Showing posts with label discrimination. Show all posts
Showing posts with label discrimination. Show all posts

Wednesday 27 January 2016

A stain of shame for the European Union

Relief map of Europe and surrounding regions
Relief map of Europe and surrounding regions (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A smudge of shame unto Europe by the Danish lawmakers who voted on Tuesday in favour of controversial legislation empowering authorities to seize cash and valuables from asylum seekers to help cover their expenses.

Such a law not only discriminates people willing to enter a country of the European Union, it also creates  a possibility for police constables to steal from those entering the country.

When the police officers may seize valuables worth more than 10,000 Danish kroner (about $1,453) and are given the choice to take off items which they do consider of no "special sentimental value" such as "wedding rings, engagement rings, family portraits, decorations and medals" opening is given to lots of variety.

Once more in Europe the extreme right is given more power to put certain groups of people in the corner and to threaten them.

Monday 13 July 2015

Believing in God part of being American for Discriminating Americans who feel discrimiated

"And don't ye forget it" Sign in Jac...
"And don't ye forget it" Sign in Jackson, Mississippi for "Trinity Gospel Fellowship" has lettering "AMERICA IS STILL A CHRISTIAN NATION" (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute released new data on American perspectives on what makes someone truly American and what makes the U.S. unique in the world.
 The survey found that a majority (63 percent) of Americans believe that protests challenging unfair treatment by the government make the country a better place. However, perspectives among white Americans on protests change dramatically when the protesters are identified as black. Two-thirds (67 percent) of white Americans believe that public protests against mistreatment by the government improve the country, but fewer than half (48 percent) of whites say the same when asked specifically about black Americans speaking out against mistreatment.

The nationwide survey of 1,007 adults was conducted from June 10 to June 14, 2015. The survey measures public views on patriotism, the role that protest plays in improving our country, what makes someone “truly American,” America’s moral standing, discrimination against Christians in the U.S. and immigration.

the idea that Americans believe they are a preferred nation by God is confirmed by the ciphers of the review. More than six in ten (62 percent) Americans believe that God has granted the country a special role in human history.

We also know the Americans to be a proud race, finding their country the best in the world. They often also carry strange ideas about other countries which do not coincide with reality. but even when some things may be better in other countries 63 percent of U.S. adults say there has never been a time when they were not proud to be an American. At the same time, only 43 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. sets a good moral example for the world, while 53 percent disagree.

About those morals and ethics is a lot of discussion going on in the Christian American community. Several Christians there do believe they are the higher race and the better people of the world. They also consider that those who want to come to live in America should all take on their own belief, which they consider the only true faith.

Though there they seem to be in conflict with themselves and their nation, because most Americans do not believe the U.S. is a Christian nation any more. Often they want to refer to their founding fathers being real Christians having founded their Christian Nation. But with the years they do find the government went astray from the ruling of the pilgrims and founding fathers.
Only about one-third (35 percent) say that the U.S. is a Christian nation today, while 14 percent say that the U.S. has never been a Christian nation. Nearly half (45 percent) of the public believes that it once was a Christian nation but is not any-more. However, among Americans who believe the U.S. is no longer a Christian nation, most (61 percent) say this change is a bad thing.

Close to seven in ten (69 percent) say that believing in God is essential to a truly American identity.  those who do not belief in God the Christian way of trinitarianism, can not be real believers nor real Americans. Not accepting the trinity seems blasphemy for most Americans, who do not seem to know there are many sorts of non-trinitarian religious groups.
“Young adults are roughly half as likely as seniors to say that being Christian is an important part of the American identity. Young adults are also much less likely to believe the U.S. is a Christian nation, an idea largely embraced by older Americans.”
says Dan Cox, Research Director at Public Religion Research Institute.

Younger and older Americans disagree sharply over what they believe is central to being American. While roughly two-thirds (66 percent) of seniors (age 65 and older) say that being a Christian is an important part of being American, only about one-third (35 percent) of young adults (age 18 to 29) agree. More than three-quarters (77 percent) of seniors say believing in God is an important part of the American identity, while young people are closely divided: 52 percent say that believing in God is an important part of being American, while 45 percent say that it is not. A significant divide also exists when it comes to place of birth. While 67 percent of seniors say that being born in the U.S. is important, fewer than half (45 percent) of young Americans agree.

When we do hear Americans protesting about the ways going on in their country and how they do not like it how the government handles religious issues we can find under the forty-nine percent of the Americans surveyed, who believe that discrimination against Christians is becoming as big of a problem as discrimination against other groups, we see that most of them can not stand it that others have different ideas about faith than they. Lots of American Christians would like to see all Christians all over the world to think like they. Those who only believe in the One True God Jehovah, can not be real Christians according lots of them, because Jesus is God and was the first Christian killed by the Jews, which are trying to conquer the world again.


