Not Egypt, for sure. Al Jazeera talks to some.

For a time after the 2011 uprising against former president Hosni Mubarak, there was greater freedom of expression in the country, and atheists began to be more publicly assertive. Yet at the same time, the power and influence of conservative Islam grew, with the election of Mohamed Morsi as president and Islamist parliamentary candidates’ success at the ballot box.

Gabr is a member of an atheist group that meets up for drinks and goes to concerts together. When the group began in 2011, it had three or four members. Now it has close to 100, including men and women, ex-Muslims and ex-Christians.

“All of them are angry, in a way that you can’t imagine,” he said. “They insult everything.” Gabr claimed he has received threats from people on Facebook threatening to kill him with a sword. ”I don’t take these messages seriously,” he said. “For me, it is pathetic. I see them as victims.” Nevertheless, he did not want to use his real name for this article.

For atheists and those perceived to be critical of religion in Egypt, the threat of violence and persecution is real. Although atheism is not technically illegal in Egypt, its penal code criminalises “contempt of heavenly religions”, desecrating religious symbols and mocking religious rites in public.

Dang – contempt for religion is a crime in Egypt. Just think: if I were in Egypt I would be breaking the law, without even being able to help it.

According to the Pew Research Center, 74 percent of Egyptian Muslims want sharia, or Islamic law, to be recognised as the official law. Of those committed to sharia law, 86 percent favour the death penalty for those who leave Islam – although this is technically defined in the survey as those who join another faith.

And things don’t look likely to improve any time soon.

A new constitution is being drafted in the wake of Morsi’s ousting. A group of atheists recently called for this document to respect freedom of expression and to protect atheists. They called for the repeal of several articles, including Article Two, which states that Islam is the religion of the state and that sharia is the basis for legislation. However, it appears unlikely they will get the protections they are looking for.

A chilly kind of spring.

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

A commenter pointed out Ghetto benches, which was a form of segregation I hadn’t heard of before.

Ghetto benches or bench Ghetto (known in Polish as getto ławkowe)^[1][2] was a form of official segregation in the seating of students, introduced in Poland‘s universities beginning in 1935 at Lwow Polytechnic.^[3] By 1937, when this practice became conditionally legalized, most rectors at other higher education institutions had adopted this form of segregation.^[4] Under the ghetto ławkowe system, Jewish university students were forced, under threat of expulsion, to sit in a left-hand side section of the lecture halls reserved exclusively for them. This official policy of enforced segregation was often accompanied by acts of violence directed against Jewish students by members of the ONR (delegalised already after three months in 1934) and other extreme right and anti-Semitic organizations.^[5]

The “bench Ghetto” marked a peak of antisemitism in Poland between the world wars.^[6]

So that’s the kind of thing you’re making friends with, vice-chancellors of UK universities. God I hope you’re embarrassed.

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

A news release from the Freedom From Religion Foundation:

November 22, 2013

The Freedom From Religion Foundation and its co-presidents Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker have won a significant ruling with far-reaching ramifications declaring unconstitutional the 1954 “parish exemption” uniquely benefiting “ministers of the gospel.”

“May we say hallelujah! This decision agrees with us that Congress may not reward ministers for fighting a ‘godless and anti-religious’ movement by letting them pay less income tax. The rest of us should not pay more because clergy pay less,” Gaylor and Barker commented.

U.S. District Judge Barbara B. Crabb for the Western District of Wisconsin issued a strong, 43-page decision Friday declaring unconstitutional 26 U.S. C. § 107(2), passed by Congress in 1954. Quoting the Supreme Court, Crabb noted, “Every tax exemption constitutes subsidy.” The law allowed “ministers of the gospel” paid through a housing allowance to exclude that allowance from taxable income. Ministers may, for instance, use the untaxed income to purchase a home, and, in a practice known as “double dipping,” may then deduct interest paid on the mortgage and property taxes.

