Nothing to cheer about.

Lori Viars, a mother of two and evangelical Christian from Lebanon, Ohio, cheered the candidacy as well as the decision of both Palin women to keep their babies. “The whole family is pro-life, and they put that into practice even when it’s not easy,” Ms. Viars said.

It’s nothing to cheer. Palin is adamantly anti-abortion, so her daughter age 17 has to have an unplanned baby, has to be a mother years too early, and has to marry her high school boyfriend, which is a recipe for disaster. ‘Bristol’ Palin has to ruin her life because of inflated concerns about a fetus.

What’s up with ‘Bristol,’ anyway? Chelsea, Bristol – what’s their point? Is everybody … Read the rest

More self-righteous self-pity.

My sister has worn a face veil for six years. She lives in Birmingham, where it is common to see women shrouded in black, however the sight is more unusual in Southampton, where my parents live and where, at the weekend, my sister was called “a ninja woman”.

It’s common in Birmingham to see women shrouded in black, is it – well how appalling. You might as well say it’s common to see black people in chains in Liverpool. You might as well say it’s common to see Jews wearing yellow stars in Manchester. You might as well say it’s common to see gay people wearing pink banners with ‘Dangerous Degenerate’ printed on them. How bizarre … Read the rest

Nigel Warburton talks to Andrew Copson of the British Humanist Association. I particularly liked this bit –

I think it is more coherent to call Christians, for example, ‘Christians’ rather than ‘Christian humanists’ and Humanists ‘Humanists’ rather than ‘secular humanists’. If we try to call any and every philosophy that in some way has something to do with people ‘humanist’ then we make the concept itself vacuous. There is a recent book in the Teach Yourself series by the agnostic Mark Vernon which runs into this sort of difficulty. Thankfully, this is not a very prominent debate within Humanism and I think the common usage of ‘Humanism’ is still that of a non-religious philosophy.

That’s why so much of what … Read the rest

When should ‘religious beliefs’ trump medical precautions? Hmm, let’s see. Never.

Many Muslim women all over the UK could be at risk of losing their jobs after the Secretary of State for Health, Alan Johnson, introduced the “bare below the elbow” policy. This policy was first introduced in January 2008 and stated that, when any member of staff is in contact with a patient, they must have their full arm from the elbow and below completely bare.

That doesn’t put Muslim women at risk of losing their jobs; it puts them at risk of having to bare their arms below the elbow when in contact with patients. In other words it presents them with a not very onerous job … Read the rest