Author: Ophelia Benson

  • Xianityophobia

    Right right right, I’m an “Islamophobe,” and criticizing Islam is punching down because Muslims are a despised group. (The second part is true, but the first part doesn’t follow. Punching Muslims is punching down, but punching Islam isn’t, because Islam itself is what punches down. Islam has huge, illegitmate power in many many parts of the globe. Punching Islam does not equal punching Muslims. Yes one can be a stalking horse for the other, but that doesn’t make them identical.) So allow me to be a Christianityophobe for a few minutes. Not that I wouldn’t be anyway, but I feel like pointing it out.

    Russia. Russia seems to be getting more and more priest-ridden and believer-whipped. This time it’s believers shouting about a production of Jesus Christ Superstar, and getting it shut down.

    A theatre in the south Russian city of Rostov has dropped a production of Jesus Christ Superstar after protests by Orthodox Christians.

    A Russian company was due to stage the Andrew Lloyd Webber rock opera at the Rostov Philharmonic next month.

    Protesters had complained the opera projected the “wrong” image of Christ.

    News of the cancellation baffled members of the cast and caused indignation among commentators wary of Church interference in public life.

    Exactly. Church interference in public life. This is why I’m phobic about theocratic religions – because they interfere.

    Local Russian Orthodox protesters lodged their complaint with prosecutors in Rostov-on-Don, a city of one million, and also wrote a letter to the management of the Philharmonic, according to the Rostov Times newspaper.

    Citing a “new law protecting the rights of believers”, they described the musical as a “profanation” and said any such production should be submitted to the Russian Orthodox Church for approval.

    It is unclear to which law the protesters were referring. The lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, is currently considering a bill which would make it a crime to offend the “religious feelings of citizens”.

    They want everything submitted to the relevant theocrats for approval. That’s what they all want, and that’s why we have to push back.

  • No Jesus Christ Superstar for Rostov

    Orthodox Christians complained, so that was that.

  • It takes practice

    You know how Islamists say that jokes are unIslamic? Apparently one result of that is that Islamists don’t get practice in knowing when a joke is present. That means that sometimes they think a joke is actually a serious news item.

    Fars News Agency, a semi-official mouth piece of the Iranian regime, earnestly published a word-for-word duplicate of an article from the Onion, a spoof news organisation based in Chicago.

    The satirical article cited a fake Gallup poll which found that 77 per cent of white, rural voters would rather go to a baseball game or have a beer with Mr Ahmadinejad than with the US president.

    It went on to cite a made-up West Virginian named Dale Swiderski, who said that he preferred the Iranian to Mr Obama because: “He takes national defense seriously, and he’d never let some gay protesters tell him how to run his country like Obama does.”

    We’re lucky: we know when something is funny!

     

  • Iran state media fooled by The Onion

    Fars News Agency, a semi-official mouth piece of the Iranian regime, earnestly published a word-for-word duplicate of an article from the Onion.

  • Stop calling criticism of Islam ‘Islamophobia’

    One doubts that a formulation like “Infidelophobia” will gain traction anytime soon.

  • Someone once very aptly said

    Check it out: a stirring promo for the American Atheists 50th birthday bash next March, at which I will be there.

    The first voice is Anthony Grayling. The second one you probably recognize. The third of course is Dave.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUFNsUn9nxc

  • Taking off the hijab…for now

    A blogger stopped wearing the hijab, and she wrote a blog post about it.

    This wasn’t an easy decision. I had been struggling with it on a daily basis for the last five years. During the final years of my undergraduate degree, I was constantly reminded of how much my personal beliefs clashed with those of the Islamic orthodoxy. It’s hard to reconcile my mix of libertarian, socialist and humanist values with the conservative ideals of the orthodox Muslim community that I inadvertently become a part of as a Hijabi.

    Hmm. “Inadvertently” seems an odd word to use. Did she think putting on the hijab was a libertarian, socialist, humanist thing to do, as opposed to an orthodox Muslim one? If she did she was deeply confused.

    At the same time, as the only visible Muslim in my undergraduate program (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology) I became the de facto representative of all one billion or so Muslims to my classmates. I was always conflicted between expressing traditional/orthodox Muslim beliefs and my own.

    But then why wear it at all? If the beliefs are not your own, then don’t wear the belief-based bandage. And the idea of “visible Muslim” is somewhat creepy too. That’s exactly why religious clothing has always seemed repellent to me. I don’t want your religion made visible (unless I’m actually in your religious building for some reason). Keep it to yourself.

