A fine example of apologizing oneself right into a defense of the indefensible

Wow. Bill Donohue is going to love Andrew Brown. Brown has written a defense of the Catholic church titled “Catholic child abuse in proportion“; you can tell right away exactly where it is going to be going. ‘Only’ 4% of American priests have been accused of sexual abuse of a minor, and as much as 27% of American women report a history of childhood sexual abuse (to quote just a pair of statistics he uses), therefore, Catholic priests aren’t that bad. Which means…

Certainly the safeguards against paedophilia in the priesthood are now among the tightest in the world. That won’t stop a steady trickle of scandals; but I think that objectively your child is less likely to be abused by a Catholic or Anglican priest in the west today than by the members of almost any other profession.

He doesn’t mention any statistics on any other profession. So kids are more likely to be raped by your local policeman, college professor, grade school teacher, construction worker, farmer, dentist, carpenter, plumber, doctor, or whatever than your local priest? Brown hasn’t shown any evidence at all that that is the case. And I think he would have an even tougher job trying to demonstrate that rapists in these other professions do it while carrying out their duties, or while wearing a uniform of propriety in quite the same way priests do.

As for this claim that priests now have tight safeguards…I haven’t seen any evidence at all of that. The Catholic church doesn’t seem to be cleaning house at all, nor does it have any history of doing so; the pattern has been to hide and protect abusers in their ranks, until they are dragged out into the light by secular investigations.

And then Brown goes ahead and lists a series of reasons why the pattern of Catholic abuse has been regarded with an especially deserved horror. Doesn’t he even read what he writes?

So why the concentration on Catholic priests and brothers? Perhaps I am unduly cynical, but I believe that all institutions attempt to cover up institutional wrongdoing although the Roman Catholic church has had a higher opinion of itself than most, and thus a greater tendency to lie about these things. Because it is an extremely authoritarian institution at least within the hierarchy, it is also one where there were few checks and balances on the misbehaviour of the powerful. The scandal has been loudest and most damaging in Ireland, because it came along just at the moment when the church was losing its power over society at large, and where it was no longer able to cover up what had happened, but still willing to try. Much the same is true in the diocese of Boston which was bankrupted by the scandal.

Hmmm. Andrew Brown is a member of a beleagured institution, journalism, which by his own argument should have just as large a proportion of people who carry out child rape in the execution of their responsibilities as do Catholic priests. I think he therefore has a responsibility to turn whistleblower and report all of his colleagues who have gone out to interview children and abused their authority to obtain sex. Surely, the Guardian must be harboring nests of pedophiles that the newspaper protects by shuffling them out to distant assignments when their crimes become excessive.

Stop protecting child-raping journalists, Brown, and come clean. You’ve convinced me, they must be just as bad as the Catholic priesthood.

A hero in the Philippines

The Philippines has a problem with a rising number of AIDS cases every year, and members of the government have been promoting a sensible response: Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral has sponsored a program that distributes free condoms, for instance. You can guess who opposes prophylactics, though.

“The condom business is a multimillion dollar industry that heavily targets the adolescent market at the expense of morality and family life,” said Bishop Nereo Odchimar, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. He called fidelity and premarital chastity “the only effective way to curb the spread of AIDS.”

The Catholics have informed Cabral that she has “one foot in hell.” How sweet. They are also actively campaigning against any politician who promotes birth control.

I’m so sorry that the Philippines is so deeply afflicted with forces for insanity and irrationality, but at least they’ve got brave people like Esperanza Cabral standing up for what is right.

Polling for validation of bigotry

There was this young child at a Catholic pre-school who was kicked out because his or her parents were lesbians. Now people are protesting, because that’s not what Jesus would do (I won’t quibble over their justifications — Jesus probably would have told the mob to stone the perverted parents to death — it’s OK that they’re doing the right thing for the wrong reasons). And the local newspaper runs a poll.

Is it valid to protest a Boulder Roman Catholic school’s decision to bar the child of a lesbian couple from attending?

Yes
 43.98 %
No
 40.32 %
I’m not sure
 1.443 %
I don’t care if they protest or not
 14.24 %

For additional amusement, the good Reverend at the Catholic church at the center of this issue has a novel excuse for his actions.

“If a child of gay parents comes to our school, and we teach that gay marriage is against the will of God, then the child will think that we are saying their parents are bad,” Breslin said on his blog. “We don’t want to put any child in that tough position.”

Isn’t that sweet? It’s for the good of the child that they evict them, so they don’t hear the cruel condemnations the church will give their parents.

Scientologists prominently dissed

There are two very encouraging facts about this article on scientology in the NY Times.

One is that it got published. Once upon a time, newspapers and magazines hesitated to criticize scientology at all, because they’d immediately sic an army of lawyers on the publication, and any journalists involved face some fierce harassment. They probably still do that, but their triumphantly oppressive days are over.

The other is this fascinating disclosure.

