On the one hand, yes, religion as mostly practiced and interpreted now is illiberal and intolerant and sucky, but on the other hand, it always could be fluffier and nicer, if people would only.

But they won’t, so what’s the point of saying that?

Oh, you know…it fills the time. It’s not as hazardous as snowboarding. It’s easy.

Christianity, Islam and the other world faiths shouldn’t be completely disregarded. Many of the ethics they teach – and the faith, and in turn, the security which they offer believers – are far too valuable to ignore; what needs to change is our understanding. It is up to the intellectual religious leaders, who have the ability to engage with the intelligent as well as the uneducated, to renovate religion.

No. The items that are too valuable to ignore? Here’s the thing: they’re not inherently religious. They don’t depend on religion. We don’t need to keep religion to keep the items. We don’t decide which items are valuable and which are sucky on the basis of religious criteria; we use other criteria, as Plato pointed out such a god damn long time ago. We can make our own good things. We can transmit them, we can teach them, we can defend them, we can enshrine them in bills and declarations of human rights. We don’t need god to help. We do it better without god.

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

Four men in Iran are due to be hanged very soon – as in, any time now – as their sentence has been approved by a hight court.

According to HRANA and JOOPEA, these four men will be hanged for sodomy according Shari’a law.

…

London based Iranian Human Rights Lawyer, Mehri Jafari said: ‘I am horrified and saddened to have heard the news about these four men. Not only with regards to the execution which is about to take place, but the fact that is beyond our control.

‘There are two important issues in this case; the location of the alleged occurrence and the interpretation of the Sharia’ law that a Hodud (strict Sharia punishment) is [im]minent.  Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad is one of the most undeveloped provinces in Iran and it is obvious that a lack of access to lawyers and fair trial can be considered a serious issue in this case. After this announcement it is very likely that the execution will be carried out soon, and the remote location makes it difficult to exert any influence on the process.’

Mehri further pleaded: ‘I hope international organisations act quickly and effectively on this specific case.’

So, spread the word.

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

Richard Carrier has a great extended interview with Susan Haack.

One sample:

But I’m also sure that many of the “difficulties and annoyances” of my life in philosophy have arisen, not simply because I’m a woman, but because of other characteristics of mine—though I suspect people find some of these particularly hard to take in a woman. For one thing, I’m very independent: rather than follow philosophical fads and fashions, I pursue questions I believe are important, and tackle them in the ways that seem most likely to yield results; I am beholden to no clique or citation cartel; I put no stock in the ranking of philosophy graduate programs over which my colleagues obsess; I accept no research or travel funds from my university; I avoid publishing in journals that insist on taking all the rights to my work; etc., etc.

Read the whole thing.

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

A student in the Department of Human Ecology at the University of Alberta had a good idea for her research project on workplace hazards: high heels. She’s required to wear them herself for her job as a server, and she’s fallen a few times while carrying trays.

It’s brilliant, isn’t it? The job of a server is to carry heavy plates or trays, so naturally the thing to do is handicap them by requiring them to wear shoes that are harder to walk in than shoes without high heels. Naturally. Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it in high heels and backward.

She talked to 35 servers; all had slipped or fallen on the job; 40% said they’d been injured as a result. 91% said they were required to wear high heels for work.

H/t Christopher Moyer.

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

And then, speaking of where you’d prefer to live, there’s life with Ismail Belghar of somewhere in New South Wales.

Belghar, who has been married to his wife for 11 years, became aware she had been to the beach in late 2009 because her shoulders were slightly sunburned.

He rang his sister-in-law and said: “You slut, how dare you take my wife to the beach.”

Just before Christmas, 2009, Ms Kokden came face to face with Belghar while out shopping with her brother at the Broadway Shopping Centre.

Belghar slapped her across the face then carried her to the railing around the car park where he held her out over it.

She was freed when her brother tackled Belghar.

Family life, eh?

The court heard, because of his religious beliefs and because he thought he had absolute authority over her, Belghar felt it “abhorrent” that his wife, Hanife Kokden, had been to the beach where she “displayed her body”.

