On the other hand!

A  federal appeals court has ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional because it denies equal rights for legally married same-sex couples. Booyah!

Now it will go to the Supreme Court, which will overrule the appeals court. Or not  – I say those things out of settled pessimism about this Supreme Court, but then Rieux comes along to explain why actually the Supremes are quite unlikely to overturn.

Anyway in the meantime – DOMA has been thrown out. Very good.… Read the rest

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

Curtis Knapp, pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Seneca, Kansas, says the government should kill homosexuals. (Whatever happened to small government? What about governs best that governs least? Inquiring minds want to know.) He said it in a sermon.

In the sermon, Knapp cites Scripture to back up his point and said among other things: “They should be put to death. That’s what happened in Israel. That’s why homosexuality wouldn’t have grown in Israel. It tends to limit conversations. It tends to limit people coming out of the closet.

“So, you’re saying we should go out and start killing them? No. I’m saying the government should. They won’t, but they should.”

And why? Oh you know – because … Read the rest

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I went to visit Café Racer this afternoon. I felt a little self-disgust or self-doubt that I wanted to – prurience? Murder porn? What are you doing? – but that went away as soon as I got there, and I’m glad I went. I now think one should make a point of visiting murder scenes.

There were a lot of people there. There were a lot of flowers, and a lot of lit candles. There was a slightly goddy message painted on the window, but not too bad, and anyway, none of my biz. It was very, very, very quiet. It was a mourning ritual. Nothing prurient about it.

One woman knelt down on the sidewalk and put two wine … Read the rest

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So yesterday D. J. Grothe was worried about women not registering for TAM. He said people have been emailing him with wild claims such as “JREF is purported to condone child-sex-trafficking” along with other less wild claims. He thinks the source of this is

irresponsible messaging coming from a small number of prominent and well-meaning women skeptics who, in trying to help correct real problems of sexism in skepticism, actually and rather clumsily themselves help create a climate where women — who otherwise wouldn’t — end up feeling unwelcome and unsafe, and I find that unfortunate.

I think the source of at least claims like ”JREF is purported to condone child-sex-trafficking” are much more likely to come from sock puppets … Read the rest

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

So DJ Grothe says the women who are talking about sexism among the skeptics are scaring away women.

…this year only about 18% of TAM registrants so far are women, a significant and alarming decrease, and judging from dozens of emails we have received from women on our lists, this may be due to the messaging that some women receive from various quarters that going to TAM or other similar conferences means they will be accosted or harassed…I think this misinformation results from irresponsible messaging coming from a small number of prominent and well-meaning women skeptics who, in trying to help correct real problems of sexism in skepticism, actually and rather clumsily themselves help create a climate where women —

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

Holy shit.

I just walked into the aftermath of a mass shooting.

I took the dog for a frolic in a park, as is my wont, and on this occasion we chose little Ravenna park, on the northern edge of the University District.

(We didn’t frolic in that kind of fragile area, but in a flat grassy area at the top of the ravine.)

I drove up pretty Ravenna Boulevard toward Green Lake to take the scenic route home, but was stymied by a big roadblock full of people and cop cars and tv trucks with the huge towers. Wussup, I thought, and seeing people wandering around, I parked and let the dog out and wandered around myself. I thought … Read the rest

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

And another thing that’s actually like the actual Taliban. Poisoning 160 schoolgirls in their school is more like the Taliban than a policy against “booth babes” at atheist and skeptic conventions is. Much more.

Don’t go thinking you already know about this, as I did when I first saw it, because this isn’t that one, this is a new one. That’s right: this is a second poisoning of schoolgirls in their school in Afghanistan.

A hospital in northern Afghanistan admitted 160 schoolgirls Tuesday after they were poisoned, a Takhar province police official said.

Their classrooms might have been sprayed with a toxic material before the girls entered, police spokesman Khalilullah Aseer said. He blamed the Taliban.

The incident, the second

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

The what? Yes – and by a Labour council at that. The Kensal Rise branch library, at 2 a.m., with an army of cops.

Kensal Rise library was emptied of its books and stripped of the plaque commemorating its opening 112 years ago by Mark Twain in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Residents who for more than a year campaigned to keep the library open were alerted in the middle of the night that Brent council workers, backed up by police, were stripping the branch of books, furniture, murals painted in the 1930s and the plaque marking the opening in 1900 by Twain. The move follows the council’s failed attempt to clear the library earlier this month, when

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