The Freedom From Religion Foundation suggests repealing the god damn RFRA (the swear is mine).

Today, in a heated 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court held that for-profit corporations can exercise their so-called religious conscience in order to restrict employees’ access to contraceptives. The ruling in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., absurdly holds that the contraceptive coverage granted by the Affordable Care Act creates a “significant burden” on a corporation’s free exercise of religion.

How could this be? This Alice in Wonderland ruling is based not on the Constitution, but on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), a statute. This statute was adopted by Congress and must be repealed by Congress.

The main justification for this decision is the Supreme Court’s holding that RFRA protects Hobby Lobby from the generally applicable rules of the Affordable Care Act.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation’s amicus brief by noted state-church attorney Marci A. Hamilton (joined by groups advocating for the rights of victims of religious abuse), was the only brief before the Supreme Court that argued that RFRA is unconstitutional. Our important brief points out that RFRA “accords religious believers extreme religious liberty rights that yield a political and fiscal windfall in violation of the clearest commands of the Establishment Clause.”

A public outcry is in order. FFRF needs your help to tell Congress that RFRA is a bad law that must be repealed.

I would love to see that happen. But…the chances, any time within the next century or so? Barely visible.

Today’s decision is both dangerous and unprecedented. During oral arguments, counsel for the government, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, noted that a decision in favor of Hobby Lobby would be “the first time under the Free Exercise Clause or under RFRA in which [the Supreme Court] or any court has held that an employer . . . may be granted an exemption that extinguishes statutorily guaranteed benefits of fundamental importance.”

Today’s ruling ignored the rights and needs of thousands of female Hobby Lobby employees, and millions of women nationwide who work at for-profit corporations. Women workers must not be at the mercy of employers who happen to be religious fanatics who want to intrude into private reproductive decisions that are none of their business. Rather than protecting women workers’ right to health care and women’s freedom of conscience, the Court has turned its back on them in the name of “religious liberty.” This is untenable.

This damaging decision opens the floodgates for corporations, interested only in increasing their bottom line, to claim religious objections to a variety of generally applicable laws. The Court arbitrarily claims its decision would not necessarily allow a corporation to claim a similar religious objection to blood transfusions, vaccines, or mental health services, or create a religious right to discriminate on the basis of sex, sexual orientation or race. But very obviously, the ruling creates mischievous precedent that will haunt the next generation of litigation.

In other words the ruling is a kind of wedge to create an opening for theocracy. It’s just a nightmare.

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

The press release from Cranford.

“This is a disgrace and an indignity to Americans’ right to be protected from the abuses of other people’s religions,” said American Atheists President David Silverman. “Shame on the Supreme Court, which has effectively told Americans that if you can come up with a religious excuse, you are above the law. This is an injustice of the highest order for separation of religion and government, for equality, and for the constitutional protections guaranteed to all Americans.”

“The Court has granted religious liberties to some corporations, claiming they have the same rights as citizens. What about the rights of the women, the workers? We fear the consequences of this decision on publicly traded corporations in the future,” said Managing Director Amanda Knief, a lawyer and public policy expert.

Click here to read the full ruling in PDF form.

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

Americans United for Separation of Church and State also has a press release.

The Supreme Court’s ruling allowing the owners of some secular, for-profit companies to deny their employees access to birth control is a blow to individual conscience and medical privacy rights, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

“This decision is a double-edged disaster,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “It conjures up fake religious freedom rights for corporations while being blind to the importance of birth control to America’s working women.”

Added Lynn, “The justices have set a dangerous precedent. While the Obama administration may arrange for the government to provide contraceptives, a future administration could easily take that away. In years to come, many women may find their access to birth control hanging by a thread.”

Americans United filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the cases (Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius) on behalf of diverse faith communities, arguing that the owners of secular corporations are not entitled to a religious exemption from the Affordable Care Act’s so-called “contraception mandate.” Hobby Lobby and Conestoga both cited the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), legislation signed into law in 1993, in their defense.

