Why, of all the pastors in the US, choose one who campaigned for Prop 8 and compares abortion to the Holocaust?
Author: Ophelia Benson
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Women’s Rights Activist Killed in Kirkuk
Iraqi police say attackers decapitated the leader of the women’s league of the Kurdish Communist Party.
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Gibberish
And then there’s Lillian Ladele’s solicitor.
Ms Ladele’s solicitor Mark Jones said she would now take her case to the Court of Appeal. He added: “She wants to make it clear that, whatever other commentators may have said, this case has never been an attempt to undermine the rights of members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender communities. The evidence showed that Lillian performed all of her duties to the same high standard for the lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender communities, as she did for everyone. This case has been about the shortfall between the principle of equal dignity and respect for different lifestyles and world views, and Islington Council’s treatment of Lillian Ladele…
Uh – what? What principle of equal dignity and respect for different lifestyles and world views? What principle is that? There is no such principle. What’s Mark Jones babbling about? If there were such a principle, that would mean we would all be expected to respect the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the ‘worldviews’ of Nazis, white supremacists, génocidaires, Panslavists, Islamists, Fred Phelps, and so on. We can’t. That would just be another contradiction – we would get the clang clang clang and the hook and the forfeit of our deposit again. We don’t have to respect all worldviews; we don’t have to and we can’t and we shouldn’t and we mustn’t. I don’t respect Rick Warren’s and Lilian Ladele’s (it’s the same one, so we can talk about them as one, which is efficient), and I’m not going to, and it is not a ‘principle’ that anyone ought to. Some world views are not worthy of respect and that’s that.
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Relax, all we want to do is silence everyone
Islamic states say such resolutions [as the General Assembly resolution condemning ‘defamation of religion’] do not aim to limit free speech but to stop publications like the Danish cartoons showing the Prophet Mohammed that sparked bloody protests by Muslims around the world in 2005.
They do not aim to limit free speech, they merely aim to stop publications like the Motoons. So they do not aim to limit free speech, they merely aim to limit free speech. Clang clang clang clang!! Contradiction alert; game over; all bets forfeit.
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Disagreements on certain social issues
No, that won’t do.
President-elect Barack Obama defended his decision yesterday to give a prominent role at his inauguration to an evangelical pastor who has campaigned strongly against abortion and gay marriage. The invitation sparked outrage among gay and lesbian rights organisations and disappointed liberal and social activist groups across the country. They have questioned why, from all the pastors in the country, Obama chose Rick Warren, who took a prominent role in campaigning in California recently against gay marriage, and who has compared abortion with the Holocaust…”It is no secret that I am a fierce advocate for equality for gay and lesbian Americans,” Obama said…”What I’ve also said is that it is important for America to come together, even though we may have disagreements on certain social issues.”
Fine, but that doesn’t entail giving a prominent spot in your inauguration to a reactionary cleric. That’s over-egging the pudding. You can talk to and work with people you don’t agree with, but that doesn’t mean you ought to enhance their power or give them a megaphone.
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Which purpose?
Time to get cross with Obama. Rick Warren
compares legal abortion to the Holocaust and gay marriage to incest and paedophilia. He believes that Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and other non-Christians are going to spend eternity burning in hell. He doesn’t believe in evolution. He recently dismissed the social gospel – the late 19th- and early 20th-century Protestant movement that led a religious crusade against poverty and inequality – as “Marxism in Christian clothing“. Yet thanks to his amiable attitude and jocular tone, he has managed to create a popular image for himself as a moderate, even progressive force in American life, a reasonable, compassionate alternative to the punitive, sex-obsessed inquisitors of the religious right. And Barack Obama, who should know better, has helped him do it.
He’s invited him to give the dang ‘invocation’ on January 20th. That’s depressing.
Warren supported the ballot initiative that stripped gay Californians of their marriage rights. He made the absurd argument that legalised gay marriage constituted a threat to the first amendment rights of religious conservatives. If gay marriage were to remain legal, Warren claimed, those who opposed it could somehow be charged with hate speech should they express their views. This is an utterly baseless canard, but one with great currency in the religious right, the milieu from which Warren consistently draws his ideas.
