each other; treat each other well; don’t be mean or selfish. Fine. But as advice for just one spouse? Yeah it sucks. And 6-9 are terrible.

Also – why the hell is the woman wearing a hijab at home?

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

A Republican senator from North Carolina is hacked off about all these god damn pesky government regulations, like say for instance making restaurants tell their workers to wash their hands after using the toilet. Let the market deal with that!

“Let them decide” such issues, the newly elected lawmaker said.

His argument was that restaurants which did not require workers to wash their hands would quickly go out of business.

Definitely! Because all the customers would know the workers were not washing their hands, so they would just stop going to those restaurants. How would they know? Um…the magic of the market?

No no wait, the restaurants would tell them. Yeah that’s it!

He suggested that restaurants that did not require hand washing would have to alert customers with prominently displayed signs…

Brilliant! Don’t mandate signs telling the workers to wash their hands – mandate signs telling the customers the workers aren’t required to wash their hands. That’s doing away with pesky government sign-posting and no mistake.

The comments come as some Republican presidential hopefuls have questioned vaccine regulations amid a measles outbreak.

At least two hopefuls have said parents are justified in sometimes having their children avoid vaccinations generally required for attending school.

Freedom freedom FREEDOM.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Ha! No, no, there isn’t, because you see – oh never mind.

Jammy Dodger @mrjammyjamjar

Is there a right way to say @SaraKhanInspire deserves a slap without sounding like a misogynist

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Rupert Myers is very polite and repentant about writing such a nasty and untruthful article in the Telegraph about how Kate Smurthwaite is milking the last minute cancellation of her gig for publicity and besides nobody wanted to see her show anyway.

Hahahaha I’m kidding, no he’s not, he’s rude and dismissive.

Rupert Myers ‏@RupertMyers 6 hours ago
@Cruella1 I wish you the best of luck: my point is that this wasn’t a free speech / no platform situation.

Kate Smurthwaite ‏@Cruella1 6 hours ago
@RupertMyers and you felt the need to accept their point that sales were low without checking the actual facts. You don’t see how that…
…might damage my reputation? Just as well I don’t make my actual living doing this… Oh yes I do.

Rupert Myers ‏@RupertMyers 6 hours ago
@Cruella1 their comments seem to tally with yours

Kate Smurthwaite ‏@Cruella1 6 hours ago
@RupertMyers I don’t actually think you are stupid enough to believe your own doublespeak here.

Ophelia Benson ‏@OpheliaBenson 5 hours ago
@Cruella1 @RupertMyers That article is such an insulting piece of crap.

Rupert Myers ‏@RupertMyers 1 hour ago
@OpheliaBenson @Cruella1 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Guest post by Misty Griffin

One of the only photos taken of the Author during her teenage years. Here she is seventeen years old.

“People would smile reverently as we walked by, never did they suspect the horrific sexual, physical and mental torture that my sister and I suffered on a daily basis. To the outside world we were the epitome of chasteness, sobriety and down to earth values. In reality my life was a living nightmare  straight from the depths of hell.”
                                                  – Misty Griffin

If you are a rape victim among the Amish it is in every case a very harsh and scary reality. You have no allies, no one to talk to about what happened and no one who will hold your hand as you cry. You the victim are hushed from the very moment word gets out and are told by church leaders that you must have done something to welcome such an attack. In addition you are told that if you speak of the matter you are unforgiving and will go to hell if you do not repent. If the victim is a church member she will be shunned if she refuses to forgive and live as if nothing had happened. Even the victim’s family will not allow  her to talk for fear of being caught and punished by the church.

Children are not taken out of the home. If the rapist is the father they must continue to live in his household until they marry.

This is the most horrifying reality of all. Being Ex- Amish myself I can recall more than one family who got sideways glances from other church members during social gatherings; however the truth still remains that abused children are not taken out of the home and will usually continue to be raped their entire childhoods.

In most cases the perpetrator is a male relative, and even if the victim marries and gets out of the home she must still continue to be around her rapist at church, family gatherings, social gatherings etc. For many Amish rape victims it is more than they can bear, and they either commit suicide or develop a mental illness. The pain of never being able to talk about what happened to you or may still be happening is such a heavy burden.

