Recently in Hypocrisy Category

England: The headline of an article on the BBC News website today caused a raised eyebrow at Prattle Towers: Witchcraft-based child abuse: Action plan launched. The start of the article was even more worrying. Had they taken on a redundant News of the World writer?

The government has launched an action plan to tackle child abuse linked to witchcraft or religion in England.

So, who is to be the victim of a moral panic this time? Are the fundies attacking Neopagans again? No, but the potential for vilification of an entire minority group is clear. This time, I fear what will happen when the Daily Mail picks up the story, which is about a tiny number of cases among communities of more recent African origin than the majority:

Scotland Yard says it has conducted 83 investigations into faith-based child abuse in the past decade - among them Kristy Bamu, who was murdered aged 15 in 2010, Victoria Climbie who was eight when she was murdered in 2000 and the headless torso of "Adam", a five or six-year-old boy, which was found in the Thames in 2001.

Ministers are concerned that although the investigations number just a few dozen, other abuse is going on, "under-reported and misunderstood".

Fortunately, the government's "plan" seems to involve recognition of the efforts already being made by community groups and religious leaders, rather than the simultaneous nagging of the affected communities into apathy, and vilification of same as we've seen in the approach to extremist Islamist bampots.

These efforts included Channel 4 documentaries highlighting the problem, most recently in 2010.

The programme explores several churches where child “deliverance” takes place, using undercover footage. A young journalist named Juliana Oladipo agreed to pose as a difficult teenager being brought to church by her mother; in each case witchcraft is diagnosed as the problem, and aggressive exorcism prescribed as the cure.

Some of the fraudulent preachers were after more than just money. One of them demanded sex from a young woman, 21 times, to "cure" her of her witchcraft.

Witchcraft-based child abuse: Action plan launched—BBC News, 14 August 2012; Documentary Shows Child-Witch Stigmatisation Still Occurring in UK Churches, Bartholomew's Notes on Religion, 26 July 2010.

Colombia: Scheinheiligkeit is a German word for hypocrisy, specifically that kind of hypocrisy which involves feigned innocence, an "appearance of holiness". A good example of Scheinheiligkeit would be a high-ranking representative of an organisation which has deliberately covered up child sexual abuse in its ranks groundlessly accusing another group of paedophilia.

Which brings us on to Colombian Roman Catholic bishop Juan Vicente Córdoba, who objected to the adoption of two boys by an American gay man because, well, pooves only want to have sex with children. He told newspaper El Tiempo:

I don't know him, and I do not blame him, but one thing is clear: he has homosexual tendencies, and has got a 10-year-old boy and a 13-year-old youth. Between them there will be no father-son relationship. the priest, who is also Secretary General of the Colombian Episcopal Conference, said. He will get the two children at an age when he might find them attractive. This could be a temptation. Cordoba said that it was safer to give gays two girls. [Caveat: this is translated by me from a German translation of a Spanish language article.]

I realise he's not very important to the sort of Christian who beats on about it, but didn't that Jesus chappie have something to say about this sort of behaviour? Ah yes, here we are. Matt. 7: 3-5:

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

Bischof: Schwule wollen Sex mit Kindern—Queer.de, 15th December 2011. Okay, here's a link to it on Google Translate.

Scotland: Dozens of people have complained after their names falsely appeared on a petition to the Scottish Government opposing same-sex marriage. MSPs and the Information Commissioner have heard from people whose names appeared on the petition without their consent.

Labour MSP Kezia Dugdale said a number of furious constituents had contacted her to say their names had been placed on the anti-gay marriage petition, which has been signed by former SNP leader Gordon Wilson, as well as senior figures from Scotland’s Episcopalians, the United Free Church of Scotland and the Evangelical Alliance.

Scotland for Marriage, an alliance of mostly religious organisations and opposed to marriage, was quick to blame the victims.

A spokesman for Scotland for Marriage suggested that supporters of gay marriage had placed their own names on the site in an underhand tactic to make it appear that Scotland for Marriage had dishonestly added names to the petition.

He said: This appears to be a malicious attempt to undermine the campaign. A police investigation would be welcome.

Those who found their names falsely added to the petition say that they were unaware they has "signed" the petition until it was published, suggesting that Scotland for Marriage had neglected to send out confirmation e-mail to signatories - a standard practice for online petitions. The bogus signatory who spoke to the Scotsman also did not think Scotland for Marriage deliberately added him to boost their numbers, but that someone else did so maliciously. In not applying even the simplest automated check, Scotland for Marriage have thoroughly undermined their own petition. No shenanigans required.

Bogus names discovered on petition that attacked gay marriage—The Scotsman, 16th December 2011.

I can reach people who would like to cook but are finding it difficult. It’s the same with the spiritual. If people want it, I would like to be able to point them in the right direction.

