Mehdi Hasan has really gone into overdrive lately in his public jeering and sniping at people he dislikes – or maybe he’s always like this, I ignore him most of the time so I don’t know. Anyway he’s doing a lot of it. It’s very reactionary right-wing stuff, which for some reason finds a home in more or less left-wing outlets. Why is that? Why do people on the left persist in thinking that the most reactionary Muslims or even Islamists are the ones they should be giving a megaphone?

Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan

“Baroness Warsi, Faith Minister, Dismisses Richard Dawkins As A ‘Secular Fundamentalist”

(The quotation marks are a nice touch; he probably wrote that himself, since he’s an editor … Read the rest

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Exactly. I keep thinking this. If being pro-life is your central goal, saving fetuses should be way way way down on your list of priorities. Or, in my view, not on it at all, but even (for the sake of argument) if you think it is a way to save lives, it should still be near the bottom of the list.

… Read the rest

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Uh oh, Jimmy Carter is going to be in big trouble with the MRAs.

Sexual assaults, honour killings, prostitution, physical abuse – No matter where you look in our world, you will find women and girls being abused. It’s why the 39th President of the United States calls it THE biggest challenge of our times. Today, we hear from Jimmy Carter with his Call to Action and his new book in his only Canadian interview.

In the US military alone 26,000 sexual assaults took place and only about 300 actually resulted in anybody being punished. There’s an aversion to admit what goes on even in our most cherished institutions.

Well that’s because there were 25,700 false accusations of men … Read the rest

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Stephanie has a post about a town without contraception. I followed her link to get more details on the situation in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

The Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise reports:

Some Bartlesville women are taking issue with a recent directive prohibiting doctors affiliated with Jane Phillips Medical Center from prescribing contraceptives, saying the decision is not only an affront to women but could have an economic impact by driving patients away from local doctors.

Confidential sources told the Examiner-Enterprise this week that a meeting was held Wednesday to inform local doctors of gynecology and obstetrics that they can no longer prescribe contraceptives of any kind — if they are to be used as birth control.

Stephanie fills in the missing background… Read the rest

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It’s not just Phyllis Schlafly who talks ridiculous crap about the futility of a “war against Nature” and disseminates that crap via the latest communications technology. There is Noah, for instance, if David Plotz describes it accurately in Slate.

Like the last Noah’s Ark movie, this Noah tells a straightforward environmental parable. Expelled from Eden, mankind has gutted and burned creation, chopping down every tree, butchering every beast, and crowding itself into black, sooty cities. Alas for mankind, the heavenly think tank only has one idea for addressing the issue: start over, with a lot fewer of us—like, half a dozen, preferably vegetarians.

Aronofsky’s message to us moderns is clear: We, too, have corrupted our world, just as

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I can still be surprised. I’m surprised by the student senate at the University of Alabama. Last week it voted to kill a resolution supporting racial integration of fraternities and sororities there.

The resolution cited damage to the reputation of the university, in Tuscaloosa, after it was revealed last year that all-white sororities were denying membership to black women based solely on race.

I did not know that.

Some student senators said they were concerned the language in the integration resolution would lead to an affirmative action-like Greek system. Some asked whether traditionally black or Latino fraternities would be required to admit white students.

Others talked about political correctness gone mad, others said there goes the neighborhood, others asked if … Read the rest

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Sweet.

Via Global Secular Humanist Movement on Facebook.

 … Read the rest

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The Secularist of the Year prize was awarded today, to Turkish MP and human rights campaigner Safak Pavey.

Safak Pavey is a member of Turkey’s main opposition party and sits for the Istanbul constituency. She is known for her international work in human rights, the promotion of the rights of women and minorities in Turkey, as well as humanitarian aid and peace-building.

She was also the first disabled woman elected to the Turkish parliament and, in 2012, was awarded a Woman of Courage Award by the White House for her efforts to raise awareness of the plight of those with disabilities in countries where resources are limited.

Safak has spoken out about the need for secularism and the better protection

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Four daughters of the Saudi king say he is keeping them prisoner, and has been for more than a decade.

Princesses Sahar and Jawaher are the daughters of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. They say they have been held in the royal compound in Jeddah for the last 13 years, and their sisters Maha and Hala are also being held in separate villas. They claim they are not allowed to travel or leave their home.

