The Lawyers’ Secular Society has an open letter to the Law Society.

Dear Sir,

Law Society’s practice note on “Sharia succession rules”

This is an open letter which we have published on our website this morning.

We refer to the above practice note dated 13 March 2014.

(www.lawsociety.org.uk/advice/practice-notes/sharia-succession-rules/)

Please can you explain why and how the Law Society has adopted guidance to assist in drafting wills which treat women far worse than men, and non-Muslims far worse than Muslims? How is this consistent with the Law Society’s claimed commitments to equality?

For your information, you may be interested to know:

1. We have launched an online petition calling for withdrawal of this practice note (approaching 2,000 signatures at the time of writing)
2. There is also an open letter calling for withdrawal of this practice note, signed by public figures and human rights campaigners from around the world
3. There will be a protest against the Law Society’s decision to issue this practice note on Monday 28 April 2014, in London

Further details are here:

lawyerssecularsociety.wordpress.com/2014/03/28/protest-against-law-societys-sharia-wills-practice-note-mon-28-april-london/

An emailed response (in addition to or in place of a postal one) would be appreciated.

Given the serious nature of the LSS’s concerns we expect to receive a substantive response to our questions at the earliest possible opportunity.

Yours faithfully

Charlie Klendjian
Solicitor
Secretary, Lawyers’ Secular Society

I predict the substantive response: Because there’s a demand for it.

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

Brigitte Amiri of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project was at the Supreme Court for the Hobby Lobby arguments and blogs about it for the ACLU.

…my heart fell as I watched the attorneys for the parties take their seats. There wasn’t a single woman. Not a single person of color. Although it was great that the government sent their top lawyer to defend the case, it was disheartening to see no women at counsel’s table for either party, especially because the case involves women’s access to contraception. How can that be in 2014?

How indeed. The case involves women’s access to contraception.

But then she cheered up.

Right out of the box, the female justices asked question after question that tested the limits of Hobby Lobby’s argument that religious liberty should trump the contraception rule. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor asked intelligent and pointed questions that demonstrated the fallacy of the companies’ arguments. They asked whether every employer that had a religious objection to any type of health care should get to pick and choose what to offer in health plans, despite the Affordable Care Act requirements. They also asked whether employers should be allowed to refuse to comply with anti-discrimination laws or minimum wage laws because of their religious beliefs.

It wasn’t just the women justices who “got it.” Kennedy asked the companies’ attorney about whether Hobby Lobby would be putting its employees in a “disadvantageous position,” and whether “religious beliefs just trump?”

The answer is no. They don’t trump. Everyone has the right to his or her religious beliefs, but those beliefs cannot be used to take away a benefit from someone else or to discriminate against others. That’s exactly what is at stake here. The contraception rule was designed to ensure women’s equality by eliminating the disparities in health care costs between men and women, and to ensure women have the ability to make decisions about whether and when to become parents, which in turns allow them to participate equally in society.

But the believers believe that god doesn’t want women to participate equally in society. They believe that god wants them not to. They believe that god shares their belief that women are altogether smaller and less capable beings, who are good at taking care of children but bad at everything else. For those reasons they want women to be imprisoned in their putative role as mothers (and later, if they have the bad manners not to die as soon as they stop having children, as grandmothers).

They might win.

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

Mehdi Hasan has really gone into overdrive lately in his public jeering and sniping at people he dislikes – or maybe he’s always like this, I ignore him most of the time so I don’t know. Anyway he’s doing a lot of it. It’s very reactionary right-wing stuff, which for some reason finds a home in more or less left-wing outlets. Why is that? Why do people on the left persist in thinking that the most reactionary Muslims or even Islamists are the ones they should be giving a megaphone?

Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan

“Baroness Warsi, Faith Minister, Dismisses Richard Dawkins As A ‘Secular Fundamentalist”

(The quotation marks are a nice touch; he probably wrote that himself, since he’s an editor there. The quotation marks make it look more impersonal.)

He’s A ‘Secular Fundamentalist’
Baroness Warsi has denounced atheist academic Richard Dawkins as a “secular fundamentalist”, as she spoke about tackling Islamophobia. During a wide-ranging interview with the Huffington Post UK, the…

Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan

Guy who smears for a living is now screaming ‘smear’ at anyone who questions his credentials as a ‘Muslims’ or ‘extremism’ expert. Funny.

