Miss Information strikes again as police beating of 16-year-old girl sparks UK riots. The police shooting (many would say murder) of Mark Duggan, and a subsequent beating of a 16 year old girl are the events that actually started the riot, but the media is ignoring these two crucial events, especially the second one.
A quick Google search for ‘UK riot cause’ leads to many news articles reporting on the monetary costs to businesses that have been burned and looted. Sure, this is an unfortunate consequence of the rioting, but what about the cause that started the riots?
To truly understand why certain people participated in the riots, British society must be examined. Since 1824 here has been a stop and search policy (or sus law) allowing police to search anyone they want, provided they look suspicious. It could be compared to SB1070 in Arizona. During the early 1980′s in England, uprisings against the racial profiling and the sus law became wide spread. There were many race riots in England between 1980 and 1981. The British Government reacted by removing the sus law. Recently, stop and search again went into law in response to the war on terror. Many young blacks and some whites are angry at the law, as many of them have been stopped and searched many many times in their young adulthood. A 37 year old woman is bringing a lawsuit because she was stopped for carrying a bag.
The so-called culture war exists only because of a relatively small, however shrill, collection of extremist religionists and political moralists who get away with their distortions because too few more reasonable believers fail to stand up to them at all, much less at every opportunity.
There are a vast majority of reasonable, moderate to liberal believers who support progressive social issues like equality, choice and social justice. After all, these tenets are not only guaranteed by the Constitutional law of the land, but are primary aspects of the creed most religious believers ascribe to. A problem arises when Freedom of Religion is extended beyond the tip of one’s nose to stifle dissent of what a minority claim is part of their pursuit of religion. Too long have even the most outlandish and egregiously overextended abuses of religious freedom gone unchecked under the banner of religious choice and scriptural observation in the name of religious tolerance. Some faithful have enjoyed a taboo against criticism and critique for so long and to the extent that whatever they say is allowed not only to themselves but to affect those around them both near and far. Issues such as slavery, women’s rights, temperance, voting right, segregation, conservation, and xenophobia had historically been justified by religious doctrine and scripture long after a disaffected public turned against them. Many among these issues are contentious today. Assigning divine authority to the observation of non-religious issues is significant far beyond the most radically outspoken few.
Forty years of fusion between political conservatism and religion, since the 1970s have infused public debate with the authority and entitlement claimed by some believers to supersede history, empirical fact and the Constitution of the United States. Beginning with Jimmy Carter’s “I have lusted in my heart” evangelism, but especially since Ronald Regan’s first Presidential bid, the likes of Christian Voice (1978) and the Moral Majority (1979) and, later, the Christian Coalition (1987) have been prominently influential in defining the tone and timbre of public discourse to the effect exclusion of any alternative sources of philosophical authority.
Blending policy with religion serves several purposes. First, a great majority of Americans are taught from near infancy to believe a set of propositions that include prohibitions from questioning and challenging those propositions in any manner, to any degree, at any time, for any reason. An elect few are designated with transcendent power to not only interpret philosophical sources, but correlate ancient thought with current circumstances while enjoying the taboo against challenge, critique and criticism even among those who do not specifically acknowledge those claiming such power. As a result, they can say whatever they want, and inject whatever projection so contrived, protected from challenge by virtue of the specially unassailable authority of religious tolerance. That is assumed without regard of whom it harms, the damage it wreaks or how egregiously it contravenes fact. Even simple objections to their pronouncements on how everybody should think and behave, according the them, abridge their freedom to practice religion and their definition of religious tolerance.
Not all believers follow this paradigm, though there are enough among decidedly radical extremists who are well heeled enough to wield considerate political clout. Religious leaders have long enjoyed privileged access to a succession of chief executives, legislators, jurists, and on down the social structure to include actively compliant followers. Such religious influence in the halls of government has received at least tacit approval by the majority of believers who demur in the name of tolerance.
Who are the most prominent among the regressive religious radicals and what do they say about themselves, our nation and the alleged threats to their view of the world? Jerry Falwell, who founded the Moral Majority and Liberty University, is deceased without a charismatic successor. Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition has receded from prominence though his Christian Broadcasting Network, while faded in eminence somewhat in recent years, is still broadcasting worldwide. Most of the early trend setting organizations have been supplanted by not for profit organizations such as Peter LaBarbera’s Americans for Truth About Homosexuality and the American Family Association whose Director of Issues Analysis and host of their American Family Radio program, Focal Point, is Bryan Fischer. While there are dozens of similar groups in operation, these two organizations epitomize the general evangelical approach to social engineering:
(1) Create an issue.
