ACLU v theocracy

Sep 17th, 2012 3:53 pm | By

The ACLU says no your religion does not mean that you get to harm people. It has to say that, because people who run Catholic schools want to harm people because religion.

Emily Herx, a former Language Arts and Literature teacher at St. Vincent de Paul, a Catholic School in Indiana, was fired after she requested time off to receive in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment.  She is suing the school for sex and disability discrimination in federal court, and today we filed a friend-of-the court brief to support her legal arguments.  A few states over, Jane Doe (a pseudonym), an employee at a Catholic school in Missouri, was fired for becoming pregnant outside of wedlock.  Today the ACLU of Kansas & Western Missouri filed a complaint on Jane’s behalf with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for sex discrimination.  

But sex discrimination is practically the whole point of God. Women are always trying to do things and you need God to tell them they’re different and special and complementary so they’re not allowed to. The ACLU is messing with serious stuff here.

St. Vincent’s pastor told Emily she was a “grave, immoral sinner” and it would cause a “scandal” if others learned that she used IVF treatment.  The president of Jane’s school told her that he was worried about others people’s perceptions about her pregnancy…It would be illegal for almost any employer to fire an employee who is (or is trying to become) pregnant.  But in these cases, the schools are arguing that they are entitled to discriminate because they are a religiously affiliated school.  That is flat out wrong.  When it comes to employees like Emily and Jane, who have absolutely no religious duties or responsibilities, it is always illegal for religiously affiliated employers to discriminate on the basis of sex, race, national origin, or disability.  Because only women can become pregnant, these schools discriminated against Emily and Jane on the basis of their sex.

God said they could. God said they have to.

We’ve said it before and we’ll keep saying it—religious freedom does not come with a license to discriminate on the basis of sex, race, national origin, or disability.  Period.  The First Amendment protects our right to believe whatever we want and to act on those beliefs, unless those actions harm others. We live in a diverse society and the freedom to believe what you want comes with the responsibility to respect other people’s rights and beliefs, as well.  Just as restaurant owners in the 1960s were required to serve African-Americans despite their religious opposition to racial integration, and religious schools were required to pay male and female teachers equally, even though they believed the Bible considers men the head of the household, schools like St. Vincent cannot fire Emily and Jane because of their pregnancies, even if they believe IVF treatment or pregnancy outside of wedlock are sins.

It can if we live in a theocracy! And the theocrats are working on it.

 

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Zena Ryder of CFI responds

Sep 17th, 2012 11:33 am | By

Zena Ryder sent me this response to what trinioler said in..“What trinioler said”:

I am one of the administrators of the [name omitted] branch of the Centre for Inquiry, based in [ditto], Canada. In response to trinioler’s comments about our branch, I would like to explain what has been going on over the last few months.

Our branch is very active. We have a number of regular events: the purely social monthly “Skeptics in the Park”; a monthly discussion group for kids, “Kids for Inquiry”; monthly informal talks, “Café Inquiry”; and a new monthly discussion group, “Round Table”. We are also associated with a couple of independent local groups — including a local women’s discussion group, Chick Chat, with whom we are co-hosting a lecture by Joyce Arthur of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada next month.

The topics of our Café Inquiry events range widely — from astronomy to math to humanist rituals. They have also included  “Dismantling the Gender Binary”, “Digital Hatred: White Supremacy in the Information Age” and we have one coming up in October, “Addictions”. Our Café Inquiry talks are usually held at our local LGBT Centre, and when they are there, we always collect donations for the Centre.

In addition to these regular events, we hold a number of special events. We have volunteers who care deeply about social issues. We want to make the world a better place, and we are working hard — as volunteers — to do our share. (In addition to working at our jobs, doing our studies, raising our kids and all the rest of having lives.) We did a winter clothing drive last year — collecting winter clothing for a couple of local charities. We protested Sylvia Browne, concerned that she was ripping off vulnerable, grieving people. We co-hosted a debate on assisted suicide. We held a mini-conference in May, “All About Vaccines”, to help educate people about vaccines because there is an outbreak of whooping cough here in BC, which is of course incredibly dangerous for babies. This event raised money for the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. We held a summer fundraiser for our branch, at which we also collected donations for our local Food Bank. Along with CFI Canada’s Executive Director, Michael Payton, our branch co-signed a letter to the Mayor of [omitted for now], objecting to his recent pro-life proclamation. We are holding a Halloween blood drive, and in the spring we are holding an event that will raise funds for a mental health charity.