One of my good friends who was a rape victim ended up dying after she starved herself for a year. It was so sad and unnecessary; she had been harshly reprimanded by the church after being raped at the tender age of fourteen. She was told not to talk about what happened to her and after a few years she quit talking completely. Laura died a year later after she went into a massive seizure. She had been looked upon as odd after her rape and the funeral was very minimal.

Unfortunately there are many children like my friend Laura and  they suffer in silence while they are continually raped with full knowledge of the church. In my own Amish community the bishop’s wife was my best friend, and after a few years she risked a shunning by confiding in me that she and all of her siblings had been raped by her father. He had been reported many times to the church leaders by her mother. He was in turn placed in a six week shunning each time. However since he was a deacon in the church, after his six week sentence was up he was back to preaching and attending church matters. He was a serial rapist who had ruined the lives of all 11 of his children, yet each time he confessed in the church he was given nods of approval and was taken back as a good man who had confessed his sins before God and man.

After I became aware of her plight it made me physically sick when I saw her father get up to preach while his children sat on the church benches with children of their own. I would feel physically sick and had to look away while the tears rolled down my cheeks. It was so unfair and worst of all each time he stood up to preach it was a slap in the face of his victims. I could not understand how people could be so cruel and more than once I sat with my fist clenched under my stiff white apron.

Amish rape victims are forced to suffer in silence as they continue to be raped.

The Amish believe that once a person confesses they should be automatically forgiven even if that man is confessing to his tenth rape. Everyone must forgive and forget, even the rape victim. If the victim shows any hostility towards the offender or openly refuses to stop talking about the matter, they themselves will be shunned. In this case the shunning would last much longer since the victim will have a hard time going before the church and admitting she was wrong to harbor such ill feelings.

Even if you are a sexual abuse victim you do not dare leave the Amish for fear of going to hell. Besides the fear of going to hell, there is the fear of being shunned. I myself am currently a shunned Ex- Amish and fully am aware of its  sting. Any young person who is shunned by the Amish goes out into the world completely on their own. They have very little if any money, no family, few friends and no ID, drivers license or social security card. For me I often explained it as being teleported from the 1600s into the 21st century. It is a daunting and scary experience and it would have been much easier to remain Amish and I most likely would have, had my conscience allowed it. Below is an excerpt from my memoir that gives some perspective into just how a young Amish woman may feel.

It had long been my experience that even if the predator was placed in the six week Bann, they would still continue to rape and often go on to be a serial rapist, some of whom have been known to rape all of their children with full knowledge of the church. In each case, never has anyone hugged the child or asked them if they were okay. The only thing the church members were concerned with was silencing them.

 And so that morning as I struggled, I was not only fighting for myself but also for my potential offspring. I so despised this ancient tradition of silencing victims and could not understand how everyone else could simply stand by and look the other way. I could not, and at times I had felt physically sick from the things I had heard and witnessed.

But I was Amish, and that in and of itself was my world, my life and my government. To leave the Amish would most certainly mean I would go to hell, as well as be banished from everyone that I held dear. To leave the Amish was truly the ultimate sin…  ( Excerpt from my memoir  Tears of the silenced)

Rape happens in every culture

As callous as this may sound I have actually been in a debate with more than one Amish fan and have heard them make this very comment. It is true that rape does happen in every culture, the only problem is that in the Amish there is absolutely no justice for the victim and the most heartbreaking reality is that the victim will most likely go on to be raped for many years because the Amish church is unable and unwilling to stop the rapist.

Although I am sure this article will get many comments saying that the Amish are kind and gentle people who abide by the law, have strong family ties and good morals etc. My question to you would in turn be. If you know the Amish are a closed and secretive society why would you dear reader pretend to know anything about them. I can answer this for you by informing you that if you have never been Amish you will never truly know what it is like.

First of all everyone can start by keeping their ears and eyes open. My mission is not to only talk about the Amish but also to touch on the subject of child abuse. I myself was not born Amish but I was raised like them on a lonely mountain top. Here I was beaten, tortured and sexually assaulted on a daily basis.. I was taken to the Amish community at the age of eighteen and due to my horrific childhood was readily accepted by them because I had been raised with stricter rules than they themselves practiced.

During the first twenty two years of my life ( Before my escape from the Amish) I saw many times when an outsider noticed something was amiss but no one ever bothered to do something about it. Many times I know it was because of our religious appearance but I firmly believe that just because someone is religious they should never get away with abuse. Many times in this world a horrific abuse could have been prevented if someone had not looked the other way or told themselves it was not their problem.