“The Court’s decision does not evince hostility to religion — nor should it even seem controversial,” commented Richard L. Bolton, FFRF’s attorney in the case. “The Court has simply recognized the reality that a tax free housing allowance available only to ministers is a significant benefit from the government unconstitutionally provided on the basis of religion.”

Crabb wrote: “Some might view a rule against preferential treatment as exhibiting hostility toward religion, but equality should never be mistaken for hostility. It is important to remember that the establishment clause protects the religious and nonreligious alike.”

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

Maryam has drawn up a petition.

Universities UK: Rescind endorsement of sex segregation at UK Universities

Sign that sucker!

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

I think I found the place where Universities UK got their arithmetic wrong.

The guidance document itself is available on their website. I’m reading the pdf version. It lays out general policies and then offers some (hypothetical) case studies. Study 2 is the one about the controversial speaker who demands gender segregation. It starts on page 29.

A representative of an ultra-orthodox religious group

has been invited to speak at an event to discuss faith

in the modern world. The event is part of four different

speeches taking place over the course of a month

exploring different approaches to religion. The initial

speaker request has been approved but the speaker

has since made clear that he wishes for the event to be

segregated according to gender. The event organiser

has followed agreed processes and raised the issue

with university management. The event has been widely

advertised and interest levels are high.

There it is: that’s where the arithmetic is wrong. They forgot to say “No.”

It’s so simple, as so many mistakes in arithmetic are. They merely forgot that the right answer in cases like that is just No.

Here’s how that passage should go:

A representative of an ultra-orthodox religious group

has been invited to speak at an event to discuss faith

in the modern world. The event is part of four different

speeches taking place over the course of a month

exploring different approaches to religion. The initial

speaker request has been approved but the speaker

has since made clear that he wishes for the event to be

segregated according to gender. The event organiser in

turn made clear that this was out of the question.

End of case study. Next?

Seriously, people. What are they thinking? The speaker can go fuck himself. If you invite a speaker and the speaker then makes outrageous requests, you turn the requests down. What is there to discuss? Just say No.

But that’s not what they do in this case study. For some unexplained reason, they treat the request as something that has to be managed as opposed to something that has to be flatly rejected, and go on to talk a lot of stupid kack.

The segregation request is not yet in the public domain

but the students’ union has an active feminist society

which is likely to protest against the segregation

request. Other societies are likely to express similar

concerns. The event is also due to take place a few days

after a number of campus-based activities to coincide

with International Women’s Day.

What the hell??? What does any of that have to do with anything? Does the university normally shove women into corners except around the time of International Women’s Day? Does it need a god damn active feminist society to tell it it can’t shove women into corners? No! Basic equality of that kind is already the norm, and is not dependent on an active feminist society which is likely to protest things.

Things to consider

Legal framework – points likely to be particularly relevant

•

Aside from freedom of speech and the s.43 duty,

the paramount issue is to consider how equality

obligations apply, and how those interact.

•

For example, under the Equality Act 2010, the first

question is whether the segregation is discriminatory

on the grounds of a protected characteristic within

the definition of the Act. Segregation in the context of

the facts outlined above would only be discriminatory

on the grounds of sex if it amounts to ‘less favourable

treatment’ of either female or male attendees.

Segregation of that kind is itself “less favorable treatment.” That’s why people risked their lives – and sometimes lost them – to end racial segregation in the US a few decades ago. It’s why people did the same to end apartheid even more recently. Segregation, separation, apartheid: that is less favorable treatment.

It will therefore, for example, be necessary to consider

the seating plan for any segregation. For example,

if the segregation is to be ‘front to back’, then that

may well make it harder for the participants at the

back to ask questions or participate in debate, and

therefore is potentially discriminatory against those

attendees. This issue could be overcome assuming

the room can be segregated left and right, rather than

front and back (and also ensuring that appropriate

arrangements are made for those with disabilities).

No. No, no, no. You’re doing it wrong, because of the simple mistake three paragraphs back. You were supposed to tell the speaker “No” and that’s an end of it.

