Author: Ophelia Benson

I keep saying the Free Exercise clause is like an unexploded bomb.

Laura Schubert Pearson’s lawsuit accusing members of the Pleasant Glade Assembly of God Church of subjecting her to a two-day exorcism ordeal in 1996 that left her so distressed she attempted suicide was dismissed by the Texas Supreme Court last month. The judges overturned a lower court’s decision awarding her damages and ruled that because Mrs Schubert Pearson’s claims of injury amounted to a religious dispute over church doctrine it would be “unconstitutional” for the court to get involved.

Interesting. So if you’re tortured within the walls of a church it’s all copacetic because that there’s your free exercise of religion? And that’s the case even if you’re not even an adult at the time? Well, splendid.

So ‘Rev’ Anthony Hopkins (no not the Welsh actor) should just say he was exorcising demons and that’s how his wife ended up dead in the freezer after she discovered he’d been raping some of their children: that way he’ll be able to leave prison and go back to part-time preaching. Amen.

Do we want ‘Christian Voice’ telling newspapers what they can publish? No, we damn well don’t. We don’t trust ‘Christian Voice’ to choose wisely; we prefer to take our chances with competent newspaper editors rather than with puffed-up publicity-seeking tiny-minded religious zealots.

See the South Wales Echo grovel:

It has come to our attention that in an article on Wednesday, July 16, headlined ‘If God considers gays and abomination why did he create them?’, our columnist Dan O’Neill offended a number of Christians. We would like to apologise for any offence caused to those people who believe the article insulted the Christian faith, Jesus Christ and the Holy Bible.

Well how sickening. Why would they like to apologize? Any columnist is bound to offend a certain percentage of readers. One who is determinedly bland and boring in order not to offend anyone simply offends all the people who don’t like bland boring writing. It’s no good trying to put out a newspaper that won’t offend anyone! 1. it can’t be done, and 2. it damn well shouldn’t be done. And it certainly shouldn’t be done when what is supposed to have been ‘insulted’ is ‘the Christian faith, Jesus Christ and the Holy Bible.’ They can all take care of themselves, one way or another.

Andy Armitage provides the offending passage at Pink Triangle. The columnist was musing on what Stephen Green (Mr ‘Christian Voice’ himself, the dweeb) would have made of that weird Jesus guy:

This Jesus feller swans around all day with a dozen other blokes. No women. Mark that, no women. And he wanders off into the mountains now and again to spend quality time with his, uh, favourites (Mark.9:2). He picks up small boys and girls and puts his hands upon them (Mark 10:16) And he was seen in a garden when one of his mates came up and kissed him (Matthew,26:48). Suspicious, eh?

The point is that Green is a tool, not that Jesus is a child-groper, so what does Green do but act like a tool again. But the Echo simply jumped when Green said jump. We should all get together and go stand around the Echo’s offices complaining about how offended we are. You too, Mediawatchwatch.

The Freethinker set up a petition. I posted it on Facebook as well as in News, but there are only ten more signatures so far. Go on, fill it up, do us proud – and do the Echo embarrassed.

You spotted the irony, I trust?

Once again, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice misses its goals…The latest action from the commission is to ban the sale of cats and dogs in Riyadh. According to Al-Hayat newspaper, the reason behind the ban is a fatwa and the reason behind the fatwa is that some young men take dogs out into the street and use them to annoy families; the fatwa also points out that the ban aims to preserve public morals.

Because dogs like to shove their noses unceremoniously into people’s crotches, and cats probably would if they were tall enough. But no, that’s not the irony.

A person can in fact use anything to harass people — mobile phones, the lights of his car, or loud music coming from his car. So are we going to ban the use of mobile phones in public? Or will we wake tomorrow to the news that young men are no longer allowed to drive in public areas? All I am asking for is some logic and reasonable thinking.

That’s the irony. Shock-horror, will we wake tomorrow to the news that young men are no longer allowed to drive in public areas? Good heavens no, but you’ve already woken up to the news that all women are not allowed to drive in public areas. The reductio ad absurdum has already happened, so it seems a little…unobservant to balk at a hypothetical restraint on young men when the same restraint is already in place on all women. But then living in Saudi Arabia probably does make it quite difficult to Spot the Absurdity.

Did you have a look at the report on Saudi textbooks? It’s horrible, horrible stuff. It’s sickening to read. You feel despair that there are people in the world going about things in this way, ‘teaching’ children in this way. You feel disgusted with human beings.

A 2005-2006 Fourth Grade textbook on Monotheism and Jurisprudence instructs students to “hate (tubghida) the polytheists and the infidels” as a requirement of “true faith.” Incongruously, the same sentence instructs that they are not to treat the infidels “unjustly,” but does not provide any clarification of what this meant.

“ Is belief true in the following instances?

a. A man prays but hates those who are virtuous.
b. A man professes that there is no deity other than God but loves the infidels.
c. A man worships God alone, loves the believers, and hates the infidels.”

The only right answer is ‘c’ – you have to hate the infidels.

“A Muslim is forbidden to love and aid the unbelieving enemies of God…They are the people of the Sabbath, whose young people God turned into apes, and whose old people God turned into swine to punish them. As cited in Ibn Abbas: The apes are Jews, the keepers of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christian infidels of the communion of Jesus…They are the Jews, whom God has cursed and with whom He is so angry that He will never again be satisfied [with them].

That’s 8th grade. Then in 9th grade –

“Narrated by Abu Hurayrah: The Prophet said, The hour [of judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. [It will not come] until the Jew hides behind rocks and trees. [It will not come] until the rocks or the trees say, ‘O Muslim! O servant of God! There is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him.’ Except for the gharqad, which is a tree of the Jews.”

This is Saudi Arabia – our ‘ally’ – with whom we are told we ‘share values.’ It’s enough to make you sick.