In March, Judge Ronald Solomon had granted Belghar a trial before a judge sitting alone after agreeing he may not receive a fair trial with a jury.

“The attitude of (Belghar) … is based on a religious or cultural basis. In light of the fact there has been adverse publicity regarding people who hold extreme Muslim faith beliefs in the community, I am of the view that the apprehension by (Belghar) that he may not receive a fair trial is a reasonable apprehension,” Judge Solomon said.

Nicely circular, innit. Belghar has disgusting religious beliefs, along with an opinion that he has absolute authority over his wife. He might not get a fair trial because a jury might dislike his disgusting religious and spousal beliefs. Therefore he can get a judge all to himself.

So the more disgusting your beliefs (and their resulting actions) are, the more special treatment you should get? Is that the logic?

An appeals court overruled the judge, so if that is the logic I guess the court didn’t accept it.

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

Nice. Last month the Muslim Canadian Congress gave Irshad Manji a freedom of speech award – the first “Mansoor Hallaj Freedom of Speech Award.”

I like the picture.

I also like the way Tarek Fatah explained it in the Toronto Sun.

Earlier this week, the Kuwaiti parliament voted to institute the death penalty against any Muslim who is judged by Islamic clerics to have insulted God.

As medieval as this may sound to the ears of the Western non-Muslim, the threat is real and the target is the millions of Muslims, like me, who are fed up with the clerics who have sucked the joy out of our lives for centuries.

The tradition of silencing dissident Muslims by beheading them is not new; its most famous victim was beheaded in Baghdad over a 1,000 years ago and the most recent ones are the victims of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Today, at the Toronto Public Library on Palmerston Street, a group of Muslims are going to say “Enough is enough.” They will honour a 21st century Muslim reformer in the name of a 10th century Muslim rebel who died for speaking the truth. This will be their rebuke to the Kuwaiti parliament.

Where would you prefer to live? Tarek Fatah’s Toronto or Kuwait?

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

Irshad Manji has been getting some unwelcome attention in Indonesia.

During a discussion and an event to launch her latest book, Allah, Liberty and Love, at Salihara in South Jakarta last Friday, she said she sensed “a much more conservative vibe” in the capital.

As if on cue, Manji had barely finished her opening talk when a police officer announced that the event had to be postponed partly due to protests from local residents and hardline groups.

Minutes later, shouts of disapproval from those claiming to be local residents were heard. The discussion was cut short formally and Manji had to be escorted out of the venue.

Manji faced more protests from various groups during her next few days in the country with the largest Muslim population in the world.

Hundreds of members of the Indonesian Mujahidin Council (MMI) attacked the LKiS publishing office in Yogyakarta where she was speaking about her book on Wednesday night.

Because they don’t want no stinkin’ liberty & love along with their Allah.

The Trouble with Islam Today, which addresses issues such as alleged animosity towards Jews and inferiority of women in some Muslim-dominated societies, and calls for Muslims to be more critical of their own community, was, according to Manji, driven by anger.

“That anger was real … and it needed to be expressed at least for me. But in the last 10 years as I have been engaging with people like you all over the world, my own anger has been replaced with aspiration. I now believe that we shouldn’t just expose the corruption. That we can strive for better and that we can, as the Koran tells us, change ourselves in order to change the condition of our society,” Manji said to the audience at the Salihara discussion, which was mostly composed of young people.

That’s nice, but it’s not just the Koran that tells us that.

I know Manji knows that. I know she says it to make the point that changing ourselves and the condition of society are compatible with the Koran. But still – it’s not just the Koran that tells us that.

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

In the news from Phoenix (oh god Phoenix – whose bishop is Joseph Olmsted, who tried to force a hospital to promise never again to prevent a woman from dying by aborting her doomed-anyway fetus) -

Instead of playing in a championship baseball game, Paige Sultzbach and her team won’t even make it to the dugout.

A Phoenix school that was scheduled to play the 15-year-old Mesa girl and her male teammates forfeited the game rather than face a female player.

Well that’s insulting.

