Oh no, the bishops are livid, we must give in!

What was that about US Catholic bishops insisting on imposing Catholic dogma on the entire US population by telling presidents and legislators to obey their rules? Well it worked.

White House advisors, including one of President Obama’s top faith consultants, are signaling a potential compromise on a controversial new mandate that requires some religious institutions to cover contraception costs for employees.

David Axelrod, a senior campaign adviser for the Obama reelection campaign, said Tuesday that Obama may be open to a compromise that would expand a religious exemption in the new Health & Human Services mandate to satisfy religious groups. [Read more…]

Falangists in Fleet Street

It’s interesting how cheerfully unabashed the Telegraph is in its belief that Catholic bishops should tell US presidents and legislators what laws to make. It’s interesting that they take theocracy – and reactionary all-but-falangist Catholic theocracy at that – for granted. It’s interesting and somewhat surprising. Would they really like reactionary Catholic bishops making laws in the UK?

Roman Catholic leaders have furiously criticised President Barack Obama for approving new regulations that compel religious organisations to include morning-after pills and other contraceptives in employee health insurance coverage. [Read more…]

Prop 8 ruled unconstitutional

Breaking news: the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that limited marriage to one man and one woman, violated the U.S. Constitution.

“Proposition 8 served no purpose, and had no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California,” the court said.

The ruling upheld a decision by retired Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker, who struck down the ballot measure in 2010 after holding an unprecedented trial on the nature of sexual orientation and the history of marriage.

Next stop: the Supreme Court.

Comrade

Meet Opinionista. She has a great post about “the double whammy of disadvantage one faces for being a secular minded individual from a Muslim community living in the UK.”

Identity anti-racists such as the Stop the War Coalition have dismissed and continue to dismiss secular activist voices like those of Gita Sahgal or secular organisations such as Just Peace (a young organisation founded by progressive and secular Muslim activists) and Women Against Fundamentalism. Instead they befriend the likes of Muslim Association of Britain which is an offshoot of the Arab Muslim Brotherhood. It makes my blood boil. It’s a form of racism masquerading as cultural cohesion and tolerance. In reality, such high tolerance for fundamentalists in the UK  just  exacerbates some of the inaccurate national (and global) perceptions of what all British Muslims are like. Such  alliances completely ignore the fact that people like me do exist. There are  secular, non-religious Agnostic (or Atheist) cultural Muslims who have needs that can not be served by Muslim fundamentalists, conservative Muslim values, nor by the Ken Livingstones of the world.

Read the whole thing. Tell her she rocks.

None so blind as those who will not see

Rebecca has a post about a Facebook clash on Saturday, in which Jessica Ahlquist posted a witty picture of herself imitating the emoticon

😀

and a bunch of men came along to say she was hot and should go post on the “Sexy Atheists” page. Rhys Morgan commented that that was creepy, and the clash ensued. I happened to see it at an early stage so I chimed in, and soon afterward so did Rebecca. The usual thing – lots of squawking about humorless feminazi arglebargle blah – lots of guys posting 50 comments to say “why are you making such a fuss?!” The usual the usual; you could write it in your sleep. But Rebecca has a good analysis (and she has Jessica’s permission to post the whole thing).

I particularly like the opening paragraphs:

A lot of atheists who were once religious talk about their de-conversion as a metaphorical opening of their own eyes. Of course, those who find religion often feel the same way: “I once was blind but now I see.” This is an obvious way of describing what happens when you have a sudden realization that changes your entire outlook on life.

It would be wonderful if those who experience that change took as a lesson the fact that there may always be something big and obvious about the way the world works, that we may be missing. But instead it seems as though it’s more common that once someone has their particular realization, they assume that now they’ve got it all figured out.

Read on.

 

Standing up the better to fall down

Poor Ireland – it just can’t escape from the Vatican, it seems. It can try but then the theocrats will raise a stink and it will be dragged back.

The Irish government faces a potential Holy War over the  decision to close the country’s Vatican embassy.

Coalition party leaders Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore are at loggerheads over the  closure, announced after the attack by Kenny on the Vatican’s failure to act on  child abuse in the Cloyne diocese.

Kenny has given in to calls from Fine Gael backbenchers to reconsider the decision to remove the Irish embassy from the Vatican.

The calls also come from a group called, risibly, Ireland Stand Up. Yes Ireland stand up and grovel to the Vatican again!

An Irish Catholic lay group has met with politicians  to voice their frustration over the closure of Ireland’s embassy to the  Vatican.

…

The protesters, from the group Ireland Stand Up, met with 50 TDs, 25 senators, and seven  representatives of ministers in Dublin.

…

Ireland Stand Up also asked that the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny issue  a formal invitation to Pope Benedict XVI to visit Dublin during the  International Eucharistic Congress this summer.

Stand up the better to fall prostrate. Ooooookay.

