Michael Nugent has yet another endless wordy tedious post chastising Adam Lee for writing an article that’s critical of Dawkins. It’s nearly 5000 words.

One part is exceptionally outrageous.

You then engage in detailed speculation about why you believe Richard was trying to convey a message that a specific person (who you name, and I won’t) should be considered an untrustworthy witness in a specific allegation of rape (which you give details of, and I won’t) against another specific person (who you name, and I won’t).

Adam, you may or may not be correct or mistaken about any of this, but you are relying on speculation of what somebody else is thinking, constructed in your own imagination, to justify publishing a negative characterisation of Richard in a reputable newspaper.

That is bad enough with regard to your speculation about what Richard is thinking, but it is even worse with regard to speculation about the alleged rape that you allude to.

Speculation about that alleged rape is happening on various websites at the moment, and I decline to participate in it. The intimate details of traumatic moments in the lives of real people are being treated as fodder for amateur detective work about what real people did or didn’t do and why they did or didn’t do so.

This is a large part of the reason why I believe that allegations of rape should be reported to the police, not to bloggers. It is not only because of the justice of presuming people innocent of serious crimes until proven guilty, but also to help protect victims of rape from being permanently defined online by salacious speculation about what they have been through.

I have to rush off, but I wanted to make a note of that particular passage.

I hate “the atheist movement.” If this is what it is, I hate it and want nothing to do with it. If it’s going to act like a mirror image of the fucking Vatican, I want nothing to do with it.

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

That woman in Pennsylvania who’s in jail for ordering miscarriage-inducing pills for her daughter online – here’s why she ordered those pills:

Whalen told me that in the winter of 2012, her daughter came to her and said she was pregnant. Whalen told her she would “support her in any decision she made.” Her daughter, who was in high school, took a few days to think and then asked her mother for help ending the pregnancy. “She said, ‘I can’t have a baby right now,’ and she asked me to look up clinics,” Whalen said.

The daughter was 16. I remember being 16. I was not mature enough to raise a child, nor was I in a position to support a child – to put it very mildly. Having a child at that age would have been horrific in every way I can think of.

Together, they looked online. The closest clinic was about 75 miles away. Pennsylvania requires women seeking abortions to first receive counseling and wait 24 hours before returning for the procedure. The cost of a first-trimester abortion is typically between $300 and $600. Whalen works as a personal-care aide at an assisted-living center for the elderly. She didn’t have health insurance for her daughter. And she was worried about taking time away from work and her family to make two trips or to stay overnight. At the time, Whalen and her husband shared one car, which they both used to get to work.

You see that’s what all these bullshit laws and regulations making abortions logistically extremely hard to get actually do in practice – they fuck the poor. The clinic is far; there’s a waiting period; the abortion is expensive; health insurance is expensive; many jobs pay very little, Whalen’s job being one such job; low-level workers have a hard time getting time off work; transportation is expensive and difficult. It’s fuck the poor every step of the way – because it’s such a brilliant idea to saddle the children of the poor with unplanned children before they’ve even graduated from high school. Yeah that’s a just and fair society.

What Whalen did in trying to help her daughter — order pills online — is probably an increasingly common response to the rising wave of abortion restrictions that has rolled across the states in the last four years. “Her situation is very scary legally, because we are seeing the number of clinics dwindle,” Nash said. “If women don’t have access to abortion clinics, some will turn to the Internet, and then, will they be charged with a crime?”

The grim answer was yes for Jennifer Whalen because of a series of choices made by officials who had the discretion to respond differently. Hospital authorities decided that they were mandated to report Whalen, according to the district attorney, because they made a judgment call that what she did was “suspected or actual child abuse.” Warren, the district attorney, could have declined to press charges. And Norton, the judge, could have refrained from sending Whalen to jail.

When I asked Jennifer Whalen whether the case has been especially hard on her older daughter, she didn’t want to talk about it. “She’s going to college and working two jobs,” she said with a bit of pride. It was clear that Whalen is still trying to shield her child. She just wants her to go on and live her life.

But how very tragic and unfair that Whalen has to pay for that with a felony conviction, prison, and the loss of a job she loved.

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

Originally a comment by Eristae on A witness steps forward.

I’m not really a fan of “and the victim should go to the police” routine. I’ve seen it play out in person.

