Jenny’s Pennies

Why do this debate always seem to pop up around this time of the year? (For non-Swedish readers: the subject is whether the end-of-the-school-year celebration for our public schools should take place in a church or not. And not just any church, it’s always the Church of Sweden. Which was separated from the state eight years ago, but still holds a special position and has all kinds of influence, even though it legally should be considered as any other religious association.)

I’m too tired to even repeat the obvious arguments as to why compulsory school activities should not take place in a religious context. Study visits and such is totally ok of course, but anything resembling worship is out. Many people seem to think that it is so important that their children go to church on their last day of school, even if they themselves probably haven’t set foot in a church since their aunt’s funeral or the mandatory once-a-year Christmas visit. If church attendance is so important to them, well then they should take their kids themselves and not expect the school to provide them with hymns and prayer. And then there are those who say that it isn’t about the religious message (if there is any); that it is the atmosphere and feeling that matters. Do you know what I, a pretty convinced atheist, think about using other people’s sacred rooms to get some kind of atmosphere and feeling and tell them to please keep that being in the sky out of it? I think that’s pretty damn disrespectful! Either you use the church with the priest and blessing and the whole deal and then you have overstepped the boundaries of the non-denominational and freedom of religion-adhering public school. Or you tell the minister to please skip the God-references and just use the church as a cosy little gathering place because “it is supposed to be that way” and then you disrespect the people for whom the church isn’t just any other building. Both is wrong. (Kind of like getting married in a church when you’re not religious, just because it’s “such a beautiful place”. One of the most beautiful buildings I’ve ever been in is the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem - a Muslim mosque. I wouldn’t dream about getting married there, and ask the imam to “please keep the Allah references to a minimum”. But I’ve heard people asking that of the Church of Sweden-minister officiating their wedding. Geez, how selfish is that?! But I digress.)

So for the ones who think that going to church is really important for their kids: take them yourself! I’m sure it’s open when the non-religious, inclusive school celebration is over. And for the ones saying that a church is just like any other room, then moving the celebration elsewhere can’t be a big deal, right?

PS. I don’t know where this so-called “tradition” of having the end of the school year ceremonies in church comes from - I went to school in the 80s and early 90s and we never went to a church for ours. Neither did my parents, born in the early 40s and 50s, I think. Actually I don’t think my grandmother did either. So it can’t be that all-encompassing and ancient as some “traditionalists” are making it out to be.

Holy shit.
So let me get this straight. In order to become president of the US, it’s really important to be a strong supporter of Israel, right? But to be endorsed by a guy who says that Hitler was fulfilling God’s will by trying to exterminate all Jews is fine and dandy?

Appearing on ABC’s “‘This Week” in late April 2008, McCain criticized Hagee’s past remarks on the Catholic Church, but said that, “I admire and appreciate his advocacy for the state of Israel, the independence of the state of Israel.”

Being pro-Israel but anti-Jewish, yeah that’s a fine example of mental gymnastics right there.

Via Shakes.
(Apparently McCain has “distanced himself” from rev. Hagee, but I kind of doubt the sincerity…)

Today’s oh-dear-God-should-I-laugh-or-cry is found at Sadly, No! by way of Fistful of Euros. It’s the halp-halp-the-scary-Muslims-are-coming-BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA-blog Gates of Vienna* who presents us with a map of what Europe will look like in 2067, unless we start deporting/converting/killing/rounding up/turning away Muslims and produce more white babies. Where is Europe headed? they ask (in trembling voices). Well, apparently towards this:

So, we’ll have the Muslim states (with funny names like Al-Lemania and Al-Italia!), the Russian federation and the Russian protectorates, a demilitarized zone and some “neutral” states, which besides seemingly ever-neutral Switzerland also includes the Czech Republic (huh?!?). Germany will for some inexplicable reason be divided along the old iron curtain borders and Yugoslavia will magically reunite. Also, Turkey seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth.
This map is like one of those “find five faults” picture games times a million.

And as Alex Harrowell at a Fistful of Euros aptly points out: if this whole thing is about demography, do they really think that Russia doesn’t have a demographics problem?

Yeah, I need to stop laughing now, my stomach hurts.

*I ain’t linking, but click on the Sadly, No! link and continue from there.

Via incoming links in my Wordpress blog stats I find that I have been linked to on a recent post at Birth Pangs. The writer April Reign shows us a letter written by a man named Michael who has compiled a list of bloggers who has written about the “Pill Kills”-campaign. And I, through my little post here, have made that list!