The church is vague about its membership numbers. In 11 hours with a reporter over two days, Mr. Davis, the church’s spokesman, gave the numbers of Sea Org members (8,000), of Scientologists in the Tampa-Clearwater area (12,000) and of L. Ron Hubbard’s books printed in the last two and a half years (67 million). But asked about the church’s membership, Mr. Davis said, “I couldn’t tell you an exact figure, but it’s certainly, it’s most definitely in the millions in the U.S. and millions abroad.”

He said he did not know how to account for the findings in the American Religious Identification Survey that the number of Scientologists in the United States fell from 55,000 in 2001 to 25,000 in 2008.

That’s a rather precipitous fall. If they can keep shedding believers at that rate, this will be scientology’s last decade.

Suffer the little children

A young child at a Boulder pre-school has been kicked out for an awful crime. The child was enrolled in a Catholic preschool, and also has two mommies. I’ll leave you to guess which of those two is the awful crime.

According to teachers at Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic School, a meeting was held Tuesday to discuss the issue. The staff was told a student would not be allowed to re-enroll because of his or her parents’ sexual orientation. The staff members were also told not to talk to the media.

Another interesting twist is that the staff at the school are described as “disgusted” with the decision; it came from on high, straight from the priests at the archdiocese. It’s a case of the more secular staff knowing what the decent thing they ought to be doing is, and the religious buffoons using their holy dogma to do evil.

The biggest, gayest brothel in the world

Back when we bought our house, one of the things that we liked about it is that it’s a somewhat quirky place, with an odd layout and a few old 50s touches. One thing I didn’t care for is the decor of the upstairs; it’s got this vivid scarlet carpeting everywhere, and one of the bedrooms was (it’s been repainted now) wallpapered with bright green shamrocks. I joked that we could open a brothel for leprechauns up there if we wanted to make a little extra money.

You know, if I’d been moving into the Vatican, instead, I’d probably have made a similar joke — all that garish, gaudy excess and all the men wondering around in flamboyant dress would have probably moved me to joke that we could open a brothel for gay priests here.

What do you know, it’s true. There is a gay prostitution scandal in the Vatican right now. I am in awe. On top of the child abuse scandals in Ireland and Germany, this is just icing on top of a rotten, wormy, corrupt cake.

And this afternoon, I’m going to have to sweep the upstairs bedroom for any sneaky leprechauns.

Injustices and ironies

Allow me to purge a few interesting stories from my mailbag:

  • Keshia Canter was working the drive-up window at a burger joint when a sanctimonious customer handed her a pamphlet.

    Scripture tells us that when a man looks on a woman to lust for her he has already committed adultery in his heart. If you are dressed in a way that tempts a men to do this secret (or not so secret) sin, you are a participant in the sin. By the way, some rape victims would not have been raped if they had dressed properly. So can we really say they were innocent victims?

    To answer the question, yes. Yes we can. If a woman walks in front of me stark naked, and I rape her, it is entirely my fault. I have will and a desire to treat people fairly, and no amount of sexual provocation justifies violence and abuse.

    This particular attitude is another reason to throw “scripture” in the trash.

  • In a scenario that plays out all the time, a student at a private Christian school was outed as gay. The kid was ordered to the school office and summarily kicked out.

    There is a poll with this story, asking whether the school can kick students out for their sexual orientation. If it’s a private school, yes they can — it’s a silly question. The only answer, of course, is simply to never send your kids to private religious schools. You should recognize the problem with a school established to promote superstition anyway.

    Unfortunately, that isn’t all there is to the story. The parents are religious morons, and instead of loving their child for who he is, they want him to “repent” and plan to send him to a church “cure”.

    You can choose your school, but you’re stuck with the parents you get. Isn’t that a shame?

  • There is an airport in Liverpool named after John Lennon, which is nice. Not so nice is the fact that the UK has a law, the Crime and Disorder Act, which apparently makes religious irreverence illegal — which ought to mean John Lennon is illegal, too. Anyway, Harry Taylor left some cartoons mocking religion at the airport, and then…

    The leaflets were discovered by Nicky Lees, the airport chaplain, who told the court she felt “deeply offended and insulted” by their contents.

    She has a right to be offended. Being offended does not justify what happened next: Taylor was arrested and charged with three counts of “religiously aggravated harassment, alarm or distress”. I guess you can offend atheists in Great Britain, but offend a chaplain, and you’ll find yourself in court.

    Good one, UK. You’ve got insane libel laws, and now it turns out you provide special privileges to shamans, too.

  • I suppose it’s not fair to pick on the English when we’ve got our share of idiots in Minnesota. Our governor, Tim Pawlenty, has been trying to destroy something called General Assistance Medical Care, which provides support for 30,000 of the poorest people in the state (of course — he’s a Republican!) Among the many inane excuses Pawlenty gives us that the state of our citizens is God’s will (of course — he’s a Republican!). Seriously. He’s making it an important principle of his administration.

    One of the first principles that we should turn to always, and remember, is that God is in charge.

