England: A festival promoting religious tolerance has been cancelled because members of one religion objected to the presence of members of others. The Laxfield Festival of Tolerance honoured the life of a local Protestant executed during the reign of Queen Mary, and the legendary reaction of the villagers.
John Noyes, a Laxfield shoemaker, was burnt to death on 22 September 1557, one of 34 executed in the county for his religious beliefs.
Legend has it that almost all the villagers disagreed with his death sentence and tried to put out their fires to stop his execution.
The festival was started three years ago in a bid to remember the execution and spread the message of religious tolerance.
The message flew right over the heads of some, though.
One villager explained his opposition to the festival. He said:I felt there was a drift towards the darker side of things, such as people selling five-pointed stars and other symbols of witchcraft. It didn't uphold the values I see in life.
Just one sentence which demonstrates the need for the festival.
"Intolerant" villagers stop "tolerance" festival —The Daily Telegraph, 30th July 2008.
Germany: Some bampot has been killing rabbits in the area around Dortmund and, obviously, it can't simply be someone who enjoys being cruel to animals. Humans are, after all, peaceful bunnyhugging vegans with no tendency towards harming other creatures at all. First up, is the usual suspects: it must be Satanists.
Fear is driving rabbit owners in Germany to lock up their pets at night after a spate of brutal bunny slayings in which pets have been beheaded and drained of blood....
There has been speculation that satanists could be responsible because many of the way the rabbits have been killed.
And if that wasn't enough, the internet is also to blame.
The task force is looking into the possibility that the rabbits were being targeted using the online mapping programme Google Earth.
I'm betting it's a lone nutter, or teenagers.
German police investigate serial rabbit killings—The Guardian, 9th July 2008.
England: A criminal genius in the West Midlands has expressed his love of his fellow man by placing a pig's head on a memorial to Sikhs killed while serving in the British forces.
Navreet Singh, 22, who removed the head before taking it to the police, said whoever had tied it to the memorial was "ignorant" and "mindless".... "It's inhuman. This is a war memorial. It's not a Sikh monument, it is a British one. "It seems like someone was trying to attack Muslims. It is ignorance."
Pig's head tied to Sikh memorial—BBC News, 13th June 2008.
Scotland: As previously reported, a tiny Catholic extremist organisation has taken aim at HIV/AIDS activists, the Order of Perpetual Indulgence. As part of their vendetta, they published the e-mail address of one of the Sisters and, not surprisingly, that individual has been receiving hate mail. Which she forwarded to me. I expect there's more that got eaten by the spam trap,
she notes, but I'm not going to bother looking for it.
So, what do members of Catholic Truth have to say in the name of their imaginary friend?
England: An evangelical preacher has been convicted on nine charges of wounding and cruelty to his sons. Bradford Crown Court also convicted the boys' mother, a devout Christian, of cruelty.
The evangelical preacher put safety pins through his sons' lips, sliced their mouths with scalpel blades and squeezed the older boy's tongue with sharp pincers.
The court heard that the father used religion as his excuse for the cruelty:
Prosecutor Caroline Wigin had told the court the man, a self-styled preacher and former medical student, may have mutilated the boys as his interpretation of religious teaching.
He had told the children God had had his tongue cut off in the Bible.
The court is still considering further allegations against the parents, who cannot be named because it would identify the children.
Dad guilty of sons' scalpel torture—Bradford Telegraph and Argus, 23rd January 2008.
Wales: There has been a string of teenage suicides in Bridgend recently. The young people all knew each other, and might have been inspired by the earlier deaths. It's a terrible situation, but one religious nutter knows it wasn't the pressure of school, the lack of employment opportunities, or the impossibility of getting a start in adult life contributing to the record levels of depression and self-harm among young people. As he explained to the Daily Mail:
Teenage suicide doesn't surprise me. Children are taught at school that we are nothing more than animals, descendents of an ape-like creature. When life gets tough why carry on living if our lives are just a freak of nature. Well done to all those who teach our kids that evolution is a fact.
