The past couple of weeks has seen an appalling state of affairs in the developed world, in response to Uganda’s planned bill which enables…
- The incarceration of homosexuals, just for being gay.
- The incarceration of people who don’t report homosexuals.
- The extermination of incarcerated homosexuals found to be HIV positive.
I’m not being hyperbolic. This is what the proposed law sets out to achieve.
So you would think that this is a no-brainer. That international pressure would be well measured, but not timid. If you thought that, you would be wrong.
First, a little background.
This has been in the making for a long time now. Homophobic sentiment has been on the rise in Uganda – particularly that pushed by the Anglican Church of Uganda. Although they aren’t so bold about their position. For example…
“The Church of Uganda is studying the proposed “Anti-homosexuality bill” and, therefore, does not yet have an official position on the bill.”
(Canon Aaron Mwesigye – Prov. Secretary of the Church of Uganda, Nov 2009)
A bill that talks about the incarceration and execution of gays, and they don’t have an official position and refuse to have one drawn out of them. It must be so very hard for them.
I wonder how long they would take to release an official policy response if a bill enabling the execution of heterosexuals for being heterosexual, was being discussed. Would they drag their feet then?
The Church of Uganda has had a bee in its bonnet over gay people for a while now. Particularly the ordination of homosexuals – hence a boycott of a major Anglican conference last year, which perennial bigot Rick Warren was quick to support. Indeed, Rick Warren seems to have a strong association with homophobia in Uganda, as it seems have a number of waylaid US “faith based” aid projects.
On the genocide bill, Rick Warren has finally, after much avoidance, given a disingenuous condemnation – perhaps he is conflicted over his Purpose Driven Life rubbish that he’s been pushing in Uganda. If you’re in the mega-church business like Rick, you don’t want to alienate the clients flock gulls sheep or whatever.
And to think, atheists have been accused of being intolerant for complaining about Obama’s appointment of Rick Warren to give the inauguration at his inauguration. An appointment naively calculated to help bridge a divide between left and right-wing evangelicals, but ultimately enabling Warren’s long-standing bigotry.
And speaking of compromising your principles to extend your hand in good faith to people who won’t return the favour, it’s not just religion US style that has this problem
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, a man even Richard Dawkins has called saintly, has been morally compromised by this whole schism. Between his own, usually more inclusive views on gay rights, and the needs of real politik, he’s been doing quite the juggling act.
“While her long résumé as a beloved parish priest and skilled church administrator who has worked both north and south of the Mason-Dixon line is impressive, it’s Glasspool’s lesbianism that made her an international news item. Conservative Episcopalians and Anglicans, who oppose the ordination of women and homosexuals, wasted no time in denouncing Glasspool’s election. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said her election “raises serious questions” for the Anglican Communion and urged the Episcopalian bishops not to seat her for the sake of unity.”
(Jeanne Carstensen, 2009)
It’s hardly a Dawkinsian response, is it? Just look at what Dawkins had to say when The Pope invited the Anglican Church’s patriarchal homophobes back into the Catholic Church.
“What major institution most deserves the title of greatest force for evil in the world? In a field of stiff competition, the Roman Catholic Church is surely up there among the leaders. The Anglican church has at least a few shreds of decency, traces of kindness and humanity… a generosity of spirit, of respect for women, and of Christ-like compassion for the less fortunate. The Anglican church does not cleave to the dotty idea that a priest, by blessing bread and wine, can transform it literally into a cannibal feast; nor to the nastier idea that possession of testicles is an essential qualification to perform the rite… Whether one agrees with him or not, there is a saintly quality in the Archbishop of Canterbury… How does Pope Ratzinger measure up? The comparison is almost embarrassing.”
(Richard Dawkins, 2009)
Ouch. Y’know, if I were a little more light-headed, I’d be wondering if Dawkins and Williams (who do have an ongoing association) had a “Good Cop/Bad Cop” arrangement going on. “If you leave the Fellowship, I’m not going to be able to protect you from him. He’s outta control!” Maybe they should call him Williams’ Bulldog.
Wishful thinking perhaps. The Archbishop of Canterbury is doing a fine job getting his priorities wrong on this one.
And when you consider there are more than a few supporters of the bill campaigning in the US, it seems to be becoming increasingly apparent that a softly-softly approach isn’t going to work. We are dealing with a severely messed up policy, so messed up that would likely even make many-if-not-most right-wing evangelicals in the US quite uncomfortable, and we are talking about supporters that don’t want to engage in a meaningful, honest discourse – they’ll do what they want if they think they can get away with it.
There is a warning in all of this. Moderates who view harsh criticism as intolerance, who either embrace or at least court relativism, neuter their capacity to engage extreme, genuine intolerance. Even Rowan Williams doesn’t fall this far yet look how much trouble he’s having.
Are you one of those self-styled moderates?
Sure, call yourself a moderate atheist (aren’t most anyway?) or a moderate theist, but don’t whine that just because someone takes a stand or makes a strong criticism, it renders them an intolerant fundamentalist. That’s rubbish. Look to Uganda if you want to see intolerant fundamentalism in action.
And if you can’t do that, please at least stay out-of-the-way of the people who actually care about human rights, and stop enabling actual fundamentalist bigots. Don’t worry, you’ll be left in peace – the scary human rights people aren’t going to bother you.
Let us be the “Bad Cop” to your “Good Cop” if it makes you feel any better.