Canards of that kind are in fact (ironically enough) genuinely destructive of various rights, such as for instance when the Catholic church claims that gay rights violate the freedom of religion because Catholics want the ‘right’ to persecute gays. It’s bad that Obama is encouraging and sucking up to someone like that.
[W]hile Warren says he opposes torture, he doesn’t treat the subject with anything like the zeal he accords gay marriage and abortion. As he recently told Beliefnet.com, he never even brought up the subject with the Bush administration, where he had considerable access. Just before the 2004 election, he sent out an e-mail to his congregation outlining the five issues that he considered “non-negotiable”. “In order to live a purpose-driven life – to affirm what God has clearly stated about his purpose for every person he creates – we must take a stand by finding out what the candidates believe about these five issues, and then vote accordingly,” he wrote. The issues were abortion, stem-cell research, gay marriage, cloning and euthanasia. Torture, apparently, is something that decent Christians can disagree on.
How ridiculous – how pathetic. Stem-cell research, gay marriage, cloning are ‘non-negotiable’ and everything else is more trivial. What a tiny-minded man he must be if he really thinks those are the five worst crimes in the world.
Furthermore – it is absolutely outrageous for anyone to claim that ‘God has clearly stated’ anything. God has done no such thing, and no one has any business trying to enforce that ridiculous notion. It is ludicrous to think that if God really wanted to clearly state some non-negotiable principles it would manage nothing better than to dictate a long rambling patchwork book full of all kinds of things over a period of a couple of thousand years and then stop updating it at an arbitrary point some nineteen centuries ago. If God really wanted to clearly state some non-negotiable principles then it would do that. Even if you think God has stated some non-negotiable principles – it’s still ridiculous to claim that God has done that clearly. Clearly is the very last thing you can call the way God is supposed to have done that. It’s just stupid bullying to say that God has clearly stated that everyone must do what one particular political movement thinks it ought to do.
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The Epistemology of the DSM-V
‘In psychiatry no one knows the causes of anything, so classification can be driven by all sorts of factors.’
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Earnings Were a Mirage But Bonuses Remain
Banks plan to pay bonuses despite needing billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to survive.
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Anti-gay Evangelical Chosen for ‘Invocation’
Choice of Rick Warren is seen as a signal to religious conservatives that Obama will listen to their views.
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Rick Warren is a Culture War Wolf
Obama had thousands of clergy to choose from, and the choice of Warren is a bow to the religious right.
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South Korean Actress Sentenced for Adultery
Judges always rule that adultery is damaging to social order, and therefore must remain a crime.
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Belief and responsibility
Peter Singer points out the consquences of ignoring science.
Throughout his tenure as South Africa’s president, Thabo Mbeki rejected the scientific consensus that Aids is caused by a virus, HIV, and that anti-retroviral drugs can save the lives of people who test positive for it. Instead, he embraced the views of a small group of dissident scientists who suggested other causes for Aids. Mbeki stubbornly continued to embrace this position even as the evidence against it became overwhelming. When anyone – even Nelson Mandela…- publicly questioned Mbeki’s views, Mbeki’s supporters viciously denounced them. While Botswana and Namibia, South Africa’s neighbours, provided anti-retrovirals to the majority of its citizens infected by HIV, South Africa under Mbeki failed to do so. A team of Harvard University researchers has now investigated the consequences of this policy. Using conservative assumptions, it estimates that, had South Africa’s government provided the appropriate drugs, both to Aids patients and to pregnant women who were at risk of infecting their babies, it would have prevented 365,000 premature deaths.
That’s a conservative estimate, notice, and it’s ‘roughly comparable to the loss of life from the genocide in Darfur.’
[T]he Harvard study shows that [Mbeki] is responsible for the deaths of 5,000 times as many black South Africans as the white South African police who fired on the crowd at Sharpeville…
In Mbeki’s defence, it can be said that he did not intend to kill anyone. He appears to have genuinely believed – and perhaps still believes – that anti-retrovirals are toxic.
But – I thought the instant I read those words – he had no right to believe that. Then I remembered The Ethics of Belief. Well this is a classic case. In a life and death situation, one has no right to believe something in the teeth of the evidence. Mbeki was in just the situation of Clifford’s shipowner.
