6 May 2014. Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice sez First Amendment for Christians Only… WHAT A MAROON!

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Read this. Hoo boy, I sure didn’t know that the First Amendment only applied to “Christians!” Wow, I thought that it meant that everyone had the right of free conscience… that the government wouldn’t intervene in religion, either for it or against it. I had the baroque notion that the founders DID establish an Enlightenment Secular Republic, NOT a Theocratic Dictatorship on the model of the early Massachusetts Bay Colony (they established something more on the lines of live n’ let live colonial New York… those smilin’ Dutchman did know a thing or two). Well… I was right and Mr Moore’s got shit for brains. Hey dere, Mr Moore! Freedom of conscience is for EVERYBODY or nobody’s got it. You can take your pseudo-“Christian” rubbish and stick it where the sun doesn’t shine.

Moore got booted once for flakiness… it sure looks like he’s cruisin’ for another bruisin’. The sooner that we toss this bloviating scumbag out, the better. Freedom is what it is… and it’s NOT just for “Christians!”

BMD

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Belarus Dismisses American Religious Freedom Report

Catholics in Belarus… the annual Pilgrimage of Our Lady of Budslav… they have freedom of religion… any questions?

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On Wednesday, The Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MID) dismissed the allegations made by the Religious Freedom Report published by the US State Department about Belarus as outdated and failing to take into account the current situation in the country. Maria Vanshina, deputy head of the MID Information Department, said in an English-language statement, “As for the State Department’s report, it’s permeated with trite phrases and the usual abstract rubber stamps, which the authors of the report rewrite every year, without even taking the trouble of doing reality checks. For the Belarusian side, the report is of little interest, being an internal State Department document submitted to Congress”.

In its latest report on religious freedoms worldwide, published on Monday, the US State Department described Belarus as a country where “laws and policies restrict religious freedom”, despite the fact that this is enshrined in the constitution. The report claimed, “The law restricts the ability of religious organisations to provide religious education and to freely import and distribute religious literature”. Vanshina noted, “The Republic of Belarus, regardless of such reports, strictly adheres both to its international obligations on the protection of religious freedoms and to its domestic law. A clear demonstration of that is Belarus’s report on the implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination which reflects the real situation with the protection of religious rights and liberties and contains concrete measures taken by the Government of Belarus in this area”.

The annual Religious Freedom Report purports to detail the status of religious freedom in 195 countries throughout the world. The US State Department presents it to the US Congress under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.

22 May 2013

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/world/20130522/181292365/Belarus-Dismisses-US-Religious-Freedom-Report.html

Editor’s Note:

The US government has no warrant to publish such a document, as its authority and jurisdiction doesn’t extend beyond the US borders, full stop. Now, if another country were to publish a document giving the details of American-owned sweatshops throughout the world (one wonders if SVS and St T‘s own stocks in such enterprises… if so, for shame!), well, that would have the Americans (especially, the smug and smarmy Evangelical, Mormon, and Pentecostalist phonies) in high dudgeon. “How dare they! It’s all for their benefit! They voluntarily signed contracts!” I find it amusing that those who point fingers at others about “freedom” are vicious and greedy slave-drivers of the worst-possible sort, who wax rich in their McMansions on the sweated labour of Third World workers. They haven’t changed since the time of Dr Johnson, who observed, “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?” American Anglo-Saxons were soulless exploiters then… they’re soulless exploiters now. After all, their true motto isn’t “In God we trust”… it’s “pecunia non olet… money doesn’t stink”. I’m NOT the only person to have noticed that…

BMD

US State Department Sez Russian Laws and Policies Restrict Religious Freedom

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According to an annual report released on Monday by the US State Department, Russia was amongst the countries (including Saudi Arabia, DPRK, Cuba, Iran, and China) that imposed restrictions on freedom of religion last year. US Secretary of State John Kerry commented to the press, “This report is a clear-eyed objective (sic!) look at the state of religious freedom around the world. When necessary, yes, it does directly call out some of our close friends, as well as some countries with whom we seek stronger ties. It does so in order to try to make progress, even though we know that it may cause some discomfort. But when countries undermine or attack religious freedom, they not only unjustly threaten those whom they target. They also threaten their country’s own stability… attacks on religious freedom are therefore both a moral and a strategic national security concern for the USA”.

According to the International Religious Freedom Report for 2012, the Russian government “targeted members of minority religious groups through the use of extremism charges to ban religious materials and restrict groups’ right to assemble”. It said authorities also “restricted religious minorities through detention, raids, denial of official registration with the Ministry of Justice (Minyust), and denial of visas to religious workers”. Suzan Johnson Cook, Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, a division of the US State Department that monitors religious persecution and discrimination around the world, said, “Religious freedom is essential for a stable, peaceful, and thriving society. … As this report makes clear, much work remains to be done”.

The report finds evidence of anti-Muslim sentiment and discrimination in Russia, as well as an increase in anti-Semitism, pointing to vandals in Russia painting a swastika on a fence at a St Petersburg synagogue in May 2012, and in July 2012, vandals painting a swastika on a synagogue wall in Irkutsk. The report alleged, “Members of minority religious groups continued to experience harassment and occasional physical attacks. Violent extremism in the North Caucasus region and an influx of Central Asian migrant workers led to negative attitudes in many regions toward traditionally-Muslim ethnic groups”.

