bill:politics

The BBC is reporting that Pakistan’s Assembly has passed a new law amending how rapes are prosecuted, taking them from the religious to the civil courts. Their version of Sharia (Islamic law) required a woman to bring four men to bear witness of her accusation, or else find herself being charged for adultery. You may recall the punishment for adultery in Pakistan is stoning.

While I’m glad to see this development, assuming the upper house of the legislature also passes it and key US ally Dictator/President Pervez Mussharaf signs it, I’m frankly sick at the reaction of the country’s religious leaders. Religious parties boycotted the vote, saying the bill encouraged “free sex” and that the new legislation will be “a harbinger of lewdness and indecency in the country.”

Because, of course, the raped women are responsible for what happened to them. There really are no rapes in Pakistan, despite research from the country’s independent Human Rights Commission showing there are at least 15 a day–the men are honest and true believers and the sex that happens does so because loose women tempt men beyond any reasonable resistance!

This seems to be the same sad line of reasoning that requires Islamic women to wear hijabs and burkas as well require them to be accompanied by a male from their household when out of the home. To do otherwise simply breaks men of their ability to keep their hands, and other body parts, to themselves.

One has to wonder, then, how men such as myself manage it, in the decadent American society where women flaunt uncovered skin anywhere one looks. I’m 45 years old and somehow lived all these years without forcing a woman to have sex against her will and, as far as I know, neither has male of my acquaintance. Which is not to say none of the women I know have been raped, sadly several have suffered this terrible violation. Fortunately, none of them required four (male) witnesses to ‘prove’ the crime occurred.

This is my response to Pharyngula: Moran on theistic evolution, written immediately after Larry Moran’s first comment.

Frankly this whole discussion confuses me. I defintely agree with Larry’s argument and the part that confuses me is why religious people insist that God could not have created the world as science explains it. The two are not mutually exclusive since science, at the end of the day (so far), cannot explain how everything started.

You can say collisions in M-space generated the specific universe we experience, or something similar, but that’s just turtles all the way down. You can say potentials in an underlying quantum field, still turtles.

However, God–in the sense of an unknowable entity outside our frame of reference and if such an entity exists and had the ability to create the universe we experience–could easily have created it to behave according to rules and precepts we’ve been decoding as science. Heck, that makes a lot more sense to me than angels whispering in ears and takes nothing away from this entity’s, um, stature.

Then again, the explanation doesn’t fit well with many (most or all?) established religions so I can understand the hesitance in gaining acceptance by adherents of the same.

(second comment:)

If the entity conceived of as God does exist, there’s no reason the entity could not take an action which definitively answers the existence question at a scientifically acceptable level. The entity, according to most religious explanations, chooses not to do so because faith in the entity’s existence is a pre-requisite of belonging to that religion.

Interestingly, both Judaism and Christianity (which I’m most familiar with) posit that God will be knowable in a scientific sense in their explanations of the end of time as we know it.

(third comment)

@kagehi: you quoted me but completely misconstrued my meaning. As previously stated I agree with Mr. Moran’s argument, and I use the term argument in its rhetorical meaning. You wrote:

First, it makes God redundant unless he continues to intervene. The second is far more serious in that every “intervention” seems to inexplicably be explainable with real world events, like volcanos.

First, my meaning is that the God entity cannot be explained by our science in any forseeable manner but this is irrelevant. Second, when I wrote that the hypothetical God entity could choose to take action which would be noticable on a scientific level, my intended implication was precisely opposite the ’supernatural’ explanation for volcanos.

For example, simultaneously appearing on every TV, radio and internet channel (or, forgetting technology, in the presence of every human alive) to say hello and thanks for playing the game so well. Some event that is both not possible with our current or even nearterm technology and not even possibly mistaken for irrational ranting.

In an entirely predictable, and hypocritical, move, Arlen Specter (R, PA) went behind closed doors to move a bill amending the Constitution to prevent any states from recognizing same sex marriages from the Judiciary committee to the Senate floor. Of course the bill won’t pass the Senate, since it requires 67 votes and there’s no chance of getting 12 votes from the Democrats.

So why use any of the limited time Senators actually have to do real business on a lost cause? Because it’s an election year where Bush is sitting at the lowest poll numbers since they invented political polling, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is beyond ineffective, Tom Delay, a terrible man but extremely able to drive the troops, is gone, the so-called War on Terror is stranded far from completion, oil prices are through the roof and so the Dems look increasingly likely to capture control of the House and a few more Senate seats.

What to do? American Politics for Dummies has the answer: Get publicity for a meaningless issue that nonetheless connects to your important core supporters. Honestly, even if this amendment was enacted how much would any heterosexual’s life change?

Alternatively, ignoring simplistic ploys, the senators could get work on actually useful legislation:

Now those would do more than move hot air around a small room in Washington, D.C.!

The federal district court judge in Pennsylvania hearing the case brought by parents against the Dover Area School District Board of Education handed down his decision today and I am very happy to relate that he went with the parents. The decision was probably moot–since district voters booted eight of the nine board members favoring the absurd notion of teaching Intelligent Design in public schools in last month’s election–but will stand as precedent when other school boards try to do the same thing.

