We all know how fucked up the state of Utah is on many things:

Utah is not a state known for its legislative sanity. This, after all, is a state that recently made headlines for proposing to honor gun manufacturers on Martin Luther King Day and for considering the elimination of 12th grade to cut back on education spending.

Well, things just keep on getting worse:

In Utah, Miscarriage = Criminal Homicide

Utah just became the first state in the U.S. to criminalize miscarriage and punish women for having or seeking an illegal abortion. Utah’s “Criminal Miscarriage” law:

* expands the definition of illegal abortion to include miscarriages
* removes immunity protections for women who have or seek illegal abortions
* treats women as presumptive criminals and leaves them open to criminal prosecution

But even among states that punish illegal abortions, this “Criminal Miscarriage” law is unique. It not only punishes individuals who perform illegal procedures; it punishes women.

How Utah defined miscarriage as criminal homicide?

Utah’s “Criminal Miscarriage” law (H.B.12) makes simple changes to the state’s definition of “abortion” and the section of the Utah Criminal Code governing “criminal homicide.”

This law:

* defines legal abortion as a procedure “carried out by a physician or through a substance used under the direction of a physician.” Anything else that terminates a pregnancy is now defined as illegal abortion – including miscarriages.

* states that “The killing or attempted killing of a live unborn child in a manner that is not abortion shall be punished as…criminal homicide.” (emphasis mine)

* removes existing immunity from criminal prosecution for women “who seek to have or obtain an abortion” or “upon whom a partial birth abortion is performed.”

* applies the legal standard of an “intentional, knowing or reckless act of the woman” as punishable as criminal homicide.

Translation: If a woman has a miscarriage but didn’t know that she was pregnant, she cannot be charged with criminal homicide. So while this law does not criminalize all miscarriages, anything that could be defined as “knowing” or “reckless” would leave a woman at risk for criminal prosecution.

Could it really be that bad?

Yes, it could. . . It’s Utah!

Practically speaking however, this bill changes the presumption that abortions obtained in this state are legal. If this bill is signed into law, women in this state will essentially be in the uncomfortable and unfortunate position of having to prove that abortions they obtain (or miscarriages that they suffer) are not unlawful.

*snip*

A woman who fails to wear a seatbelt and is in a car accident could be charged with reckless homicide, should she miscarry. Likewise, a woman who has a substance abuse problem is likely to forego necessary prenatal care out of fear that she could be prosecuted for “knowing” or “reckless” homicide by continuing to use illegal substances while pregnant.

What can we do about it?

It’s time for everyone to hear about Utah’s “Criminal Miscarriage” law. The media must to cover it. We must to start conversations all across the country about what this means for women and girls in Utah – and what this precedent means if (or, more likely, when) other states follow suit. (A similar case in Iowa should be all the warning we need.)

So post this on Facebook. Tweet it. Forward it to five friends. And ask them all to do the same.

I had to re-read this a few times to make sure it wasn’t satire, but it’s for real.

The Virginia House of Delegates has just passed a bill that supporters hope will keep the Antichrist at bay.

You hear a loud whirring noise, you say? That would be Thomas Jefferson and James Madison spinning like tops in their Virginia graves.

Yes, it’s true. Yesterday House members approved a measure that would prohibit employers and insurance companies from requiring people to implant microchips in their bodies.

*snip*

. . . according to The Washington Post, there are some fundamentalist Christians out there whose analysis of end-times biblical prophecy leads them to believe that the Antichrist will appear soon and force everyone to accept the “mark of the Beast” in their persons. That “mark,” they think, could easily be the microchip.

The Post reports that Del. Mark L. Cole (R –Fredericksburg), the bill’s sponsor, has both privacy and religious concerns. He thinks the microchips could someday be used as the “mark of the beast” described in the Book of Revelation.

I was LMAO at this paragraph:

So let me get this straight: the Antichrist – the personification of Evil itself – is going to show up in America and start imposing the mark of Beast. He rolls through states such California, Kansas and Delaware, but when he gets to the Virginia line, he and his legions of demons just have to stop dead in their sulfurous tracks.

“Sorry, boys,” he’ll say. “Virginia’s got a law that says we can’t mess with the good folks there.”

