Good; let’s everybody pile on Charles. He needs to be told his status doesn’t substitute for scientific training.

The heir to the throne may wish to use his privileged position to promote his organic produce while denigrating those of us who wish to use science to help feed the world. But he should at least do so from a position of scientific evidence rather than ideological dogma. He shows a common misunderstanding of how agricultural science works. What’s worse, though, is that his comments risk reinforcing the mistrust felt by much of the public about how their food is produced.

Because of who he is – which is exactly why he should be more cautious about mouthing off instead of less so. His irresponsibility is shocking to behold.

I am reminded of the suggestion made some time ago by Professor Steve Jones of University College London that the best thing the prince could do would be to take an A-level in biology: it would help him to understand the irrationality of his position.

Yes but that would be so plebeian. One isn’t just anyone, after all.

He also blames various ills on modern agriculture more generally – yet fails to see that GM technology could be the solution. He is worried, for instance, about the huge salination problems faced by farmers in many parts of the world. Soil becoming too salty is indeed a problem in places – but GM technology offers us the chance to develop crop varieties that will not just survive but thrive in such conditions.

Yes but you see – hem hem hem, excuse me I’m due at polo just now.

Not so fast Sir.

The Prince is as entitled to his views as anyone. What he is not entitled to do is share them with us. This has nothing to do with whatever merit they might or might not have. It has everything to do with the fact that one day he will be King…The attacks on further GM experiments – which, by definition, are designed to further our knowledge – expose the ignorance behind Prince Charles’s remarks. There is not a shred of evidence – not a jot, not a hint, not a fraction – that there is any risk from GM crops.

Yet his privileged position as next king means that his ignorant views get more exposure than those of people who know something about the subject. That’s bad, and the fact that he doesn’t seem to grasp this makes it worse. It doesn’t seem to cross his mind at all that he could be genuinely harming millions of people (could if his views are ever acted on, at least) and that he therefore ought to…shut up.

I’ve yet to hear Prince Charles decry the use of insulin for diabetics as a “real disaster”. But if he rejects, on principle, the idea of GM crops, he should, because the insulin used is genetically engineered – the human gene that codes for insulin has been transferred into bacteria and yeast, a process that involves crossing the species barrier. But then ignorance need not be consistent and when the Prince opens his mouth he serves only to advance the cause of an unthinking, irrational, ignorance as a basis for policy.

And that cause carries the risk of harming millions of people.

Charles and Bush should form a tiny little book group or something; they have a lot in common.

Charles is misusing his wealth and status again, taking advantage of his privileged position to lay down the law on subjects he knows nothing about.

Des Turner, a Labour MP and member of the Commons science committee, said: “Prince Charles has got a way of getting things absolutely wrong.
It’s an entirely Luddite attitude to simply reject them out of hand. In some developing countries where for instance there is a problem with drought or salinity, if you can develop salt or drought-resistant crops there are great benefits.”

Oh well you see that would require thinking about specifics, and Charles doesn’t want to do that, he just wants to use his unearned unmerited authority to make sweeping unsupported evidence-free Grand Statements. He should subscribe to the WMST list, he’d feel right at home.

In a statement setting the Prince against politicians who believe GM foods will be crucial to feeding under-nourished populations in the developing world, he said: “What we should be talking about is food security, not food production – that is what matters and that is what people will not understand.”

Horrible man. ‘What people will not understand’ indeed – spoken like a true royal. He has no expertise in this subject, he’s not a trained agronomist or economist or biologist, he’s not a scientist of any kind, yet he thinks he’s perfectly qualified to tell the world what ‘people’ obstinately ‘will not understand’ no matter how many times he orders them to. What we should be talking about is not food production – no matter how many people starve while Charles cuddles his fantasies about small farms and bijou apples.

Phil Willis, a Liberal Democrat MP and the chairman of the Commons science committee, said the Prince’s “lack of scientific understanding” would “condemn millions of people to starvation in areas like sub-Saharan Africa. The reality is that without the development of science in farming, we would not be able to feed a tenth of the world population, which will exceed nine billion by 2050.”

Yes but you see that’s specifics again and Charles is your grand generalization man. He wears expensive suits, he must be right.

Ian Gibson, a Labour MP and former lecturer in Biology, said: “Prince Charles should stick to his royal role rather than spout off about something which he has clearly got wrong.”

Trouble is, Charles thinks he’s a powerful thinker, and he acts on that mistaken view.

Mark Henderson does a good job of saying how Charles gets it all wrong.

Not exactly.

Of course, the novel will be published sooner or later. Writing about Muhammad has become the shortest cut to media attention in the west. And of course semi-employed young men and women from religious Muslim backgrounds will be out on the streets, shouting.

Women? No they won’t. You don’t see them out there much – which is not surprising, since in ‘religious Muslim’ countries they’re not always encouraged to join in, if you get my drift. But they also, quite possibly, have better sense. It tends to be the young men who work themselves into stupid frenzies about this kind of thing. Rage boy, remember? Rage girl not so much.

[E]ven very religious Muslims cannot ignore the west any more, and – unfortunately – the west, it appears, cannot ignore them either.

Well there are those tugs on the sleeve every now and then, you know. The exploding bus, the exploding airplane, the exploding building – they’re hard to ignore.

