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Arguably, Jon McNaughton is more patriotic than I am. Below you can see his latest piece of art, entitled “One Nation Under God”. I urge you to visit McNaughton’s website, because this is no ordinary work of art: it’s interactive! By rolling your mouse of different portions of the painting, you can learn about the significance of each character.
Beneath the painting, the artist responds to “liberal criticisms” he has received for this work.
Can you spot Satan?
Sister painting One Nation Under Cthulhu:
If I spent the next week typing “LOL”, and taking only two 15-minute breaks a day and sleeping only three hours a night, I still would not be able to properly express my reaction to this amazing news.
Professors and feminists have emasculated and dumbed-down the Holy Bible, and inserted their socialist agenda, you see. To be precise, “The committee in charge of updating the bestselling version, the NIV, is dominated by professors and higher-educated participants who can be expected to be liberal and feminist in outlook.”
Vomit-worthy, if you ask me. Who wants anyone with higher education, or who holds the opinion that women are people, to be translating ancient Greek and Hebrew texts? Disgusting. Next thing you’ll tell me is that there was a ghey in the translating room.
In response, the Conservative Bible Project has begun to translate the Bible in accordance with conservative principles.
Does it matter to these Bible-rewriters that the Bible was originally written before socialism, feminism, conservatism or liberalism were invented? No it does not. Not one wit. Because emasculating socialist feminist professors can time travel. Satan taught them how.
I mean, are you not troubled to learn that:
Socialistic terminology permeates English translations of the Bible, without justification. This improperly encourages the “social justice” movement among Christians.
For example, the conservative word “volunteer” is mentioned only once in the ESV, yet the socialistic word “comrade” is used three times, “laborer(s)” is used 13 times, “labored” 15 times, and “fellow” (as in “fellow worker”) is used 55 times.
Or that liberals have somehow inserted forgiveness into the Bible in such a way that it sounds desirable:
The earliest, most authentic manuscripts lack this verse set forth at Luke 23:34:
Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Is this a liberal corruption of the original? This does not appear in any other Gospel, and the simple fact is that some of the persecutors of Jesus did know what they were doing. This quotation is a favorite of liberals but should not appear in a conservative Bible.
Or that liberals totally made up John 7:53-8:11, where Jesus tells the angry crowd about to stone an adulteress, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone”:
Amid this scholarship, why is the emphasis on this passage increasing? The answer lies in its liberal message: do not criticize or punish immoral conduct unless you are perfect yourself. Liberals cite this passage to oppose the death penalty, a misuse that has been criticized.
Actually, this part of the Conservative Bible Project gets a bit scary, as the article goes on to say:
The Mosaic laws clearly state death as a punishment for sin. So the argument that an individual must be perfect is not relevant. The God-ordained government has the responsibility for punishment.
My quibbles with the godly rewriters of the Bible on this point:
A) Um, doesn’t “Mosaic” law say something like “Thou shalt not kill”? Or maybe I’m getting the Bible mixed up with something I read in the liberal media, like a NYT article.
B) Are we talking about a theocracy that kills people for sinning against the Conservative Bible?
C) Where do I sign up for that!?
The Conservative Bible will also remove the liberal bias that squelched Jesus’ true message of free-market capitalism, which is explained in Conservative Translation Guideline #7: “Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning.”
And, just a little FYI, while you off reading the Communist Manifesto or killing babies, a new language has developed, the “conservative language,” and the Bible must be translated into it posthaste.
Additional less important guidelines include… recognizing that Christianity introduced powerful new concepts that even the Greek and Hebrew were inadequate to express, but modern conservative language can express well.
Is this an example of Poe’s Law? I.e. that it is vanishingly impossible to distinguish real fundamentalism from parody.
HAVE YOU HUGGED A CHRISTO-FASCIST TODAY?
Uphill Fight for Pope Among Secular Czechs:
“If the pope wants to create a religious revival in Europe, there is no worse place he could come to than the Czech Republic, where no one believes in anything,” said Jaroslav Plesl, a self-confessed lapsed Catholic who is deputy editor of Lidove Noviny, a leading daily newspaper here. “Add to that the fact that the pope is German and socially conservative and he might as well be an alien here.”
Also…
The main event of the pope’s visit is an open-air Mass in Brno on Sunday in the country’s Roman Catholic heartland. During the trip, a group called Condom Positive said it planned to distribute condoms with a likeness of the pope and the question, “Papa said no! And You?”
I want one! Someone send me a condom with the Pope’s face on it! I can’t think of anything that would encourage chastity more.
The Prague Monitor has more about the protests:
Representatives of Czech gay and lesbian groups have also announced protests against the Pope’s position on condoms which they intend to stage during Benedict XVI’s stay in the Czech Republic.
