Below is my column today in The Los Angeles Times on the conference this week in Washington on religious speech. I have previously written about the Obama Administration’s break with past policies to support Muslim countries in cracking down on speech deemed “defamatory” to religion. While the latest resolution does not repeat the defamation language, the purpose remains unchanged and the dangers for free speech are obvious. The non-binding resolution was passed in March, largely in response to the assassinations of two Pakistani officials who had spoken out against the nation’s blasphemy law. Ironically, however, the resolution will likely reinforce the right of countries to criminalize anti-religious speech and blasphemy laws.
Category: Religion
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
If Republican Sen. Bill Heath’s bill, Senate Bill 293, is enacted the phrase “In God We Trust” will be printed in the area where the county name used to go. While many states sell, at an extra cost, specialty plate with the phrase, the Georgia plate will be the default plate.
Continue reading “Georgia Bill Will Put “In God We Trust” On All License Plates”
Yeshiva University has taken a step that appears to affirm that it is religious first and a university second. The school’s study body stripped an online student newspaper of funding over a column that discussed a sexual encounter between two students. The attack on free speech and free press occurred after the students rightfully refused to censure their own newspaper and writer. It is a shameful act by Yeshiva that puts the university squarely in the category of intolerant, orthodox institutions — a blow to many faculty and students who have struggled to make Yeshiva something more than a school teaching Jewish values.
Continue reading “Yeshiva University Strips Newspaper Of Funding For Standing Up For Journalistic Principle and Refusing To Retract Article”
It appears that cucumber farmers are equivalent to pornographers in some religious circles. We previously saw how a grocer in Iraq was killed for putting fruits and vegetable together that might be sexually suggestive. Now, an Islamic cleric in Europe has issued his own warning to Muslim women not to get close to cucumbers, bananas or other sexually suggestive fruit.
Continue reading “Do Not Handle The Fruit: European Cleric Warns Muslim Women Not To Handle Cucumbers, Bananas, and Other Sexually Suggestive Produce”
We have yet another blasphemy case. A Saudi Arabian court has sentenced Australian national Mansor Almaribe to 500 lashes and a year in jail for insulting Muhammad during prayers in a pilgrimage to Mecca.
Continue reading “Saudi Court Orders Australian To Be Flogged 500 Times For Insulting Mohammad — and Sent To Jail For One Year”
I recently saw this video on YouTube and had to share it. It is the account of a leading Muslim cleric on the sexual delights that men will find in paradise. We have followed the plight of women in many Muslim countries on this blog and this video reveals the attitude that fosters such abuse, in my view. Many of us were unaware of the promise of the 72 virgins waiting for the faithful in Paradise until we were told that 9-11 hijackers believed in this promise. This video shows a deep-seated problem with women for his cleric, who wishes to pass it along to his followers.
Continue reading “Muslim Cleric Promises Muslim Men Locked Up Virgins in Paradise . . . And The Sexual Strength of 100 Men”
We have been watching the national and international campaign by leaders against atheists, who appear to be fair game for hateful, ill-informed rhetoric. Even Newt Gingrich (who has been criticized for violating two oaths to God in having affairs while married) has campaigned on the need for any candidate to be faithful. Recent polls show these statements are playing to the majority bias against non-believers. Now, researchers at the University of British Columbia and the University of Oregon have released the results of a study that shows that religious people would just as soon trust a rapist as they would an atheist or non-believer.
Continue reading “Poll: Atheists Trusted As Much As . . . Rapists”
The Senate of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, has passed a new law that will impose 14-year sentences on citizens found to be homosexuals. In addition, anyone who aids or “abets” same-sex unions will face 10 years in prison. The latter provision seems directed at human rights groups that work to help gays and lesbians who often face violence and discrimination in the country.
Continue reading “Nigerian Legislators Pass New Law Imposing 14-Year Sentences For Homosexuality”
Submitted by Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Andy Warhol, said in 1968 that “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” Forty-Three years later the remark has become ubiquitously prescient. The world is awash in a celebrity culture and America is at the acme of this “culture”. From one perspective this is merely the harmless fluff that people use in order to distract themselves from the depressing things their lives have offered. It is the triumph of “kitsch” over substance in the business of being famous. This has been true throughout mankind’s history. The lives and activities of the powerful have been followed by the masses with avid interest and have been the fodder of discussion around what served as the ancient’s water coolers, perhaps the public wells. Without a doubt in ancient Egypt, the Pharaoh’s comings and goings were constant conversational topics. Today, in a much different context, the American multitudes avidly follow the lives of the powerful, rich and famous, via innumerable outlets including Facebook and Twitter.
