The Oregon medical examiner’s office estimates that in the past 30 years, more than 20 children of church members have died of preventable or curable conditions.
Author: Ophelia Benson
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Israel: cadets protest women singing at ceremony
Four of the nine religious cadets who walked out of a military event as a female
soldier began singing solo will be dismissed from their officers’ course. -
Jacques Berlinerblau says how to do secularism
Do it his way.
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Why is US TV losing women writers?
Women who hear that the television industry is not welcoming to them may be less
likely to become part of it in the first place. -
Sexism alive and well in TV land
Only 15% of the writers of broadcast network, prime-time programs were women in 2010-2011 season, less than half the number in 2006-2007.
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Bachmann’s breathtaking ignorance about HPV vaccine
“To have innocent little 12-year old girls be forced to have a government injection through an executive order is just flat-out wrong,” she proclaimed Monday.
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Training dominion-oriented daughters
Libby Anne spotted another deeply sinister picture of a female human being on a Vision Forum DVD.
Will you look at that?
It’s all the more sinister because it’s so effective – the colors and patterns are pretty, and they pull us in.
Libby Anne is scathing.
It appears from the cover of this DVD that daughters take dominion by doing laundry. Nice. I mean seriously, thought goes into cover images like these (we hope), and someone really truly honestly decided that the best image to represent dominion-oriented daughters is a little girl doing laundry. Because, you know, that’s how women take dominion. By doing laundry. Interesting.
This made me wonder. What pictures do they put on DVDs on raising sons?
And there’s something else. Take a good look at that picture. That little girl has no mouth – it’s been covered up by her stack of laundry. Vision Forum has given her a niqab made out of a pile of clean clothes. No wicked feminist back-talk coming out of her, you can be sure.
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Canada thinks about assisted suicide
The Globe and Mail has an editorial saying “Make the right to die legal, with protections.”
Time and again, opinion polls show a large majority of Canadians support the idea that the terminally ill should be able to decide when and how they die. They believe that competent adults in unbearable pain, suffering from an illness that will never improve, have the right to die with dignity.
And yet the Canadian government is no closer to resolving how – or if – to reform the law against euthanasia; no politician is brave enough to champion such a contentious cause, or even to launch a national debate probing public opinion.
But if that’s what the polls show, why does it take bravery? Why is the cause so contentious?
No doubt because it’s not a matter of majorities but of religion and religious influence. Religion, you may possibly have noticed from time to time, has power and influence that is out of proportion to its popularity. This is all very suitable, no doubt, because its power and influence Come From God, meaning, they are not Of This World, so naturally they get to trump measly stupid little humans.
Research shows that, in places where assisted suicide is legal, there is an initial spike in requests. However, the number then diminishes. “Many people, once they know that if all else fails, this is an option, they won’t make that call. The stress is gone,” says Udo Schuklenk, a Queen’s University professor who chairs the Royal Society’s committee on end-of-life decision-making in Canada. The committee will release a report this fall.
“Often when people talk about end-of-life decision-making, the assumption is, it’s about pain,” he adds. “But it’s not. The concern is more about losing control over the quality of their lives.”
Quite, and it’s a reasonable concern.
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Globe and Mail talks to Udo Schuklenk
“Often when people talk about end-of-life decision making, the assumption is it’s about pain. But it’s not. The concern is more about losing control over their lives, the quality of their lives.”
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Globe and Mail editorial: make right to die legal
“Many people, once they know that if all else fails, this is an option, they won’t make that call. The stress is gone,” says Udo Schuklenk.
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Mark your calendar
Speaking of Janet Heimlich – Think Atheist recorded an interview with her recently and will air it next Sunday September 18 at 5PM Pacific/8PM Eastern. You can find all past and future shows here.
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When they are in PR mode
I no sooner say that thing about the pretty picture out front and the kicks and blows behind the curtain when I read another example via Ed Brayton. The Reconstructionists are saying why the Dominionists are so scary while they (the Recons) are thoroughly reassuring.
There is no doubt, however, that the 7MDs do have a goal of top-down control of society. This is explicit in their literature in many places. The exception to this is when they are in PR mode: then they downplay and even completely deny that they believe in dominion….
Riiiiight – as so many control freaks do when they are in PR mode. The pope do, theocracies that sign up to CEDAW do, Michele Bachmann do. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that Reconstructionists do.
Meanwhile, as Ed says, there’s a good deal of hilarity in one bunch of theocrats calling another bunch of theocrats “theocrats.” Back here on planet earth they all look like dangerous lunatics who would make life hell if they could.
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Do the right thing, Tunisia
A bit of good news, potentially (though it could be just window dressing, or good intentions, or doomed): Tunisia “has become the first country in the region to withdraw all its specific reservations regarding Cedaw – the international convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women.”
This is an important step, Brian Whitaker continues.