They will meet on Prague’s Wenceslas Square on Monday, on the last day of the Pope’s visit to express their disagreement with the Pope’s alleged “policy of genocide.”
Organisers of the Mezipatra (Mezzanine) gay and lesbian film festival that is annually held in the Czech Republic are participating in the preparation of the protests.
Some history of our skepticism for ya, courtesy NYT:
Religious experts have noted that the Czechs’ abiding religious skepticism stretches to the 15th century, when Jan Hus, a revolutionary preacher, preached against what he saw as the corrupted practices of the church at a time when indulgences absolving sins were up for sale. Hus, whose teachings anticipated the Protestant Reformation, was burned at the stake and is a hero to many Czechs. In 1999, John Paul called Hus’s violent death “a sorrowful page” in Czech history.
Czech antipathy for the Roman Catholic Church was fanned further during the Austrian-Hungarian Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries, religious scholars say, when the church supported the emperor’s efforts to repress Czech nationalism.
Gee. I miss the good ol’ days of John Paul. I kinda liked him. Because despite all our natural skepticism and stuff, my family has been Catholic for as long as there is recorded history of us. So I grew up thinking quite highly of JPII. BTW no one in my family likes Ratzinger. See? We don’t even call him Benedict.
Crap loads of interesting stuff going on in this here world:
Trans Methodist Minister Finds Acceptance from his Congregation. Via Box Turtle Bulletin.
Acting Like Native Americans Is a Cult German Hobby.
Canadian Christianists Oppressed by the Teaching of Religion in Public Schools. Don’t worry, that doesn’t make sense to me either. Essentially, it appears they are angry their children are learning that religious besides Christianity exist.
Baptist Preacher Says of Gays: “I Hope You Get Brain Cancer”.
Actress Openly Discusses Her Schizophrenia. I think it is awesome she wants to be public about her mental condition. Yay!
Islamophobia Claims a Life in London. The elderly Ekram Haque was killed by a gang of whites in front of his 3-year-old granddaughter.
Sudanese Journalist Convicted of Wearing Pants. Lubna Hussein’s subsequent actions show true courage and solidarity. Holla!
The Wall Street Journal kindly reminds us that Christians are terribly, terribly oppressed in America. And are totally not the dominate majority who enjoy state privileges that non-Christians could never dream of.
Urgent Action Appeal
UNITED KINGDOM: Forced Eviction of Dale Farm
17 August 2009
Dear friends,
More than 100 families living in chalets, mobile-homes and caravans in the largest Romani Gipsy and Irish Traveller community in the United Kingdom, at Dale Farm, Crays Hill and nearby Hovefields, Essex County, are facing imminent forced eviction. Approximately 1,000 people have been residing on the estate for more than seven years, including many children. The community has been resisting forced evictions attempts by Basildon District Council (BDC) since May 2005 when it voted to clear a large part of the settlement. Although all residents hold land ownership titles, sections of the site had no planning permission and Basildon Council has subsequently refused all attempts to regularise the situation, preferring the enforcement option.
Dale Farm community
Enforcement orders have been served by Basildon Council requiring plot owners to remove their homes, although previously much of the site had been licensed as a large scrap-yard from 1978 until 2001. After the BDC voted to take direct action, the residents sought a judicial review of this decision and won in the High Court. This judgment was overturned by the Court of Appeal in January 2009 and an appeal to the House of Lords was denied in May. Despite the fact the UK Government has told Basildon it is required to provide land for a minimum of 62 additional pitches by 2011, no alternative site have been made available by Basildon District Council to which the residents can lawfully move.
The wishes of the residents are to remain where it is and not to be split up. There is a strong communal ethic, with the elderly being cared for by the younger generation and small children protected. No one, young or old, wants to be accommodated in bricks-and-mortar housing. Romanies and Travellers feel that having lost the possibility to follow the old nomadic life-style, it is essential to the preservation of their culture and ethnicity to keep Dale Farm community intact.
In line with the Housing Act 1996, it is incumbent on the BDC to consider the claim of the occupants to not be evicted as the families threatened with forced removal have no place to go.
The community is therefore seeking your support to urge the Basildon Council to:
- Put on hold the forced eviction of the Dale Farm community and engage in meaningful consultation discussions with the residents and their representatives for the purpose of seeking to achieve an amicable solution;
- Consider both the possibility of a) issuing planning permission to allow their permanent residence on their present properties; or b) utilising the 4 million Euro set aside for the eviction to provide an alternative area to which the residents can relocate;
- Respect and protect the housing and property and family rights of the Dale Farm community, and in particular the rights of the children.