The AU brief noted that many people have different religious beliefs about contraception than their employers and explained that if the plaintiffs prevailed, “employees would find it more difficult to make personal decisions about healthcare and contraception in accordance with their own consciences.”

“We are a country of great religious diversity, and American workers must be able to make their own medical, family and reproductive decisions according to their own moral and religious values,” said Gregory M. Lipper, Americans United’s senior litigation counsel and a primary author of the brief. “The high court is out of step with the reality of American society.”

In addition to Lipper, the brief was authored by Americans United Legal Director Ayesha N. Khan and Madison Fellow Caitlin E. O’Connell.

The ruling is bad even for religious believers – for the same reason separation of church and state was seen as necessary at the beginning of this country: even religious believers don’t all believe exactly the same thing (to put it mildly), so it’s better not to impose any one sect’s beliefs on everyone; studied neutrality is the only solution.

Pope Alito clearly doesn’t agree.

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

CFI has a press release.

Center for Inquiry Warns Hobby Lobby Decision Will Prove Deeply Damaging to American Health Care

Secular advocacy group the Center for Inquiry decried the Supreme Court’s ruling today that the health and welfare of female employees should be subordinated to their employers’ religious beliefs, and warned that the impact of the decision will prove deeply damaging to Americans’ access to health care, well beyond the scope of contraception coverage.

In a split decision, and over a vigorous dissent authored by Justice Ginsburg, the Court held that privately owned for-profit businesses are entitled to exemptions from the Contraceptive Mandate of the Affordable Care Act if their owners claim a religious basis for opposing contraception. As a result, employers with religious objections can deny employees access to insurance covering prescription contraception without co-pay. The Supreme Court based its decision on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which provides that a law that burdens a person’s religious beliefs must be justified by a compelling government interest. Today the Court made clear it does not view Americans’ access to medically necessary health care as a compelling government interest, and announced loud and clear that the religious preferences of employers take preference over the health needs of workers.

God I hate the RFRA. I remember raging (yes I’m a rage-blogger and was a rage-blogger before there were blogs) when it was passed.

In making its decision, the Supreme Court also made a determination that will cause significant confusion in church-state litigation for years to come. The majority held that small, closely held, for-profit private corporations have standing to sue under RFRA – in other words, that such corporations have the religious beliefs of their owners, and the same right to free exercise as their owners.

“The potential effects of this decision are absolutely chilling, setting a precedent that is sure to reverberate far beyond the issue of contraceptive coverage,” said Ronald A. Lindsay, President and CEO of the Center for Inquiry.

“This is not a decision that advances religious freedom – it is a decision that enshrines religious privilege over and above employee well-being,” added Lindsay. “This decision defies common sense, lacks compassion, and has the potential to harm us all.”

Is “closely held” a term of art?*

CFI previously filed an amicus brief in this case, and this month launched a major campaign to combat religion and junk science in health care policy (SafeandSecular.org). In the coming months and years, CFI will continue to work through lobbying, litigation, and grassroots action to mitigate the negative effects of this decision.

And mitigation is the best that can be hoped for, for the foreseeable future. It’s just disgusting.

*Update: Nick Fish tells me it means 50% of corporation held by 5 people or fewer.

Jim Lippard provides an IRS link.

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

CNN reports:

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that closely held companies cannot be required to pay to cover some types of contraceptives for their employees, ending its term with a narrow legal and political setback for a controversial part of President Barack Obama’s health care reform law.

In a 5-4 decision, the high court’s conservatives essentially ruled that some for-profit corporations have religious rights.

As if corporations were people, with rights, which they’re not.

The issue before the justices was whether Obamacare could mandate contraception coverage specifically for certain businesses that object for religious reasons.

“This case isn’t that practically important, except for the employees and businesses involved. There just aren’t a huge number of those,” said Thomas Goldstein, publisher of SCOTUSblog.com and a Washington appellate attorney.

“But everyone can agree the social questions presented — about when people can follow their religious convictions, and when people are entitled to contraception care — are truly important,” he said.