Baroness Warsi questioned Maajid Nawaz’s credentials. So he now retweets people calling her a ‘corrupt South Asian’. #stayclassy

Baroness Warsi: extremism policy shouldn’t be influenced by “ex-extremists” who “created problem in the first place”: http://m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/5036065?1396104864 …

Horrible man, yet the BBC and the Huffington Post UK and the New Statesman can’t get enough of him. Why? Why the attraction to religious bullies as long as they’re not of the local established religion? Why do they like him? Why do they talk so much to him and so comparatively little to Maryam? I will never understand this.

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

Exactly. I keep thinking this. If being pro-life is your central goal, saving fetuses should be way way way down on your list of priorities. Or, in my view, not on it at all, but even (for the sake of argument) if you think it is a way to save lives, it should still be near the bottom of the list.

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

Uh oh, Jimmy Carter is going to be in big trouble with the MRAs.

Sexual assaults, honour killings, prostitution, physical abuse – No matter where you look in our world, you will find women and girls being abused. It’s why the 39th President of the United States calls it THE biggest challenge of our times. Today, we hear from Jimmy Carter with his Call to Action and his new book in his only Canadian interview.

In the US military alone 26,000 sexual assaults took place and only about 300 actually resulted in anybody being punished. There’s an aversion to admit what goes on even in our most cherished institutions.

Well that’s because there were 25,700 false accusations of men by lying bitchez. Actually the 300 that resulted in conviction and sentence were probably mostly lies too. Right?

It’s a volatile east, west, north and south for many of the world’s women. Special crimes, special punishments and special hatreds are directed at so many women and girls.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter despairs of the mistreatment and abuse. He believes religion is often an excuse for discrimination against women.

Indeed it is; we see it every day. And the best part is, it’s such a powerful excuse – because few people like to piss off the believers, especially few people who depend on votes to keep their jobs.

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

Stephanie has a post about a town without contraception. I followed her link to get more details on the situation in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

The Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise reports:

Some Bartlesville women are taking issue with a recent directive prohibiting doctors affiliated with Jane Phillips Medical Center from prescribing contraceptives, saying the decision is not only an affront to women but could have an economic impact by driving patients away from local doctors.

Confidential sources told the Examiner-Enterprise this week that a meeting was held Wednesday to inform local doctors of gynecology and obstetrics that they can no longer prescribe contraceptives of any kind — if they are to be used as birth control.

Stephanie fills in the missing background:

Bartlesville is a town of only about 35,000 people. They have one hospital, Jane Phillips Medical Center. That hospital is part of Ascension Health, a large Catholic health care consortium, and nearly all of the OB-GYNs in town need to maintain privileges there in order to do their jobs.

Ah, one of those situations – where the Catholic church gets a monopoly on health care and uses its monopoly to refuse to provide vital services to women. The Catholic church has a monopoly on health care in Bartlesville so it’s exploiting its monopoly power to prevent women from having sex without getting pregnant. The Catholic church is using its power to deny women access to birth control – as if it were 1880 instead of 2014.

Back to the Examiner-Enterprise:

When contacted Friday, JPMC officials referred the E-E to Cheena Pazzo, director of St. John Health System Community and Physician Relations.

Pazzo offered the following statement via email:

“Consistent with all Catholic health care organizations, St. John Health System operates in accordance with the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Facilities.”

The ones drawn up the the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. Why are we in the US allowing Catholic bishops to control a large chunk of our health care? They are bishops. Our health care is none of their business. And by “our” I mean all of us, including Catholics. If conservative Catholics want to do what the bishops tell them to do, more fool they, but they can go ahead – but that does not mean the bishops get to impose their religious “directives” on anyone whatsoever.

This should not be happening. It’s an outrage. It’s grotesque.

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

It’s not just Phyllis Schlafly who talks ridiculous crap about the futility of a “war against Nature” and disseminates that crap via the latest communications technology. There is Noah, for instance, if David Plotz describes it accurately in Slate.