But we also have a public Facebook discussion group, which anyone (not just CFI members) can join. It caused us major headaches in the past. And it is this Facebook group that trinioler is largely judging us by. While we never had problems with hate speech, rape threats, or anything like that (such comments would not, of course, be tolerated and would result in an immediate ban) there were indeed issues with sexist comments, there were issues with belligerence and hostility. People understandably got sick of the fighting and, with the support of the national leadership, a number of us — volunteers who care about our group, and care about decent online behaviour — drafted, refined and installed a set of guidelines for posting. We ditched the Facebook group, and started a new one from scratch, with the new rules in place. Volunteers have spent hours moderating the group, and discussing whether we thought rules had been broken and what to do about it. One particularly egregious case, which trinioler mentioned, was a thread in which a number of inappropriate comments were made about breasts. This thread triggered a real life meeting — more volunteer time — when we discussed what to do. This was back in June, soon after we had instituted our new rules. We knew that there would be teething troubles, while people got used to the new situation. (The new situation being that, no, it’s not the case that anything goes just because you’re sitting anonymously behind a computer. There are real people, with real feelings, who read your comments. Your words do indeed matter.) We decided that rules had been broken and we issued warnings as a result. Unfortunately, the fighting and unacceptable comments didn’t magically disappear over night and the Facebook group continued to cause us problems, but we have tried — tried very hard — to make it better. We have not just ignored the problems. We worked on them and continue to do so. We have issued warnings and we banned someone who made threats in a different Facebook group. And our Facebook group is much better. It’s not perfect, but we’re working on it.

Some volunteers (and non-volunteers) weren’t happy with the speed of our progress on the Facebook discussion group, and decided to leave the Facebook group. That’s healthy. If a Facebook discussion group is causing you stress, and isn’t pleasant for you to engage in — it makes sense to leave. But these same volunteers have not left CFI-[omitted for now]. They come to volunteer meetings, they come to our events, they work on organizing events, they contribute to our fundraising activities, they help out in various ways behind the scenes. A great deal of CFI-[ditto] energy goes into our events — creating a real life community (as well as a Facebook community), doing some real life work, making the world a better place. That’s where most of our volunteers are inclined to direct their energy.

I  completely agree with trinioler that ignoring sexism can be divisive. It’s no doubt true that if the administrators of CFI-[ditto] had ignored the sexism in our Facebook group, then we would have lost volunteers and CFI members. But the facts are that CFI-[ditto] did not, and does not, ignore the sexism on our page, and so we have not lost volunteers because of it. I am proud of our volunteer team and their hard work. I also enjoy working with them and I care about them as people. Their concerns are certainly not ignored.

CFI-[ditto is currently in the process of arranging a presentation by Desiree Schell, who will be talking with our group later this month about what the atheist movement can learn from the social justice movement. I sincerely hope that trinioler will join us. The more people with energy and enthusiasm working to get things done, the better.

Zena Ryder

[branch omitted for now]

[location omitted for now]

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Freedom of speech and thought according to Erdoğan

Sep 17th, 2012 10:25 am | By

Erdoğan has big plans. Erdoğan wants to make it globally illegal to say anything critical of Islam. Erdoğan calls saying anything critical of Islam “Islamophobia” and then demands that “Islamophobia” be made a crime against humanity.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has stated that Turkey recognizes anti-semitism as a crime, while not a single Western country recognizes Islamophobia as such.

That’s because the two are not comparable, and they’re not comparable because “Islamophobia” is the wrong word for hatred of Muslims. The “semitism” in anti-semitism picks out a set of people, even though it’s a clumsy way of doing it. “Islamophobia” picks out a religion, not its followers.

Erdoğan commented on the 14-minute trailer for “Innocence of Muslims,” an obscure film that mocks the Prophet Muhammad, which sparked violent riots across various Muslim nations.

There’s that lazy journalistic trope again, that a film or book or cartoon “sparked” violent riots, thus making the film or book or cartoon guilty along with its creator. It’s not that simple.

Erdoğan said he will continue to give messages at the next UN General Assembly meeting about adopting international legislation against insulting religion. “I am the prime minister of a nation, of which most are Muslims and that has declared anti-semitism a crime against humanity. But the West hasn’t recognized Islamophobia as a crime against humanity — it has encouraged it. [The film director] is saying he did this to provoke the fundamentalists among Muslims. When it is in the form of a provocation, there should be international legal regulations against attacks on what people deem sacred, on religion. As much as it is possible to adopt international regulations, it should be possible to do something in terms of domestic law.”

No, there shouldn’t; no, it shouldn’t. What people deem sacred is very often also what allows them to impose horrible rules and limitations on women, other races, “polluted” people, and the like. The deeming sacred is what makes the horrible rules and limitations immune from criticism and even laws. People in Virginia can deny their children education on religious grounds and no other. The concept of “sacred” is not such a great thing.