Read the ruling (.PDF)

Yes, the questions about “when people can follow their religious convictions” in such a way as to deny rights to their employees and/or customers are truly important.

he specific question presented was whether these companies can refuse, on the sincere claim it would violate their owners’ long-established moral beliefs.

The First Amendment says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

“How does a corporation exercise religion?” asked Justice Sonia Sotomayor at March’s oral arguments, summarizing perhaps the key constitutional question at hand.

“This is a religious question and it’s a moral question,” added Justice Samuel Alito, suggesting the businesses have such a right. “You want us to provide a definitive secular answer.”

A secular answer, at least, for sure. (Pretending corporations are people and have rights is a quasi-religious sort of belief, if you ask me, given the obviousness of the difference between corporations and people.)

Supporters of the law fear a high court setback on the contraception mandate will lead to other healthcare challenges on religion grounds, such as do-not-resuscitate orders and vaccine coverage. More broadly, many worry giving corporations religious freedom rights could affect laws on employment, safety, and civil rights.

The possibilities are endless, and utterly revolting.

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

Oh lordy, not this again.

An opinion piece in Pink News saying “don’t be so damn flamboyant if you want equal rights.” There was a discussion on Alex’s Facebook page around the same oh so helpful suggestion.

Topher Gen in Pink News:

You’re not being bold, you’re not making a stance and you’re certainly not making a statement – at least not one that’s helping us gain the respect and equality we deserve.

Perhaps you think I’m being too serious, that Pride is just ‘fun’. Well, you know what? Equality is reached through hard work and dedication, not staggering around the streets in a drunken haze whilst dressed in drag. And Pride does a lot more damage to the LGBT community than people care to realise.

When children are mocked and bullied at school for their sexuality, what hateful remarks are they subjected to? When I was at school, it was remarks like “bums against the wall, boys” or moronic digs and questions from my adolescent piers about “If I liked to wear dresses or make-up” or they’d flick the wrist at me; I even got pushed around. What’s my point? These remarks, these calls that teenage homosexuals are bombarded and plagued with, are heavily incorporated into every Pride march and then plastered all over websites, magazines and the TV for the world to see. It’s a parade full of six-foot tall queens, cross-dressing middle-aged men – and guess what, I’m not stereotyping here. That’s what a lot of the members of the procession dress like. It’s little more than a counterproductive, drag-queen pageant these days than it is a political statement. Yet, people still say it’s harmless fun. Around 40 percent of homosexual teenagers suffer from depression and 30 percent of all teen suicides are due to issues related to their sexuality, most notably being subjected to bullying because of it – tell me now Pride’s just harmless fun?

Hi. Let me explain something. Equal rights are not supposed to be conditional on being sufficiently sedate and conservative and conformist. The right not to be bullied shouldn’t be linked to a supernatural ability to avoid ever being annoying or even noticeable. Equality is not the same thing as sameness, in fact it’s pretty much the opposite of it – equality is not just for the “norm” of being like some Ideal Average, it’s for being like whatever.

The same applies to women. I keep seeing angry “arguments” that feminists need to stop talking about women all the time and just be normal and human with human rights like everyone else. No, we can’t do that and we shouldn’t be expected to. It’s no use saying “I don’t see color” and it’s no use saying “I’m not a feminist, I’m a humanist” – that fight isn’t won yet, and I see little reason to think it ever will be, so no, we can’t and won’t just fade politely into the background. Stop telling us to.

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

MSNBC reports on the Men’s Rights conference held in Michigan yesterday.

“I call it the evil empire,” Erin Pizzey, the British founder of one of the first domestic violence shelters and a staunch anti-feminist, said Friday, borrowing Ronald Reagan’s description of the Soviet Union. “We need to go after them. We cannot allow this to continue. And if we don’t stop it, I don’t see a future for marriage, for love, or for anything.”

Yup. That totally makes sense. Feminism will mean the end for marriage, and love, and everything. Once it has done it’s work, there will be no future for anything. It will be like before the Big Bang.

