Told to take only four wives ‘from the herd’ or remain condemned to death according to Sharia.
Category: Latest News
Welcome to our archive of news stories relevant to the project of fighting fashionable nonsense. The stories are drawn from the electronic pages of the world’s media. On this page, you’ll find links to those stories that have been featured on Butterflies and Wheels during the current year. At the bottom of the page, you’ll find links to separate archives of stories from previous years.
We’re always pleased to hear about news stories that you think should be featured on Butterflies and Wheels. Just send an email here, if you want to point one out to us.
A note about links
Inevitably links go out of date. We suggest, therefore, that you make hard-copies of the stories that particularly interest you.
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Pakistan: 5 Women Murdered by Burial Alive
3 girls planned to marry men of their choice; they and a mother and an aunt all killed.
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The Life of Prostitution in Kano, Nigeria
A girl can be married at 12 and divorced at 18, with children to support. The way you change a car is the way you change a wife in Kano.
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Iran: 2000 Demonstrate Against ‘Honour’ Killings
In Kani Dinar a man stabbed his daughter to death for seeking a divorce. She was forced into marriage at 14.
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Jerusalem: Woman Beaten for Being Divorced
Woman was beaten and threatened with death by members of the ‘modesty squad.’
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Florida School District Sued Over ‘Witch Hunt’
Federal judge reprimands school principal for targeting gays; locals consider principal a hero.
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Katha Pollitt on Obama’s Faith-based Plans
In other wealthy industrialized countries, children learn to read in school, not the church basement.
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What’s a Pastor Doing Interrogating Candidates?
We pretend we’re not applying a religious test when we’re really applying a religious test.
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ITV Nixes ‘Imam of Dibley’
The lawyers said it might be culturally insensitive. Isn’t everything.
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Burchill is Wrong: Religion is Anti-feminist
Religion is and always has been antithetical to women’s freedom and equality.
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HRH’s Fantasy Farming Won’t Feed Africa’s Poor
Organic peasant agriculture is a solution for the angst of affluence, but not hunger. Its apotheosis is the ban on GM crops.
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Channel 4 Returns to Undercover Mosque
One preacher calls for adulterers, homosexuals, women who act like men and apostates to be killed.
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Effort to Ban Trans-religion Organ Transplants
Egyptian Med Assoc wants to prohibit transplants between Muslim donor and Xian recipient or vice versa.
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Ed Husain on the MCB’s Betrayal
The MCB endorsed the new Muslim marriage contract, then backtracked. Bastards.
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MCB Defends Itself
Finds a woman, sends her out to say how diverse the MCB is and how elitist its critics are.
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‘Elitism’ Has Become a Political Slur
The political definitions of elitism in the US are now being broadened to include knowledge itself.
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Sahotra Sarkar Reviews Steve Fuller on ID
For readers seeking an introduction to the technical issues surrounding creationism, this book is useless.
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Religious Belief No Excuse for Bigotry
The free exercise clause does not trump equal rights legislation.
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Convert Lets Cat Out of Bag
‘As a Muslim woman living in a secular liberal society, you are caught between two very different worlds.’
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AC Grayling Reviews Richard Holloway
A rounded picture of the moral life must take in not only the banality of evil, but human sociality.