When I was in High School, my best friend was raped by a similarly aged family member. She told me many months after the fact. She was depressed, suicidal, and suffering from a host of physical ailments brought on by stress. She didn’t want to tell anyone. I convinced her to tell the school’s counselor, who in turn either convinced her to tell the police or who told the police herself (I believe it was the former, but I am not certain).

The whole thing shredded her.

The police didn’t believe her, told her so, and insisted that there must be something “wrong” with her (like an STD) that was causing her to make up such lies about an upstanding young man. She asked that the police wait until after a school break to tell her parents, and they ignored her pleas and told them right before the break, leaving her isolated with parents who (while they didn’t react as badly as she thought they might) viewed her as irreparably damaged. Her family splintered between those who believed her and those who did not. Afterwards she expressed that she wished she had not gone to the police; that doing so had only made things much, much worse. And I felt horrible, because I had convinced her to go to tell. I, who had bought into the narrative that You Must Involve the Authorities, believed I encouraging her to do what was right. In the end, she just ended up feeling more victimized and violated. And, to all the nits who are thinking, “Well, yes, she may have been more traumatized, but that’s the price we have to pay to keep him from raping another woman!” let me be absolutely clear: the rapist was not subjected to any kind of sanctions at all. He spent no time in jail, was not charged with anything, was not held accountable by his family or peers, and in general suffered no ill effect. Nothing that we did in any way limited his ability to rape again.

Even in hindsight I don’t know what the best course of action would have been. I don’t know if my friend was better off in the long term for having the assault brought out into the open; she stopped being willing to hang out with me soon after this had died down a bit, so I couldn’t even ask her. But what I do know is that if I had it to do over again, I would listen to what she wanted to do more and tell her what to do less. If the police were going to be involved, it was her decision to make, not mine. I didn’t have to deal with the fallout of what happened the way she did. It was her life, her trauma; it should have been her decision. I regret that she had to suffer so much for me to come to this realization.

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

Jeff Wagg is the witness, at the JREF forum, on a thread where people are picking over what Alison Smith has said.

Alison’s timeline is correct. Approximately 30 minutes after I took her back to her room, she asked to be taken to the condo. She was having trouble walking to the car which was in the back valet area. Security noticed this, and stopped us, and then offered a wheelchair to help her get to the car. We accepted. I took her to the condo, stayed for a while and then returned to the Flamingo to get ready for the next day of TAM.

I have no way of knowing what went on behind closed doors, but I do know that Alison was very upset, and very drunk. And what she told me that night matches what she’s saying now.

And it does not match what Shermer has said about that night. At all.

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

Matt Lubchansky takes a look at dudely atheism.

Ma’am, have you read my book? We aren’t sexists, okay? Everyone else has read the book. It’s just chemistry.

They parody themselves.

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

Michael Nugent of Atheist Ireland has yet another very long post chiding US bloggers for daring to criticize the important atheist Leaders. I skimmed it, because as I mentioned it’s very long, and also very wordy and repetitive. (He uses the phrase “mostly American” four times. He’s really obsessed with the audacity of us Yanks trying to talk about issues in Anglophone atheism.) I skimmed it, but one thing did stand out:

As an added nuance, in these ‘deep rifts’ within parts of mostly American atheist blogging and activism, some people on both perceived sides have targeted some women in a sexist way. Some people on one perceived side have criticised some women using derogatory terms associated with feminism or body parts. Some people on the other perceived side have criticised some women using derogatory terms such as gender traitor and chill girls.

No. That’s a very sly and very false equivalence. It’s not “both perceived sides.” The two are not remotely equivalent. Hardly anybody uses “gender traitor” and “chill girl.” That’s extremely rare; vanishingly rare. I’ve never used either one (except in the sense I’m “using” them here – to discuss their use as a red herring and false equivalence). They’re rare. Are “cunt” and “bitch” rare on the “other perceived side”?

It’s interesting that Nugent didn’t spell those out, but did spell out the ones he’s attributing to us, the ones that hardly ever appear, the ones that are so much milder. It’s interesting that he drew a tactful veil over the fact that people call us cunts and twats and bitches, while he drew no such veil over the mostly-mythic “gender traitor” and “chill girl.”