He further noted, “Freedom of thought and belief ends where the freedom of thought and belief of others start. You can say anything about your thoughts and beliefs, but you will have to stop when you are at the border of others’ freedoms. I was able to include Islamophobia as a hate crime in the final statement of an international meeting in Warsaw.”

Erdoğan said the government will immediately start working on legislation against blasphemous and offensive remarks. “Turkey could be a leading example for the rest of the world on this.”

No. I can say anything about my thoughts and beliefs, and I can say anything about yours, too.

That’s really a staggeringly benighted thing to say, when you look at it. “Freedom of thought and belief ends where the freedom of thought and belief of others start.” So freedom of thought and belief doesn’t include discussing any thought and belief other than your own! You can’t discuss Mill if you’re not a Millian, Plato if you’re not a Platonist, Freud if you’re not a Freudian – in short, you can’t discuss at all.

No wonder people tend to be critical of Islam, if this is the mindset it fosters.

 

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Return of the fatwa

Sep 17th, 2012 9:11 am | By

The usual stupid “rage” about the prophet-bashing movie is spreading around the world – Afghanistan and Indonesia basking in the rays today – and Iran has joined the fun by renewing the fatwa on Salman Rushdie and adding half a million bucks to the pot.

Iran has seized on widespread Muslim outrage over a film insulting the Prophet Mohammad to revive the death threat against Salman Rushdie, raising the reward for killing him by US$500,000 (£320,000).

Ayatollah Hassan Sanei, head of a powerful state foundation providing relief to the poor, said the film would never have been made if the order to execute Rushdie, issued by the late Iranian spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, had been carried out.

Well that’s a fucking stupid claim. What, if Khomeini had succeeded in bribing someone to murder Rushdie for writing a novel, then all criticism of (and disdain for) would have dried up because the source was cut off? I hate to tell you, Mr Sanei, but Salman is not the only person in the world who is critical of Islam in some way. He never has been, and he certainly isn’t now. There’s a lot to be critical of in Islam. Furthermore, if the fatwa had succeeded, if Rushdie had been “executed” (by which of course he means murdered), there would be more criticism of (and disdain for) Islam, not less. Why? Because reasonable people don’t think it’s admirable or even acceptable for heads of state to offer bribes to murder novelists (or anyone else). Khomeini would have created whole new levels of hatred of Islam. He has anyway, and he would have done so all the more if the fatwa had won.

That’s true of all these shits, of course. They all make us hate Islam more, and more, and more. If universal love and respect for Islam is what they want, they’re going about it the wrong way. Boko Haram? Hate it. The Taliban? Hate it. Salafists? Hate them. Sharia? Hate it. The Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam? Hate it.

If the imam’s order [had been] carried out, the further insults in the form of caricatures, articles and films would not have taken place. The impertinence of the grudge-filled enemies of Islam, which is occurring under the flag of the Great Satan, America and the racist Zionists, can only be blocked by the absolute administration of this Islamic order.

Nope. Dead wrong. If the imam’s illegal and presumptuous “order” had been carried out, there would have been a whole new generation of further “insults.” You’re murderous and stupid and authoritarian, so we have contempt for you. That’s how it works.

Although Ayatollah Sanei has offered financial rewards for carrying out the edict in the past, he said Muslim anger over the recent film meant the time was now ripe.

“The aim [of the fatwa] has been to uproot the anti-Islamic conspiracy and now the necessity for taking this action is even more obvious than any other time,” he said. “I’m adding another $500,000 to the reward and anyone who carries out this order will immediately receive the whole amount.” The total bounty is now $3.3m (£2.1 m).

“Compassion is at the heart of every great religion.”

It is unlikely that Ayatollah Sanei, personal representative of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on the 15th Khordad Foundation, was acting without higher approval. In 2005, Ayatollah Khamenei himself reaffirmed the fatwa while addressing pilgrims preparing to visit Mecca.

In a speech last Friday, he decried the film as the work of US imperialism and “Zionism” and linked it to other perceived western attacks on Islam, including The Satanic Verses and the Danish cartoon contest depicting the Prophet Mohammad.

We are allowed to do that. You are not allowed to murder us.

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Amplification and glamorization

Sep 16th, 2012 5:23 pm | By

I like to get useful advice, and helpful suggestions for how to learn more about things so that I can understand better and not be wrong. I saw some advice on Twitter about what to do about internet trolls.

If you want to understand why jumping up & down in outrage isn’t the best reponse to internet trolling, you could do worse than learn about old-style Chicago School subcultural theories of deviance. Albert Cohen & Walter Miller, in particular, would be relevant.