Suggested Action
Please send an appeal letter by e-mail or fax to the addresses listed below requesting the Basildon Council to act on this issue. Sample letters and further background information are provided below.
Read the rest of this entry »
The Exciting Times is back with some morsels of news for your brain to chew on.
Is golf unethical?
Yes.
There, that wasn’t hard. But here’s an opinion piece by Randy Cohen in which he mulls over this very question. I found it quite interesting.
A Niqab Ban in Michigan Courts?
Is America inching towards a French-style burqa-ban debate? Ginnah Muhammad, who wears a niqab as the result of sincerely-held religious belief, was brave enough to sue a judge, Paul Paruk, who wouldn’t preside over her case if she didn’t remove portions of her religious clothing he didn’t like. CAIR and the ACLU got involved. She lost. The Michigan courts are going to have a field day with this one.
US Indefinitely Holding Reuters Journalist
Ah yes, the Leader of the Free World is at it again.
‘Reuters is concerned at the continued and protracted incarceration of Ibrahim Jassam, and continues to urge the U.S. military to either charge or release him. Reuters believes that any accusation against a journalist should be aired publicly and dealt with fairly and swiftly, with the journalist having the right to counsel and present a defense.’
…Ibrahim Jassam, 31, is an Iraqi freelance photographer. Since Sept. 2, 2008, when U.S. soldiers seized him at his home near Baghdad, he has been held without charge in American military prisons.
A Program for Juvenile Offenders that Works? IN MISSOURI?
While America’s juvenile system is often criticized for corruption and abuse, Missouri state officials say its juvenile justice solution has saved billions of dollars and reduced the number of repeat offenders…
Known as the Missouri model, the program focuses on therapy, comfortable living conditions and an emphasis on job training and education…
Each offender is placed in a small group of 10 to 15, assigned a case worker and sent to school during the day. Offenders also put on Shakespeare stage productions and play sports. They learn about teamwork through camping and rock climbing.
Apparently the program has a low recidivism rate, a suicide rate of 0%, a high rate of high school graduation, AND saves Missouri hella cash. Who knew that there were benefits to not abusing juveniles’ human rights?
I did a random and uncharacteristic thing. The context was that I was explaining to a friend how there are plenty of verses in the Bible uplifting the poor, exhorting charity, and condemning wealth that we should use to combat the twisted I-got-mine-screw-you theology of the Religious Right.
Then I sat down and spent my entire Saturday night researching just those kinds of verses in the Bible.
So below you will find some of the gems, which I pulled out because of the incisive or ferocious language or because of their poetic beauty. The Bible can indeed be used for good, as I hope these verses will demonstrate. I grew up Christian, and my first inklings of social justice concepts came from reading Bible verses such as these. Though I am no longer Christian, I still find them inspiring.
Below the fold, you will find a massive compilation of verses that deal with poverty, charity and wealth.
Job 20:15
He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again: God shall cast them out of his belly.
Job 36:19
Will [God] esteem thy riches? no, not gold, nor all the forces of strength.
Psalm 9:17
[T]he needy shall not always be forgotten: the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever.
Psalm 39:6
Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro:
He bustles about, but only in vain;
he heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it.
Psalm 72:4
He will defend the afflicted among the people
and save the children of the needy;
he will crush the oppressor.
Proverbs 23:5
[R]iches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.
Proverbs 30:14
There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men.
Proverbs 31:7
Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.
Ecclesiastes 5:12
The sleep of a laborer is sweet,
whether he eats little or much,
but the abundance of a rich man
permits him no sleep.
Matthew 19:24
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
James 2:6
Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?
James 5:1
Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
A hella lot more verses below! The majority come from the King James Bible, except where noted. I went with the New International version whenever the language of King James got too obscure for me. Read the rest of this entry »
Isn’t it great that France is so enlightened, and such a champion of women’s rights, that its government has begun to specifically target Muslim women for state harassment?
Isn’t that neat? Maybe, if we’re all lucky, they’ll have a “democratic” vote so that the white majority can decide which pieces of clothing to ban from the Muslim minority.
We have French Urban Regeneration Minister Fadela Amara, herself Muslim, saying that she is “in favour of the burka not existing in my country”. Perhaps she will soon take the path of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Muslim-turned-atheist, who’s popularity in European and American conservative circles seems more fueled by Islamophobia than by anything else.
Ali once said, “The whole idea is for 1.2-1.5 billion [Muslim] people living in the world to start thinking, at least, I mean exercising some sort of intellectual activity, which we haven’t been doing…”
But Amara’s statements about burka-banning are not all.
