Here’s a thing.

Dear Friends,

Martha Reyes walked in the employee entrance of the Santa Clara Hyatt Regency to the sound of her male colleagues laughing.

She believed they were laughing at her.

It was “Housekeeping Appreciation Week” at the Hyatt and to celebrate, a digitally altered photo collage of Hyatt Housekeepers’ faces — including Martha’s and her sister Lorena’s — superimposed on bikini-clad cartoon-bodies was posted on a bulletin board at work.

She felt humiliated and embarrassed. But she knew her sister Lorena — also a housekeeper at Hyatt — would be even more so. Martha tore the posters of her and her sister down. Then, with management present, a coworker told Martha she needed to return the

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

Lots of people are calling for Sean Brady to resign. Lots of people are horrified at how clueless he still is, how indifferent the Vatican still is, how morally obtuse they all are.

Brady said something in his statement on Wednesday that needs close attention.

With many others who worked regularly with children in 1975, I regret that our understanding of the full impact of abuse on the lives of children as well as the pathology and on-going risk posed by a determined paedophile was so inadequate.

Their understanding was so inadequate in 1975.

Well if their understanding was inadequate then and is better now, that means their understanding has improved over time.

But the clergy are supposed to … Read the rest

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They’re tidying things up in Kuwait. They’d gotten a bit slack, and that won’t do.

The Kuwaiti parliament yesterday passed a draft bill toughening the penalty against blasphemy to death, the state news agency reported. The parliament approved the draft by a majority of 40 lawmakers, with six opposing, according to the agency. Blasphemy was previously an offence punishable by jail in the Gulf country. Under the amended bill, any Muslim found guilty of insulting God, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) or his wives, will be punished by death, said the agency. For non-Muslims, the offence will be punished by a maximum 10-year prison sentence.

Not even his wives. That seems harsh. So you can’t even say … Read the rest

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Ok it’s surely not permissible to blog about a Twitter storm – it’s too meta, or too navel-gazing, or too small – but once in awhile you just have to. (All the examples that are coming to mind have to do with misogyny, come to think of it. Jessica Ahlquist. Penn Jillette. #mencallmethings. And now Tom Harris MP.)

Once in awhile you just have to, so I am. People are telling him that tweet was sexist, and he’s digging in. He’s a clueless, nasty jerk. He should just take it back, but instead he’s saying it was a joke about the protester.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuck – dude, if you “insult” a man by saying “like a girl” and then #loser – it’s … Read the rest

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There’s another horrible thing about “Pastor Sean” and his terrible raging sermon. It’s obvious enough but I want to spell it out.

It’s that he’s telling parents to hate what their children are. He’s not telling them to discipline a certain kind of bad behavior, he’s telling them to bully their children if the children are becoming a certain kind of person.

There are some kinds of broad category one would want to try to discourage children from being – mean, or domineering, or self-centered. But other than that, it’s a nasty business rejecting what a child is. Surely a good parent doesn’t do that. Surely a good parent welcomes whatever kind of person emerges as a … Read the rest

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Lots of erm discussion of the new executive director of the Secular Coalition for America (replacing Sean Faircloth who left to go to work for the RDF). She’s a Republican, and not just a Republican, but an insider, an operative.

From 2001-2002, Rogers served as an Economic Advisor for President George W. Bush at the White House, at the National Economic Council, where she focused on health and social security policy. She also worked on International Trade matters for President George H. W. Bush at the Department of Commerce from 1989 until 1991.

Rogers served as General Counsel to the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 1994. She worked for Senator Lott while he was Majority Leader in 1999 and

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The pastor who gave the sermon telling people (that is, fathers) to punch their sons if they see them “dropping the limp wrist” and to shout at their daughters if they are “too butch” - Sean Harris – is complaining on Twitter that his apology is being spurned. So I looked for and found his “apology.” He has a blog – we are colleagues! – and he blogged his apology. Or clarification. It’s probably not really an apology since the words “sorry” and “apologize” and “apology” don’t appear. The closest thing is “apologetics” in the left margin, and that ain’t close enough. Maybe that’s why his “apology” is being spurned: it’s not one.*

By now you may know that

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Alex Aan could get up to 11 years in prison for “blasphemy.”

His case has stoked a debate in the world’s most populous Muslim nation, whose 240 million citizens are technically guaranteed freedom of religion but protected by law only if they believe in one of six credos: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Hinduism. Those who question any of those face five years in prison for “insulting a major religion”, plus an additional six years if they use the internet to spread such “blasphemy” to others.

I don’t see how that’s freedom of religion at all, technically or otherwise. I think the word should be “ostensibly.” If you can get 5 years in the slammer for questioning a religion … Read the rest

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The Economist raps Dan Savage over the knuckles.

Mr Savage was making one valid point and one sloppy one. The former: people who justify anti-gay bigotry by brandishing a Bible but ignore other, less convenient biblical prohibitions (the list might also include mixed fabrics and divorce) are hypocrites. The latter: people quick to condemn ought not to be so quick to take offence. The problem with the latter point is that however true it is in the abstract, it was not necessarily true in the particular. No evidence exists that the students who walked out ever condemned or bullied anyone. However poorly Mr Savage may have been treated in high school, it was not by the students in

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A pastor gives some advice to parents on how to police their children’s genders. With boys you’re supposed to give them a good punch. With girls you’re supposed to call them sweetheart and then shout as loud as you can. That’s gender-modeling right there: punching for boys, sweetheart + shouting for girls.

So your little son starts to act a little girlish when he is four years old and instead of squashing that like a cockroach and saying, “Man up, son, get that dress off you and get outside and dig a ditch, because that’s what boys do”

pause

you get out the camera and you start taking pictures of Johnny acting like a female [heavy disgusted emphasis] and

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