“Interesting” is perhaps not quite the right word.

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

Emma Watson, who played Hermione in the Harry Potter movies, said some words at the UN on Saturday.

In her role as a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, the British actress andHarry Potter star gave an impassioned speech at UN headquarters Saturday, inviting men and boys to join the fight to end gender inequality:

“I want men to take up this mantle,” Watson urged. “So their daughters, sisters and mothers can be free from prejudice but also so that their sons have permission to be vulnerable and human too.”

Right? All that “man up” shit? “Grow a pair”? “Try harder, ladies.” Is that actually fun for boys? Being bullied for showing any feeling other than bravado? Being taught contempt for half the people on earth? It’s bad for both genders.

Then, hours after Watson told the UN it’s a woman’s right to make choices about her body, someone created a website threatening the actress by name.

Online perpetrators have created a website called Emma You Are Next with a countdown clock ticking down to something happening in about 4 days.

While the message doesn’t say what happens when time is up, it was posted on 4chan, the same image-sharing site that leaked nude celebrity photos on Saturday, and earlier this month.

The words “Never Forget, The Biggest To Come Thus Far” appear on the page below a picture of Watson apparently wiping away a tear.

Because how dare she?

Watson hasn’t addressed the threat publicly. But after the first batch of photos was leaked, the actress expressed her outrage on Twitter, writing: “Even worse than seeing women’s privacy violated on social media is reading the accompanying comments that show such a lack of empathy.”

Not only a lack of empathy: an actual enjoyment of tormenting people…especially female people.

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

Here’s a good idea – end the tax-exempt status of the National F0otball League.

…

…

Wait.

The WHAT??

Why the sam hill is the NFL tax-exempt in the first place?!

I have no idea, but it is. So I signed the petition saying let’s not do that any more.

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

In another part of the forest entirely – a nasty guy who is nothing to do with atheism or secularism (how refreshing!) has made one sexist video too many, and received pushback from Laci Green in an open letter.

You may have noticed that your latest video “Fake Hand Ass Pinch Prank” has garnered considerable negative attention.  In this video, you sexually violate a number of unsuspecting women on the street, many of whom are visibly confused and upset at being touched by you without permission.  One woman even says “I don’t like that!” while you proceed to laugh and touch her more.  In “How to Make Out with Strangers”, made a year ago, you pressure women on camera to make out with you – again, many of whom are visibly uncool with it.  Confused and caught off guard, they painfully follow through with your requests, clearly uncomfortable.  In “How to Pick Up Girls with a Lasso”, you physically restrain women on the street with lassos – many of whom look alarmed to be restrained by a stranger.

Ugh. The guy is Sam Pepper. Apparently he’s quite popular.

People don’t like to be violated and they don’t like to see their friends and girlfriends be violated either (hence the group of men that tried to beat you up in the lasso video).  And yet, history suggests that perhaps you find this humorous.  It is very disturbing that we live in a world where the violation of women and girls’ bodies is not only funny, but profitable, and can garner considerable notoriety and views on YouTube.

We are deeply disturbed by this trend and would like to ask you, from one creator to another, to please stop.  Please stop violating women and making them uncomfortable on the street for views.  Please stop physically restraining them and pressuring them to be sexual when they are uncomfortable.  Please show some respect for women’s right to their own bodies.  While it may seem like harmless fun, a simple prank, or a “social experiment”, these videos encourage millions of young men and women to see this violation as a normal way to interact with women.  1 in 6 young women (real life ones, just like the ones in your video) are sexually assaulted, and sadly, videos like these will only further increase those numbers.

We realize that people make mistakes, and that sometimes it’s hard to see the ripple effect of one’s actions.  We really hope that you will take a step back and consider the power you have to be someone who makes the world a better place.  It’s not too late to make a change!  We invite you to join us in ending widespread bodily violation that takes place in so many forms all around in the world.

Thanks so much.

There are lots of signatories. I’m going to bold one of them, because I’m pleased to see her name there.