Out of all the white evangelical Protestants surveyed, 70 percent said Christian discrimination has become a serious issue, while just 28 percent disagreed. Several evangelical protestants do not like to argue and consider each discussion about their faith as an attack on their faith but also as an attack on the American freedom of speech, though they do not want others to give their right of speech.

We also see that after 9/11 the stand against Muslims has not yet improved much. Many consider the Islam a great danger and even think their president has Muslim connections which he hides to bring in the Muslim warriors and give them more power.
 
The Polling Company for the Center for Security Policy (CSP), suggests that a substantial number of Muslims living in the United States see the country very differently than does the population overall.  The sentiments of the latter were sampled in late May in another CSP-commissioned Polling Company nationwide survey.
 
According to the just-released survey of Muslims, a majority (51%) agreed that “Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to shariah.”  This is naturally a matter which would bring lots of Americans and Europeans to have their ears and eyes wide open questioning the liberty of men and women. When that question was put to the broader U.S. population, the overwhelming majority held that shariah should not displace the U.S. Constitution (86% to 2%).

We do think Americans are probably too much worried because more than half (51%) of U.S. Muslims polled also believe either that they should have the choice of American or shariah courts. Though they could have reason when there are also may who think they should have their own tribunals to apply shariah, because only 39% of those polled said that Muslims in the U.S. should be subject to American courts.

These notions were powerfully rejected by the broader population according to the Center’s earlier national survey.  It found by a margin of 92%-2% that Muslims should be subject to the same courts as other citizens, rather than have their own courts and tribunals in the U.S.

Several Christians want to ring the alarm bell because according to them it is estimated that the number of Muslims in the United States was 2.75 million in 2011, and growing at a rate of 80-90 thousand a year.
If those estimates are accurate, the United States would have approximately 3 million Muslims today.  That would translate into roughly 300,000 Muslims living in the United States who believe that shariah is “The Muslim God Allah’s law that Muslims must follow and impose worldwide by Jihad.” {Poll of U.S. Muslims Reveals Ominous Levels Of Support For Islamic Supremacists’ Doctrine of Shariah, Jihad}
People unaffiliated with Christianity leaned more toward discrimination not being as big of a problem as discrimination against other groups, as 59 percent disagreed with the statement with only 34 percent agreeing.

Tuesday 28 October 2014

Idaho wedding chapel to either perform same-sex weddings or face jail time and up to $1,000 in fines

English: Protesters gathered inside the state ...
Protesters gathered inside the state capitol building in St. Paul, Minnesota, to protest against the upcoming vote by the Minnesota House of Representatives to put an anti-gay marriage amendment on the 2012 election ballot. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
in the Prophecy Newswatch writes that two Christian ministers who own an Idaho wedding chapel were told they had to either perform same-sex weddings or face jail time and up to $1,000 in fines, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court.
 
It is strange of a country which runs so high about Freedom of speech such measures can be taken. Nobody obliges those who want to marry to go to that specific church or to have only that specific minister to wed them or to perform any church service.  Normally you would think in the United States everybody is free to chose his own church and to go to any church of whatever denomination.
So, I wonder what can be the problem and why ministers who have a certain faith and want to keep to their faith should be punished not willing to marry certain people. Why do they not go to another church?

The two ordained ministers Donald and Evelyn Knapp, who own the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel in Coeur d’Alene are at risk of being prosecuted attorney Jeremy Tedesco told Todd Starnes.

Clearly those wanting to go in patrimony should know that the wedding chapel is registered as a “religious corporation” limited to performing “one-man-one-woman marriages as defined by the Holy Bible.”

However, the chapel is also a for-profit business and city officials said that means the owners must comply with the local non-discrimination ordinance.

That ordinance, passed in 2013, prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and it applies to housing, employment and public accommodation. But unto me religious services as weddings to not fall under such a rule of housing, employement or public accomodation, because it is not that institution which has to accommodate the married people in their belongings.

City Attorney Warren Wilson told The Spokesman-Review in May that the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel likely would be required to follow the ordinance.

“I would think that the Hitching Post would probably be considered a place of public accommodation that would be subject to the ordinance,” he said.
 
He also told television station KXLY that any wedding chapel that turns away a gay couple would in theory be a violation of the law “and you’re looking at a potential misdemeanor citation.”

Wilson confirmed to Knapp in a telephone conversation that even ordained ministers would be required to perform same-sex weddings, the lawsuit alleges.

“Wilson also responded that Mr. Knapp was not exempt from the ordinance because the Hitching Post was a business and not a church,” the lawsuit states.

And if he refused to perform the ceremonies, Wilson reportedly told the minister that he could be fined up to $1,000 and serve up to 180 days in jail.

Now all of that was a moot point because until last week gay marriage was not legal in Idaho.

