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The Other Catholic Church

A nice piece on “the other Catholic Church” which is still out there, still doing cool anti-poverty work, and still taking a lot of risks:

This is the church of the Maryknoll Sisters in Central America and the Cabrini Sisters in Africa. There’s a stereotype of nuns as stodgy Victorian traditionalists. I learned otherwise while hanging on for my life in a passenger seat as an American nun with a lead foot drove her jeep over ruts and through a creek in Swaziland to visit AIDS orphans. After a number of encounters like that, I’ve come to believe that the very coolest people in the world today may be nuns.

So when you read about the scandals, remember that the Vatican is not the same as the Catholic Church. Ordinary lepers, prostitutes and slum-dwellers may never see a cardinal, but they daily encounter a truly noble Catholic Church in the form of priests, nuns and lay workers toiling to make a difference.

It’s high time for the Vatican to take inspiration from that sublime — even divine — side of the Catholic Church, from those church workers whose magnificence lies not in their vestments, but in their selflessness. They’re enough to make the Virgin Mary smile.

I know I’ve said more than once that when Catholics are cool, they’re cooler than many.

(h/t to Doug for the link)

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Anti Pope

Richard Dawkins and Chris Hitchens want to have the Pope arrested when he comes to the UK. I saw the story on MSNBC & laughed for a full five minutes, because: why not? Is there some rule about why we should respect religious leaders globally? Don’t people who aren’t Catholic have the right to see justice for those kids?

I think it’s brilliant. After that, we can arrest all sorts of religious leaders for whatever, & then – no more religious bullshit.

I know it wouldn’t work. But the idea is lovely.

Continue reading “Anti Pope”

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Book Burning, 2009 Version

A Baptist Church is burning Bibles.

Church leaders deem Good News for Modern Man, the Evidence Bible, the New International Version Bible, the Green Bible and the Message Bible, as well as at least seven other versions of the Bible as “Satan’s Bibles,” according to the website. Attendees will also set fire to “Satan’s popular books” such as the work of “heretics” including the Pope, Mother Teresa, Billy Graham and Rick Warren.

Not to knock the whole of NC as a result, local David Lynch (not that one) said: “it’s a little disconcerting how close this is to my home. They are burning so much stuff I’ve dubbed them the hypocritical Christian Taliban,” Lynch said in a phone interview with Raw Story. “Just the scope of all the information they want to destroy is pretty disturbing.”


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From NCTE: Final Hate Crimes Push

From NCTE:

Contact Your Senators About Hate Crimes Bill

Dear Friends,

We have good news: The Senate is likely to vote on the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, S.909, as early as next Wednesday, July 15. As you may remember, the companion bill, H.R.1913, already passed the House of Representatives this past April after NCTE’s successful lobby day. With a final push, you can help to make this important bill become a law.

This bill expands the coverage of existing hate crime laws to include crimes not only based on race, color, religion, and national origin, but also bias-motivated crimes based on the victim’s actual pr perceived sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or disability.

TAKE ACTION
On Wednesday, July 15, call your senators toll free at 866-659-9641 between 9am and 5pm ET. Continue reading “From NCTE: Final Hate Crimes Push”

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Five News Stories

Fairfax High School elected a male student Prom Queen.

Tom Ackerman, a gay man, has vowed to call his friends’ wives their girlfriends, because he’s decided his religious views don’t allow him to recognize opposite-sex marriage.

The New Scientist tells you everything you ever wanted to know about female ejaculation (& maybe a few things you didn’t want to know).

A woman named Brenda Lee got dragged bodily off of Air Force One when she tried to give President Obama a letter asking him to stand up for heterosexual marriage.

Publishers Weekly reports from the BEA that US Publishers have vowed to fight digitized piracy.

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Ausperger’s: Girls Express Differently

I admit that this article really weirded me out, not becuase it’s a surprise that the medical commuity has failed to understand or diagnose Ausperger’s in girls particularly because their symptoms present differently (as the same for true for many years for women & heart disease, for example) but because her description of the way Ausperger’s presents in females is a little too close to the bone for me. I’ve already come out as an introvert, after all.

