Pakistani woman sentenced to death for insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

The Native Americans, not the bear hunt folks. 

Remember, kids, religious freedom in America is only for Christians. Not for Muslims. Not for atheists. And especially not for actual Americans, or actual American religions.

Full story:

RENO — Following their appearance at the March Wildlife Commission meeting, where they stated their opposition to the bear hunt on religious grounds, Native Americans from various Paiute Tribes the Pyramid Lake Paiute Band were recently questioned by FBI and U.S. Marshalls.

FBI Agent, George Chillito (cell 775-741-9429), an FBI agent with the Task Force on Counter-Terrorism in Reno, reportedly stated that he was investigating the Native Americans at the request of Nevada Department of Wildlife game wardens because the “game wardens” and the “audience felt threatened” by the presence of the Native Americans at the March Wildlife Commission meeting. 

Several Native Americans appeared at the Wildlife Commission meeting held on March 23 and March 24 (“meetings”), and at the Washoe County Advisory Board Meeting held on March 15, to oppose the bear hunt, adopted in December 2010. Shortly after the Commission meeting, FBI agents and U.S. Federal Marshals began appearing at the homes and places of work of the Native Americans, and questioning them about why they opposed the bear hunt, and what were they going to do if the bear hunt continued, etc.

At the meetings, several Native Americans from various Paiute Tribes were present and spoke on the record in opposition to the Bear Hunt for religious reasons, stating that the black bear was a sacred animal to them, and that to kill one for sport was the same as burning a Bible would be to a Christian.

Shortly thereafter, during the period April 2-4, FBI agents visited and questioned two of the Native Americans who spoke at the open public meetings, by arriving at their homes and places of work. On April 2, up to six (6) FBI agents and Federal Marshals came to Lisa Bonta’s home in Sparks, NV, stating that the Nevada Department of Wildlife “game wardens felt threatened” by her presence at the meetings, and specifically questioned why she was opposed to the Bear hunt, and what was she going to do if the bear hunt continued. 

Another Native American, Daniel Thayer, was visited by federal agents at his place of work on April 3, and was told that the Nevada Department of Wildlife had requested an investigation because the “audience felt threatened” by his presence, and was similarly questioned. On April 4, another Native American, Raquela Arthur, saw federal agents watching and carrying out surveillance on her private residence. 

When independently contacted, one Nevada Department of Wildlife staff member stated that he had no knowledge of any request by the Nevada Department of Wildlife for the FBI to investigate Native American opponents of the Bear hunt.

Mr. Chilito is reported to have said that he was also investigating members of www.NoBearHuntNV.org who were present at the meetings, and who have been peacefully and professionally opposing the bear hunt since December 2010 by working within the NDOW public process without incident. Many members of the press from TV and newspapers were also present at the meetings, and were interviewing both Native Americans and members of NoBearHuntNV.org throughout the day. A video of the Commission meeting, and the testimony of the Native Americans, is posted on the Nevada Departmen of Wildlife website.

This FBI intimidation comes on the heels of alleged racial slurs directed at the Native Americans when they spoke at the Washoe County Advisory Board held on March 15th.

All of the Native Americans questioned are members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) of Northern Nevada, a recently registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. AIM members call for NDOW to conduct an internal investigation and to make public who made the request to the FBI, on what grounds it was made, and why the Director of Nevada Department of Wildlife supported such a request. 

I don’t really agree. 

The Christians are fucking horrible. Yeah, I said it. They’re terrible, horrible, people. They’re working tirelessly with all sorts of hate groups to take away rights for the poor, women, trans folks, gay folks, non-white folks, just everyone. 

I don’t think you can compare anyone who is remotely sane to those people. They are subhuman in their efforts to remove the humanity of everyone else.  

Barack Obama, if he is a decent human being, needs to be compared to standards of human decency. He does not need excuses for his piss-poor defense of gay rights.

Not hating people for being gay should already be a basic viewpoint. Who the fuck are we comparing him to again? Terrible, violently homophobic people? People who say lesbians should be raped and gay men should be beaten? People who indoctrinate children to terrify and bully queer people? People who psychologically torture gays just because they’re gay?

No. Fuck that. 

If Obama is a decent human being, he’s going to be compared to the rest of us. 

