Atheism, fuck yeah!
Welcome atheists, skeptics, freethinkers all,
to this little corner of godlessness.
~Mooglets

California became the first state toban the use for minors of disputed therapies to “overcome” homosexuality, a step hailed by gay rights groups across the country that say the therapies have caused dangerous emotional harm to gay and lesbian teenagers. In a statement,California Gov. Jerry Brownsaid, “This bill bans non-scientific ‘therapies’ that have driven young people to depression and suicide. These practices have no basis in science or medicine and they will now be relegated to the dustbin of quackery.”

This law, which goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2013, will prohibit attempts by mental health providers to perform therapy on minors intended to change their sexual orientation, including efforts to “change behaviors or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.”

Christine P. Sun, deputy legal director for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and director of its LGBT rights project,commented on the significance of this law:

This is a great day for youth in California who have been subjected to incredibly harmful therapy based on junk science. Conversion therapy has brought nothing but pain and devastation for many who have endured it. Sadly, the conversion therapy movement has pushed its message for decades — despite the dangers of this practice — and has increasingly targeted LGBT youth across the country. Passing this law is an important step for California and the nation to raise awareness about the lies behind conversion therapy and put an end to this junk science.

Emphasis here on the phrase “junk science.”The American Psychological Association denounced the use of ex-gay therapies. Furthermore, in 2012Dr. Robert Spitzerrefuted his earlier infamous claims touted by the ex-gay movement as gospel that “highly motivated” gay people could reach their “heterosexual potential” through prayer and therapy. Even theex-gay group Exodus Internationalbacked away from promising a cure for “homosexuality” though they and other like minded groups still maintain that “homosexuality” represents a sin that one must overcome.

Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out, notes that while the California law might be a milestone, it should be seen as a first step. He said that “the ideas in reparative therapy have been widely adopted by church ministries and others promoting the idea that homosexual urges can be banished .”

As expected organizations like theLiberty Counseland theNational Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH)who advance the view that “homosexuality is a choice” took to the airwaves and Internet to justify their use of debunked medical practices under the guise of “religious freedom” and “parental rights.”

These “pro-family” activists conveniently ignore the glaring reality that this law does not force any religious entity or individual to go against their individual conscience. Within the confines of their church or home school scenarios, clergy and parents have considerable latitude when it comes to teaching the doctrines of their particular faith tradition. (In a similar vein, no law supporting marriage equality will force anyone to perform a same sex wedding. Ordained clergy have the right to refuse to marry anyone for any reason, a simple fact lost on those determined to legislate their view of Americana Christianity on to an ever increasing pluralistic public square.)

Under this law, unlicensed “Christian” counselors can continue their practice of “praying away the gay.” Hence, parents can still find resources should they wish to “cure” their children from the “sin of homosexuality” provided they can pay for the cost of these treatments. However, this law denies those mental health professionals who hold licenses issued by the state of California from engaging in practices deemed to be harmful to minor children. Should they continue to practice ex-gay therapies, they will risk censure and loss of their license. Simply put, if one wants the benefits that comes with having a state issued license such as insurance reimbursement, then one has to follow the civil laws issued by that state.

This law continues in the spirit of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Bob Jones University vs. United States (1983) where the SCOTUS decreed that those faith-based organizations who choose to avail themselves to financial incentives offered by the U.S. government like tax-exempt status and federal funding must abide by civil laws or risk losing said financial incentives.

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WashingtonPost

Good. Not the end point, but definitely an important step along the way. 

~Mooglets

A Texas court has declared it legal to pray for harm to come to someone as long as no one is actually hurt.

Judge Martin Hoffman, presiding judge of the 68th Civil District in Dallas County, dismissed a lawsuit brought by Mikey Weinstein against former Navy chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt, who allegedly used “curse” prayers in an attempt to harm Weinstein and his family.

According to the suit, Klingenschmitt urged his followers to pray for the destruction of Weinstein’s Military Religious Freedom Foundation. He used Psalm 109, an “imprecatory” prayer text that calls for the death of an enemy and curses for his family.

Weinstein said Klingenschmitt’s actions have led him to receive death threats and resulted in damage to his property, including windows shot out of his home, according to the Religion News Service (RNS).

“We believe the judge made a mistake in not understanding that imprecatory prayers are code words for trolling for assassins for the Weinstein family,” Weinstein told RNS. 

Klingenschmitt’s attorney John Whitehead praised the April 2 decision, saying that banning these types of prayers could force the shuttering of “half the churches, synagogues and mosques in this country.”

—-

American’s United

If it were just prayers, it would be fine, go ahead, your magic words do nothing. But the prayers are apparently inciting people to actually act out, which is not fine. At all.