    During my first stint in graduate school, I became somewhat of a novelty. Here I was, a brown female visibly Muslim scientist working in a white, male dominated field. I organized academic journal clubs, hosted international researchers and attended conferences both at home and abroad. I was the only Hijabi in my field and I’d like to believe to think that I challenged commonly held stereotypes about Muslim women.

    But that again is confused. Wearing the hijab confirms the commonly held stereotypes. Yes, you can do a party trick of wearing it only to reveal that you’re actually a feminist believer in gay rights, but what for? The hijab is what it is and not something else. It stands for conservative values, not liberal ones, so wearing it is a silly way to disconfirm the stereotypes.

    So I’ve decided to take it off for now. It feels dishonest to represent myself as an orthodox conservative Muslim, when I’m not. I’m tired of representing all Muslims, Islam and dealing with assumptions of both the Muslim community and the general public about who I am and who I should be. For once, I just want to represent myself. My religious belief is not my defining identity, but it is an important one for me. I’m unsure of how to feel like one without wearing Hijab. (How do all the non-Hijabis and Muslim men do it?????).

    I don’t know what is going to happen. I might put the Hijab on again. I might take it off permanently. For now, I just want to see what life is like without it.

    What about a concealed substitute? Something carried in the pocket or under the clothes? A physical symbol that’s free of the baggage that goes with the hijab. I would think that would work. Honestly I think wearing a hijab when religion is important but not defining is bound to be a bad fit.

  • Golden Dawn v Elder Pastitsios

    More on “Elder Pastitsios” and blasphemy laws in Greece. The links are to sites in Greek.

    Four days before the arrest on September 17, MP Christos Pappas from the neo-nazi Golden Dawn party had brought the page to the attention of the justice minister and submitted an official inquiry into why the Facebook page was not being addressed by the Eletronic Crimes Unit. According to site NewsIt*, the police claim they had already concluded their investigation two days before the question was raised in parliament. Following the publication of the arrest, Greece’s leftist primary opposition party SYRIZA strongly denounced* the arrest as did its offshoot and now ruling coalition junior partner Democratic Left as well as the Greek Communist Party. Center-left party PASOK – also a member of the ruling coalition – issued a more tepid response opposing the arrest but affirming the need to “protect religious and national identity”. Golden Dawn lauded the arrest stating* that their MP’s question “mobilized the government into taking action”.

    It’s International Blasphemy Day in two days. I trust you are preparing.

     

  • More on “Elder Pastitsios” and blasphemy laws in Greece

    Four days before the arrest, MP Christos Pappas from the neo-nazi Golden Dawn party had brought the page to the attention of the justice minister.

  • Report on the Creation Evidence Expo in Indianapolis

    They have a funny idea of what “evidence” means.

  • An awkward position to adopt

    Sometimes an organization doesn’t speak for its members when it speaks. Sometimes an organization (or someone at the top of it) says something that’s abhorrent to many or most or almost all of its members. That can happen.

    There’s SlutWalk London for instance. Sarah Ditum asks what it’s doing lining up behind Julian Assange.

    Oh dear, SlutWalk London. On Saturday you’re marshalling crowds of women in fishnets and bras to chant “my dress is not a yes” and promoting petitions insisting that the Home Office should prosecute rapists. Come Tuesday, you’re taking to Twitter to issue statements objecting to the extradition of Julian Assange to face rape charges in Sweden. Rapists should be prosecuted, but according to SlutWalk London, the fact that many who are accused of rape ultimately aren’t convicted means that this particular accused rapist shouldn’t be subject to due process. It’s an awkward position to adopt, and the most awkward thing of all is the way it conscripts those who joined the march to a cause that was never part of the prospectus.

    …

    SlutWalk London has inadvertently lined itself (and its unwitting supporters) up with an unappealing gaggle of rape apologists and victim blamers. It’s all very well for the statement to stress “We are not saying the women lied or that they should not get justice,” but lots of people who support Assange have said that women lie. If an anti-rape campaign must intervene on this case at all, surely it should be addressing those grotesque statements, not condoning the position of those who made them.

    Sarah asked SlutWalk London to comment, but they

    made it very clear that they didn’t want to comment, or discuss the issues here is any way.

    It’s odd. We’re used to seeing organizations pitch women overboard the instant they think some other issue or cause or problem is more important, but it’s surprising to see a women’s organization doing that.

     

  • An expression of glandular-level contempt

    Slime Season is here, all festive with mildew and rot and weevils.

    After four years of invective, four years during which the right has called President Obama a traitor, a communist, a fraud, an affirmative-action case, a terrorist-sympathizer and a tyrant, its shrillest voices have been reduced to the most primal insult of all. They are calling Obama’s mother a whore.

