I can still be surprised. I’m surprised by the student senate at the University of Alabama. Last week it voted to kill a resolution supporting racial integration of fraternities and sororities there.

The resolution cited damage to the reputation of the university, in Tuscaloosa, after it was revealed last year that all-white sororities were denying membership to black women based solely on race.

I did not know that.

Some student senators said they were concerned the language in the integration resolution would lead to an affirmative action-like Greek system. Some asked whether traditionally black or Latino fraternities would be required to admit white students.

Others talked about political correctness gone mad, others said there goes the neighborhood, others asked if you would want your daughter to marry one, others said freedom of choice is what makes this country great, and so the sun sets on another day in exotic Tuscaloosa.

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

Sweet.

Via Global Secular Humanist Movement on Facebook.

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

The Secularist of the Year prize was awarded today, to Turkish MP and human rights campaigner Safak Pavey.

Safak Pavey is a member of Turkey’s main opposition party and sits for the Istanbul constituency. She is known for her international work in human rights, the promotion of the rights of women and minorities in Turkey, as well as humanitarian aid and peace-building.

She was also the first disabled woman elected to the Turkish parliament and, in 2012, was awarded a Woman of Courage Award by the White House for her efforts to raise awareness of the plight of those with disabilities in countries where resources are limited.

Safak has spoken out about the need for secularism and the better protection of the rights of women in Turkey, a country where the Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has said that he does not think men and women are equal. Freedom of expression is deeply threatened in Turkey, with the banning of youtube and twitter in the midst of a corruption scandal involving high government officials, and where infamously last year, Turkish pianist and composer Fazil Say was handed a suspended 10-month prison sentence for “insulting Islam”. Turkey ranks 154th among 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index.

Congratulations to Safak Pavey. I’m glad to learn of her.

You know who else got an award?

Also honoured at the award ceremony were two nominees, Chris Moos and Abishek Phadnis, both students from the London School of Economics who have, in the past year, challenged their own university and Universities UK over important and fundamental issues such as free speech and gender segregation.

Yes they have.

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

Four daughters of the Saudi king say he is keeping them prisoner, and has been for more than a decade.

Princesses Sahar and Jawaher are the daughters of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. They say they have been held in the royal compound in Jeddah for the last 13 years, and their sisters Maha and Hala are also being held in separate villas. They claim they are not allowed to travel or leave their home.

Princesses Sahar and Jawaher claim they have little communication outside of their gates – “no-one is allowed in or out.” They say the internet is their only window onto the world. Via Skype, they tell Channel 4 News they are “cut off, isolated… and alone” and that “our father, the king, is responsible.”

Their mother Alanoud Al Fayez, who is divorced from the king, first went public with their story two weeks ago, giving her first broadcast interview to Channel 4 News. Since that interview was broadcast, the princesses say restrictions on them have been tightened and they are no longer even allowed to make trips with armed guards for food, as they were previously.

They say food is now becoming scarce in their home, that they are desperate for the world to listen to their story and for someone to help.

The Saudi ambassador in London has responded to the interview…by saying “this is a private matter”.

In countries that aren’t savage theocracies, it’s against the law to imprison people. It’s not a “private matter” at all. But Saudi Arabia is a savage theocracy, so maybe there it is a private affair.

Evil bastards.

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

Phyliis Schlafly says teh feminists are at war with nature.

Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly said today in her radio bulletin that the “the peculiar ideology of the feminists” is harming boys because it is encouraging “girls to enter boys’ fields” of study and employment. Apparently, some fields are reserved for boys, who Schlafly laments now “dislike school and have less interest in attending college” due to the nefarious actions of “a powerful network of feminists.”

“The feminists are at war with Mother Nature, and Mother Nature keeps winning, so the feminists are constantly angry at what they call patriarchy,” Schlafly added.

Huh. Notice where she said it. In her radio bulletin. Radio is not natural.

Does Phyllis Schlafly cook her food?

Does Phyllis Schlafly use medicines?