Our Lady of Sorrows bowed out of Thursday night’s game against Mesa Preparatory Academy in the Arizona Charter Athletic Association championship. The game had been scheduled at Phoenix College.

Paige, who plays second base at Mesa Prep, had to sit out two previous games against Our Lady of Sorrows out of respect for its beliefs. But having her miss the championship was not an option for Mesa Prep.

Excuse me?! Out of respect for its beliefs? She sat out two games out of respect for its beliefs that women are inferior?

Can we stop doing things out of “respect” for vicious unreformed I’m-better-than-you beliefs that don’t deserve the respect you would give a gob of phlegm on the sidewalk?

“This is not a contact sport; it shouldn’t be an issue,” Pamela Sultzbach said. “It wasn’t that they were afraid they were going to hurt or injure her, it’s that (they believe) a girl’s place is not on a field.”

And they believe they have the right to insult her by ostentatiously acting on that moronic belief. They believe they have the right – and “respect”! – for trying to deprive her of the right and ability to participate in a game that she presumably likes and does well. They believe they have the right to try to make her have a smaller more impoverished life, more hemmed in by stupid nasty restrictions forced on her by a gang of Catholic men and boys. It’s revolting.

Officials at Our Lady of Sorrows declined comment. In a written statement Thursday, the school said the decision to forfeit was consistent with a policy prohibiting co-ed sports.

The statement also said the school teaches boys respect by not placing girls in athletic competition, where “proper boundaries can only be respected with difficulty.”

Our Lady of Sorrows is run by the U.S. branch of the Society of Saint Pius X. The group represents conservative, traditional priests who broke from the Catholic Church in the 1980s.

Oh, that explains it – they’re even more fascist than the church gang. Well you know what then? Nobody should agree to play them. Period. Not if they refuse to play a team that includes a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Nigerian, or a Malaysian – and the same goes for A Girl.

H/t Michael Fugate.

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

“If you have freedom of speech, please use your freedom to help someone else have theirs.”

Isn’t it time you spoke out?

“Think for yourself and let others enjoy that privilege too.” Voltaire.

Via Tarek Fatah

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv7VdQNC8Yc

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

The Washington Post suggests that maybe the “tense relationship” between the Catholic church and the Girl Scouts is approaching a “resolution” – without really clarifying why the bishops think it’s any of their business or why anyone else does either.

Potentially at stake is whether troops can continue meeting in Catholic churches, and whether many Catholic girls, who make up a quarter of the nation’s 3 million Girl Scouts, will continue in scouting as the organization marks its 100th year.

How can the second item be at stake? The bishops can’t actually force people to do things, after all. They’re not cops. They don’t have badges or guns or clubs, and they’re not licensed by the state to enforce the laws. It’s really not within their power to tell Catholic girls what groups they can belong to. (They can tell, but it’s just noise.) They’re not the boss of Catholic girls. They’re not the boss of anyone except their own employees. They can’t stop Catholic girls continuing in scouting.

“There had been some complaints about the Scouts, and the bishops couldn’t turn a deaf ear,” said Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the bishops. “So they want to know, what’s the story?”

Couldn’t turn a deaf ear? Why not? Who says?

Critics of the Girl Scouts contend their materials shouldn’t have any links to groups like the Sierra Club, Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam, or other groups that support family planning and contraception. Other critics are unhappy that the American Girl Scouting organization is a member of an international scouting association that supports contraception access.

Oh yes? Is that right? Well I say the Girl Scouts shouldn’t have any links to the Catholic church, which attempts to mandate and impose a state of affairs in which women are stripped of any right to control their own fertility and are left helpless to avoid or postpone childbearing unless they avoid sex altogether. That’s what I say. Too bad I can’t impose my wishes on anyone.

For the past two years, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has had its Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth ask the Girl Scouts to explain their stances and materials.

Could you ask for a better list of things the Catholic church knows nothing whatever about, is self-handicapped from knowing anything about, and has no business on earth interfering with? What does it know about laity? Much less marriage? Or family life? And all it knows about youth is how to swear it to secrecy when a priest is caught raping it. Fuck its Committee, and fuck its asking.

