Jun
25
2013
Via news.com.au:
In the rural village of Dadu in southern Pakistan, tradition held that Kainat Soomro’s own family should murder her, as her sexual assault had made her a token of disgrace.
You can stream the full documentary on PBS’s Frontline, or click the player below.
If the video doesn’t display properly, click here.
Jun
25
2013
In Philadelphia, Father Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero were sentenced to serious jailtime for child molestation.
A judge has sentenced a Roman Catholic priest to six to 12 years in prison and a former teacher to eight to 16 years in a sex-abuse case that brought down a Philadelphia church official.
The verdict supports accounts by a 24-year-old policeman’s son that he was sexually abused by the Engelhardt between 1998 and 1999 and Shero, a former sixth-grade teacher, in 2000 when he was an altar boy.
The victim’s 2009 complaint provided the hook for Philadelphia prosecutors to bring the nation’s first criminal charges against a U.S. church official for allegedly covering up sexual abuse by priests.
The same accuser has also brought down another robed pedophile.
The sexual abuse complaints [earlier] led to the conviction of Monsignor William Lynn, who had transferred Avery to the parish despite concerns he was a pedophile.
Jun
25
2013
Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of the biggest LGBT massacre in U.S. history. The horrendous fire that tore through the Upstairs Lounge, a gay bar in New Orleans, also claimed the lives of 32 patrons, including that of Bill Larson, the pastor of the city’s first fledgling gay church.
For me, this photo started my interest in the crime.
That’s Larson. He got stuck in the safety bars on the windows and burned alive while horrified passersby looked on. It’s one of the most indelible news pictures I’ve ever seen. It made me want to learn all there is to know about the crime.
Oddly enough, that wasn’t so simple. There wasn’t nearly as much written about the fire as you might expect considering the brutality of the attack and the large number of victims. Why? In large part because it happened in 1973, when gay people were still widely considered icky at best and god-mocking evildoers at worst. It seems for all the world that the news media, by and large, thought it better to pretend that gays don’t exist; and that journalists and politicians expressed their disapproval through silence. Consider:
The few respectable news organizations that deigned to cover the tragedy made little of the fact that the majority of the victims had been gay, while talk-radio hosts tended to take a jocular or sneering tone: What do we bury them in? Fruit jars, sniggered one, on the air, only a day after the massacre.
Other, smaller disasters resulted in City Hall press conferences, or statements of condolence by the governor; but no civil authorities publicly spoke out about the fire, other than to mumble about needed improvements to the city’s fire code.
Continuing this pattern of neglect, the New Orleans police department appeared lackluster about the investigation (the officers involved denied it). The detectives wouldn’t even acknowledge that it was an arson case, saying the cause of the fire was of “undetermined origin.” No one was ever charged with the crime
That’s from the piece I wrote about the arson for The Friendly Atheist, here.
Point of clarification: the fire may not have been a hate crime, and we shouldn’t jump to that conclusion. The most likely suspect was a frequent visitor to the Upstairs Lounge, a man with mental issues called Rodger Nunez, who may have been gay himself. There’s a persistent rumor that he was asked to leave the bar — and came back to exact a terrible revenge. We’ll never know; Nunez killed himself a year later.
Anyway, I put the topic on my calendar months ago, for publication on June 24, expecting it to draw little interest. I couldn’t see major news media covering it.
Happily, I was wrong. As of today, Google confirms, there’s easily three times the volume of coverage there was a few months ago. Time magazine, this week, has a pretty solid feature piece on the catastrophe. A new documentary film about the Upstairs Lounge, by the movie maker Royd Anderson, just premiered. A news team at the New Orleans Times-Picayune produced both a written remembrance and a video piece. I was interviewed about my own story yesterday by a Washington DC radio host who has an audience all over the Northeastern U.S.
And … I just learned that my piece drew the highest number of page views I’ve yet garnered in my so-called blogging career — somewhere north of 250,000 (a quarter of a million) hits.
That’s wonderful. The horror of that day, and the stupid prejudice with which the gay victims were treated even in death, deserves to be remembered.
