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Category: Religion,
Brunei makes gay sex punishable by death by stoning as new Islamic Sharia laws take effect today
Under the new laws – which apply to children and foreigners, even if they are not Muslim – those found guilty of gay sex can be stoned to death or whipped. Adulterers risk death by stoning too, while thieves face amputation of a right hand on their first offense and a left foot on their second.
Holy moly……
LDS Church dumps its controversial LGBTQ policy, cites ‘continuing revelation’ from God
“Effective immediately, children of parents who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender may be baptized without First Presidency approval …if the custodial parents give permission for the baptism and understand both the doctrine that a baptized child will be taught and the covenants he or she will be expected to make.”
…“I am also pleased that same-sex marriage will no longer be considered apostacy but will be treated as other serious transgressions related to living the law of chastity. I believe this is the right message to members of the church to not single out those in same-sex marriages.”
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Ireland Imprisoned ‘Fallen Women’ In Religious Run Work Camps for over two hundred years
For more than two centuries, women in Ireland were sent to institutions like Donnybrook as a punishment for having sex outside of marriage. Unwed mothers, flirtatious women and others deemed unfit for society were forced to labor under the strict supervision of nuns for months or years, sometimes even for life.
…When the Magdalene Movement first took hold in the mid-18th century, the campaign to put “fallen women” to work was supported by both the Catholic and Protestant churches, with women serving short terms inside the asylums with the goal of rehabilitation. Over the years, however, the Magdalene laundries—named for the Biblical figure Mary Magdalene—became primarily Catholic institutions, and the stints grew longer and longer. Women sent there were often charged with “redeeming themselves” through lace-making, needlework or doing laundry.
Though most residents had not been convicted of any crime, conditions inside were prison-like. “Redemption might sometimes involve a variety of coercive measures, including shaven heads, institutional uniforms, bread and water diets, restricted visiting, supervised correspondence, solitary confinement and even flogging.”
…Initially, a majority of women entered the institutions voluntarily and served out multi-year terms in which they learned a “respectable” profession. The idea was that they’d employ these skills to earn money after being released; their work supported the institution while they were there.
But over time, the institutions became more like prisons, with many different groups of women being routed through the system, sometimes by the Irish government. There were inmates imported from psychiatric institutions and jails, women with special needs, victims of rape and sexual assault, pregnant teenagers sent there by their parents, and girls deemed too flirtatious or tempting to men. Others were there for no obvious reason.
…Often, women’s names were stripped from them; they were referred to by numbers or as “child” or “penitent.” Some inmates—often orphans or victims of rape or abuse—stayed there for a lifetime; others escaped and were brought back to the institutions.
…Babies were usually taken from their mothers and handed over to other families. In one of the most notorious homes, the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, scores of babies died. In 2014, remains of at least 796 babies were found in a septic tank in the home’s yard; the facility is still being investigated to reconstruct the story of what happened there.
…Estimates of the number of women who went through Irish Magdalene laundries vary, and most religious orders have refused to provide archival information for investigators and historians. Up to 300,000 women are thought to have passed through the laundries in total, at least 10,000 of them since 1922. But despite a large number of survivors, the laundries went unchallenged until the 1990s.
…the last Magdalene laundry finally closed in 1996. Known as the Gloucester Street Laundry, it was home to 40 women, most of them elderly and many with developmental disabilities.
How Ireland Turned ‘Fallen Women’ Into Slaves – HISTORY
Jeezus…
Muslims and Jewish Men in Ilhan Omar’s district Frustrated with her
“I don’t think we were looking into her heart and accusing her of being an anti-Semite,” said Hunegs, who is the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas (JCRC).
…”We wanted to show her how what she had said was consistent with the statements of anti-Semites and anti-Semitism over time,” Hunegs said.
…Ahmed dismissed the argument that Omar was merely criticizing the Israeli government — something all the men [emphasis: peanut gallery. Why did CNN only interview men for this story?] interviewed by CNN said was her prerogative and not the problem.
…Halverson says all of the circling around Omar over this issue has become a distraction.
But many are worried the distraction will keep Omar from being able to do her job.