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

Not just for Catholics any more. You don’t have to be Catholic to love special rules for child-raping theists. Nothin’ says lovin’ like a district attorney who lets clerics deal with child-rape in their “communities” with no pesky police involved.

In short, it’s not just Ireland and it’s not just Catholic priests. It’s also the Brooklyn district attorney and ultra-Orthodox rabbis.

An influential rabbi came last summer to the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, with a message: his ultra-Orthodox advocacy group was instructing adherent Jews that they could report allegations of child sexual abuse to district attorneys or the police only if a rabbi first determined that the suspicions were credible.       

The pronouncement was a blunt challenge to Mr. Hynes’s authority. But the district attorney “expressed no opposition or objection,” the rabbi, Chaim Dovid Zweibel, recalled.

This apparently means child sexual abuse by any “adherent Jews,” not just by clerics.

Mr. Hynes has won election six times as district attorney thanks in part to support from ultra-Orthodox rabbis, who lead growing communities in neighborhoods like Borough Park and Crown Heights. But in recent years, as allegations of child sexual abuse have shaken the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, victims’ rights groups have expressed concern that he is not vigorously pursuing these cases because of his deep ties to the rabbis.

Many of the rabbis consider sexual abuse accusations to be community matters best handled by rabbinical authorities, who often do not report their conclusions to the police.

Ah, fabulous. A tight-knit “community” of religious zealots and their unfortunate trapped dependents, who have given themselves permission to do their own policing of child rape, and gotten the district attorney to go along with this arrangement. That should work out well! Just as it does among the Amish.

There’s been a crackdown of sorts, leading to arrests – but there are still special rules.

Mr. Hynes has taken the highly unusual step of declining to publicize the names of defendants prosecuted under the program — even those convicted. At the same time, he continues to publicize allegations of child sexual abuse against defendants who are not ultra-Orthodox Jews.

This policy of shielding defendants’ names because of their religious status is not followed by the other four district attorneys in New York City, and has rarely, if ever, been adopted by prosecutors around the country.

Some sex-crime experts and former prosecutors said the policy contributed to a culture of secrecy in ultra-Orthodox communities, which made it harder to curb sexual abuse.

Well it would, wouldn’t it. Why else would the DA be doing it? You can’t keep secrets of that kind without contributing to a culture of secrecy. No one must know that Daddy raped a few kids. So nobody knows, and Daddy is more careful in future, and he rapes some more kids.

Marci A. Hamilton, a professor of constitutional law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, blamed Mr. Hynes for not speaking out against the ultra-Orthodox position that mandates that allegations must be first reported to rabbis. The position potentially flouts a state law that requires teachers, social workers and others to report allegations of sexual abuse immediately to the authorities.

She said Mr. Hynes was essentially allowing rabbis to act as gatekeepers.

“That’s exactly what the Catholic Church did, what the Latter-day Saints did, what the Jehovah’s Witnesses did,” said Ms. Hamilton, author of “Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children.”

Quite. It would be nice if secular law enforcement would refrain from helping them to do that.

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

Another thing, on the matter of Edwina Rogers.

I was re-reading that contested part of Greta’s interview with Roy Speckhardt in a post of Chris Hallquist’s -

I don’t take your characterization as accurate that she was being evasive. I listened to her interview, and actually, the first thing I thought of was, “Gosh, you know, I’ve done a lot of media interviews, and if you do media interviews, you learn how to get your talking points across and not worry, necessarily, all the time about the questions being asked. If you want to get your own message across, this is a technique that you’ve got to learn, to get out there and put across your viewpoint.”

And I had another thought about it.

Yes, ok, it probably is a technique you have to learn, if you want to get your own message across. It’s true that we don’t want to be naive about this and just say let the best argument win, because interviewers can have agendas and it would be stupid to simply comply with what the interviewer wants no matter what. But.