Like the last Noah’s Ark movie, this Noah tells a straightforward environmental parable. Expelled from Eden, mankind has gutted and burned creation, chopping down every tree, butchering every beast, and crowding itself into black, sooty cities. Alas for mankind, the heavenly think tank only has one idea for addressing the issue: start over, with a lot fewer of us—like, half a dozen, preferably vegetarians.

Aronofsky’s message to us moderns is clear: We, too, have corrupted our world, just as the antediluvian humans (save Noah) did theirs. But the director’s public policy chops are scarcely more nuanced than Yahweh’s. He ends up condemning progress of all kinds. The movie pits Noah and his family against all the other humans of the world, led by the king Tubal-Cain. Noah and his family are rural gatherers, living gently off the fruit of the land. Tubal-Cain, by contrast, is a machine-maker and warlord who has strip-mined and clear-cut forests to build his cities. The Noah family is constantly moving further and further away from these cities, off the grid, to be alone.

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

I can still be surprised. I’m surprised by the student senate at the University of Alabama. Last week it voted to kill a resolution supporting racial integration of fraternities and sororities there.

The resolution cited damage to the reputation of the university, in Tuscaloosa, after it was revealed last year that all-white sororities were denying membership to black women based solely on race.

I did not know that.

Some student senators said they were concerned the language in the integration resolution would lead to an affirmative action-like Greek system. Some asked whether traditionally black or Latino fraternities would be required to admit white students.

Others talked about political correctness gone mad, others said there goes the neighborhood, others asked if you would want your daughter to marry one, others said freedom of choice is what makes this country great, and so the sun sets on another day in exotic Tuscaloosa.

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

Sweet.

Via Global Secular Humanist Movement on Facebook.

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

The Secularist of the Year prize was awarded today, to Turkish MP and human rights campaigner Safak Pavey.

Safak Pavey is a member of Turkey’s main opposition party and sits for the Istanbul constituency. She is known for her international work in human rights, the promotion of the rights of women and minorities in Turkey, as well as humanitarian aid and peace-building.

She was also the first disabled woman elected to the Turkish parliament and, in 2012, was awarded a Woman of Courage Award by the White House for her efforts to raise awareness of the plight of those with disabilities in countries where resources are limited.

Safak has spoken out about the need for secularism and the better protection of the rights of women in Turkey, a country where the Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has said that he does not think men and women are equal. Freedom of expression is deeply threatened in Turkey, with the banning of youtube and twitter in the midst of a corruption scandal involving high government officials, and where infamously last year, Turkish pianist and composer Fazil Say was handed a suspended 10-month prison sentence for “insulting Islam”. Turkey ranks 154th among 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index.

Congratulations to Safak Pavey. I’m glad to learn of her.

You know who else got an award?

Also honoured at the award ceremony were two nominees, Chris Moos and Abishek Phadnis, both students from the London School of Economics who have, in the past year, challenged their own university and Universities UK over important and fundamental issues such as free speech and gender segregation.

Yes they have.

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

Four daughters of the Saudi king say he is keeping them prisoner, and has been for more than a decade.

Princesses Sahar and Jawaher are the daughters of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. They say they have been held in the royal compound in Jeddah for the last 13 years, and their sisters Maha and Hala are also being held in separate villas. They claim they are not allowed to travel or leave their home.

Princesses Sahar and Jawaher claim they have little communication outside of their gates – “no-one is allowed in or out.” They say the internet is their only window onto the world. Via Skype, they tell Channel 4 News they are “cut off, isolated… and alone” and that “our father, the king, is responsible.”

Their mother Alanoud Al Fayez, who is divorced from the king, first went public with their story two weeks ago, giving her first broadcast interview to Channel 4 News. Since that interview was broadcast, the princesses say restrictions on them have been tightened and they are no longer even allowed to make trips with armed guards for food, as they were previously.

They say food is now becoming scarce in their home, that they are desperate for the world to listen to their story and for someone to help.

The Saudi ambassador in London has responded to the interview…by saying “this is a private matter”.

In countries that aren’t savage theocracies, it’s against the law to imprison people. It’s not a “private matter” at all. But Saudi Arabia is a savage theocracy, so maybe there it is a private affair.

Evil bastards.

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

Phyliis Schlafly says teh feminists are at war with nature.

Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly said today in her radio bulletin that the “the peculiar ideology of the feminists” is harming boys because it is encouraging “girls to enter boys’ fields” of study and employment. Apparently, some fields are reserved for boys, who Schlafly laments now “dislike school and have less interest in attending college” due to the nefarious actions of “a powerful network of feminists.”

“The feminists are at war with Mother Nature, and Mother Nature keeps winning, so the feminists are constantly angry at what they call patriarchy,” Schlafly added.

Huh. Notice where she said it. In her radio bulletin. Radio is not natural.

Does Phyllis Schlafly cook her food?

Does Phyllis Schlafly use medicines?

Does Phyllis Schlafly brush her teeth?

Does Phyllis Schlafly drive or ride in a car?

Does Phyllis Schlafly wear clothes?

Does Phyllis Schlafly live in a house?

Does Phyllis Schlafly sit on furniture?

Does Phyllis Schlafly use a computer?

Does Phyllis Schlafly use a telephone?

Does Phyllis Schlafly take airplanes?

Does Phyllis Schlafly read books?

Does Phyllis Schlafly read?

Does Phyllis Schlafly speak language?

If the answer to any of those is yes (and I would guess the answer to all of them is yes) then Phyllis Schlafly is at war with nature! Excuse me, with Mother Nature.

Phyllis Schlafly is talking bullshit. Human beings in general are at war with nature, in the sense that we don’t just take what there is and refuse to alter it to our convenience in any way. We’ve been at war with nature for thousands and thousands of years, and a good thing to. Thanks to all the humans who’ve been at war with nature all this time, I get to type on a keyboard and by doing so talk to people all over the world. I get to cook dinner, I get to wear a wool sweater, I get to be out of the rain and cold.

And I get to speak up. Even though I also get told that speaking up is more of a guy thing, I war against being told bullshit like that, and I speak up anyway. So does Phyllis Schafly. Funny thing, isn’t it.

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

Ron Lindsay has a post zeroing in on the question of whether corporations, especially for-profit corporations, can be considered persons and thus subject to the protections of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The threshold issue then is whether a for-profit corporation can claim a religious identity.

RFRA extends its protections to “persons.” Unfortunately, “persons” is not defined under RFRA, so one must rely on common sense and an understanding of the role of religion in a secular state in interpreting the scope of the statute. Also unfortunately, a majority of the Supreme Court appears to lack both common sense and an appropriate understanding of the distinct roles of religion and government in a secular state.

Huh. Even if “persons” is not defined under RFRA, wouldn’t it make more sense to assume it means what it seems to mean rather than something it doesn’t seem to mean? You’re a person, I’m a person, General Motors is not a person.

I’ve never understood this, not with Citizens United and not with Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company. But we seem to be stuck with it whether we understand it or not.

Under our constitutional scheme, religion enjoys protections from government interference— and correlatively, our government enjoys protections from religious influence (in theory)— because religion deals with otherworldly concerns, whereas government deals with secular matters. In other words, government stays out of religious matters and religion stays out of government matters because government and religion are focused on different concerns. Government can’t tell religious individuals or groups how to save souls, and religious individuals or groups shouldn’t be able to tell the government how to protect the health of women.

Of course, a religious person is free to engage in secular activities, including commercial activities. And corporations controlled by religious persons can also engage in commercial activities. However, when they do, they submit themselves to the rules and regulations of the secular state. When a corporation engages in for-profit commercial activities, it ceases to be a religious association, that is, an association focused on otherworldly matters.

But Hobby Lobby of course wants to have both – the for-profit commercial activities and the religious exemptions. Which is cheating.

In closing, one tangential observation: one couldn’t help noticing that during the argument, it was the three female justices, Ginsburg, Kagan, and Sotomayor, who asked tough questions of Hobby Lobby’s attorney. One wonders if the male justices would have been more engaged in this portion of the argument if Hobby Lobby had objected to health care coverage for Viagra instead of contraceptive care.

Ah but you see Baby Jesus would never try to interfere with a gentleman’s access to Viagra.

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

Here’s a great event you could go to if you happen to be near Salt Lake City next weekend.

Mass Resignation.

Atheists of Utah, in cooperation with American Atheists, will be hosting a mass resignation event to coincide with the LDS Church’s General Conference.