The question I’m broaching here is if this is a historic human trait, are there negative aspects of it that threaten the functioning and stability of our society? My own answer is that I’m not sure one way or another, but I am concerned about what I see all around me and perhaps would like the writers here to talk me down, so to speak. Now one might rightly ask what does this have to do with the law and the other topics we treat here on a daily basis. Only this week we have had news bulletins and stories about the sentencing of Michael Jackson’s doctor to four years in prison. On that same day no doubt there were dozens of news stories that had greater effect on our lives, yet every network paid much attention to it on their nightly news. At the risk of offending Michael Jackson fans, the death of this once famous “Pop Star”, self titled “King of Pop” if you will, was hardly worth the attention paid to it, when issues of economic collapse, wars, revolutions, genocides and famines raged throughout the media frenzy. Yet, I must say that the media knew their audience and this story catered to that audience. I understand the need for, and I myself have need of distraction from the woes of the world, so it is not as if I hold myself apart from the indulgence. Frequently instances of self loathing come to the fore as I slavishly behold the spectacle that our media creates for us surrounding people and issues that embarrass our attention, as they play out before our wide-eyed gazes. Continue reading “Today’s Celebrity is Yesterday’s Aristocracy”
Kamal Subhi, a former professor at the King Fahd University, and the Majlis al-Ifta’ al-A’ala, Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council, have issued a “scientific” report that the proposed lifting of the ban on women driving will result within ten years in “no more virgins” in the Kingdom as well as “a surge in prostitution, pornography, homosexuality and divorce.”
The ABA Journal has released its list of the top 100 legal blogs in the world and we are once again in this august group of blogs. Congratulations to all of our regulars contributors and weekend bloggers. This blog’s success is due entirely to the consistently high level of commentary among our readers and, I believe, our commitment to civil and substantive (if at times passionate) dialogue on the legal and political issues of our day. We are again placed in the “opinion” category and facing two of the top five most popular blogs. You can vote at You can vote at this site by clicking on the “opinion” category and we need your vote. A quick registration is needed to prevent cheating in the competition.
Continue reading “Turley Blog Selected As A Top 100 Legal Blog — Now We Need Your Vote!”
We have another case of a teacher who has been suspended or fired because of conduct in their private lives. Kevin Hogan teaches English and crew at Mystic Valley Regional Charter School, a highly rated high school, in Malden, Massachusetts. That was before someone told the school that he has appeared in pornographic movies like “Just Gone Gay 8” under the name Hytch Cawke
Continue reading “Massachusetts Teacher Suspended Due To Prior Career As Porn Star”
There is an interesting lawsuit filed against the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, D.C., which stands accused of discriminating against a Muslim employee by barring him from serving an Israeli delegation — claiming a “national security exemption” for such religious and cultural discrimination. The man, Mohamed Arafi, was previously cleared in a security check with the FBI and handled other foreign guests, including dignitaries. He is of Arab ancestry. He is a naturalized citizen of Moroccan descent. I will be discussing the case today on CNN.
Archeologists in Israel have shocked religious officials with a new finding that the revered Western Wall in Jerusalem is not what people have long believed: a wall built by the Jewish ruler Herod. Newly discovered coins underneath wall strongly indicate that it was built long after Herod’s death.
Continue reading “Oops: Archeologists Discover Western Wall Was Probably Not Built By Herod”
It appears that British medical schools are facing a growing problem of Muslim medical students and doctors walking out of courses in protest when evolution is taught as part of biology. The students and teachers believe that Darwin’s theories conflict with the Koran, as do many Christians (and apparently most — but not all — GOP presidential contenders) believe in the United States. The view is a bit more unsettling when future doctors refuse to even hear about evolution as a blasphemous subject.
Continue reading “British Medical Schools Facing Backlash Over Evolution From Muslim Students”