Does Phyllis Schlafly brush her teeth?

Does Phyllis Schlafly drive or ride in a car?

Does Phyllis Schlafly wear clothes?

Does Phyllis Schlafly live in a house?

Does Phyllis Schlafly sit on furniture?

Does Phyllis Schlafly use a computer?

Does Phyllis Schlafly use a telephone?

Does Phyllis Schlafly take airplanes?

Does Phyllis Schlafly read books?

Does Phyllis Schlafly read?

Does Phyllis Schlafly speak language?

If the answer to any of those is yes (and I would guess the answer to all of them is yes) then Phyllis Schlafly is at war with nature! Excuse me, with Mother Nature.

Phyllis Schlafly is talking bullshit. Human beings in general are at war with nature, in the sense that we don’t just take what there is and refuse to alter it to our convenience in any way. We’ve been at war with nature for thousands and thousands of years, and a good thing to. Thanks to all the humans who’ve been at war with nature all this time, I get to type on a keyboard and by doing so talk to people all over the world. I get to cook dinner, I get to wear a wool sweater, I get to be out of the rain and cold.

And I get to speak up. Even though I also get told that speaking up is more of a guy thing, I war against being told bullshit like that, and I speak up anyway. So does Phyllis Schafly. Funny thing, isn’t it.

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

Ron Lindsay has a post zeroing in on the question of whether corporations, especially for-profit corporations, can be considered persons and thus subject to the protections of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The threshold issue then is whether a for-profit corporation can claim a religious identity.

RFRA extends its protections to “persons.” Unfortunately, “persons” is not defined under RFRA, so one must rely on common sense and an understanding of the role of religion in a secular state in interpreting the scope of the statute. Also unfortunately, a majority of the Supreme Court appears to lack both common sense and an appropriate understanding of the distinct roles of religion and government in a secular state.

Huh. Even if “persons” is not defined under RFRA, wouldn’t it make more sense to assume it means what it seems to mean rather than something it doesn’t seem to mean? You’re a person, I’m a person, General Motors is not a person.

I’ve never understood this, not with Citizens United and not with Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company. But we seem to be stuck with it whether we understand it or not.

Under our constitutional scheme, religion enjoys protections from government interference— and correlatively, our government enjoys protections from religious influence (in theory)— because religion deals with otherworldly concerns, whereas government deals with secular matters. In other words, government stays out of religious matters and religion stays out of government matters because government and religion are focused on different concerns. Government can’t tell religious individuals or groups how to save souls, and religious individuals or groups shouldn’t be able to tell the government how to protect the health of women.

Of course, a religious person is free to engage in secular activities, including commercial activities. And corporations controlled by religious persons can also engage in commercial activities. However, when they do, they submit themselves to the rules and regulations of the secular state. When a corporation engages in for-profit commercial activities, it ceases to be a religious association, that is, an association focused on otherworldly matters.

But Hobby Lobby of course wants to have both – the for-profit commercial activities and the religious exemptions. Which is cheating.

In closing, one tangential observation: one couldn’t help noticing that during the argument, it was the three female justices, Ginsburg, Kagan, and Sotomayor, who asked tough questions of Hobby Lobby’s attorney. One wonders if the male justices would have been more engaged in this portion of the argument if Hobby Lobby had objected to health care coverage for Viagra instead of contraceptive care.

Ah but you see Baby Jesus would never try to interfere with a gentleman’s access to Viagra.

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

Here’s a great event you could go to if you happen to be near Salt Lake City next weekend.

Mass Resignation.

Atheists of Utah, in cooperation with American Atheists, will be hosting a mass resignation event to coincide with the LDS Church’s General Conference.

Many people confuse being “excommunicated” with resignation from the Church. Resignation is your chance to leave the LDS Church on your own terms. It’s your opportunity to let the LDS Church know that *you* don’t want to be associated with *their* false claims and bigoted views, and that you will no longer allow them to use your name as just another notch on their holy headboard.