In cases of child abuse I believe that it is everyone’s problem. Our children are the future leaders of the world and how they are treated today will affect how they rule the world tomorrow.

In the case of girls that are raped in these strict religious communities, my hope is that if you ever come across such a girl you will encourage her to prosecute the offender. No matter the cost. This is the only way these men will ever see that there are consequences for their actions. My plea to everyone around the world is that you never go through life and miss the opportunity to save someone. My childhood and young adulthood was a living nightmare, I was unable to help myself because I did not know how, and I was also to scared to try. I was in serious need of a hero, for someone you could be that hero.

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The BBC reports on a “no Jews need apply” ad in France:

An advert for a graphic design job in France has been withdrawn after it said the candidate should “if possible not be a Jew”.

Racial discrimination is illegal in France and anti-racism group SOS Racisme says it is taking legal action.

The ad was posted on Monday by Paris-based NSL Studio on jobs site Graphic-Jobs.com.

NSL Studio has apologised for the ad but offered various explanations as to why it contained the offending clause.

First they said long hours, might conflict. Then they said hacked. So those are two totally conflicting reasons. The first is “we had a good, non-anti-Semitic, pragmatic reason.” The second is “we never.” The first betrays the fact that the second is not likely to be true. Pro-tip: choose one of that type but never both. If you use both it looks exactly as if you’re lying. Say you did it for a good reason OR say you never did; do not say you did it for a good reason AND you never did. That doesn’t work.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

A novel that Harper Lee wrote in the mid-50s, before To Kill a Mockingbird, is going to be published next summer. The Guardian reports that there is much excitement.

UK and Commonwealth rights to the book were acquired by Penguin Random House. The publisher’s announcement on Tuesday was accompanied by a new photo of Lee, climbing out of a car and smiling. The news has been kept secret from all but a handful of staff at the publisher, and publicity director Charlotte Bush said that when it was revealed this afternoon, a series of screams went up around the office.

Well you know how people in publishing are. They’re screamers.

At Foyles booksellers in London, Jonathan Ruppin described the news as being “as big as it gets for new fiction”. “We can close the book on the bestselling novel of 2015 right now. At Foyles today, we’re absolutely fizzing with excitement and frenzied speculation: it’s the only topic of conversation,” said the bookseller, adding that even though To Kill a Mockingbird has long been acknowledged as a classic, it “is a book that still surprises new readers with its power. Its story is arresting and profound, its characters vivid and entirely convincing, so the prospect of a follow-up, after all these years, is giddyingly thrilling”.

I’m still calm about it. I can tell you one thing though – it won’t be anything like as bad as the last piece of fiction (or writing of any kind) that J D Salinger published. That was the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever read. Literally that: embarrassing. It was basically his absurd fantasy life, spread out in huge detail, but by some strange accident published in the New Yorker. Don’t ever publish your fantasy life in the New Yorker.

Harper Lee’s new-old novel won’t be that bad.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Mona Eltahawy reports on the harassment and persecution of atheists in Egypt.

Because atheism itself is not illegal in Egypt, charges are laid under laws against blasphemy or contempt for religion. In 2012, a 27-year-old blogger, Alber Saber, received a three-year sentence on charges of blasphemy for creating a web page called “Egyptian Atheists.” In 2013, the writer and human rights activist Karam Saber (no relation) was convicted of defaming religion in his short story collection “Where Is God?”

Cool trick. No law against atheism – but you can’t defame religion!

It is no surprise that Mr. Banna’s conviction occurred on the watch of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the former army general who led the ouster of Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood to become president. Regardless of which way the seesaw of power in Egypt tips — toward the Islamists or toward the military — it is always a heterosexual, conservative Muslim man who heads the moral hierarchy. The further from that identity you are, the more vulnerable you are.

Liberal feminist atheist women are miles and miles away from that identity.

If anything, Egypt’s nominally secular ruler is more Catholic than the pope, to borrow a metaphor from another religion. Assuming the role of defender of public morality is a deliberate reminder that the Islamists do not hold the copyright on piety. This is not new: The regime of the ousted President Hosni Mubarak often vaunted its religiosity to outdo its Islamists rivals.