Presumably by promoting the Magdalene Laundries, nice choirboys, roasted protestants and murdered cathars.

Even my sense of the ridiculous is strained by this complete disconnect with reality.

Will she be promoting specialist luxury fresh-cooked wafers - cannibalism a speciality?

Arrrgh!

Delia Smith wants to do for Catholicism what she has done for cooking —Daily Telegraph, 21st November 2011.

Somalia & Kenya:

Al-Shabaab has only survived because it has run (these) extortion schemes, often under the guise of collecting Muslim "zakat" payments intended under Islam to be used to help society's destitute. Instead, the group has bankrupted and now forced into famine the majority of people living in the areas it controls.


To the 18,000 people who have fled here from deep in rural Somalia, plagued by a spreading famine and the rapacious extortions of murderous fundamentalist fighters, this truly is a sanctuary. Here, there is water. There are increasing food deliveries from aid workers cautiously crossing the border from Kenya for the first time. There is a hospital, over the border, to treat children who would otherwise starve to death.

"God" is guiding these bandits to steal, and rape and pillage, and the peole in their "care" can starve.
What's more most foreign aid is rejected, and aid-workers have been murdered ....

Somali Islamists thrive as children die in the dust—Daily Telegraph, 14th August 2011.

England

At about 3 o’clock in the morning Lesley sat up and it was as if she had a premonition. She said: 'This is going to be over soon, I’m going to go to heaven’,” he told the court.

And I heard a voice, if I could put it like that, and I said 'I can help you’, and I suddenly had this revelation of the plan finally being acted out.

Wonderful!
Devout religious nut-job hears convenient "voices" telling him to kill his wife.
Oh yeah.

Devout Baptist killed wife and lover's husband after hearing voice—Daily Telegraph, 15th February 2011.

Iran

“There is no difference between a real and fake hymen,”

and

Last year, the Saudi scholar Anwar bin-Majid argued that God “knows that human minds cannot grasp the nature of the pleasures of Paradise, so He made it closer to their understanding by mentioning dark-eyed beauties, wine, milk, and fruit.” In fact, he went on, “in Paradise there are no sexual impulses. Therefore, people’s sexual organs will disappear in the afterlife.”

Well, thanks, but no thanks!

It would seem, see article, that the young people of Persia are using, not just the internet, but all the communications that implies. And that plenty of sexual practising is being perpetrated - shock, horror.
Looks like it might just be the mullahs turn to imitate the Irish RC church, if we are lucky.

In Iran, modernity takes on the cult of the virgin—Daily Telegraph, 14th February 2011.

Poland: Poland wants Auschwitz website to drop .pl suffix

Right-Wing Catholic Vileness

Bogdan Zdrojewski, the Polish culture minister, said he had asked the authorities at the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum, along with their counterparts at the Majdanek and Stutthof concentration camps, to change their domain names to either .com or .eu.

I’ve asked them to be consistent in using the appropriate German names of the camps and this applies also to the internet, the minister said. At the moment the .pl is misleading and might make people associate the camps with Poland.

Not only is this right-wing nationalism trying to re-write history, it is an obvious attempt to whitewash the Catholic church, see HERE (go to “Nazi Photos” if pictures don’t appear immediately) and it’s enough to turn your stomach.

One wonders if the so-called “culture” minster has heard of MAUS and whether he’d like to deny and erase that record, as well?

Poland-wants-Auschwitz-website-to-drop-.pl-suffix —Daily Telegraph, 2nd February 2011.

United States: Scientists have complained that anti-gay religious groups are pretending to be legitimate scientific organisations, and presenting deliberately distorted versions of their research as fact. This is nothing new—the Prattle dissected one example back in 1998. The most recent case involves Dr. Gary Remafedi of the University of Minnesota, whose work on adolescent sexuality has been appropriated and misrepresented by a bogus paediatrics organisation, the American College of Pediatricians, trying to deny any support whatsoever to LGBT kids in school.

The letter, and the Facts About Youth website it pointed school officials to, was dense with footnotes citing scientific studies. Remafedi's research was at the top of the list.

The ACP argues that schools shouldn't support gay teens because they're probably just confused. Most adolescents who experience same-sex attraction...no longer experience such attractions at age 25, the letter says, citing a 1992 study by Remafedi.

Except that's not what Remafedi's research suggested at all. His work showed that kids who are confused about their sexuality eventually sort it out—meaning many of them accept being gay.

That's not the only example of this organisation lying about Remafedi's research. They took his finding that people who come out earlier are more likely to experience stigma and isolation, leading to an increased suicide risk, and twisted it to claim that identifying as gay itself was the problem. As Remafedi noted, It's obvious that they didn't even read my research. I mean, they spelled my name wrong every time they cited it.