~Mooglets

All across the United States (but particularly in the South) public schools are violating the Constitution by sponsoring prayers in schools or before athletic events.  Thankfully, groups like American Atheists and the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) are trying to uphold the law.  Unfortunately, many Christians just cannot seem to get their heads around this, even though it’s often those very same Christians who scream the loudest about upholding the Constitution and liberty for all.  (What they apparently mean is liberty for Christians).

Among some of the more absurd claims I’ve heard from some Christians is that Christianity is “under attack”, and that they are being persecuted by such efforts to uphold the Constitution.  Take a recent case in Alabama, for example, where the FFRF is trying to stop prayers that invoke “Jesus” before athletic events. David McKelvey, a pastor nearby the school, told Fox News that the complaint was “unfortunate” but not surprising. Christianity, he said, is under attack.  “It’s going on all over the place,” he said. “You just hate for it to be coming to your doorstep.” [Translation:  “It sucks when we get caught violating the law.”]

Don’t you just love it when the person breaking the law acts like the victim?

And, make no mistake, breaking the law is exactly what Christians like McKelvey, and all public school officials and teachers who promote school prayers, are doing.  Many Christians simply do not understand the law; a quick read of the comments by self-identified Christians on Fox News’ website will demonstrate this.

What follows is an analysis of just a few comments demonstrating the victim mentality.  Comments are in a different font and italicized.

While I’m a Christian, I lived for a time in a predominantly Jewish town where there were many expressions of Judaism and I wasn’t the least bit offended.  Why would an atheist want to stop expressions of Christianity?  What they’re doing borders on hate crime.

It’s a hate crime to prevent school officials from officially endorsing a particular religion via prayer at a public event?  Whether or not someone is “offended” is irrelevant.  Further, atheists are not stopping expressions of Christianity.  They are stopping illegal, unconstitutional, publicly endorsed prayers.  The “victim” mentality is shown in this comment.

The following comment makes a threat towards the person who complained about the prayer, trying to suggest that atheists are “making life miserable” for “good Americans” (which, presumably, means “Christians”).

“Did anyone get this person’s address???  These bozos make life miserable for good Americans, so let’s make life miserable for them for a change!!!”

How about this one?

“Why is it that atheists are the only ones allowed to have free speech and are the only ones allowed to prevent others from taking part in free speech?”

Again, this person is trying to say that atheists are somehow preventing his/her free speech.  This is somewhat ironic, given the fact that it’s the school who is officially leading the prayers and who is clearly attempting to silence atheists.  The reality of the situation is the exact opposite of what this commenter is saying.

How’s this one for bad advice and ignorance of the law?

I would love to sue them over them stomping on our right to the freedom of religion, it doesn’t read freedom from religion.

This commenter wrongly believes that stopping prayer at a public school event is “stomping” on their rights.  Again, we clearly can see the victim mentality here.

Here is a common faulty argument, followed by the claim of persecution:

OUTSTANDING!!!! Religion is based upon FAITH. Christianity is a FAITH in Jesus who is the Christ. Atheism is a FAITH that God does not exist.Therefore, it is the height of hypocrisy for atheists to push their religion on Christians.

Aside from the gross misunderstanding of atheism as requiring “faith” and being a religion, preventing public prayer is not pushing anything.  Quite the opposite:  atheists are trying to prevent religion from getting pushed on everyone at these events.

To read the full article and/or to peruse the thousands of comments, go here.

I could cite hundreds, even thousands, more comments just like those above, but I think I’ve shown enough to get the point across.  Christians who make comments such as these are attempting to convince others that Christians are the victims.  In reality, everyone except Christians are the real victims when forced to sit through public school-endorsed prayers.  Moreover, no one is saying that Christians aren’t allowed to pray.  If that was the case, then Christians might have a point.  Rather, the argument is that public officials cannotendorse any particular religion, and teachers cannot make everyone’s kids pray in school.

So why, then, do some Christians make this claim of persecution?  There could be several reasons.  The first is simply a misunderstanding of the Constitution.  Perhaps they genuinely believe it means only the freedom topractice religion, but not the freedom to be an atheist.  Second, it also could be because they want to avoid and deflect any real debate.  Rather than responding to, for example, the Constitutional question about the separation of church and state, the claim that removing prayer from schools is an effort to suppress Christianity makes for a convenient red herring.  By playing victim, these Christians are able to derail the debate, making it all about their alleged victim status.  Third, no doubt, many Christians are worried that Christianity is losing its privileged status.