So…you can have Islamists, or you can have non-Islamists who compete with Islamists for Who Is Most Theocratic. Fabulous – talk about moving the Overton window.

Nowhere is this morality power play exercised more vehemently than in curbing perceived religious and sex crimes. Hence Egypt’s witch hunt against gay men. Rights activists say that 2014 was the worst year in a decade for gay people in Egypt, with at least 150 men arrested or put on trial. Same-sex relationships are not illegal, but gay men are targeted under “debauchery” laws.

Because God isn’t gay. God is a heterosexual man and don’t you forget it. God fucks laydeez, God doesn’t fuck men. Everybody knows that.

In a speech this month honoring the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, Mr. Sisi called on Muslim leaders in Egypt to start a “religious revolution” to counter the jihadist message of the Islamic State. He also sent his foreign minister to the solidarity march after the attacks in Paris at the office of the magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket.

The contradiction in Mr. Sisi’s aim of keeping the heterosexual, conservative Muslim man at the top of Egypt’s moral hierarchy is glaring. You can’t trump the Islamists in their piety and lead a campaign against minorities like atheists and gay men even as you condemn extremist violence and show solidarity for free speech and free thinking.

Maybe the foreign minister just wanted to have a chat with the Saudi officials on the solidarity march.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Maajid Nawaz has started a video series – short video, which I applaud. Yesterday’s, the third, is about Raif and Waleed. It’s only a minute and a half.

The punchline is a doozy.

If we are more offended by mere cartoons than a man being flogged in public for the charge of blasphemy – if we take more offense to the former over the latter – then we’ve got a fucking problem.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Waleed and Raif are nominated for a Nobel.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Look who has joined this sinister group of bloggers – Jamila Bey!

In her inaugural post she tells us an atheist invented Black History Month, which I didn’t know.

Carter G. Woodson, autodidact who graduated with his Ph.D. from Harvard, was a leading thinker who came up with the idea of Negro History Month in 1926.  He hoped, (as does this writer) that the need for the commemoration would someday become obsolete.

Woodson was a staunch critic of religious institutions and wrote that they were oppressive to Blacks.  Just as he believed that the accomplishments and the global influence of Black people were unreported or at best under represented, the influence of freethinking and atheist people, particularly concerning American history, have been diminished.

Today’s Google Doodle, which celebrates the anniversary of the birth of African-American poet, and columnist, Langston Hughes, is also a great opportunity for atheists to remind folks that Hughes was also without religion.

So give Jamila a big welcome.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Here is the item I was looking for yesterday from a doctor explaining why there can’t be unvaccinated children in his waiting room.

Mike Ginsberg

In my practice you will vaccinate and you will vaccinate on time. You will not get your own “spaced-out” schedule that increases your child’s risk of illness or adverse event. I will not have measles-shedding children sitting in my waiting room. I will answer all your questions about vaccine and present you with facts, but if you will not vaccinate then you will leave my practice. I will file a CPS report (not that they will do anything) for medical neglect, too.

I have patients who are premature infants with weak lungs and hearts. I have kids with complex congenital heart disease. I have kids who are on chemotherapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia who cannot get all of their vaccines. In short, I have patients who have true special needs and true health issues who could suffer severe injury or death because of your magical belief that your kid is somehow more special than other children and that what’s good for other children is not good for yours.

This pediatrician is not putting up with it. Never have, never will.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Originally a comment by iknklast on Anxious love.

Where I live, they not only bully you if you don’t like football, but they are currently bullying a woman who moved here from somewhere else (Michigan), didn’t care about football, and had no desire to root for Michigan, but now because of the abuse (and yes, it is abuse!) is rooting for her football team hard and strong. Everyone acts like she has done something evil by maintaining a lifetime loyalty to where she grew up instead of being a convert to “our” state team (who will remain unnamed for now). To live and work in this state is to be required to bow down to the dominant football culture.

The sad part is that they do not think people leaving this state for somewhere else are required to adopt that local football team, but to remain loyal to “our” team. Loyalty for life if you are a “******”; drop the loyalty of any other team, and become a “******” if you move here.

(The reason I do not name the team is that I am not only personally not a fan but actively loathe them, and it is not safe for me to be seen hating on the team…I kid you not!)