We who think that the campaign is ridiculous BS are called “Culture of Death bloggers”. And this is apparently just the “short list”. Gee guys, it’s such an honor to be nominated!

I reprint Michael’s letter below - yeah, I normally don’t want to give shit as this any attention, but I’ll do it this time - with the links to all my fellow “culture of death” bloggers.* Keep up the good work people!

Dear pro-life friends,

As many of you already know, American Life League is launching a campaign to inform the public about the abortifacient nature of oral contraceptives. (If you don’t already know about it, please take a moment to check out www.ThePillKills.com . Also, be sure to join our facebook page and invite your friends! www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=34501835075 ) Some of you have blogged about it, and we’re gearing up for a full-court press on this initiative.
But we need your help!
In just 2 days, “pro-choice” bloggers have filled the blogosphere with their vitriol and Culture of Death rhetoric. In fact, one blogger went so far as to state his hatred for babies, while a comment on another blog indicated a desire to show up to a designated protest area to “mess with” us.
Just to give you a sampling of who is saying what, I am sending you a “short” list of Culture of Death bloggers talking about The Pill Kills website. I don’t recommend wasting too much time reading their nonsense, but it is worth noting their overt hostility to anything that “just might” change their worldview of “promiscuity-made-safe.”
We present information. They present virtiol. Why is that? Makes one wonder what they’re so angry about!
Your voice is louder than theirs because you have the Truth! So let’s fill the blogosphere with the Truth! Send e-mails. Tell your friends. Post The Pill Kills button on your blogs! Do whatever it takes … just don’t let them silence our voice for those who don’t have one.
As always, thanks for everything you do for the pro-life cause. Our efforts would be a lot harder without yours!
–Michael

The Graduate
Birth Pangs
Medical-news-now.com
Citizen Girl
Melanie’s blog of good stuff
Signs of the times
Paging Lucina
Ms Magazine
Feministing
I’m A Feminist
Robotic squidling
Hangofwednesday
Church gal
Debate politics
Majikthise
Ravings of a semi-sane madwoman
Jenny’s Pennies LOOK, HERE I AM!
Matthew Yglesias
Tar hearted
Dark side of the mom
Power up
Overclocked drama
ifeminists
Eccentric bitch
Broken rubbers
Childfree hardcore
CelticBear’s musings
Feminist.org
Ginandkerosene’s blog
Items of interest
Feminocracy
The W.O.M.B.
Slog - the Stranger
Dead racists society
Lab Kat
Democratic underground

PS. sorry about the scattered posting lately, still feeling a bit off. Must be all that promotion of death and mayhem.

*Hyperlinked, cause my layout got completely messed up by those long URLs.

So I read a lot of blogs from the US of A (the progressive/feminist/queer variety) and if I were to write about every wackiness I find out about through them, I wouldn’t do much else, so I do stop myself most of the time. But sometimes I run across something so mind-boggling that I just need to blog it.

It’s the “the Pill Kills Babies”-campaign, organized by the American Life League, along with Pro-Life Wisconsin and Pharmacists for Life International (that last organization should really be renamed “pharmacists that don’t do their goddamned job and should have their ass fired”). They want to ban birth control. Because it causes abortion. You see, when I take my BC pills I potentially kill a tiny baby boy or a tiny baby girl. Yes, that’s how they put it.

The so-called science that “supports” their BS can be debunked by picking up a high school biology textbook. What do they think? That a fertilized but not yet implanted egg is a teeny weeny miniature person that, when looked at in a microscope, will smile at you and wave?

At least this campaign makes it painfully clear that the so called pro-life movement isn’t about saving the precious baaaaybeeez at all, it’s about controlling women’s sexuality, and subsequently our lives. The protest the pill-day is June 7th. The reason for this is (from the Pill Kills website. Won’t link, Google is your friend):

June 7 marks the 43rd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision Griswold v. Connecticut. This was the first of many decisions that led to the culture of death we live in today.

On that day in 1965, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the Griswold v. Connecticut case, it set a legal precedent for claiming that the Constitution grants women the right to privacy in matters of sexual practice.

Oh the horror! The right to privacy for women in matters of sexual practice, we certainly can’t have that! I file this under reason 17,314 (or possibly 17,315, I lost count) why I’m happy to live in Sweden. I stand firmly behind my American sisters in their fight against this, and I’m sure some pretty awesome counter-activism will be done on June 7th.