We’re excited to announce that American Atheists President, David Silverman, is making a special trip to Salt Lake City just for this event!

While we’re ironing out all the details, please be sure to check out the links below for the more information about the resignation process, and resignation letter tips & templates.

Thanks!

Dan Ellis
President
Atheists of Utah

===============================
http://www.mormonresignation.com/

http://www.lifeaftermormonism.net/page/resignation-from-the-mormon-church

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

Wow. Color me amazed.

Lisa Wade at Sociological Images dissects an Australian tv ad for Snickers – you know, the disgusting candy bar with nougat AND caramel AND peanuts covered in chocolate, the one that pulls your teeth out as you eat it.

What’s the hilarious hook of this ad? Construction workers shouting at women – shouting things like “have a great day” and “what don’t we want? Misogyny!” Wo, cool, right? No. The construction workers are hungry, so they’re out of their minds. Hahahaha that’s so funny.

The construction workers are actors, but the women on the street are real and their reactions are authentic. The first thing women do is get uncomfortable, revealing how a lifetime of experience makes them cringe at the prospect of a man yelling at them.  But, as women realize what’s going on, they’re obviously delighted.  They love the idea of getting support and respect instead of harassment from strange men.

Hahahahahaha stupid bitches, so that makes it all the more hilarious when it turns out that the men are just Not Themselves because they’re hungry. Hahahahaha women, don’t you get it? EVERYBODY hates you. Everybody has contempt for you. Everybody thinks your pathetic aspirations to be treated like human beings are a huge joke.

The twist ending is a genuine “fuck you” to the actual women who happened to walk by and become a part of the commercial.  I wonder, when the producers approached them to get their permission to be used on film, did they tell them how the commercial would end? I suspect not. And, if not, I bet seeing the commercial would feel like a betrayal. These women were (likely) given the impression that it was about respecting women, but instead it was about making fun of the idea that women deserve respect.

What a dick move, Snickers. I hope you’re happy with your misogynist consumer base, because I don’t think I can ever buy a Snickers bar again.  What else does your parent company sell? I’ll make a note.

Have the ad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gjsoSY18kg

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

Here’s a thought – don’t be mean. Radical, I know, but it’s a thought.

In particular, don’t be mean by leading people to think you’re doing something they will like when in fact you’re doing something they won’t like. Don’t ask someone if you can use a photo of her in your magazine without telling her you want to use it for the purpose of mocking her, if that is what you’re planning. No, don’t do that. That’s a mean trick. That’s a mean shitty trick. Don’t play mean shitty tricks. Don’t be mean.

SELF magazine ignored this thought (which is not original to me and not new at this moment, I should point out) when it asked Monika Allen if it could publish a photo of her running a marathon in a tutu. She was excited to be asked, and said yes. SELF didn’t tell her the purpose was to mock the whole idea of running a marathon in a tutu.

The photo of Allen was featured in the issue’s “BS Meter,” which denigrated the trend of runners racing in tutus, and placed the fad in the “lame” column.

“A racing tutu epidemic has struck NYC’s Central Park, and it’s all because people think these froufrou skirts make you run faster,” the column reads. “Now, if you told us they made people run from you faster, maybe we would believe it.”

Except that isn’t why. That isn’t why Monika Allen wore a tutu to run that marathon. From the Glam Runner Facebook page:

Excited to see our tutus in SELF Magazine … but shocked to see that running tutus are classified as lame. Especially considering the fact that this picture is from last year’s LA Marathon when Glam Runner founders Tara and Monika ran together as superheroes … because Monika was recently diagnosed with brain cancer and was running a marathon in the middle of a year of chemo.

What’s Glam Runner?

Since starting Glam Runner in 2011, Allen has produced about 2,000 tutus and has donated $5,600 to Girls on the Run – a nonprofit that has a 12-week training program for girls ages 8-13 to prepare for a 5K race.

So there you go: don’t be mean.