While this sort of thing isn’t very important since it’s concerning something imaginary that is never going to happen anyway, it is taking time away from important REAL issues like unemployment, education and state budgets.

And as Joseph Conn states:

And most importantly, it does enormous harm when legislators get the idea that it’s perfectly okay for them to enact laws based on religion.

In a recent article at Huffington Post, American’s United for Separation of Church and State’s executive director Rev. Barry Lynn writes:

Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 4, President Barack Obama asserted that his administration has “turned the faith-based initiative around,” implying that his policies represent a sharp break from past practices.

That’s news to me. In fact, from where I’m sitting, the core of Obama’s faith-based initiative looks pretty much identical to the deeply problematic one created by President George W. Bush. A few tweaks on the margins don’t amount to real change.

One year after Obama announced his version of the faith-based office, civil rights and civil liberties groups such as mine are still fighting Bush-era battles over tax funding to religious groups that proselytize, job discrimination on religious grounds in public programs and lack of accountability. It’s disheartening.

I, like Barry Lynn, am growing impatient with Obama for “leaving the odious Bush faith-based scheme in place unchanged.” And I stand by Barry Lynn when he says:

Mr. President, this is not “change,” and I am losing “hope.” Please set your “faith-based” house in order. Shut down the Faith-based Council and issue executive orders and regulations clearly banning hiring bias and proselytizing by faith-based groups that take public funds.

Pursuant to a thread at Pharyngula, a particular book was mentioned. So Googling it up, I found this wonderful bit of folderol:

By now you’ve probably heard about that infamous movie so many people are talking about called EXPELLED, starring Ben Stein. No? OK, so if you haven’t seen it yet, you should. This film played for a limited engagement in theatres across the USA in 2008 (but don’t go rushing out to buy the video until you’ve visited the offers from our partners at the "Order Online" tab above). If you missed the movie (or just want to read up on what others are saying about it) you can check out another movie trailer here, and read some reviews and commentary about it here.

‘Limited engagement’ actually translates to ‘invitation only’ across a limited amount of showings, and I’m sure we’re all up on this non-issue that Stein tried to stoke a non-fire in the intellectual underbrush.

So why am I even mentioning this movie? Because the book Slaughter of the Dissidents (SOD) picks up where the movie "Expelled" leaves off. If you thought Expelled was mind-blowing, then this book will educate you even further about this important issue of repression of freedom and discrimination currently playing in academia today, along with many case studies of expelled scientists and educators (some of the SOD case studies also focus on some of the "Expelles" introduced in the movie).

I thought it was mind-blowing that Stein imagined he even had a controversy, let alone a point.

"Expelled" has taken many Americans by surprise. Suddenly, a growing number of people are wondering: what is this discrimination against Darwin skeptics all about? What do you mean we kick people out of academia just for asking questions about evolution! Is this really true? And just how bad is it really.

Like all empty incendiary rhetoric, it’s really not all that bad. Nobody’s been ‘slaughtered’, either physically or metaphorically. It’s simply scare-mongering, is what it is.

Well, in a word, the treatment of Darwin skeptics in our culture (scientists, educators, and students) is very poor. Many of them endure incredible humilation and eventual loss of their jobs. But even worse, being a Darwin skeptic for many of these people is a complete career-ender. Of course, there are many who try to argue against such claims, as you can see by visiting sites like "Expelled Exposed." We plan to provide some rebuttals to those arguments at some point in the future. But for now… SOD will serve as a starting point.

You won’t believe some of the reasons many educators have lost their jobs, and how they often get blackballed from academia, or why some students failed to get an otherwise earned degree. This pernicious form of discrimination is not only widespread in the U.S. but is also nauseating to most Americans. SOD goes into great detail about how and why it occurs, and provides you with scores of actual case studies. As you read this book you’ll discover that one of the most precious things we own is at risk, right here in America. What is that?

In a word,

FREEDOM

The price you pay for going against the scientific consensus (and especially on a topic that has been proven up and down and sideways to Muskogee) is…well, ridicule is something you’ll have to endure, especially when you don the martyr’s cap and cry ‘poor me!’ when you propound twaddle.

Freedom to disagree about some aspects of evolution without losing your job or being denied an earned degree. Freedom to tell people you dare to question any aspect of evolution on scientific grounds – without referencing any religious text.