Via; more here.

(If you don’t get the headline reference, you lose, but thanks for playing)

The Christian fundamentalist* church Maranata has illegally been homeschooling children for years, reports Existens, a Swedish public service TV program. Homeschooling in Sweden is only allowed if the child is very ill, or lives in a remote location far from a school. Homeschooling for religious reasons is not allowed, and yet Maranata has been able to do this for years. Apparently they were given a permit in the 1970s and since then it has just continued, even though the law says that the permit needs to be renewed yearly. Evidently, neither the Stockholm municipality or the National Agency for Education (Skolverket) has been doing their job properly.

Many churches start their own schools, but Maranata doesn’t want to do that, since then they would have to follow the national law on education, which wouldn’t allow them to spank children and teach the Bible as the Truth^TM. Home schooling should, as the name suggests, take place in the home, not in some defacto “school”, but this is what Maranata has been doing: the home schooled children has been educated together in something called “Pilgrimsskolan” (”the Pilgrim school”). A “school” which is under no control from the school authorities and does not follow the Swedish law. Fortunately Lotta Edholm, politician with responsibility for schools in Stockholm, has promised to make sure that the homeschooling is discontinued after this semester. The reply from Maranata is that if that is the case, they will break the law and continue to brainwash their kids**.

A while ago, the liberal party Folkpartiet proposed that the police should be allowed to pick up truant students. But I haven’t heard anybody propose that these children, whose parents/educators are breaking the law both when it comes to homeschooling, compulsory school attendance, and spanking, should be picked up by the police and the parents prosecuted. I’m not proposing that either, but it’s an interesting observation.

And what about when these children enter high school (or do they home school in those levels also?) - according to the law, you need grades to enter high school, but are the grades given in this “school” valid? What about university attendance? Are these children given education in all subjects needed to enter college? Do they have chemistry labs where they can do experiments? Certified language teachers? Well-rounded education about other religions? Certified biology teachers who teach sex ed the way it is outlined in the curriculum?

Seriously, I don’t understand why religious schools are allowed - religion is a private matter and if parents want to install a certain faith in their children, they can do so off school hours. And it is the responsibility of the state to make sure that all kids are in school - we have compulsory school attendance and being of a certain faith does not give you a free pass to break the law. Maranata and other such churches may want to shun society, but they are still members of this society and citizens of this country, and their responsibilities and duties does not end just because they believe in God (or Allah, the Earth Goddess or the Pink unicorn in the sky).

*Don’t jump on me for calling them fundamentalist, that’s what the leader of Maranata’s Stockholm parish, Tage Johansson, is calling himself.
**Again, not my wording: read the article in The Local where Tage Johansson says that the children are brainwashed in order to free them “from the degrading effects of society”.

(Read more: Svenska Dagbladet here and here, DN here, Dagen here, or the Local in English here)

Edit: As pointed out in comments, I had gotten the name of the leader of Maranata’s Stockholm parish wrong: it’s Tage, not Ture. Sorry for the mix-up.

Dutch politician Geert Wilders has released his anti-Islam film “Fitna”. It was quite comical today when editorial writer Per Gudmundsson (Svenska Dagbladet) on page 4 in the paper questions whether the movie really exists and complains how it has been stopped by politicians, the media and companies like Google, and then in the same paper, on page 21, there is an article about how the movie is available on the internet. And it’s very Google-able. Per Gudmundsson has noted his mistake.

From what I have read about the movie (I’m sorry, but I’m not going to watch it. Scold me all you want for it, but I’m not) it doesn’t really seem like an insightful work of art. Selected quotes from the Quran blended with pictures of the terrorist attacks on New York, London and Madrid, of executions and stonings and other such terrifying things. More pictures of the Quran, and then in the end the sound of a page being ripped out, said to be a page from a phone book, and then a call to the Muslims themselves to rip the “evil pages” out of the Quran.

Some commenters I have read are of course hailing Wilders’ film as a very important wake up call to us in the west. How? What does the movie accomplish? To me, it seems to add nothing new - any one can pick up a Quran at a book store (albeit translated unless you read Arabic) and the movie clips are of the same kind readily available on the internet, and in many cases, on our TV screens during the evening news. An internet documentary, of which there are twenty a dozen. A tired provocation.

It seems as if the right wing populist parties and the extremist islamists are living in some kind of symbiosis - they can’t exist without each other. For the extremist islamists, the movie is yet another reason to preach their hate, and for the anti-Islam populists, the protests become yet another reason to preach their hate and make yet another movie or caricature. And on and on it goes. Sigh.

