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Jesus christ, what a guy…

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And another child dies because of the parents’ superstitious beliefs. And no god comes to save him.

DA: Pa. couple prayed, denied care to dying tot

PHILADELPHIA – A fundamentalist couple who prayed over their sick toddler rather than get medical help before his pneumonia death have been ordered to stand trial on manslaughter charges.

Prosecutors believe 2-year-old Kent Schaible succumbed because his parents chose prayer over modern medicine.

*snip*

The Schaibles, who quit school after ninth grade, work as teachers at their church, First Century Gospel Church in northeast Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia judge who upheld involuntary manslaughter, child endangerment and conspiracy charges Wednesday against the Schaibles called them “loving” but “misguided.”

Kent Schaible died Jan. 24, about 10 days after he fell ill. His symptoms included coughing, congestion, crankiness and a loss of appetite, and he was warm to the touch, the parents told police in their Jan. 26 statements.

“They took time off from work, they fed him, they nourished him, they comforted him,” Carmen said.

A day or two before he died, they thought he was improving, as he slept better and ate and drank some. But when his condition worsened, they called their pastor and then a funeral home.

Police later asked why they didn’t call a doctor.

Good question. I am sure the DA will ask that question.

Of course, the defending attorney is crying religious persecution.

“We’re talking about symptoms that mirrored the flu and the common cold,” said public defender Francis Carmen, who represents the mother. “The Commonwealth is dragging this (issue) into the courtroom, to persecute them for their minority religious beliefs.”

Someone needs to inform this Mr Carmen that the flu and common cold can be quite serious, especially in the very young and very old. This isn’t about persecuting them for their religious beliefs. They are being held accountable for the welfare and protection of their child, which they failed to do and is criminal neglect. That they never called a doctor even when the child grew seriously ill is proof enough.

Just remembering the anniversary of Sean’s death…

For those who care: nothing but Sean…

You are missed, Buddy…

New Charles Darwin film is ‘too controversial’ for religious American audiences?

I am sure it is for many of the Christian fundamentalist nutters here in this country, but as one commenter stated, fear of repercussions from religious America has never stopped film producers in the past, so why should it now?

A new British film about Charles Darwin has failed to land a distribution deal in the States because his theories on human evolution are too controversial for religious American audiences, according to the film’s producer.

Creation follows the British naturalist’s ’struggle between faith and reason’ as he wrote his 1859 book, On The Origin Of The Species.

The film, directed by Jon Amielm was chosen to open the Toronto Film Festival and has now been sold to almost every territory in the world.

‘The film has no distributor in America. It has got a deal everywhere else in the world but in the US, and it’s because of what the film is about. People have been saying this is the best film they’ve seen all year, yet nobody in the US has picked it up.

‘It is unbelievable to us that this is still a really hot potato in America. There’s still a great belief that He made the world in six days.

‘It’s quite difficult for we in the UK to imagine religion in America. We live in a country which is no longer so religious. But in the US, outside of New York and LA, religion rules.

The news article published in UK’s Daily Mail Reporter makes it sound as if all of our population is made up of religious creationist nutters and that’s not the case. While we do have too many religious creationist crackpots in this country, they haven’t been able to control what films and television programs are being produced. Just look at the films that come out of Hollywood on a regular basis. Consider the television programming that is produced here in the states. Our freaky fundies get their panties in a knot regularly over what is allowed over our airwaves, but they have been unsuccessful in stopping what they consider to be “immoral” films and programs.

Could it possibly be that this Darwin film is just a dry, boring non-money-maker that no producer here in the U.S. wants to bother with?

Thanks to Jesse Galef over at the Friendly Atheist blog for bringing this to our attention. This is the stuff that doesn’t seem to make it to the forefront of the news media. The Secular Coalition for America has sent out letters “to members of the Senate Finance Committee urging them to oppose two proposed amendments to the healthcare reform bill” says Galef.

The Secular Coalition for America states:

Senator Orrin Hatch has submitted amendment #C10 requesting that funding for Title V abstinence-only-until-marriage be restored. Senator Michael Enzi has submitted amendment #C15 to ensure that conscience protections are applied in the healthcare reform bill. Please oppose these two amendments. Both of these amendments privilege religious values over patients’ and students’ rights to ethical treatment and medically-accurate information.

Galef at Friendly Atheist writes:

President Obama’s proposed budget earlier this year removed funding for abstinence-only education, mostly because studies shown they hadn’t worked — some studies even found that the programs made things worse, discouraging contraception without actually reducing sex. And Senator Hatch wants to spend $50 million a year on these programs.

I thought that Rethuglicans were against “evil socialist programs”?

There was public outcry over a so-called ‘conscience protection’ clause the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was pushing right before Bush’s term ended. When Obama took office, he prevented it from taking effect. And now Senator Enzi wants to slip a similar clause into the healthcare reform bill.

It never ends with these sneaky fundie bastards. Gotta keep our eyes and ears on them every minute.

While there’s some debate on how to view the recent murder of an anti-abortion protester, the guy’s son actually had some interesting things to say about him:

“It will be impossible for some to believe, but my dad really didn’t care about abortion. He did this to stalk, harass, terrorize, scream at, threaten, frighten, and verbally abuse women. He had a pathologic hatred of women: his mom, my mom, everyone. After my mom finally left him and he lost his favorite punching bag the violence and abuse that was always contained within our 4 walls was unleased on the people of Owosso. My dad used the pro-life movement and 1st Amendments foundations to defend him, support him, and enable him. He fooled them all. He was at the high school because my niece was there, and female family members were always his favorite targets. Again, my dad didn’t care about abortion. He wanted to hurt people, upset people. He enjoyed making people suffer. His goal was to be shot on a sidewalk. His goal was to make someone so angry, to make them feel so terrorized, to make them feel the only way they could make him stop was to kill him. His pro-life stance was the most perfect crime I personally know of. He hid behind the 1st Amendment and was allowed to stalk, terrorise, harass, be obsene, ect. These things are crimes. Offending people isn’t a crime, and having different political views isn’t a crime, but he committed several crimes over the last 20 years and got away with it. Yes I really am his oldest son. Owosso is now rid of a mad man.”

Even though the paper confirmed the source, it could still be the case that his son is lying, or has a beef with him pertaining to something else. But if he’s telling the truth — man! — what a fucking misogynist.

Xianity can lead to misogyny? What are the odds?…

Here’s a story I ran across on LiveScience.com

Teen Birth Rates Higher in Highly Religious States

U.S. states whose residents have more conservative religious beliefs on average tend to have higher rates of teenagers giving birth, a new study suggests.

The relationship could be due to the fact that communities with such religious beliefs (a literal interpretation of the Bible, for instance) may frown upon contraception, researchers say. If that same culture isn’t successfully discouraging teen sex, the pregnancy and birth rates rise.

And while the religious might point out that the study didn’t take into account those evil young women having abortions, the article states that the study did consider abortion rates:

They found a strong correlation between statewide conservative religiousness and statewide teen birth rate even when they accounted for income and abortion rates.

For instance, the results showed more abortions among teenagers in the less religious states, which would skew the findings since fewer teens in these states would have births. But even after accounting for the abortions, the study team still found a state’s level of religiosity could predict their teen birth rate. The higher the religiosity, the higher was the teen birth rate on average.

I would agree that high teen pregnancy rates may be due to separate factors like poverty, or poor education. However, when a young girl is taught that her godly purpose in life is to have children and raise a family, combined with lack of sex education and discouraged contraceptive practices, these higher numbers are going to be the result.