These Muslims and Jews in Ilhan Omar’s district are united in frustration at her – CNNPolitics
Distraction? Really? How many men would have the same things said about them in a similar situation? The peanut gallery cannot think of an article whose author worries that a man in Congress could not do his job because they might be distracted…
And yes, clearly, when David Duke agrees with you you aren’t on the correct track.
Still though…. The peanut gallery cannot un-see the fact that she is being treated differently than a male colleague would be in the same situation.
The Tucker Carlson drama, explained
“Iraq is a crappy place filled with a bunch of, you know, semiliterate primitive monkeys,” Carlson said in one clip from October 7, 2008.
…Carlson said of Iraqis in 2006. “A culture where people just don’t use toilet paper or forks … they can just shut the fuck up and obey, is my view.”
…Carlson questioned whether Barack Obama is really black, mused about a presidential candidate running on a platform of protecting the country from “Muslim lunatics,” and used a homophobic slur.
…NowThis News published a third tranche of Carlson clips — audio of him alternately mocking and joking about having sex with underaged beauty pageant contestants.
…Last December, Carlson — who took over Bill O’Reilly’s primetime time slot after O’Reilly was forced out amid a sexual harassment scandal in May 2017 — was widely denounced after he said during his Fox News that immigrants make America “poorer and dirtier and more divided.”
Carlson’s comments resulted in 14 companies pulling their advertising. AstraZeneca followed suit on Monday, on the heels of Media Matters publishing the first set of clips from Bubba the Love Sponge’s show.
The Tucker Carlson drama, explained – Vox
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Graham to push for US to recognize Golan Heights as part of Israel
Israel passed a law annexing the area in 1981, but that annexation failed to get international recognition and was shot down by the United Nations General Assembly.
Graham to push for US to recognize Golan Heights as part of Israel | TheHill
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Ritual animal slaughter law leaves Belgium’s Muslims and Jews facing shortages, price hikes
Belgian law had long required animals to be stunned before slaughter to prevent unnecessary pain. It did, however, grant an exception for ritual slaughter, a practice in Islamic and Jewish religious laws in which the animals are not stunned first. Both halal and kosher slaughter require the use of a very sharp knife to slit the animal’s throat in one stroke and sever the major structures and vessels.
…A new law in the Flanders region of Belgium bans the practices required for both halal and kosher meat. That has meant such products have become harder to find and more expensive in recent months.
…Many Muslims feel the laws are a result of Islamophobia rather than a concern for animal rights. For Jews, they are also an uncomfortable reminder of a darker period in European history. In 1933, one of the first laws the Nazis enacted was a ban on kosher animal slaughter.
…With the help of an American legal fund, a group of Muslim and Jewish organizations have taken legal action and hope to overturn the new law. The Belgian Constitutional Court heard their arguments in January and is expected to rule on the case within weeks.
Ritual animal slaughter law leaves Belgium’s Muslims and Jews facing shortages, price hikes
sigh…
Pictures: the Tibetan uprising and the Dalai Lama’s exile
March 10 marks the 60th anniversary of the 1959 Tibet uprising against Chinese rule. The rebellion ultimately failed, leading to the decades-long exile of the 14th Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader.
In the six decades since he escaped to India, the Dalai Lama has evolved into an international icon of nonviolence and spiritual aspirations, traveling frequently and being hosted by political and religious leaders as well as celebrities around the world.
Pictures: the Tibetan uprising and the Dalai Lama’s exile — Quartz
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Gal Gadot hits out at Netanyahu over ‘Jewish people’ comment
…”Israel is not a state for all its citizens. According to the nation-state law that we passed, Israel is the state of the Jewish people — and belongs to them alone,” Netanyahu wrote.
…”Love thy neighbor,” the Israeli actress said Sunday on Instagram, where she has 28.3 million followers.
“It is not a matter of right or left, Arabs or Jews, secular or religious,” she added. “It is a matter of dialogue, of dialogue for peace, and of our tolerance for each other. It is our responsibility to shine hope and light for a better future for our children.”
…On Monday, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin weighed in on the issue, condemning recent “unacceptable discourse” about Arab citizens of Israel.