Consideration will also need to be given to whether

imposing segregation on everyone attending the

event is required (see below). If it is required, this

may amount to less favourable treatment of other

attendees because of a protected characteristic. On

the face of the case study, assuming the side-by-side

segregated seating arrangement is adopted, there

does not appear to be any discrimination on gender

grounds merely by imposing segregated seating.

Both men and women are being treated equally, as

they are both being segregated in the same way.

However, one cannot rule out the possibility that

discrimination claims will be made on other grounds.

For example, it is arguable that ‘feminism’ (bearing

in mind the views of the feminist society referred to

in the case study), or some forms of belief in freedom

of choice or freedom of association, could fall within

the definition of ‘belief’ under the Equality Act. This

would in turn mean that applying a segregated

seating policy without offering alternatives (eg a nonsegregated

seating area, again on a ‘side by side’

basis with the gender segregated areas) might be

discriminatory against those (men or women) who

hold such beliefs. However, the question of whether

such beliefs are protected under the Act is unclear

without a court ruling. Further, an act of indirect

discrimination can be ‘objectively justified’ if it is a

proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim,

meaning the institution should also have regard to

its other obligations under the Equality Act and the

s.43 duty to secure freedom of speech, for example.

Oh for christ’s sake. No. It is not just “the feminist society” that objects to gender segregation, just as it’s not only the organized groups for racial equality that object to racial segregation.

The bit about the other obligations and the duty to secure freedom of speech seems to rest on the assumption that if the speaker is told No then he will refuse to speak. That in turn seems to rest on the assumption that free speech depends on allowing invited speakers to extort any conditions they like, on pain of destroying free speech. That can’t be right. As Maryam puts it in her excellent post on this,

Clearly, this is not about people’s belief systems.

If it were so, Muslims would be unable to ride buses, the underground, enter their workplaces via entrances used by both men and women, eat in non-segregated restaurants… They wouldn’t even be able to get to the segregated meeting room since men and women would be mingling freely on the streets and halls right up to their entry into the segregated hall kindly organised by Universities UK.

And what next? Another set of guidelines asking unveiled women to veil so as not to “result in a religious group being prevented from having a debate in accordance with its belief system.” Maybe they can ask that niqabs be handed out to unchaste and unveiled women before entry.

And now it gets even worse:

It should therefore be borne in mind – taking account

of the s.43 duty, as well as equality duties and Human

Rights Act obligations – that in these circumstances,

concerns to accommodate the wishes or beliefs of

those opposed to segregation should not result in a

religious group being prevented from having a debate

in accordance with its belief system.

Yes.it.should.

If the religious group will have the debate only on condition that women are treated as second class citizens, which is what segregation does, then the religious group doesn’t get to have the debate.

Ultimately, if imposing an unsegregated seating area in addition

to the segregated areas contravenes the genuinely held

religious beliefs of the group hosting the event,

or those of the speaker, the institution should be

mindful to ensure that the freedom of speech of the

religious group or speaker is not curtailed unlawfully.

Those opposed to segregation are entitled to engage

in lawful protest against segregation, and could

be encouraged to hold a separate debate of the

issues, but their views do not require an institution

to stifle a religious society’s segregated debate

where the segregation accords with a genuinely-held

religious belief. The s.43 duty requires an institution

to secure freedom of speech within the law.

It is not “stifling debate” to refuse unreasonable conditions demanded for the debate. Freedom of debate is allowing the speaker to say whatever the speaker chooses to say. It is not allowing the speaker to tell the institution to discriminate among the people who attend the debate. That’s an extra, outside the debate, so refusing the speaker’s unreasonable demand is in no way to “stifle a religious society’s segregated debate.”

This is getting very long. Part 2 to follow.

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

Guest post because I hadn’t thought of it this way (that I recall). Originally a comment on We were here first.

Any good faith reading of the Thirteenth Amendment leads to the conclusion that whatever rights a fetus may or may not have, it does not have any property rights to the uterus in which it resides.  The Thirteenth Amendment explicitly abolishes the practice of granting property rights in a person’s body to anyone or anything other than that person.

