Showing posts with label Religious Discrimination. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Religious Discrimination. Show all posts
National Secular Society ✏ After a councillor was denied mayoralty for criticising Islam, Jack Rivington warns politicians are playing into the hands of Islamist fundamentalists.


Last week, members of Boston Borough Council decided that the principle of free expression, and the traditions of their mayoralty, were less important than potentially offended religious feelings.

By convention as the longest serving member, Councillor Mike Gilbert was due to be appointed mayor of Boston for a one year term. However, following an intervention by several fellow councillors, he was blocked from taking up the position last month on the grounds that he had made past comments criticising aspects of Islamic religious doctrine.

These comments, posted on social media during the football World Cup in Qatar, drew attention to several features of Islam which Cllr Gilbert considered to be in conflict with the rights of women and LGBT people. Namely that in Islam, homosexuality is punishable by death, and women are considered to be of a lower status than men.

Despite Cllr Gilbert very clearly stating that his criticisms were not of Muslims themselves but of particular religious doctrines, a number of borough councillors saw fit to denounce him for what they characterised as 'hate speech'.

Continue reading @ National Secular Society.

Why Are Councillors Doing Islamists’ Work For Them?

National Secular Society ✏ Bias against people who don't swear a religious oath in court may lead to hundreds of additional convictions, researchers have said.

Research from Royal Holloway, University of London has found that defendants who don't "swear by Almighty God" run a higher risk of being found guilty by jurors who themselves take a religious oath.

In the UK, court witnesses can choose to either swear a religious oath to God, or make a secular affirmation, that they will give truthful evidence.

The researchers concluded that the religious oath "is an antiquated legal ritual that needs reform".

The National Secular Society is calling for the oath and affirmation to be replaced in light of the research.

Religious oath-takers more likely to discriminate against secular affirmers

The researchers held two surveys which found that people associate the religious oath with credible testimony; and that people, especially those who are religious, discriminate against defendants who choose instead to affirm.

In a further experiment, participants acting as 'jurors' watched a video of a mock trial, in which the 'defendant' either swore a religious oath before giving evidence or made the secular affirmation.

Continue Reading @ National Secular Society.

Study 🤔 Jurors Could Be Biased Against People Who Don’t Swear To God

Hemant Mehta Hamline University administrators have taken the coward’s way out, caving in to the demands of zealots.


An art history professor in Minnesota was fired after showing students an ancient depiction of the Prophet Muhammad in class. The dismissal came after a Muslim student complained to administrators that the act was offensive and disrespectful; those school officials eventually agreed. The whole controversy has raised important questions about whether potentially offensive content should be censored from students if there’s a risk of violating their religious sensibilities.

You may recall that, in 2010, there was a massive uproar after cartoonists, bloggers, and even South Park began depicting Muhammad in both innocuous and purposely blasphemous ways. Since depicting Muhammad is considered taboo by many Muslims, the issue was whether their religious beliefs should override everyone else’s freedom of expression. On the other hand, even if Muslims conceded that people had a right to draw whatever they wanted, was it worth drawing something just to get a rise out of an often maligned group?

Over the years, there have been extremists who retaliated in the worst ways, as we saw in France with the Charlie Hebdo shootings in 2015.

Continue reading @ Only Sky.

Art History Professor Fired For Using Ancient Paintings Of Muhammad In Class

World News PlatformA British-Israeli woman is suing EasyJet, the British low-cost airline, for demanding that she give up her seat on a flight from Tel Aviv to London to accommodate an ultra-Orthodox man and his son who refused to sit next to her because of her gender.

Melanie Wolfson, who moved to Israel 13 years ago and lives in Tel Aviv, is demanding 66,438 shekels ($19,515) in compensation from the airline, according to a suit filed last week on her behalf by the Israel Religious Action Center – the advocacy arm of the Reform movement in Israel.

The 38-year-old plaintiff, a professional fundraiser, is also demanding that EasyJet stipulate in its guidelines for employees that they are prohibited from asking women to switch seats because of their gender and that they must defend their rights to sit in their assigned seats.

Continue reading @ World News Platform

Easyjet Sued For Forcing Israeli Woman To Give Up Seat For Ultra-Orthodox Men

From Maryam Namazie the religious discrimination against women. 

Periods Are Natural

Decades ago, and said to have had a longer life span in rural communities than in urban areas, some blackguard of a priest could be found calling out the names of those who the church had been unable to extort money from through their supposedly voluntary collections. It was sheer intimidation. When intimidation is used to extract money, extortion is a term fit for it.

Barbarians In The Pulpit

  • By the way, if you want more weirdness, check out America Needs Fatima. This is an American organization that thinks that the way we'll solve all of our problems is by putting a statue of the Virgin Mary in every home and getting everyone to worship it – PZ Myers

Corking Blasphemy