Next up for Cranston

Steve Ahlquist – Jessica’s uncle – has a plan for what to do next, to benefit Cranston public schools, which he posted at the Facebook group Support the Removal of the Cranston High School West Prayer.

Awhile back, the Cranston school committee cut funding for music at their schools, because of budgetary concerns. In response, a group of concerned parents formed a group called BASICS, which I’ll find a link to soon, with the aim of restoring the programs. Raising money for the City of Cranston or the school committee would not allow them to “learn their lesson” but funding BASICS will put money directly into cut programs. The school committee will still have to pay, but the kids could still have their programs, no thanks to the recalcitrant members of the Cranston political elite.

He mentioned that he wants to get the big atheist bloggers like Hemant, PZ, and Rebecca to support it – so I figure he wants to get average-size atheist bloggers to support it too.

Pass it on.

Allies

Andrew Copson at the BHA on Warsi’s theocratic bullshit:

…it is surreal to hear secularism being condemned as intolerant – it is not secular schools that select pupils according to their parents’ beliefs, it is not secular agencies that reserve employment opportunities for staff according to their beliefs, and it is not secular organisations which lobby to maintain privilege and have exemption from laws – like equality laws – that should affect everyone equally.

Terry Sanderson at the NSS on the same subject:  [Read more…]

What does contraception have to do with women?!

In the US Congress today a hearing on birth control and religion, chaired by a Republican, included on the panel a Catholic bishop, a rabbi, a minister, and two male academics, but no women.

No women.

No women on a Congressional panel discussing birth control.

No women.

No women on a panel discussing birth control. For the government.

Three clerics, and no women.

They have more in common with the Taliban than they have with me.

Underpants bomber is proud to kill in the name of god

There were almost 300 people on the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

In [a] statement to the BBC, the family of Abdulmutallab said they were “grateful to God that the unfortunate incident of that date did not result in any injury or death”.

Grateful to “God”? But without “God,” the incident wouldn’t have happened in the first place.  Abdulmutallab thought he was doing a good deed for “God.” It’s ridiculous to thank “God” for Abdulmutallab’s failure to make the bomb go off.

A video from the FBI showing the power of the explosive material found in Abdulmutallab’s underwear was also shown at the hearing. As the video played Abdulmutallab twice said loudly “Allahu akbar” – Arabic for “God is great”.

Abdulmutallab himself made a brief statement. During the short trial, he had fired his lawyer and attempted to represent himself.

“Mujahideen are proud to kill in the name of God,” he said in court. “And that is exactly what God told us to do in the Koran… Today is a day of victory.”

See? Piety. Might as well thank god for that.

They kept beating us with sticks

More religious bullying. (Of a much worse variety. Of a nightmarish variety. That’s how it is – we lurch from the bad to the horrendous, day by day and hour by hour. But the horrendous doesn’t make the bad something we should shrug off. We have to pay attention to all of it.)

Shakila, age 8, was grabbed by a bunch of men with AK-47s, and held for a year.

…the taking of girls as payment for misdeeds committed by their elders still appears to be flourishing. Shakila, because one of her uncles had run away with the wife of a district strongman, was taken and held for about a year. It was the district leader, furious at the dishonor that had been done to him, who sent his men to abduct her. [Read more…]

In Cranston right now

JT has a post live-blogging (via informants) the Cranston school committee meeting to discuss whether to appeal the judge’s ruling on the goddy banner. It features a lot of grown-ups bullying a teenage girl for upholding the law.

WPRO, the Cranston radio station that has been nothing but horrible to Jessica makes the following tweet.

RT @WPRO_newsroom: Change of location for Jessica Ahlquist at #prayerbanner meeting tonight: she’s in the back instead of front row, crouching way down #WPRO

These are adults, and they’re acting like they’ve achieved some form of noble triumph when a young girl who has endured an environment of threats and is probably worried for her safety is trying to stay out of the line of fire from a crowd that doubtlessly contains some of the people who have threatened her.

Fucking bullies and their religion of love.

Randomfactor Someone tells me they’re now passive-aggressively singing “God Bless America”.  I can only assume the song will be retired as false advertising if the board decides not to appeal.

Large segment of the crowd just stood and yelled the pledge of allegiance at Jessica.

Pledge recited, “Under god” yelled obnoxiously.  One can only wonder if god is so concerned why he didn’t show up himself.

Religious bullying – it just never gets old for some people.

God gonna torture you so ha

Update: I missed the date, which is 2009. I probably blogged about it three years ago. Possibly word for word, in which case I think I’ll take up basket-weaving.

More entitled bleating from an entitled Christian about the requirement to “respect” her religious beliefs no matter how vicious they are.

A five-year-old child at a school in Devon told a classmate she would go to hell if she didn’t believe in god. The school told the child not to do that kind of thing, and the child told her mother, and her mother pitched the usual kind of fit. [Read more…]

Another nightmare

Another story of children whose parents think they are witches, sent to me by Leo Igwe.

Seoul (CNN) — A pastor and his wife are in custody accused of killing three of their children by starving them to ward off evil spirits, police in South Korea said Wednesday.

The couple told police the children — aged nine, seven and three — had been ill, which they believed was a sign they were invaded by evil spirits after eating too much on Lunar New Year.

They then cut the children’s hair to chase the spirits out and starved them from January 24 until February 2, only allowing them to drink water. Local media reports said the parents had beaten the children with a belt and a fly swatter numerous times.

The pastor, named only by his surname Park, and his wife, Cho, told police they tied the children’s arms and legs with stockings. All three died on February 2, the first around 2am, the second at 5am and the third at 7am…

The horror of it.