Girls slip through the diagnostic net, said Attwood, because they are so good at camouflaging or masking their symptoms. “Boys tend to externalise their problems, while girls learn that, if they’re good, their differences will not be noticed,” he said. “Boys go into attack mode when frustrated, while girls suffer in silence and become passive-aggressive. Girls learn to appease and apologise. They learn to observe people from a distance and imitate them. It is only if you look closely and ask the right questions, you see the terror in their eyes and see that their reactions are a learnt script.”

Girls also escape diagnosis, said Attwood, because they are more social than boys with the condition. Their symptoms can also be missed because it is the intensity of their interests that is unusual, and not the oddity of what they do.

“The impairments to their social life or interests tend not to stand out in the same way as boys’ do,” he said. “They might have one friend, while boys with the condition won’t have any. Also, boys hyperfocus on facts and certain interests, such as trains or weather. Girls escape into fiction. They have imaginary friends, live in another world with fairies and witches, obsessively watch soap operas or become intensely interested in celebrities.”

Hrm. The boldfaced bits pretty much describe my childhood & teenaged years in a nutshell. Frightening.

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Fed’l Hate Crimes Bill Trans-Inclusive

From NCTE:

Last night, Representative John Conyers of Michigan re-introduced The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, H.R. 1913. This would be the first-ever federal law to provide protections for transgender people. It is identical to the hate crimes bill passed by the House of Representatives in 2007 and includes the language that transgender advocates requested. It is also the first transgender inclusive bill to be introduced during this Session.

In his comments introducing the bill, Rep. John Conyers stated, “Hate crime statistics do not speak for themselves. Behind each of the statistics is an individual or community targeted for violence for no other reason than race, religion, color, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability. Law enforcement authorities and civic leaders have learned that a failure to address the problem of bias crime can cause a seemingly isolated incident to fester into widespread tension that can damage the social fabric of the wider community. The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 is a constructive and measured response to a problem that continues to plague our nation. These are crimes that shock and shame our national conscience. They should be subject to comprehensive federal law enforcement assistance and prosecution.”

Representatives are heading home to their districts for spring recess from now until April 21st. It is vital that you call them in their district offices to urge their support for this critical piece of legislation. Those who oppose this legislation will be active during this time-we need to be as well so that members of Congress are hearing from those directly affected by this legislation. Please take this important step to help address the violence faced by transgender people.

To find your Representative, visit our webpage or go to the House of Representatives webpage at www.house.gov and enter your ZIP+4 to find your member of Congress.

WHAT THE BILL SAYS
The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, H.R. 1913, would:

  • Extend existing federal protections to include “gender identity, sexual orientation, gender and disability”
  • Allow the Justice Department to assist in hate crime investigations at the local level when local law enforcement is unable or unwilling to fully address these crimes
  • Mandate that the FBI begin tracking hate crimes based on actual or perceived gender identity
  • Remove limitations that narrowly define hate crimes to violence committed while a person is accessing a federally protected activity, such as voting.

The Hate Crimes Prevention Act is supported by nearly 300 civil rights, education, religious, and civic organizations. The bill is also endorsed by virtually every major law enforcement organization in the country-including the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National District Attorneys Association, the National Sheriffs Association, the Police Executive Research Forum, and thirty-one state Attorneys General.

For more information:

  • Read the specifics about this legislation from the Library of Congress, go to their website and search by bill H.R. 1913
  • View our fact sheet about the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act and read additional information about hate crimes on our website.

& That’s exactly why I love NCTE: all the info you need to do what you need to do.

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Oppressed Christians

Has anyone else seen this video? It’s unbelievably paranoid, no?

I’m not sure what part of “your religion stops where my government starts” they don’t understand. They can say anything they want, and usually do. What they can’t do is fire someone for being homosexual, or censor television whose morality they don’t approve of. That’s it. They just don’t get to control shit for the rest of us. But they are perfectly free to avoid watching shows with gay characters, they don’t need to go to same sex weddings, etc. etc.

I’m never going to get this kind of “I don’t get to control you therefore I’m oppressed” type of thinking.