Now it appears that the burkini, a swimsuit that is loose-fitting and covers everything but the face, hands and feet, is also a threat to enlightened France.
Major public health threat.
Here’s a bit from an LA Times article about a woman banned from a swimming pool in Emerainville that is really, well, astounding:
Emerainville’s mayor and the pool management contend that the burkini ban was invoked strictly because of hygiene concerns, just as shorts, rather than Speedos, are not allowed, because they can be worn outside the pool area.
“This has nothing to do with Islam,” Mayor Alain Kelyor told Le Parisien, “because the pool rules prohibit swimming while dressed.
“Besides, Islamic bathing suits don’t exist in the Koran,” he concluded.
Nice one Mayor Kelyor! But if that isn’t islamophobic enough for you….
“This is the tip of the fundamentalist iceberg,” National Assembly member Andre Gerin said of the burkini issue, which he claims is part of a “larger national problem” of growing Islamic extremism in France. Wearing the garment in public is a “clear provocation” and “ridiculous,” while helping “undo years of progress toward equal rights for women.”
Can’t we just burn them as witches already? ARRRG.
Here’s what the offending woman, identified only as Carole, has to say: “My only battle is simply to be able to swim with my children in a pool.” Oh, the evils of Islam! The witch Muslim woman has spawned! THEY ARE TRYING TO OUTBREED WHITES!
I’ve already written a careful explanation of why I hold these opinions on burkas, in a previous post where I outline 10 Reasons a French Burka Ban Is Wrong.
Via Womanist Musings.
Please add to this discussion. However, please do not assume that I know nothing about Islam, women’s oppression in the name of Islam, or what a burka is. Read my 10 Reasons post to get a better idea of my stance.
Hello. This is a special guest post from Patrick the Nowhere Man. While exploring the wonders of the American countryside, I wandered into a magical place in Petersburg, Kentucky, known as the Creation Museum. The Czech requested a firsthand account, via photo blog, of my experiences there, so here it is.
This is what confronts you upon entering the Creation Museum, post ticket purchase. You see a young woman dressed in simple clothes… right next to a dinosaur. No conflict, just peaceful cohabitation, as was originally intended in God’s plan. Opposite this life-sized display is a movie theater, complete with three large screens and little things to spray water on the viewers, and the single video shown there playfully conjures up stereotypes of high school science teachers to illustrate that scientific theory of evolution and the explanation of the universe developing over a period of 12-15 billion years are wrought with fallacies. The video informs the viewer that unquestioning faith in Biblical history provides a more accurate picture of the universe. This is known as Young-Earth Creationism, which claims the universe began in 4004 BC.
This display looks impressive as is, but what’s missing from my photo is the life-size dinosaur looming just behind Adam. Eve is nonplussed by this in her wonderment at her sudden creation and the first sight of her husband. The museum asserts that humanity began with just these two people. Later, a display asks what is already on everyone’s mind: “What about incest? Who did Cain marry?” The plaque answers that incest at that time was not against God’s will – it was only later that he instituted that law. Thank you Bible science!
This appears fairly early in the museum. It is located in a room that contains several videos of young people in difficult situations. In one, a young woman calls a pregnancy hotline because she is debating an abortion. In another, a teenage boy appears to be viewing internet porn and rolling a joint against the wishes of a friend. No commentary for these videos was provided, but the comments from a group of young boys watching the latter video were interesting enough. The boys were dragged to the museum against their will, as many child museum-goers are, and they used several homophobic and similarly offensive terms to describe the on-screen males.
An exhibit near the end of the museum was dedicated specifically to dinosaurs. It asked, “Did humans and dinosaurs coexist at the same time?” The display indicated the answer is clearly described in the Bible: humans and animals were created on the same day, therefore yes. This picture shows additional proof. My favorite evidence is that medieval stories of dragons, such as the story of St. George, are really stories about the last few remaining dinosaurs. A ten-minute video clarified this in greater detail. The other three items of evidence are, on closer inspection, essentially pseudoscience or just invalid, such as that alligators are simply “modern day dinosaurs.”
Based on the smirks and giggles, I suspect that I was not the only non-believer in the museum. This picture, in front of an actual museum placard, accurately depicts just how affected I was by my Creation Museum visit. I can only wonder if my surprisingly numerous fellow attendees responded like me or if they are true believers.
The words of God do not justify cruelty to women
“Discrimination and abuse wrongly backed by doctrine are damaging society, argues the former US president”
Last Thursday, at a licensing rules hearing for Nebraska psychologists, the topic of debate between the Nebraska Psychology Association and the Nebraska Catholic Conference was a “convictions of conscience” rule that would allow psychologists (and possibly counselors, social workers, and marriage and family therapists) to “refuse to treat — and refuse to refer clients — because of religious or moral convictions.”