I really wish that the legal arguments in favor of abortion had been properly framed.  The right to privacy is entirely the wrong way to look at it. A woman’s uterus is nobody’s property but her own; to argue otherwise is to promote slavery.  It’s easy to see exactly how ridiculous arguments about fetal rights and fetal personhood are once you adopt the belief that women are not slaves.

Appendix: The Thirteenth Amendment:

AMENDMENT XIII

SECTION 1.

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

SECTION 2.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Appendix 2: the document itself.

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

There was a very good (and horrifying) discussion of “fetal personhood” on Fresh Air yesterday.

Should a pregnant woman whose behavior has been deemed dangerous to her fetus be legally punished or forced into medical procedures against her will? A study released earlier this year found hundreds of cases across the country where pregnant women were arrested and incarcerated, detained in mental institutions and drug treatment programs, or subject to forced medical interventions, including surgery.

The study, conducted by the group National Advocates for Pregnant Women, found 413 criminal and civil cases where law enforcement intervened in the lives of pregnant women between 1973 — the year the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade — and 2005.

Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross speaks with the group’s executive director, Lynn Paltrow, who says the legal claims used to justify some of these actions rely on the same arguments that are made in support of personhood measures that would grant the fetus full constitutional rights independent of the pregnant woman.

Paltrow was emphatic about the fact that giving fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses full constitutional rights independent of the pregnant woman means taking away the pregnant woman’s full constitutional rights.

That’s so obvious, and it’s such a horrifying thing to propose, that it’s blood-chilling to know that there are women who are campaigning for this nightmare. “Yes, please, take away the full constitutional rights of the class of people to which I myself belong!”

Yo: the fertilized egg, the embryo, the fetus, is inside the body of another human being. You can’t give it full constitutional rights without taking away the full constitutional rights of the person whose body is housing it. Her rights should trump those of the fertilized egg, the embryo, the fetus.

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

The Independent reported on that “debate” about rape at LSE that Luke Gittos of Spiked considers an important contribution to the “discussion around rape.” You can tell from the very first sentence that what we have here is not an important contribution but an opportunity for someone to be showily “provocative” and “controversial” about a crime against other people.

A leading barrister has waded into provocative territory with comments that people shouldn’t assume that in rape “the victim is utterly innocent.”

Right, just as it’s “provocative territory” to say that in murder or assault with a deadly weapon or grievous bodily harm people shouldn’t assume that “the victim is utterly innocent” – or to put it another way that the victim is a victim.

Here’s the thing about that: it doesn’t matter whether the victim is “utterly innocent” or not; the point is that people don’t get to murder or assault or batter or rape people, PERIOD. You don’t get to punish non-innocent aka guilty people by assaulting them, except in self-defense. Rape is never a form of self-defense. If a woman is about to stab you, rape isn’t the way to stop her.

Barbara Hewson attacked the “ideology of sexual victimisation” during a debate at the London School of Economics, and questioned the long-term damage rape causes.

The ideology is it. And I suppose there’s an ideology of vital victimization around murder, is there? Or in murder do we just accept that the victim is a victim, by definition?

The article in Critical Legal Thinking that Gittos so scorned had this to say about Hewson’s status as a “leading barrister”:

Prior to the LSE debate, Hewson was prob­ably best known out­side the legal world for her reg­u­lar and often pro­voc­at­ive con­tri­bu­tions to online magazine Spiked, and her pub­lic defence of another barrister’s descrip­tion of a 13-​year old child sex abuse vic­tim as ‘pred­at­ory’. Hewson has vari­ously been referred to in the media as a ‘lead­ing’ and ‘prom­in­ent’ bar­ris­ter, but Hewson does not prac­tice in crim­inal law and it is unclear what expert­ise she pos­sesses with respect to the issue of rape that led the LSE to deem her qual­i­fied to take part in this debate.