The Huffington Post concludes:

To support Allen’s efforts to brighten up the race track, and inspire young girls to get moving, find out more information about Glam Runner here and Girls on the Run here.

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

Irshad Manji speaks up for freedom of speech and thought in Islam.

Last year, Al Jazeera aired an intense debate about Muslim reform between me and the British commentator Mehdi Hasan. Hate mail followed. So did love bombs. But I did not receive any death threats. To be sure, the reality remains that those who shatter age-old taboos within Islam do have to fear for their lives. While it is true that every religion has its extremists, in no other religion do mainstream believers routinely shrug off the murder of dissenters. This is a life-and-death difference. All the more reason for ijtihad to be revived in the 21st century.

Nowhere does the necessity of ijtihad seem more urgent than in the wars over freedom of expression. One might say that the UK led the way. More than 25 years ago, a puny hive of British Muslims demanded the death of novelist Salman Rushdie even before Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued his infamous fatwa.

Yes, but that was after India banned The Satanic Verses. The Bradford book-burning took its cue from the Indian ban. Not that I’m disagreeing with her, just mussing up the picture a little.

Earlier this year, I watched the British brouhaha over my friend Maajid Nawaz, the prospective Liberal Democrat candidate for Kilburn and co-founder of the counter-extremism outfit Quilliam. Nawaz had tweeted a cartoon called Jesus and Mo. Jesus to Mo: ‘Hey!’ Mo: ‘How ya doing?’ The end. That was it. Two top-tier prophets swapping props.

I call that catchy: two top-tier prophets swapping props.

The question is simple: can Islam be reconciled with free expression? The answer is yes. The Qur’an points out that there will always be nonbelievers and that it is for God, not for Muslims, to deal with them: ‘The truth is from your Lord, so whoever wills — let him believe; and whoever wills — let him disbelieve.’ (18:29). Moreover, the Qur’an states that there should ‘no compulsion in religion’. (2:256). Nobody should be forced to treat tradition as untouchable, including traditions that result in the messed-up Muslim habit of equating our very human prophet with an inviolable idol. Monotheists are to revere one God, not one of God’s emissaries. That is why humility requires people of faith to lampoon themselves, and each other, once in a while.

But even revering one god is revering a human conception of that god. But I’ll try to stop quibbling. I’d rather have believers of the Manji & Nawaz type than the Just Follow Orders type, so I shouldn’t quibble.

For me, embracing freedom is an act of faith. Recognising the Almighty’s infinite wisdom means acknowledging my limited human wisdom. As a monotheist, I am not God. Nor am I entitled to behave as God. Hence my duty to let a thousand nonviolent flowers bloom. In short, to devote myself to Allah is to love liberty.

Ok, but you can do that without Allah. You get to the same place. And if you take seriously the idea of an “almighty” who has infinite wisdom, it seems all but inevitable that you try to figure out what that Almighty thinks, and back come the orders and limits and veils and priests.

I just can’t stop quibbling, can I.

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

Do legislatures these days just sit around all day looking for new and more abhorrent ways of instantiating their hatred of women?

There’s one making its way through the process in Kansas that would mandate the reporting of all miscarriages.

A bill advancing in Kansas would mandate reporting for miscarriages at any stage in pregnancy, the first step along the path to criminalizing pregnant women’s bodies. Under an amendment attached to HB 2613 — which was originally intended to update the state’s procedure for issuing birth certificates for stillborn babies — doctors would be required to report all of their patients’ miscarriages to the state health department.

HB 2613 initially sought to provide an alternative to the state’s current stillbirth certificate, which some parents believe over-emphasizes their child’s death in an emotionally painful way. Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook (R), one of the most ardent abortion opponents in Kansas, added the miscarriage reporting requirement last week. Now, the bill’s original author is withdrawing his support from his own legislation.

Nice that it’s a woman doing the hating.