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

I was going to mumble about Jonathan Chait’s much-discussed lament about “political correctness” but then I got caught up in my own laments about football mania. Now that I’ve got most of that off my chest, I want to say a little about what I think is both banal and wrong about Chait’s piece.

Here’s one banal and wrong place.

The recent mass murder of the staff members of Charlie Hebdo in Paris was met with immediate and unreserved fury and grief across the full range of the American political system. But while outrage at the violent act briefly united our generally quarrelsome political culture, the quarreling quickly resumed over deeper fissures. Were the slain satirists martyrs at the hands of religious fanaticism, or bullying spokesmen of privilege? Can the offensiveness of an idea be determined objectively, or only by recourse to the identity of the person taking offense?

You can tell you’re supposed to curl a lip in disdain at the last clause, and that’s why I think it’s wrong, indeed fatuous. Of course “identity” can make a difference to whether one finds a particular “idea” offensive or not. What a damn silly question. The “idea” that women are kind of stupid is particularly “offensive” (except that’s the wrong word) to women. The idea that black people should be stopped and frisked as often as possible is particularly “offensive” to black people. If that’s “political correctness”…then deal with it. He wants us to say no; he wants us to say all ideas can be evaluated independently of thoughts about the identity of the evaluater. Well guess what: that’s easy for him.

Another fatuity:

After political correctness burst onto the academic scene in the late ’80s and early ’90s, it went into a long remission. Now it has returned.

Oh please. What he means is, he wasn’t noticing it so much after the early 90s, and now he is again. He doesn’t know it was in remission all that time. What Jonathan Chait notices isn’t necessarily the same as what is.

There’s a flat-out mistake:

At a growing number of campuses, professors now attach “trigger warnings” to texts that may upset students, and there is a campaign to eradicate “microaggressions,” or small social slights that might cause searing trauma.

That’s not the point about microaggressions at all. Nobody thinks they cause “searing trauma” – that’s what the “micro” means. The point is that they add up; the point is drip drip drip; the point is hostile environment. He doesn’t even know what it is that he’s lamenting.

And then there’s his mindless certainty that this is just a lefty thing.

Political correctness is a style of politics in which the more radical members of the left attempt to regulate political discourse by defining opposing views as bigoted and illegitimate.

As if the right never does that? As if the right doesn’t do everything it can to redefine terms to its liking? Death tax, right to life, pre-born child, family values, sanctity of marriage, tax and spend?

And then there’s the way he ignores huge swathes of reality.

…the new p.c. has attained an influence over mainstream journalism and commentary beyond that of the old.

It also makes money. Every media company knows that stories about race and gender bias draw huge audiences, making identity politics a reliable profit center in a media industry beset by insecurity.

Here’s a news flash – stories about race and gender bias can come from people who think race and gender bias is good, and from people who think concerns about race and gender bias are bad. They can come from racists and anti-feminists. They can and they do. If he thinks “p.c.” is riding some huge wave of success – again, that may be because he doesn’t know, because he’s insulated. He’s not a target of racists or anti-feminists. He can afford to worry about the onslaught of “p.c.”

There’s a good deal more dreck, but frankly I’m getting bored. He’s not an interesting writer. But there’s one place where he contradicts himself from one paragraph to the next, and I can’t tell what he wants to say. See if you can parse it.

Political correctness appeals to liberals because it claims to represent a more authentic and strident opposition to their shared enemy of race and gender bias. And of course liberals are correct not only to oppose racism and sexism but to grasp (in a way conservatives generally do not) that these biases cast a nefarious and continuing shadow over nearly every facet of American life. Since race and gender biases are embedded in our social and familial habits, our economic patterns, and even our subconscious minds, they need to be fought with some level of consciousness. The mere absence of overt discrimination will not do.

Liberals believe (or ought to believe) that social progress can continue while we maintain our traditional ideal of a free political marketplace where we can reason together as individuals. Political correctness challenges that bedrock liberal ideal. While politically less threatening than conservatism (the far right still commands far more power in American life), the p.c. left is actually more philosophically threatening. It is an undemocratic creed.

See what I mean? Race and gender biases need to be fought, but political correctness challenges that bedrock liberal ideal of a free political marketplace. Ok, so…what? Fight the biases, or don’t fight them? I can’t tell what he thinks he means.

Maybe it’s my gender biases playing up.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)