European newspapers compared the deferred novel on Aisha to two recent, and very sad, events: the protests that followed the publication of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and the Danish Muhammad cartoons, in which – wrote the Guardian objectively – “more than 100 people died”. The implication – unintended by the Guardian – is that about 100 people were killed by Islamic fundamentalists or protesters…But the fact remains that on both the occasions at least 80% of the people who died were Muslims protesting against Rushdie’s novel or the Danish cartoons. They were often shot by the police, sometimes in Muslim countries, when the protests got out of hand or were inconvenient.

I don’t think that is the implication. On the contrary. I think the intended implication is that the 100 people died because Rushdie’s novel and the Danish cartoons ‘sparked outrage’. The implication is not that Islamic fundamentalists killed each other, but that offended people were upset and then tragically got killed in the resulting violence, which was ultimately the fault not of the offended people or of the police but of the authors of the works that offended them. The BBC and the Guardian generally (though not this time) say that the novel or the cartoons ‘triggered’ or ’caused’ or ‘set off’ protests and riots – which is not true, and does imply that the novelist and the cartoonists did it on purpose or at least should have known better. So…Tabish Khair and I see the matter differently.

You know every now and then if you’re very good I give you a jolt from the Women’s Studies mailing list. I have one now, fresh in this morning. Someone wanting material for a course she’s going to teach.

the
course is a straight-up political science one on “democracy and
development,” but I’m looking to inject some feminism into it. I
think I’ve got some good stuff on the democracy side, but I’m looking
for:

1) articles on women’s/feminist engagement with “development” as a
discourse, or resistance to development projects
2) a film about the conflict between democracy and development–that
is, struggles against state-sponsored development projects that come
from democratic autonomous movements. Off the top of my head, I’m
thinking of action against dams in India, though I’m certain there
are good examples from elsewhere. I also know that women are at the
forefront of many of these struggles, so I’m hoping folks on this
list have some good ideas about where to turn for films on the subject.

I didn’t know resistance to development was feminist, did you? Funny, I thought underdevelopment was not all that good for women. I thought that when there are no schools and no roads and no plumbing that women don’t really thrive all that well. I thought that when there is poverty and resources are scarce, that most of the resources went to men and boys and women and girls got a lot less. I thought schools and books and transport and tools and technology and prosperity were better for women than poverty and backbreaking work and no education. But no – of course – that’s just silly. Development means malls and consumerism and parking lots and consumerism; has to be bad, and imperialist; the feminist thing is to live in a mud wallow and eat fleas for breakfast.

The Guardian also has a piece on the story, a subtly, covertly snotty one – snotty about Jones, not Spellberg. ‘The Jewel of the Medina, a first book by Sherry Jones, 46, was to have been released on August 12′ – what’s with that ’46’? It doesn’t say how old Spellberg is. The point seems to be that Jones is old for a first novel – which has to be just covert sneering, sneering that’s embarrassed to be overt about it. ‘She claims to have spent two years researching the novel’ – there it is again – she claims? Couldn’t that have been she said? Yes, but apparently that wouldn’t have been snide enough. For some reason, the Guardian had to frame this story as a veiled attack on Jones. Odd. Maybe they think she’s a horrible Islamophobe but they don’t have any evidence for that so they just thought they’d sneer at her in the meantime?

Spellberg told the Guardian yesterday that she had been receiving hate mail accusing her of acting as a censor for Muslim jihadis after the piece in the WSJ, which cast her as the sole academic critic of the novel.

Gee, now why would anyone accuse Spellberg as acting as a censor? I can’t imagine, can you?

Spellberg, however, was horrified by the end product. “It is not just that there were issues with historical accuracy. This was quite deliberately provocative. She objectified the wife of the prophet as a sex object and made her violent as well,” she told the Guardian. The book’s marketing blurb and the prologue, both online, suggest Spellberg had cause for her fears. The novel is a luridly written amalgam of bodice-ripper and historical fiction centred on Aisha, the favourite wife of the prophet Muhammad.

Has Suzanne Goldenberg read the novel? That seems unlikely, since it’s been pulled, and she doesn’t say she has, and she refers to the blurb and the prologue. But then why does she say the novel is luridly written? Is she just taking Spellberg’s word for it? If so, she should have said so. If she’s read the novel, she should have made that clear. At any rate, what does she mean ‘suggest Spellberg had cause for her fears’? So it’s a luridly written historical bodice-ripper, why would that suggest that Spellberg ‘had cause for her fears’ that ‘there is a very real possibility of major danger for the building and staff and widespread violence…it is ”a declaration of war…explosive stuff…a national security issue.”…it will be far more controversial than the satanic verses and the Danish cartoons’? It is not obvious why such a novel would cause ‘major danger for the building and staff and widespread violence’ or be ‘far more controversial than the satanic verses and the Danish cartoons’ – so why is the Guardian agreeing with Spellberg? Because she’s fighting the good fight against Islamophobia? Who knows. It’s all sickening stuff.

Denise Spellberg clears things up. She didn’t ‘single-handedly stop the book’s publication’ – ah that’s good to know; she had help. She says.

Random House made its final decision based on the advice of other scholars, conveniently not named in the article, and based ultimately on its determination of corporate interests.