…enacting additional regulations related to the end of a pregnancy threatens to turn pregnant women into suspectsin the eyes of the law. National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) has documented hundreds of cases of women being held criminally liable for decisions they made while pregnant, particularly if they later suffered a miscarriage or stillbirth. Anti-abortion advocates also tend to pressure states to increase the criminal penalties for violent acts that result in the loss of a pregnancy, an area that can open the door to potential attacks on reproductive rights.

According to Nash, HB 2613 fits into this broader approach.

“The whole point is to further the idea of the fetus as a person. It’s a way of establishing the groundwork for making abortion harder to get, and eventually illegal,” Nash [Elizabeth Nash, the states issue manager for the Guttmacher Institute] explained. “This is one tiny piece of that overall effort. At the end of the day, this is not the way to go to provide support for a woman who has had a later miscarriage. This doesn’t make up for the loss of a wanted pregnancy, and could also end up infringing on abortion rights.”

Which was the goal.

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

There is at last a legal fundraiser for Karen Stollznow. She needs $30 thousand to defend herself against Radford’s defamation suit.

My name is Karen Stollznow. I am an author and researcher with a PhD in Linguistics. In recent months, I wrote an article for a Scientific American Mind blog in which I spoke out about sexual harassment I’d endured from a male colleague for several years. I did this to highlight the wide problem of sexual harassment in the workplace for women, including those in scientific and academic fields. Many people who read the article immediately identified my harasser by name, and spoke publicly about my situation on their own blogs and other social media. They knew who my harasser was because he had recently been disciplined by his employer for his behavior.

As a result, my harasser filed a defamation suit against me, trying to bully me into silence. Although he’s spent thousands of dollars on a lawyer to clear his name, he knew that I could not afford the same. In my attempts to settle out of court he has tried to bully me into signing a retraction, which claimed that I had lied about the whole ordeal, including his ongoing harassment of me, and assaults at one of our professional conferences. Although I didn’t sign the retraction, he posted the document on his very public Facebook page and announced victory over me. This also led to false public edits being made to my Wikipedia page.

I never lied about the harassment I endured and I have evidence and witnesses to attest to my experiences. The only crime I have committed is not being rich enough to defend myself. If you believe in justice and in protecting victims who are bullied into silence, please dig deep and help support this legal fund. I must raise $30,000 in the next two weeks in order to find legal counsel to fight these allegations and clear my own name. If my harasser succeeds in bullying me into silence, it will only serve to embolden harassers, and teach victims that they should never speak up, lest it ruin their lives.

Any money raised through this campaign that is not spent on these legal expenses will be donated to Colorado’s Sexual Assault Victim Advocate Center.

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

Maryam considers the question of who gets to speak for British Muslims. Her answer is no one and everyone.

She says there’s been a huge fuss about the fact that Maajid Nawaz included her in the brief film he made for Newsnight.

In the programme I explained why I define myself as an ex-Muslim. It is not enough for me to call myself an atheist when I receive death threats for leaving Islam. Calling myself ex-Muslim is a public challenge to Islam, Islamism and its death penalty for apostates. Until people are free to come and go as they please and without fear, there is a political necessity to label myself in this way.

Of course it made sense to include her in the film. Vyckie Garrison and Libby Anne have a lot to tell us about the Quiverfull version of Christianity, and ex-Muslims have a lot to tell us about being Muslim. The experience of exes is highly relevant to understanding religions, and all the more so when they are categories who are disadvantaged by those religions.

The point of the programme though is not that I represent the “Muslim community” but that regressive self-appointed imams and Islamist organisations do not necessarily do so. This is an important point that is often ignored in the media and by Government.

There is no homogeneous “Muslim community”. The “community” includes feminists, gay rights activists and those deemed apostates. Muslim does not equate Islamist; Muslim does not equate support for stonings, amputations, gender segregation and women’s inequality.

After all, people’s ethnicity, religion, gender, race, class, ability, sexuality, identity… do not define them; it is their politics and choices that do.

Well I would say both do, but I know what she means – it’s the things we’ve chosen that we really want to represent us, portray us, be what people associate with us.