And if I had any political power of any sort, you’d bet your ass I’d be doing more than he is. Shit, I’m probably already doing more by typing this out on this goddamn website. 

No. His position sucks, and his half-assed proclamation of his position sucks even more.

From Reuters.

An Egyptian court on Wednesday sentenced a 17-year-old Christian boy to three years in jail for publishing cartoons on his Facebook page that mocked Islam and the Prophet Mohammad, actions that sparked sectarian violence.

Gamal Abdou Massoud was also accused of distributing some of his cartoons to his school friends in a village in the southern city of Assiut, home to a large Christian population and the hometown of the late Coptic Orthodox Pope Shenouda.

“Assiut child’s court ordered the jailing of Gamal Abdou Massoud … for three years after he insulted Islam and published and distributed pictures that insulted Islam and its Prophet,” the court said in a statement seen by Reuters.

The cartoons, published by Massoud in December, prompted some Muslims to attack Christians. Several Christian houses were burned and several Christians were injured in the violence.

Human rights lawyer Negad al-Borai said the jail sentence was the maximum penalty under Egyptian law for such a crime.

Christians, who make up about 10 percent of the country’s 80 million population, have long had a difficult relationship with Egypt’s overwhelmingly Muslim majority.

Tension between Muslims and Christians has simmered for years but has got worse since the revolt that toppled Hosni Mubarak. Christians have become increasingly worried by a surge in attacks on churches, which they blame on hardline Islamists, though experts say local disputes are often also to blame.

Top 10 most religious states

• Mississippi: 59 percent are very religious
• Utah: 57 percent
• Alabama: 56 percent
• Louisiana: 54 percent
• Arkansas: 54 percent
• South Carolina: 54 percent
• Tennessee: 52 percent
• North Carolina: 50 percent
• Georgia: 48 percent
• Oklahoma: 48 percent

Bottom 10 (least religious states)

• Vermont: 23 percent are very religious
• New Hampshire: 23 percent
• Maine: 25 percent
• Massachusetts: 28 percent
• Alaska: 28 percent
• Oregon: 30 percent
• Nevada: 30 percent
• Washington: 30 percent
• Connecticut: 31 percent
• District of Columbia (tie): 32 percent
• New York (tie): 32 percent
• Rhode Island (tie): 32 percent

I’m a Mississippian by birth. This about seals the deal for me. Yall think I could make a convincing forgery of my birth certificate?

didsantorumsay:

He did not. :(

pinkndcamo:

I understand that the United States is a country where each and every one of us has a freedom of religion, therefore laws should be made impartially. I can also see where people are coming from who say a person’s body is solely their own responsibility, regardless of another’s beliefs religious or otherwise. Since the aforementioned is true both cannabis and abortion should be legal, right? However, I don’t believe there should be any government funding for either, and neither should be covered by insurance. Meaning, the individual is responsible to provide the funding. This way we all get what we want without infringing on each others’ rights. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Yeah, you are. 

If equal rights are guaranteed, pregnancy cannot be a special target of legislation. 

That would be like insurance covering all female reproductive issues but not any male ones.

Legally, it’s discrimination. 

Legally, it’s also causing discrimination by forcing religious moral codes on those who don’t practice the religion. Double discrimination. 

exposingthetruths:

As much as we want to say this nation accepts all religions, let’s face it - that isn’t the truth. Christian holidays such as Christmas are recognized nationally, but since when did the entire nation get a day off from work for a Muslim holiday such as Eid-Al-Fitr?

Always scarily relevant.

modificationnotmutilation:

Separation of religion and state. This shouldn’t be an argument.

Stop putting your religious influences into law making.

Homosexual marriage unconstitutional? BANNING IT IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL!

Doesn’t work this way. 

Christianity is FUNDAMENTALLY about INEQUALITY. 

Gender inequality. When a child suffers, whose fault is it? When many die, whose fault is it? When someone dies a painful death after a lingering illness, whose fault is it? Why is there illness in the first place? When someone is psychologically and physically traumatized for the rest of their life as the result of torture, whose fault is it? Why is there evil in the first place? Why is there death, illness, evil, immorality, unhappiness, war?

