Ah, news...

[silveradept]

...first, news from the home front. Two exams tomorrow. Wish us luck.

...second, news on the domestic front. (Welah, Tkarrde, I'm looking in your direction on this)

A quick post appearance from a community I subscribe to (freetobelieve, thank you for asking) produces this unique bit.

http://www.afa.net/petitions/marriagepoll.asp It happens to be a poll (claiming that the results of which will be sent to Congress) regarding the issue of marriage in the homosexual community. There are some linguistic issues I have with it, as well as the divisiveness of the poll options. But anyway, go check it out, and see if you want to tear your hair out at it like I do.

The site that's running the place is also a wonderful treasure-trove of religious-right-wing drek. Drek to me, anyway, again, as I'm not sure of my audience these days... anyway, if you look carefully, there's plenty to be incensed about. I also love their selective linking policies... groups that I'm sure are allied with their ideology are linked, but no references are given on studies and things they proclaim have happened. But no date, no name, no linkie. Makes me think they're making stuff up.

"When we talk about sexually-oriented businesses, we need to remember that there are two different categories," he [Phil Burress] explains. "If we're talking about adult bookstores, that is a prosecutor's problem -- obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment, and those laws need to be enforced. If we're talking about strip bars, you cannot eliminate them -- but you can zone, license, and regulate them to the fullest extent of the law." (Swiped from http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/12/92003e.asp, next to final paragraph)

Hmm. Most interesting. Adult bookstores are obscene? Can't I run a nasty extension to that argument contending that anywhere that sells adult material, including regular bookstores that might have a small selection, are also subject to the obscenity law and need to shut down? Try telling that to your local Borders. Or better yet, try telling that to a librarian. ("You have to shut down because you have books that have nude figures in them!" "Yes, we tend to call them art. Is there anything else you want to see? We have lovely selections of witchcraft, non-Christian belief, and interpretations of the Bible that aren't the King James...") Yet strip joints get away with just regulation... I wonder why? Carding? (Age restricted materials draw identification. Ya get carded for beer, smokes, and porn all the same, no matter where ya go.) Sparseness? Doubtful, since the article is about how adult material is expanding everywhere... oh, yeah, and in my hometown, there are three strip joints that I know of all around or in the downtown area. Perhaps the realization that he can't hope to fight something like that and win. Yet bookstores can be shut down... how?

I hear some people's reasoning now... "They're immoral." Morality's a very loose thing. Use something like the law and you might have a case. "They peddle pornography." Aaaand? The video store in the next hamlet over from my parents' house has a porn section. Are they peddling it, too? "Our kids shouldn't see those kind of places." I have flashbacks to the comic store operator who got shut down because he was selling adult materials, clearly marked, in a secluded, also clearly marked, segment of the store because he was close to a school. If the kids are exposing themselves to it, then it becomes the responsibility of the parents to teach them about it. My da gave me a talk about porn when we passed by one of those places on the way back from a Hamfest. (It's because there were some Playboy magazines coming to the house. A practical joke, according to my parents.) I'm sure there's usually a First Amendment invoked somewhere along the line, but I would probably qualify it with a few caveats, like so long as the material isn't, say, a rapist talking about actual rapes he committed, names and all. There are bounds of taste and of law.

Did I miss any of the major arguments? I hope not. If you've got some, let me know. I always need a few more.

Here's the second example. (stolen nicely from http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/12/afa/162003e.asp) (Actual article in italics)

Twenty-million teenagers are being treated for STDs, and some pediatricians believe another ten million do not know they are already infected. At the same time, AIDS infections among homosexual men have risen 17%.

Gargamel! Nice selective reporting there. What about HIV infections among heterosexual couples, or even homosexual females, huh? Where are the rest of the numbers?

Genevieve Wood, vice president of communications for the Family Research Council, says..."The whole idea that there's something called safe sex is just not true, and unfortunately it's taking epidemic STD rates to really wake people up and make them see that just passing out condoms and talking about sex education is not what's going to stop the spread of STDs or unwanted pregnancies."

Three years ago, the National Institutes of Health published a report which found condoms were useless in preventing everything but AIDS. The report was ignored by the mainstream media. It is now known that condoms do not prevent HIV infections either.

Prove it! You'll find, that if you go to the page, there are zero links to the study, and nothing about where this "condoms don't prevent HIV" matter comes from. If what you say is true, wouldn't it be kind to your audience to let them study the material themselves?
Something like this, I would say, would be covered by at least a few press indicators, and if what they say is really true, then I would expect some sort of uproar to have happened... However, the Family Research Council is linked... how odd. The writers do at least know enough HTML to put in links...


