The only category

This little spat between the Inquisition and the slightly disobedient (but not disobedient enough) nuns reminds me of something that we generally don’t focus on sharply enough. It’s certainly obvious, yet it kind of fades into the background of the taken-for-granted.

The something is:

Women are the only category of people who can’t ever be Catholic clergy no matter what they do or don’t do. The only one. Atheists can change their minds. Buddhists can convert. Convicted felons can repent. Gay men can be closeted.

But women, and women only, are barred, completely and finally; barred as such, barred from birth, barred because of what they are. Trying to unbar them is an excommunicable crime, while raping children is not. Raping children in the performance of priestly duties is not an excommunicable crime – but ordinating ordaining a woman as a priest is.

It’s very interesting, if you think about it. There are no Chinese or Brazilian disciples of Jesus, but that doesn’t make Chinese or Brazilian men ineligible for the priesthood. Yet the explanation for the ineligibility of women is that there were no female disciples. That’s a transparently feeble reason.

No; it’s just that the church and its all-male staff share the age-old bigotry about women and they’re authoritarian and vicious enough to refuse to abandon it. They think women aren’t good enough to be priests. They think women are too dirty, and stupid, and sluttish, and weak to be priests. They don’t want women stinking up their club house. And because religion is Special, they get to act on their bigotry.

 

The Vatican rebukes Radical Feminist nuns

Ah the dear US Conference of Catholic bishops – how it does love itself a chance to tell people to obey it. The same of course goes for the dear Inquisition, now thoughtfully renamed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which was Ratzinger’s part of the organization until he got the top job. The Inquisition has issued a new Obey Us, which the UCCB has kindly shared. It begins with – well, with Obey Us, of course.

The context in which the current doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the United States of America is best situated is articulated by Pope John Paul II in the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Vita consecrata of 1996. Commenting on the genius of the charism of religious life in the Church, Pope John Paul says: “In founders and foundresses we see a constant and lively sense of the Church, which they manifest by their full participation in all aspects of the Church’s life, and in their ready obedience to the Bishops and especially to the Roman Pontiff. [Read more…]

Stand with Sergey

A guy in Russia was arrested for saying gay people should have rights.

Sergey Kondrashov was jailed in St. Petersburg, Russia for defying a new draconian “homosexual propaganda” law. His crime? Holding up a sign saying a close family friend, who happens to be lesbian, deserves the same rights as he and his wife. Stand with Sergey – and other Russians who are refusing to be silenced, and challenging the spread of this backwards law nationwide.

There’s a petition you can sign. Only 30 thousand to go and they’ll have 100 thousand.

Bullying is healthy

So people are trying to combat the bullying of LGBQ teenagers in school, and religious conservative lunatics are trying to combat the efforts to combat the bullying. Yes that’s right. Grown-ups in grown-up organizations full of grown-ups are trying to prevent people from stopping bullying in schools.

Last  year, many conservative political organizations, including Focus on the Family,  the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, Liberty Counsel  and Concerned Women for America vocally opposed attempts by school districts  and public officials to combat bullying based on actual or perceived sexual  orientation and gender identity—categories typically considered along with  other attributes such as race, sex, age, disability and national origin.  Moreover, these groups smeared and demonized advocacy groups that collaborate  with teachers and administrators in developing best practices to combat bullying,  warning that anti-bullying groups would encourage everything from  “homosexualizing” youth to anti-Christian persecution to pedophilia. [Read more…]

On a billboard

I saw this billboard while on a bus yesterday; it was urging adoption of pets from shelters, and it was a big banner portrait (not a photograph) of five Yellow Lab puppies. Four of the five are looking straight out, while just one of them is tilting the head…and has a pink bow behind the ear. Well gee, guess what we’re supposed to think – the one with the bow is A Girl.

So why is there only one girl then? Why four forthright direct Boy puppies and just one flirtatious coy bow-behind-the-ear Girl?

(And why single her out? Why signal her sex? Why put a bow behind her ear? When the fuck do puppies ever wear bows behind their ears?!! How would you even attach it? And why would you try when you know the puppy would yank it off in two seconds flat? What is your point?) [Read more…]

Court sentences are based on sharia

But then we read a story from Saudi Arabia, and we are struck dumb.