Oh yeah. A woman, a literal piece of a man, who apparently was created for no other purpose than to be responsible for all evil from all humanity. SHIT LET’S IGNORE THAT RIGHT

Racial inequality. What was the Old Testmant about? Um… some “chosen people.” This tribe that god loved. That, because god loved it, got license to go around practicing genocide against other tribes, that got the ok to start wars, slaughter thousands, take them into human slavery, rape them, destroy their cultures and religions. 

Oh yeah. That stuff. SHIT LET’S IGNORE THAT TOO RIGHT

I mean, what is left? The fact that the Bible’s very first fuckin’ story was designed to be an advertisement for gender-role-driven heterosexuality? The fact that homosexuals were… ummm…. brutally murdered for being gay? The fact that not one sect of mainstream Christianity has even accepted people being gay up until the past couple hundred years, completely dashing any logical chance of your *gay-friendly* interpretation being any galaxy close to almost accurate?

Listen. I’m not going to give you a fuckin’ cookie for meeting basic standards of human decency for not ordering us to be burned alive. I am going to take you to task for recommending a book (and subsequently a religion) which, however you interpret it, still explicitly commands misogyny, racism, and homophobia, and recommends using violence to achieve those ends. 

letterstomycountry:

You’d think so, but not according to a District Court Judge in Pennsylvania:

There is a surprising story out of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania that seems the perfect storm of religious tensions. You begin with Ernie Perce, an atheist who marched as a zombie Mohammad in the Mechanicsburg Halloween parade. Then you add Talaag Elbayomy, a Muslim who stepped off a curb and reportedly attacked Perce for insulting the Prophet. Then you have a judge (Judge Mark Martin) who threw out the criminal charges against Elbayomy and ridiculed the victim, Perce.

There’s video of the attack at the link above.  Jon Turley was kind enough to provide a transcript of some of the Judge’s remarks, which, while admirable in terms of its purported respect for the Muslim culture, is nonetheless an abjectly grotesque butchering of the jurisprudence and history of the First Amendment:

In many other Muslim-speaking countries, err, excuse me, many Arabic-speaking countries, predominantly Muslim, something like this is definitely against the law there, in their society. In fact, it could be punished by death, and frequently is, in their society.

Here in our society, we have a Constitution that gives us many rights, specifically First Amendment rights. It’s unfortunate that some people use the First Amendment to deliberately provoke others. I don’t think that’s what our forefathers intended. I think our forefathers intended to use the First Amendment so we can speak with our mind, not to piss off other people and cultures – which is what you did.

I don’t know how else to grapple with this other than to simply point out that the judge got the law blatantly and utterly wrong.  Here is Justice Brennan writing for the majority in Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989):

A principal function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger.

Jon Turley, who represented Dr. Ali Al-Timimi when he was charged with inciting violence against the government, is on the same page:

I fail to see the relevance of the victim’s attitude toward Muslims or religion generally. He had a protected right to walk in the parade and not be assaulted for his views. While the judge laments that “[i]t’s unfortunate that some people use the First Amendment to deliberately provoke others,” that is precisely what the Framers had in mind if Thomas Paine is any measure.

There is absolutely no affirmative defense to the crime of assault that involves invoking your First Amendment right to religion.  Your religious beliefs cannot and will not ever justify physically attacking someone on the grounds that the content of their speech is deeply offensive to you.  This is a concept so deeply ingrained in our legal history that even the most egregious offenses against a 3rd party’s morals and/or conscience cannot be made to justify a violent response.  

Hence the reason why the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church when they were sued for protesting at the funeral of a dead American soldier, despite the fact that it was unquestionably offensive to the friends and family of the deceased, and many of them would’ve probably liked to punch the WBC protesters in the face.  And hence the reason why the Court held in Texas v. Johnson that your right to burn an American flag is constitutionally protected speech, despite the fact that it unquestionably deeply offends people who believe with conviction that the flag represents a body of morals, ideals and beliefs that are worth dying for; that it is not just “another symbol,” and that it is the closest thing to a sacred symbol one can find in American civic culture; to the point where an offended person would undoubtedly have violent designs if you sullied its visage in their presence.