At Amplify via Evil Slutopia
Nebraska, we need to have a talk. For starters, WTF!!?? Why is the Nebraska Catholic Conference even attending Nebraska Psychology Association hearings? I don’t recall them being a medical organization or an authority on the field of psychology.
And also, where will this “conscientious clause” stuff stop? I don’t normally head down the slippery slopes, but come on, at this point we’re getting a little crazy. First some doctors don’t want to perform the medical procedure known as abortion. Ok, fine, give them a choice to opt out. Then religious hospitals don’t want abortions occurring anywhere in their facilities, even when medically necessary… getting away from the spirit of the Hippocratic Oath there. Then some pharmacies don’t want to carry emergency contraception, because they misunderstand the science behind it and consider it abortion. Uh, we tried to compromise on that one, but they weren’t hearing it. Problematic. Then certain pharmacists didn’t want to dispense ANY contraception because they decided it was all immoral/secretly abortifacient. Here we are fully detached from reality, and now the somewhat kooky “morality” of certain pharmacists may be codified to trump the morality of patients in every case. Flat out objectionable.
We move from these mounting “conscientious objections” that just so happen to only effect sexually active women (how random and coincidental!) to Bush’s move to allow any person, even remotely involved in healthcare, to refuse to treat and refuse to refer any patient for any reason so long as that reason is based in religious belief. Of course, women and queers were the intended victims of this creepy bit of federal rule-making. Obama did away with this rule.
But this is all why I’m freaking out and thinking that maybe this time we ARE headed down that slope.
Because now, it seems, Nebraska Catholic leaders would like to extend the creeping fog of healthcare refusals to psychologists and possibly other types of counselors. Awesome… they must be thinking, “Guys, I’ve got a great idea. Let’s create a rule, you see, so that when people are seeking mental healthcare services, if their concerns have anything, you know, to do with female ‘troubles’ or homosexuality, the practitioner can legally discriminate against them. To protect the psychologists’ conscience and save them from going to hell for helping out a fellow human being. It’ll be great! That’ll learn those harlots and homos! What’d ya say?”
Not cool. Nebraska, you gotta do the right thing here. At this point, the matter is merely up for discussion. But your Catholic Conference would like to actually change the psychologists’ code of ethics to perversely make it “ethical” to discriminate in this way.
It’s got to stop. Now.
Consider yourself warned.
Here’s some reading for ya!
BBC: Saddam’s rule ‘better’ for gay Iraqis
All the LGBT Iraqis interviewed for Gay Life After Saddam maintained that life was easier for them when Saddam Hussein was in power, from 1979 to 2003.
Some spoke fondly of an underground gay culture that flourished before the war in Baghdad.
Seattle Times: Israel deports activists detained going to Gaza
Israel on Monday deported a former U.S. congresswoman, a Nobel peace prize laureate and other activists who were arrested and jailed after trying to break the naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli navy commandeered their boat last week as it tried to sail from Cyprus to Gaza.
…There were 21 passengers and three tons of medical aid on board, and most of the activists were quickly expelled. But Nobel laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire and former U.S. congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, along with six other activists, remained in Israeli custody while the government arranged flights for them…
BBC: Egypt mourns ‘headscarf martyr’
Marwa Sherbini, 31, was stabbed 18 times by Axel W, who is now under arrest in Dresden for suspected murder.
…Ms Sherbini had sued her killer after he called her a “terrorist” because of her headscarf.
…Medics were unable to save Ms Sherbini who was three months pregnant with her second child.
More on death in US immigration detention. New York Times: Piecing Together an Immigrant’s Life the U.S. Refused to See
Tanveer Ahmad, it turns out, was a longtime New York City cabdriver who had paid thousands of dollars in taxes and immigration application fees… His only trouble with the law was a $200 fine for disorderly conduct in 1997: While working at a Houston gas station, he had displayed the business’s unlicensed gun to stop a robbery.
It would come back to haunt him.
And now, a Day Brightener after all this shitty news:
Thanks to Shagufta Pasta at Terry* for this rad post: Telling Other People Exactly what You Think: A Tip Sheet to Make Your Online Commentary Really Count.
It’s about the recent discussions surrounding French President Sarkozy’s call to “eliminate the burqa”.
A quote:
These are scary times. Without asking your permission, Muslims are daring to write articles, create films, develop radio programs, and produce art that unabashedly celebrates the complex and textured role Islam plays in their lives. They say Islamic feminism is alive and well; that they’re perfectly capable of saving themselves thank you very much, that they aren’t a monolithic lot, and their identity as Muslims isn’t their only influencer. Concerned? Enjoy the tip sheet below and tell those people exactly what you think. After all, who needs thoughtful, community building dialogue anyway?