Amongst the claimed instances that raised concern in Russia:

• Reports of detentions and onerous financial penalties against members of minority religious groups
• Detaining Jehovah’s Witnesses and adherents of the Islamic theologian Bediüzzaman Said Nursî and charging them with “extremism”
• Searching and seizing the property of members of minority religious groups such as Scientologists and Falun Gong
• Restrictions on the rights of minority religious groups to meet publicly
• A two-year prison sentence for members of the punk-rock band Pussy Riot, for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred”, after they performed a protest song in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour

The report asserted, “There’s no state religion, but the Russian Orthodox Church and other ‘traditional’ religious communities received preferential consideration”. The annual report details the status of religious freedom in 195 countries throughout the world. Mandated by, and presented to, the US Congress, under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.

20 May 2013

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/world/20130521/181259579/Russian-Laws-Policies-Restrict-Religious-Freedom—US-Report.html

Editor’s Note:

BOO-HOO! Let’s all shudder together in unison. Americans have NO right at all to point fingers. Look at the vacuous anti-Muslim diatribes broadcast by the likes of Fox News, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and Peter King. You’d think that Muslims were responsible for cancer, the common cold, athlete’s foot, and the heartbreak of psoriasis. THIS is why America and Americans are hated throughout the whole world. “Why, we’re so good that all of you unwashed yobbos and wogs have to kiss our naked arse in full view of everybody, or we’ll send you ungrateful and disrespectful sods democracy on the bomb-racks of a USAF bomber”. That’s what it is, full stop… and no one can deny it. However, they got their comeuppance in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, they ended by putting a pro-Iranian junta in power (a delicious irony if there ever was one), and they can’t impose their diktat over the Hindu Kush, even though they’ve spent twelve years trying to do so.

This is more Anglo-Saxon posturing… yes, kids, it’s what you see amongst the konvertsy… we’re all so BACKWARD… but all we have to do is to follow the simon-pure WASPs, kiss their bums whenever they present them, and everything will be hunky-dory. Well, I don’t give such twaddle any truck any more… life is too short. Cross yourself, say “Slava Bogu”, and tell ‘em to their face, “Kiss my arse”… you’ll feel 100 percent better, and they won’t bother you any further (they WILL trash you behind your back, but them’s the breaks, kids). Silly sorts, aren’t they? It takes ALL kinds in our sinful-ginful world.

BMD

1 May 2012. Novinite.com Asked Its Readers about the “War on Terror”

THIS is the face of American aggression… any questions?

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Novinite.com asked its readers:

After 10 years of the War on Terror, do you think America (and its allies) are more secure in 2011 than it was (they were) in 2001?

The replies were:

NO

127 (65.1 percent)

YES

68 (34.9 percent)

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I believe that the “War on Terror” was nothing but a cover to institute police-state measures in the USA such as the so-called Patriot Act, leading to such Republican abominations as the Department of Homeland Security and the TSA. Look at how Neocon Republicans such as Marco Rubio just slobber over such rubbish. All that the wars in foreign parts did was to destabilise a steady-state situation that wasn’t overly unfavourable to the USA. Now, Iraq’s in the hands of Islamists and the Karzai kleptocracy in Afghanistan’s WORSE than the Taliban. GWB threw billions at useless wars in foreign parts whilst cutting taxes for the One Percent and for Wall Street Buccaneers, which led directly to the present economic crisis.

I don’t care that the GOP call themselves “pro-life”… they aren’t. They’re anti-abortion, a horse of a completely-different colour. Indeed, I find their demonization of those who oppose them sickening, reprehensible, and disgusting… its calumny squared. As a friend of mine wrote:

They always act as if we’re “pro-abortion”. NO ONE is pro-abortion. I know that the vast majority of women having an abortion DO NOT WANT ONE, but the Republicans slashed the social programmes that offered poor women a real CHOICE. The GOP took the ability to CHOOSE LIFE away from poor women! Their game’s despicable!

In addition, President Obama isn’t against “religious freedom” when he mandated that Catholic institutions had to offer healthcare plans that covered artificial contraception. There are three main reasons for that:

• No citizen can claim exemption from taxation because they object to the ends of that taxation… for instance, Quakers and Mennonites MUST pay their full share of taxes, even though a hefty portion of the money raised by them goes to fund aggressive wars that their religion condemns in no uncertain terms.
• Catholic institutions employ many non-Catholics, and the Catholic bishops have no right to use the governmental apparatus to enforce their particular and specifically creedal notions on those who aren’t members of their religion, nor can they use such means to coerce Catholics to follow Catholic tenets. The First Amendment guarantees FREEDOM of religion, and no religious body or leader may use state means to compel people to follow creedal tenets.
• The present brouhaha on the part of the Catholic bishops is a result of two things:
  • The continuing serious paedophilia scandal amongst Catholic clergy
  • The almost-complete disregard of Catholic teaching on artificial contraception by lay Catholics.

In short, the konvertsy who’re jumping up-and-down about an attack on religious freedom are all wet (as per usual). In any case, we do NOT agree with the Catholics on this one (just as we disagree with them on marriage/divorce, clerical celibacy, and papal supremacy/papal infallibility). The world’s far worse off because GWB chose to go to war. That’s simple. A war in defence of the motherland is one thing… an aggressive war to fatten the boodle bags of the McMansion dwellers is quite another. God do help us all (do note which clergy make excuses for the Neocon Republicans and their doctrine of perpetual warfare)…

11 September 2011

Novinite.com

Sofia News Agency

http://www.novinite.com/oppinion_get3.php?id=456&s=0