Tolerance for Diversity and Intolerance

Tiberias Haredi Jews want segregated bus lines so that "males and females may sit on seperate sides of the bus" and that they may be generally seperated from non-religious Jews. We like this. We hope the religious Jews beat the non-religious ones, as one interviewee feared would happen, on the head with the Torah.

Someone in Liberal Oregon can't understand, or appreciate cultural diversity, at least not the domesticated kind of diversity one might appreciate on a planned and disneyfied cruise and tour of Uganda. It irks him that somewhere, someone else's truth isn't the same as his for the Ugandan government is getting a democratic law passed which will punish homosexuals with death. It's not exactly the kind of democracy we had in mind though here at the epicenter of cultural niceness where some values are more equal than others.

Perhaps what we need is to get newly Knighted Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan on an away team to discuss tolerance and diversity to the Ugandan people, that is, even before economic sanctions hit and Ugandan children might starve in order that the 5-10% of our population that really values these things can feel less impotent than they usually do.



Then perhaps they will understand. Even the usually morally moribound Anglican Church is supporting this legislation which was once, more or less, a standard in European societies, at least until the French Revolution came along.

Uganda has banned radio adverts by witches but before you go around criticizing and getting all superior on the poor Ugandans, we do too, except we tend to call them psychics or palm readers.

Our enthusiasm for Uganda increases when we see that the government not only takes swindlers like fortune tellers to jail and prevents them from preying on ordinary people, but it even takes care of false versions of Catholicism, like the Brazilian Catholic Church, which permits its ministers to marry. Like the Old Catholics in Europe, they have quite a few problems with adult supervisions. By comparison, the Roman Catholic Church worldwide, though considerably less corrupt than the cannibal conference of the United Nations, and all of the heresy we talk about that it does suffer from, is nothing.

The New Irish Blasphemy Laws will Displease Everyone

Even the atheists are right about this one. These laws will restrict even good intolerant speech about false religions and make it even harder for the Catholic Church in Ireland to do its job. This is yet another reason why the Irish Republic was a bad idea when it was first conceived and remains a bad idea today, but so much worse for its execution. It must make laws to appease the invisible authocracy of "consensus" but only does so in the name of a non-existent popular sovereignty.


Secular campaigners in the Irish Republic defied a strict new blasphemy law which came into force today by publishing a series of anti-religious quotations online and promising to fight the legislation in court.

The new law, which was passed in July, means that blasphemy in Ireland is now a crime punishable with a fine of up to €25,000 (£22,000).

It defines blasphemy as "publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted".

Link to remainder of Guardian article...

FBI Says Catholics Susceptible to Hate Crimes

Hate Crimes schmate crimes. It's bad law. We should abuse it and run it into the ground. Does anyone know if it would be a good idea to start up a Catholic advocacy and civil rights organization to exploit this bad law and make a lot of cash?

By Carol Zimmermann
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- According to a recent FBI report, religious groups are not exempt from being targets of hatred.

The FBI's report on hate crime statistics for 2008, released in late November, showed that the majority of hate crimes in the U.S. were motivated by racial bias but that religious groups and homosexuals were the next largest targets.

The overall number of reported hate crimes -- more than 7,700 -- increased about 2 percent in 2008. Although racially motivated hate crimes -- the largest category -- decreased by less than 1 percent, crimes against religious groups increased by 9 percent and crimes based on sexual orientation increased 11 percent over the previous year.

Hate crimes include acts of vandalism or property damage, intimidation or physical attacks. The FBI downplays year-to-year comparisons of hate crimes compiled since 1992, saying the increased figures could simply be the result of more local agencies tracking crimes. Civil and human rights groups say the figures are not accurate enough because not all hate crimes are reported.

Thomas Perez, head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, told reporters Dec. 17 that he was committed to putting a stop to violence stemming from hatred and bias and planned to hire 100 additional staffers to assist with the expanded federal hate crime laws.

In documented crimes against religious groups in 2008, Jews were targeted the most -- 66 percent -- while Muslims accounted for 13 percent and Catholics were victims of 5 percent of hate crimes.

The Anti-Defamation League said the new figures show a need for a national initiative to combat hate crimes.

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, told USA Today that attacks on Catholics could be motivated by the church's opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. As Catholics become more vocal on issues, he said, they become targets for those who disagree with them.

The sense of a growing anti-Catholic sentiment was the focus of an Oct. 29 blog entry by New York Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan. The entry was an expanded version of an op-ed he submitted to The New York Times that was not published.

In the entry, the archbishop likened anti-Catholicism to "a national pastime," citing frequent examples of anti-Catholic bias in the pages of The New York Times. He also said the bias was prevalent in the "so-called entertainment media."

Laurie Goodstein, one of the reporters singled out in the archbishop's blog, responded by saying she was disturbed to read his characterization that her work and that of her colleagues was anti-Catholic.

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Adulterty Is Still a Crime in New Hampshire

Owing to unnatural and destructive customs of co-habitation, protestantism and the overall denigration of the spiritual dimension and sacramentality of all things, some lawmakers are regarding laws punishing adultery as obsolete. They are correct, but obsolescence isn't a very good word, a better description might be erroneous or "bad law" for a $1200 fine really doesn't meet the gravity of the crime of transgressing against the Sacrament. Israel's infidelity against God merited her severe punishments, so a day in the stocks is really very mild, too mild, to measure the kind of damage done not only to economics, honor, one's heart, but also the immeasurable damage it does to the spiritual realm, which ultimately undermines the security of a family, a nation,a race and even to being itself.