(2) Justify its relevance with scripture
(3) Label a vulnerable, already marginalized target as the source of the threat.
Both these groups have been certified as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center based on criteria of claims made by these groups that have been objectively discredited or demonstrably proven false. While the declarations made by these and similar groups are bizarre and most often absurd, they share an approach which may be characterized as a concerted effort to return racism, misogyny and homophobia to normalized status in American Culture.
According to Bryan Fischer, gay rights will prevent religious freedom because “every advance of the homosexual agenda comes at the expense of religious liberty,” Hitler was homosexual and the Nazi party was founded in a gay bar, DADT repeal will lead to the return of the military draft, and because gays are aberrant, gay role models cannot exist. He says any type of homosexual union should be outlawed.
Peter LaBarbara exhibits a keen interest in fetish sexual practices among gay men in support of his vilification of gay men and Lesbian women in general. Online reporters have opined that LaBarbara has exposed more Christians to gay sexual practices than have ever happened upon such discovery on their own. Last February, in a Twitter exchange with journalist Zach Ford, LaBarbara tweeted, “One man’s “discrimination” is another man’s fidelity to his conscience + moral/rel[igious] code. That’s the essence of this battle.” Earlier this week, his AFTAH organization was stripped of it’s non-profit status for faulty IRS documentation, which may put a serious crimp in the group’s ability to raise funds. Dampening its activities from lack of interest in its positions would have been much better, but even Al Capone was taken off the streets because of IRS issues.
The point of all this is that these religious ideologues have long been claiming religious freedom in undermining the rights of anybody who doesn’t agree with them, look like them, live, think or worship like them. They claim, at least indirectly, that their religious rights trump everybody else’s rights and supercedes any laws that would curtail the active expression of their beliefs. According to them, the mere existence of minorities, women’s needs, and gay people infringes on their rights to object and discriminate however they please.
It’s up to reasonable people to call zealots out whenever these ideologues make claims in the name of some conflated common cause, such as being heterosexual or American citizens, that oversteps the bounds of reason. Bryan Fischer, Peter LaBarbara and those who agree with their philosophies against diversity and inclusion, do not represent any genuine American ideal. They do not represent any opinion or philosophy supportable by the Constitution or any court of law.
I am ready to speak up and speak out. Are you?
Ireland is a small country of just under five million inhabitants struggling under the crushing debt brought on by government bail outs of irresponsible and intransigent bankers. The financial boon of the 90s which ran to 2007 brought huge social changes to the country, including improved education and a heretofore unknown prosperity. That age is largely gone with unemployment lingering over 14 percent, unprecedented mortgage defaults while large, unfinished housing developments languish into dilapidation from neglect forced on developers by irrational speculation and evaporated capital.
The Republic of Ireland is less than a century old, having won its independence after eight centuries of occupation in 1921, and becoming a free state, emancipated from the bonds of a foreign government, in 1948. Ireland has truly seen a litany of historic hard times. Its people still live under the institutionalized effects brought by eight centuries of occupation and over a millennium under unyielding power of the Catholic Church. Government indicates 92 percent of every primary and secondary school in Ireland is organized and overseen by the Church. These faith based schools prioritize enrollment first to families of their own faith, with Catholic schools requiring an oath before a priest that the child — whether the parents are non-practicing, apostate, agnostic, atheist, or even Protestant — be raised as a practicing Catholic or be denied enrolment. The mandatory “leaving cert” secondary level graduation examinations included a religion class module. Universities tread lightly on how they named science departments to avoid offending the Church. Ireland effected an anti-blasphemy law in 2010 that criminalizes “grossly abusive or insult [utterance] in relation to matters held sacred by any religion.” Meanwhile, the Church has systematically defended and hidden from public scrutiny its administrative role in hiding criminal activity within its ranks by protecting the well being of the Church over that of its members’ children and their families.
May, 2009 saw the release, by high court judge Sean Ryan, of a 2,600 page final report of a nearly decade long inquiry detailing findings among thousands of inmates in more than 250 church run industrial schools, reformatories, orphanages and hostels from the 1930s until the last of them were closed in the late 1990s. The report found that rape and molestation were “endemic” in facilities run mostly by the Christian Brothers order. Supervisors in charge were found to execute policies that increased the child inmates’ danger. Girls’ facilities were administered chiefly by the Sisters of Mercy where inmates suffered much less sexual abuse though they were subject to frequent assaults and humiliation meant to undermine their feelings of self worth. “In some schools a high level of ritualzied beating was routine…” By any measure, the children were systematically brutalized and tortured. Government not only failed to protect the children and prevent further assault, government protected the assailants, the orders involved, and the Church from criticism and investigation.