Jun
24
2013
Thou shalt not let thine flock’s money go unpilfered. It’s in the Bible. Somewhere. I think
A longtime priest at St. Helena Church on Cleveland’s West Side has pleaded guilty to stealing $176,000 from the Romanian Catholic institution, a prosecutor said.
The Rev. Andre Matthews, 54, used some of the money to pay credit card bills, buy cars and pay tuition for a family member to attend Cleveland State University, according to Assistant County Prosecutor James Gutierrez.
Gutierrez said some of the money Matthews stole was raised through church-sponsored bingo.
Jun
24
2013
Bad but not unexpected news for those of who’ve been following the events after 2011’s Arab Spring:
People who hoped the Arab Spring would lead to greater religious freedom across the Middle East have been sorely disappointed, and a new Pew study confirms that the region has grown even more repressive for various religious groups. … The Pew survey of 198 countries found that the share of countries with high or very high restrictions on religion rose from 37 percent in mid-2010 to 40 percent by the end of 2011.
Jun
23
2013
In case you missed these, I thought I’d bring you up to snuff on the articles I’ve published at the Friendly Atheist over the past week.
• Anti-Gay Mormon Activists Confront Their Prejudice After Learning Their Own Son is Gay.
• Gimme That Old-Time Religion: A Growing Number of Greeks Bow To Zeus, Apollo, and Hera.
• City of Evansville Approves Downtown Public ‘Art Exhibit’ of 30 Decorated Crosses.
• Archbishop Says Tax Avoidance is Sinful. If Only Someone Would Remind the Churches.
• Insane in the Brain: A Rare Video of Mass Murderer Jim Jones Preaching.
• Court Strikes Down New Hampshire’s Tax-Money-For-Religious-Schools Law.
• Infectious Diseases Strike Communities Where Vaccinations Are ‘Anti-God’.
• Free Parking for the Religious in This British Town, but Atheists Are Out of Luck.
• Why We Must Reject Special Treatment for Religious Employees.
Jun
22
2013
Please, please, let it be a giant wind-up. If not, this makes me want to drink about a gallon of weed killer.
Jun
21
2013
• Pastor slips 14-year-old girl a mickey, rapes her while she’s unconscious.
• Dying priest accused of sexual abuse evades court, looks forward to his rightful spot in heaven.
• Anglican archbishop who chides others for not loving the poor enough lives in splendor — in an honest-to-god palace (pictured).
• Four men claim to have been groped by Rabbi Yona Metzger in cases stretching back to the ’80s.
• Pastor accused of planting video cameras inside a women’s restroom at church will face child exploitation charges.
• Church member accused of building a radiation machine to kill Muslims.
• Priest fled scene of accident he caused; two people dead.
Jun
19
2013
I’m glad that thug Mubarak’s gone.
Too bad there’s now another thug in charge in Egypt — and this one is of the ueber-pious variety that produces people who are especially unpredictable … and extra dangerous. To wit:
This month alone, a Christian teacher in Luxor was fined $14,000 for insulting the Prophet Muhammad in class, a writer was given five years in prison for promoting atheism, and a Christian lawyer was sentenced to one year for insulting Islam — in a private conversation.
Blasphemy cases were once rare in Egypt, and their frequency has increased sharply since the revolution. More than two dozen cases have gone to trial, and nearly all defendants have been found guilty. At least 13 have received prison sentences.
The campaign is driven at the local level, where religious activists have also forced officials to suspend teachers and professors. In at least 10 cases, Christian families have been expelled from their homes after perceived insults.
Here’s a video that shows a crowd of Mohammedans trying to attack the suspect in one recent blasphemy case as he was being led from the courtroom.
The kicker: the guy is most likely completely innocent. Someone created a Facebook page using his name, and sent inflammatory messages from it.
Not that, in this day and age, it ought to be possible to be “guilty” of blasphemy.
Watch the followers of Allah in the video. Keep telling yourself that Egypt is one of the more moderate Islamic countries.
For this level of anger and hatred to burn out, we’re likely looking at centuries, not decades. Sad.
Jun
19
2013
“Mommy, what’s an abortion?”