There are real issues for men, obviously, most or all of them issues that feminists have been pointing out for decades. But…

But those issues got short shrift from most of the speakers on the first full day of the conference Friday, hosted by A Voice For Men, an online hub for men’s rights activists founded by Paul Elam. What animated most of the speakers at the conference was feminism and how it needed to be defeated.

Although generally understood as an ideology of equal rights for women, at the conference such feminists were called “equity feminists,” discussed the way Democrats might refer to “sane conservatives” or Republicans to “good liberals.” In other words, a largely fictional exception whose purpose is merely to define the whole as extreme. Feminists, for many of the speakers, were the enemy.

Heh. Take that, Twitter anti-feminists. The “equity feminism” bullshit isn’t fooling anyone, despite Sommers’s best efforts.

Mike Buchanan, a British men’s activist, warned that feminism was the ideology of “female supremacists, driven by misandry, the hatred of men and boys.” For 30 years, Buchanan said, “feminists have worked through the state to attack many of the pillars of civilized society,” and become “the defining ideology, of the political establishment.”

At the conference, feminism was responsible for turning wives against their husbands, bleeding them dry in divorce proceedings and separating them from their children, levying false accusations of rape and abuse against good men, or creating an ever-present culture of hatred where men are vilified.

Though men’s rights activists who hosted the conference often say sexual assault against men isn’t taken seriously, the audience laughed when speaker Fred Jones mentioned his fears about his son being raped after being arrested in New Orleans.

“He’s kinda small and kinda cute, good looking, you know what I mean?” Jones said. “You know what they do with –” Jones cut himself off. But the audience laughed.

Because prison rape is so hilarious. Ok…

Barbara Kay, a columnist for Canada’s National Post, argued that Santa Barbara shooter Elliott Rodger couldn’t have been driven by hatred of women because “he hated women because they rejected him sexually, but he also hated men because they had access to women.”

Rape on college campuses, she added, was a myth perpetrated by man-haters, and the concept of rape culture, how society can tacitly approve of or rationalize sexual assault, was “baseless moral panic.”

“The vast majority of female students allegedly raped on campus are actually voicing buyer’s remorse from alcohol-fueled promiscuous behavior involving murky lines of consent on both sides,” she said, drawing chuckles from the audience. “It’s true. It’s their get-out-of-guilt-free card, you know like Monopoly.” The chuckles turned to guffaws.

Hawhawhaw. Echoes of “distasteful locker room banter” and all the rest of the phrase book.

Dr. Tara Palmatier, a men’s rights activist who advertises herself as a “shrink for men,” explained that “feminism has evolved from the radical notion that women are people, to the radical notion that women are superior.”

…

Most of the speakers on the first full day of the conference were women, a fact Palmatier noted proudly. ”I am the third presenter to speak at the first annual international men’s human rights conference, and that would be the third woman presenter,” Palmatier said to applause. “My aren’t we an interesting group of misogynists. I hate to tell you guys, but I think we might be doing it wrong.”

I guess she’s never heard of Phyllis Schlafly, or even Michelle Duggar.

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

Originally a comment by Harald Hanche-Olsen on The withdrawing room.

 I just finished watching Brian Knappenberger’s documentary on Aaron Swartz – The Internet’s own boy. Driven to suicide by overly aggressive prosecutors seeking to making an example of him for wanting to make knowledge available to everybody, Aaron was likely one of the brightest minds of his generation and a tragic loss to all. Have a look at Lawrence Lessig’s TED talk on The unstoppable walk to political reform to learn about just one important aspect of Aaron’s life.

The documentary is well worth watching. I believe it is screening in US movie theaters starting today. I got a copy because I backed the movie financially albeit very modestly. But at least if you are in the US, you can rent or buy the movie on vimeo. I should warn you that it is emotionally wrenching, but that is as it should be.

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

Yes.

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

Valerie Tarico reports that Child Evangelism Fellowship is targeting Portland, Oregon this summer, but Portland is fighting back.

