Rightwing liars

Weird story from the land of the free. Reportedly a lesbian couple was awarded by a judge the right to adopt a foster kid they'd been looking after for some time. The Christian fundamentalist Florida Family Policy Council did a mailshot alerting its troops to this mother of all scandals.The included a photo of the lesbian couple (the two women on the left-hand side of the photo). According to the site Sociological Images the photo they used didn't actually show the couple in question. The couple in question is on the right-hand side of the photo. So, other than the Christian agitprop outfit aiming toward stereotyping lesbian women as butch, we now also know something that doesn't come as a surprise to anyone knowing how these sorts of outfits function, namely that they lie thru their teeth in order to get their point of view across. Their official version, when caught in the act of lying, is to claim that it's all an innocent error. Really? Just have another look at those images... - and something else, for the fun of it, I typed 'ugly lesbians' into google. Guess which image popped up on top of the list? You guessed it, the two women to the left. Anyone willing to bet on how the Florida Family Policy Council might have come across the image? - For what it's worth, I am not suggesting that these folks are ugly in any meaningful way!

What's worrisome is, of course, that something might get lost in translation here, namely that nothing is wrong with lesbian women adopting kids even if they look butch. Simple as that.

The thing that begins to bother me ever more is that these religious agitprop outfits (of which there are many, just think of the Family Research Council in Washington DC, the Scottish Council on Bioethics and the list goes on) deliberately hide behind secular facades to sell their religious agenda. That is nauseating.

Ethics victory over Religion in Berlin

Berlin's citizens were faced with a call for a citizen's (or people's) vote (or Volksentscheid) this last weekend. The question Berliners were asked to vote on centered on this: Should Berlin's pupils be forced to choose between ethics or compulsory religion classes or should ethics classes be compulsory for all pupils. Ethics classes were introduced some three or four years ago in Germany. The government of the multi-cultural and multi-religious German metropolis realized that, with many of the city's pupils coming from non-Christian backgrounds, it would be problematic to force these pupils to choose between Catholic or Protestant religious classes. Instead, probably also as a means to build social cohesion in the city state, everyone has to take ethics classes these days there. The same ethics classes for everyone.

The Christian churches and its conservative party forced a citizens' vote on the issue, and were massively trounced in Berlin. Only 14.2% of all Berliner's entitled to vote cast their vote voted in favor of the ongoing child abuse that religious classes really are. Let me be clear here: with religious classes I mean the brainwashing of pupils according to a particular religious ideology. I have no problems at all, with the system that is in place in for instance South African public schools, where children receive information about a large number of religious ideologies, as opposed to them being indoctrinated for years by 'teachers' preaching a particular religious ideology. This is what happened to me, for instance, during my primary and secondary school education in Germany. So, I am pleased to report that things are steadily improving in good ol Germany. It goes without saying probably that I also believe it is good news that critical thinking skills in ethics that are a valuable tool to have will remain compulsory in Berlin.

China's rulers: Ethically inspiring TV for you :)

AP reports today that mainland Chinese TV stations must broadcast 'ethically inspiring' programmes to the country's citizens. Given that in the corruption and civil rights violations plagued PR of China a lot of news would be less than inspiring some clarification from the powers that are has been provided. The programming must 'reflect the reality of China in a positive way'. Now you know. That probably is the PR of China equivalent to the news programming on Rupert Murdoch's Fox News which is clearly attempting to brainwash the US public into believing that GW Bush is a competent and honourable President of the USA.