JISHOU, HUNAN — The Rifqa Bary saga continues, but I fear there will be a tragic ending to an already tragic story.

Bary, the Christian convert teen who ran away from home last year alleging her Muslim parents would kill her, apparently is rejecting chemotherapy for her uterine cancer, claiming she was cured by a faith healer. She is also rejecting a reunion with her family, whom law enforcement officials say pose no threat to her safety.

The teenager became a poster child for the anti-Muslim and/or born-again religious crowd after she ran away from her Columbus home to Orlando, Florida, claiming her parents would kill her because of her conversion to Christianity three years before she fled. She eventually ended up in foster care back in Ohio.

In May, the 17-year-old Sri Lankan native was diagnosed with uterine cancer, and has since had three operations.

According to news reports, documents filed by her parents in Franklin County Court state that Bary is refusing chemotherapy because she claims she was healed at an event in Youngstown last month. She was allegedly taken there without her parents’ consent, and her parents want the court to force Bary to undergo chemotherapy if she needs it.

A judge will decide on the parents’ motion today.

Meanwhile, Bary, who turns 18 next week, has refused to meet with her family. Her lawyers say the girl fears her parents still.

[Oh, ye of little faith. But I digress.]

August 3rd, 2010 | Tags: cancer, Christian, Islam, Muslim, ohio, religion, Rifqa Bary | Category: Civil liberties, Commentary, religion | Leave a comment

[UPDATE: THE LANDMARKS COMMISSION DID INDEED DENY LANDMARK STATUS TO 45 PARK PLACE. THE NEWS HAD IT RIGHT.]

Like I said already, New Yorkers are not stupid bigots.

According to the New York Daily News, the City Landmarks Commission will not block the razing of an old building to construct a Muslim-financed community center two blocks from the World Trade Center site.

Fire-breathing opponents to the project, led by dragonmasters Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, were banking on the Landmarks commissioners to put the kabosh on Park 51 Project, a community center that would include (oh, noez!) a mosque. Geller, Spencer and other Muslim haters were pressuring the commissioners to protect the historic value of the existing 152-year building at 45 Park Place in Lower Manhattan.

But it has none. It’s nothing special. From the News:

The Italianate building on Park Place, two blocks north of Ground Zero, simply does not meet architectural criteria for protection from the city, sources with knowledge of the issue said.

 
“The building is not worthy,” a source said. “It does not rise to the level of an individual landmark.”

The new building will probably be a better looking landmark than the heap that’s there now, if this conceptual drawing at right is any indication.

The commission is expected to vote unanimously at its meeting Tuesday morning to let the project continue.

August 2nd, 2010 | Tags: Cordoba Institute, Ground Zero, mosque, Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, World Trade Center | Category: Civil liberties, Commentary, religion | Leave a comment

JISHOU, HUNAN — Now Biblical literalism has spilled over into reading the Constitution literally. A religious group called the Faith and Freedom Institute is complaining because President Barack Obama has used the words “freedom of worship” instead of “freedom of religion.”

They sent him a letter. I predict it ends up in the trash. See for yourself:

Dear President Obama:

 
It is with great concern that we have watched your rhetorical shift in terminology, choosing to use the phrase “freedom of worship” rather than “freedom of religion.” We’ve noted your use of that phrase (“freedom of worship”) at the Ft. Hood memorial service in November of 2009, as well as your utilization of the same during speeches in Japan and China.

 
While some may deem the words “worship” and “religion” to be synonymous, and thus interchangeable, they are most definitely not! The First Amendment of the United States Constitution uses the word “religion” and states unequivocally that Congress cannot prohibit the “free exercise” of said “religion.” Your use of the word “worship” implies that we have freedom ONLY within the confines of structures set aside for religious expression (i.e. churches, synagogues, etc.). This is not only a gross departure from the original intent of the First Amendment, but is also the first step toward eliminating faith expression in the public marketplace (i.e. display of religious symbols on public land, printing of religious materials for the purpose of evangelizing, public discussion of faith, etc.).

