Down With Everybody

Via Little Green Footballs:

[Sally Quinn, Washington Post] Most people in this country are Christians, and you look at the Christians and they go to their white churches. And you wonder how they can call themselves Christians and still look at other people as though they are inferior.

A study on the longer-term effect of participating in the Islamic pilgrimage found that Muslims communities have become more open in many ways after the Hajj experience.

The study, published by Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, says that hajj – Muslim pilgrimage - urges equality and harmony.

vs.

At least 345 Muslim pilgrims have died in a crush during the stone-throwing ritual at the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, officials say.

Hundreds of pilgrims have also been injured. A BBC correspondent at the scene in Mina saw dozens of bodies lined up on the ground.

The ritual has seen many lethal stampedes but the number of dead this time is the highest in 16 years.

After a crush in 2004, barriers and stewards were added to improve safety.

A woman from the governing party in Ecuador has proposed that a woman’s right to enjoy sexual happiness should be enshrined in the country’s law.

Her suggestion has provoked a lively debate in conservative Ecuador.

Maria Soledad Vela, who is helping to rewrite the constitution, says women have traditionally been seen as mere sexual objects or child bearers.

Now, she says, women should have the right to make free, responsible and informed decisions about sex lives.

The rest.

DWE doesn’t want to enter the abortion debate, but the logic here is a good laugh.

The bill was introduced last fall by Conservative MP Ken Epp of Edmonton-Sherwood Park. It passed second reading March 5 and will now go before the Justice and Human Rights Committee, which will scrutinize the law before returning it to the House for third reading.

Opponents at the rally said the law co-opts the serious social problem of violence against women and uses it to serve the pro-life agenda.

“It is a veiled attempt to have the law recognize fetal personhood,” visiting University of Alberta lecturer Rebecca Stringer told the group. She warned that once a law recognizing the legal status of a fetus is on the books, the door is open to restricting access to abortions.

“It is bad law,” said Linda Duncan, a federal NDP candidate in the last election. “The focus here should be on the violence against the mother.”

The rest.

But if the fetus isn’t a person, why do you call the mother a mother?

Funny, we’ve been discussing this concept at nightclubs for years:

They will be the keynote speakers during Thursday’s lunch, discussing their concept of moving from Me to We.

The rest.

Plus, does it ever cost less than hundreds of dollars to hear people speak on human rights? The low price for the conference including the Me to We deal is $425 per person. Non-members’ price, of course. But hey, there’s a golf trip for only 90 bucks.

Douglas Farrow, in The Gazette:

Recently, the bishop of Lancaster, Patrick O’Donoghue, was interrogated by the government’s Children, Schools and Families Select Committee about his directive to diocesan schools to teach the Catholic faith and Catholic morals to their students.   That directive, according to the committee chair, Barry Sheerman, smacked of a “fundamentalism” unacceptable to the British government.  “It seems to me that faith education works all right as long as people are not that serious about their faith,” Sheerman said. “But as soon as there is a more doctrinaire attitude questions have to be asked.”

The rest.