It reverses a long-standing abuse of human rights treaties – especially in the Middle East – where repressive regimes sign up to these treaties for purposes of international respectability but then excuse themselves from some or all of their obligations.
Saudi Arabia, for example, operates the world’s most blatant and institutionalised system of discrimination against women – and yet, along with 17 other Arab states, it is also a party to Cedaw. It attempts to reconcile this position through reservations saying it does not consider itself bound by any part of the treaty which conflicts “with the norms of Islamic law”.
In effect, the Saudi government claims the right to ignore any part of Cedaw it doesn’t like.
Seriously crappy and infuriating thing to do – sign something agreeing to protect equal rights for the sake of the prestige while intending to let equal rights go to hell. It’s much like the pope and the Vatican talking impressive bullshit about their compassion and their deep anguish for everyone who has suffered from yak yak yak while in fact protecting the very people who cause the suffering. It’s much like a lot of things – impressive bullshit out front and brutal self-interested cruelty and indifference behind the scenes.
The point of international conventions such as Cedaw, though, is that they take precedence over local laws. Countries that sign up to them are expected to amend their local laws in order to comply with international standards, not exempt themselves from selected parts of the convention.
If you’re going to exempt yourself, don’t sign up. If you’re going to sign up, don’t exempt yourself. Fair’s fair.
Tunisia hasn’t gone all the way though. You know what’s coming next…
One possible hiccup is that the government has retained one general reservation which says Tunisia will not take any legislative action which conflicts with Chapter 1 of the constitution. Chapter 1 includes a statement that the country’s religion is Islam – which could lead to some Sharia-based arguments for keeping the law unchanged – but Human Rights Watch suggests this is unlikely. Until now, Tunisia has not used Chapter 1 as an excuse for maintaining laws or practices that violate Cedaw.
Here’s hoping.
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Iran: women’s rights activist badly beaten by cops
Her charges were announced as “Insulting the Supreme Leader”, “Propaganda against the Islamic Republic regime”, and “Acting against national security”.
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Nothing paranormal about near-death experiences
How neuroscience can explain seeing bright lights, meeting the dead, or being convinced you are one of them.
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Near-death experiences found to have naturalistic causes
Research is now revealing scientific explanations for virtually all of their common features.
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Abuse survivors will try to take pope to court
Rape and other forms of sexual violence are specifically included in the definition of crimes against humanity that are under the jurisdiction of the ICC.
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Pope accused of crimes against humanity
Victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests have accused the pope, the Vatican secretary of state and two other officials in a formal complaint to the ICC.
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Forgive but prosecute
From Janet Heimlich’s Religious Child Maltreatment website, a post about the abuse of forgiveness.
But the practice of forgiveness can be abused, and nowhere is this more apparent than in cases of religious child maltreatment. All too often, pious adults who learn that a child has been abused fail to do the right thing. That is, instead of reporting the incident or getting the victim counseling, they urge the child to forgive the perpetrator.
I did a post on this subject more than six years ago, about the Amish, via this article.
It is sinful for the Amish to withhold forgiveness—so sinful that anyone who refers to a past misdeed after the Amish penalty for it has ended can be punished in the same manner as the original sinner. “That’s a big thing in the Amish community,” Mary said. “You have to forgive and forgive.”
That horrible trap has stuck in my mind in a way that few things do.
More about life among the Amish.
What were the bad parts?
-The rape, incest and other sexual abuse that run rampant in the community
-Rudimentary education
-Physical and verbal abuse in the name of discipline
-Women (and children) have no rights
-Religion–and all its associated fear and brainwashing–as a means of control (and an extremely effective means at that)
-Animal abuse
Oh. Adds up, doesn’t it. And she hasn’t yet even gotten to the part about education.
I loved learning, and cried when I couldn’t go back to school the fall after graduating from Amish 8th grade. The Amish do not send their children to formal schooling past 8th grade. A Supreme Court case prevented forcing Amish children into high school on grounds of religious freedom. I knew that, by US law, I wasn’t considered an adult until eighteen. I didn’t want to wait until then to go to high school.
For four years, I tried to come up with a way that I could leave before turning eighteen without my parents being able to take me back, so I could go to school.
Well done US Supreme Court – you made it impossible for that girl to go to school, by granting her “community” the right to take her out without granting her any right to say no thank you.
And there’s Chuck Phelps at that mad Baptist cult-church in New Hampshire.
A woman says she was sexually assaulted as a teen and that the pastor of her church told her to forgive and forget instead of doing what the law required: report it to authorities.
The woman’s allegation surfaced after a recent trial during which a prosecutor suggested the same pastor, the Rev. Chuck Phelps, didn’t do enough to help a rape victim.
That’s Tina Anderson, whom we read about a few days ago.
Too much forgiveness and not nearly enough accountability.