    There’s this pseudo-documentary, Michelle Goldberg explains, that’s being mailed to voters.

    The movie claims that Obama’s actual father was the poet and left-wing activist Frank Marshall Davis, who Dunham met through her father, who was a CIA agent merely posing as a furniture salesman. “My election was not a sudden political phenomenon,” says the narrator, speaking as if he were Obama reading his autobiography. “It was the culmination of an American socialist movement that my real father, Frank Marshall Davis, nurtured in Chicago and Hawaii, and has been quietly infiltrating the U.S. economy, universities, and media for decades.”

    Davis enjoyed taking nude photos of women, and the images said to be of Dunham, to which the director pays lascivious attention, are presented as evidence of their intimate relationship. “These photos were taken a few weeks before 1960, when mom was about five weeks pregnant with me,” the narrator says. “Frank then sold the photos to men’s mail-order catalogues.”

    Slut! Slutslutslutwhore.

    Gilbert claims that more than a million copies of Dreams From My Real Father have been mailed to voters in Ohio, as well between 80,000 and 100,000 to voters in Nevada and 100,000 to voters in New Hampshire. “We’re putting plans in place, as of next week, to send out another two or three million, just state by state,” he told me.

    …Tea Party groups and conservative churches are screening it. It was shown at a right-wing film festival in Tampa during the Republican National Convention, and by Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum Council in Missouri. Alabama GOP Chairman Bill Armistead recently recommended it during a speech, saying, “I’ve seen it. I verified that it is factual, all of it. People can determine.”

    One wonders what Bill Armistead thinks “verified” means.

    And then there’s Dinesh Souza’s book, Obama’s America.

    D’Souza argues that part of the reason Ann Dunham sent Obama to live with her parents in Hawaii was so she could pursue affairs with Indonesian men. “Ann’s sexual adventuring may seem a little surprising in view of the fact that she was a large woman who kept getting larger,” he writes. On the next page, he continues, “Learning about Ann’s sexual adventures in Indonesia, I realized how wrong I had been to consider Barack Obama Sr. the playboy … Ann … was the real playgirl, and despite all her reservations about power, she was using her American background and economic and social power to purchase the romantic attention of third-world men.”

    There is no evidence for any of this—D’Souza mentions the name of exactly one man who Dunham had a relationship with after her divorce. Even if it was true, however, it’s hard to see how it’s relevant to Obama’s supposed taste for subversion, since as D’Souza himself points out, Obama wasn’t living in Indonesia at the time. The chapter is simply an expression of glandular-level contempt.

    Slut! Slutslutslutwhore.

     

  • What is SlutWalk London doing backing Julian Assange?

    SlutWalk London has inadvertently lined itself (and its unwitting supporters) up with an unappealing gaggle of rape apologists and victim blamers.

  • Obama haters now calling his mother a whore

    A pseudo-documentary that slimes Ann Dunham is being mailed to swing-state voters, while D’Souza’s book essentially calls her a fat slut.

  • News from the Secular Coalition for America

    Secular Coalition for Pennsylvania to Officially Launch Sunday

    Thu, 09/27/2012 – 14:42

    Washington, D.C—The Secular Coalition for America is excited to announce the official launch of the Secular Coalition for Pennsylvania, expected to officially launch on Sunday. The Secular Coalition for Pennsylvania is the third chapter to launch as part of the SCA’s greater effort to establish 50 new state chapters throughout the country this year.

    The Secular Coalition for America is a lobbying organization representing nontheistic Americans and advocating protecting and strengthening the secular character of our government. The Secular Coalition for Pennsylvania will lobby state lawmakers in favor of a strong separation of religion and government.

    Secular Coalition for Pennsylvania Executive Board Co-Chairs, Justin Vacula, 24 of Scranton and Brian Fields, 35 of Newville are expected to sign the “Memo of Understanding” that marks the official launch of the chapter, on Sunday at the PA State Atheist/Humanist Conference:

    Date: Sunday, September 30, 2012 Time: 3:45 and 4:30pm Location: PA State Atheist/Humanist Conference, Crowne Plaza Hotel, Harrisburg, PA

    “With legislation like the ‘Year of the Bible’ in Pennsylvania, it’s clear now, more than ever, that we need a secular voice speaking to our state government,” said Fields. “What sets the Secular Coalition for America apart is their dedication to directly supporting the separation of church and state, by speaking directly to those legislators that are responsible for protecting it.”