In one way that advice is odd, because it comes from someone who has done a lot of “jumping up and down” (which I think means talking or writing) in outrage about “FTBullies” for many months…but then again maybe the best response to internet trolls is radically different from the best response to bullies (FT or otherwise), so that the advice is not odd at all. Or maybe the best response to internet trolls is exactly the same as the best response to bullies – which would be my guess, since I think they’re pretty much the same kind of thing - so the advice is odd in that way but still good advice. Maybe the jumper up and down suddenly remembered about subcultural theories of deviance, and realized the jumping had been a waste of leg muscles.

So anyway – who knows lots about Chicago School subcultural theories of deviance and can fill us in? Of course I consulted Google and Wikipedia, the library being closed today, but I need more.

In criminology, subcultural theory emerged from the work of the Chicago School on gangs and developed through the symbolic interactionism school into a set of theories arguing that certain groups or subcultures in society have values and attitudes that are conducive to crime and violence.

Looks like a tautology to me, but whatever.

The reformed jumper also offered a dark warning about deviance amplification, which is something I had heard of. Wikipedia is more helpful here.

According to Cohen the spiral starts with some “deviant” act. Usually the deviance is criminal, but it can also involve lawful acts considered morally repugnant by a large segment of society. With the new focus on the issue, hidden or borderline examples that would not themselves have been newsworthy are reported, confirming the “pattern”.

Reported cases of such “deviance” are often presented as just “the ones we know about” or the “tip of the iceberg“, an assertion that is nearly impossible to disprove immediately. For a variety of reasons, the less sensational aspects of the spiraling story that would help the public keep a rational perspective (such as statistics showing that the behavior or event is actually less common or less harmful than generally believed) tend to be ignored by the press.

As a result, minor problems begin to look serious and rare events begin to seem common. Members of the public are motivated to keep informed on these events, leading to high readership for the stories, feeding the spiral. The resulting publicity has the potential to increase the deviant behavior by glamorizing it…

Ah yes, I get it – this is the sociologists’ version of “Ignore the trolls.” There’s a problem with that, which is that a particular behavior may be minor in the great scheme of things (and internet trolling certainly fits that bill), but that doesn’t mean it’s minor to the people splashed by it. Most behaviors are “minor” compared to something else. This planet is minor compared to the universe, but it’s not minor to us because we live on it. Also – blogs aren’t the same kind of thing as The New York Times or CNN.

Jason has a related post, on The scope of the problem and the availability heuristic.

 

 

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A kinder gentler Old Testament

Sep 16th, 2012 12:28 pm | By

I think Richard Dawkins called the UK’s ”Chief Rabbi” (whatever that is) a very nice man somewhere on RDF before their BBC debate. I thought at the time that that was dubious, and it seems all the more so now that the CR, Jonathan Sacks, has said RD’s description of the Old Testament god in The God Delusion is “profoundly anti-Semitic.”

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Sacks really is a nice guy, and just says and does and thinks some nasty things. That can be the case, obviously. But enough quantity or quality of nastiness and you no longer have a nice person.

The thing I dislike about Sacks is his boast about being glad his dying father didn’t have the option of assisted suicide, because the long time it took him to die gave Sacks the opportunity to show his father compassion. He didn’t say anything about what his father might have preferred – it apparently never crossed his mind that what his father wanted should trump what he wanted in that situation. That level of self-absorbtion makes real niceness difficult.

The dispute began with Prof Dawkins’ claim that a controversial passage from his 2006 book was intended to be “humorous”.

“The beginning of chapter two, which says the God of the Old Testament is the most unpleasant character in all fiction, that’s a joke,” he said in the early stages of the debate.

Later Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks said that Dawkins had misunderstood sections of the Hebrew Bible, which are also part of the Christian Old Testament, because he was a “Christian atheist” rather than a “Jewish atheist”.

It meant that Dawkins read the Old Testament in an “adversarial way,” he said, something that was “Christian” because the faith’s New Testament was believed to have “gone one better”.

“That’s why I did not read the opening to chapter two in your book as a joke, I read it as a profoundly anti-semitic passage.”

The text was read out loud by Lord Sacks at the debate.

It described “the God of the Old Testament” as a “vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser” as well as “misogynist”, “homophobic”, “racist”, “pestilential” and “infanticidal”.

“How you can call that anti-semitic, I don’t even begin to understand. It’s anti-God,” said Prof Dawkins.

I suppose I can begin to understand it, because there are such things as tropes and stereotypes, and they can be dangerous…But then the Old Testament can be dangerous too.

 

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All the rights they will let you have

Sep 15th, 2012 5:48 pm | By

Human Rights Watch says Tunisia’s draft constitution needs improvement. Now there’s a surprise.