But. Doing things that way rules out doing things a different way, and if you learn the technique so thoroughly or enthusiastically that it becomes the only one you know, then you become simply a talking agenda, and that seems a bad thing for the Executive Director of the SCA. It might be all right for a designated PR person for the SCA, for someone whose only job was to get a particular message across, but surely as ED Rogers has more jobs to do than just getting a particular message across. I get that that’s a big part of her job, but it’s not all of it, is it?

And it’s not a good general technique to focus like a laser on your own message and blank out all questions. That’s not a technique so much as a disability. An unchanging pre-determined message that is non-responsive to questions makes a good definition of religion, and secular thinking should be the opposite of that. Secular thinking (properly conducted) is responsive and open and cumulative and flexible. Dialogue is of the essence. Dialogue isn’t dialogue if one party just sticks to a message the whole time.

I think this is part of the broad unease about the appointment. She might be a brilliant hire as the head of PR, but not as ED.

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

I took my friend Cooper to the beach yesterday afternoon.

Not that beach, but that Cooper. He’s a little over a year old.

This isn’t about him though, it’s about sea stars. It was very low tide, so I went squidging and mincing through the intertidal zone with him so that he could swim after the tennis ball, which he loves doing with a passion that never fades. I eventually noticed a sea star, and then a couple more, and then another.

One was a rather faded dry purple; maybe it was dead. The next two were a vibrant deep purple – probably Pisaster ochraeus.

The last one was red, and many-armed, and it had spinelets along each arm, that were moving. It was extraordinary. Maybe the rose sea star, Crossaster papposus.

How about that?

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

It’s turning into a “you’ve got to be kidding” day. One “you’ve got to be kidding” after another.

What now? The notoriously vicious US Conference of Catholic Bishops is pitching a huge fit at the Girl Scouts.

Long a lightning rod for conservative criticism, the Girl Scouts of the USA are now facing their highest-level challenge yet: An official inquiry by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

An official inquiry? What does that even mean? What standing do the US bishops have to inquire officially into the Girl Scouts? What business are the Girl Scouts of theirs?

At issue are concerns about program materials that some Catholics find offensive, as well as assertions that the Scouts associate with other groups espousing stances that conflict with church teaching.

So what? So what so what so what? How is that any of their business? Why are they inquiring into it? Why do they think they get to tell people what to do? Why is it anything to do with them if the Scouts associate with other groups espousing stances that conflict with church teaching?

This is making me frantic, it’s so presumptuous and intrusive and theocratic. Whatever next? An official inquiry into bloggers? Atheists? Publishing? Public schools? Everything?

Why do they think they have any jurisdiction at all? Who exactly do they think they are? And who do they think we are? Their subjects?

The new inquiry will be conducted by the bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth. It will look into the Scouts’ “possible problematic relationships with other organizations” and various “problematic” program materials, according to a letter sent by the committee chairman, Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne, Ind., to his fellow bishops.

It’s none of their business. It’s none of their business, it’s none of their business, it’s none of their business.

Girl Scout leaders hope the bishops’ apprehensions will be eased once they gather information. But there’s frustration within the iconic youth organization — known for its inclusiveness and cookie sales — that it has become such an ideological target, with the girls sometimes caught in the political crossfire.

“I know we’re a big part of the culture wars,” said the Girl Scouts’ spokeswoman, Michelle Tompkins. “People use our good name to advance their own agenda.”

“For us, there’s an overarching sadness to it,” Tompkins added. “We’re just trying to further girls’ leadership.”

I feel murderous. I want to make the USCCB a universal pariah. I want the bishops and their “conference” to be hated by every human on the planet except the pope. I want them to have to stop being bishops and get jobs picking cotton instead.

Mary Rice Hasson, a visiting fellow in Catholic studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank in Washington, accuses McCarty [executive director of the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry] of “whitewashing” Girl Scout programs and policies that struck some Catholics as counter to church teaching.

“They just repeated the Girl Scouts’ denials,” Hasson said. “Families’ concerns were minimized or ignored.”

Hasson is pleased that the bishops are launching their own inquiry but is skeptical that further rifts can be avoided.