What I want to know is - if the anti-Islam crowd are so hell-bent on defending our freedom and our way of life against the said onslaught of scary scary Muslims, what is their proposed solution to the “Islam problem”? Because all of the solutions which comes to my mind run quite contrary to that beloved freedom and democracy they so want to defend. So, what do they propose? Deporting all Muslims? Converting them to another religion by force? Forbid all expressions of Islam (however that one will work)? Invade all Muslim countries, kill their leaders and forcibly convert the population to Christianity (the Ann Coulter solution)? Make being a Muslim a punishable crime (and what should be the punishment? re-education? death? prison?)? Round up all Muslims and put them in special camps? What is the idea?

I haven’t heard anyone in the right wing populist anti-Islam crowd actually propose a solution to the perceived problem. It’s like when pro-choicers ask the pro-life crowd what the punishment for having an abortion should be. The answer is — crickets. Or some mumbling about “but that’s not what I meant”. It’s easy to rail and chant and make movies and provoke, but when they are called on the consequences of their ideas, they are mostly speechless.

PS. nowhere in this post have I questioned the right of Geert Wilders to make the movie and to show it. He has every right to do that, no matter how stupid it is. That is not the point.

So the Vatican, through Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, has put a new spin on the thou-shalt-not-list and added seven “social sins” to the good old fashioned seven deadly ones. According to Bloomberg the new ones are:

1. “Bioethical” violations such as birth control
2. “Morally dubious” experiments such as stem cell research
3. Drug abuse
4. Polluting the environment
5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor
6. Excessive wealth
7. Creating poverty

That list looks quite politically correct to me (with the exception of the first two or maybe three). They also seem to coincide with the original deadly sins quite a bit - wouldn’t contributing to the widening divide between rich and poor, excessive wealth and creating poverty be the same as greed and maybe gluttony? Anyway, I do agree with the Vatican that it is “sinful” to pollute the environment and to create poverty and such, even though I don’t have the need to live in fear for eternal damnation in order to try and be a decent human being. For me it’s more of a common sense of solidarity and responsibility for the planet we live on and for my fellow human beings. But to each their own.

Many blog commenters that I have read sarcastically note that child abuse and pedophelia has not made the list. Of course, Girotti had something to say about the subject too:

Girotti was asked about the many “situations of scandal and sin within the church,” in what appeared to be a reference to allegations in the United States and other countries of sexual abuse by clergy of minors and the coverups by hierarchy.

The monsignor acknowledged the “objective gravity” of the allegations, but contended that the heavy coverage by mass media of the scandals must also be denounced because it “discredits the church.”

Funny, I thought that the child abusers and the people who have protected them and covered up their crimes would be the ones who have discredited the church. Get a grip Girotti.

Oh sweet Blind Io and all minor deities!
In today’s Dagens Nyheter, there is a letter to the editor signed Jakob E:son Söderbaum. Now for some reason DN doesn’t publish their readers’ letters on their website, but fortunately Jakob E:son Söderbaum has a blog (that I don’t want to link to, but if you read Swedish you can google his name and go on an adventure in a parallel universe). Jakob E:son Söderbaum is a “progress friendly conservative” (by “progress” he means returning to some unknown decade when we honored the king, kept our hands above the covers and our women in the kitchen), in his upper twenties or lower thirties. If you thought that Sweden was free of the “sex is gross, ewww icky icky icky”-crowd, think again.

Some background: a few days ago, Folkpartiet (the Liberal Party of Sweden) suggested repealing the law that makes it legal for parents to take their children out of certain lessons at school, such as sex ed or PE, due to religious or cultural reasons, and to force all children to take all classes. There has been some discussion on whether the Liberal Party’s idea is the best way to address the problem that some children aren’t allowed to learn about their bodies or to be seen in a bathing suit. I’m not sure how I feel about their proposal, but let’s leave that aside and focus on Jakob E:son Söderbaum.