The Indy quotes some of Hewson’s contribution to the “discussion around rape”:

“The first,” she said, “is the idea that rape and sexual abuse is very widespread but largely unrecognised even by victims themselves who need to be taught to realise what’s really happened.

“Secondly, that it has long term damaging effects. Thirdly that its morally absolutely unambiguous, the victim is utterly innocent and the victimiser is utterly guilty and this is infinitesimal. And finally that claims of victimisation must always be respected, anything less is victim-blaming.”

I look forward to her contributions to “debates” about murder and assault.

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

Jezebel has a rude piece about selfies and the claim that they “empower” women and girls. It’s rude but it makes a real point.

…self-taken digital portraits are typically posted on social media, ostensibly with the intent of getting people to respond to them — that’s what social media is. In that respect, selfies aren’t expressions of pride, but rather calls for affirmation. In real life, walking up to a stranger, tilting your head downward at a 45-degree angle, duckfacing, pushing your tits together, and screaming “DO YOU THINK I’M PRETTY!” would be [a cue to] summon the authorities.

Let me put it this way: do you see men and boys tilting their heads down and duckfacing to take selfies? If not, why do you think that is?

You know who was really good at that tilting the head down and looking upward thing? Diana Spencer. She must have spent hours in front of the mirror perfecting it.

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

Sylvia Browne has stopped being alive and moved on to the next phase, which she told us is a matter of being permanently 35 and living on a street full of beautiful houses of all different styles.

The obits are calling her a psychic. Not a “psychic” but a psychic. Yo, news media? She wasn’t a psychic. Nobody is.

One of the things she’ll be remembered for is telling Amanda Berry’s mother that Amanda was dead. Amanda was not dead, she was imprisoned in the horror-house of Ariel Castro, but Amanda’s heartbroken mother didn’t live to find that out.

I don’t mean this to prompt any gloating in the comments. Don’t gloat.

But, she was not a psychic. She was a “psychic” and a fraud.

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

Oh hey check out what my friend Taslima has been up to. She was at a gathering of Sakharov Prize laureates in Strasbourg. The guy in the middle in the president of the European parliament.

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

Someone at Spiked took the trouble to email me to promote one of their articles, so I’ll oblige by talking about how predictably Spiked and dopy the article is. It’s about rape and the smothering politically correct consensus that blah blah blah you’re asleep already aren’t you.

LSE hosted a debate titled “Is Rape Different?” The author, Luke Gittos, who is billed as Spiked’s law editor, attended the debate; one of the four participants was another Spiked contributor.

The debate has since provoked predictable ‘there is no debate!’ uproar from people with nothing better to do on Twitter. But such is the hysteria around the discussion of rape and rape laws that the outrage of the Twittersphere has been allowed to spill into the world of academia.

Wait. People with nothing better to do, yet here Luke Gittos is, reporting on it. Well which is it? Is Twitter just a toy for people with nothing better to do? Or is it a serious thing worthy of reporting by a serious website like Spiked? Is “the Twittersphere” silly or is it significant? Has Luke Gittos made up his mind about that, or is he just throwing shit at walls in the usual Spiked fashion? (Spoiler: I think it’s the latter.)

The journal Feminists at Law, based at Kent Law School, has launched a petition for the LSE to ‘ensure that the ideas disseminated [at the debate] do not feed dangerous stereotypes about women being responsible for the sexual violence perpetuated against them’. The petition has been signed by around 85 people.

Wo, 85 whole people! No wonder Spiked is upset and alarmed!

Another journal published something similar, criticising the decision of the LSE to host the debate and saying it was symptomatic of a neoliberal impact agenda in higher education.

What this reaction reveals is a desire to restrict discussion around rape. We are seeing the cult-like elevation of one inalienable ‘truth’ above all others. This ‘truth’ is that we live in an age where rape is part of everyday culture, and where those in power are doing nothing to stop it. Anyone who dares question this prevailing orthodoxy on rape is guilty of a chauvinistic heresy, attributable to their immersion in a controlling patriarchal society.