Either the author doesn’t understand the definition of ‘aspect’, which is:

1. appearance to the eye or mind; look: the physical aspect of the country, 2. nature; quality; character: the superficial aspect of the situation, 3. a way in which a thing may be viewed or regarded; interpretation; view: both aspects of a decision. 4. part; feature; phase: That is the aspect of the problem that interests me most. 5. facial expression; countenance: He wore an aspect of gloom. Hers was an aspect of happy optimism. 6. bearing; air; mien: warlike in aspect. (6 will do for now), or he’s being deliberately misleading about the ‘any aspect’ phrasing. Either one wouldn’t be a surprise.

And also the freedom to let others know what you personally believe outside of science without having such an utterance turn into a rabid witch hunt.

That’s utter nonsense, otherwise notables such as Ken Miller and Francis Collins would be pilloried in accordance with this ‘logic’.

Do you know it has reached the point in America where, on this subject at least, if you are an educator and you opine that you have reservations about any aspect of evolution based on scientific evidence, you are often immediately labeled as "religious" (whether you really are or not), and you are (often) immediately determined to be ‘unfit’ to teach science or get a science degree?

Unmitigated crap. Maybe a biology degree, but this ‘any aspect’ accusation is ridiculous.

And speaking of religion, it looks like we live in an era where freedom OF religion has been twisted to mean freedom FROM religion. Some groups supporting this type of discrimination proclaim that "Freedom depends on free thinkers," unless, of course, you happen to be ‘religious’.

I don’t think I need to go any further with this. Of course, you can’t have freedom OF religion unless you have freedom FROM religion. This isn’t ‘discrimination’ – this is fact. It’s an equal playing field now – and this is the standard argument from martyrdom, except that we are all now familiar with the lies the Christians tell us, the lies they believe and will fight for, against all odds and evidence.

In addition, I might add that this execratory bit of work has an introduction by none other than “Dr.” D. James Kennedy. For those of you unfamiliar with this particular fuckwit, he was that same idiot who made the repugnant ‘documentary’ titled Darwin’s Deadly Legacy, which has been debunked and repudiated (but is still for sale!). Also, a hardcore theonomist.

One can only hope that this disorder we term religion will wilt away, that the human race can move onwards to greener pastures.

Till the next post, then.

Sneaky bastards! A video from ABC News explains the latest indirect fundie proselytizing tactics:
ABC News – Secret Jesus Bible Codes on U.S. Military Weapons

and this

Michigan defense contractor is putting Bible codes on their weapons which Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, says, “could give the Taliban and other enemy forces a propaganda tool: that American troops are Christian crusaders invading Muslim countries.”

WASHINGTON – Combat rifle sights used by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan carry references to Bible verses, stoking concerns about whether the inscriptions break a government rule that bars proselytizing by American troops.

Military officials said the citations don’t violate the ban and they won’t stop using the telescoping sights, which allow troops to pinpoint the enemy day or night.

The contractor that makes the equipment, Trijicon of Wixom, Mich., said the U.S. military has been a customer since 1995 and the company has never received any complaints about the Scripture citations.

Because not many know about it, you fucker!

“We don’t publicize this,” Tom Munson, Trijicon’s director of sales and marketing, said in an interview. “It’s not something we make a big deal out of. But when asked, we say, ‘Yes, it’s there.’”

Because if you did “make a big deal out of” it, many tax-paying citizens and secular organizations DO have a problem with it. And soldiers who know about it and disagree are afraid to speak up:

Weinstein said he has received complaints about the Scripture citations from active-duty and retired members of the military. He said he couldn’t identify them because they fear retaliation.

Dobson Unretires: Religious Right Honcho Plans New Radio Show

James Dobson retired back in April, but that didn’t last very long. And though he is ending his radio show in February, he is simply starting up another one.

Now Dobson has announced that instead of puttering around the house and playing golf, he is teaming up with his son, Ryan, to do a daily radio show called “James Dobson on the Family.” Some retirement!

Dobson announced on Facebook that he will end the Focus on the Family broadcasts in February and will start broadcasting with Ryan the following month. The Associated Press reported, “He says his new show, which will air in March, will cover many of the same topics, including marriage, child-rearing and national issues.”

In other words, we’ll get the same extremism but on a different channel.