“A collision course is probably a good description of where things are headed,” she said. “The leadership of the Girl Scouts is reflexively liberal. Their board is dominated by people whose views are antithetical to the teachings of the Catholic Church.”

Jesus christ. They really do think they get to tell everyone what to do. They think they get to have “official inquiries” into whether or not some people are liberal and have views antithetical to the teachings of the Catholic Church.

I wonder who Mary Rice Hasson thinks she is. Doesn’t she realize she’s a woman? What’s she doing being a fellow at a think tank, and accusing people of things, and saying things? That’s not “complementary.” She’s denying The True Nature of Woman. The bishops aren’t going to let her into their club no matter how much accusing she does.

Ugh. I have a bad case of Catholicismophobia at the moment.

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

And then via Stephen Curry on Twitter I learn that Priss Choss has a veto on legislation that might affect his private interests. Say what? No really; he does. I don’t know how I managed to miss this last October.

Ministers have been forced to seek permission from Prince Charles to pass at least a dozen government bills, according to a Guardian investigation into a secretive constitutional loophole that gives him the right to veto legislation that might affect his private interests.

Since 2005, ministers from six departments have sought the Prince of Wales’ consent to draft bills on everything from road safety to gambling and the London Olympics, in an arrangement described by constitutional lawyers as a royal “nuclear deterrent” over public policy. Unlike royal assent to bills, which is exercised by the Queen as a matter of constitutional law, the prince’s power applies when a new bill might affect his own interests, in particular the Duchy of Cornwall, a private £700m property empire that last year provided him with an £18m income.

And neither the gummint nor the royal corporation will give details. Away with you, peasants, they say.

“We should know why he is being asked and the government should publish the answers,” said Lord Berkeley, who was last month told to seek Charles’ consent on a marine navigation bill.

Because it might affect his private interests – how crazy is that? Are his private interests sacrosanct? If they are, why are they?

Omigod omigod – I’m reading the letter sent to Lord B telling him to ask Prinny’s permission – and they capitalize “His” – would you believe it?!

He (Lord B) has to write to Earl Attlee to ask him “to approach Clarence House” – Lord B can’t just call Priss C on the phone, god no, that would get him 40 years in a Thai prison – “to approach Clarence House to seek the consent of the Prince of Wales to the Marine Navigation Bill so far as it affects His interests.”

Jesus Christ almighty – I didn’t know they were expected to capitalize the pronouns. How obsequious can you get. Hey Choss? You’re just a you as far as I’m concerned, dude. If we were speaking French I would tutoyer you.

What should one pack for life in a Thai prison?

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

A horrible item out of Thailand a couple of days ago.

A Thai man in his 60s who became known as “Uncle SMS” after he was convicted of defaming Thailand’s royal family in mobile phone text messages, has died while serving his 20-year prison term, his lawyers said on Tuesday.

A 20-year prison term. For a guy in his 60s. For “defaming” a royal. It’s beyond belief in its brutality and pettiness.

Plus he was ill. Cherry on the sundae, that is.

The case of Amphon Tangnoppakul, a grandfather who had suffered from mouth cancer, drew attention to Thailand’s severe lese-majesty laws last November when he received one of the heaviest-ever sentences for someone accused of insulting the monarchy.

God damn human beings, with their hateful little taboos and idols and pieties coupled with enormous punishments and revenges and extortions. So he “insulted” the monarchy; so the hell what. Get over yourselves.

Amphon’s cause of death was not known, but he had complained of stomach pains on Friday and was transferred to a correctional department prison, his lawyer, Anon Numpa, said.

It was not immediately clear when he died, but Amphon’s wife learned the news on Tuesday during a visit to the Bangkok prison where he was being held, Anon said.

Oh, that’s nice. That’s a nice touch. They couldn’t let her know, they had to wait until she turned up for a visit.

Amphon was arrested in August 2010 and accused of sending four text messages to a government official that were deemed offensive to the queen. He denied sending them, claiming he did not  know how to use the SMS function on his telephone.

He wept during his court proceedings, saying: “I love the king.”…Before his arrest, Amphon had lived in retirement with his wife, daughter-in-law and three grandchildren in a rented room in Samut Prakan province on the outskirts of Bangkok.