If being more than an animal means being a nasty, hateful scumbag, well I say OOK!
Teenage suicide cult sweeps through town as SEVEN youngsters kill themselves in copycat deaths—The Daily Mail, 22nd January 2008.
United Kingdom: Okay, this story is from the Daily Express, but it seems its not only self-styled Christians who refuse to do their jobs and then claim religious discrimination.
According to the Express, a young Muslim assistant at a branch of Marks and Spencer refused to serve a woman trying to buy a book of sanitised Bible stories for children, declaring the book to be "unclean" and declining to touch it. But if the assistant hopes for support from Muslim organisations, she looks unlikely to get it.
Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, described the assistant's comments asoffensiveand called for Marks & Spencer to carry out a thorough investigation.
People who think they are Christian have turned out to be much less reasonable, and have responded, not by turning the other cheek, but by entering into a competition to see who can come up with the most disgusting comment. First up, the woman who was trying to indoctrinate her grandson, who starts with the traditional phrase used when you are about to say something really racist:
I am not racist but I have vowed never to let a person wearing a headdress serve me again. It will be a long, long time before I shop again at M&S.
Then we discover that Shipley in once again in the hands of a really nasty Tory:
Mr Davies, Conservative MP for Shipley, west Yorkshire, said:I find it unbelievable. We are a Christian country. I'm afraid it is no good for people to work in Marks & Spencer and not serve their products.
And then, the Muslim Council of Britian representative pours more fuel on the flames by continuing to be reasonable:
Mr Bunglawala said:This appears to be a very regrettable incident and the 'unclean' remark was clearly very offensive and unacceptable.
“Many Biblical stories complement the teachings of the Koran. We hope that M&S will investigate this incident.
Marks and Spencer have said that the incident does not reflect company policy and that they will investigate.
Personally, I'm wondering how the assistant squares her bigotry with her working for a company with such a solid Jewish heritage.
OUTCRY AS MUSLIM M&S WORKER REFUSES TO SELL 'UNCLEAN' BIBLE BOOK—The Daily Express, 15th January 2008.
United States: A teenager who wrote to the Church of Satan expressing his desire to kill his grandparents in the name of Satan probably didn't expect the reaction he got—the Satanists reported it to the authorities.
According to police, Culver wrote he had access to an arsenal of weapons and wanted tokill in the name of our unholy lord Satan.
Culver sent the message Wednesday to Peter Gilmore, the high priest of the New York City-based Church of Satan, Sayers said. Gilmore alerted the FBI, which notified local police. Culver was taken out of class Thursday and questioned by police, Sayers said.
Teen Held After Threat Sent to Satanists—Associated Press, 16th December 2007.
Canada: A 16-year-old girl has been murdered, allegedly because she refused to wear the hijab. The main suspect is the girl's father.
Peel Regional Police arrested a 57-year-old man yesterday morning after receiving a 911 call from a suburban home in Mississauga from a man saying he had killed his daughter. When police and paramedics arrived at the house they found a 16-year-old lying on the floor without any vital signs, police said.
Aqsa Parvez had been choked. Male members of her family had threatened her with violence in the past.
Friends of the teenager, a Grade 11 student at nearby Applewood Heights high school, identified her as Aqsa Parvez and said they were shocked by the attack on the outgoing, likeable girl, but said she had been threatened by her strictly religious family before.
She got threatened by her father and her brother,said Dominiquia Holmes-Thompson, who had known Aqsa since they both started high school together.He said that if she leaves, he would kill her.
Teen girl in critical condition after alleged dispute over hijab—National Post, 11th December 2007; Girl has died, Peel police confirm—National Post, 11th December 2007.
The courts have been busy today, it seems.
Scotland: Police attended a séance in an attempt to find the killer of a Dundee woman in 1980. Fortunately, they didn't take it seriously.
Mr Robertson, who was a detective constable at the time, said there had been subdued lighting.
The officers had held hands, although not in anaffectionateway.
I can recollect, possibly, at some time the woman was induced through some form of hypnosis to go to a spirit guide who took her to another area,he said.
