The offices of a French satirical newspaper that “invited” the Prophet Muhammad as a guest editor, has been seriously damaged after it was petrol bombed.
The front-page of the Charlie Hebdo weekly showed a cartoon-like man with a turban, white robe and beard smiling broadly and saying, in an accompanying bubble “100 lashes if you don’t die laughing”.
International Blasphemy Rights Day is tomorrow.
UNIFI is celebrating Blasphemy Rights Day again this year in order to make a statement about the necessity of free speech, and to stand in solidarity with those who have been threatened with violence or legal action while trying to exercise their rights.
One correction to the video is that you can no longer be prosecuted for blaspheming Christianity in Britain. The blasphemy law was abolished in 2008.
More at Friendly Atheist.
Oh, and have a great Blasphemy Day!
Apparently, I was wrong. While I stand by my post the other day stating that Jerry Buell should be able to say whatever the hell he wants in the privacy of his own home and facebook page, he’s not actually doing that.
His personal biography preaches the gospel.
First and foremost, I am a man of God. I try to teach and lead my students as if Lake Co. Schools had hired Jesus Christ himself. That doesn’t mean I give a sermon and serve communion each day…what it means is I try my very best to teach and serve and minister to my students as a teacher led by and connected to the Creator of the Universe.
His syllabus, too, preaches the word of god.
His syllabus also offered this warning to students: “I teach God’s truth, I make very few compromises. If you believe you may have a problem with that, get your schedule changed, ’cause I ain’t changing!” On a separate document, he also said the classroom was his “mission field.”
Hop on over to Friendly Atheist and see for yourself.
While I still believe that your personal web page, facebook page, etc. is your personal space and you should be free to put what you want there, you cannot do the same on a public school site, your syllabus or in your classroom. Mr. Buell has overstepped the line and is breaking the law. For that, I cannot support him.
If a New South Wales police officer suspects a person of a crime, they now have the power to remove a person’s head covering in order to confirm their identity.
NSW Muslim organisations have largely welcomed the new laws, but civil libertarians have criticised them for giving unnecessary powers to police.
Mr O’Farrell announced late yesterday that cabinet had approved laws allowing police to direct people to remove coverings, including veils and motorcycle helmets, if they had reasonable grounds for suspecting breaches of security may occur, or breaches of the law had occurred.
The laws come after the high-profile case of the Muslim woman Carnita Matthews, who successfully appealed against her conviction for falsely accusing a police officer of trying to rip off her veil. The judge found there was not enough evidence Mrs Matthews had made the statutory declaration accusing the officer.
Basically, Carnita Matthews was let go because there was no good way to actually identify her. The case stems from the video below.
View this footage and judge for yourself. Did the police officer try to lift Muslim Carnita Matthew’s burqa? Was he being racist?
I think, in this case, the police officer was extremely patient. I don’t think I could have been as polite or patient with this woman.
The Ohio State House of Representatives approved three bills that will trample women’s rights and be a defacto anti-abortion law if passed in the state senate.
The most controversial piece of legislation, known as the “heartbeat” bill, would prohibit the procedure after a fetal heartbeat is detected. Another ban targets late-term abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, and the third bill would restrict insurance coverage for abortions.
This is absolutely amazing that the state of Ohio is even attempting something like this. The bill does not provide for cases of rape or incest and, considering most women do not even know they’re pregnant until after the bill’s six week “heartbeat” terminology, it would, essentially ban abortion in the state if it is passed by the senate and passed into law.
The two other bills passed Tuesday — a ban on late-term abortions and a measure to prevent abortion coverage under the federal health care law — are part of a national movement to eventually overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision, Gonidakis said.
All three bills are aimed directly at overturning Roe v. Wade and controlling what a woman can and cannot do with her own body. The “heartbeat” bill appears to be in direct contention with Planned Parenthood v. Casey and would likely be challenged in a higher court.
There are several problems with these bills that continue to be overlooked. If a women uses fertility drugs to get pregnant, often it results in several embryos. The doctor then reduces that to one or two fetuses. With the passage of this bill into law, the woman would be forced to keep them all, something a woman’s body is not designed to do. It would be a huge financial burden to the family and many would be forced to forego treatment, leaving childless women forever without children.
There are also a number of cases where late-term abortions must be performed. The fetus could be dead or have such developmental problems that it would not survive very long. There is also the issue of being forced to keep a child that is so developmentally disabled that it would be a massive financial burden to the family, possibly bankrupting them. These are never easy decisions to make and no woman makes the decision without much emotional distress, but, with this bill becoming a law, the woman would be forced to make the even more difficult decision to keep the child.
Nowhere in this bill is there a provision for the state to pay for these children and their emotional and financial needs once they are born. The state is telling women they must have these children no matter what, but there will be no help in raising the child once it is born.
Designing a law around a heartbeat is not the way to go. A heartbeat merely indicated that blood is pumping throughout the body. It is not an indicator of intelligence, coherence, or a person. It is meaningless in this bill. The development of higher brain functions would be a far better indicator of a person than a heartbeat.