Dec 13, 3:22 PM (ET)

By NORMA LOVE

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - The original punishments - including standing on the gallows for an hour with a noose around the neck - have been softened to a $1,200 fine, yet some lawmakers think it's time for the 200-year-old crime of adultery to come off New Hampshire's books.

Seven months after the state approved gay marriage, lawmakers will consider easing government further from the bedroom with a bill to repeal the adultery law.

"We shouldn't be regulating people's sex lives and their love lives," state Rep. Timothy Horrigan said. "This is one area the state government should stay out of people's bedrooms."

Horrigan, D-Durham, and state Rep. Carol McGuire, R-Epsom, have teamed up on legislation to repeal the law. Horrigan signed on because he believes it continues New Hampshire's efforts toward marriage equality. In June, lawmakers voted to legalize gay marriage - a law that takes effect Jan. 1.

"We shouldn't be in the business of regulating what consenting adults do with each other," Horrigan said.

Convicted adulterers years ago faced standing on the gallows, up to 39 lashes, a year in jail or a fine of 100 pounds. The punishment has been relaxed to a misdemeanor and a fine of up to $1,200 - with no jail time.

Law Professor Jeff Atkinson of DePaul University College of Law in Chicago says states rarely - if ever - enforce criminal adultery laws. Atkinson, author of the American Bar Association's Guide to Marriage, Divorce & Families, attributed that to a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Lawrence v. Texas. In its decision, the high court found that the state had no legitimate interest justifying its intrusion into the personal and private lives of two gay men arrested in their bedroom during a police investigation in a weapons case. The men had been charged with sodomy.

Atkinson said the case applies to adultery because both involve private sexual conduct.

Some recently questioned whether South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's admitted extramarital affair with a woman in Argentina made him subject to his state's 1880 criminal law against adultery. [put him in the stocks at least] The penalty is a fine of up to $500 and a year in jail. The state said it couldn't waste limited money trying to prosecute Sanford on such a charge. The law's constitutionality also has been questioned.

The last attempts to repeal New Hampshire's law came after a Merrimack husband filed a complaint against his wife and her boss in 1987. When police refused to pursue adultery charges, Robert Stackelback brought the complaint himself against the pair. He later dropped the charges.

That prompted repeal efforts in 1987 and 1989. Both times the House voted for repeal, but the Senate did not. An attempt in 1992 to reduce the penalty to a violation also passed the House, but died in the Senate.

House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Chairman Stephen Shurtleff's committee will hear the latest bill, probably next month. Shurtleff, D-Concord, predicts - barring a compelling reason to keep the law - his committee will support repealing the law since it isn't being enforced.

In the past, conservatives argued decriminalizing adultery would weaken marriage.

Kevin Smith, executive director of the conservative Cornerstone Policy Research, opposes this repeal effort for the same reason.

"Even though this criminal law probably is not enforced right now and probably has not been enforced for some time, I think it's important to have a public policy statement that says generally or in all situations adultery is not a good thing. And I think, by repealing that statute, you're essentially diminishing the harmful effects of adultery," Smith said.

McGuire, the prime sponsor, believes the moral battle over adultery should be fought under the state's civil divorce laws. The bill would leave adultery as a cause in divorces not filed under the no-fault provision of the statute.

But Smith says leaving the criminal law on the books may give the harmed spouse more leverage in winning a settlement in divorce court.

Atkinson points out that New Hampshire's divorce law already allows judges to account for substantial harm done by an adulterer in determining a financial settlement and alimony.

Horrigan doesn't think a small fine will stop anyone from cheating on a spouse. He also wouldn't oppose taking adultery out of the civil divorce statute as a cause for the breakdown.

"Who we love and how we love is not something, an area the state has much business meddling in," he said.

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Busybody Red Finn and Activist EU Judges attack God and Italian Sovereignty

In another effort to further obsolesce national sovereignty, the EU Parliament, dominated as it is by sympathetes for sodomy and immorality, vampires that they are, want Crucifixes taken down from all Italian Schools.

No doubt, the woman who filed the complaint against the court, a woman of Finnish and likely communist origins. It remains to be seen what a foreign court, or a Red Finn, should have any say about what Italians do in their lands.


Rome - Italian state-run schools are fully entitled to hang crucifixes in their classrooms, an Italian high court ruled on Wednesday, thus rejecting a legal challenge raised by a non-Christian.

Soile Lautsi, an Italian citizen of Finnish origins whose two children frequent a school in the Veneto region, had argued that the crucifix on display there violates the principle that the state should be neutral when it comes to religious matters.

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Cardinal Pell Welcomes Gay Ban in Australia

CHARITIES and religious groups could discriminate against gay people or anyone else who might offend their values after a landmark decision quashed a finding in favour of a gay couple who wanted to become foster parents.

Both the Catholic and Anglican churches have praised the ruling and Cardinal George Pell said anti-discrimination cases threatened churches' ability to do charity work


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