Shut up because the views must be the same

A guest blogger at the Volokh Conspiracy is doing a series of posts about treaties and the United States’ Congress’ powers and the ability to enforce them.

Rather than offer my own views on that subject (which is way beyond my expertise, in part because IANAL), I’ll instead draw attention to a curious contradiction among many in the religious right wrong. In concerns the United States’ Constitution’s Supremacy Clause (Article VI, Clause 2), which reads as follows:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

The people in the religious right wrong use this section to argue that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, if ratified by the US Senate, will somehow threaten “parental rights” or homeschooling or other such stuff. (As every other country [except Somalia, which hasn’t signed] shows, such claims are nonsense, but showing why is beyond the scope of this post). In other words, they are required to believe that any international treaty overrules whatever laws are in force in the US, even if Congress legislating in that area would be ultra vires (beyond its powers).

The religious right wrong also believe that the US is founded as a Christian nation. This is in spite of the Treaty of Tripoli, which the US Senate unanimously ratified over two centuries ago. The relevant section is Article 12, which reads as follows (spelling and wording in original):

As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

In other words, the religious right wrong believes that treaties overrule law when they provide rights to children, but not when they refute the Christian nation myth.

Those two positions are contradictory. One cannot rationally believe both. If they truly believe that the US was founded as a Christian nation and that the Treaty of Tripoli does not apply, then they can forever shut up about the UNCRC overruling any other law and threatening parental rights. If, by contrast, they believe that the UNCRC does overrule other laws, they then can shut the fuck up about the US being founded as a Christian nation.

At least someone’s bringing the hammer down for public health

A hospital in Indiana has fired eight employees because they refused flu shots (via). Good. It’s about time someone grew a spine and stood up to religious extremists who put the health and lives of the public at risk. And can we start doing this in BC, now? Update: My apologies, I didn’t read the date carefully enough. This is from a year ago. But still, the principle behind it still holds.

And to those who want religious exemptions from doing the job the voluntarily signed up for, be careful what you wish for. (Indeed, I think that it is pretty likely that the same people who support the people in Indiana would object to this second group, even though both are using the same justifications for not doing what is necessary for their job).

Send this woman to college

I urge all of my readers to go here and cast a vote for the essay there. It will allow the author to get a scholarship so she can go to college. She is an escapee from the Quiverfull/Christian Patriarchy movement and education will be a huge help for her. It will take only a few seconds you don’t have to provide any information to help.

So go vote.

Hmm….

Let’s juxtapose this (via) and this.

Now this creeps out

I heard about this disturbing stuff at Butterflies and Wheels (in all cases, my emphasis):

Nearly 7,000 Virginia children whose families have opted to keep them out of public school for religious reasons are not required to get an education, the only children in the country who do not have to prove they are being home-schooled or otherwise educated, according to a study.

Virginia is the only state that allows families to avoid government intrusion once they are given permission to opt out of public school, according to a report from the University of Virginia’s School of Law. It’s a law that is defended for promoting religious freedom and criticized for leaving open the possibility that some children will not be educated.

[…]

I have no problem with homeschooling in itself, but I don’t see how a situation like this will ever end well.

Once parents in Virginia are granted a religious exemption, they’re no longer legally obligated to educate their children.

The statute does not allow exemptions for political or philosophical beliefs “or a merely personal moral code,” but the beliefs do not have to be part of a mainstream religion….

Yet again we have perverse privileging of religious belief over secular belief.

Now, I have no absolute proof, but it is virtually inevitable that girls will be the ones who will be denied a or deprived of an adequate education under this scheme of legalizing child abuse. How do I realize that? How many religions mandate the oppression/subordination of men? None (that matter). How many mandate the oppression/subordination of women? Most (that matter).

Denying education and choices to girls is child abuse. Here’s why (after the jump):

Link farm – seed planting edition

In no particular order:

• Why people believe conspiracy theories (via Rebekka K. Steg).
• If nothing turns around, British Columbia perverse “tradition” of putting women in charge of political parties in ruins will continue. It seems pretty obvious that what happened to Johnston, Campbell, MacPhail, and James is also happening to Clark.
  • It’s a bit of shame, as I still lean against supporting Dix.
• Since I’ve basically run out of X Random Stuff names, I’ve decided to rename these sorts of posts Link farm – X. I hope you don’t mind.
• Mission accomplished, haters. You just drove Jen McCreight away. All of you haters/bullies/misogynists: Fuck you.
• There is a complicated legal situation regarding inheritance of digital property (via). What I think should be done is that these should be treated as just as willable as any other sort of intangible asset (copyrights, patents, etc). However, I’m sure that big business will probably resist such a move, because they want to be able to keep selling you the same thing over and over again.
• A post from Libby Anne on the virtual merger(in the United States) of Evangelical Christianity and the Republican Party.
  • Recall Andrew Sullivan’s thesis that this is causing an increase in atheism in the United States.
• Debunking anti–choice junk science.
• Are you really being oppressed, or just mad you can’t oppress others? (via)
  • The religious right wrong would inevitably say that being unable to oppress others (especially women and gays) is oppressing them. Talk about theocratic Orwellianism.
• This is a cult, and a really creepy misogynistic one at that (via).

A lack of relevant difference

In the Joyce Quiverfull book, there is a section concerning some Christian fundamentalists (The Pearls) who, besides advocating that people should use a ridiculous amount of corporal punishment on their kids to “train” them and that women should be submissive doormats, also believe in an excessive form of female modesty, as illustrated by the following passage on pp. 79–80 (my emphasis):

“[They] require wives to dress and behave modestly among men to whom they do not belong, lest the sight of their bodies tempt men into ‘sight’ or ‘thought’ adultery… The lack of men’s responsibility or culpability for their own actions and the acceptance of male ‘urges’ as irresistible forces of nature is the understructure of Christian modesty movements and their secular counterparts: seeing women’s bodies as almost supernaturally perverse and corrupting….”

I’m sure this asshole would agree.

Actually, that person I linked to? He’s a Muslim. But he’s expressing the exact same sentiment as the Pearls: pervasive victim–blaming that blames “immodest” women (those who don’t cover up almost everything) for the actions of others, in one case “Adultery” and in the other rape and sexual assault.

There really, really is no relevant difference in mindset between fundamentalists/extremists of different religions. They’re all misogynist, just with different junk in their heads.

I’m tempted to agree with deBeauxOs as for what to do about him (emphasis in original):

“Well, I want a law making it legal and mandatory for men who believe they will sexually assault women because of the way they’re dressed, or for those who have violated women for those very reasons, to be given skewers to poke their eyes out.”

If you truly believe that a woman’s attire drives someone rape her (as opposed to simply taking responsibility and not being a rapist), do you even know what you’re saying about yourself? That you’re some kind of monster or something. Or even better, if you see something you don’t like, why don’t you just turn the fuck away or close your goddamn eyes? I’m pretty sure yours and almost everyone else’s necks and/or eyelids work just fine.

Either way, problem solved.