Alvin McEwan has summarised the problem in a posting at the Huffington Post, and also links to Respect My Research—a Truth Won Out site dedicated to highlighting such abuses.

Evangelists treat the distorted research as the truth when they need to justify hate speech against LGBT people. Bradlee Dean looks like a 1980s hair rocker, a particularly naff one. His You Can Run But You Cannot Hide ministry uses allegedly punk music (with hair that long?!) to corrupt young minds with his imaginary friend. He has recently praised Islam for its murderous intolerance of homosexuality, and urged Christians to kill LGBT people. And he uses falsified scientific research to justify his violence.

On average, they molest 117 people before they’re found out. How many kids have been destroyed, how many adults have been destroyed because of crimes against nature?

As The Freethinker points out, this claim is bollocks, based on misrepresentation of research. Perhaps he was confused and thinking about the child abuse scandals involving Christian clergy (of several denominations) which have recently come to light?

University of Minnesota professor's research hijacked—City Pages, 26th May 2010; 'Let's threaten gays with death as the Muslims do', says Christian wingnut—The Freethinker, 26th May 2010.

Mexico: The hijacking of an airliner yesterday turns out to have been done in the name of religion, with the guidance of the hijacker's imaginary friend:

The Bible-carrying hijacker used a juice can he said was a bomb to hold the 103 passengers and crew on the tarmac for more than an hour before masked police stormed the aircraft with guns drawn and escorted several handcuffed men away without firing a shot....

Jose Flores, 44, later told police his three companions were "the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost". ...

He is also a Christian music singer who in videos posted on YouTube sings of leaving drugs and finding God.

Strangely, the press have not been calling out for bans on Christian symbolism, suggesting those who wear such symbols be treated with suspicion, nor printing articles suggesting all Christians are inclined towards terrorism.

The neo-nazi British National Party has recently produced an anti-immigration poster. They chose to illustrate it with a Spitfire.

But RAF history experts have identified the iconic Romeo Foxtrot Delta Plane as belonging not to Britons but to a group of Polish pilots instead.

The plane was actually flown by the celebrated 303 Squadron of the RAF -- made up of Polish airmen rescued from France shortly before Nazi occupation.

A BNP representative could only come up with WE MENT 2 DU DAT, DUH, ONNIST GUV.

BNP uses Polish Spitfire in anti-immigration poster —Daily Telegraph, 4th March 2009.

United Kingdom: The UK government is on a bit of a roll at the moment, what with letting in people with manslaughter convictions who then go on to commit murder, whilst banning obnoxiously opinionated but non-violent politicians, regardless of the opinion of at least one Muslim organisation, which believes in dialogue and was looking forward to an opportunity to engage in such a subversive activity. Meanwhile, an Islamist bampot is being chucked out, but being sent somewhere where he will be tortured.

The latest preachers of hate to be banned from the country are Fred Phelps and his Merrie Men, who wanted to picket a Basingstoke sixth-form college's production of the Laramie Project.

A father and daughter from a US church which preaches hatred of homosexuals have been banned from entering the UK by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

Fred Phelps and his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper from the Westboro Baptist Church had urged protests against a play being put on in Hampshire.

Queen Mary's College in Basingstoke is staging The Laramie Project, a play about a man killed for being gay.

So, no opportunity for the London Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to organise sponsorship of the picket, whereby cash is raised for HIV/AIDS or LGBT organisations based on how long the Westboro Baptist Church hangs around, and no chance for the fundie bampots to remind the British public why the nation is not very religious at all. No doubt a tirade against our royal family will follow, just like when the Queen Mum died, seeing as they don't realise that the British attitude to royalty is as far removed from the Thai one as you can get without chopping the monarch's head off (very often).

Anti-gay preachers banned from UK—BBC News, 19th February 2009.

United Kingdom: SF author Liz Williams also runs a brace of occult shops in Glastonbury and, like many people, is interested in the recent leak of a British National Party (most of whom would have been more comfortable on the other side during WWII) membership list.

Following the leaked BNP list, I acquired a virtual pair of tongs and a face mask and took a look at the BNP's website. It is, not surprisingly, the usual vacuous presentation of some fairly sensible (in theory) policies with, as far as I could see, very little said about actual implementation....

One of these issues was that of buying British. Now, even anticipating the beat of jackboots down Glastonbury High St, this is something I can get behind - we support a lot of local craft people in the shops, but we can't exclusively buy British goods because of cost effectiveness. But there is already quite a lot of very good stuff out there, being made by woodworkers and metalworkers in the UK, and so I perused Excalibur, which is the BNP's online shop....

And lo! A lot of the stuff they sell, especially the Celtic things, is not just like the stuff we sell - it *is* the stuff we sell.

It's made in China.

And more dumb—Liz Willams' Journal, 20th November 2008.