Church lawsuits, missing documentation, government obstruction and a Christian Brothers lawsuit successfully guaranteed anonymity of Christian Brothers members, regardless of the evidence and even among the few Christian Brothers convicted of attacks on children in courts of law.
A few months later, the government commissioned Murphy Report, examining clerical abuses specifically in the Archdiocese of Dublin, echoed the findings of the Ryan Commission, concluding “the Dublin Archdiocese’s preoccupations in dealing with cases of child sexual abuse, at least until the mid 1990s, were the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the Church, and the preservation of its assets. All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities. The Archdiocese did not implement its own canon law rules and did its best to avoid any application of the law of the State.” The men in charge hid behind canon law to shield offenders at the expense of victims. Successive archbishops and bishops avoided scandal by pointed failure to report victims’ complaints to Gardaí, the state police service.
Taoiseach [ˈtiːʃæx or THEE shokh] Irish Gaelic, literally leader or chief, the prime minister. Formally an Taoiseach
Tánaiste [ˈt̪ˠaːnəʃtʲə or TAU nish tuh] Irish Gaelic, heir of the chief (Taoiseach) or king (rí), deputy prime minister in the Dáil. Formally an Tánaiste
Dáil Éireann [ /dɔɪl ˈɛərɒn/ or doll Er in] the lower house, but principal chamber of the bicameral Irish parliament, Oireachtas [ɛrʲaxt̪ˠasˠ or, or AKH tas]
In mid-July, 2011, the same Murphy Commission released findings on the Archdiocese of Cloyne, dubbed the Cloyne Report. But, its findings of obstruction and the “perversion of the course of justice” extends beyond Irish shores into the very heart of the Holy See.
In debate before the Dail over the merits and consequences presented by the Cloyne Report, Taoiseach Enda Kenny (Fine Gael, Co. Mayo) assumed a position never before taken by any government leader: Enough!
“The revelations of the Cloyne report have brought the Government, Irish Catholics and the Vatican to an unprecedented juncture. It’s fair to say that after the Ryan and Murphy reports Ireland is, perhaps, unshockable when it comes to the abuse of children.
“But Cloyne has proved to be of a different order.
“Because for the first time in Ireland a report into child sexual abuse exposes an attempt by the Holy See to frustrate an inquiry in a sovereign, democratic republic as little as three years ago, not three decades ago.
“And in doing so, the Cloyne report excavates the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism – the narcissism – that dominate[s] the culture of the Vatican to this day. The rape and torture of children were downplayed or “managed” to uphold instead, the primacy of the institution, its power, standing and “reputation”.
“The Vatican’s reaction was to parse and analyze it with the gimlet eye of a canon lawyer … the polar opposite of the radicalism, humility and compassion upon which the Roman Church was founded… a case of Roma locuta est: causa finita est.
“Except in this instance, nothing could be further from the truth.
“While it will take a long time for Cloyne to recover from the horrors uncovered, it could take the victims and their families a lifetime to pick up the pieces of their shattered existence.
“The Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade met with the papal nuncio to Ireland, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza. The Tánaiste left the archbishop clear on two things:
• The gravity of the actions and attitude of the Holy See;
• and Ireland’s complete rejection and abhorrence of same.”
No public official in Irish history had ever before spoken similarly to call the Vatican to task. Within hours of the address, news services around the world carried the story of how the leader of this small nation took on the Vatican to hold it, the Goliath of world wide religious power, responsible for the abuses of its representatives in the field and its leaders in Rome.
Since his address, the Vatican has insisted the circumstances must be examined objectively, claimed the law proposed by the Taoiseach the day of his speech to the Daíl requiring child abuse be reported to civil authorities would undermine confessional protections, and claimed that the papal nuncio’s 1997 advice that “ ‘mandatory reporting’ gives rise to serious reservations of both a moral and a canonical nature” could not in any way be interpreted as instruction to cover up wrongdoing or pervert the course of justice.
The Taoiseach isn’t having it. He’s standing his ground.
Long have religions enjoyed a taboo against challenge, critique and criticism of righteous positions and practices, and none more than the Roman Catholic Church. Until very recently, politicians in Ireland overtly or tacitly sought the blessing of the domestic Church authority to stand for office or embrace particular public policy. The Church had long been a king maker in civil Irish leadership where political hopefuls had to mirror Church philosophy, very much as News International mogul Rupert Murdock until recently enjoyed in the UK. It’s the very same kind of bully pulpit creed Conservative political hopefuls must appear to embrace if they hope to secure evangelicals’ support for just about any state or national Republican nomination in the U.S.
