sharkchunks:

Ghana has finally banned murdering disabled children! Welcome to the negative fifteenth century!

“The “concoction men” who used to give the children the poisonous drink have been given new roles; they will now work with disabled children to promote their rights.”

I wonder, how exactly does that work?? “Hey wildly corrupt and superstitions medicine man, I’m going to need you to stop executing children and start advocating for their welfare. m’kay?? Great, thanks. Problem solved, everyone!”

The Icelandic Parliament this week passed a law which gives secular life stance organisations the right to apply for equal legal status with religions. The new law amends the current law about registered religious organizations. Thus, for the first time in Icelandic history, the government recognizes and guarantees equality between secular and religious life stances!

Sidmennt, the Icelandic Ethical Humanist Association, has been lobbying for such a change for more than ten years and celebrates this historic turning point. As soon as the law takes effect, Sidmennt will apply to the Ministry of the Interior for registration which will guarantee equal rights and freedom of conscience to its 300 members. Sidmennt is grateful to the Minister of the Interior, Ogmundur Jonasson, who introduced and championed this human rights bill and to all those members of Parliament who voted in favour of it.

An additional improvement provided by this law is that newborn babies will no longer automatically be registered into the religion of the mother, but rather according to the religious or life stance registration of both parents, and only if the registrations match. Sidmennt members and many other people inIcelandincluding many legislators feel that this does not go far enough and that it is a human rights violation for government to be involved at all in registering people’s religious affiliation and is especially abnormal to register newborn babies in a religion. The sponsors of the new law say they want to work towards abolishing this anachronism but think it can only be done in stages.

Although this law is an important step towards equality, the government is not changing the privileged status of theEvangelicalLutheranStateChurch, which enjoys both legal and financial privileges over all other life stance organisations.

teachthemhowtothink:

I LOVE THIS.  Seriously, go read the whole article if you have time.  If not, I’ve copied a few of my favorite paragraphs below.  ~JJ

# Secular Parenting

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Yup, my kid’s an atheist. And she pretty much has been since she was 5.

It’s not for lack of exposure to God or god or even gods and spirituality, because she has attended Church and church and a UU “church” and it has made no impact. We’ve prayed together. I talk about God sometimes, in a good way. When I asked her recently why she doesn’t believe in God she told me, succinctly, “Because I know too much about science!”

And there you have it — an evangelical’s worst nightmare. Science trumps God. My daughter is like a mini-Darwin who had a spiritual awakening before she was old enough to stop having potty accidents. And she was able to do so not because she was indoctrinated by the Church of the Holy Dissected Frog, but because she wasn’t fully indoctrinated by the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Because the idea that a man lives in the sky who can see everything you do hasn’t been pounded into her head since birth, she thinks the whole concept is just silly.

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I so admire my daughter’s scientific mind. I’m an artist, and an emotional one at that, which is not to say that my daughter isn’t an emotional person, because she is. But I love the way, at such a tender age, she’s able to make a decision like that for herself. To own her thoughts so fully that they are her feelings. “I don’t believe God exists.” Unquestionably. Because she hasn’t been taught to need God to get through her daily life. In spite of the fact that she struggles with things, she has this great understanding that the person she must learn to rely on is herself.

I love that.

I only wish I had been taught self-reliance as a child. Instead I was taught that there was no one in my family that I could rely on, in fact no human in the world I could expect reasonable treatment from. I had to look to God in order to be treated well, to be forgiven, to be embraced and to be loved. God, some phantom father in the sky was the man who loved me, and so of course I spent my life chasing phantom people with half-open or fully-closed hearts, seeking from them what only ghosts can give: nothing. A fantasy. A fallacy. A lie.

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What if, by raising my daughter well, by giving her the attention and fortification she needs, by teaching her to trust her instincts, by letting her know help is always there and that she should feel free to ask a real live flesh-and-blood human being for it, what if that means she won’t need God? Because the shit won’t catastrophically hit the fan? Because she has coping skills and can get through life without it being a horrible tragedy that is only made significant by eating the body and blood of a dead dude and then going to heaven at the end? Yeah. How ’bout that?

(Source: teachthemhowtothink)

teachthemhowtothink:

silkycurls:

Consent is essential for living safely, healthily, happily, etc. Educate yourself, educate your children. Read up.