Ah yes! Quite! Those bastards – those capitalist bastards – they have corporate interests – so really it’s Random House that is the guilty party here, not a ‘scholar’ who sees fit to tell someone to ‘warn Muslims’ about a novel and to tell Random House that said novel is ”a declaration of war…a national security issue’. Well certainly Random House acted like chickenshits, but deploying the right-on anticorporate jargon won’t quite deflect attention from the excited intervention of Spellberg. It’s too late for that, pal.

As a historian invited to “comment” on the book by its Random House editor at the author’s express request, I objected strenuously to the claim that “The Jewel of Medina” was “extensively researched,” as stated on the book jacket.

Fine – and you could have said that – in the usual way. That’s not the issue.

The author and the press brought me into a process, and I used my scholarly expertise to assess the novel. It was in that same professional capacity that I felt it my duty to warn the press of the novel’s potential to provoke anger among some Muslims.

But you didn’t just warn the press, did you. You also told Shahed Amanullah ‘to warn Muslims’ – was it ‘in that same professional capacity’ that you tried to arouse the very anger you warned Random House about? What was your goal in urging Amanullah to ‘warn Muslims’ if it wasn’t to stir up anger? And what, precisely, is professional about that?

There is a long history of anti-Islamic polemic that uses sex and violence to attack the Prophet and his faith. This novel follows in that oft-trodden path, one first pioneered in medieval Christian writings.

So what? Is ‘anti-Islamic polemic’ illegal or self-evidently illegitimate in some way? Is it your professional duty to determine that? (If so, why?) If you think that’s unfortunate, you could have just said that in your comment, but that’s not the same thing as setting off alarms all over the place.

The novel provides no new reading of Aisha’s life, but actually expands upon provocative themes regarding Muhammad’s wives first found in an earlier novel by Salman Rushdie, “The Satanic Verses,” which I teach. I do not espouse censorship of any kind, but I do value my right to critique those who abuse the past without regard for its richness or resonance in the present.

Bullshit. You’re all over the place. So the novel expands on provocative themes via Rushdie – again, so what? Novelists do that; novelists are influenced by other novelists (I rather think Rushdie himself is influenced by other novelists, and would say as much if you asked him); novelists expand on themes; so what? And so you teach The Satanic Verses; big whoop; are we supposed to be impressed, after all this? And as for that last bit of self-serving crap – of course you espouse censorship of any kind! You’ve just been doing exactly that, so you can’t just say you don’t when everyone can see you do. And – you didn’t just critique the Jones book, did you. You know you didn’t. Come on – ‘professional’ bullshit isn’t going to salvage your reputation now.

If Ms. Nomani and readers of the Journal wish to allow literature to “move civilization forward,” then they should read a novel that gets history right.

No doubt, but again, that is not the issue. You didn’t write a review, or a critique, or a comment for the publishers; you did much more than that; so it’s no good pretending you were merely proffering some healthful literary advice.

From the Dakar Declaration of the 2008 OIC summit.

Our faith in such a strategic option for the quest for peace in that part of the world [Basra? No. Kashmir? No. Darfur? No.]…illustrates our strict adherence to the values of Islam, a religion of peace that forbids all forms of exclusivity and extremism and that warrants the following quotation “You have been made a Prophet only to restore peace in the world”, which is based on a verse from the Holy Quran.

From the report on Saudi textbooks.

A Muslim is forbidden to love and aid the unbelieving enemies of God…They are the people of the Sabbath, whose young people God turned into apes, and whose old people God turned into swine to punish them…Narrated by Abu Hurayrah: The Prophet said, The hour [of judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. [It will not come] until the Jew hides behind rocks and trees. [It will not come] until the rocks or the trees say, ‘O Muslim! O servant of God! There is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him.’ Except for the gharqad, which is a tree of the Jews.”

A religion of peace that forbids all forms of exclusivity! As we see every day. You bet.

And another thing. Thomas Perry of Random House said, we are told, that Random House received ‘cautionary advice’ that the publication of the Aisha novel ‘might be offensive to some in the Muslim community’ – he said this in partial explanation of Random House’s decision not to publish it. But that’s imbecilic. It’s beyond imbecilic – it’s deranged – it’s surreal – it’s self-nullifying. It is not possible to write anything that ‘might’ not be offensive to ‘some’ in the X ‘community.’ In fact it’s all but certain that anything anyone writes will be offensive to ‘some’ in some ‘community.’ The condition of writing and publication is not and cannot be and must not be not being potentially offensive to ‘some’ – because that condition would rule out everything. Every single thing. There would be nothing left. Life would be a desert. The only alternative to the risk of offending ‘some’ is complete nullity. That’s too high a price to pay. If we want to be able to think and talk and write at all – and we do – we have to take the risk of offending ‘some.’

This one is so disgusting my teeth are chattering with rage – not quite literally, but it’s close. I feel as if my teeth were chattering with rage. What? A historian named Denise Spellberg was sent a novel about Aisha, the little girl Mo married when she was nine years old, and Spellberg decided she needed to get busy warning and threatening and silencing. And it worked.

Thomas Perry, deputy publisher at Random House Publishing Group, said that it “disturbs us that we feel we cannot publish it right now.” He said that after sending out advance copies of the novel, the company received “from credible and unrelated sources, cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.”

