Inciting Violence

Posted on September 22, 2014 by wellsdc

There may be a serious problem with understanding the legal definition of “incitement”:

Fox News contributor Father Jonathan Morris on Sunday called for officials in Oklahoma City to shut down a Satanic black mass because he said worshippers were “inciting violence” by mocking Christians.

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[I]n a segment titled “The Fight For Faith” on Sunday, Morris explained to the hosts of Fox & Friends that he felt “bad” for anyone who participated in the event.

“You get yourself into something that is, first of all, satanic, that is supernatural,” he said. “They believe that as soon as you connect yourself with evil, evil stuff happens. I feel very bad for them.”

Morris acknowledged that Satanists had a “political right” to worship, but he said that the city also had a “responsibility to defend the good governance of its people.” Continue reading →

What I’m Reading, May 23, 2014

Posted on May 23, 2014 by wellsdc

By User Magnus Manske on en.wikipedia [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Anti-Choicers Desperately Insist You See Things That Are Clearly Not There, Amanda Marcotte, RH Reality Check, May 12, 2014

To hear the lurid descriptions of what anti-choicers imagine abortion to be, it seems that they imagine someone killing an actual baby. Upending that narrative and reminding people, through incontrovertible visual proof, that during a first-trimester abortion the embryo is so small as to barely register as a potential baby, much less an actual baby, might be the most threatening part of the Letts video. Her stomach is flat. The abortion is quite obviously a quick gynecological procedure. If she had stayed pregnant, eventually there would be a baby. But it’s clear as could be, watching the video, that only fantasists have the ability to see “baby” where realists see nothing more than the beginning of a long process known as “pregnancy.” It’s no more a baby than a seed is a tree.

While the debate over abortion is really about sexuality and women’s rights, the official line from anti-choicers is that they’re against killing “babies,” and so this probably is pretty embarrassing for them, because it reveals that their cover story is perhaps even sillier than their fears about female sexuality. So, their effort to save face involves multiple variations of “Don’t believe your lying eyes! Just because you can’t see a baby doesn’t mean there isn’t a baby there!”

The Myth Of White, Heterosexual Christian Entitlement, Manny Schewitz, Forward Progressives, May 12, 2014 Continue reading →

Signal Boost: “Conscientious Objectors” in Health Care

Posted on May 16, 2014 by wellsdc

From “Why We Need to Ban ‘Conscientious Objection’ in Reproductive Health Care,” by Joyce Arthur, Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, and Christian Fiala, Gynmed Clinic for Abortion and Family Planning. Published at RH Reality Check, May 14, 2014:

Do health-care professionals have the right to refuse to provide abortions or contraception based on their “conscientious objection” to these services? Many pro-choice activists would retort, “No way! If you can’t do your job, quit and find another career!” We agree with them, and have detailed why in our new paper, “‘Dishonourable Disobedience’: Why Refusal to Treat In Reproductive Healthcare Is Not Conscientious Objection.”

Reproductive health care is the only field in medicine where freedom of conscience is accepted as an argument to limit a patient‘s right to a legal medical treatment. It is the only example where the otherwise accepted standard of evidence-based medicine is overruled by faith-based actions. We argue in our paper that the exercise of conscientious objection (CO) is a violation of medical ethics because it allows health-care professionals to abuse their position of trust and authority by imposing their personal beliefs on patients. Physicians have a monopoly on the practice of medicine, with patients completely reliant on them for essential health care. Moreover, doctors have chosen a profession that fulfills a public trust, making them duty-bound to provide care without discrimination. This makes CO an arrogant paternalism, with doctors exerting power over their dependent patients—a throwback to the obsolete era of “doctor knows best.”

Denial of care inevitably creates at least some degree of harm to patients, ranging from inconvenience, humiliation, and psychological stress to delays in care, unwanted pregnancy, increased medical risks, and death. Since reproductive health care is largely delivered to women, CO rises to the level of discrimination, undermining women’s self-determination and liberty. CO against providing abortions, in particular, is based on a denial of the overwhelming evidence and historical experience that have proven the harms of legal and other restrictions, a rejection of the human rights ethic that justifies the provision of safe and legal abortion to women, and a refusal to respect democratically decided laws. Allowing CO for abortion also ignores the global realities of poor access to services, pervasive stigma, and restrictive laws. It just restricts access even further, adding to the already serious abrogation of patients’ rights.

(Emphasis added.)

The “Purpose” Argument

Posted on January 15, 2014 by wellsdc

By ja:User:Sanjo (Own work (Own Photo)) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons The “purpose” argument, as I call it, states that without God (or whatever deity, but it’s usually the standard-issue God of the Judeo-Christian tradition), life can have no purpose or meaning. My usual exasperated response is that anyone who thinks this way isn’t trying very hard, and it boggles the mind that atheists are supposed to be the cynical ones. Jerry Coyne offers an excellent response to a recent rehash of this argument, but Ed Brayton explains why it’s just plain crap:

So what? It’s not an argument for why this god who provides us with meaning and purpose does exist, it’s an argument for why the person making it hopes such a god exists. If it does not, should we pretend it does and create some diving meaning and purpose that does not exist? Should we all just agree to tell a big lie? Or should we do what we have always done, whether one believes in such a god or not, and find meaning and purpose in the living of our lives?
The lack of some universal meaning or purpose does not mean that our lives don’t have meaning or purpose. It just means that we have at least some opportunity to determine meaning and purpose for ourselves rather than having some non-existent divine being decide it for us. And far from being a depressing fact, that is a liberating one.