A Sri Lankan woman is currently facing decapitation by sword on a witchcraft charge in Saudi Arabia, in accordance with Wahhabism, a strict form of Sunni Islam. The UN reports executions tripled in the kingdom in 2011.

­A Saudi man complained that in a shopping mall his 13-year-old  daughter “suddenly started acting in an abnormal way, which happened  after she came close to the Sri Lankan woman,” reports the daily Okaz.

After the local man denounced the Sri Lankan for casting a spell on  his daughter, police in the port city of Jeddah found it sufficient cause to arrest the woman.

A Sri Lankan woman was in a shopping mall. Some guy said his daughter “suddenly started acting in an abnormal way” after she came close to the woman. The woman was arrested as a witch, and could have her head chopped off.

It makes you hate the species. It makes you wish human beings had never evolved.

In the absolute monarchy that Saudi Arabia is, a criminal code does not exist per se. Court sentences are based on Islamic Sharia law on the interpretation of judges.

It’s all been such a mistake. We were once little shrew-like animals. That would be so much better.

The beheading of Indonesian national Ruyati binti Sapubi in 2011 sparked a widely-discussed scandal. The 54-year-old woman, who worked as a maid, was sentenced to death after she confessed of murdering her employer with a kitchen knife after suffering abuse.

With about 1.5 million Indonesians working in Saudi Arabia, many of them as maids, the ruling caused an outcry in Indonesia, which even considered banning its women from working in the kingdom. After the Saudi Arabian ambassador officially apologized for the incident, the initiative was left in oblivion.

The cases of mistreatment of maids, who came in waves to Saudi Arabia in the recent past, received a different attitude of national justice. In April 2011, a Saudi woman convicted of torturing her Indonesian maid successfully had her conviction quashed on appeal.

I saw this horror via Taslima.

The Romneys ate tuna

I can only find it funny. There was an old joke about Martin Amis – that his first book was titled My Struggle. That should be a new joke about the Romneys. Our Struggle.

You’re going to need a hanky for this sob story, as told by Ann Romney back in 1994, of just how hard young Mitt and Ann struggled when they were just starting out:

They were not easy years. […]We were happy, studying hard. Neither one of us had a job, because Mitt had enough of an investment from stock that we could sell off a little at a time. [Read more…]

Sparring

So where were we – oh yes – there’s a post at RDF about the Women in Secularism conference, with a particular mention of Elisabeth Cornwell, who is president of RDF US.

Dr. R. Elisabeth Cornwell and many other leading women speaking at Women in Secularism Conference

            By – – CENTER FOR INQUIRY                  Added: Sunday, 15 April 2012 at 5:38 PM

May 18–20, 2012 Crystal City Marriott Reagan National Airport Arlington, Virginia

FEMINISM AND SECULARISM.Given the role religion has played in the repression of women, they would seem to be natural allies, and, indeed, many feminists have been outspoken and influential secularists. However, the relationship between secularism and women’s issues remains largely unexamined.

UNTIL NOW.Join us on May 18-20, 2012, for the “Women in Secularism” conference, sponsored by the Center for Inquiry. This historic conference will discuss and celebrate the many contributions women have made to the secular movement, while critically examining both the successes and failures of secularism in addressing women’s concerns.

Naturally we can’t have that kind of thing without at least one anonymous [cough] turning up to sneer, so someone calling himself “The Ghost of Mr Emmeline Pankhurst” (hawhaw, geddit – the poor bastard was pussy-whipped! hawhaw) turned up to sneer, at great and tedious length, thus totally derailing the thread. I replied to him briefly, and he replied to me at great length. After one of his long and insulting (insulting among other things to all the speakers, including Dr. R. Elisabeth Cornwell, president of RDF US) (and by the way me), a mod said

OK, this is enough now, thank you.

Further sparring posts from either side will be removed.

Wrong! False equivalence. Go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

Update: The people at RDF have (in response to an indignant email from me) added a note saying the discussion can be continued here. That helps with the false equivalence problem.