 Good News Clubs mix snacks, games, art projects and stories with upbeat moral lessons and the theology of blood sacrifice. In a case that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, Child Evangelism Fellowship argued that they were entitled to operate in public schools because they are running a social and moral enrichment program akin to Scouting.

Much to the dismay of church-state watchdogs, a majority of the Court agreed, but to call Good News Clubs moral enrichment by secular standards or to liken it to Scouting, is a stretch. Despite evangelical influences in the Boy Scouts, scouting programs to a large degree emphasize virtues that are prized across both secular and religious wisdom traditions. Good News Clubs teach dark, divisive and potentially traumatic doctrines that are unique to fundamentalist forms of Christianity.

And they teach them on public school property, thanks to a disastrous Supreme Court decision. The fact that they’re on school property of course deceives children into thinking they’re part of school, and thus teaching the truth.

The Good News Club curriculum is filled with over 5,000 references to sin and thousands more to obedience, punishment, and hell. It stresses Old Testament narratives of a retributive God who must punish sin, warns children that they will suffer an eternity in hell if they refuse to believe, and stresses complete obedience as the supreme value. Good News Club tells children as young as preschoolers that they have “dark” and “sinful” hearts, were born that way, and “deserve to die” and “go to hell.”

That stinks on church property. It’s absolutely appalling on public school property.

For perhaps the first time, this summer Good News Across America will face organized opposition. As volunteers step up preparations for the Portland blitz, a coalition called Protect Portland Children is stepping up outreach to local media, parents, child advocates and school administrators. Protect Portland Children says they mean no disrespect for local churches and volunteers. Rather, they hope to “spread the word that the Good News Club’s extreme teachings can be psychologically harmful to children” and that Child Evangelism Fellowship “is now targeting Portland with a major recruiting campaign.” “One of our goals is to help the next city they target and to make this a national conversation,” says member Kaye Schmitt.

Protect Portland Children points to the investigative expose by journalist Katherine Stewart, author of The Good News Club,. Like Seattle’s Lederer, Stewart dug deeper after witnessing Child Evangelism in action at her daughter’s school. And they are taking tips from Cernyar, whose website Intrinsic Dignity examines legal precedents related to use of public facilities, providing guidelines and models for parents and administrators who oppose religious bullying in public schools. Despite the Supreme Court ruling, Cernyar urges parents and district administrators to push back: “It is possible for a school district to regulate its forum to protect its students from psychologically and emotionally harmful after-class activities.”

I hope that’s true.

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

What about that zany Richard Dawkins, eh? You’ve seen the infamous June 24 tweet, right?

Sun will engulf Earth. If we launch DVD as #CosmicTombstone, what would you put on it? Shakespeare Schubert Darwin Einstein for me. You?

There were prompt rebukes for the all white all male you get the idea. I actually thought that was pretty silly – it’s only four choices, and we’re all allowed to have favorites. But I didn’t say so, because I knew what was going to ensue, and I wasn’t wrong – the assholes got involved, Dawkins said silly things, and it all went to hell even faster than usual.

Then today he let us know that he’s been learning from the Twitter graffiti artists:

Learned a useful new phrase this week: Social Justice Warrior. SJWs can’t forgive Shakespeare for having the temerity to be white and male.

But wait – he explained – he’s a warrior for social justice himself, it’s just that he’s the right kind of warrior for social justice, unlike those pesky SJWs.

I fight for social justice, e.g. in the Islamic world, daily. But I hear people sneer at Shakespeare for being white & male.

Ah yes. He fights for social justice in “the Islamic world” daily, by telling women in the Dawkins world to shut up because Dear Muslima. He’s for social justice in places that are far away and exotic and not full of annoying women who question him instead of prostrating themselves before him. He uses the horrors perpetrated on women in “the Islamic world” as a shield and an excuse for his own impatient contempt for feminism in the part of the world where he actually lives.

Color me unimpressed.

Stephanie has commentary.

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

Shock jock booted from lineup for calling Mo a diaper-lifter.

