The schedule for Empowering Women Through Secularism is online.

Saturday 29th of June

9.30am-10.15am - Introduction – Annie Laurie Gaylor

10.15am-11.30am  Session 1 – Reproductive rights and Irish abortion law Ophelia Benson, Clare Daly, Anthea McTiernan, Ailbhe Smyth, Doctors for Choice

11.45am-1 pm - Session 2 – Secular Values in Society Leonie Hilliard, Nina Sankari, Farhana Shakir, PZ Myers

2.15pm-3.30pm - Session 3 – Separation of Church and State Ann Brusseel, Annie Laurie Gaylor, Rebecca Watson, Michael Nugent

4.45pm-6.00pm - Session 4 – Human Rights Jane Donnelly, Maryam Namazie, To Be Confirmed, Dan Barker

6.15pm-7.00pm - Keynote Speaker – Taslima Nasrin

Sunday 30th of June

10.15am-11.30am - Session 5 – Politics and Campaigning Rachel Donnelly, Maryam Namazie, Ann Marie Waters,

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

I don’t think I knew, before yesterday, that Ireland’s constitution has a clause about women and “their duties in the home.”

It’s in Article 41, starting on page 160 of the government version.

2° The State recognises the Family as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society, and as a moral institution possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law.

That’s an alarming sentence already. It sounds Vaticanesque, but I haven’t been able to find anything from the Vatican that says, as that sentence seems to, that the family is “superior to” (and thus immune from?) the law. I have a feeling I’ve written about the idea before, too, but I haven’t been … Read the rest

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