Homosexuality and evolution » « Everyone should be feminists

America did it!

John Oliver continues to impress. Here’s a discussion of the wretched anti-gay policies being implemented in Uganda, and the US’s role in propagating them.

I don’t understand why Scott Lively isn’t in jail — we have no laws against criminal ventures in foreign countries? Nothing about fostering foreign corruption? Can we, at the very least, take his passport away?

Oliver continues his interview with Pepe Julian Onziema, who is also very impressive. It’s kind of Uganda to send us an ambassador from the Land of Decent Human Beings.

Homosexuality and evolution » « Everyone should be feminists

Comments

  1. beergoggles says

    I don’t expect much in trying him for crimes against humanity but it helps to see that pustule squirm.

  3. plainenglish says

    Thank-you for this. It is very encouraging to be shown such brave grace (Pepe) and to be reminded that Scott Lively is a hateful shit who spent at least two weeks successfully sowing hatred in a foreign land. Is the only way to save us from this viral spew to send him overseas to infect the rest of the world?

    Bravo, John Oliver!

  4. says

    @Karl Mann:

    Seems like the only thing the US exports anymore is bigotry and hatred.

    Well, look at the bright side. We apparently have an inexhaustible supply, given what’s happening around the country. (And we’re only exporting it to third-world countries, not outsourcing the jobs as well.) (In fact, exporting hatred may actually be the Republican jobs program.)

  9. lakitha tolbert says

    Yes! We need only look to Developing countries in Africa for a taste of what the Xtian Fundies would like to implement in America, but aren’t allowed to.

  10. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    May I just say? Pepe you kick some serious ass.

  11. EnlightenmentLiberal says

    I don’t understand why Scott Lively isn’t in jail — we have no laws against criminal ventures in foreign countries? Nothing about fostering foreign corruption? Can we, at the very least, take his passport away?

    Uhhh… first amendment? Last I checked, it’s perfectly legal to advocate for laws criminalizing homosexuality in the United States, and the constitution guarantees this. Are you saying speech abroad should have less protection? Or was there some other crime which I missed? Lying? Are you saying we should throw creationists in prison too? What else is there?

  12. Esteleth is Groot says

    EnlightenmentLiberal, the First Amendment does not cover incitement to violence or hate speech.

    And even if Lively could wiggle out of the hate speech bit, the documented explosion of anti-LGBT violence and the evidence that Lively instigated it, cannot be so easily dismissed.

  13. EnlightenmentLiberal says

    EnlightenmentLiberal, the First Amendment does not cover incitement to violence or hate speech.

    I see no incitement to violence.

    The first amendment does protect hate speech.

    And even if Lively could wiggle out of the hate speech bit, the documented explosion of anti-LGBT violence and the evidence that Lively instigated it, cannot be so easily dismissed.

    Yes it can be easily dismissed. I dismiss it.

    There is an incredibly narrow exception for incitement to violence and riot, which is narrowly construed in the context of in the immediate vicinity of a mob of angry people. I do not see Lively in front of a mob of angry people who immediately went out and rioted. I see a simple, straightforward, (dishonest) lecture series. It is dishonest or disingenuous to use “incitement to riot” in this case.

    What’s the difference between this, and when Christopher Hitchens writes “religion poisons everything”, except one is true and one is false? I’m not seeing it.

    What’s the difference between Lively and when I say that the fundamental error of the Christianity is what led to Nazism, Stalinism, etc.? If you can make people believe absurdities, then you can make people commit atrocities. Paraphrasing Voltaire.

    What’s the difference between this and allowing the KKK to have a march in town? What’s the difference between Lively giving his lecture and the KKK from delivering their own lecture – in a calm, cool, non-riot context?

    I protect his speech because I want my own speech protected. You and PZ seem to be forgetting the core value of the European Enlightenment, best summarized by this paraphrase of Voltaire: I might disagree with what you have to say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it. I’m sorry – we should not get into the business of criminalizing mere speech which we disagree with, no matter how strongly. We should not get into the business of criminalizing mere speech because we disagree with the politics of it, no matter how strongly. We should not get into the business of criminalizing mere speech because we fear that it will change the law or change public attitudes in a non-riot context in a way we don’t like, again no matter how strongly. We should do this because we want the same favor given to us. The solution to hatred, bigotry, and politics we don’t like is not government censorship.