    A recent Pew Forum study indicated that 28 percent of Pennsylvania residents do not express an absolute belief in God, and 46 percent disagreed that “religion is very important to their lives.” Another Pew study found that nationally 54% of Americans feel that churches and other houses of worship should keep out of political matters, and 38% says that there has been too much expression of religious faith and prayer from political leaders – a number that has grown to its highest point since the Pew Research Center began asking the question more than a decade ago.

    Vacula said he sees the role of the Secular Coalition for Pennsylvania as protecting that separation of religion and government—to the benefit of all Pennsylvanians.

    “Pennsylvania is notorious for recklessly breaching the walls of church/state separation,” said Vacula. “Secularists in Pennsylvania need a voice to counter pious politicians and inform lawmakers that infusing religion with government is unacceptable.”

    Since June, the SCA successfully held initial organizing calls for new chapters in 38 states. The remaining 12 states will hold initial organizing calls in October. The Secular Coalition plans to have all chapters up and running in every state, D.C. and Puerto Rico, by the end of the year. A Secular Coalition affiliate is already functional in Arizona and the first chapter, in Colorado, was announced earlier this summer. The Secular Coalition for South Carolina is also launching today.

    Edwina Rogers, Secular Coalition for America Executive Director said she is excited to see the Pennsylvania chapter launch. The state chapters play an integral role at the state level, as well as the national level, she said.

    “In our current U.S. Congress, 38 percent of Representatives held local office first,” said Rogers. “When we get to law makers at the local level, not only are we going to help curb some of the most egregious legislation we’re seeing, but we are also building relationships and working to educate legislators on our issues, before they even get to Washington.”

    The Secular Coalition, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, represents 11 nontheistic member organizations and has as traditionally focused advocacy efforts on federal legislation. The SCA will continue to lobby at the federal level, while state chapters will lobby at the state level. Participation in the Secular Coalition for Pennsylvania is open to all Pennsylvanians that support a strong separation of religion and government, regardless of their personal religious beliefs.

    For chapter co-chair bios and additional chapter information, please visit: http://secular.org/states/chapters/pennsylvania

  • Joseph Anton

    Salman Rushdie, on the other hand, is not a cultural relativist. He too talked to the New York Times, in his case about his new memoir about the fatwa years.

    I found myself caught up in what you could call a world historical event. You could say it’s a great political and intellectual event of our time, even a moral event. Not the fatwa, but the battle against radical Islam, of which this was one skirmish. There have been arguments made even by liberal-minded people, which seem to me very dangerous, which are basically cultural relativist arguments: We’ve got to let them do this because it’s their culture. My view is no. Female circumcision — that’s a bad thing. Killing people because you don’t like their ideas — it’s a bad thing. We have to be able to have a sense of right and wrong which is not diluted by this kind of relativistic argument. And if we don’t we really have stopped living in a moral universe.

    So no. We don’t have to respect Arab traditions even when they conflict with our values. We can say that some traditions are bad. We probably don’t want to embark on careers as diplomats if we do that, but otherwise – we can say.

  • My way or your respect for my way

    So Morsi’s a cultural relativist. You wouldn’t think a Muslim Brotherhood guy would be a cultural relativist, would you. Pretty much the opposite. There is one way to be and Mohammed is its prophet.

    But then it’s not so much that he is a cultural relativist as that he thinks other people should be if they don’t share his non-relativist culture. Heads I win tails you lose. My way is the right way and your way is to respect my way. Mk?

    He spelled it out for the New York Times, who wrote it down and put it in the paper.

    On the eve of his first trip to the United States as Egypt’s new Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi said the United States needed to fundamentally change its approach to the Arab world, showing greater respect for its values and helping build a Palestinian state, if it hoped to overcome decades of pent-up anger.

    …

    If Washington is asking Egypt to honor its treaty with Israel, he said, Washington should also live up to its own Camp David commitment to Palestinian self-rule. He said the United States must respect the Arab world’s history and culture, even when that conflicts with Western values.

    Keep tactfully silent, maybe. Respect? No.

     

  • Morsi tells New York Times he is a cultural relativist

    He says the US must respect the Arab world’s history and culture, even when that conflicts with Western values.

  • Ayaan Hirsi Ali on surviving rage over “blasphemy”

    Having renounced Islam and openly criticized its political manifestations, she was condemned to a life cordoned off from the rest of society.

  • Catherine Deveny on the dangers of being outside

    Men are far more likely to cop violence on the street. So why is no one telling them not to walk alone? Don’t tell me not to walk alone at night. Tell people not to rape and kill.