So apparently Christians are the world’s most persecuted people

Paul Vallely writes:

Most people in the West would be surprised by the answer to the question: who are the most persecuted people in the world? According to the International Society for Human Rights, a secular group with members in 38 states worldwide, 80 per cent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today are directed at Christians.

The Centre for the Study of Global Christianity in the United States estimates that 100,000 Christians now die every year, targeted because of their faith – that is 11 every hour. The Pew Research Center says that hostility to religion reached a new high in 2012, when Christians faced some form of discrimination in 139 countries, almost three-quarters of the world’s nations.

People suffering, regardless of how much, is terrible. Numbers and facts matter. Resources are determined according to need and requirement. And reality doesn’t always align with our political perspectives.

Vallely doesn’t cite “insulting Jesus”, for example, as discrimination, but rather instances like “Christians… languishing in jail for blasphemy in Pakistan, and churches are burned and worshippers regularly slaughtered in Nigeria and Egypt, which has recently seen its worst anti-Christian violence in seven centuries.”

He continues

The most violent anti-Christian pogrom of the early 21st century saw as many as 500 Christians hacked to death by machete-wielding Hindu radicals in Orissa, India, with thousands more injured and 50,000 made homeless. In Burma, Chin and Karen Christians are routinely subjected to imprisonment, torture, forced labour and murder.

Persecution is increasing in China; and in North Korea a quarter of the country’s Christians live in forced labour camps after refusing to join the national cult of the state’s founder, Kim Il-Sung. Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the Maldives all feature in the 10 worst places to be a Christian.

This is horrible.

UPDATE

Smart commenters are smart. Thanks, folks!

New York Times’ Editorial board calls for drug policy to enter the 21st century

Because, you know, policy that harms more than it heals, laws that create criminals instead of mitigating criminality, is a little bit stupid.

It took 13 years for the United States to come to its senses and end Prohibition, 13 years in which people kept drinking, otherwise law-abiding citizens became criminals and crime syndicates arose and flourished. It has been more than 40 years since Congress passed the current ban on marijuana, inflicting great harm on society just to prohibit a substance far less dangerous than alcohol.

The federal government should repeal the ban on marijuana.

It seems silly to call them brave – but, I think, that among other compliments are deserved.

Read the rest.

Plagiarism in the age of instant, digital content

Buzzfeed has fired its “viral politics editor”, Benny Johnson, for numerous (read: forty one so far?) instances of plagiarism. Buzzfeed isn’t some bedroom-based conveyor belt of clickable content, it’s a major site, employing many people, producing original content and sometimes actual journalism.

However, Buzzfeed, as a whole, is an entity existing in an ethical quandary with content creation. [Read more…]

Male entitlement, why it’s a problem, why I (and you should) oppose it

Because, in 2014 (not, you know, 1814), a woman can be sent a document, from her husband, detailing when she said no to sex. Because a website can publish a list of traits “attractive girls” have that, I guess, “unattractive” girls don’t. Because a man who’s not exactly on good terms with women’s equality can make an entire album for his ex-wife about getting her back – and people think it’s cute, not incredibly invasive and creepy.

Because, perhaps worst of all, many responses to such stories express support for the men writing and conveying such worldviews; because people, especially women, who oppose such treatment  are threatened, harassed, abused. Women are owed to men, it seems. [Read more…]

Women, science and the machine of exclusion

In my latest for The Daily Beast, I respond to a piece about how “females” just can’t brain science as well as men – or rather, that “females as a whole” tend to find science boring. Apparently. According to some dodgy data.

Anyway, I had some amazing input from some brilliant scientists who have had experience with this. There is also plenty of data supporting the machine thesis, that of a culture that makes science into a man’s space, that is unwelcoming to women, then uses women’s absence and disinterest (after they’ve been taught to be) that women don’t like science.

Of course while writing it, I forced myself to watch that awful Science: It’s a Girl Thing video again. *Shiver*

Remember this BS?

Yeah. I totally wonder why women found this so horrible! /s

Robin Thicke and self-entitled creepiness

So, I’m not what you’d call a regular listener to radio. I did, however, encounter Robin Thicke’s song “Blurred Lines” when it came out – and found it not only a repulsive song, musically, but also morally. I think we should care about what goes into our creative endeavours, but maybe I’m just a crazy person.

Anyway, with the release of his new song and album, his put his creepy factor into a new gear. I was not impressed; and hate the normalisation of viewing women’s rejection as some kind of game or challenge. I wrote more about it over at The Daily Beast.

Against stigma of sex workers and adult performers

In my latest for The Daily Beast, I look at the case of camgirl and adult performer Eden Alexander – who had a fundraiser for important medical bills cut off because… sex work is icky?

The site that processes payments for the fundraiser, WePay, asserted that Alexander had violated their ToS, which strictly prohibits funds being donated in exchange for sexy activities. Except, as you’ll see, that’s not what happened: She retweeted notifications from porn sites that offered “perks”, in return for donating. That was not at Alexander’s doing and it’s bizarre that she should be held accountable for the actions of others – who were finding ways to get, you know, medicine for her. This aside from the dismissal of sex work as work.

It’s a hodgepodge mix of reactionary nonsense and sex worker stigma, which shows in a tangible way what arbitrary prejudice can do (and, no, I’m not claiming WePay “sent” her to the hospital – since, after all, the company is doing what they can to repair a mistake they never should’ve made in the first place). We shouldn’t stand for such mistreatment of innocent people, who are only viewed as “bad” because their work involves something R-Rated.

I hate that companies are ruled by policies that seem catered toward the most conservative moral viewpoint. Especially when they can lead to unnecessary harm.

Keeping “the gays” out of gaming

I wrote a piece for The Daily Beast on Nintendo’s response to wanting same-sex relations in one of their games. For many – including gaming fans – this may seem like so much nonsense. Yet, what it speaks to is a greater problem of exclusion and targeting, of how you do harm by doing “nothing” or ignoring, within a popular medium – in this case, games.

You can examine all sorts of mediums, but the one I’ve dealt with here – because it is my passion – is games. I do challenge you, though, to read the comments without wanting to build a spaceship and find other planets. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know I‘ve been Tweeting a bit about so many stupid responses.

It’s pretty bizarre how there still exist such mindsets with such deep-seated hatred for gay people and same-sex attraction. Why? It’s simply something I cannot fathom – and I say that as someone who advocates understanding your opponent in debates. I’m not gay myself, so I’ve never had to face such horrible treatment (Homophobic slurs tossed at me don’t count as experiencing homophobia, merely because I write about sex equality – I think I made some commenters* angrier when I indicated I’m not, in fact, gay).

I just don’t know whether there even exists a debate about whether gay people are persons – so it means I don’t have opponents, so much as people holding completely strange and bigoted worldviews. Of course, this doesn’t mean swearing or treating these opponents badly – it just means that any bridge for comprehension collapsed some time ago. I’d like it to return to have them change their mind, but I don’t know. It is very difficult.

Why hate gay people so much? I mean, geez! Equating them with Nazis? Friggin‘ hell.

*Not ALL commenters.