The medium then gave information which he did not think had any bearing on the case.
I can say it was never considered to be a serious line of inquiry,added Mr Robertson.
He said the séance did not last long because the woman was unable to continue hercharade.
Spain: God, it seems, has taken time off from worrying about pooves, and returned to His old trick of telling people to kill one another. In this case, He told a British man to kill and eat his girlfriend:
Following his arrest in 2004, Durant wrote to a British newspaper from his prison cell in Spain, saying that he had been driven to kill and eat Durrell by messages delivered to him by God via his television.
After I killed her I cut her body into small parts, eating what part of her I found eatable. I finally disposed of what was left in small rubbish bags around Calpe,he wrote.
My mental state was breaking down at this stage. I believed God had delivered her to me and I was getting messages from the telly.
Durant admitted manslaughter, and also told the court he had killed two people in the UK, including a man he claims abused him as a child. God's role in these killings was not explained.
Woods murder police 'held séance'—BBC News, 8th November 2007; British man faces jail over 'message from God' killing—The Guardian, 8th November 2007.
Just to demonstrate that we at Prattle Towers are fair, we'd like to point out that atheists can be violent, intolerant arseholes too. P.Z. Myers witnessed Christopher Hitchens' speech at the Freedom From Religion Convention this weekend, and was not impressed:
He told us what the most serious threat to the West was (and you know this line already): it was Islam. Then he accused the audience of being soft on Islam, of being the kind of vague atheists who refuse to see the threat for what it was, a clash of civilizations, and of being too weak to do what was necessary, which was to spill blood to defeat the enemy.... We cannot afford to allow the Iranian theocracy to arm itself with nuclear weapons (something I entirely sympathize with), and that the only solution is to go in there with bombs and marines and blow it all up. The way to win the war is to kill so many Moslems that they begin to question whether they can bear the mounting casualties.
It was simplistic us-vs.-them thinking at its worst, and the only solution he had to offer was death and destruction of the enemy.
This was made even more clear in the Q&A. He was asked to consider the possibility that bombing and killing was only going to accomplish an increase in the number of people opposing us. Hitchens accused the questioner of being incredibly stupid,... and said that it was obvious that every Moslem you kill means there is one less Moslem to fight you … which is only true if you assume that every Moslem already wants to kill Americans and is armed and willing to do so....
Basically, what Hitchens was proposing is genocide. Or, at least, wholesale execution of the population of the Moslem world until they are sufficiently cowed and frightened and depleted that they are unable to resist us in any way, ever again.
And he was apparently sober at the time, too!
FFRF recap: heroes of the revolution, Hitchens screws the pooch, and the unbearable stodginess of atheists—Pharyngula, 14th October 2007.
United States: A Catholic priest gave his church's organist and choir director a surprising ultimatum; quit her sex toy home party job or quit the church. He claimed that her sale of sex toys was not consistent with Church teachings
.
Linette Servais, 50, played the organ and sung with the choir for 35 years. Much of her work as choir director and organist was done without pay. When her parish priest asked to meet with her, she thought it was to say thank you.
Instead, she was told to quit her sales job with company known as Pure Romance or she would lose her position in the church.
Pure Romance in Loveland, Ohio, is a $60 million per year business that sells spa products and sex toys at homes parties attended by women. It has 15,000 consultants like Servais.
Women are earning a living for themselves and are teaching each other that sex is not a dirty secret. So, obviously it's not in keeping with church teachings, especially since the buggering of small boys was in no way involved. Fortunately, Linette is made of sterner stuff.
She said her decision was not hard: She began working with Pure Romance after a brain tumor and treatment left her sexually dysfunctional. The job allows her to help other women who have similar problems.
After I got over the initial shock, I prayed over this a long time,she said.I feel that Pure Romance is my ministry.
Linette is not the only woman of faith who has made sex toy sales her ministry, more power to them. Alas, it has been mentioned, that the company in question stocks poor quality merchandise. Hopefully, their market will learn from experience. I'm still uncertain of the particular part of the bible that mentions; Thou Shall Not Sell Sex Toys
.