What bothers me most about this case is that it will inevitably be misconstrued by good-faith advocates for the Muslim community and Islamophobes alike.  There will be those in the former camp who will probably sympathize with the man who attacked the protester, and blame the protester for purposefully inciting the passion of devout Muslims.  The latter will undoubtedly use the judge’s ill-advised diatribe and the violent act of the Muslim attacker as evidence that Islamic values are in fact incompatible with American society, and will use this incident as yet another anecdote to justify the imposition of intolerable discrimination and cruelties against the broader Muslim community (such as the Park 51 controversy).  

And therein lies the issue: allowing this sort of violence to stand makes it more difficult to soothe the American body-politic’s trenchant Islamophobia by sending a dubious message: the law will not protect you if you say or do something that is offensive to a devout Muslim.  That is the wrong message to send if we are trying to get people to eschew their parochial fear of Islamic culture and replace it with cosmopolitan cultural values.

That’s why it is so imperative that we apply the law equally in cases like this.  The line is simple and clearly drawn: you don’t get to hit people for saying something that offends you.  It does not matter that your offense comes from deeply and sincerely held religious convictions, or strong secular ideological prescriptions.  You don’t get to use violence to vindicate your offended conscience.  It cannot be gainsaid that we would not likely tolerate this from a member of a different faith. We most certainly would not tolerate it if the attacker was an Agnostic or Atheist vindicating a strongly-held secular moral prescription.  Why then, permit of an exception for Muslims?  Does it not show a deep condescension to the innate morality of Muslim believers that they can’t be expected to restrain themselves from violence if their convictions are impugned?

Protecting the rights of Muslim Americans, and destroying the shibboleths of Islamophobia in America means we must reject the invitation to make exceptions for those who would use faith as an excuse to do violence to others.  We are constantly fighting against a politics which asserts: “All Muslims are like this.”  No, they clearly aren’t.  But if the law assumes that they are, then the struggle to achieve social equality and respect for Muslim Americans is already lost.  Permitting of such exceptions is both absurd and dangerous, and we should reject the invitation to carve out any exception in the law that leads us inexorably down that path.

reelaroundthesun:

Want to know something I don’t usually tell people?

I hate abortion.  I absolutely hate it.  I think it’s wrong and the idea of it makes my skin crawl.  I think that in an ideal world, there would be no abortions.

But this isn’t an ideal world.  People get raped, people make mistakes, circumstances arise, the the situation of so many women around the world is entirely out of my hands.  First of all, I’m only sixteen, and I live a privileged life.  I don’t know what it’s like to pregnant, nor do I know what it’s like to be struggling.  I certainly don’t know what it’s like to be both at the same time.

So, not only would I never even dare to judge a woman who chooses to have an abortion, but I fully support its legalization and I would even go as far as to call myself pro-choice.  I don’t have the right to tell people what to do, especially when I’ve never stood in their shoes.

Let me start this off by saying that unlike I abortion, I completely do believe in and support gay marriage and euthanasia.  I think that they’re both very important things that are close to the hearts of many people, and they’re two of my biggest “pet issues.”  I wish they were legal everywhere because I think they’re important assets to society.  We have the right to love and marry whoever we want, and we have the right to die on our own terms.

However, I understand that many people do not agree with me on this.  Although I think that such people are ridiculously judgemental, I respect their right to an opinion.  However, I wish they would consider the way I see abortion, and start looking at other things in that light.  At the end of the day, it’s not about your religion, your ethics, or what you would have forced down society’s throats.  It’s about equality.

You don’t have to like something.  You don’t have to support it.  You can think it’s completely disgusting.  But please, stop for a second.  Consider the way another person feels.  Consider the fact that they’re in a situation you’ve never had and probably never will have to face.

Just think about it.

Do not compare your ridiculous theocratic ideals to gay marriage. 

From Alternet. 

Excerpt:

Until the condom, the diaphragm, the Pill, the IUD, and all the subsequent variants of hormonal fertility control came along, anatomy really was destiny — and all of the world’s societies were organized around that central fact. Women were born to bear children; they had no other life options. With a few rebellious or well-born exceptions (and a few outlier cultures that somehow found their way to a more equal footing), the vast majority of women who’ve ever lived on this planet were tied to home, dependent on men, and subject to all kinds of religious and cultural restrictions designed to guarantee that they bore the right kids to the right man at the right time — even if that meant effectively jailing them at home.