Broadcaster Michael Smith has been dumped from a guest slot on radio station 2GB after he referred to the prophet Muhammad as a paedophile.

Smith had been booked to present Chris Smith’s  afternoon program for three weeks starting Monday.

However, he has revealed on his website that 2GB’s program director, David Kidd, phoned him on Friday evening and allegedly said: ‘‘We won’t be needing you, you can’t call a Deity a paedophile.’’

Mr Kidd declined to comment when approached by Fairfax Media on Saturday.

Smith’s controversial outburst came during an on-air exchange with Ben Fordham on Thursday. ‘‘The prophet Muhammad was a paedophile, a pederast, a sexual offender, a man who promoted the idea that it was OK to marry a six-year-old and consummate the marriage when the little girl was nine. And that’s written into their books, it’s part of the philosophy … the Koran.  It’s factually correct,’’ he said.

Well he’s not wrong. Then again if he said that in aid of ranting about Mooosleeems invading Australia, maybe he should be dumped – except he’s a shock jock, and that’s what they do.

But if the objection really is to the quoted statement – well he’s right. Mullahs in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere cite the example of the prophet as the reason it’s ok for grown men to “marry” nine-year-old girls. That’s a bad thing.

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

Via EXMNA on Facebook:

EXMNA stands in solidarity with everyone celebrating world pride 

We support the simple idea that everyone should have equal rights

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

They met in Singapore, for one.

Pink Dot has been held every year since 2009. Attendees wear pink clothing and sit down for a mass picnic that ends with the forming of a pink dot.

But this year it falls on the eve of Ramadan, prompting an Islamic teacher to start a Wear White campaign against homosexuality, which has been supported by a Christian organisation.

Gay sex is illegal in Singapore.

I love it when Christians join with Muslims to oppose other people’s sexual orientations.

The Pink Dot rally proceeded peacefully on Saturday evening with no sign of anti-gay campaigners. Organisers said 26,000 people attended the event.

Wear White issued a statement saying it discouraged supporters from attending Pink Dot, as “it should be an event that no Muslim is associated with”.

Some chose to go online instead to protest at the event.

About 4,000 people so far have taken part in a virtual rally called FamFestSG. Its Facebook page carries a quote from Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong that defines the term family as “one man one woman marrying, having children”.

The backlash has reignited the issue of gay rights in the largely conservative city-state.

That’s a pretty hopeful outcome, all told.

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

I’ve just read J K Rowling’s novel for grownups Casual Vacancy. It was gripping at first and then got more and more unpleasant to read, but the basic story – about a pleasant village near a city and the tensions between the two, in other words about class – was interesting enough that I read the whole thing. (Usually I stop reading novels I don’t like. I know lots of people who seriously think that once you start a book you’re somehow obliged to finish it, no matter how much you hate it. I think that’s entirely and comprehensively wrong.)

I dislike her mind. It makes me feel dirty. Reading the novel made me feel dirty much of the time. She’s full of disgust, Rowling is, and she isn’t embarrassed to let it hang out. Lashings of physical disgust for many of the characters, renewed every time she mentions them. She piles it on, and as you turn the pages, it starts to mount up, and you feel dirty – at least I did.

The plot is – sort of – on the side of the lower orders, but the way she writes about them is the very opposite of that. The middle class characters who live in the village are all written in ordinary English, while the lumpen characters who live in “the Fields” – a housing estate between the city and the village, and loathed by most people in the village – are given a ludicrous dialect which consists of leaving out a great many letters. I thought novelists had stopped doing that in about 1905. It’s incredibly alienating, and it’s also silly – it pretends the middle class characters have no dialect and say all the words exactly as they are spelled. Yeah right.

This kind of thing is why I never liked Harry Potter, along with Rowling’s extremely uninteresting way with language. I went off Harry Potter early in the first book and never read more. I disliked her attitude to “the Muggles” and I disliked the simple-minded polarization of the houses at Hogwarts – and that’s when I closed the book and never went back.

You?