  14. EnlightenmentLiberal says

    Like, this has really been bugging me.

    What is your position? Maybe this test?
    Speech which can be reasonably expected to precipitate violence or which can be shown after the fact to have precipitated violence, can be censored in advance or punished after the fact. What about cartooning Islam? It can be reasonably expected that cartooning Islam will precipitate violence. Does that mean we should censor the cartoonists? This gives those who would use violence a trump card over speech. That’s a horrible idea.

    Let’s try to be more generous. What about this standard?
    If it can be shown that certain speech
    1- can be reasonably expected to precipitate violence towards a particular group or which can be shown after the fact to have precipitated violence towards a particular group, and
    2- that speech is based on animus towards a particular group,
    then that speech can be censored.
    Are we going to start banning KKK literature? Are we going to ban Chick Tracts?

    I end with IMHO the foremost authority on this subject, or at least the finest speech ever given on this topic.
    Christopher Hitchens on Freedom of Speech (from some public debate AFAIK).
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIyBZNGH0TY

    Snippets:
    (I’m using this link which is a tolerable transcript. Some corrections made.)
    http://howtoplayalone.wordpress.com/hitchens-on-free-speech/

    Every time you violate – or propose the violate – the right to free speech of someone else, you in potentia you’re making a rod for your own back. Because (…), to who do you reward the right to decide which speech is harmful, or who is the harmful speaker? Or to determine in advance what are the harmful consequences going to be, that we know enough about in advance to prevent? To whom would you give this job? To whom you’re going to award the task of being the censor?

    Isn’t the famous old story that the man who has to read all the pornography, in order to decide what is fit to be passed and what isn’t, is the man most likely to become debauched?

    Is there anyone you find eloquent enough to decide for you what you could read? You would give the job to decide for you? To relieve you from the responsibility of hearing what you might have to hear?

    Does anyone have a nominee? Hands up?

    You mean there is no one who is good enough to decide what I can read? I had no idea.. But there’s a law – or some pebbling sub section of a law – that says there much be such a person. Well to hell with that law. It is inviting you to be liars and hypocrites and to deny what you evidently already know already.

    Most relevantly:

    Who said “what if Farewell hates fags? What if people act upon that?” The bible says you have to hate fags. If Farewell says he is saying it because the bible says so, he is right. Yes it might make people go out and use violence. What are you going to do about that? You’re up against a group of people who will say “you put your hands on our bible and we’ll call the hate speech police”. Now what are you going to do when you’ve dug that trap for yourselves?

    “Eh, somebody said that the antisemitism and Kristalnacht in Germany was the result of ten years of Jew bating.” Ten years?!? You must be joking, it is the result of 2000 years of christianity, based on one verse of one chapter of St John’s gospel, which led to a pogrom after every easter sermon every year for hundreds of years. Because it claimed that the Jews demoted the blood of Christ beyond the heads of themselves and all their children to the remotest generation. That is the warrant and license for – and incitement to anti-Jewish pogroms. What are you going to do about that?

    Where is your pebbling subsection now?!? Does it say St John’s gospel must be censored?

    Not quite as relevant, but keep this bit in mind:

    Now, if you look anywhere you like, because we had implications of a rather driveling and sickly kind tonight about or sympathy, what about the poor fags, the poor Jews, the wretched women who can’t take the abuse and the slaves and their descendants and the tribes who didn’t make it, and their land of which all was forfeit… look anywhere you like in the world for slavery, for the subjection of women as chattel, for the burning and flogging of homosexuals, for ethnic cleansing, for antisemitism, for all of this, look no further than a famous book that’s on every pulpit in this city, and in every synagogue and in every mosque.

    And then just see whether you can square the fact that the force of the main source of hatred, is also the main caller for censorship. And when you’ve realized that you’re therefore this evening faced with a gigantic false antithesis, I hope that still won’t stop you from giving the motion before you the resounding endorsement it deserves. Thank you. Night night, stay cool.