Oh get a grip. Of course it’s possible to point at something or other and say it reveals a whatever. So what? I like poking fun at pompous bullshit as much as the next person, or in fact more than most people, but I try not to exaggerate the implications of one pompous-bullshit article unless there’s good reason to think that more than six people read it.

It is precisely this climate of ‘you can’t say that’ which universities have traditionally challenged in the name of robust open debate. The LSE took the admirable decision to host the debate entirely in the public realm, even publishing the discussion as a video online. In doing so, it demonstrated a commitment to the traditional role of the university in leading and promoting public discussion.

That’s bullshit. It implies that universities “have traditionally” had no limits whatsoever on what can be robustly debated, and that’s just bullshit. Universities started as religious institutions, and they operated within very narrow limits. And as for this shock-horror about “you can’t say that” – there are actually things people shouldn’t say. An oncologist shouldn’t tell a patient with cancer to use homeopathy or go to the Burzynski clinic, for example. A US president shouldn’t say that atheists are not citizens, for example. A teacher shouldn’t tell students that they’re going to hell unless they subscribe to a particular religion, for example.

But the idea that debates like this should be held in public is anathema to contemporary ‘anti-rape’ (as if anyone is ‘pro-rape’) campaigners, who seem to think that certain arguments are capable of turning almost any member of the great unwashed into a ‘rape sympathiser’.

Welllllll there’s a shining example of privilege at work. He thinks no one is pro-rape? Dude! Lots of people are! Think about it.

Any attempt by journals like Feminists at Law to limit our access to alternative or critical views should be recognised as more than an attack on those making arguments they disagree with: it is an attack on our right to know. So three cheers for the LSE for staging the debate; three cheers for those who took part; and three cheers for those members of the public who attended and fought hard for the ideas they believed in. At a time when hysteria can enforce false orthodoxies in public life, we need these open, interrogative forums more than ever.

Do we? Isn’t the need more for good research than it is for staged debates? The latter have more to do with entertainment than with the search for knowledge. (Note that Gittos used the dog-whistle “hysteria” twice in this short article.)

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

Myths can be lethal.

A friend of mine just got back from a trip to Botswana to see the wildlife; she told me one of the guides told them there’s been a big surge in rhino poaching and it’s because of a myth in Vietnam that a bit of rhino before you get shitfaced will make the hangover not so bad. Well that’s a pathetic reason to wipe out a species, even if it’s true.

So I Googled, and there’s reporting on it. Like a piece titled

Using horns in hangover cures the hot new way to make rhinos extinct

Drunks in Vietnam have recently acquired a taste for rhinoceros horn and, frankly, the timing couldn’t be worse. The selfish lushes will pay $50,000 for a pound of horn, believing it will cure their hangovers, and the surge in demand is pushing rhinos to the very brink of extinction. It seems the dwindling rhinoceros population is inversely linked to an increase in stupid medical mysticism.

Why the fuck couldn’t they make the stupid myth be about dandelions or dust or something else abundant and easy to produce?

The Atlantic reported on it at the same time, last May.

Rhino Horn: Party Drug Some conservation groups, however, don’t think rhino horn’s newfound popularity in Vietnam has much to do with the cancer cure-all rumor (pdf, p.2). The more likely reason, they say, is that the horn powder is increasingly seen as a cocaine-like party drug, virility enhancer and luxury item–”the alcoholic drink of millionaires,” as a Vietnamese news site called it.

That’s partly because it is supposed to help the liver. With alcohol consumption on the rise as living standards improve, the swinging Vietnamese now prize rhino horn  as a way to let them drink more and cure hangovers faster. Tom Milliken, an expert on the rhino horn market, reckons that a rhino-horn  detox, ”especially following excessive intake of alcohol, is probably  the most common routine usage promoted in the marketplace“.

Ah it’s our old friend detox again. Goodbye rhinos, hello bogus “detox” drug.

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