I chose to write when others try this because there’s no doubt in my mind fools such as the executives and financial backers of the Thomas More Law Center and organizations like it will not be stopped so easily. The Thomas More Law Center instigated the action by the Dover board and provided free legal aid to defend the lawsuit. Uggh!

As the judge said in his decision: Darwin’s theory “in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator.” Of course it doesn’t! There’s absolutely nothing in the theory of evolution which asserts any answer to where life, the universe and everything came from and there’s no logical reason why a Creator couldn’t have included evolution in our existence. To me, in fact, evolution is almost implied by the concept of Free Will and Free Will is a core aspect of Christianity and other Western religions.

Last weekend the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran reporter Matt Franck’s article covering recent political action on the increasingly stupid anti-evolution campaign in Missouri, Intelligent design debate is still evolving in bistate. What really got to me about the article wasn’t the incessant hypocrisy of the people pushing ID, which I take as a given these days, but how poorly and irresponsibly the article was written. So I sent Matt a brief, polite note and since he’s chosen not to reply I thought I’d present it here for the record:

The paper did run several responses in the Letters column, though all were concerned with the subject matter and not the quality of reporting. Unfortunately, regardless of perspective, all of them were more or less recapitulations of one or more of the talking points of the side to which the writer adheres.

A great man who stood up in ways that cannot be measured. Wiesenthal’s death is a day to remember all the work he did to bring the truth of the Nazi’s horrific regime to light and celebrate those who died at their hands. We must always remember the power of these terrible dark ideas and fight the hold they keep on the weak.

After having a year to reflect on how legal same sex marriages would work on the practical level, the Massachusetts legislature voted down a bill that would be the major step towards a stage constitutional amendment overturning the court decision that gave gay and lesbian couples the same rights as us heteros. In fact the vote was taken at a joint session of the state Senate and Assembly and even the Republican party’s Senate minority leader–a co-sponsor of the bill–voted against it after hearing from constituents and talking with married couples.

One can only hope this level of understanding, and the experience in Vermont and Canada, will better inform our own state government.

Apparently Prop 22, passed five years ago by a seriously unenlightened majority of California voters, trumps the gneder-free marriage bill passed by the State Senate and Assembly this week. Arnold will get off lucky though this is another example of why our initiative and referendum system doesn’t work in an era of ubiquitous connectivity and media coverage. I remain optimistic that the State Supreme Court will come through with the necessary decision next year.

Excellent: California Legislature Approves Gay Marriage and now we’ll see just how Arnold’s self-described liberal social values do when they meet up with an issue his Republican base cannot abide.

Nothing gets me going like a good blather of hypocritical, logically inconsistent verbal diarreah from a politician and the SF Chronicle (State senate OKs bill legalizing same-sex marriage) provides just this. In an act of true goodness and possibly political courage 21 members of the California State Senate voted to approve same sex marriage legislation. We’ll see as soon as next week if enough Assemblycritters can muster it up for passage–then people will see the real Governator, if he stands behind his words or not.

For now we can laugh and marvel at men like Dennis Hollingsworth, a Republican, who claims to know what’s in the minds of his colleagues: “I don’t think there is a member in this chamber who doesn’t somewhere–either readily on the surface or somewhere deep down inside–know that this is not the right thing to do.” Sure Dennis, I guess the electoral victory made you a mindreader. LOL

The real yucks, as they so often do, come from Tom McClintock. Remember, he was so sure about being THE republican in the Grey Davvis recall I swear he was ready to ejaculate all over the Capitol steps before Arnold laid down the reality from latenight TV. Anyway, McClintock said “The reason marriage is fundamentally different from a civil contract is that marriage is formed for a fundamental purpose–that is to bring a new life into the world.â€Â

Nice of you to bring up the civil contract matter in the same sentence as childrearing, Tom. Because if those other things, like being able to visit your life partner in the hospital and make medical decisions for him or her and be treated specially in property ownership and estate matters, are so unimportant than why don’t we change the laws to separate them from marriage? Let everyone use civil contracts to arrange the relationshps. Of course that’s not something any right thinking.. hell, I can’t think of a polite name to call these mentally deficient steaming piles, anything they’d accept. The childraising, people, is a red herring, simply used to swaddle irrational bias in clean clothes.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Christian Schools Bring Suit Against UC because one of the premier public university systems in the world refuses to give credit for religion-derived science classes. The schools argue that just because their courses teach Creation Science rather than actual science shouldn’t matter in scoring student applications. But let’s say the lawsuit succeeds, directly or otherwise, and some of the students get in. Wouldn’t they just fall down when confronted with material that depends on understanding evolution and other material that non-Christian students not only know but accept as real?

One of the core concepts in life for me is the line. Such a simple thing but with great weight. A divider: this or that, here or there, mine or yours. That last comparison gets to the heart of my thinking, as it seems to be the most fundamental issue in any situation. Sometimes mine is in the form ours and yours is theirs, same reality.

Black and white, the world is not binary but shades of grey. True, more so than many people bother to include in analysing specific decisions. Will the stock price go up or down? Up is usually preferable but up a penny isn’t the same as up a quarter.