We don’t have a single, overriding religious authority in America, courtesy of the Constitution. Instead, we have a number of lopsidedly loud, disproportionately well funded, and therefore, powerful interest groups, each of which has its targets of abuse. But, instead of shrinking from scandal, they revel in creating controversy to better frighten their followers into blind submission and financial support.
These organizations are numerous and each is funded by mendacious deep pockets whose ulterior motives are historically well hidden, but which are readily apparent by recent behavior exhibited among groups and politicians equally well funded from the same financial resources. The tactics are always the same: create a crisis of grand social dimension by falsely describing easily redefined, socially marginalized targets used to evoke in-group sentiment at the expense of the targeted individual or group. Conservatives have long painted minorities, immigrants – Anyone and anything they can paint as “The Other” – to great effect.
A very effective dimension draws on the fact that most Americans are taught from an early age to never question divine authority, eschew any proof or evidence that would countermand that authority, and rely on the emotion of faith rather than reason, logic or empirical evidence. To challenge others’ beliefs in whatever they consider sacred is taboo and considered by the faithful as religious intolerance without regard to the harm caused or to whom. This is how the Catholic Church has escaped scrutiny and civl prosecution for many centuries. Conservatives’ use of divine authority to paint their villains through the likes of The Moral Majority in previous decades and relying on religiously rationalized prejudice gives conservative groups carte blanche to assign whatever apocalyptic scenario they please. Given divine imprimatur, these opinions are claimed tantamount to gospel and anybody who says otherwise is victimizing the faithful.
Neat and convenient. Very effective, too. And, manufacture landscapes of imagined consequences they do:
Marriage equality destroys heterosexual marriage.
-Bishop Harry Jackson, Stand4Marriage DC
-Lou Engle, The CallBullying of actual and perceived LGBT students expresses scriptural teachings, and restrictions on bullying abridges freedom of religion.
-Focus on the Family
-Alliance Defense Fund
-American Family AssociationGays must recruit to expand their numbers
-Pat Robertson, 700 Club
-Rev. Dwight McKissic, Cornerstone Baptist Church
- Robert Knight, Director: Culture & Family Institute, Concerned Women for America
- Lou Sheldon, Traditional Values CoalitionArmed Service members marching in recent Gay Pride parades are boasting sin.
-Peter LaBarbara, Americans for Truth about HomosexualityGays should be disqualified from public office
-Bryan Fischer, The American Family Association
The list goes on and on, the claims ever more outlandish, none connected to reality, provable by fact, or demonstrable by empirical evidence. Each and every claim has been disproven and debunked by the objective evidence of medicine and psychology and other sciences as well as the judiciary when heard before a court of law, by virtue of the Constitution and the weight of public opinion. These abusers of Constitutionally protected civil rights — freedom of association, privacy, freedom from religion, equal protection under the law, among others — confuse conviction with reality and opinion with truth.
Enda Kenny is a model for standing up to corrupt institutional power. Mr. Kenny stands on the outrage of his electorate, braving the political wrath of his detractors and faithful apologists. His is how it is done. It is time for local, county, state and Federal officeholders in America and around the world to follow the leader of the Republic of Ireland’s shining example in how to stand against tyranny informed by religious dogma, however traditional, long standing or dug in. The light of day has swayed public opinion against abusive rhetoric and oppressive behavior.
Call or write your mayor, council, assembly or legislature, Senator and Congressperson with instructions to call out the false and corrupt positions of those — whether religious, corporate sponsored, special interest or individual — who would deny the freedoms and equal protections of your family, neighbors and fellow American citizens. Refer them to Taoiseach Enda Kenny on how to do it.
I have long been convinced that one is able to base sound decisions only upon a foundation of accurate information. Whether choosing an individual path or navigating the way forward for large groups, even tiny errors can lead to profound consequences down the road. Adherence to provable reality is crucial.
From a very early age I was taught to believe in the supernatural, to trust my emotions above any other knowledge. I was taught that I am intrinsically corrupted, fundamentally bad. But, I was not alone as everybody around me was portrayed to be in the same boat, on a tempestuous sea. Over time, however, I came to understand I possessed a special flaw bestowed only on a few. So heinous was this defect that I understood early on that it must be kept hidden, covered up, thwarted at all costs. I was not only doomed by events centuries before my existence, I was evil and hateful by special, inherent design. My only recourse to overcome this darkness deep within me was supernatural intervention.
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