Priest Cans Organist for Sex Toy Sales - Philly.com, 30th May 2007 (via About.com: Sexuality).
England: A man has been arrested on suspicion of assaulting a number of Rocky Horror Show fans on their way to a performance in Cambridge.
Kelvin Stevens lashed out after hurling homophobic abuse at a group of men and women who were dressed in fishnet tights, suspenders and high heels for the cult cross-dressing show.
The burly electrician called the group 'a load of fags' before head-butting and punching Barry Giles, who was at a distinct disadvantage as he was tottering on stiletto heels.
But despite the nature of the abuse, the police will not be treating it as a homophobic hate crime as the victims weren't actually gay. I'm sure straight, but different, schoolboys will be really pleased to hear that one.
Thug starts real Rocky Horror Show—Metro, 29th May 2007.
Uganda: We've all heard loads of loony fundie nonsense about the occult, and their lies fall on stony ground in North America and Europe these days. What's a bampot to do? Why, tell the same bollocks somewhere where they haven't heard it before, or at least not heard the debunking. The Sunday Monitor fell for it this week, printing an article liberally quoting from self-styled ex-Satanists
According to Roger Mugisha whose former life as a Satanist is the inspiration for Battle of the Souls, the fact that one is not aware that what they are wearing as an accessory or the picture on their clothes is an Occult symbol doesn't let the wearer off the hook.The signs will still be significant and the wearer becomes an advocate of the devil.With this statement, Roger Mugisha is shown a recent picture of the Nabagereka, Nagginda Sylvia Luswata at the Kabaka's birthday celebration.
Looking impeccable as usual, the queen of Buganda is wearing a blue dress, which bears a Ying-Yang symbol on the chest area. To a layman's eye and most likely herself, the Ying-Yang sign is only another artistic impression that makes the dress a lot more glamorous. But to one who knows about the occult signs, a Satanist or a former devil worshipper in this case, wearing this dress is no different from proclaiming your discipleship with the devil.
And of course, an anonymous youth pastor
had to wade in in Harry Potter, even though he does not know the name of the books' author, nor that of the protagonist.
This youth pastor who declines to be named adds that books like the Harry Porter series, which openly uphold witchcraft and are packaged to sound seductive and fun for our children are also another route of spreading Satanism.
In the process, J.K. Rowlings (the author of the Harry Porter series) has become a billionaire by spreading the gospel of the underworld and also contaminated and probably converted a large number of our future leaders and law makers,he says.
The same pastor is also worried about rock music and goths.
Most young people start by innocently taking to rock music (especially). Before you know it they are emulating rock stars and taking to the gothic lifestyle; wearing only pitch black and scarlet red for clothes, accessories and make up. The numerous body piercing and tattoos come next.
Exactly how many goths are there in Uganda anyway?
The Occult: The signs are still out there...
—Sunday Monitor, 27th may 2007.
United States: The wife of a Christian man who microwaved their baby daughter says that he is not to blame. Instead, it was the work of their imaginary enemy, Satan.
Eva Marie Mauldin said Satan compelled her 19-year-old husband, Joshua Royce Mauldin, to microwave their daughter May 10 because the devil disapproved of Joshua's efforts to become a preacher.
Satan saw my husband as a threat,Eva Mauldin told Houston television station KHOU-TV.
He microwaved the child for between 10 and 20 seconds. She was seriously injured and remains in hospital. The mother wants her daughter back but, for once, social workers are being sensible and have said they will allow no such thing.
Woman: Blame devil for infant in microwave—CNN 21st May 2007 (via Pharyngula).
The Virginia Tech massacre, while not generating quite enough junk to qualify for its own Great ... Conspiracy List
, has produced some interesting insights, and fortunately the Prattle's readers are very eagle-eyed.
Red Wolf found some of Cho's rant posed on the ABC website. It was rather, well, Christian. (Uni gunman: 'I die like Jesus' )
Thanks to you I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenceless people,he ranted....
