Delicious LiveJournal Links for 2-5-2010

[andrewducker]

• Nearly 1% of Guatemalan children are adopted by Americans - sometimes through coercion or kidnapping
  (tags: children adoption usa)
• Religious bigots may now continue their bigotry - legal change is dropped
  (tags: religion homophobia uk)
• Complaint after judge spares man jail because he's religious
  (tags: EpicFail religion law uk)
• Republicans are crazy - poll shows them to be, in fact, tending towards ignorance, conspiracy and downright unpleasantness
  (tags: politics poll statistics republicans usa)

Comments

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Huh, and just when we'd got round to thinking Cherie was a lot better than her husband...

[simont]

Well, she did get us involved in fewer wars. I think you could still reasonably say she wasn't as bad!

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

Mm but I wonder if it would have hit the news if she spared him because he hadn't committed any offences before? Is it normal to get spared prison for a first offence?

[andrewducker]

She quite possibly would have. She still shouldn't be saying that he's more moral because he's religious.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Yes it is; if she'd chosen her words more carefully and said he clearly had a good character she'd have been okay...

[matgb]

Elsewhere I've seen it said that the circumstances would've normally given him the same sentence regardless of belief, she just said something very stupid.

[beachpsalms.livejournal.com]

The thing about allowing an exemption for religious groups on human rights issues (employment or marriage policy) is that it cuts off the "We're being oppressed by gays/feminists" argument off at the knees, which is a good thing.

Interestingly, in Canada, when the Conservative party tried to reconsider the legalization of same sex marriage, the United Church of Canada claimed intervenor status, and used a similar Don't Fuck With Internal Church Policy argument to support same sex marriage.

[andrewducker]

I'm confused. Are you saying that allowing the church to be exempt from human rights legislation is good because then they won't feel oppressed?

That's not making any sense to me...

[beachpsalms.livejournal.com]

Your confusion is no doubt due to applying earth logic to a situation involving the mindset of people who believe in creationism.

When same sex marriages were legalized in Canada, churches maintained the ability to decide for themselves whether or not they would perform such marriages. In my own church (United Church of Canada, large Protestant denomination with Methodist/Presbyterian/Congregationalist roots) - while the national church wholeheartedly and publicly supports same sex marriage, and has allowed out gay/lesbian clergy for 10 years - the same sex marriage decisions are made at a local level.

What it means is that no congregations/denominations can argue that they are being forced to perform marriages against their own religious convictions.

There are already religious exemptions for employment - certainly for clergy, if not lay employees of religious groups - How else can we have structures that link belief systems and employability; or allow some denominations to restrict ministry to men?

So, I'm not saying that it is a good thing that some churches discriminate, but a practical solution to allow them to do so (within some reasonable limits) - so the rest of society can move on with less resistance.

[andrewducker]

Aaah, we're talking at cross-purposes. Churches are not forced to carry out marriages, nor are they forced to appoint people to explicitly religious jobs (such as priests, bishops, etc).

The argument here is over "normal" jobs. Whether a church can refuse to hire a janitor because they are gay.

[beachpsalms.livejournal.com]

Ah, sorry - I should have actually read the link instead of skimming it. We've had that fight too, in the Catholic school system, but I can't remember what the current status is.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Actually the main opposition from churches was not about "normal" jobs. It was about jobs that involve conveying the belief system of the church.

Harman claimed that the new wording continued to exempt clergy, but the wording (which I can't find atm) talks about how their time is used, and would not actually cover many clergy (who do not spend most of their time giving sermons). Another issue was that the government should not decide which people within a church are authorised to teach that religion, which is exactly what the bill did - Harman repeatedly said that under the new law people like youth workers would not be exempted, but youth workers do teach the Christian religion, that's a very core part of their job.

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

Then isn't it trivial to reject the applicant because of their lack of belief in the teachings of that church?

If part of the job is "you have to teach that being gay ain't okay", you'd be hard pressed to find gay people that would be able to fill that role.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

I don't have a problem if a church congregation decides it doesn't want to permit gay weddings in their church. In the same way that they can currently decide whether or not to allow a straight couple to get married in their church. It's their church, they can decide what is permitted to take place there.

There are other routes for gay couples to get married, a civil marriage being the most obvious.

[lizzie-and-ari.livejournal.com]

o/t I just want to say I love your icon :)

"Rope" "Hang "Enough" "Themselves"

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

Connect these words to form a well-known phrase or saying.

Which is to say that though I abhor the idea of giving the theists exemption from anything (except the right to vote), I think this one is going to generate some wonderful church-damaging headlines.

Also, what will happen when they fire an alleged homosexual, and he/she denies the allegations?