In other words he was dirt-poor. Well done royal family of Thailand. We all think tremendously highly of you now, you can be sure.

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

Check out #libelreform on Twitter to find Simon Singh, Ben Goldacre, Richard Wilson, David Allen Green, Padraig Reidy, Sense About Science and all the rest of that crowd – the geek-political interface, as Ben calls it – high-fiving the Queen’s speech mention of libel reform. Booya.

Index on Censorship says booya.

Index is delighted to announce that thanks to our Libel Reform Campaign, the Queen has announced a defamation bill in the next parliament

This will be the first wholesale attempt at reform since 1843 and an amazing achievement for the campaign and its 60,000 supporters. The bill will open the way to ending libel tourism and protecting free expression for journalists, writers, bloggers and scientists around the world. However, there is still work to be done and we will carry on fighting to make sure that the detail in the final Bill will truly deliver reform.

Yay campaign. Yay 60,000 supporters. Yay geek power.

Over the coming months, the Libel Reform Campaign which represent the efforts of English PEN, Sense about Science and Index will continue to fight for:

• a public interest defence so people can defend themselves unless the claimant can show they have been malicious or reckless.
• a strong test of harm that strikes out claims unless the claimant can demonstrate serious and substantial harm and they have a real prospect of vindication.
• a restriction on corporations’ ability to use the libel laws to silence criticism.
• provisions for online hosts and intermediaries, who are not authors nor traditional publishers.

Sign the petition. I thought it was for UK citizens only, but it’s not (and it shouldn’t be, since libel tourism is a global threat, not just a UK one), so I signed it.

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

Wunderkind Ross Douthat has a book out, called Bad Religion. If the review in The New Republic is any guide, it’s about what you’d expect from Douthat.

Most troubling of all are the mistakes that bear directly on his central argument. And what is that argument? “A chart of the American religious past would look like a vast delta, with tributaries, streams, and channels winding in and out, diverging and reconverging—but all of them fed, ultimately, by a central stream, an original current, a place where the waters start. This river is Christian orthodoxy.” In the 1950s, Reinhold Niebuhr and Bishop Fulton Sheen carried the arguments for orthodoxy while Bing Crosby and Karl Malden brought the presbyterate onto the Hollywood screen and Charlton Heston came down from Sinai with God’s Holy Law. Everyone went to Church and understood the value of chastity. Then came the 1960s and liberal theology, the pill, and Vietnam, and America went to hell.

Oh for the days of yore, when everyone went to church and nobody was unorthodox.

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

Tom Flynn has a good word for civil unions as opposed to marriage.

What secular humanists especially liked about civil unions was that they would be a wholly new institution, conceived entirely within the domain of secular law. They’d be free of matrimony’s tangled roots as both a legal and a religious construct, and they’d be free of matrimony’s historical baggage as an institution for transferring what amounted to ownership of the bride from her father to her husband. In twenty or twenty-five years, the thinking went, a robust form of civil union would be legal for same-sex couples across the land.

What was wrong with that vision? Today, many activists view civil unions as insufficient, a second-class “gay ghetto” institution that still separates same-sex couples from more favored opposite-sex couples. But don’t judge so quickly. Let’s jump back to fifteen years ago, and consider what many civil-union supporters (myself included) expected to happen next. Once robust civil unions were the law of the land for same-sex couples, this thinking went, the next step would be legal activism by opposite-sex couples seeking a way to give their unions the protection of law without having to resort to traditional matrimony with all its negatives.

I suppose that’s the real root of the horror of same-sex marriage to the reactionaries: it’s marriage between equals, and that’s not real marriage.

Depressing, isn’t it. I bet it’s true though. Straight marriage is reassuring because whatever those pesky feminists may say, everybody knows that the husband gets top billing. Non-straight marriage is terrifying because it means that inequality doesn’t have to be built into marriage.

They should get over it though. There are plenty of inequality-enforcers still operating and flourishing, and straight marriage will still be around to remind everyone of the hierarchy.

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