Nonetheless every decision and judgment requires one to draw a line. On this side yes, on that side no. Will I vote for him? Will I buy that stock? Will I be angry if my son brings home a boyfriend? Decisions may certainly have more than two choices–I can vote for the Libertarian candidate–but some outcome must arrive.

Where we set these lines and how we choose the factors which will be considered I’ve recently realized is one of my deepest interests. Some people (claim to) use a religious text as guide while others make similar assertions about logic and science. If you’re asking, count me in the latter group.

However either of those choices seems idealistic and not a true representation of the process. I don’t see the need to point at examples from any point in the spectrum, they’re manifold and obvious. Always, emotion and human frailty (a polite way of saying laziness) play a larger role than is admitted.

In my own life–to cite two recent examples–I’ve commented on Scoble’s post about the MSN China censorship flap and complained (through a comment on their blog) about GM’s reluctance to improve their cars’ energy consumption. Yet I still run Microsoft software and buy products some of which surely were manufactured in China and drive a (non-GM) SUV that gets reasonably poor gas mileage. True, few of these were bought since I really started thinking about my decisions in this light but for now I need to own up.

So, lines. I’m sleepy now but this is a topic I expect to return to often. I’d be interested to see your thoughts.

Garret comments on this article in The Economist, pointing on the pressure in today’s America to be seen as a churchgoer. Clearly the Bay Area, among the blues of the Blue, doesn’t suffer from this at all. Garret also has a very eloquent post on stem cell research and politics focusing on the high proportion of pregnancies which naturally abort.

What annoys me most about the right wing Evangelical (for lack of a better grouping term) political effort on these issues is that they’re attempting to embody in law choices that can be made voluntarily by individuals. Indeed, these rules, laws and (in some instances) constitutional amendments are clearly social engineering, a term of derision coined by their philosophical predecessors to negatively frame discussions on civil rights and poverty programs in the 1960s and ’70s.

Seriously, if you don’t like gay marriage, don’t marry someone of the same gender. If you really object to it, don’t attend their weddings, send anniversary cards or have them over for canasta night. Believe life begins at conception (and therefore that abortion is murder)? Don’t have an abortion–but don’t disown a child who chooses otherwise, follow the “hate the sin, love the sinner” ethos I read so often is a key Christian value. An ethos I usually see mentioned in the context of why youthful drug use by, say, our current president doesn’t disqualify him for his high office.

School prayer and religious displays in public spaces are particularly egregious. Were all the churches, temples, mosques, and other places for worship irreplaceably destroyed last night without me knowing? I don’t think so. To claim, as the article suggests, that up until 45 years ago such things were common place means nothing–up until the same time segregation and other racially discrimination laws were on the books too. Evolution aside, an argument for another post, our understanding of how the world works and how we can best be part of it has changed–improved, for the most part–over the entirety of recorded history. Just because something was standard practice for a long time is never a valid justification for policy or law.

Garret’s discussion of why the political objection to the use of fetal stem cells seems somewhat off target, though. He completely overlooks the counterargument I would expect any right wing Evangelical to make: pregnancies which end by natural means is God’s will. No different than His choices that end our lives any time after a baby is delivered.

Such an argument, based on faith, is still insufficient to make American law. Further, I’ve never been able to reconcile it with another common political position held by the same people, that execution is an acceptable penalty for some crimes. In both situations humans are making a life and death decision; I find it hard to understand how in only one of these instances the decision is a sin against God.

To finalize this trifecta of dangerousmeta! links, let’s consider G’s brief mention of a WaPo analysis: that “the Republicans want to build a permanent Presidential tyranny.” Yes, yes they do. Many Republicans would claim the goal is to build an enduring majority, and therefore political control, no different than what the Democrats had from the early 1930s through the mid-’90s. With the advantage of learning from Democratic mistakes to deliver superior results and moving quickly to close any gaps exposed by bloggers, press or opponents.

[Since the Merc chose not to print it, here's my response to Both sides of what?]

Sheri Del Core writes (Letters, 5/14) that allowing doctors and pharmacists to opt out of providing abortions and contraceptive care doesn’t make them unobtainable but evidence shows this claim is false. The Bay Area has alternative providers to whom women can turn but that’s a very parochial view of a national debate since in other parts of the country willing professionals are frequently inaccessible, the nearest dozens or hundreds of miles away.

Some pharmacists don’t wish to dispense birth control pills, RU-486 and other contraceptive materials, arguing that training and experience bring more than simple moral objection. However, in order to make meaningful recommendations and not just religion-based, across the board prohibitions, pharmacists would have to have patient-specific medical information. Since this data isn’t available to them, the assertion is clearly false and usurps the prescribing physician’s role.

Medicine is a fundamental component of modern society and over lengthy careers health care professionals will confront personally repugnant patients and procedures. People must consider this factor carefully in choosing their profession and then, having done so, set aside personal beliefs or else we as a community will suffer unacceptably.

Priest Denies Gays’ Supporters Communion and, woof, here we go again with sanctimonious preachers insisting that natural choices offend the invisible man in the sky.