“There will be no second-class citizens and second-class voters,” he said during a speech. “All of us will all be equal, all of us, Jews and Arabs, all citizens of Israel.”
…Israel’s approval of a “nation-state” law, which declares that only Jews have the right of self-determination in the country and downgrades Arabic as an official language, dismayed the country’s minorities last year.
…The [Arab Israeli] minority makes up around 20 percent of the country’s population.
Gal Gadot hits out at Netanyahu over ‘Jewish people’ comment
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WV House Democrats condemn anti-Muslim speech, signs
Part of a display for “WV GOP Day” at the Legislature, the signs and pamphlets included statements connecting the religious faith of a U.S. congresswoman from Minnesota to the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.
The House sergeant-at-arms, Anne Lieberman, resigned Friday after one delegate alleged she said that “all Muslims are terrorists.”
…“It’s ugly; it’s hateful; and there’s absolutely no place for it in American politics,” said Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha. “Not in the country that I love. Not in the state that I love. We all give up our time during this time of year to come up here and serve our constituents because we love this state. Well, I love everybody in the state, no matter what they look like, who they pray to, who they love. I’m tired of it. It disgusts me.”
…Del. Mike Caputo, D-Marion, said doorkeepers and Lieberman went “nose-to-nose with members.” …He said he kicked open the door into the chamber, suggesting a doorkeeper would not let him inside.
…Belinda Biafore, chairwoman of the state Democratic Party, also released a statement. She condemned the signs and said, “This isn’t about freedom of speech; this is about hate speech.”
WV House Democrats condemn anti-Muslim speech, signs | WV News | wvnews.com
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The Supreme Court Is Quietly Changing the Status of Religion in American Life
Conservatives now cite the free-exercise clause to allow religious people to exempt themselves from obligations that are binding on all other citizens. This currently comes up most often in the context of people who want to discriminate against gay people as an expression of their religious beliefs.
The Supreme Court Is Quietly Changing the Status of Religion in American Life | The New Yorker
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40+ Jewish groups worldwide oppose equating antisemitism with criticism of Israel
“From our own histories we are all too aware of the dangers of increasingly fascistic and openly racist governments and political parties,” the global letter states. “The rise in antisemitic discourse and attacks worldwide is part of that broader trend. At times like this, it is more important than ever to distinguish between the hostility to or prejudice against Jews on the one hand and legitimate critiques of Israeli policies and system of injustice on the other.”
First ever: 40+ Jewish groups worldwide oppose equating antisemitism with criticism of Israel
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The Double Standard In The Ilhan Omar Controversy
Were the Republicans denouncing Omar even sincerely opposed to anti-Semitism, they would not support Donald Trump. Trump, after all, in 2013 tweeted that “I’m much smarter than Jonathan Leibowitz—I mean Jon Stewart.”
He ran for president on a slogan laden with anti-Semitic associations from the 1930s: “America First.” In 2015 he told a Jewish audience that “You’re not gonna support me because I don’t want your money… you don’t want to give me money, but that’s ok, you want to control your own politicians that’s fine.”
In 2016 he retweeted an image of Hillary Clinton surrounded by money and a Jewish star. He closed his presidential campaign with an ad that showed three Jews—Janet Yellen, Lloyd Blankfein and George Soros—alongside language about “global special interests” that “control the levers of power in Washington.”
In 2017, he said there were “very fine people” among the neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville. And in 2018, his racist fear mongering about a caravan of Central American migrants provoked a Pittsburgh man to commit the worst anti-Semitic atrocity in American history. Unlike Omar, he has not apologized for any of this.
If you denounce Ilhan Omar but support Donald Trump, you don’t really oppose bigotry. You don’t even really oppose anti-Semitism. What you oppose is criticism of Israel. That’s the real reason Republicans are so much more outraged by Omar’s tweets than by Trump’s. They’re not trying to police bigotry or even anti-Semitism. They’re using anti-Semitism to police the American debate about Israel.
The Sick Double Standard In The Ilhan Omar Controversy – The Forward
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Embracing a community’s practice to promote the measles vaccine
Mimicking a news-sharing custom common among ultraorthodox Jewish communities, two Penn Nursing students created and placed large posters around a Jerusalem neighborhood, deriving content from a mystical technique that assigns a numerical value to each Hebrew letter.