He does not agree with the Liberal Party’s idea. No, he wants to excuse all children from sex ed. And he’s not even in with the abstinence only-crowd. He’s in the no mention of gross icky sex in school ever-crowd. Some of his arguments, put forth in the letter and in the ensuing discussion on his blog, are (with extra-craziness in bold, and my snarky responses in brackets):

- Sex ed teaches girls that they need to spread their legs for anyone, otherwise they are abnormal. (Because telling girls that they are not sluts or hoes if they like sex automatically means that you encourage them to do it anywhere with anyone. There can be no balance.)
- Sex should be taught by parents, only then can the serious nature of sexuality be properly conveyed to the rising generation. (And the parental version of sex ed should go “sex is gross and disgusting so you must save it for someone you love”.)
- Sex is for procreation only and sex ed teaches how to avoid procreation (Yes, let’s conveniently forget about reality: that the majority of adults will have sex a number of times without wanting to get pregnant. And that it could be a good thing to learn how to avoid STDs. And that not all people are heterosexual. But to base education on reality is such a bad idea.)
- Sex ed teachers are raping our children because talking to young girls about sex if you’re not their parent is akin to raping them. (He trivializes rape. What a surprise.)
- Sex ed teachers must be perverts, how else can they stand there talking about the subject day in and day out. (Yes, just like language teachers constantly mumble verb declinations and home ec teachers are unable to have a conversation that doesn’t revolve around pie crusts and cleaning products. Ohmigod, imagine what it must be like for OB/Gyns. They must be the most perverted people out there ever, staring at women’s icky parts all day and talking about stuff related to teh sex!!!!11!!!!eleven!)
- There’s too much sex in today’s society, it was better when it was a shameful secret. (So why are you discussing it? Doesn’t that add to the sexual fixation too?)
- Girls enjoying sex are almost whores. (And there he throws in some slut shaming to. Lovely.)
- Sexual pleasure is the lowest form of human feeling, and to acknowledge and seek sexual pleasure will lead you to become a sex addict who constantly think about and seek sex. (Oh, me thinks someone doth protest too much. Söderbaum says he’s in a “steady relationship”, but he doesn’t say he’s married, so he must be a virgin. For someone who’s not married, he seems awfully focused on sex. Doesn’t he know that subject is reserved for married people? Oh, I see, it’s only unmarried girls who aren’t allowed to think about sex. If you’re an unmarried conservative man - then it’s a-okay!)

Thank heavens that people like Söderbaum are a minority here and that he is sure to get some serious counter-arguments against him - it has already started on his blog. Now I need to go read some deviant and sex positive stuff before my head explodes.

Hoe-looking man writes too, and titles her piece “hardcore porn pussy anus lesbian sex dicks huge cock fuck ass pictures”, so that Söderbaum will find it when he goes on nightly internet adventures. LOL!

(Update: Here you can read more about the proposal from the liberal party, and reactions to it, in English)

Saturday, on International Women’s Day, Claes Schmidt/Sara Lund was supposed to give a lecture on diversity and the equal worth on all human beings, in a pentecostal church in southern Sweden. It was not a church event - a women’s association called Zonta had rented the church for the speech, which was titled “Women, men and all the rest of us” (Kvinnor, män och alla vi andra). But when the minister of the church, Magnus Jonegård, heard about the lecture, he stopped the meeting. You see, Claes Schmidt/Sara Lund is not two different persons. Claes Schmidt/Sara Lund is one person - a heterosexual married man, who sometimes dresses as a woman under the name Sara Lund, i.e. a transvestite, and who does lectures and stand up comedy about norms and values, gender and “normality” (website in English here).

The minister said that he had nothing against Claes/Sara in person (they never do - love the sinner, hate the sin, you know), but that the contents of the lecture was against the values and teachings of the church. You know, human dignity, loving thy neighbor as yourself, respect - all very unchristian concepts…

The church was of course under no obligation to rent out its premises to Zonta and Claes/Sara’s lecture. But when the Swedish good templar order IOGT expelled Åke Green (the Swedish minister who compared homosexuals to a cancer growth on the body of society, was tried for this in court and acquitted), because Green’s opinions did not correspond with their values and teachings, then the Swedish Christian right was up in arms about it and said that this was so intolerant and undemocratic.

As Tor of Antigayretorik said then: it would becoming to the right wing Christians if they would think a bit further before they start to scream about “intolerance” and “oppression”.

And over in the States, Dolores Huerta, human rights activist and well-regarded progressive leader, was supposed to give a talk to Catholic school children about her funding role in United Farm Workers and the importance of public service. But she was stopped, because of her views on reproductive choice (which had nothing to do with her talk whatsoever), which makes her an “unfit role model”. Yes, social justice, integrity, non-violence… all very unfitting concepts for the Christian right it seems.
(Via Feministe).