What shall we say of him? Surely this, that he was verily guilty of the death of those men. It is admitted that he did sincerely believe in the soundness of his ship; but the sincerity of his conviction can in no wise help him, because he had no right to believe on such evidence as was before him. He had acquired his belief not by honestly earning it in patient investigation, but by stifling his doubts.
Mbeki had no right to believe on such evidence as was before him. Singer says as much.
[G]ood intentions are not enough, especially when the stakes are so high. Mbeki is culpable, not for having initially entertained a view held by a tiny minority of scientists, but for having clung to this view without allowing it to be tested in fair and open debate among experts. When Prof Malegapuru Makgoba, South Africa’s leading black immunologist, warned that the president’s policies would make South Africa a laughingstock in the world of science, Mbeki’s office accused him of defending racist western ideas…Mbeki must have known that, if his unorthodox views about the cause of Aids and the efficacy of anti-retrovirals were wrong, his policy would lead to a large number of unnecessary deaths. That knowledge put him under the strongest obligation to allow all the evidence to be fairly presented and examined without fear or favour. Because he did not do this, Mbeki cannot escape responsibility for hundreds of thousands of deaths.
Disturbing, isn’t it.
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Free Speech Rapporteurs on ‘Defamation’
Restrictions on freedom of expression should never be used to protect institutions, abstract notions, or beliefs.
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Cheney Says Waterboarding is Okay
ABC asked him if in hindsight he thought the tactics went too far. ‘I don’t,’ Cheney said cheerfully.
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The Cost of Mbeki’s ‘Beliefs’ About HIV
Had South Africa’s government provided the appropriate drugs, it would have prevented 365,000 premature deaths.
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Jesus, Mo and Barmaid on Science and Theology
Science is limited by its refusal to make stuff up.
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HRW on the Kiwanja Massacre
Survivors could only run to the UN base half a mile away and cluster outside the fence for protection.
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HRW Urges Action on Reforms for Migrant Women
Governments in the Middle East should act quickly to fulfill promises to protect migrant women’s rights.
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Call for End to Sharia Courts
A new report showing that Muslim women are discriminated against and
encounter gross bias when they subject themselves to Sharia adjudications
was welcomed today by The One Law for
All Campaign, which is supported by a variety of organisations and
individuals.The campaign’s spokesperson Maryam Namazie said: ‘This research reinforces
our own findings that Sharia Councils and Muslim Arbitration Tribunals are
discriminatory and unfair. However, the solution to the miscarriages of
justice is not the vetting of Imams coming to the UK as the report has
recommended but an end to the use and implementation of Sharia law and
religious-based tribunals.’ She added: ‘At present these Sharia-based bodies
are growing and appear to have some sort of official backing. But they are
leading to gross injustices among women who are often unaware of their
rights under Britain’s legal system.’This perspective was reiterated in the One Law for All Campaign’s launch on
December 10, 2008 in the House of Lords at which Maryam Namazie and campaign
supporters Gina Khan, Carla Revere, Ibn Warraq and Keith Porteous Wood
spoke; the meeting was chaired by Fariborz Pooya, head of the Iranian
Secular Society.Gina Khan, a secular Muslim, said: ‘Under British law we are treated as
equal and full human beings. Under the antiquated version of Sharia law that
Islamists peddle, we are discriminated against just because of our gender.