    Now here’s the ironic part. Many religious leaders are opposing Pawlenty’s heartless campaign, and I commend them for it. Keep fighting for the poor — I would have thought that that was an important principle in Christianity. However, this reason, from Lutheran pastor Grant Stevenson, is ridiculous:

    Governor, please stop talking to us about God. The governor is going around saying, ‘God is in control.’ We elected you to be making decisions for this state that will help everyone in this state. Things that will lift up the poorest in this state. Don’t pass this off on God. That’s no God we’ve ever heard of. And please stop lecturing us about God. It’s offensive.

    All right, pastor, come down from that pulpit. You lecture your flock every week about God, and you have no better knowledge of that imaginary being’s will than does Governor Pawlenty.

Repent, Amarillo!

Or you will be exterminated! You know, Texas has a reputation of being a nasty place full of particularly ignorant rednecks, which I don’t blindly agree with — I know too many smart Texans, and it does have many good organizations, like the Texas Freedom Network — but this is a blight that smirches even that already sooty name. I am speaking of a vicious vigilante organization called Repent Amarillo. Look upon that link and quiver with disgust.

i-f9e84d0bc0501a60c25db1f5507ff1d3-repentam.jpeg

It’s saturated with military imagery: men in uniform, humvees, helicopters, helmets; they compare themselves to special forces; they call themselves the Army of God, and sport Bible quotes glorifying warfare. They aren’t military, but they pretend they are, and bring shame to both our soldiers and their faith. They’re actually just cowardly busybodies who snoop and whine at their neighbors, and harass their employers until they get fired. They are not nice people. They’re actually some of the worst kind of people.

They are a “rabid group of religious nuts” who object to the usual targets of fundie hatred — gays — but also harrass people who visit sex shops, engage in consensual heterosexual activity outside the bounds of traditional marriage, and…well, here’s a list of their targets.

1. Gay pride events.
2. Earth worship events such as “Earth Day”
3. Pro-abortion events or places such as Planned Parenthood
4. Breast cancer events such as “Race for the Cure” to illuminate the link between abortion and breast cancer.
5. Opening day of public schools to reach out to students.
6. Spring break events.
7. Demonically based concerts.
8. Halloween events.
9. Other events that may arise that the ministry feels called to confront.

They also plan to hit:

1. Sexually oriented businesses such as pornography shops, strip joints, and XXX-rated theaters.
2. Idolatry locations such as palm readers, false religions, and witchcraft. Many of the smaller missions listed above may be just prayer oriented missions for tearing down demonic strongholds or they may involve more aggressive use of soldiers and prayer warriors. Some other missions occasionally employed may be “undercover operations” where the groups show up together but are not publicly visible together to effect the outcome of a public meeting such as city commissioners meetings, etc.

Check out their Warfare Map. It includes local Buddhist churches (“False god”), the Islamic center (“Allah is a false god and Muhammad is a false prophet”), the Masonic Lodge (“Masonic rituals and teachings in the upper ranks is based on Egyptian paganism. Full of secrecy. Only evil hides in the dark”), the Universalist Church (“Teaches that everyone is going to heaven. This calls Christ a liar. You cannot be a Christian if you call Christ a liar”), the Unitarian Universalist Church (“Pagan and witchcraft headquarters for Amarillo. Pagan and witchcraft celebrations and rites are performed here”), St Andrew’s Episcopal Church (“Referred to an OUTstanding Amarillo’s (Homosexual activists) website as a ‘gay friendly’ church. In other words, they do not tell homosexuals who attend this church that they must repent of the sin of homosexuality. This is a serious violation of scripture”), and Beavers Gentleman Club (“Total nude strip club”), among many others.

“Repent or perish” is their message. They show up dressed in army fatigues, carrying bullhorns, with ghetto blasters blaring Christian music, and they write down license plate numbers and photograph people doing anything they disapprove of. They are our American Mutawwa’in, petty tyrants of propriety with a bloated sense of their own importance. They are our self-righteous wanna-be oppressors.

Keep this in mind. This is the future the Pat Robertsons, the James Dobsons, the Sarah Palins want for us — a kind of Saudi Arabia that differs only in the name we give our prophet.

The problem with science journalism…

…is that too often newspapers think you don’t need a science journalist to write it. Any ol’ hack will do. Take this article on evolution in the Vancouver Sun, which distills modern evolutionary biology into 12 theories, which happens to include Madame Blavatsky’s Theosophy as well as Intelligent Design creationism — which, at least, is pairing intellectual equals. The author, Douglas Todd, is speaking High Crackbrain and making stuff up. It’s all garbage from a buffoon who knows nothing about the field. What, you have to wonder, qualifies him to be writing on science?

Jerry Coyne has the answer.

He has twice taken first place in the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year Award, which goes to the top religion reporter in the secular media in North America. Todd is the only Canadian to have received the Templeton.

Hey, the Templeton Foundation puts it right at the top of their web page: they are SUPPORTING SCIENCE. They are all about sponsoring the reconciliation of science and religion (although, perhaps, that should be written as “science and RELIGION“, since we all know where the emphasis lies). It’s just too bad that the results so often belie their claims.