The Law Society is being seen to normalise Sharia

The LSS has drawn up a petition. It has also issued a statement: LSS condemns Law Society’s practice note on “Sharia compliant” wills.

The LSS is very concerned to learn that the Law Society, which represents solicitors in England and Wales, has recently issued a practice note on “Sharia compliant” wills. See LSS member Sadikur Rahman’s blog post from last week about it. [Read more…]

Breaking the wrong kind of ground

The Telegraph and the Times today report on that guidance from the Law Society on how to draw up “Sharia-compliant” wills.

The Telegraph:

Islamic law is to be effectively enshrined in the British legal system for the first time under guidelines for solicitors on drawing up “Sharia compliant” wills.

Under ground-breaking guidance, produced by The Law Society, High Street solicitors will be able to write Islamic wills that deny women an equal share of inheritances and exclude unbelievers altogether. [Read more…]

If you’re out at the big birthday celebration

A Republican state senator in Alaska really doesn’t think much of women.

He wants the state to provide free pregnancy tests in bars.

Kelly envisions the government contracting with a nonprofit to make the tests widely available at places that serve alcohol. As he explains, “So if you’re drinking, if you’re out at the big birthday celebration and you’re kind of like, ‘Gee, I wonder if I…?’ You can just go in the bathroom and there should be a plastic, Plexiglas bowl in there, and that’s part of the public relations campaign, too. You’re going to have some kind of card on there with a message.”  [Read more…]

Only 3 in 100

What about all those untested rape kits gathering dust in police departments around the US? 400,000 of them, we’re told. Is that “hysteria about rape culture”? (Thank you, American Enterprise Institute hack Caroline Kitchens.) It sounds more like bland indifference to rape, to this puzzled observer. But maybe the police just know all of them are false accusations, without checking?

Anti-rape activists are quick to point out that, although one-third of women experience sexual violence in their lifetimes, only 3 in 100 rapists will ever spend a single day in jail.  [Read more…]

The Salvation Army gives in

Ok this is big. The Salvation Army caved on a religious discrimination case it had been fighting for years. I first read about it in Michelle Goldberg’s great book Kingdom Coming. Dan Arel reports at the Huffington Post:

In 2004 a group of 19 plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the Salvation Army. The group claimed that the organization, which is a registered evangelical church and charity organization in the United States, was using public taxpayer money to proselytize their evangelical religious beliefs, discriminate, and terminate employees based on religious beliefs. [Read more…]

The infinite table

The Huffington Post reports that some creationists are demanding “equal time.”

Sure. Let’s do that with everything. There’s a documentary about the Holocaust? Give equal time to David Irving. PBS broadcasts Eyes on the Prize again? Give equal time to someone from the KKK. A documentary about the millions killed by Stalin? Give equal time to a Stalinist – if you can find one.

There’s a show about epidemics? Give equal time to people who think bacteria and viruses are a myth. A show about antibiotic resistance? Another opportunity for creationists! [Read more…]

We have strict laws

Uh oh, did somebody somewhere disturb the conventional wisdom? Quick! Hurry! Get someone to repeat the consoling fictions, before there’s a tear in the space-time continuum and everything falls off.

To the rescue: Caroline Kitchens in Time, with all the clichés piled up next to her keyboard ready to go.

There is no rape culture, there is only rape culture hysteria.

There we go; everyone can go home now. [Read more…]