These Islamists use our plight by meddling in issues like forced marriages,
domestic violence and inheritance laws for their own political agenda. To
allow them to have any sort of control over the lives of Muslim women in
British communities will have dire consequences.’ She added: ‘Sharia courts
must be a pressing concern not just for Muslims but for all those living in
Britain. Anyone who believes in universal human rights needs to stand united
against the discrimination and oppression visited upon Muslim women.’Carla Revere, Chairperson of the Lawyers’ Secular Society, said: ‘Such
self-appointed, unregulated tribunals are gaining in strength; they
increasingly hold themselves up as courts with as much force as the law of
the land, but are not operating with the same controls and safeguards. They
appear to be operating in the area of family law and some even in criminal
matters, where they have no right to make binding decisions as they claim to
do. Even if the decisions were binding, UK courts do not uphold contractual
decisions that are contrary to UK law or public policy. We call on the
Government and legal establishment to stand up for the vulnerable and tackle
this significant and growing problem, rather than ignoring it.’Writer Ibn Warraq said: ‘Sharia does not accord equal rights to Muslim
women- in regards to marriage- she is not free to marry a non-Muslim, for
instance; in regards to divorce, custody of children, inheritance, the
choice of profession, and freedom to travel, or freedom to change her
religion. In other words, Great Britain in allowing Sharia courts has
contravened the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, and all the
other more legally binding United Nations’ Covenants on Discrimination and
the Rights of Women… Multiculturalism is turning communities against each
other, it is fundamentally divisive. We need to get back to the principles
of equality before the law, principles that so many people fought so hard to
achieve for so long.’Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the National Secular Society,
said: ‘Sharia is becoming a growth industry in Britain, putting growing
pressure on vulnerable people in the Muslim community to use Sharia councils
and tribunals to resolve disputes and family matters, when they could use
the civil courts. Sharia law is not arrived at by the democratic process, is
not Human Rights compliant, and there is no right of appeal.’Writer Joan Smith who was unable to speak at the launch sent the following
message: ‘This campaign is very important because many people in this
country – including politicians – have yet to realise the isolation of many
Muslims, particularly women, from the wider society. Some of them are
already under intolerable pressure from their families, and the principle of
one law for everyone is a protection they desperately need. That’s why I
give this campaign my whole-hearted support.’To find out more or support the One Law for All Campaign against Sharia Law
in Britain visit One Law for All.You can also listen to Maryam Namazie’s debates with Sidiqqi, head of the
Muslim Arbitration Tribunal, on BBC 5 Live and with Muslim lawyer Aina Khan
on BBC Radio 4 Women’s Hour here.To listen to Gina Khan’s speech at the December 10, 2008 One Law for All
Campaign against Sharia law in Britain launch, click here.To listen to Maryam Namazie’s speech at the December 10, 2008 One Law for
All Campaign against Sharia law in Britain launch, click here.To listen to Carla Revere’s speech at the December 10, 2008 One Law for All
Campaign against Sharia law in Britain launch, click here.To listen to Ibn Warraq’s speech at the December 10, 2008 One Law for All
Campaign against Sharia law in Britain launch, click here.To listen to Keith Porteous Wood’s speech at the December 10, 2008 One Law
for All Campaign against Sharia law in Britain launch, click here.Some of the signatories to the Campaign
Nazanin Afshin-Jam, Coordinator, Stop Child Executions Campaign, Canada
Mina Ahadi, Spokesperson, Council of Ex-Muslims of Germany; Coordinator,
International Committee against Stoning, Köln, Germany
Sargul Ahmad, Activist, Women’s Liberation in Iraq, Canada
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Writer, Washington, DC, USA
Mahin Alipour, Coordinator, Equal Rights Now – Organisation against Women’s
Discrimination in Iran, Stockholm, Sweden
Homa Arjomand, Coordinator, International Campaign against Sharia Courts in
Canada, Toronto, Canada
Farideh Arman, Coordinator, International Campaign in Defence of Women’s
Rights in Iran, Malmo, Sweden
Abdullah Asadi, Executive Director, International Federation of Iranian
Refugees, Sweden