So what will stop the rampant spread of STDs? "We have to change behavior," the FRC vice president says. "What causes the spread of sexually transmitted diseases is risky sexual promiscuity -- and until we help people change that behavior, just giving them a condom is like putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound. It's really not going to solve the problem."

According to Wood, sexual promiscuity has a price that people are having to pay. Some will be paying the rest of their lives.

Nice parting shot. Way to put your own opinion into what should be a factual report. Credibility is now less than zero. It's nice that there's no proposal of any alternate methods suggested by Ms. Wood. I would expect at least some abstinence-only diatribe from her... the article writers, however, assume that's the conclusion we're supposed to draw out of it.

So there's the rantage for today. Take it what you will.

Oh, yeah, and thirdly, the international front. Chirac supported a law that would ban conspicuous religious symbols from French public schools. Islamic hijab, Jewish skullcaps, large crucifixes, all out. Smaller symbols are still in, according to the proposed legislation. (A link to Al-Jazeera to give background here.) Was watching the French news tonight and expressed admiration for Chirac. He walked into a firestorm, and he knew it. Now we'll see whether the fire gets too hot to stand. I admit that I'm unsure what to think... I think he's commendable in trying to keep religion part of the school experience while trying to ensure that students don't feel threatened by others expressing their religion. I'm not sure if this is the way to go about it. Ensuring the secularity of the schools is one thing, preventing free religious expression another.

Anyway, I think I'm going to do some post-exam celebration tomorrow. Maybe go to a local place for dinner, and then see if I can see Return of the King. Early LJ reviews and AIM profiles say it's worth the money.

Comments

[taniwhanui.livejournal.com]

Good luck.

Luv and hugs, Taniwha

[loweko.livejournal.com]

Yeah, good luck and all that.

Yet strip joints get away with just regulation... I wonder why? - The cynical-yet-worldly-wise part of me adds "...so the author can have a clear conscience..."

[silveradept]

Perhaps there is merit to that... ya think he'd answer that kind of question?

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

Well, why not? It was France who most violently persecuted the Huegonots (sp?) in the Reformation. It was a French General who declared, "Kill all! Kill all! God will know his own!" The crusades began in France. Why should they not be the most hard-headed, spear-wielding anti-religious morons in the new wave of fervor now?

-=TK

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

John Calvin created the first red-light district in Geneva, Switzerland. He allowed protsitution (strip joints were not yet invented, I believe), and carefully regulated it. The women must be healthy, submit to regular exams to ensure they had no STDs, and their income was, of course, heavily taxed. He recognized the human will would overcome him in this matter, so rather than persecute those who had to have their sex, he made sure they would at least remain physically healthy to do so. It is approximately the same argument that legalized abortion in the United States: would you rather have women going to some back-alley clinic to have abortions done by quacks yielding dirty coat hangers, or women going to healthy, state-regulated clinics where the doctors are approved by the AMA to ensure the women remain healthy afterward?

-=TK

[silveradept]

Meh. Something tugs at me and says, "Good idea. Wrong execution, but good idea." I dunno. It might end up being an all or nothing question for me at some point, so that could be it.

[silveradept]

The same John Calvin I'm thinking of, who would later have a movement spawned under his name?

Kool. There's something you never hear in history class.

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think it's a terrible idea. What needs to be done is to allow people to express who they are. Wearing a sarapi or a yarmulke or a cross/crucifix does nothing to infringe on the rights of others. Attacking someone for wearing them-- whether in the form of a violent citizen or an overly-opressive government-- is intrinsically wrong. That is the act that should be punished. Besides, when it comes down to a question of following religious law or governmental law, the true devotees (not fanatics: devotees) will always accept martyrdom against the state. There's nothing as satisfying as storing up treasures in heaven.

-=TK

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

Where do you think I learned it? "Renaissance and Reformation History". Hee!

And yes, that John Calvin. The founder of the Calvinist Church, indirect founder of the Presbyterian and Methodist Church, and leader of the free-state of Geneva during the Reformation who began Switzerland on the path to permanent neutrality.

[silveradept]

I think I came across wrong. The idea is to request not that people stop expressing themselves, but not to do it so loudly that other people have problems with it. Wearing religious articles for me is fine - I'd like to see skullcaps and pentacles and headscarves. However, ostentatious crosses, giant pentacles, and the like are being a tad too loud in my opinion. That's the "Good idea, wrong execution." It's not, "Don't display your religion." but "display it in a manner that allows others to display theirs without feeling pressure, and isn't distracting from the educational process." I think. I'm still fleshing out my own opinion... doesn't it suck to actually think? ;-P

[silveradept]

Right. Two cents (all I can afford) says it was a college class, though. I meant in government-mandated education, you'd never hear something like that.

Still absolutely cool stuff, there. That's something I'll have to use later. You learn something new every day.

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

If I teach about the Reformation, it will come up in my class!

-=TK