Laci Green, Meghan Tonjes, Tyler Oakley, TomSka, ViHart, ALB, Ross Everett, Matt Lieberman, Meg Turney, Tom Flynn, Tyrannosaurus Lex, Arielle Scarcella, Dan at NerdCubed, Rachel Whitehurst, Hannah Witton, Jefferson Bethke, MusicalBethan, Kaleb Nation, Chris Thompson, Michael Buckley, Jared Oban, Liam Dryden, Sanne Vliegenthart, Bryarly Bishop, Nicola Foti, Chescaleigh,Grace Helbig, Wheezy Waiter, Morgan Paige, Nathan Z., MumboJumbo, Miles Jai,Adorian Deck, Alli Speed, Matthew Santoro, Jaclyn Glenn, Hank Green, Rosianna Rojas, Grayson, Taryn Southern, Carrie Hope Fletcher, Adam Hattan, Drew Monson, Josh Sundquist, Mamrie Hart, Strawburry17, Catie Wayne, Hannah Hart,Catrific, Connor Manning, Emily Graslie, Sarah Weichel, Jack Howard, Louise Sprinkleofglitter, Mr. Repzion, John Green, Rob Dyke, Dean Dobbs, Charlie McDonnell, Wil Wheaton, Mitch & Greg at AsapSCIENCE

[MORE COSIGNERS TO COME.  SHARE/REBLOG TO SIGN!]

By all means share or reblog to sign!

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

A friend on Facebook alerted me to an item:

www.shannonthunderbird.com

www.shannonthunderbird.com

Tsimshian Artist, Singer, Motivational Speaker on Native Spiritualism, Culture and Social Issues, Storyteller.

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

Originally a comment by canonicalkoi on The arbiter of what feminists should or shouldn’t get upset about, with added video.

I wish someone could explain something to me. Nugent has 12 kittens and 35 cows over tone and language. He gets extremely prissy about language, about how it’s not right to demonize people over things that they haven’t been convicted of in a court of law. So, here’s where I’m confused:

On Nugent’s website, he has a list, a directory if you will, of atheist/secular songs. All well and good. One of those songs is by the extremely talented and personal favorite of mine, Tim Minchin. The Pope Song. C’mon, you know the one that starts out, “Fuck the motherfuckers…..” It seems a strange choice for Nugent to list since it’s chock full o’ outrage (rightfully so). It’s a good song, but let’s look at this. It deals with:

A. Calling the Pope to account for something he was never charged with in a court of law.
B. Equating him and anyone who supports him with a rapist.
C. Equates anyone who ever covered up for an abuser with a rapist.
D. Deals with assuming the stories of all child-abuse victims whether or proven in court or not, are facts.
E. Uses naughty language that could, in no way, be considered conciliatory.
F. Expresses extreme outrage.

So, apparently, if it’s dealing with the Pope and child-abuse, outrage, “naughty language”, assumptions of guilt, are all just fine. If, on the other hand, you have feminists discussing the sexual misconduct of someone in the atheist/secularist “Holy Trinity”, depending on the stories of far more than one woman, dealing with stories that describe a “hunting pattern” astonishingly alike in each description, or dealing with another of the “Holy Trinity” comparing rape with drunk driving and yet a third member saying that that danged estrogen-vibe is why we can’t wrap our lady-brains around logic, we’re to watch our tone and our language, our outrage is all just a fake and, since nothing’s been proven in a court of law, it shouldn’t be brought up in the first place.

I see. If someone could explain that strange dichotomy to me, I’d appreciate it. And Mr. Nugent? You might want to give another listen to The Pope Song. This verse might get it across, especially if you add the words, “or anyone else” to the end of the last line:

“And if you don’t like this swearing this motherfucker forced from me
And reckon it shows moral or intellectual paucity
Then fuck you motherfucker, this is language one employs
When one is a little bit cross about fuckers fucking boys” – Tim Minchin

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHRDfut2Vx0

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

Another one, this time from Dan Arel: one Patheos blogger disagreeing with another Patheos blogger (Adam Lee, who dared to criticize Dawkins (and got called a liar by him as a reward).

Arel doesn’t use punctuation much so what he writes can be hard to follow. With that warning –

Much like Lee, I came to atheism on my own and Dawkins played a major role in my activism, but unlike Lee, I am not ditching Dawkins for simple disagreements.

Lee would most likely argue that these are not simple disagreements however as he seems to have joined the ranks of Ophelia Benson and PZ Myers in doing everything they can to pin hateful labels to Dawkins, instead of dissecting what he has said or simply realize that I cannot agree with everyone on every issue and that sometimes I will disagree with some of my favorite people.