Especially if conscientious determined people worked hard enough to get the incitement of violence started, which it looks as though they would have. We have seen this before. (And then been told the ensuing riots were the fault of the people who had the temerity to draw the cartoons, rather than the fault of the people who put in a lot of effort to get people worked up. I hope we never have to hear that kind of thing again.) (The reporter is a Muslim, by the way, and she is upset by this revolting mess.)

This time, the instigator of the trouble wasn’t a radical Muslim cleric, but an American academic. In April, looking for endorsements, Random House sent galleys to writers and scholars, including Denise Spellberg, an associate professor of Islamic history at the University of Texas in Austin. Ms. Jones put her on the list because she read Ms. Spellberg’s book, “Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of ‘A’isha Bint Abi Bakr.” But Ms. Spellberg wasn’t a fan of Ms. Jones’s book. On April 30, Shahed Amanullah, a guest lecturer in Ms. Spellberg’s classes and the editor of a popular Muslim Web site, got a frantic call from her. “She was upset,” Mr. Amanullah recalls. He says Ms. Spellberg told him the novel “made fun of Muslims and their history,” and asked him to warn Muslims.

To warn them? To warn them of what? A threat on their lives? An approaching hurricane? A tsunami? The melting Arctic? Hungry polar bears? Homeland Security? No, of course not. To warn them of a book – a novel – a novel that Spellberg didn’t like. Knowing the impressive history that ‘warned’ Muslims have of respecting the freedom of the press and the value of open discussion and debate, Spellberg asked her friend to ‘warn Muslims’ about a novel. This makes me very, very, very angry. This causes me to have dark thoughts about wishing the University of Texas at Austin would summarily fire Spellberg for her failure to understand the most basic principles of intellectual life. What business does someone like that have at a university? What business does she have writing books and teaching? What right does she have to set herself up as a censor of other people’s work?

In an interview, Ms. Spellberg told me the novel is a “very ugly, stupid piece of work.” The novel, for example, includes a scene on the night when Muhammad consummated his marriage with Aisha: “the pain of consummation soon melted away. Muhammad was so gentle. I hardly felt the scorpion’s sting. To be in his arms, skin to skin, was the bliss I had longed for all my life*.” Says Ms. Spellberg…”I don’t have a problem with historical fiction. I do have a problem with the deliberate misinterpretation of history. You can’t play with a sacred history and turn it into soft core pornography.”

Who says you can’t? Under what jurisdiction can’t you? And who the hell assigned Denise Spellberg to decide? What on earth makes her think she has the right to shut down someone else’s book? Who (to be obvious about it) does she think she is?

Jane Garrett, an editor at Random House’s Knopf imprint, dispatched an email on May 1 to Knopf executives, telling them she got a phone call the evening before from Ms. Spellberg (who happens to be under contract with Knopf to write “Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an.”) “She thinks there is a very real possibility of major danger for the building and staff and widespread violence,” Ms. Garrett wrote. “Denise says it is ‘a declaration of war…explosive stuff…a national security issue.’ Thinks it will be far more controversial than the satanic verses and the Danish cartoons. Does not know if the author and Ballantine folks are clueless or calculating, but thinks the book should be withdrawn ASAP.”

She thinks there is a very real possibility because she herself has been busy trying to foment the possibility. That takes some brass-plated nerve.

I’d like to see her summarily fired, and I’d like to see Knopf withdraw that contract. I’d like to see her disgraced, shamed, an outcast. I’d like to see her have to get a job at a chicken-rendering plant in Odessa. At the very least I’d like to see her name become mud, which, judging by Google blog search, it’s well on the way to doing.

Denise Spellberg, self-appointed censor and destroyer of books: you should be embarrassed at yourself. You should go into a very different line of work, right away – you should not be allowed anywhere near students, and you should never get another book or article published.

*As mediwatchwatch said, all nine years of it.

P.S. Note that the last bit is a pious hope. I’m not telephoning people to urge them to fire Spellberg (much as I’d like to) or to decide not to publish her book (even more as I’d like to). I’m merely expressing a cherished dream. I’m a fantasist, not a censor. Unlike some people I could mention.

Well at least someone is paying attention.

Pakistan and the other nations that have banded together in the Organization of the Islamic Conference have been leading a remarkably successful campaign through the United Nations to enshrine in international law prohibitions against “defamation of religions,” particularly Islam. Their aim is to empower governments around the world to punish anyone who commits the “heinous act” of defaming Islam. Critics say it is an attempt to globalize laws against blasphemy that exist in some Muslim countries — and that the movement has already succeeded in suppressing open discussion in international forums of issues such as female genital mutilation, honour killings and gay rights.

Quite. David Littman is one of those critics. He tells me that no one is talking about this, because it’s taboo. I knew hardly anyone was talking about it, from trying to find people talking about it. People should be talking about this, if they want to go on talking about other things without having to ask the OIC for permission. People should be talking about this and shouting their heads off about it so that nothing will come of it.