~ Bruce
Seriously.
“HIDE THE DECLINE! HIDE THE DECLINE! HIDE THE DECLINE!”
I paraphrase of course, but that’s the pap you keep hearing. It was a misquote to begin with to assert that the decline being hidden was a decline in actual atmospheric temperature. The actual decline was one wrongly inferred by a proxy (tree rings) which stopped giving an accurate after 1960, inferred temperatures becoming increasingly contradictory with known, direct measures. Hence, the portion of the data that was hidden was data in error, and was substituted with more reliable, direct temperature readings.
There is nothing untoward about it.
Yet the misquoting of this particular passage is very telling. It’s been weeks since the emails were hacked and leaked. Weeks.
Weeks for the denialists to mine further for quotes. Yet they are still using the same mis-quotes they were using weeks ago. Heck, even Sarah Palin is being given mainstream media coverage in order to prattle the “HIDE THE DECLINE!” meme.
It’s a pretty reliable indicator that they haven’t found anything of substance and that we can safely dismiss the hysterics. Most of the hysterics anyway.
Karl Popper noted how conspiracy theories often form the basis of propaganda used to advance campaigns of intolerance, and it would seem that at least potions of the denialist-conspiricist movement are acting to form.
Denialist Andrew Breitbart is calling for the execution of scientists allegedly involved in “climategate”, and even others just for criticising him for being so stupid. And of course, those lovely denialist denizens of the Internet have started up with the inevitable hate mail and death threats.
“Whaaa! Persecution! They aren’t printing us in peer-reviewed journals!” Hardly compares really, does it?
I think from all of this we can quite fairly make an assertion about the denialist movement. With its epistemological propensity for infallible, unfalsifiable conspiricism and an anti-intellectual intolerance of differing scientific opinion, we can safely call it a cult.
~ Bruce
Okay. I’ve got a bit of a preliminary project going on the side here, which at this point I won’t disclose openly what it is exactly, just yet.
Suffice to say that there are a few case studies of anti-atheist bigotry that I have to take into account, and some of them come in book form.
One you’ve possibly seen me cite, that I’ve had limited access to, has been Tina Beattie’s execrable The New Atheists (2008). Which is little more than string of straw men sewn together with a spine.
Ironic in it’s tar-and-feathering of an outgroup, considering that Beattie writes for Open Democracy on the issues of natural law and human rights.
My project will require a more robust and in-depth dissection than I have had the opportunity to undertake. For which I’ll need my own copy. A good thing it goes out for cheap.
The irony becomes more apparent when you realise just how unoriginal Beattie’s thesis actually is – those intolerant atheists with their scientific certainty are out to erode religious rights in order to ultimately install a totalitarian, godless utopia!
Of course, the only people finding intolerant utopianism in a “New Atheist” book are those theist critics who perhaps only unwittingly, find such contorted representations convenient. And seemingly the only time they can cite “evidence” for such a conspiracy, is when they can quote mine things out of context. Much like the denialists currently milking the hacked East Anglia emails.
As unflattering as the comparison is, I don’t think it unfair to compare the likes of Beattie to others who uncritically parrot out-grouping memes and conspiricist misquotes. The irony in apparently left-leaning, critical theorist, Tina Beattie’s parroting of the “New Atheist” meme, is made obvious by the next book on my list.
The New Atheism and The Erosion of Freedom, by Robert A. Morey (1986).
Like Beattie, Morey battled against a new breed of atheism that unlike old atheism, didn’t know it’s place, spoke out of turn, was intolerant and planned to rob everyone of their religious rights in order, ultimately with the aim to install a godless utopia. Like Beattie and like the denialists misquoting the East Anglia emails, Morey, in support of a conspiricist line of argument, misquoted liberally.
Ironic, how similar the two are, given Beattie’s pretence to progressive religious tolerance and Morey’s championing of the notion that Mecca and Medina should be nuked. But I want to be more rigorous if I’m going to try to explain the similarities by venturing a hypothesis I have in mind, and for that I’ll need my own copy ready on my bookshelf.
There is of course, the obvious question which also needs to be asked – what on Earth lead people like Beattie to claim that their pet-hate-atheists were new, when this has all been seen and exaggerated and lied about before? I suspect it’s got something to do with the notion that a new “threat”, unlike something that has always been around, is more frightening and thus more instrumental in forming or facilitating out-group biases.
~ Bruce
I’ve recently declared my interest in a post-grad writing qualification, and the possibility of doing it in 2011. How’s this for a change of plans?
Pushing it back to starting between 2013 and 2015.
It would seem far more manageable financially for one, which is always good. I used to view study-in-poverty as an endurable, if not necessary evil for Uni students from a working class background. Of course, if I got a bit more money behind me before returning to Uni, it’d be less stressful – which would be conducive to a nice writing environment.
That and I’ve struck upon an idea. Trying to get something published before returning to study, rather than afterward. Something book-sized, perhaps.
I’ve got an Aunty who I’ve been planning to spend a bit more time with again, who happens to have published her second book this year. I haven’t even managed to have a chat to her about my plans as of yet, but I’ll have to. That and drop off a pot-plant I’ve been planning to. And have a chin-wag about my joining SA Writers.
Of course, that would alter my blogging plans somewhat, potentially extending them. And for some reason, this excites me.
So there you go. The master plan isn’t set in stone yet. And I’ve still got to get a better mouse.
~ Bruce