***UPDATE 4/3/09: I’ve noticed this post floating around the web in a bunch of different places. That’s fine, I’m glad ya’ll like my thoughts. Please, just be sure to credit The Czech and put in a link when you do so. Thanks.***
What Dori said.
The New York Times and Le Monde both reported today on certain remarks from French President Nicolas Sarkozy calling for the elimination of the burqa.
To wit:
“The issue of the burqa is not a religious issue. It is a question of freedom and of women’s dignity,” Mr. Sarkozy said. “The burqa is not a religious sign. It is a sign of the subjugation, of the submission, of women.”
To enthusiastic applause, he said: “I want to say solemnly that it will not be welcome on our territory.”
STOP IT!
There are a thousand things wrong with this. Let me count them.
1. Mandating how women should dress is mandating how women should dress, whether it is a mandate to wear a burqa, or a mandate not to wear one. When a man tells a woman how to dress, it’s paternalism and subjugation one way or the other.
2. Plus, as Dori points out, a man telling a woman that too much of her body is covered, and that she needs to expose more of it to his view, is pretty weird. How much modesty is too much? How much exposed flesh is enough to satisfy Sarkozy?
3. A Christian man imposing rules of dress upon Muslim women does little to actually foster the kind of gender equality he claims to be advancing.
4. Sarkozy talks as though there is no “subjugation of women” among the non-Muslim denizens of France. As though France is a wonderland of gender equality. According to WikiGender: “Compared to other countries, France has always been rather late in adopting gender equality as a goal and designing policies to achieve it.” So why suddenly all this concern for a certain subset of French women, who just randomly happen to come from a community hated and feared by many in France?
5. What other items of clothing does Mr. Sarkozy disapprove of? Do they also happen to correspond to certain disfavored, marginalized communities?
6. Any attempt to “eliminate” burqas in France will only serve to further marginalize the women who wear them. Burqas, for some women, represent a compromise. Some individuals believe women are not supposed to be seen in public, or be looked at by men outside of the family. In this extreme view, women would be entirely confined to the house and removed from outside society unless they can put on a burqa and go out. Eliminating the burqa for these women would mean eliminating their access to the world. Better conditions for such women require a little more work than outlawing a piece of clothing.
7. Eliminating burqas in France would not mean that women’s oppression in Muslim communities would end. It would simply be a cosmetic change that would do nothing to actually work with communities and empower French Muslim women to achieve equality. It is a measure that ignores all nuance and avoids all honest work to actually tackle the heart of the problem.
8. All this “eliminate the burqa” talk fits just a little too snugly with the popular “Islam oppresses women” meme that Christian Westerners like to toss around, particularly when they are trying to frame a “War of Civilizations”.
9. Also, doesn’t this just come off as a cheap attempt at burnishing his Women’s Issues credentials while effectively only harassing a marginalized, already-persecuted minority? And doing little to nothing to further true societal equality for all women in France?
10. What real issues do French women, and French Muslim women in particular, actually face that Sarkozy is completely avoiding by diverting attention with this stunt? Why randomly target French Muslims now?
Ok, so that was only 10 things. Huh.
The New York Times reports that the Israeli army is experiencing a clash between two groups within its ranks: the secularists and the religious nationalists.
It is all coming out in the aftermath of the Gaza invasion and the revelation of severe abuses against the Palestinians. Religious material was distributed to soldiers that framed the invasion as a religious war. The material claimed that Jews have a God-given right to the Palestinians’ land. The army’s chief rabbi himself, Brig. Gen. Avichai Rontzki, is an Israeli settler in the occupied West Bank. He handed out a booklet to soldiers containing “a rabbinical edict against showing the enemy mercy.”
In response:
Avshalom Vilan, then a leftist member of Parliament, accused the rabbi of having “turned the Israeli military’s activity from fighting out of necessity into a holy war.”
…[Rontzki] has written, for example, that what others call “humanistic values” are simply subjective feelings that should be subordinate to following the law of the Torah.
Israeli philosopher Moshe Halbertal says, “The right tends to make an equation between authenticity and brutality, as if the idea of humanism were a Western and alien implant to Judaism. They seem not to know that nationalism and fascism are also Western ideas and that hypernationalism is not Jewish at all.”
This is all thrown into even creepier relief by the revelation of certain army members’ predilection for violent and offensive T-shirt imagery.
The T-shirt on the left depicts a pregnant Palestinian woman wearing Islamic clothing, in the cross hairs of a gun. Underneath it says “1 Shot 2 Kills.”