Just like Jesus, he criticised the rich:
He also railed against wealthy students:Your Mercedes wasn't enough, you brats? Your golden necklaces weren't enough, you snobs? Your trust fund wasn't enough? Your vodka and cognac weren't enough? All your debaucheries weren't enough? Those weren't enough to fulfil your hedonistic needs? You had everything.
And Cho reminds us of Jesus' suffering:
Do you know what it feels like to be torched alive? Do you know what it feels like to be humiliated and be impaled on a cross and left to bleed to death for your amusement? You have never felt a single ounce of pain your whole life.
Strangely, even though Cho was clearly inspired by the Bible, there have been no calls to ban that particular book.
Alan Braggins pointed out a discussion on the Fox News website: Did the Devil Make Him Do It? Fundies, of course, disturbed by Cho's Christian blathering, say Quick, let's grasp that straw!
.
Dr. Richard Roberts, president of Oral Roberts University, shouts an unequivocalYes!
Based on what I've seen in the news,Roberts said in an interview,there's no doubt that this act was Satanic in origin.
Roberts added that he doesn’'t know if it was Satanicpossessionoroppression.Possession, he said, occurs when Satan takes over a person's life, and the person's actions are dictated by demonic possession within. Roberts says he's seen this type and has seen the Devil cast out of a person.
Satanicoppression,on the other hand, isthat which comes against.It's not in a person, but is coming against them, trying to put evil thoughts in their minds,Roberts said.
He said that the evil thoughts in Satanic oppression can be fairly innocuous, or they can be harmful. And the oppression can be in the form of fear, depression or discouragement, he said, becauseSatan comes to kill, steal and destroy.
Roberts says we'll never know whether Cho waspossessedoroppressed,because the killer has died. But he did leave a note blasting everyone around him, calling themrich kids,anddeceitful charlatans,and then blaming them, sayingyou made me do this.
I thought the name of Jesus was supposed to have power over Satan. How could he possibly have tolerated his posessee shouting it all the time?
Feeling lazy again. Here are some recent stories I missed:
Three Central American governments have banned a man claiming to be the Antichrist from entering their countries. Wear pants, Pope, says banned 'Antichrist'—News.com.au, 15th April 2007.
A fight between nuns has ended with two injuries and two arrests. The violence broke out between two rival factions residing in a convent in Avdellero, Cyprus.. Nuns come to blows over rights to convent—Ekklesia, 17th April 2007.
Three people have been killed at a publishing house in Turkey that produced bibles, in an apparent attack on the country's Christian minority.. Three killed at Turkish publisher—BBC News, 18th April 2007.
We have a problem with teenage Goths who go into graveyards at night. Vandals cause £15,000 of damage to two famous capital graveyards—The Herald, April 2007. Other newspapers blame generic bored, pissed teenagers, rather than those who would simply wallow pretentiously in the dark romance of the graveyards.
European newspapers are ... implying that Charlton Heston is indirectly responsible for the scope of the killings.. Blaming Charlton Heston—alt.politics.republicans, 17th April 2007.
Early details about the horrific school shooting at Virginia Tech strongly indicate that these events represent a Columbine-style black- op that will be exploited in the coming days to push for mass gun control and further turning our schools into prisons.. Virginia School Shooting: Another Government Black-Op?—alt.conspiracy, 16th April 2007.
We live in an era when public high schools and colleges have all but banned God from science classes. In these classrooms, students are taught that the whole universe, including plants and animals—and humans—arose by natural processes. Naturalism (in essence, atheism) has become the religion of the day and has become the foundation of the education system (and Western culture as a whole). The more such a philosophy permeates the culture, the more we would expect to see a sense of purposelessness and hopelessness that pervades people's thinking.. How Could a Loving God ... ?—Answers in Genesis, 16th April 2007.
England: There are some stories I wish were April Fools' Day jokes, but this one is dated 2nd April, so it can't be:
Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Government backed study has revealed.
It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.
There is also resistance to tackling the 11th century Crusades - where Christians fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem - because lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques.
I am lost for words.