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

Chris Stedman interviews Hemant Mehta for RNS.

CS: What do you love most about the nontheist community? Where do you think it can improve?

HM: I love how certain issues that are controversial everywhere else in the country, like marriage equality, comprehensive sex education, and science in schools, are almost non-issues within our community. Where can we improve? In many ways, we act like there’s an atheist orthodoxy everyone must follow. As the demographics shift and atheists increase in number, we have to realize we won’t always agree on every issue. 

Oops.

Hemant must have forgotten what he had just said when he went on to say the exact opposite. He loves how certain issues that are controversial everywhere else in the country are almost non-issues within our community, and where we can improve is in the fact that we act like there’s an atheist orthodoxy everyone must follow.

So how will be treat other atheists who happen to hold other controversial positions? There are atheists who are pro-life, Republican, gun owners, or home-schoolers. When I talk to them, they often tell me they feel unwelcome in both worlds—“I’m too atheist for the pro-life group, and too pro-life for the atheist group.” We have to ask ourselves: Are we united by our atheism or is it really more than that? Is it possible to be a rational thinker who holds contrary views on controversial issues? Will we allow ourselves to even have those sorts of debates or are they off-limits? Right now, those conversations are off-limits with many atheists and that’s a problem.

It depends on what we’re talking about, in what situation, with what people, for what purposes.

Are we united by our atheism? It depends. Am I united with people who detest feminism and make a habit of saying stupid things about it?

Nope. Not at all. I don’t care how atheist they are, because I care about the equality of women more.

And another thing: why is Hemant using the tendentious label “pro-life”? You know, the one that not too subtly implies that the opposition is pro-death? Why doesn’t he call them what they are, anti-abortion or anti-abortion rights?

And then, “off limits” is tendentious too. It sounds like an absolute when often it just means “I’ve had that conversation seven billion times already, I don’t need to have it yet more times just because some atheists are opposed to abortion.” Often it just means I don’t want to hear it; it pretty much never means no one should ever discuss the subject.

I guess that’s some of what I don’t love about “the atheist community.”

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

The Guardian has more on Salwa Bugaighis.

Bugaighis, a lawyer from a prominent Benghazi family, was among the first to the barricades in Libya’s 2011 Arab spring revolution, and later resigned from the first rebel administration, the National Transitional Council, accusing it of freezing-out female members.

She was identified as perhaps the most charismatic figure in Libya’s women’s movement, supporting a successful campaign to establish minimum quotas for female lawmakers in parliament. She also opposed moves to make the wearing of the hijab compulsory, and her views brought her into conflict with the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist extremists.

“The killing seems intended to silence critics and muzzle dissent,” said Hanan Salah of Human Rights Watch. “Her conviction that dialogue is the only way out for Libya is now forever silent.”

This year Bugaighis and her husband left Libya with their three young children after one child was threatened by gunmen. But the couple returned recently, vowing to continue campaigning.

And the gunmen got them. Her husband is still missing.

Hassan Morajea, a student from Tripoli, said the lawyer was respected by men and women alike for her zeal. “Not only did she have something to say, but she knew how to say it, she was able to articulate what we all thought,” said Morajea.

Most recently Bugaighis had been a prominent member of a commission trying to bridge Libya’s growing factional divide. That divide appeared as wide as ever on Thursday, with rival militias deployed on the streets of Tripoli and the supreme court suspending sessions amid fears of violence.

When in doubt, kill all the best people.

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

The New Yorker’s Newsdesk blog mourns Salwa Bugaighis.

On June 25th, in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, the lawyer and democracy activist Salwa Bugaighis was killed, bringing despair to those who knew her. Bugaighis, a bright, funny, courageous woman, fifty years old, was fighting for a democratic, open society. Along with her husband, Issam, and her sister Iman, she was at the forefront of the uprising against Muammar Qaddafi; later, she sat on the hastily declared transitional council that sought to bring order to the excited anarchy that followed Qaddafi’s fall.