Princesses Sahar and Jawaher claim they have little communication outside of their gates – “no-one is allowed in or out.” They say the internet is their only window onto the world. Via Skype, they tell Channel 4 News they are “cut off, isolated… and

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Phyliis Schlafly says teh feminists are at war with nature.

Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly said today in her radio bulletin that the “the peculiar ideology of the feminists” is harming boys because it is encouraging “girls to enter boys’ fields” of study and employment. Apparently, some fields are reserved for boys, who Schlafly laments now “dislike school and have less interest in attending college” due to the nefarious actions of “a powerful network of feminists.”

“The feminists are at war with Mother Nature, and Mother Nature keeps winning, so the feminists are constantly angry at what they call patriarchy,” Schlafly added.

Huh. Notice where she said it. In her radio bulletin. Radio is not natural.

Does Phyllis … Read the rest

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Ron Lindsay has a post zeroing in on the question of whether corporations, especially for-profit corporations, can be considered persons and thus subject to the protections of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The threshold issue then is whether a for-profit corporation can claim a religious identity.

RFRA extends its protections to “persons.” Unfortunately, “persons” is not defined under RFRA, so one must rely on common sense and an understanding of the role of religion in a secular state in interpreting the scope of the statute. Also unfortunately, a majority of the Supreme Court appears to lack both common sense and an appropriate understanding of the distinct roles of religion and government in a secular state.

Huh. Even if “persons” is … Read the rest

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Here’s a great event you could go to if you happen to be near Salt Lake City next weekend.

Mass Resignation.

Atheists of Utah, in cooperation with American Atheists, will be hosting a mass resignation event to coincide with the LDS Church’s General Conference.

Many people confuse being “excommunicated” with resignation from the Church. Resignation is your chance to leave the LDS Church on your own terms. It’s your opportunity to let the LDS Church know that *you* don’t want to be associated with *their* false claims and bigoted views, and that you will no longer allow them to use your name as just another notch on their holy headboard.

We’re excited to announce that American Atheists President, David

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Wow. Color me amazed.

Lisa Wade at Sociological Images dissects an Australian tv ad for Snickers – you know, the disgusting candy bar with nougat AND caramel AND peanuts covered in chocolate, the one that pulls your teeth out as you eat it.

What’s the hilarious hook of this ad? Construction workers shouting at women – shouting things like “have a great day” and “what don’t we want? Misogyny!” Wo, cool, right? No. The construction workers are hungry, so they’re out of their minds. Hahahaha that’s so funny.

The construction workers are actors, but the women on the street are real and their reactions are authentic. The first thing women do is get uncomfortable, revealing how a lifetime of experience

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Here’s a thought – don’t be mean. Radical, I know, but it’s a thought.

In particular, don’t be mean by leading people to think you’re doing something they will like when in fact you’re doing something they won’t like. Don’t ask someone if you can use a photo of her in your magazine without telling her you want to use it for the purpose of mocking her, if that is what you’re planning. No, don’t do that. That’s a mean trick. That’s a mean shitty trick. Don’t play mean shitty tricks. Don’t be mean.

SELF magazine ignored this thought (which is not original to me and not new at this moment, I should point out) when it asked Monika Allen … Read the rest

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Irshad Manji speaks up for freedom of speech and thought in Islam.

Last year, Al Jazeera aired an intense debate about Muslim reform between me and the British commentator Mehdi Hasan. Hate mail followed. So did love bombs. But I did not receive any death threats. To be sure, the reality remains that those who shatter age-old taboos within Islam do have to fear for their lives. While it is true that every religion has its extremists, in no other religion do mainstream believers routinely shrug off the murder of dissenters. This is a life-and-death difference. All the more reason for ijtihad to be revived in the 21st century.

Nowhere does the necessity of ijtihad seem more urgent than

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Do legislatures these days just sit around all day looking for new and more abhorrent ways of instantiating their hatred of women?

There’s one making its way through the process in Kansas that would mandate the reporting of all miscarriages.

A bill advancing in Kansas would mandate reporting for miscarriages at any stage in pregnancy, the first step along the path to criminalizing pregnant women’s bodies. Under an amendment attached to HB 2613 — which was originally intended to update the state’s procedure for issuing birth certificates for stillborn babies — doctors would be required to report all of their patients’ miscarriages to the state health department.

HB 2613 initially sought to provide an alternative to the state’s current stillbirth

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