 
Mr. President, we call on you to retract all past use of this incorrect and misleading phrase, “freedom of worship,” and cease all future use of the same. We also call on you to acknowledge America’s Christian heritage as is clearly evidenced in our Founding Documents and the overwhelming abundance of statements from our Founding Fathers.

 
Sincerely,

 
The Faith and Freedom Institute

July 24th, 2010 | Tags: Barack Obama, birthers, crazy people, religion | Category: Random rants, religion | Leave a comment

#stupidscientology From Pharyngula: The “Church of” Scientology is upset that some official in Wales called the CoS “stupid” in a tweet. PZ suggests adding the tag “#stupidscientology” to your tweets to protest that CoS is now trying to get the guy fired. I can’t use Twitter from China, so this is my contribution. My WordPress posts are automatically sent out with Twitter.

July 21st, 2010 | Tags: free speech, scientology, twitter, Wales | Category: Civil liberties, Random rants, religion | Leave a comment

JISHOU, HUNAN — I am going off-script here because I am fed up with hearing about the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” in Lower Manhattan.

Let’s get some facts straight first.

I am a native New Yorker. I visited the World Trade Center at least twice before it became a pile of rubble and a tomb for 3,000 people. I was one of the millions of Americans who watched in horror as a part of my hometown – my hometown! — was destroyed live on TV.

The people, the terrorists who committed this horrible act are dead. They were extremists, crazy people. They happened to be crazy Muslim people.

Now, a group of Muslims in NYC want to convert a old, nearby building that was also damaged in the attack into a community center with mosque. Local community officials have approved the plan. The neighbors have no problem with it.

And I don’t either. Read the third and fourth paragraphs again. Then read my lips. I don’t care if they build a mosque near the former WTC site. (I refuse to call it Ground Zero. Sorry if I offend anyone. It’s not fucking Hiroshima.)

Now that we got that straight, it’s time for me to cut loose.

Would all the know-nothing, paranoid, conspiracy-theorist, bigoted, knuckle-dragging idiots just shut the fuck up? Get outta town.Take a long walk off a short pier. Stuff a sock in it. Dry up. Shut yer piehole. Find somebody to fit you with cement boots for a dip in the East River. Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, the Tea Party, Glenn Beck — I mean you! STFU!

July 20th, 2010 | Tags: 9/11, Cordoba Initiative, Islam, mosque, Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, SIOA, WTC | Category: Civil liberties, Random rants, religion | Comments (2)

JISHOU, HUNAN — Fathima Rifqa Bary, 17, who made headlines several months ago after she ran away from her Muslim parents claiming they would kill her as an Islamic apostate, is being treated for uterine cancer.

The Sri Lankan-born high school graduate has had two operations already, and awaits a third.

Bary ran away to Florida in July with the help of a Christian pastor who had befriended her. Once arriving in Orlando, the girl, who says she converted to Christianity at 13, lived with married pastors Blake and Beverly Lorenz for nearly two weeks before the Lorenzes told child welfare officials where Bary was.

In interviews, Bary claimed that her parents were upset with her conversion and that she was afraid that her father would kill her if she returned home. Law enforcement officials from Florida and Ohio, however, reported there was no credible threat to her safety.

Nevertheless, Bary has lived with foster parents in her hometown of Columbus, Ohio, after her court-ordered return to Ohio in October. She turns 18 in August, at which point she will be able to leave foster care.

Her conversion and flight to Florida have become a rallying point for anti-Islamic Christian polemicists, who have used Bary as a “poster child” for honor killings, though there was never any real threat to her life. Meanwhile, they have accused Bary’s parents and their mosque of being Islamic extremists, though again there is no evidence of the allegations.

May 26th, 2010 | Tags: Christian, Florida, Islam, Muslim, ohio, Rifqa Bary | Category: Commentary, religion | Leave a comment