As that anarchy turned to bedlam, Bugaighis worked to reconcile Libya’s feuding groups—even as her life was threatened, and as other critics of the militias were murdered. She had been spending time abroad, because of such threats, but came home for the elections.Yesterday, just after she returned from voting in parliamentary elections, gunmen surprised her at her house and shot her to death. Issam, who was abducted in the incident, is still missing. A Libyan friend of Bugaighis told me, “I am shocked beyond words. Sometimes I think that we just fucked up by removing Qaddafi—that I would rather live under a dictator and not worry about the safety of my family.”

That seems to be the terrible upshot of the past decade and more – that gangs of zealots are even worse than dictators, and that dictators may at some times in some places be the only alternative to gangs of zealots. I would so much prefer that not to be true.

Like the other protest movements of the Arab Spring, the Libyan uprising was inspired by the ouster of the Tunisian dictator Ben Ali, and by the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, in Egypt. Most of those revolts did not end well. Just as Egypt’s revolution has been hijacked by the same military that upheld Mubarak’s corrupt power, Libya’s revolution, too, has come asunder. Ever since Qaddafi died—run to ground, in October of 2011, by a mob of fighters who stabbed, beat, and shot him—Libya has degenerated into murderous chaos, with dozens of armed militia groups competing for turf and power, and a central government too weak to impose the rule of law.

I don’t like armed militia groups. How lucky I am not to have to live among them.

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

Samantha Power issued a statement on the assassination of Salwa Bugaighis yesterday.

The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms the brutal assassination in Benghazi of prominent Libyan political thinker and human rights activist Salwa Bugaighis. Through her dedicated activism and her leadership in Libya’s democratic transition, including most recently through the Preparatory Committee for National Dialogue, Bugaighis courageously worked to achieve the aspirations of the Libyan people. Her legacy and achievements in building the foundations of an open, transparent and stable democracy will endure and her example will serve as a model for civil society activists in Libya and around the world.

In 2011, I had the honor to meet Salwa in Benghazi. She was exhilarated by Libya’s new possibilities and determined not to be deterred by those who threatened and intimidated her. Her ability to advocate with political insight and deep, selfless conviction won her the respect of Libyans from all walks of life. The news of her murder is heartbreaking. It underscores the need for an inclusive and revitalized political process – one based on law, not violence – that reflects aspirations of all Libya’s people.

Libya took an important step forward yesterday by holding new parliamentary elections, and we underscore the importance of the work of the Constitution Drafting Committee and the critical role for a Libyan-led national dialogue in Libya.

On behalf of the United States, I extend my deepest condolences to family and friends of Salwa Bugaighis and to the people of Libya.

Law is better than violence.

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

An under-reported item – USA Today seems to be the only source even mentioning it: the Food and Drug Administration has lifted restrictions on a clinical trial run by Stanislaw Burzynski of the eponymous clinic.

Burzynski — hailed as a maverick by his fans but derided as a snake oil salesman by mainstream doctors — has long claimed to have achieved dramatic success in hard-to-treat cancers, especially brainstem tumors that are usually considered fatal. According to the National Cancer Institute, however, Burzynski has not produced proof that his drugs save lives by publishing a randomized, controlled trial in a peer-reviewed journal.

But now the FDA says all is forgiven, because Burzynski answered all their questions.

Some cancer specialists say they’re disappointed by the FDA’s decision and concerned for the safety of young patients. Critics also say they’re concerned about the financial impact on dying patients or their families, who often organize elaborate fundraising efforts to obtain the $100,000 or more needed to pay for Burzynski’s experimental treatments, which are not covered by insurance.

“This puts patients at risk,” says Peter Adamson, chairman of the Children’s Oncology Group and chief of clinical pharmacology and therapeutics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Research has shown that antineoplastons can cause serious and even life-threatening side effects. “Exposing patients to ineffective therapies does not offer a meaningful prospect for benefit and only exposes patients to risk.”

Also, charging for them is not the usual way of doing things, as I understand it.

So a shitty piece of news that’s almost completely ignored by the news media.

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