The shortcomings in human rights protections largely concern the status of international human rights conventions ratified by Tunisia, freedom of expression, freedom of thought and belief, equality between men and women, and non-discrimination, Human Rights found in an analysis of the proposals.

Quite a few things, in other words. Quite important things.

Article 3 threatens freedom of expression by stipulating that, “The state guarantees freedom of belief and religious practice and criminalizes all attacks on the sacred.” This provision, which defines neither what is “sacred” nor what constitutes an “attack” on it, opens the door to laws that criminalize speech, Human Rights Watch said.

Anything for a quiet life, eh? But what if someone comes along who has a different idea of what “the sacred” is? Don’t ask.

Other provisions that cause concern are:

  • Article 3, which says that, “The state guarantees freedom of belief and religious practice,” but omits wording that would affirm freedoms of thought and of conscience, including the right to replace one’s religion with another or to embrace atheism. Human rights would be best protected by an explicit guarantee in the constitution of a right to change one’s religion or to have no religion, Human Rights Watch said.
  • Article 28 on women’s rights invokes the notion of complementarity of the roles of women and men inside the family, omitting the principle of equality between the sexes.
  • Article 22, stating that, “All citizens are equal in rights and freedoms before the law, without discrimination of any kind,” is contradicted by another article that states that only a Muslim can become president of the republic.

Familiar, and repellent.

 

 

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All it can

Sep 15th, 2012 11:22 am | By

Egypt’s Prime Minister wants the US government to do all it can to “stop people insulting Islam.”

Time out while I sigh a huge sigh.

No. Shut up. Fuck off.

First of all, there’s no such thing as “insulting” a religion to begin with. “Insult” is a human term. You can’t “insult” socialism or libertarianism or skydiving or birdwatching or apricots or cats.

What you mean is “disparage” or similer. We’re allowed to do that. Everyone should be allowed to do that.

If you tried to persuade the US government to do all it can to stop people disparaging Islam, you would still be doing a silly and bad thing. There’s a lot about Islam that cries out for disparaging, and the US government is very limited in its ability to tell us what to say. It’s a pity yours is not equally limited.

Here’s an idea for you: do all you can to stop mobs getting into stupid rages about perceived “insults” to a guy who’s been dead for 14 centuries.

 

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Photoshopped again!

Sep 15th, 2012 11:06 am | By

Kristina Hansen demonstrates her aversion to bullying again by turning me into an Amish crone in a bonnet. Hahahahahahahahaha she is one witty blogger.

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Another one

Sep 15th, 2012 11:00 am | By

In Cairo, it’s reported that a mob attacked a Christian man, who was then arrested for being an atheist.

An angry mob of Egyptians gathered around a Christian man’s home on Thursday evening, attacking the building and demanding the man be put to death for his beliefs. Police arrived as the mob grew in size, but instead of dispersing the crowd, the Christian man, Alber Saber, was subsequently arrested.

His charge? He was accused of being an atheist. The mob also accused him of disseminating the anti-Islam “film” that has created massive unrest among Muslims in the Islamic world.

Saber has since been held by police pending an investigation. An online Facebook page in solidarity with the man has been created and accuses the police of torturing him during initial interrogations.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong – a chain of wrong. Angry mob gather’s around someone’s house: wrong. Attacking the house: wrong. Demanding  the man be put to death for his beliefs: grotesquely wrong!! Police arrive and arrest the man but do nothing about the mob: wrong. Arresting the man for being an atheist: wrong. (The same would apply if they had arrested him for being a Christian.) Accusing him of disseminating the film: wrong. (None of their damn business.)

This is why we can’t have nice things. It’s either dictators or theocrats. Those are not the only possible choices! Jeez. Figure it out, people. Quickly.

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What makes a message grossly offensive?

Sep 15th, 2012 10:46 am | By

Bernard Hurley did a very informative comment about the law under which Azhar Ahmed was found guilty of  “posting an offensive Facebook message.” It’s too informative to hide in comments so here it is.

Bernard Hurley

Ahmed was prosecuted under clause 127(1)(a) of the Communications Act 2003. The purpose of the act is to define the rôle of OFCOM and to regulate such things a local radio and indeed any services running over publicly funded or partially publicly funded electronic networks. Section 127 is buried in the middle of it and reads:

127 Improper use of public electronic communications network (1) A person is guilty of an offence if he—

(a) sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character; or (b) causes any such message or matter to be so sent.

(2) A person is guilty of an offence if, for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another, he—

(a) sends by means of a public electronic communications network, a message that he knows to be false, (b) causes such a message to be sent; or (c) persistently makes use of a public electronic communications network.

(3) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable, on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, or to both. (4) Subsections (1) and (2) do not apply to anything done in the course of providing a programme service (within the meaning of the Broadcasting Act 1990 (c. 42)).