The trend has rights advocates worried for numerous reasons, beginning with the language used. If the notion of “defaming” a religion sounds a little unfamiliar, that’s because it is a major departure from the traditional understanding of what defamation means. Defamation laws traditionally protect individual people from being materially harmed by the dissemination of falsehoods. But “defamation of religions” is not about protecting individual believers from damage to their reputations caused by false statements — but rather about protecting a religion, or some interpretation of it, or the feelings of the followers. While a traditional defence in a defamation lawsuit is that the accused was merely telling the truth, religions by definition present competing claims on the truth, and one person’s religious truth is easily another’s apostasy. “Truth” is no defence in such cases. The subjective perception of insult is what matters, and what puts the whole approach on a collision course with the human rights regime — especially in countries with an official state religion.

If the right to free speech can be trumped by a subjective perception of insult, then there is no right to free speech. That’s it. All over. (Just ask Taslima Nasreen, to name only one.)

Susan Bunn Livingstone, a former U.S. State Department official who specialized in human rights issues and also spoke to the July 18 congressional gathering, said the developments at the UN are worrisome. “They are trying to internationalize the concept of blasphemy,” said Livingstone at the panel. She contrasted “the concept of injuring feelings versus what is actually happening on the ground — torture, imprisonment, abuse.” And, she added, “They are using this discourse of ‘defamation’ to carve out any attention we would bring to a country. Abstractions like states and ideologies and religions are seen as more important than individuals. This is a moral failure.”

A moral failure and also a gutting of the whole concept of human rights. Rights are for individuals, who can experience and suffer and feel and think; they’re not for states and ideologies and religions, which cannot suffer or feel anything at all. The whole idea is an absolute nightmare.

The fact that the resolutions keep passing, and that UN officials now monitor countries’ compliance, could help the concept of “defamation of religions” become an international legal norm, said Livingstone, noting that when the International Court of Justice at The Hague decides what rises to the level of an “international customary law,” it looks not to unanimity among countries but to “general adherence.” “That’s why these UN resolutions are so troubling,” she said. “They’ve been passed for 10 years.”

Well – that scares the hell out of me.

In March, the [OIC] held a summit in Dakar, Senegal. Their final communiqué ran 52 pages and included a comprehensive strategy on human rights that featured a plan to shield Islamic states from being pressured to change their more contentious practices through international human rights laws and organizations. The conference expressed “deep concern over attempts to exploit the issue of human rights to discredit the principles and provisions of Islamic sharia and to interfere in the affairs of Muslim states.” It also called for “abstaining from using the universality of human rights as a pretext to interfere in the internal affairs of states and undermining their national sovereignty.” The states also resolved to coordinate and co-operate “in the field of human rights particularly in the relevant international fora to face any attempt to use human rights as a means of political pressure on any member state.”

Oh did it. How impressive.

‘Animal rights activists’ apparently firebombed a house where a biologist lives with his family at dawn on Saturday.

Feldheim, whose townhouse was firebombed just after 5:30 a.m., uses mice in laboratory research on brain formation. He told The Chronicle that he and his wife, along with their 7-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter, had to drop a ladder from the window of a second-floor bedroom to escape after smoke filled the home’s first floor.

So…they could easily have been killed or seriously injured. Rather a rough form of ‘activism’ then.

In January, a Molotov cocktail exploded on a UCLA researcher’s porch. A month later, six people in masks tried to force their way into the home of a UC Santa Cruz researcher and hit her husband on the head, police said. And at UC Berkeley, officials said 24 animal researchers and seven staffers have been harassed in recent months, with some homes and cars vandalized.

But don’t fret – they’re just trying to send a message. Jerry Vlasak says so.

A different view was expressed today by Jerry Vlasak, a Los Angeles spokesman for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, which often posts on its Web site communiques from activists taking credit for attacks. He said the benefit of animal research does not justify its expense or the exploitation of animals. Vlasak said the bombers likely were not trying to hurt Feldheim, but were instead “trying to send a message to this guy, who won’t listen to reason, that if he doesn’t stop hurting animals, more drastic measures will be taken … it’s certainly not an initial tactic, but a tactic of last resort.”

‘The bombers likely were not trying to hurt Feldheim’ – when they firebombed his house at 5:30 in the morning when everyone would be asleep in bed? They likely were not trying to hurt him? They were trying to send a message? Jeezis. If you’re going to support bombers, then be honest about it – don’t support them and pretend to think they’re not trying to hurt anyone when they fling firebombs around the neighbourhood. Your pals are not merely trying to send a message, Mr Vlasak.

I keep saying the Free Exercise clause is like an unexploded bomb.

Laura Schubert Pearson’s lawsuit accusing members of the Pleasant Glade Assembly of God Church of subjecting her to a two-day exorcism ordeal in 1996 that left her so distressed she attempted suicide was dismissed by the Texas Supreme Court last month. The judges overturned a lower court’s decision awarding her damages and ruled that because Mrs Schubert Pearson’s claims of injury amounted to a religious dispute over church doctrine it would be “unconstitutional” for the court to get involved.

Interesting. So if you’re tortured within the walls of a church it’s all copacetic because that there’s your free exercise of religion? And that’s the case even if you’re not even an adult at the time? Well, splendid.

So ‘Rev’ Anthony Hopkins (no not the Welsh actor) should just say he was exorcising demons and that’s how his wife ended up dead in the freezer after she discovered he’d been raping some of their children: that way he’ll be able to leave prison and go back to part-time preaching. Amen.