This third reason warrants some further analysis.  If anything, Christianity still enjoys a place of privilege in the United States, often in unconstitutional forms, and, in reality, non-Christians and non-believers are persecuted (perhaps “persecuted” is too strong of a word, but suffice to say that non-Christians are marginalized by being told they are “not the norm.”)  Thus, what Christians are reacting to is that loss of privilege, whether real or perceived.  (I would argue that Christianity still enjoys all sorts of privilege in the U.S.)

However, when atheists speak up about public prayer, for example, it becomes harder to hold on to the delusion that everyone is Christian and that anything other than Christianity is abnormal.  (This is also why many Christians react so strongly to any sort of billboard or sing on a bus that questions the existence of a deity.)  In the same way that gay rights advocates had to work towards getting people to realize that heterosexuality is not the only sexual orientation that is “normal” and “acceptable”, atheists, and people who believe something other than Christianity, are beginning to erode the cozy, privileged relationship between Christianity and normalcy.  It’s not that Christians are being persecuted that gets a reaction; rather, it’s their realization that non-Christians are no longer being silent on the issue.

It seems that members of nearly every religion, at some point in time, actually were persecuted.  This is not surprising, since theists believe their god/s is/are the true god/s (by definition, they must think this, otherwise they would choose a different faith, or become an atheist.)  And, when one believes that their god is the true god, they feel emboldened to act in ways they otherwise would not.  In particular, some believe that their violence is justified.  In other cases, at the very least, they believe they have some kind of divine authority to attempt to silence non-believers and believers of other faiths.  (This reminds to point out that members of non-Christian faiths ought to be joining, or at the very least, thanking, atheists for preventing state-sponsored Christianity.)

One final thought that hopefully reaches some Christians:  When Christians in the United States act like victims, they demean those individuals who really are being persecuted on this planet.  In reality, it makes U.S. Christians look petty and egotistical.

From Al Stefanelli 

~Mooglets

• Omolayo Abayomi cried ‘Jesus help him’ 20 times before the child’s mother told her to ‘shut up’
• Nurse told hearing her behaviour was ‘no more than a bad day at the office’

A nurse who threw her hands into the air and begged for Jesus to help as a baby suffered a heart attack has been thrown out of the profession.

Omolayo Abayomi ‘panicked’ when the child, who suffered from a chronic lung disease, turned blue and stopped breathing in his cot at home.

The 51-year-old called for divine intervention more than 20 times before the vulnerable boy’s mother told her to ‘shut up’.

‘The nurse was constantly saying “Jesus help him” and waving her arms around,’ a hearing was told.

The nurse ‘provided wholly inadequate care’ by leaving the frantic mother to resuscitate her lifeless son, while the father dialled 999.

Abayomi was found guilty of a string of charges by the Nursing and Midwifery Council at a hearing in central London.

Sydney Topping, for Abayomi, insisted his client’s behaviour had represented no more than a ‘bad day at the office’ and urged the panel to let her off with a caution.

‘Once in a while you have a bad day at the office,’ he said.

‘I would suggest that on April 8 the registrant had a bad day at the office. It was no worse than that. She has bounced back since then.’

The hearing heard that the child, referred to a Patient A, and his twin sister were born three months premature at Homerton University Hospital in Hackney, east London, and as a result suffered from a number of serious illnesses and so required round-the-clock care.

Joanna Dirmikis, for the NMC, said Abayomi had been employed by private nursing firm Paediatric Nursing Link to look after the infant, who required 22 hours of nursing care every day.

The parents were woken by a knock on their bedroom door at 5am on April 8, 2007, to find their son lying lifeless after suffering respiratory cardiac arrest, the panel was told.

‘While Mrs A was trying to resuscitate the child, Mr A called 999,’ said Miss Dirmikis.

‘The twin sister of the little boy was also present during the incident and can be heard crying in the background during the call.’

‘She panicked and at one stage even summoned divine intervention, calling for Jesus,’ she added.

Paramedics rushed the boy to Whipps Cross Hospital in Leytonstone, east London, before he was taken to Great Ormond Street Hospital on the same day for further treatment. 

Giving evidence, a tearful Mrs A said Abayomi had effectively ‘abandoned’ her during the incident.

‘The nurse was constantly saying “Jesus help him” and waving her arms around,’ she said.

‘She said it more than 20 times. I felt I had to do everything - at that point she was doing nothing to help my son.

‘She never offered to take the lead at any point and at no point did she suggest calling 999.

‘I can’t change what’s happened to my son, I know I did the best for him but the nurse just completely abandoned her duty.

‘If I can save just one other person from having to go through what we have been through, then that’s what I want to do.’