As far as I can tell, the intent of the legislation was to stop nuisance calls, but, as can be seen, it is very vague. The judgement is only in a magistrate’s court; personally I think it should be appealed. I think, Ophelia, you have put your finger on two legal problems. Which are:

(A) What precisely is a message in the context of services like Facebook?

and:

(B) What makes a message grossly offensive?

The second of these is dealt by the Law Lords decision in DPP vs Collins http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldjudgmt/jd060719/collin.pdf In this case Collins had sent repeated telephone messages to his MP in which he called immigrants and asylum seekers “Wogs”, “Pakis”, “Black bastards”, and “Niggers”. One question at issue were whether, in the given context, this was grossly offensive or merely offensive. The context includes the fact that the actual recipient of the message was likely a secretary or an intern and that Collins did not know or care whether this person would be offended.

The Law Lords found for the DPP (i.e. the messages were grossly offensive) however the criteria they used look like a legal minefield to me:

“Usages and sensitivities may change over time … there can be no yardstick of gross offensiveness otherwise than by the application of reasonably enlightened, but not perfectionist, contemporary standards to the particular message sent in its particular context. “The test is whether a message is couched in terms liable to cause gross offence to whom it relates.”

As to (A) it seems that a message has to have a recipient or group of recipients. I’m not sure what the distinction is as regards Internet communications. Is there a distinction between a blog post and a comment on the blog? Is there a distinction between posting something on your status and posting the same thing on someone else’s timeline? I’m not sure what Ahmed did and why it was considered to be a message.

However there is another interesting part of DPP vs Collins. It is made clear that the aim of this particular offence is to prevent a service provided and funded by the public, for the benefit of the public, for the transmission of communications from being used in a way that contravenes certain basic standards. In the UK most of the land line and internet backbone is publicly funded and in practice it is difficult to avoid using them. However it is clear that the law does not apply to a companies private network, it it does not use these services. It would presumably not apply to a message sent over a completely privately owned mobile phone network either.

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Storify fame

Sep 15th, 2012 10:25 am | By

Well there’s one thing about the ElevatorGATE stalker’s obsessive stalking and Storifying, which is that it makes it easy to point to some crazy.

I can’t remember why I decided to look at his Storify just now, but I did, to find that he’d storified a conversation I was still having with Amy and Glendon and Melody. Whew! Don’t I feel special! Being watched every second…yeah, that rocks.

But he also Storified this one, in which two people who have lived in totalitarian countries earnestly testified that yes indeed “they” really are totalitarians.

Absolutely; not hyperbole at all.

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No defence

Sep 14th, 2012 5:43 pm | By

Jacques Rousseau has a good post on The Bumblebee Affair and assigning blame and when bullying is what’s called for. (Spoiler: never.)

The takeaway:

No matter how you assign blame for past actions, or what your character judgements are in relation to all the players in this soap opera, we should all remember to include ourselves in those character judgements also, and try to be objective when thinking of our roles in causing or facilitating harm to others. In this instance, Ms Bumblebee has no defence – in the knowledge that Jen McCreight has been jeered off the stage, and had a long-standing depression triggered, she doesn’t take the option of silence (never mind sympathy). Instead, she broadens the net of victims to members of Jen’s family (and of course carries on with ridiculing Jen while doing so). That’s all “on her”, as the Americans like to say, no matter what sins you think Jen might have committed in the past.

Might be a handy insight for a workshop on bullying.

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In which I eat crow

Sep 14th, 2012 4:42 pm | By

A bit of housekeeping. I asked Chris Stedman about that whole business of my doing something not 100% unlike what Booly Wumblebee did the other day in the matter of Jen and her father. He replied honestly that he thought my self-repudiation should have been more public than comments. Fair enough!

It was June last year. The title was Helicopter parents. It was not my finest hour. I hadn’t even remembered it when I wrote the post about Kristina Hansen’s version. That’s one time when the obsessed haters who monitor my every word actually did get something right, and taught me something.

There are a lot of comments on the Helicopter parents post, but never mind that; they wouldn’t be there if I hadn’t written the post, and the blame is all mine.

Sorry, this all looks a bit self-obsessed and vain – you know, making a display of one’s scruples and so on. Ew. I hate that kind of thing. That’s not it – it’s because of what Chris very fairly and honestly said when I asked him.

I apologized to Toni Stedman at the time, and it didn’t occur to me that I should make that public. Now it’s public.

Now…if the pope starts getting family members to stick up for him when I go after him, I’ll be super-critical of them and I won’t apologize. But he’s the pope. I think that’s fair. Strict, but fair.