Do we want ‘Christian Voice’ telling newspapers what they can publish? No, we damn well don’t. We don’t trust ‘Christian Voice’ to choose wisely; we prefer to take our chances with competent newspaper editors rather than with puffed-up publicity-seeking tiny-minded religious zealots.

See the South Wales Echo grovel:

It has come to our attention that in an article on Wednesday, July 16, headlined ‘If God considers gays and abomination why did he create them?’, our columnist Dan O’Neill offended a number of Christians. We would like to apologise for any offence caused to those people who believe the article insulted the Christian faith, Jesus Christ and the Holy Bible.

Well how sickening. Why would they like to apologize? Any columnist is bound to offend a certain percentage of readers. One who is determinedly bland and boring in order not to offend anyone simply offends all the people who don’t like bland boring writing. It’s no good trying to put out a newspaper that won’t offend anyone! 1. it can’t be done, and 2. it damn well shouldn’t be done. And it certainly shouldn’t be done when what is supposed to have been ‘insulted’ is ‘the Christian faith, Jesus Christ and the Holy Bible.’ They can all take care of themselves, one way or another.

Andy Armitage provides the offending passage at Pink Triangle. The columnist was musing on what Stephen Green (Mr ‘Christian Voice’ himself, the dweeb) would have made of that weird Jesus guy:

This Jesus feller swans around all day with a dozen other blokes. No women. Mark that, no women. And he wanders off into the mountains now and again to spend quality time with his, uh, favourites (Mark.9:2). He picks up small boys and girls and puts his hands upon them (Mark 10:16) And he was seen in a garden when one of his mates came up and kissed him (Matthew,26:48). Suspicious, eh?

The point is that Green is a tool, not that Jesus is a child-groper, so what does Green do but act like a tool again. But the Echo simply jumped when Green said jump. We should all get together and go stand around the Echo’s offices complaining about how offended we are. You too, Mediawatchwatch.

The Freethinker set up a petition. I posted it on Facebook as well as in News, but there are only ten more signatures so far. Go on, fill it up, do us proud – and do the Echo embarrassed.

You spotted the irony, I trust?

Once again, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice misses its goals…The latest action from the commission is to ban the sale of cats and dogs in Riyadh. According to Al-Hayat newspaper, the reason behind the ban is a fatwa and the reason behind the fatwa is that some young men take dogs out into the street and use them to annoy families; the fatwa also points out that the ban aims to preserve public morals.

Because dogs like to shove their noses unceremoniously into people’s crotches, and cats probably would if they were tall enough. But no, that’s not the irony.

A person can in fact use anything to harass people — mobile phones, the lights of his car, or loud music coming from his car. So are we going to ban the use of mobile phones in public? Or will we wake tomorrow to the news that young men are no longer allowed to drive in public areas? All I am asking for is some logic and reasonable thinking.

That’s the irony. Shock-horror, will we wake tomorrow to the news that young men are no longer allowed to drive in public areas? Good heavens no, but you’ve already woken up to the news that all women are not allowed to drive in public areas. The reductio ad absurdum has already happened, so it seems a little…unobservant to balk at a hypothetical restraint on young men when the same restraint is already in place on all women. But then living in Saudi Arabia probably does make it quite difficult to Spot the Absurdity.

Did you have a look at the report on Saudi textbooks? It’s horrible, horrible stuff. It’s sickening to read. You feel despair that there are people in the world going about things in this way, ‘teaching’ children in this way. You feel disgusted with human beings.

A 2005-2006 Fourth Grade textbook on Monotheism and Jurisprudence instructs students to “hate (tubghida) the polytheists and the infidels” as a requirement of “true faith.” Incongruously, the same sentence instructs that they are not to treat the infidels “unjustly,” but does not provide any clarification of what this meant.

“ Is belief true in the following instances?

a. A man prays but hates those who are virtuous.
b. A man professes that there is no deity other than God but loves the infidels.
c. A man worships God alone, loves the believers, and hates the infidels.”

The only right answer is ‘c’ – you have to hate the infidels.

“A Muslim is forbidden to love and aid the unbelieving enemies of God…They are the people of the Sabbath, whose young people God turned into apes, and whose old people God turned into swine to punish them. As cited in Ibn Abbas: The apes are Jews, the keepers of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christian infidels of the communion of Jesus…They are the Jews, whom God has cursed and with whom He is so angry that He will never again be satisfied [with them].

That’s 8th grade. Then in 9th grade –

“Narrated by Abu Hurayrah: The Prophet said, The hour [of judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. [It will not come] until the Jew hides behind rocks and trees. [It will not come] until the rocks or the trees say, ‘O Muslim! O servant of God! There is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him.’ Except for the gharqad, which is a tree of the Jews.”

This is Saudi Arabia – our ‘ally’ – with whom we are told we ‘share values.’ It’s enough to make you sick.

‘The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy’ attempts to throw its weight around.

The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy (a national association of 600 priests & deacons) respond to the sacrilegious and blasphemous desecration of the Holy Eucharist by asking for public reparation…We find the actions of University of Minnesota (Morris) Professor Paul Myers reprehensible, inexcusable, and unconstitutional. His flagrant display of irreverence by profaning a consecrated Host from a Catholic church goes beyond the limit of academic freedom and free speech.

Unconstitutional? How’s that?