Ophelia Benson, Editor, Butterflies and Wheels, USA
Susan Blackmore, Psychologist, UK
Nazanin Borumand, Never Forget Hatun Campaign against Honour Killings,
Germany
Roy Brown, Past President, International Humanist and Ethical Union, Geneva,
Switzerland
Ed Buckner, President, American Atheists, USA
Marino Busdachin, General Secretary, Unrepresented Nations and Peoples
Organization, Netherlands
Center for Inquiry, USA
Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, UK
Council of Ex-Muslims of Germany, Germany
Council of Ex-Muslims of Scandinavia, Sweden
Caroline Cox, Peer, House of Lords, London, UK
Austin Dacey, Representative to the United Nations, Center for
Inquiry-International, USA
Shahla Daneshfar, Central Committee Member, Equal Rights Now – Organisation
against Women’s Discrimination in Iran, London, UK
Richard Dawkins, Scientist, Oxford, UK
Patty Debonitas, TV Producer, Third Camp against US Militarism and Islamic
Terrorism, London, UK
Deeyah, Singer and composer, USA
Nick Doody, Comedian, UK
Sonja Eggerickx, President, International Humanist and Ethical Union,
Belgium
Afshin Ellian, Professor, Leiden University Faculty of Law, Leiden,
Netherlands
Equal Rights Now – Organisation against Women’s Discrimination in Iran,
Sweden
European Humanist Federation, Belgium
Tarek Fatah, Author, Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic
State, Toronto, Canada
Caroline Fourest, Writer, France
Tahir Aslam Gora, Writer and journalist, Canada
AC Grayling, Writer and Philosopher, London, UK
Maria Hagberg, Chair, Network against Honour-Related Violence, Gothenburg,
Sweden
Johann Hari, Journalist, London, UK
Christopher Hitchens, Author, USA
Farshad Hoseini, Activist, International Campaign against Executions,
Netherlands
Khayal Ibrahim, Coordinator, Organization of Women’s Liberation in Iraq;
Arabic Anchor for Secular TV, Canada
International Committee against Executions, Netherlands
International Committee against Stoning, Germany
International Humanist and Ethical Union, UK
Iranian Secular Society, UK
Shakeb Isaar, Singer, Sweden
Maryam Jamel, Activist, Women’s Liberation in Iraq, Canada
Keyvan Javid, Director, New Channel TV, London, UK
Alan Johnson, Editor, Democratiya.com, Lancashire, UK
Mehul Kamdar, Former editor of The Modern Rationalist, USA
Naser Khader, Founder, Association of Democratic Muslims, Denmark
Hope Knutsson, Chair, Sidmennt, Icelandic Ethical Humanist Association,
Iceland
Hartmut Krauss, Editor, Hintergrund, Germany
LAIQUES – Région PACA, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, France
Stephen Law, Editor, Royal Institute of Philosophy journal, London, UK
Shiva Mahbobi, Producer, Against Discrimination TV Programme, London, UK
Houzan Mahmoud, Abroad Representative, Organisation of Women’s Freedom in
Iraq, London, UK
Doreen Massey, Peer, House of Lords, London, UK
Anthony McIntyre, Writer, Ireland
Caspar Melville, Editor, New Humanist magazine, London, UK
Bahar Milani, Activist, Children First Now, London, UK
Tauriq Moosa, Writer, Capetown, South Africa
Reza Moradi, Producer, Fitna Remade, London, UK
Douglas Murray, Director, Centre for Social Cohesion, London, UK
Taslima Nasrin, Writer and activist
National Secular Society, London, UK
Never Forget Hatun Campaign against Honour Killings, Germany
Samir Noory, Writer; Secular TV Manager, Canada
David Pollock, President, the European Humanist Federation, London, UK
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, Pakistan
Fahimeh Sadeghi, Coordinator, International Federation of Iranian
Refugees-Vancouver, Vancouver, Canada
Michael Schmidt-Salomon, Chief Executive Officer, Giordano Bruno Foundation,
Germany
Udo Schuklenk, Philosophy professor, Queen’s University, Canada
Sohaila Sharifi, Editor, Unveiled, London, UK
Issam Shukri, Head, Defense of Secularism and Civil Rights in Iraq; Central
Committee Secretary, Left Worker-communist Party of Iraq, Iraq
Bahram Soroush, Founding member, Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, London,
UK
Peter Tatchell, Activist, London, UK
Hamid Taqvaee, Central Committee Secretary, Worker-communist Party of Iran
Union des Familles Laïques – section Arles-Istres, France
Union des Familles Laïques – section Marseille-Aix-en-Provence, France
Afsaneh Vahdat, Coordinator, Council of Ex-Muslims of Sweden, Stockholm,
Sweden
Marvin F. Zayed, President, International Committee to Protect Freethinkers,
Ottawa,CanadaFor more information, please contact Maryam Namazie, email:
onelawforall@gmail.com, telephone: 07719166731; website:
onelawforall.org.uk. -
Muslim Think Tank Finds Sharia Unfair to Women
‘I told them I had been forced and this was not Islamic, but they disagreed.’