That was the question of a five-year-old who’d been given a leaflet at school with the invitation to attend a pro-life political rally. The mother, understandably, was not amused, and neither were lots of other parents whose children had received the flyer.
The incident occurred two weeks ago in an Irish elementary school whose administrators saw nothing wrong with indiscriminately tucking the anti-abortion material into kids’ bags. Chiefly responsible for the odd initiative is the Catholic chairman of the school’s management board, Eddie Shaw (pictured, in file photo), a former spokesman for the Archbishop of Dublin.
At a raucous school gathering last Thursday — demanded by parents who wanted to find out why their kids had been subjected to age-inappropriate propaganda — Shaw did little to soothe hurt feelings.
The Irish Times quoted minutes from the meeting:
“On Friday the 7th of June, a notice for a pro-life vigil was put in the bags of three classes. The leaflets were intended for every bag in the school but some teachers either chose not to put them in and others forgot.
“The leaflet highlighted a vigil taking place last weekend for the Pro-Life Campaign against the upcoming legislation on abortion. The parent body were outraged that the children were being used as vehicle to promote a controversial campaign.”
Although Shaw apologized to the parents, he only made matters worse when he appeared to misconstrue rather spectacularly why they were upset. Said one irate father:
“Mr. Shaw told the meeting he should have put the leaflets in an envelope, which is to miss the point entirely.”
He deemed Shaw’s apology inadequate.
Another parent agreed, dismissing as “preposterous” Shaw’s assertion that the distribution of the leaflets “wasn’t political.”
Yesterday, looking to end the controversy, Eddie Shaw resigned from the school.
I can’t help but think that he could have benefited from some great PR advice. For instance, one of the most prominent corporate communications firms in Ireland is Carr Communications, whose staff are self-described experts at spinning public faux pas, and at “handling media crises.” Maybe Eddie Shaw could have retained Carr’s services as soon as the protests started, and taken professional pointers from Carr’s head of public relations, one Eddie Shaw.
Yeah. Same guy.
(photo via The Journal)
Jun
18
2013
A dozen links for your entertainment:
1. A Grand Rapids pastor who was involved in a 2010 car loan scam now faces federal charges for allegedly tricking a bank into giving him a $150,000 loan.
2. A Houston pastor asked his congregation to tithe $50,000 so that he can purchase replacement blades for the church’s helicopter. He promised the Lord’s blessings in return, including “a car of your choice.”
3. The Church of Scientology allegedly secretly recorded, with a hidden video camera and microphones, “audits” (akin to confessions) of celebrity member Tom Cruise.
4. Christian columnist: “Blessed are you when you get persecuted and stoned to death, because you know Jesus (and the truth).” She’s also not too worried about people who are starving: “Even if they starve to death … they’re blessed because they’ll be with Jesus and never hunger again in the next life.”
5. Nanny alert: Owners of a Princeton, NJ wine and liquor store say they are being forced out of business after 16 years because their landlord, a local church, doesn’t want a liquor business in its building.
6. Thanks for nothing: Catholic bishop says a lesbian woman may get married to a gay man.
7. Jake Alexander Garcia, a church youth leader who solicited sexually explicit photos from a 12-year-old in his group, was sentenced to just six months in jail.
8. An anti-discrimination bill protecting transgendered people makes pastor Mike Fox mad. He thinks it’s a sex-perversion scheme concocted by transsexuals to gain access to all locker rooms.
9. By getting on their knees, one million Christian women seek to help a million men shed their porn addiction.
10. Pastor Brian Williams admitted to sexually assaulting a 15-year-old victim during counseling sessions at his church. He’s behind bars for nine years, and the church has to pay $3.6 million for not adequately supervising him.
11. Over a four-year span, a pastor and semi-famous gospel singer, who’s also a father of four, sexually assaulted three schoolgirls when he stayed overnight at their homes. The reverend Paul Gardner raped the girls when they were 7, 9, and 14.
12. The imams of Sacramento’s two biggest mosques have declared that music is not permissible in Islam. “It’s a chain reaction – when people listen to music, they ask for alcohol, which will lead to adultery,” explained imam Mahmoud Abdel.
[image via freethoughtpedia]