The same Bill of Rights which protect freedom of speech also protect freedom of religion. The Founding Fathers did not envision a freedom FROM religion, rather a freedom OF religion.

Clever; we’ve never heard that before. But however fresh and original, it’s still stupid and wrong. Freedom of religion of course does include freedom from religion. Freedom of religion necessarily includes the freedom to say No to all the choices on offer; it even includes the freedom to say No to any possible choices. If it doesn’t it isn’t freedom of religion, it’s freedom among religions, which is a much smaller and pettier freedom.

In other words, our nation’s constitution protects the rights of ALL religions, not one and not just a few. Attacking the most sacred elements of a religion is not free speech anymore than would be perjury in a court or libel in a newspaper.

No; wrong again. Our nation’s constitution does not protect the rights of religions. Religions don’t have rights; rights are not things ascribed to abstractions or institutions, they are ascribed to people or people and other sentient beings (animals). Rights are connected to the ability to experience something. Religions don’t have rights. Individual believers have rights; religions do not. And as for the second sentence – that’s just a flat-out absurdity. It’s simply obviously not true. Clearly the priests would like it to be true, but it isn’t true, because the US is not a Catholic dictatorship.

[P]ublicly burning copies of the Christian Bible or the Muslim Koran, especially by a faculty member of a public university, are just as heinous and just as unconstitutional.

No. These guys just can’t get their facts right. Burning copies of the Bible or the Koran is not unconstitutional. It just isn’t.

Individual freedoms are limited by the boundaries created by the inalienable rights of others. The freedom of religion means that no one has the right to attack, malign or grossly offend a faith tradition they personally do not have membership or ascribe allegiance.

Oh, godalmighty…These poor schmucks are so delusional. No, no, no, you saps, the freedom of religion does not mean that no one has the right to ‘malign or grossly offend a faith tradition’ unless they belong to it. Jeezis. I, for one, have the right to malign your horrible faith tradition, that does its best to prevent women from being able to limit how many children they have, that does its best to prevent men from wearing condoms during a raging pandemic of a lethal STD. We all have that right. And people like you telling us we don’t just motivates us to exercise that right all the more. If you stopped trying to force everyone to genuflect to your particular piety, we wouldn’t take the time to play with crackers. But as it is – well gee, bring out the Cheez-whiz.

Moving on, from the sadistic to the ridiculous – Birmingham Council won’t let its staff read atheist websites. (So can Birmingham Council staffers read B&W? I wonder. I know B&W is banned in Iran [yes, I am proud of that, and so would you be, so quit staring] so perhaps its Bluecoat Software can detect heterodoxy just as well as Iran can. I’d love to know.)

The rules also ban sites that promote witchcraft, the paranormal, sexual deviancy and criminal activity…The authority’s Bluecoat Software computer system allows staff to look at websites relating to Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and other religions but blocks sites to do with “witchcraft or Satanism” and “occult practices, atheistic views, voodoo rituals or any other form of mysticism”.

Gee, thanks. Criminal activities, Satanism, voodoo rituals – and atheism. And then people wonder why atheists get a little crabby now and then.

(Thanks to Roger Lancefield for pointing this out.)

Next up we have an Archbishop in the Philippines saying why contraception is such a bad terrible wicked thing.

Archbishop Lagdameo argued the bill would not solve the problems of population growth but would only undermine the dignity of marriage and endanger women. He said that artificial contraceptives cause physical and psychological harm to women.

Whereas having children that they don’t want to have causes no physical and psychological harm to women at all, good heavens no. Women are invariably better off if they are forced to produce as many children as they can churn out, no matter how poor they are, no matter how much they might prefer to have one child or two children that they could hope to feed well and educate well rather than five or ten or fifteen that they couldn’t, no matter how desperately they want to do well by a small number of children rather than hopelessly badly by an unmanageable number – no no, that is all an illusion, god knows better and Archbishop Lagdameo knows better and the pope knows better; they all know that really – despite appearances – all those emaciated malaria-ridden illiterate children and their exhausted despairing frustrated parents with their demolished hopes are a far better outcome than a smaller number of healthier educated children. Of course. Because – um – god will provide. As we have seen. There are no starving malaria-ridden illiterate children really – god swoops in at the last minute and makes everything come out all right for them. Archbishop Lagdameo hands out popsicles and college scholarships and everyone has a good laugh and the dog has puppies and roll credits.

Archbishop of Manila Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, addressing the crowd after the Mass, said couples should instead practice sexual self-control.

Why? Why, you miserable shits? Why, when there are ways to have and enjoy sex and prevent conception, should they spurn the harmless technology and practice sexual self-control instead? What is the point?

There is no point. It’s just control-freakery, it’s just pushing people around and making them be miserable for the sake of it. Either do without sex despite being married, or have four times as many children as you can care for properly, or burn in hell for eternity. Why? Because.

Why does this kind of thing get me so riled? Because it’s so hateful. It’s so careful not to be about what is actually good and beneficial for people, it is so careful not to take that into account, or to take it into account only to do the opposite. Because these god-huggers have power, believers listen to them, and the bastards use it to make people worse off. And they do it with a glow of self-righteousness, too. They should be squirming with shame.

More bullshit from the Catholic News Agency.