I have just as much a stake in this debate as anyone else – Muslim or not – because to a large extent my life depends on it. As Islamists tell me all the time, no one is allowed to leave Islam and doing so especially publicly goes beyond the matter of apostasy to a matter of treason. This is they say is deserving of capital punishment in all countries.

You’re not allowed to leave Islam and you’re especially not allowed to talk and write about why you left Islam – it’s all or nothing; permanent or treasonous; total commitment or total crime. A nightmare.

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

An article in Psychology Today – psychology for people who know nothing about psychology (like me), or more politely for the wider public – describes research that suggests that dogs have a rudimentary Theory of Mind, or one piece of a TOM.

Experimenters tested whether dogs beg more (or less) from people who (they can see) can’t see them or from people who can. It was the second. This of course causes not the faintest surprise in anyone who’s spent any time with dogs. Of course dogs cue in on human attention. I make eye contact with dogs in the street. I smile at them. They react. And these are stranger dogs. Of course dogs pay attention to human attention, including their line of sight.

And so the experiments confirmed.

Stanley Coren sums up:

Over all these results suggest that dogs do have a strongly entrenched, perhaps genetic, predisposition to try to “read the mind” of humans, at least at the level of understanding that humans must pay attention to them if they are going to be able to get them to respond. Wolves can learn this, at least at a low level for the most obvious of cues (when an individual has their back turned) but not for the more subtle cues, such as the familiar situation where a human is looking at a book and thus not attending to what is going on in front of them.

Or when she is looking at a computer screen and thus is not attending to the dog. Cooper starts awake when I put my reading glasses down on the desk. Yes, he knows from attention all right.

So, can dogs read your mind? Well they certainly seem to have a theory of mind and they are trying to figure out what you are thinking so that they can communicate with you and get a bit more of what they want out of life.

But do they have an elaborate enough theory of mind that they think about the feral cat outside who might be hungry and thus might want some of their food? Do they have an elaborate enough theory of mind that they then decide to leave some of their precious food behind for that possibly hungry cat outside who might come inside and eat it?

Uh, no.

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

Originally a comment by Seth on Like the lights being turned off.

Recently I spoke with a friend of mine who happens to be a Muslim woman; she does not wear hijab, though every few years she struggles with the urge to cover her hair, because some part of her feels it’s essential to her religion. But she told me something curious about some of the ‘cultural’ reasons for wearing the niqab, which arguably predate the invention of Islam; basically, some Muslim women take to the full-body veil because they feel they are ‘too beautiful’ to go through their daily lives without sexual harassment from all of the men around them.

Thus we see in microcosm something that Christopher Hitchens condemned for religion in general; it is at once the height of abjection and servility, combined with the quintessence of arrogance and solipsism. Men are the favoured of God, entitled to all of the power and property and respect, but they are base animals who cannot be expected to control themselves if they see the curve of a woman’s chin; it’s the wretched woman’s fault for putting herself in ‘civilised’ company, distracting from the business of the day, for being too beautiful and perfect a creature to do anything but be admired in the home of the man who owns her. This utter debasement of men and women (with its concomitant erasure of non-cis, non-heterosexuals) is present in all of the major religions, but it is rarely so blunt and transparent as we find in Islam.

I am glad that I live in a country where a woman can wear the niqab if she chooses…but I’m much more concerned with providing women the space and freedom to take it off if they choose, as well. I wish there were women’s shelters designed specifically to accommodate women and their children fleeing religiously-inspired abuse (no matter what religion), spaces for women to take refuge away from the patriarchs who seek to enforce their control by force. And I believe that all children must attend a public, secular school, where they interact at least a few hours a day with kids of every gender, kids whose parents aren’t the same religion, or colour, or economic status. Children have a right to a diversity of opinion and experience, a right that trumps any self-proclaimed right of parents to cloister them into only one worldview. These measures are by no means sufficient conditions for the dismantling of sexism inherent in religion, but I believe they (or something like them) are necessary.

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