I don’t know how it works for other people, but “belief,” such as it is, is not a choice for me. It’s something that requires evidence, reason, and compassion. I exist, and I have the capacity to make the world a better place for the people that I love, which includes myself. I have the opportunity to love, laugh, see beauty, eat cupcakes, and rub dogs’ bellies. The fact that I have only a limited time to do all of these things make the experiences more meaningful and purposeful, not less, because in all of the universe, the beauty I see, experience, and create is unique.

Saying that the world would be a better place if I believed in a particular god is a dubious proposition in and of itself, but it also says nothing whatsoever about whether that god is actually real. Besides that, it takes away from time we all could be spending living.

Photo credit: By ja:User:Sanjo (Own work (Own Photo)) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Signal Boost: A Teen’s Brave Response to “I’m Christian, Unless You’re Gay”

Posted on August 18, 2013 by wellsdc

Dan Pearce, who blogs at Single Dad Laughing, wrote an amazing post nearly two years ago entitled “I’m Christian, unless you’re gay.” The post talks about Pearce’s 27 year-old friend Jacob, who is gay, and who had lost any connection to almost all of his friends and family as a result.

“Every single person I’ve told has ditched me. They just disappear. They stop calling. They remove me on Facebook. They’re just gone,” he said. “They can’t handle knowing and being friends with a gay person.”

I didn’t know what to say. So I didn’t say anything.

“You don’t know what it’s like, man. You don’t know what it’s like to live here and be gay. You don’t know what it’s like to have freaking nobody. You don’t know what it’s like to have your own parents hate you and try and cover up your existence. I didn’t choose this. I didn’t want this. And I’m so tired of people hating me for it. I can’t take it anymore. I just can’t.”

How do you respond to that?

I wanted to tell him it was all in his head. I knew it wasn’t. I wanted to tell him it would get better and easier. The words would have been hollow and without conviction, and I knew it.

You see, I live in this community too. And I’ve heard the hate. I’ve heard the disgust. I’ve heard the disdain. I’ve heard the gossip. I’ve heard the distrust. I’ve heard the anger. I’ve heard it all, and I’ve heard it tucked and disguised neatly beneath a wrapper of self-righteousness and a blanket of “caring” or “religious” words. I’ve heard it more times than I care to number.

That was in November 2011. Several months later, in April 2012, he posted a follow-up, entitled “A Teen’s Brave Response to ‘I’m Christian, Unless You’re Gay,'” in which a mother described how her teenage son came out to her via Pearce’s original post: Continue reading →

Secular High School Student Refuses to Attend Graduation in a Megachurch

Posted on April 11, 2012 by wellsdc

This is not the same megachurch, but it gives you the idea

Here’s a fun story from Decatur, Georgia: Nahkoura Mahnassi, a 16 year-old senior at Southwest DeKalb High School is refusing to attend her own graduation on May 25 because the school is holding it at a church. Now this is a public high school, and they did not pick just any church. They picked New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, a megachurch whose pastor, Eddie Long, is apparently no stranger to controversy. After a series of scandals, he had himself crowned “king” during a service one Sunday a few months ago.

Back to the case at hand: Mahnassi reportedly has a 3.8 GPA and is described as a “star student.” She also claims no religious affiliation and does not think it is appropriate for a public high school, where students have a diversity of backgrounds, to hold its graduation in a location that is so overtly sectarian:

In this case, it’s what she doesn’t believe in and that’s her school’s decision to have their graduation ceremony at Eddie Long’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church.

When her peers ask why, she tells them, “It’s kind of a long story, but I don’t like churches or New Birth so I’m not going.”

The school district issued the following statement to the media:

The school district is holding commencements this year at a number of locations throughout the community, including school district stadiums and the Georgia Dome. Each year, the school district looks to find spaces big enough to host our largest graduating classes. This year, Southwest DeKalb High School is holding its graduation at a faith-based organization in the community. This is based on a previous agreement that expires this year. We will continue to work to find the best and most appropriate venues to accommodate our students as they celebrate such an important milestone.

The problem here is that it is exceedingly difficult to hold a public school event in a religious facility while keeping the two separate. This is doubly, triply, or even quadruply true when it comes to a controversial establishment like New Birth. The school district’s position seems reasonable. If the concern really is for finding a venue large enough to handle the size of the event, that speaks to a different problem. Communities ought to have a public venue that people can use regardless of faith or lack thereof. A building is not always just a building, as Mahnassi’s mother, Alisha Brown, noted:

[The school] said, ‘Well, it’s just a building,’ and of course I posed the question if it was a Satanist church I’m sure the Christians would be up in arms and say, ‘No, no, no. We’re not going to go there.’ So it’s not a matter of ‘It’s just a building.’ That’s totally not true.

It’s an overblown example, perhaps, but it is still spot-on.

It is important to get this story out there because, although it does not seem to have happened yet, the hate may start piling on. The only other news article I could find on this story was at the Christian Post, and the author and the commenters have been quite restrained (so far). If this turns into something like what Jessica Ahlquist had to deal with, then the internet needs to step up.

Photo credit: ‘Solid Rock megachurch’ by Joe Shlabotnik from Forest Hills, Queens, USA (King Of Kings) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Cryptic Philosopher

Subtle, with a Hint of Whimsy

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