Colorado for Equal Rights, an organization backing a measure on the Colorado ballot that would define a person in the state’s Constitution as “any human being from the moment of fertilization,” has released a list of over 70 physicians and pharmacists from around the United States who agree that a person includes any human from the moment of conception.

‘Any human being from the moment of fertilization’…That’s an interesting idea: a microscopic fertilized egg is a human being and a person, even though of course…it isn’t. Let’s define everything that way. A daffodil bulb is a daffodil. A swallow’s egg is a swallow. A caterpillar is a butterfly. A truckload of boards is a house. A bowl of batter is a chocolate cake. Milk is yogurt. Grapes are wine. Yee-ha. Let’s just ignore process, and time, and development, and change, and decide that everything is already what it could become if all the conditions are right for it to become that thing (which will mean some things will be more than one thing, which will be confusing, but no matter), and forget all these bogus distinctions between what is the case now and what will be the case in many days or months or years if a particular process occurs. Let’s just define things any old how we want to. Why not? This is a democracy, god damn it.

It’s a democracy, but it’s a democracy with professionals in it, and more than 70 (that’s a lot) medical professionals ‘agree’ that a person includes any human from the moment of conception. Which is helpful, because it’s a medical and pharmaceutical question. Isn’t it? But then if it is, why could they manage only 70? They could probably get more than 70 physicians and pharmacists to agree that antibiotics are worse than useless for viruses, so if they could get only 70 for this…Hmmwell maybe that doesn’t actually mean much of anything.

“We are honored to have received these endorsements from such respected physicians,” stated Kristi Burton, head of Colorado for Equal Rights. “Science clearly proves that life begins at the time of fertilization. We are secure in the fact that we have science and reason on our side, and we are pleased to have the medical community supporting our efforts.”

Life? What’s life got to do with it? You didn’t say life, you said person. What are we talking about here?

Really; what are we talking about here? Life is the wrong criterion; life is completely beside the point on this issue. Life is everywhere; lots and lots of things are alive; we don’t preserve everything that’s alive. Dandelions; mildew; bacteria; viruses; fleas; chickens; beans. The dispute isn’t about whether or not the fertilized egg is alive. Start over.

The Cairo Declaration differs sharply from the Universal Declaration overall in its emphatic rejection of universalism, in rejecting the UD’s ‘without exception’ in favour of firm, decided exceptions. In the detail, the CD differs from the UD in its avoidance of clarity, precision and openness and hence accountability and reliability. The Cairo Declaration injects exceptions into its concept of human rights, without spelling out exactly what they entail; this introduces a whole new element of doubt, uncertainty and fear into what is supposed to be a human rights document. Worse, it presents itself as a human rights document (of sorts) when in fact it puts anyone who subscribes to it in the position of (perhaps unknowingly) endorsing laws, restrictions and punishments that are human rights violations rather than human rights.

The raison d’être of the Cairo Declaration is the idea that the Universal Declaration is not in fact universal – that it is ‘Western’ and Judeo-Christian, that it does not work for non-Western cultures, that it ‘could not be implemented by Muslims,’ in the words of the Iranian representative to the UN. So by comparing the two and finding how they differ it is possible to figure out what – in the view of the people who drew up the Cairo Declaration and those who signed on to it, at least – can be ‘implemented by Muslims.’

We find out, generally, via Articles 24 and 25, that all rights are subject to Sharia, and via the Cairo Declaration as a whole, we find out that the authors are willing to make human rights subordinate to Sharia without ever spelling out what that could mean, what it presumably means, what in many countries governed by Sharia it in fact does mean. The Cairo Declaration doesn’t mention stoning to death for adultery, or the death penalty for apostasy, or forced marriage, or child marriage, or guardian laws, or laws forbidding women to travel, work, or go to school without male permission. The Cairo Declaration rejects the Universal Declaration, and stands out for its own version of human rights, yet it does it in a secretive way.

In fact it is difficult not to conclude that the authors of the Cairo Declaration did not start with first principles and attempt to create the best human rights document they could, but rather that they started with existing regimes and legal codes in existing majority-Muslim countries, and then wrote the Cairo Declaration so that it would match the existing laws – adding 24 and 25 at the end in case they’d left anything out. This is bad enough, and the fact that this is done without transparency makes it even worse. The Cairo Declaration takes a declaration of rights that is, deliberately, as clear and open and explicit as possible, and renders it vague instead of precise, obscure instead of clear, tacit instead of explicit. It injects an element – a large element – of uncertainty, blurring, non-precision, danger, threat; in article after article, it merely invokes Sharia without saying what that means. With the Universal Declaration we know where we are and with the Cairo Declaration we don’t – the rights are limited, and in ways that are not specified or spelled out. The Universal Declaration is both general and specific; the Cairo Declaration is particular where the Universal Declaration is general and vague where the UD is precise.

The result is that the Cairo Declaration does away with the transparency, clarity, and specificity and hence the accountability and also the confidence. With the Universal Declaration it is easy to understand what is meant. With the Cairo Declaration, repeatedly, there is a trap door: an impossibility of knowing what is meant. We go from open, clear, spelled out intentions, which are clearly meant to maximize the well-being of all people, without exceptions, to secretive, cryptic, frightening stipulations whose benevolence is by no means clear.