Some other T-shirt designs of recent Israeli army popularity include:
A Palestinian child in the cross hairs, with the slogan: “The smaller they are, the harder it is”
A dead Palestinian baby with the slogan: “Better use Durex”
A soldier standing next to a bruised woman with the words: “Bet you got raped!”
“Let every Arab mother know that her son’s fate is in my hands!”
A ruined mosque and the slogan: “We came, we saw, we destroyed!”
This past January, the “Night Predators” demolitions platoon from Golani’s Battalion 13 ordered a T-shirt showing a Golani devil detonating a charge that destroys a mosque. An inscription above it says, “Only God forgives.”
…No one had a problem with the fact that a mosque gets blown up in the picture?
[One of the soldiers in the platoon said] “I don’t see what you’re getting at. I don’t like the way you’re going with this. Don’t take this somewhere you’re not supposed to, as though we hate Arabs.”
Huh. I don’t like the way this is going. Sounds like any other country that believes it has a religious mandate to do violence to others. Sounds like where Bush was trying to take the American military. Sounds like the religious right who framed the Iraq war as a “clash of civilizations,” a religious war of Christians vs. Muslims. Not all Americans are Christian. Some Americans are Muslim. Not all Israelis are Jews. Some Israelis are Arab (Jewish and not), some are Muslim.
I wish this holy war frame wasn’t so attractive for certain groups of people who already seem to lack signs of the kind of good judgment one hopes is inherent in war decision-making.
Arg. Most of you probably heard about the Pope’s little African snafu, when he declared that condom use cannot help prevent the spread of AIDS. Of course, like many of the beliefs he propagates, this is demonstrably false.
But many over-looked another, equally incendiary and thoughtlessly dogmatic statement he made while in Angola.
The Washington Times reports:
[Benedict] criticized the “irony of those who promote abortion as a form of ‘maternal’ health care.” The pope was referring to an African Union agreement signed by Angola and 44 other countries that abortion should be legal in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is endangered.
“How disconcerting the claim that the termination of life is a matter of reproductive health,” Benedict said.
Oh yes, how terrible it is that several African countries have taken steps to reduce maternal mortality and death from back alley abortion. It’s such a tragedy that these countries allow rape and incest victims choices regarding how to handle the crime done to them. Indeed, how disconcerting the claim that reproduction has anything to do with a woman’s body, health and life.
The pope has his finger to the pulse. Finger To The Pulse.
The pope left Africa on a final note of the importance of aid to the poor.
On Monday, the pope urged Angola’s leaders to make “the fundamental aspirations of the most needy people” their main concern.
“Our hearts cannot be at peace as long as there are brothers that suffer the lack of food, work, a house, and other fundamental goods,” the pontiff said in his airport departure speech.
However, the Catholic Church in Angola has been seizing land owned by poor families in order to build new Catholic churches. Over 2,000 families have been displaced, some violently. When Amnesty International pled with the pope to address this issue…
Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi referred the question to Angolan Bishop Monsignor Jose Manuel Imbamba. The prelate denied anyone had been evicted or houses destroyed.
Nice one! Publicly declare compassion for the poor. Then violently remove families from their land to make way for new churches. Just what Jesus would do.
Pennsylvania court clerks are tired of issuing marriage licenses to opposite-sex couples who aren’t orthodox Christians.
Quakers, the non-religious, and Muslims have been targeted by righteous county court clerks upset by non-(traditional)-Christians exercising their rights.
They have also complained about US citizens daring to marry non-citizens.
To fight back against this brazen assault on marriage and Jesus, some of Christ’s warriors and marriage gatekeepers in PA have started demanding Social Security numbers (which they know immigrants don’t have and which law doesn’t require), photo ID (which they know some Muslims won’t have), made “self-uniting” (i.e. minister free) marriages more difficult to obtain, and warned some couples that their choice of minister may not be “religious enough to count”.
Feel our pain, straights! FEEL IT!
Via Philly.com.
UPDATE 3/21/09: I feel that I have more to say on this post, because the bit above doesn’t get to the main point I wanted to make. Which is that everyone’s rights are linked – we can’t stand by and watch one group be denied their rights without allowing our own rights to be threatened. The Christianists who fight to deny marriage rights to LGBT people are the same ones who now would like to push that battle further and deny certain “unfit” straight couples marriage rights. Straights who stand by and act all ho-hum, who think to themselves that asking for gay marriage is “too much” or who assume this is “not my battle” are putting themselves and their own rights at risk by their inaction.