This is the best article I have ever read on teaching consent to kids.  ~JJ

(via teachthemhowtothink)

goodreasonnews:

jaison96:

pokemon-training-in-358-days:

nekomimi98:

Okay, no. You don’t get the right to tell kids how to think, or treat them like aberrations simply because they don’t conform to society’s norms. Kids who don’t feel comfortable with their gender should have the right to become comfortable. You allow your “normal” child such comforts as good food, above-average shelter, etc. Why shouldn’t a child uncomfortable with his or her identity have the right to the comfort of the right identity? You have no right to dismiss the discomfort and confusion of these children, especially not through violence.

And on top of that, as part of the bigger picture and not just this article, if you’re doing this because you say Christianity and your God say so, that’s great. But you have no right to try to convince other parents to do this. You may be a devout Christian and follow the Bible to the letter, but other parents may be and probably are less devout and disagree with some of the things in the Bible. And there are multiple people out there who aren’t even Christian, and believe that transgender children are okay. There is such a thing as freedom of religion in this country, at least, and trying to rouse parents under the ruse of Christianity is NOT okay. You have no right to press your religious-based views on other parents like that.

A Pastor? Wow…

Really?

You’re surprised a pastor said this? Don’t you know Christianity is replete with examples of promoting abusive, patriarchal, strict-father-model attitudes toward individuals displaying non-traditional gender roles? Christianity’s aim is to mold society as its leadership sees fit. There are liberal Christians out there who don’t agree with this sort of thing, of course, but their continued support for the institution shows how sly religion is. It creates a disconnect in their heads between the thing they support and the effect it has. They think because they don’t see it happen in their yard, none of their dollars or support goes to harm like this. It does.

foulmouthedliberty:

What do we owe our tormentors? It’s a question that haunts those who had childhoods marked by years of neglect and deprivation, or of psychological, physical, and sexual abuse at the hands of one or both parents. Despite this terrible beginning, many people make it out successfully and go on to build satisfying lives. Now their mother or father is old, maybe ailing, possibly broke. With a sense of guilt and dread, these adults are grappling with whether and how to care for those who didn’t care for them.

This one cuts too deep for commentary.

This is a great read.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Online activists in Saudi Arabia are calling for harsher punishments for child abuse after reports that a prominent cleric received only a light sentence after confessing to the beating death of his 5-year-old daughter.

The social media campaign gaining momentum Sunday is the latest attempt to use the Internet to pressure the kingdom’s ultraconservative rulers.

Saudi media reports say Fayhan al-Ghamdi, a frequent guest on Islamic TV programs, was arrested in November on charges of killing the girl. The reports said he questioned the child’s virginity.

Saudi media say he was freed last week after serving a short prison term and agreeing to pay $50,000 in “blood money” to avoid a possible death sentence.

The money was presumably offered to the girl’s mother or other relatives.

A Saudi cleric has called for all female babies to be fully covered by wearing the face veil, commonly known as the burka, citing reports of little girls being sexually molested.

In a TV interview on the Islamic Al-Majd TV, which seems to date back to mid-last year, Sheikh Abdullah Daoud, stressed that wearing the veil will protect baby girls. The Sheikh tried to back his assertion with claims of sexual molestation against babies in the kingdom, quoting unnamed medical and security sources.

Recently picked up on social media, sheikh Dauod’s statement prompted wide condemnation from his fellow Saudis on Twitter. Some tweeps called for the Sheikh to be held accountable because his ruling denigrates Islam and breaches individual privacy.

Sheikh Mohammad Al-Jzlana, former judge at the Saudi Board of Grievances, told Al Arabiya that Dauod’s ruling was denigrating to Islam and Shariah and made Islam look bad.

Jjzlana urged people to ignore unregulated fatwas and explained that there are special regulations set by the Saudi authorities to administer religious edicts and appoint those who are entitled to issue them.

He said that he feels sad whenever he sees a family walking around with a veiled baby, describing that as injustice to children.
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This cleric obviously believes that the cause of peodophilia is simply sexy babies. If those infants were more modest then maybe they wouldn’t be sexually assaulted. I’m glad to see that (slightly) more moderate Muslims are rejecting this nonsense, but the fact remains that victim blaming is central to Islamic doctrine regarding women.