[smothered laughter] The link to Ireland Stand Up goes to a twitter account! It has 400 followers – I have more than that! So…82 politicians met with a Twitter group? That’s hilarious.

Anyway, Fine Gael apparently takes them seriously.

TANAISTE Eamon Gilmore is facing growing demands from Fine Gael backbenchers for a rethink about his closure of the Ireland’s Vatican Embassy.

The closure has cast doubt over the prospects of the Pope coming here in summer for the Eucharistic Congress.

The decision to close the embassy is particularly sensitive in Fine Gael, with some party sources privately suggesting Taoiseach Enda Kenny should not have allowed it to happen.

But why? Why this slavish love for the Catholic church and the Vatican? Given the history, why on earth? Does the Vatican act as if it loves its dear Irish subjects?

Maybe it’s a new syndrome, to go with Stockholm Syndrome. We could call it Dublin Syndrome.

 

How not to marginalize women

There are so many ways not to do that. It seems so simple, yet somehow, it proves elusive.

One way is:

If you disagree with a woman, or several women, don’t introduce your disagreement with that familiar Shakespeare tag “the lady doth protest too much.” That’s especially true if you are a man.

Let me explain. (Yes, of course it’s obvious; of course it shouldn’t need explanation; but apparently there are always people who profess not to understand.) There is no need for such a preamble. It is entirely normal to disagree with people by just disagreeing with them. There is no need for a preliminary throat-clearing in which you disparage whatever perceived group your object-of-criticism belongs to via an overused quotation from Shakespeare (or the bible or The Purpose-driven Life).

So, if you are American and your object is French, there is no need to start with a stale joke about The French before you get to the substance. If you are white and your object is not, it is unnecessary to begin with a joke about Other Races. The fact that you are disagreeing with someone from Group X will be clear enough without any introductory joke about Group X talking too much.

So it is with women. If you disagree with a woman, or several women, just disagree with them. Just get on with it. Don’t pause to say they talk too much first; just get on with it. Don’t try to frame the discussion as a matter of women talking too much by talking at all. Don’t try to locate yourself on higher ground by treating women who talk as needing a mild rebuke just for talking, before we even get to the actual disagreement.

I hope that’s clear? It seems very clear to me, but then I have a bias. I have a bias that tells me I get to talk, just like anyone else, and that I’m not doing anything weird or abnormal by talking, and that there is just no need to make stupid creaky is-this-1850 jokes about women talking, just because I talk. Not everyone has this bias, so what seems clear to me won’t seem clear to everyone.

I’ll explain a little more, just to make sure. I’m allowed to talk. Women are allowed to talk. We don’t need permission or approval; we get to do it, just as you do. Jokes about women talking too much are just as funny as jokes about blacks being lazy or Jews driving a hard bargain. They’re nasty ingroup jokes that are meant to keep marginalized people marginalized, and people with any sense don’t make them.

That’s how not to marginalize women, chapter 1.

Rituals not detachable

Sometimes they admit it. Sometimes they admit, “no it’s not just practice, it’s not just being good – it’s belief.” The Spectator does.

It is certainly the case, as AN Wilson says in a Spectator review, that, until relatively recently, religious  ritual did include unbelievers as a matter of course since those rites focused on participation rather than subscribing explicitly to a creed. But the ‘consoling subtle or just charming  rituals’ of religion that Mr de Botton would like to co-opt for unbelievers are not, I’d say, detachable from the beliefs that inspired them. It’s a little like saying that the music and  poetry of love are too charming, too consoling to be confined to those who love and should be extended to those who have never been in love or who find themselves incapable of it. The benefits of  religion flow, I’d say, from the things believers believe.

We agree with you, except that we think that most of the benefits aren’t really benefits. We think believing there is an omnipotent being who wants us to believe it exists but refuses to give us any good reason to do so is not a benefit but a mind-impeding device.

Christians believe in the brotherhood of man, for instance, because we believe in the Fatherhood of God, or its feminist equivalent.

But believing in the Fatherhood of God entails believing that the male sex is the better one. The brotherhood of man is not entirely a benefit to women. “Its feminist equivalent” is a throwaway phrase which makes little dent in the existing patriarchal arrangements.

And so on. We can go on for hours in this vein. But the point is, they think what we’ve always said they think: that the beliefs do matter and that they do take them seriously.

Why god is a problem

I want to say a little more about George Pitcher…

There’s the way he began his nasty squib about the putative “shrillness” of Richard Dawkins.

There’s something divine in the air. Agnostics and atheists are beginning to nod respectfully in the direction of the Almighty, while still, of course, maintaining that He’s not there.

Jokey, in a way, but he also means it. He especially means the assumption that underlies it: that we (we atheists, we humans in general) owe “the Almighty” our respectful nods. That the Almighty is entitled to them, and that we are obliged to give them. [Read more…]