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

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The Virginia Taliban

Sep 14th, 2012 11:17 am | By

Parents in Virginia can prevent their children from getting any education at all if they want to, provided their reasons are religious. What a great arrangement.

Nearly 7,000 Virginia children whose families have opted to keep them out of public school for religious reasons are not required to get an education, the only children in the country who do not have to prove they are being home-schooled or otherwise educated, according to a study.

Virginia is the only state that allows families to avoid government intrusion once they are given permission to opt out of public school, according to a report from the University of Virginia’s School of Law. It’s a law that is defended for promoting religious freedom and criticized for leaving open the possibility that some children will not be educated.

 

The possibility? The near-certainty. The regulation of home schooling is appallingly lax in most states, and the result is children whose education consists of watching tv.

Home-school advocates say the law is essential to preserving the rights of families who believe that any state control of their children’s education would violate the tenets of their faith. It takes on particular importance in the state where Thomas Jefferson helped define religious freedom as a bedrock principle for the country.

“They feel that their deity has given them that responsibility,” said Amy Wilson of the Organization of Virginia Homeschoolers. For such families, she said, to have to file paperwork and evidence of progress would put them in a crisis of conscience.

So they get to stunt their children’s lives. Fabulous.

Block became interested in the statute years ago, when a teenager asked for help because her parents had requested a religious exemption from compulsory attendance when she was a little girl, and she later wanted to go to school. It wasn’t until Block and a research assistant began looking into the 1976 law that he realized it was unique.

Once parents in Virginia are granted a religious exemption, they’re no longer legally obligated to educate their children.

The statute does not allow exemptions for political or philosophical beliefs “or a merely personal moral code,” but the beliefs do not have to be part of a mainstream religion.

“We were surprised at how regularly the exemption is granted,” Block said. “School systems almost never deny it.” And, according to a survey of superintendents in the commonwealth, school leaders rarely have further contact with the families after granting an exemption.

Sorry, kids. It’s the free exercise clause. Have a nice life; bye!

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

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Another neighbor reports on Amish life

Sep 14th, 2012 10:08 am | By

A comment by Socio-gen, something something…

I grew up in northeastern PA in an area that had a small Amish population (about 80 families — or 18-ish depending on whether one counted households or kin relationships). My experience was pretty similar to yours [isavaldyr's].

Most of the families were dairy farmers, with the poorer men working “outside” jobs in construction. The wives and daughters often ran roadside vegetable and baked good stands, in addition to all the housekeeping and child-rearing — all made more difficult and labor-intensive by their refusal to use modern technology. Few Amish women had any schooling past the 6th grade.

The amount of abuse that Amish women and girls experienced (then and now), and the degree to which it’s simply accepted by everyone in the Amish community as an expected, normal, day-to-day experience is sickening.

Trigger Warning for a description of abuse: I still remember seeing the girl who sold baked goods on the corner being whipped by her father (with a buggy whip) for failing to sell as much as he’d expected. I was crying and begging my grandmother to stop the car and help. . . I was only 7 or 8 and didn’t understand any of her explanation of why we couldn’t interfere. Someone is being hurt, what do you mean we can’t do anything?! I’m still brought to tears by that memory and the sick sense of horror and utter helplessness. And I remember how disillusioned I was, realizing that adults could not be counted on to act to protect someone in danger.

From that day on, my grandmother would go to the stand on Saturday evenings and buy whatever was left so that Dora would not be hurt. It was the only form of protection she could offer (and which Dora would accept).

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Can’t drive, can’t throw, can’t shred

Sep 14th, 2012 9:11 am | By

And while I’m rummaging around on the BBC’s site – there’s also a piece on the Stasi.

“The Stasi was an organisation that loved to keep paper,” says Joachim Haussler, who works for the Stasi archives authority today.

It therefore owned few shredders – and those it did have were of poor East German quality and rapidly broke down. So thousands of documents were hastily torn by hand and stuffed into sacks. The plan was to burn or chemically destroy the contents later.

But events overtook the plan, the Stasi was dissolved as angry demonstrators massed outside and invaded its offices, and the new federal authority for Stasi archives inherited all the torn paper.

Typical feminists, eh? Can’t even tear up the records properly.

Ha!

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He will be sentenced later

Sep 14th, 2012 9:05 am | By

No no no; doing it wrong. A Yorkshire teenager has been found guilty of “posting an offensive Facebook message.” Posting an offensive Facebook message is a crime?

Azhar Ahmed, 19, of Ravensthorpe, West Yorkshire, was charged with sending a grossly offensive communication.

Waaaaait a second – posting a message on Facebook isn’t “sending” it. It’s more like publishing it. And does adding “grossly” to “offensive” make it a crime?

Apparently it was considered so because it was posted two days after six British soldiers were killed in Afghanistan.