…They used their background and what they’ve learned in nursing school to create an outreach program promoting the measles vaccine geared at an ultra-religious Jewish group called Haredi. Because many in that community get their news from black-and-white posters called ‘pashkevilim’ hung around the neighborhood, the Penn students decided to make one.
….“From our fieldwork, we learned that, especially in insular communities, it’s important to understand what they value. This is something they place high value on.”
Using gematria, they calculated a numerical value of 500 for the Hebrew word for “measles,” then looked for other words and phrases with the same value. They came up with the Biblical phrase for “spiller of blood.”
Embracing a community’s practice to promote the measles vaccine | Penn Today
Very cool.
Why Ford needs to grapple with its founder’s anti-Semitism – The Washington Post
Stifling discussion of Henry Ford’s antipathy for Jews is dangerous because Ford, whose hatred still escapes many U.S. history textbooks, was a primary source of anti-Semitic writing in the United States. He published the Independent’s anti-Jewish articles as a book titled “The International Jew” and was directly responsible for propagating the worst piece of anti-Semitic propaganda generated in the 20th century, the fraudulent “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
When O’Reilly and Ford’s defenders at his company and his museum refuse to confront Ford’s role in promoting anti-Semitism at home and across the globe and inspiring figures such as Adolf Hitler, they allow Ford’s propaganda to distort our understanding of the past and present alike.
…Ford began his attacks on Jews in 1920, intensifying postwar discontent with the potent conspiracy theories of “The Protocols.” He ordered his dealers to distribute copies of the Independent as they sold cars, and he directed the newspaper to be mailed, unsolicited, to schools, libraries and hospitals all over the country.
…The Ford Foundation’s philanthropy has attempted to address these actions. Its grants for development projects in Israel during the 1950s were seen by contemporary observers as an act of atonement for Ford’s anti-Semitism.
…“What does it accomplish to pretend that this isn’t a part of Henry Ford’s story?”
…The Dearborn Historian article is important precisely because these other local institutions prefer to erase this part of Ford’s legacy. …Our willingness to recognize propaganda and to acknowledge the uglier side of our national story are …critical to the survival of our democracy. Let’s hope that O’Reilly and the Ford Museum curators now understand that when Americans encounter their history, they deserve to know the whole story.
Why Ford needs to grapple with its founder’s anti-Semitism – The Washington Post
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I’m white, I did something when I was younger I now know was wrong.
If I were Governor Northam, or on his team, I would have stood up and said: the world was different in 1984; I was different in 1984. I did something for a joke that in this modern world, and with who I am in this world, I now know to have been wrong, racist, and horribly offensive. I am sorry and ashamed for what I did. Here is who I am today. Here is what I did to become who I am today. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, and that I lied about it, I am deeply ashamed of who I was back then.
…In many ways, I think we as a society [do not know*] – ] how to genuine apologize for having hurt someone. And so instead of having to be vulnerable enough to say we were wrong, or apologize for hurting someone’s feelings, we just avoid having difficult conversations.
….I was never overtly or intentionally racist, but I was absolutely blinded by my own privilege and the way that race plays a role in everyday life.
And then I grew up. [emphasis: Peanut Gallery]
…I learned a little about the civil war, and the civil rights movement, and then I made an effort to learn. I educated myself on the truth of the myths I had been taught. I started talking to others about what I learned. I started to say that the civil war was fought over the state’s rights to an economic system predicated on owning humans.
…I understand the role of privilege and accessibility in racism and how I have both benefited and played a part.
I am different from the teenager and young [person*] I was.
…I call others to do the same. To know what they believe, to know why they believe, but to be certain it is what they believe, and not what some person, some culture, some society, some church, has told them to believe.
I am sorry for some of the things I did. Truly. I am sorry enough that I made a genuine effort to change.
…Let us be more than our history, by first knowing what our history is. And then finding ways to show we have changed, and engage in the difficult work of being different.
* = [edited for word choice by the Peanut Gallery with the deliberate intent of reframing the statement]
When I was younger – PVD BraveSpace
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Comments From The Peanut Gallery 