Teachers drop the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslims—London Evening Standard, 2nd April 2007.
United States: Joe Murray used to be a columnist for the American Family Association, but is now strongly critical of their homophobic stance. This interview with him at Pam's House Blend makes interesting reading, and serves as a reminder that not all Christians are hate-filled loons (via Box Turtle Bulletin).
Pam's House Blend mocks all sorts of homophobia, especially fundie homophobia, and has recently featured some gems, such as What is it with Michael Savage and transpeople?—in which we learn that trans people are to blame for the Columbine massacre. The blog subtitle ...always steamin'
means something quite different in these parts, though.
Yemen: Riots have broken out after rumours that a French engineer might have 'desecrated' a book by throwing it on the floor with insufficient respect.
After a fight between a French engineer and another who is Yemeni, the Frenchman - to enrage the Yemeni - threw a Koran on the floor in an offensive way,a local official told AFP news agency, requesting anonymity.
The response of the locals suggest they are probably incapable of reading any book:
Hundreds of rioting workers burnt cars and a helicopter at the French-run facility, sources told news agencies.
Unconfirmed reports say four Yemenis and a Frenchman were injured in the unrest and the engineer was evacuated.
The paper on which holy books tend to be printed makes excellent loo roll, by the way.
Koran riot grips Yemeni gas plant—BBC News, 25th March 2007.
Romania: A priest has received a 14 year prison sentence for his part in an exorcism
which killed a young nun. Daniel Petru Corogeanu led the ritual to cast the Devil out from the woman.
Irina Cornici, 23, died after being starved and chained to a cross at a secluded convent in the north-east.
Four nuns were also convicted of manslaughter and received sentences of between 5 and 8 years. They plan to appeal their sentences, although the Orthodox Church is unlikely to be on their side:
The Orthodox Church, which described the Tanacu incident asabominable, has promised reforms, including psychological tests for those seeking to enter monasteries.
It banned Corogeanu from the priesthood and excommunicated the four nuns.
Priest jailed for exorcism death—BBC News, 19th February 2007.
United Kingdom: Britain's first Muslim peer has come out against wearing the veil. Lord Ahmed of Rotherham said that they were a mark of separation and defiance against mainstream British culture
, and that he felt the way they are used today is contrary to the original intention.
Lord Ahmed, who became the first Muslim peer in 1988, told the Yorkshire Post:The veil is now a mark of separation, segregation and defiance against mainstream British culture.
“But there's nothing in the Koran to say that the wearing of a niqab is desirable, let alone compulsory. It's purely cultural. It's an identity thing which has been misinterpreted.
“They were supposed to be worn so that women wouldn't be harassed.
Some of us would suggest that in these circumstances, it's the men who are at fault and should be kept indoors to stop them causing trouble, but this is a digression.
But my argument is that women, and communities as a whole, are now being harassed because they are wearing them.
He said that the veil was aphysical barrier to integration.
He pointed out that Westerners in Muslim countries were expected to dress according to local norms, and felt British Muslims ought to return the courtesy:
The peer said that Muslims in Britain had to become more sensitive to their surroundings, in the same way as westerners walking around Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, would have to wear a head covering and long clothing before they could expect to engage with local people.
He said that he did not want to see a ban on veils, but added:Muslims need to have a debate among ourselves about whether we need them.
Veil should not be worn, says Muslim peer—The Guardian, 20th February 2007.
United States: A bodybuilder has told a court that televangelist Pat Robertson threatened to kill him and his family in an argument over a milk shake.
According to a complaint Phillip Busch filed with the Norfolk police, Robertson made the threat when he entered a room in the courthouse Wednesday to be questioned for a deposition....
Busch is suing Robertson for what he says is misappropriation of his image to promote Robertson's protein diet shake.
Man Claims Pat Robertson Threatened Him—The Guardian, 10th February 2007 (thanks, Red Wolf).