The panel heard Patient A, now aged five, made a full recovery from the incident but is still totally dependent on others for his care.

Abaymo claimed the mother had pushed her away and refused to let her help.

She denied calling out for Jesus, panicking and failing to provide care or basic life support.

The nurse further denied failing to properly handover the case to paramedics and making inaccurate and false notes about the incident.

She was cleared of specific charges that she suctioned the child’s tracheostomy tube or that she failed to record observations taken but was found guilty of misconduct and ruled unfit to continue working without restrictions.

Striking Abayomi off, panel chair John Williams said: ‘This was a failure to accept responsibility for her role in the events by the registrant.

‘She has shown a lack of empathy with the parents of the child and there has been no admission or apology, and therefore no insight.

‘This failure is incompatible with her continuing to be a registered nurse.’

From the DailyMail (via Halvetebrann)

 
Firstly - what the FUCK was this Nurse even doing being a Nurse if she’s going to drop all her goddamned medical training and start praying, when a fucking baby needs her help?

Secondly - why the fuck are people happy enough to say ‘praying doesn’t work’ after the fact? But not willing to go out and say ‘praying doesn’t work’ to the masses and convince religious people that they should pack that shit in and just get with the program? 

 
Ugh.

 
~Mooglets

Peers in the House of Lords this week rejected moves to make collective worship in schools optional, rather than compulsory.

The amendments were moved by NSS Honorary Associate Lord Avebury during the Report Stage of the Bill on Monday. He said: “It is time for the long-standing tradition which no longer reflects the beliefs of more than a tiny fraction of the people to be jettisoned”.

One of the proposed amendments to the Education Bill would have given community schools the freedom to decide for themselves whether or not to hold acts of religious worship. A second amendment would have given pupils the right to withdraw themselves from worship. A further amendment would have allowed pupils aged 15 or older to withdraw themselves, building on the NSS success in 2006 in introducing sixth form pupils’ self-withdrawal.

Speaking in the Chamber, Lord Avebury set out a list of reasons why requiring schools to conduct a daily act of religious worship is no longer appropriate. Not least of these were numerous references to the high rate of schools’ non-compliance with the law, showing it to be unenforceable and unpopular. Ahead of the debate, the NSS sent extensive evidence to the Education Minister at the request of the Department for Education. England and Wales are alone among Western democracies in requiring such enforced worship in community schools. The Joint (Parliamentary) Human Rights Committee endorses the proposal to bring down the age of self -withdrawal.

Speaking on behalf of the Government, Lord Hill of Oareford made it clear that the Government did not support the amendments. He said “Our starting point is that the requirement is long-standing. It is difficult to dissociate that from the history of the country and the role that the Church has played over a long period in individual schools and also collectively in society. A full account of the debate can be read here.

Stephen Evans, Campaigns Manager at the National Secular Society said “It is disappointing to hear the Government repeat the same old tired justifications for insisting on a daily act of Christian worship.

“The amendments were pragmatically drafted not to argue for an end to all worship in schools but simply to allow schools the freedom to choose for themselves whether hold it. It is perhaps an indication of the influence wielded by the Church of England that the Government wasn’t willing or able to make even the smallest concession, in the face of such reasonable amendments.

“The law requiring worship will eventually change; it is just a question of when. It is important that people make their views known to their MPs as it will clearly take a massive groundswell of public opinion to give the Government the backbone to stand up to the Church on this issue”

Sex and relationship education

Also this week, during Wednesday’s Education Bill debate NSS honorary associate Baroness Massey of Darwen issued a strong rebuke to the Christian Institute over their deceitful campaign against her amendment to ensure that the chief inspector of schools reports on the delivery of personal, social and health education including sex and relationship education.

Speaking during the debate, the Baroness said: “My amendment is about well-being and protecting children. The public have been fed dangerously misleading information. Never in the time that it has been my honour to serve in your Lordships’ House have I known such a sinister and vicious campaign, which has sought to misinform others.”

Baroness Walmsley, who also put her name to the amendment, told the chamber, “we have a so-called Christian organisation telling lies and being both uncharitable and cruel.”

The amendment was not supported by the Government, who are seeking to make inspections less prescriptive and more focused, and was withdrawn.

A further amendment from NSS Honorary Associate Baroness Flather to re-introduce the duty for the Inspector to report on schools’ contribution to community cohesion went to the vote but was narrowly defeated.

From National Secular Society

Let’s read this sentence again: 

England and Wales are alone among Western democracies in requiring such enforced worship in community schools.

England and Wales are the only countries, the only countries, in the democratic West that do this. 

~Mooglets