Our biology reduced us to a kind of chattel, subject to strictures that owed more to property law than the more rights-based laws that applied to men. Becoming literate or mastering a trade or participating in public life wasn’t unheard-of; but unlike the men, the world’s women have always had to fit those extras in around their primary duty to their children and husband — and have usually paid a very stiff price if it was thought that those duties were being neglected.

Men, in return, thrived. The ego candy they feasted on by virtue of automatically outranking half the world’s population was only the start of it. They got full economic and social control over our bodies, our labor, our affections, and our futures. They got to make the rules, name the gods we would worship, and dictate the terms we would live under. In most cultures, they had the right to sex on demand within the marriage, and also to break their marriage vows with impunity — a luxury that would get women banished or killed. As long as pregnancy remained the defining fact of our lives, they got to run the whole show. The world was their party, and they had a fabulous time. 

Thousands of generations of men and women have lived under some variant of this order — some variations more benevolent, some more brutal, but all similar enough in form and intention — in all times and places, going back to where our memory of time ends. Look at it this way, and you get a striking perspective on just how world-changing it was when, within the span of just a few short decades in the middle of the 20th century, all of that suddenly ended. For the first time in human history, new technologies made fertility a conscious choice for an ever-growing number of the planet’s females. And that, in turn, changed everything else.

With that one essential choice came the possibility, for the first time, to make a vast range of other choices for ourselves that were simply never within reach before. We could choose to delay childbearing and limit the number of children we raise; and that, in turn, freed up time and energy to explore the world beyond the home. We could refuse to marry or have babies at all, and pursue our other passions instead. Contraception was the single necessary key that opened the door to the whole new universe of activities that had always been zealously monopolized by the men — education, the trades, the arts, government, travel, spiritual and cultural leadership, and even (eventually) war making. 

That one fact, that one technological shift, is now rocking the foundations of every culture on the planet — and will keep rocking it for a very long time to come. It is, over time, bringing a louder and prouder female voice into the running of the world’s affairs at every level, creating new conversations and new priorities in areas where the men long ago thought things were settled and understood. It’s bending our understanding of what sex is about, and when and with whom we can have it — a wrinkle that created new frontiers for gay folk as well. It may well prove to the be the one breakthrough most responsible for the survival of the human race, and the future viability of the planet.

But perhaps most critically for us right now: mass-produced, affordable, reliable contraception has shredded the ages-old social contracts between men and women, and is forcing us all (willing or not) into wholesale re-negotiations on a raft of new ones.

And, frankly, while some men have embraced this new order— perhaps seeing in it the potential to open up some interesting new choices for them, too — a global majority is increasingly confused, enraged, and terrified by it. They never wanted to be at this table in the first place, and they’re furious to even find themselves being forced to have this conversation at all. 

It was never meant to happen. It never should have happened. And they’re doing their damndest to put a stop to it all, right now, and make it go away.

It’s this rage that’s driving the Catholic bishops into a frenzied donnybrook fight against contraception — despite the very real possibility that this fight could, in the end, damage their church even more fatally than the molestation scandal did.  As the keepers of a 2000-year-old enterprise — one of the oldest continuously-operating organizations on the planet, in fact — they take the very long view. And they understand, better than most of us, just how unprecedented this development is in the grand sweep of history, and the serious threat it poses to everything their church has stood for going back to antiquity. (Including, very much, the more recent doctrine of papal infallability.)

That same frantic panic over the loss of the ancient bargain also lies that the core of the worldwide rash of fundamentalist religions. Modern industrial economies have undermined the authority of men both in the public sphere and in the private realms; and since they’re limited in how far they can challenge it in the external world, they’ve turned women’s bodies into the symbolic battlefield on which their anxieties over this play out. Drill down to the very deepest center of any of these movements, and you’ll find men who are experiencing this change as a kind of personal annihilation, a loss of masculine identity so deep that they are literally interpreting it as the end of the world. (The first rule of understanding apocalyptic movements is this: If someone tells you the world is ending, believe them. Because for them, it probably is.)

They are, above everything else, desperate to get their women back under firm control. And in their minds, things will not be right again until they’re assured that the girls are locked up even more tightly, so they will never, ever get away like that again.