Many people confuse being “excommunicated” with resignation from the Church. Resignation is your chance to leave the LDS Church on your own terms. It’s your opportunity to let the LDS Church know that *you* don’t want to be associated with *their* false claims and bigoted views, and that you will no longer allow them to use your name as just another notch on their holy headboard.

We’re excited to announce that American Atheists President, David Silverman, is making a special trip to Salt Lake City just for this event!

While we’re ironing out all the details, please be sure to check out the links below for the more information about the resignation process, and resignation letter tips & templates.

Thanks!

Dan Ellis
President
Atheists of Utah

===============================
http://www.mormonresignation.com/

http://www.lifeaftermormonism.net/page/resignation-from-the-mormon-church

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

Wow. Color me amazed.

Lisa Wade at Sociological Images dissects an Australian tv ad for Snickers – you know, the disgusting candy bar with nougat AND caramel AND peanuts covered in chocolate, the one that pulls your teeth out as you eat it.

What’s the hilarious hook of this ad? Construction workers shouting at women – shouting things like “have a great day” and “what don’t we want? Misogyny!” Wo, cool, right? No. The construction workers are hungry, so they’re out of their minds. Hahahaha that’s so funny.

The construction workers are actors, but the women on the street are real and their reactions are authentic. The first thing women do is get uncomfortable, revealing how a lifetime of experience makes them cringe at the prospect of a man yelling at them.  But, as women realize what’s going on, they’re obviously delighted.  They love the idea of getting support and respect instead of harassment from strange men.

Hahahahahaha stupid bitches, so that makes it all the more hilarious when it turns out that the men are just Not Themselves because they’re hungry. Hahahahaha women, don’t you get it? EVERYBODY hates you. Everybody has contempt for you. Everybody thinks your pathetic aspirations to be treated like human beings are a huge joke.

The twist ending is a genuine “fuck you” to the actual women who happened to walk by and become a part of the commercial.  I wonder, when the producers approached them to get their permission to be used on film, did they tell them how the commercial would end? I suspect not. And, if not, I bet seeing the commercial would feel like a betrayal. These women were (likely) given the impression that it was about respecting women, but instead it was about making fun of the idea that women deserve respect.

What a dick move, Snickers. I hope you’re happy with your misogynist consumer base, because I don’t think I can ever buy a Snickers bar again.  What else does your parent company sell? I’ll make a note.

Have the ad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gjsoSY18kg

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

Here’s a thought – don’t be mean. Radical, I know, but it’s a thought.

In particular, don’t be mean by leading people to think you’re doing something they will like when in fact you’re doing something they won’t like. Don’t ask someone if you can use a photo of her in your magazine without telling her you want to use it for the purpose of mocking her, if that is what you’re planning. No, don’t do that. That’s a mean trick. That’s a mean shitty trick. Don’t play mean shitty tricks. Don’t be mean.

SELF magazine ignored this thought (which is not original to me and not new at this moment, I should point out) when it asked Monika Allen if it could publish a photo of her running a marathon in a tutu. She was excited to be asked, and said yes. SELF didn’t tell her the purpose was to mock the whole idea of running a marathon in a tutu.

The photo of Allen was featured in the issue’s “BS Meter,” which denigrated the trend of runners racing in tutus, and placed the fad in the “lame” column.

“A racing tutu epidemic has struck NYC’s Central Park, and it’s all because people think these froufrou skirts make you run faster,” the column reads. “Now, if you told us they made people run from you faster, maybe we would believe it.”

Except that isn’t why. That isn’t why Monika Allen wore a tutu to run that marathon. From the Glam Runner Facebook page:

Excited to see our tutus in SELF Magazine … but shocked to see that running tutus are classified as lame. Especially considering the fact that this picture is from last year’s LA Marathon when Glam Runner founders Tara and Monika ran together as superheroes … because Monika was recently diagnosed with brain cancer and was running a marathon in the middle of a year of chemo.

What’s Glam Runner?

Since starting Glam Runner in 2011, Allen has produced about 2,000 tutus and has donated $5,600 to Girls on the Run – a nonprofit that has a 12-week training program for girls ages 8-13 to prepare for a 5K race.

So there you go: don’t be mean.

The Huffington Post concludes:

To support Allen’s efforts to brighten up the race track, and inspire young girls to get moving, find out more information about Glam Runner here and Girls on the Run here.

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