Those who fight to deny rights to one group will probably find cause to fight to deny rights to another. If we don’t resist human rights abuses against any given marginalized group, we can’t really go complaining when our own rights get stepped on… we set a precedent.
In a weird tangential way, my ruminations on this subject reminded me of that old poem by the awesome priest Martin Niemoller. In a much more dramatic sense, he is talking about the same concept.
CNN:
Saudi Arabian court has sentenced a 75-year-old Syrian woman to 40 lashes, four months imprisonment and deportation from the kingdom for having two unrelated men in her house…
One of the men Khamisa Mohammed Sawadi had raised from infancy as her own son. The other was his friend. They were at her house delivering bread.
What shocking abuse of power by the religious police, sanctioned by a theocratic government. However, the people aren’t taking this silently anymore.
“It’s made everybody angry because this is like a grandmother,” Saudi women’s rights activist Wajeha Al-Huwaider told CNN. “Forty lashes — how can she handle that pain? You cannot justify it.”
…The actions of the religious police have come under increased scrutiny in Saudi Arabia recently, as more and more Saudis urge that the commission’s powers be limited.
I see this as hardly about religion in actuality. This is about control of a populace through fear, using religion as a justification. Which is what I believe any theocracy will look like.
Al Huwaider had great thoughts on this matter: “This is the problem with the religious police, watching people and thinking they’re bad all the time. It has nothing to do with religion. It’s all about control. And the more you spread fear among people, the more you control them.”
Indeed. That is why my liberation and her liberation, while surrounded by such different material circumstances, are bound together. Control and debasement of women is a tool used by corrupted power around the world. Whether in Saudi Arabia or America or elsewhere, women who refuse to be controlled and who insist that they are full human beings are a threat to the powers-that-be and a force for change.
Domestic, outspoken anger and international outrage have forced pardons in cruel anti-woman cases before, so let’s try and muster our outrage again!
This story brings tears to my eyes.
[Rev. Fred] Winters deflected the first of the gunman’s four rounds with a Bible, sending a confetti-like spray of paper into the air in a horrifying scene worshippers initially thought was a skit, police said.
…Winters had stood on an elevated platform to deliver his sermon about finding happiness in the workplace — titled “Come On, Get Happy” — and managed to run halfway down the sanctuary’s side aisle before collapsing after the attack, Cunningham said.
Autopsy results showed that Winters was hit with one bullet that went straight through his heart…
What a tragedy. It appears that the culprit, Terry Joe Sedlacek, may be suffering from mental illness caused by Lyme Disease. No one wins here.
For those that pray, the First Baptist Church of Maryville (Illinois) is asking only for prayers.
A 9 year old Brazilian girl was pregnant with twins, which for someone her age is life-threatening. Her step-father reportedly is responsible for the rape. Her mother took her to the doctor and she got an abortion.
Catholic authorities have excommunicated her mother and her doctors. They have not, however, excommunicated her rapist step-dad, who is now in jail.
Abortion to save the life of a child = Murder! Excommunication!
Rape and incest of a 9 year old = eh.
Nice work, Catholic Church. Inspiring really.
Doctors in the northeastern city of Recife performed the abortion on Wednesday after deciding that the girl could have died if her pregnancy with twins was allowed to continue. According to media reports, the girl was nearly four months pregnant.
The Catholic Church’s archbishop for the area criticized the decision as against “the law of God” and excommunicated her mother, the doctors and other people involved in the abortion.
…”As doctors, we could not allow a girl of 9 to suffer like this or until she paid with her own life,” [her doctor] said.
…Globo reported police as saying that the stepfather had been arrested and had admitted sexually abusing the girl since she was 6 years old.
From the AP:
Fatima Maia, director of the public university hospital where the abortion was performed, said the 15-week-old pregnancy posed a serious risk to the 80-pound (36-kilogram) girl.
“She is very small. Her uterus doesn’t have the ability to hold one, let alone two children,” Maia told the Jornal do Brasil newspaper.
But Marcio Miranda, a lawyer for the Archdiocese of Olinda and Recife in northeastern Brazil, said the girl should have carried the twins to term and had a cesarean section.
“It’s the law of God: Do not kill. We consider this murder,” Miranda said in comments reported by O Globo.
So withholding this abortion from this child, which could have killed her and the fetuses, would not also be murder? I mean, if a someone were to deliberately impede someone seeking life saving medical intervention, and that person died as a result, is that not also murder?
Oh, I forgot. The 9 year old was female. According to Catholic extremists, her life is worthless, and she deserves to die while birthing her own half-siblings as a result of rape-incest. My bad for thinking she was a worthwhile human being with rights.
This is what the Pro-Life movement is working for in America. Can’t wait!
H/t Feministe.
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