The reason? Rob Boston gives a possible answer:

My guess is that Dobson, who is really unhappy with the political situation right now, never intended to stop popping off about it. After all, gay people can get married in Iowa, abortion is still legal, some people continue to believe in evolution and not everyone is a right-wing, dogmatic fundamentalist Christian. There’s lots of work to do!

Which means that there is still a lot of watchdogging of these nutjobs for us to do. It never ends.

The following video was posted by the son of a friend who belongs to a Xian cult down in Arizona. This IDiot spewing out his nonsense in the video isn’t even listening to the words coming out of his mouth. He provides no real argument, no counter evidence, and only mocks science and has no understanding of evolution and science and takes this and that out of context just like they do their Bible. His argument? Goddidit, godmadeit, time is short, Big Bang still hasn’t happened yet…this guy is a total moron and so many people sit in their churches week after week and nod their heads and shout “Amen!” without doing any investigation what-so-ever on their own….and teach their children that their undereducated (or uneducated), superstitious and misinformed pastors know more than teachers and scientists do.

The Age of The Earth Seminar Trailer

I rather enjoyed this article by the author (authoress? Is it PC to use that term?) of the Meme Machine.

Are we better off without religion?

Popular religious belief is caused by dysfunctional social conditions. This is the conclusion of the latest sociological research (pdf) conducted by Gregory Paul. Far from religion benefiting societies, as the "moral-creator socioeconomic hypothesis" would have it, popular religion is a psychological mechanism for coping with high levels of stress and anxiety – or so he suggests.

I’ve long been interested in Paul’s work because it addresses a whole bunch of fascinating questions – why are Americans so religious when the rest of the developed world is increasingly secular? Is religious belief beneficial to societies? does religion make people behave better?

I’d assume that there’s a number of variables – it’s likely ingrained into our collective consciousness because of the Establishment cause, appears on our money, and there’s a degree of diversity among the religious that possibly rivals the amount of biological diversity of the coral reefs in Australia.

Many believers assume, without question, that it does – even that there can be no morality without religion. They cite George Washington who believed that national morality could not prevail without religions principles, or Dostoevsky’s famous claim (actually words of his fictional character Ivan Karamazov) that "without God all things are permitted". Then there are Americans defending their country’s peculiarly high levels of popular religious belief and claiming that faith-based charity is better than universal government provision.

Citing G. Washington is an argument from tradition, and nobody needs the supernatural to be decent folks.

Atheists, naturalists and humanists fight back claiming that it’s perfectly possible to be moral without God. Evolutionary psychology reveals the common morality of our species, and the universal values of fairness, kindness, and reciprocity. But who is right? As a scientist I want evidence. What if – against all my own beliefs – it turns out that religious people really do behave better than atheists, and that religious societies are better in important respects than non-religious ones, then I would have cause to rethink some of my ideas.

This is where Gregory Paul and his research come in. I have often quoted his earlier, 2005, research which showed strong positive correlations between nations’ religious belief and levels of murder, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse and other indicators of dysfunction. It seemed to show, at the very least, that being religious does not necessarily make for a better society. The real problem was that he was able to show only correlations, and the publicity for his new research seemed to imply causation. If so this would have important implications indeed.

In this latest research Paul measures "popular religiosity" for developed nations, and then compares it against the "successful societies scale" (SSS) which includes such things such as homicides, the proportion of people incarcerated, infant mortality, sexually transmitted diseases, teenage births and abortions, corruption, income inequality, and many others. In other words it is a way of summing up a society’s health. The outlier again and again is the US with a stunning catalogue of failures. On almost every measure the US comes out worse than any other 1st world developed nation, and it is also the most religious.

Read the rest – it’s a good article, and it illustrates all the nonsense we’ve been discussing here for years. Religion improves nothing and no one. We share morals, none of this ‘borrowing’ folderol. Superstition is the fear of death, dimly cloaked, a ruse and tool of the alpha shamans, who shake their book at us and expect that we shake in fright as a response. It may have served some purpose in centuries past, but our species has evolved to having no need of shadowy wraiths and ghosts of Xmas pasts to keep us in lockstep anymore.

It is good to be free. To breathe, to know that our lives are our own, and the shackles of anachronism are broken.

Be free. Breathe. Our lives are works of art, to be made beautiful.

Be free.

Till the next post, then.