The offensive message, which said “all soldiers should die and go to hell”, was posted by Ahmed just two days later on 8 March.

……….And?

Facebook has a reporting system. Perhaps the message could have been taken down. Perhaps it should have been – I don’t know enough to have an opinion. But prosecution and conviction? For posting a message on Facebook?

District Judge Jane Goodwin said Ahmed’s Facebook remarks were “derogatory, disrespectful and inflammatory”.

He will be sentenced later.

Oy. Doing it wrong.

 

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What happens within the movement

Sep 13th, 2012 5:46 pm | By

Stephanie has a good collection of items in her post Within the Movement - items that are more than just “trolls on the internet.”

    • If announcing a conference about the role of women in secularism on your organization’s site is met with charges of misandry or comments on a report of the conference have to be shut down, with the problems coming from registered users, that happens within the movement.
    • If a speaker and writer hosts a discussion for about a year that is devoted to tearing down those who call harassment an issue, posting personal information and lies, tracking everything said or tweeted in obsessive detail, that happens within the movement.
    • If an atheist organization’s leader declares publicly that what you received couldn’t have been a real threat and uses that organization’s podcast to grossly misrepresent what you did receive, that happens within the movement.

And that’s only some of it.

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What Amish life is really like, by an eyewitness

Sep 13th, 2012 1:22 pm | By

A comment by isavaldyr on Big Amish Brother. Life among the Amish.

I grew up in a very rural part of Ohio less than a mile from some Amish families. My parents, who were (and are) avid gardeners, had dealings with them related to seeds, produce and simple woodcraft–stakes for tomato plants, things like that. It’s not uncommon for the Amish to have small businesses. Sawmills (only gas-powered machines of course–being connected to an electrical grid is too worldly) and things like that. Less entrepreneurial Amish men often fall into the same niche that Mexican illegal immigrants do in many other places, providing cheap labor for things like home renovations, since Amish will work for less than an “English” roofer or sider and won’t sue you if they get hurt on the job.

Some Amish are fairly well-to-do and have pretty luxurious lives (by Amish standards–meaning they can afford battery-powered headlights and a plastic windscreen for their horse-drawn buggy), but the ones I grew up around lived in grinding poverty. Think subsistence agriculture. The father worked part-time picking fruit at an orchard, but no one else in the family had an income. And it was a BIG family. At least 12 kids–I wish I was exaggerating. Male children (often at really horrifyingly young ages) were expected to do the farm work, while female children did everything else. The family bathed once a week, all using the same tub of water and homemade soap made from animal tallow. The father and some of the older male children had shoes, but most of the family didn’t. A few years back, the mother died from cancer; she was younger than 50. A lot of Amish will go to chiropractors or veterinarians instead of medical doctors when they have health problems, or rely on folk remedies. I remember hearing about a man from another local Amish family who was badly burned in a workshop accident and rushed to the hospital by his English coworkers. He was bandaged and given instructions to come back for a follow-up appointment, but as soon as he got home he took his wound dressing off and went into the woods to gather herbs for a poultice. I wouldn’t believe that this kind of thing still went on in 21st century America if I hadn’t seen it myself.

Amish children go to special Amish schools whose curricula have little or no science and only go up to about 8th grade. They have inadequate nutrition, inadequate healthcare, and live in homes without running water or electricity, meaning no cooling in the summer and no heat in the winter that can’t be provided by a wood-burning stove. It’s hard for me to imagine what it’s like for the women, especially, who have to work outdoors in the brutal heat and humidity of the Ohio summer wearing heavy, black or dark blue-colored dresses and tight-fitting bonnets. They can’t even count on having a glass of ice water to cool down when they’re done–no freezer. (We’ve let this family use our freezer to store their meats more than once.) It’s just an awful, awful life of deprivation that “English” people, even poor ones, can scarcely imagine. It’s also worth noting that Amish parents very much believe in corporal punishment.

The thing that pisses me off is that the way Amish people live would be considered abusive to their children if “English” people did it. But because they believe it’s mandated by their religion, they get a free pass. People I know don’t understand why I get so worked up about the Amish, but I’ve lived around them, talked to them, seen where they live, and it’s awful. One thing I will always remember: when I was younger, we used to have a trampoline in our front yard, and whenever the Amish kids would come down to ask a favor of my parents or barter on behalf of their father, they got to jump on it, and they were more thrilled with it than I’ve ever seen anyone be about anything. They’d also stand outside and look in our livingroom window at the TV, standing utterly still and transfixed in complete wonder. It makes me sick to think of how many other amazing things they’ll never get to experience simply because they had the misfortune of being born into a religion that rejects the whole world.

 

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