There’s another horrible thing about “Pastor Sean” and his terrible raging sermon. It’s obvious enough but I want to spell it out.

It’s that he’s telling parents to hate what their children are. He’s not telling them to discipline a certain kind of bad behavior, he’s telling them to bully their children if the children are becoming a certain kind of person.

There are some kinds of broad category one would want to try to discourage children from being – mean, or domineering, or self-centered. But other than that, it’s a nasty business rejecting what a child is. Surely a good parent doesn’t do that. Surely a good parent welcomes whatever kind of person emerges as a child grows up.

Oh well, I suppose it’s otiose to belabor the point. Obviously the man has a painfully narrow impoverished idea of human possibilities and a panicky need to impose conformity everywhere. Obviously he wants girls to look like Barbie dolls and boys to look like extras in a Discover channel show about guns or motorcycles or gold mining or lumberjacking or crab fishing or dirty jobs. But still. It’s depressing that he really does want to squash all the ones who don’t fit.

Lots of erm discussion of the new executive director of the Secular Coalition for America (replacing Sean Faircloth who left to go to work for the RDF). She’s a Republican, and not just a Republican, but an insider, an operative.

From 2001-2002, Rogers served as an Economic Advisor for President George W. Bush at the White House, at the National Economic Council, where she focused on health and social security policy. She also worked on International Trade matters for President George H. W. Bush at the Department of Commerce from 1989 until 1991.

Rogers served as General Counsel to the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 1994. She worked for Senator Lott while he was Majority Leader in 1999 and she handled health policy for Senator Sessions in 2003 and 2004.

Um.

Hemant did an interview with her.

Why should we trust you now to work for us after a career spent working for people who seem to be actively against us?

I think it’s a misconception that the majority of Republicans are lined up against the secular movement. As someone who has been an insider within the Republican Party, I’m certain it’s not the consensus of the majority of Republicans to have an [overt] influence of religion on our laws. Having said that, no one agrees with everyone they work with on every single issue. In these roles I never worked on anything having to do with issues of religion — I worked primarily on economic issues.

It’s not the consensus of the majority of Republicans to have an overt influence of religion on our laws? Well I can’t believe that, said Alice.

I do think that for the vast majority of conservatives and Republicans, they are true believers of secularism — the majority of Republicans believe in the separation of church and state.

Yeah I don’t believe that, either. If that were true they would have done something about it by now.

One of the issues the atheist community has struggled with, especially lately, has been getting more women involved in our movement.  Do you think your role with the SCA can help change that?

Of course, I think me being female will help recruit women and I am going to make it a priority to get more women involved. I will be speaking at the Women in Secularism conference on the 19^th of this month.

Oh – I didn’t know that. Interesting.

The pastor who gave the sermon telling people (that is, fathers) to punch their sons if they see them “dropping the limp wrist” and to shout at their daughters if they are “too butch” - Sean Harris – is complaining on Twitter that his apology is being spurned. So I looked for and found his “apology.” He has a blog – we are colleagues! – and he blogged his apology. Or clarification. It’s probably not really an apology since the words “sorry” and “apologize” and “apology” don’t appear. The closest thing is “apologetics” in the left margin, and that ain’t close enough. Maybe that’s why his “apology” is being spurned: it’s not one.*

By now you may know that my words, from Sunday morning’s sermon, about effeminate behavior in children are being completely taken out of context by those in the LGBT community. (Nearly every article is misquoting me.)

Alex Aan could get up to 11 years in prison for “blasphemy.”

His case has stoked a debate in the world’s most populous Muslim nation, whose 240 million citizens are technically guaranteed freedom of religion but protected by law only if they believe in one of six credos: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Hinduism. Those who question any of those face five years in prison for “insulting a major religion”, plus an additional six years if they use the internet to spread such “blasphemy” to others.

I don’t see how that’s freedom of religion at all, technically or otherwise. I think the word should be “ostensibly.” If you can get 5 years in the slammer for questioning a religion and 11 for doing it on the intertubes, that’s not freedom.

The Economist raps Dan Savage over the knuckles.

Mr Savage was making one valid point and one sloppy one. The former: people who justify anti-gay bigotry by brandishing a Bible but ignore other, less convenient biblical prohibitions (the list might also include mixed fabrics and divorce) are hypocrites. The latter: people quick to condemn ought not to be so quick to take offence. The problem with the latter point is that however true it is in the abstract, it was not necessarily true in the particular. No evidence exists that the students who walked out ever condemned or bullied anyone. However poorly Mr Savage may have been treated in high school, it was not by the students in the audience, and they deserved more from a famous and accomplished journalist than derision.

But the point wasn’t that the students themselves are quick to condemn, it was that many Christians are and they justify it with the Bible. The walkout started as soon as he said that, before he even said “bullshit,” so the students were making a show of disapproval for Savage’s claim. That’s the point. Not that they themselves bully, but that they’re demonstrating support for those who do. They’re walking out in solidarity with the principle of bible-based bullying.

And they didn’t really deserve more than the very mild derision of Savage’s remark. They did stage a showy and often giggly walkout by way of dissent from what he was saying, and they did deserve a little derision in return.