A handful of stories from the last few days which I was too lazy to write about at the time:
There are lots of grand statements about research, with nice superscript numbers relating to references in the back. But when you chase to the back of the book to see what these academic documents are, they include such august periodicals as Delicious, Creative Living, Healthy Eating, and my favourite: Spiritual Nutrition and the Rainbow Diet.I found You are What you Eat frustrating and full of errors—it cited the safe drinking levels which were revised upwards in the early 1990s, for example. There are some good recipes in there, but often they are made needlessly complicated, and use exotic ingredients which would put it out of the price range of mere mortals.
Some of it is plainly absurd. As we get older, she explains,the levels of RNA/DNA decrease.Okay.If you do not have enough RNA/DNA,she goes on, youmay ultimately age prematurely. Stress can deplete your DNA, but algae will increase it. And that's not all.Chlorophyll within the algae is a powerful oxygen generator for human beings.Back to GCSE Biology: it'll only make oxygen if there's light inside me, Gillian ...
liberal leftputs the rights of religious organisations over that of the individuals they oppress:
In the past century, material betterment and the steady diminuation of discrimination advanced progressive goals. Much of the left have [grr...—F.] yet to come to terms with this achievement. At the extreme, some who were once on the left have adopted the language and outlook of the right. They argue for what by any objective standards are reactionary positions. These include promotion of religious obscurantism in place of secularism; segregation of the sexes at public events; abridgement of free speech in deference to the sensibilities of those who claim themselves victims of Islamophobia; and, most pernicious, the resurrection in political debate of some highly traditional motifs of anti-semitic conspiracy theory.If you can get yourself to the library, it's on page 31.
United Kindgom: The Prime Minister has said that churches who want and exception from anti-discrimination laws for faith-based adoption agencies has said they will not get it. Instead, they'll get a 21 month transition period, in which they won't have to consider same-sex couples, but will be obliged to refer them to other, less superstitious, agencies. After that, they will be bound by the law like everyone else. He also reminded us of whose money it is the churches want to use for discriminatory purposes (emphasis mine):
There is no place in our society for discrimination. That's why I support the right of gay couples to apply to adopt like any other couple.
And that way there can be no exemptions for faith-based adoption agencies offering public funded services from regulations that prevent discrimination.
This is likely to be subject to a free vote in parliament, so it's still worth signing the Prattle's petition!
No exemption from gay rights law—BBC News, 29th January 2007.
Australia: I have a theory that the warmer weather drags the religious loons out, from whatever rock they've been hiding under, to bask in the sun like reptiles. A quick look at the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project to map active US hate groups in 2005 shows a larger number of loons running about in the warmer states of Florida, Texas, California, Georgia and South Carolina. Likewise, a warm week in Australia (it's currently 41°C at Prattle Towers Southern Hemisphere) seems to have encouraged the zealots to disengage their tiny brains and loudly proclaim their love of their fellow man. Provided, of course, that their fellow man is the same race and religion as they are and not actually a man, because that whole homosexual thing seems to make their little heads go asplody.
This week's round up of loons brings us a showdown of stupidity between the Moslems, represented by Sheikh Feiz Mohammed and Sheikh al-Hilali, and the Christians, represented by Bruce Hales of the Exclusive Brethren and Danny Nalliah of Catch the Fire Ministries.
Continue reading "Warm Weather Fires Up the Loons"
United States: A woman who killed her three children by drowning because God had commanded her to sacrifice the boys
has been found to be legally insane and has been sent to a mental hospital rather than prison. And, as it traditional, social workers were slacking:
Harris was in and out of mental hospitals six times between February 2004 and August 2005. On the day the children died, her mother warned a social worker that she would hurt the boys, but the social worker did not believe the warning because Harris was such a good mother, according to the defense.
Presumably they were too busy looking for imaginary satanists.
SF Mom Is Insane in Killings of Sons—The Guardian, 18th January 2007.
East Timor: Now that they don't have to worry about their neighbours in Indonesia killing them and taking over the country, it appears that this has freed up time for the bampots to find other methods of entertainment. Burning witches has a long history amongst the more religiously insane, so why should a little original thought stand in the way of loony fundies.
Officials say three women accu