I’m getting tired of this. It’s bullshit. I’m not “doing everything [I] can to pin hateful labels to Dawkins”; I’m taking issue – strongly – with the role Dawkins is playing in making hostility to women, and especially to feminist women, even more entrenched and pervasive among atheists than it already is. We have a right to do that. I’m tired of people treating it as blasphemy against The Heroes. It’s not blasphemy.

…now Dawkins is being criticized for standing up for Sam Harris who found himself in a bit of controversy surrounding a remark he made about atheism and critical thinking being more of a guy thing.

Harris’ remark carried some strong sexist implications, but before he even took to his blog to explain the comment, he was quickly labeled sexist and declared an enemy of women everywhere.

After his full explanation of his remarks, the same who accused him of being sexist continued to do so. Harris explanation did not do a whole lot to change what he said, but they did show, in my opinion that even if those remarks were sexist, and that Harris still needed to be corrected that he was not being sexist, he was just mistaken.

He was just mistaken, in a sexist way. Sure, he was just mistaken, and nothing terrible happened to him for being mistaken. I have a decent readership, but it’s bound to be a fraction of his; why is it so terrible that a blogger disputed his fatuous explanations for the sparseness of women at his talks?

Simply, simply yelling at someone claiming they are sexist is not the best way to influence someone’s way of thinking. Does anyone expect that Harris would just immediately say that he is wrong and everyone else must be right? Of course not. Yet this hostile name calling and finger pointing seemingly upset Dawkins who came to his friends defense, after all Harris and Dawkins are good friends I would assume that Dawkins does not find Harris to be sexist, and Dawkins took to Twitter to ask if bloggers could be faking outrage for clicks in which they get paid…

Yes he did, and that was a cheap and unworthy thing to ask. Blogging is not a way to get rich. I could make more money working at a Burger King a few hours a week; nobody blogs for the money. I write about what interests me, period. I did it for nine years without making any money at all, because I wanted to do it.

Dawkins is right, some bloggers do, does that mean that those like Benson or Myers did? No, and I do think Dawkins was wrong to insinuate they did without proper evidence.
After all, I am a blogger who is paid per click as well, so of course we pick stories people want to read, but it doesn’t mean we are faking our outrage over the topics.

No, we don’t. We really don’t. I don’t pick stories people want to read; I pick what interests me. By this time I know from experience that it will interest other people too, but that doesn’t change the fact that I do not choose stories based on trying to suss what other people will want to read.

Yet this is not sexism, Dawkins may be wrong about clickbating, but is that enough to justify disowning him? I wouldn’t think Lee would either, except other than the Dear Muslima letter Lee spends all his time focused on clickbaiting, except for a one line mention of Dawkins comment about drinking and rape, but Lee never expands on this, he just tells the reader Dawkins is wrong for mentioning clickbating and oh he said this about rape, but by taking no time to explain the context of the tweet, Lee only paints Dawkins in the negative light he is going for and continues to ask his friends why Dawkins is wrong about clickbaiting.

Okay…

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

Got any spare cash burning a hole in your pocket? You could do worse than helping Vyckie Garrison of No Longer Quivering keep her house. The appeal is here. A friend of hers writes:

I know I have a deep gratitude for the support she’s given freely to dozens of former QFers who’ve come to No Longer Quivering for help in escaping and recovering from spiritual abuse. She’s poured her life into the website and support group, as well as helping other Quiverfull walkaways to establish their own websites in order to increase awareness of the problem of spiritual abuse: The Spiritual Abuse Survivor Blogs Network at NLO. In honor of Vyckie’s hard work helping others I have started a crowdfunding campaign as a project of NLQ to raise the money necessary to save Vyckie’s house. Vyckie has agreed to allow me to share this part of our FB chat conversation in order to let others know about her desperate situation.

…

I’m proud to say this courageous woman is my friend. She’s struggled to support herself and her family after leaving the Quiverfull movement. While Vyckie has been instrumental in helping others she now needs help to stay in her home with her children.  It’s why I’m asking you to help her, particularly if you’ve been helped by Vyckie and NLQ.

Please spread the word.

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