The Economist almost concedes as much right after the knuckle-rap.

 (He could, of course, have opted to make a broader point: that nobody should be so quick to take offence; that journalists will hear a lot of things over the course of a career that they find offensive and even hurtful, and walking out anytime that happens will result in a short career and a narrow mind; that, however ugly his language Mr Savage was at least advancing arguments, and that surely at least one of those offended souls hoping to make a life out of words could have found a few to hurl back at him rather than just flouncing out in a huff.)

“Bullshit” really isn’t all that ugly, and ”pansy ass” isn’t really all that insulting in response to people flouncing out in a huff.

A pastor gives some advice to parents on how to police their children’s genders. With boys you’re supposed to give them a good punch. With girls you’re supposed to call them sweetheart and then shout as loud as you can. That’s gender-modeling right there: punching for boys, sweetheart + shouting for girls.

So your little son starts to act a little girlish when he is four years old and instead of squashing that like a cockroach and saying, “Man up, son, get that dress off you and get outside and dig a ditch, because that’s what boys do”

pause

you get out the camera and you start taking pictures of Johnny acting like a female [heavy disgusted emphasis] and then you upload it to YouTube and everybody laughs about it and the next thing you know, this dude, this kid is acting out childhood fantasies that should have been squashed.

Can I make it any clearer? Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist.

Man up. Give him a good punch. Ok? You are not going to act like that. You were made by God to be a male and you’re going to be a male.

And when your daughter starts acting too butch you rein her in. And you say, “Oh, no, oh no, sweetheart. You can play sports. Play’em, play’em to the glory of God. But sometimes you are going to act like a girl and [with ever-increasing emphasis] walk like a girl and talk like a girl and smell like a girl and that means you are going to be beautiful. You are going to be attractive. You are going to dress yourself up.”

You say, “Can I take charge like that as a parent?” Yeah, you can. You are authorized. I just gave you a special dispensation this morning to do that.

The violence is disgusting and the policing is disgusting – but I have to admit I take the girl-policing personally. The policing of boys is horrible but at least they’re policed to be strong and tough and useful. Girls are policed to be “beautiful” and “attractive” and to dress themselves up. They’re policed to be feeble and dainty (walk like a girl, talk like a girl) so that men can bully other men by calling them girls, meaning feeble and dainty.

I didn’t know May Day had been rejigged to be Loyalty Day. It happened in the Ford administration, I’m told. Maybe something to do with being the totally unelected president.

Anyway, it has, so belated happy Loyalty Day. Did you have a Loyalty cake? Or a Loyalty turkey? Or Loyalty fireworks? What does one do for Loyalty Day, anyway? We know what we do for May Day: we hit the streets; but Loyalty Day, not so much.

Obama wishes us a happy Loyalty Day.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 1, 2012, as Loyalty Day. This Loyalty Day, I call upon all the people of the United States to join in support of this national observance, whether by displaying the flag of the United States or pledging allegiance to the Republic for which it stands.

Oh, I see, that’s what you do for Loyalty Day. You display the flag or you pledge allegiance. You could probably do both, although he makes it one or the other.

Yeah. Prayer Day and Loyalty Day. No thanks.

A little more on Rothamsted Research and its wheat trial.

It’s a research facility founded in the 19th century. It’s a charity and a company. Its funding is laid out on its corporate information page.

Rothamsted Research is a grouping of private organisations and is one of seven institutes sponsored by the  Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). Rothamsted Research is a charity and a company  limited by guarantee and occupies land and buildings owned by the Lawes Agricultural Trust. The Rothamsted Research Association is an independent body that facilitates interaction and dialogue between researchers, especially those at Rothamsted, and practitioners in the agri-environment sector.

Sources of income as percentages for 2010/11 (total £29m) are shown in the figure below:

I hope that helps.

Well done anti-vaxxers – another triumph for public health. There are more than 200 confirmed cases of measles in the outbreak on Merseyside.

There are 210 confirmed cases, 39 of which needed hospital treatment. Ninety two cases are under investigation.

About 50% of the cases are in children under five years old.

The outbreak, which is concentrated on Liverpool where there are 125 confirmed cases, is the largest since the MMR vaccine was introduced.

Strange, isn’t it. There’s an effective vaccine for measles. You’d think it would be going away, not coming back.

Dr Roberto Vivancos, a Health Protection Agency consultant, said: “It’s obvious from these statistics that people who are not fully vaccinated are not just at risk themselves, but they pose an infection risk to others, such as defenceless babies and toddlers who are too young to be vaccinated.

“Measles is a very infectious illness that spreads rapidly amongst children and adults who are not protected by MMR vaccine.

“It is also a serious illness that can lead to serious complications. On rare occasions, people die from measles.

“It should not be treated lightly, but it is an avoidable illness and we strongly advise parents to ensure that their children are vaccinated.”

Fascist! It’s every parent’s right to refuse to get children vaccinated. Our ancestors died to protect our right to refuse to get children vaccinated; the right to be infected and to spread infection to others is sacred and cannot be abrogated.