The Ninth Circuit issued an order on May 13 allowing same-sex marriages to commence in Idaho on Oct. 15. Two days later – the folks at the Hitching Post received a telephone call.

A man had called to inquire about a same-sex wedding ceremony. The Hitching Post declined – putting them in violation of the law.

City officials did not respond to my requests for an interview nor did they respond to requests from local news outlets.

“The government should not force ordained ministers to act contrary to their faith under threat of jail time and criminal fines,” Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Jeremy Tedesco said. “The city is on seriously flawed legal ground, and our lawsuit intends to ensure that this couple’s freedom to adhere to their own faith as pastors is protected just as the First Amendment intended.”

Alliance Defending Freedom also filed a temporary restraining order to stop the city from enforcing the ordinance.

“The Knapps are in fear that if they exercise their First Amendment rights they will be cited, prosecuted and sent to jail,” Tedesco told Starnes.

It’s hard to believe this could happen in the United States. But as the lawsuit states, the couple is in a “constant state of fear that they may have to go to jail, pay substantial fines, or both, resulting in them losing the business that God has called them to operate and which they have faithfully operated for 25 years.”

The lawsuit comes the same week that the city of Houston issued subpoenas demanding that five Christian pastors turn over sermons dealing with homosexuality and gender identity.

What in heaven’s name is happening to our country, folks? I was under the assumption that churches and pastors would not be impacted by same-sex marriage.

“The other side insisted this would never happen – that pastors would not have to perform same-sex marriages,” Tedesco told me. “The reality is – it’s already happening.”

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, told me it’s “open season on Americans who refuse to bow to the government’s redefinition of marriage.”

“Americans are witnesses to the reality that redefining marriage is less about the marriage altar and more about fundamentally altering the freedoms of the other 98 percent of Americans,” Perkins said.

Why should evangelical Christian ministers be forced to perform and celebrate any marriage that conflicts with their beliefs?

“This is the brave new world of government sanctioned same-sex unions – where Americans are forced to celebrate these unions regardless of their religious beliefs,” Perkins told Todd Starnes.

As Todd Starnes writes his new book, “God Less America,” we are living in a day when those who support traditional marriage are coming under fierce attack.

The incidents in Houston and now in Coeur d’Alene are the just the latest examples of a disturbing trend in the culture war – direct attacks on clergy.

“Government officials are making clear they will use their government power to punish those who oppose the advances of homosexual activists,” Perkins said.

I’m afraid Mr. Perkins is absolutely right.

Whenever a city passes a nondiscrimination ordinance it seems like it’s open season on Christians.

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Saturday 23 August 2014

Walgelijk vrij lastig vallen van Indische vrouwen

Enkele maanden geleden werden weer eens twee jonge meisjes werden opgeknoopt aan een boom na een groepsverkrachting in de weilanden rond hun huis in India, en een minister van de regeringspartij heeft gereageerd door te zeggen dat verkrachting "een sociale misdaad is... soms is het goed, soms is het verkeerd."

Hoe zou zo iets ooit 'goed' kunnen zijn?
Het is walgelijk! Maar dit incident is geen uitzondering.
Alaphia is zelf aangevallen voor de ogen van hoge politieagenten, en ze deden niets. Zij weet dat het systeem de vrouwen van India aan hun lot overlaat. Maar zij,ik en nog enkele anderen denken dat wij hier samen verandering in kunnen brengen.
English: Varanasi, India as seen from Ganga river.
English: Varanasi, India as seen from Ganga river. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Het verkiezingsprogramma van de nieuwe leider van Alaphia haar land draaide om de belofte om van de heilige stad waar hij verkozen is, Varanasi, opnieuw een grote toeristische trekpleister te maken. Als wij met miljoenen mensen wereldwijd samenkomen om op te roepen tot de bescherming van vrouwen, en de stad van premier Modi hiermee volplakken, zal hij stappen moeten zetten om zijn toerismeplan te kunnen redden.

Een dergelijke advertentiecampagne heeft nog nooit eerder plaatsgevonden in India. Maar dit is een nationale crisis die drastische maatregelen vergt.


Teken nu -- laten we twee miljoen mensen bijeenbrengen om van Modi te eisen dat hij de meisjes en vrouwen van India beschermt:

https://secure.avaaz.org/nl/womanifesto_modi_ob/?bIyfhib&v=41939

Toen de meisjes van 14 en 15 vermist raakten, ging de vader van één van hen naar de politie en smeekte hen op handen en knieën om iets te doen. Ze lachten hem uit en stuurden hem terug naar huis. Talloze gezinnen in India die met deze nachtmerrie geconfronteerd worden, krijgen te maken met dit soort schandalige passiviteit van de politie. Na de internationale opschudding zijn uiteindelijk vijf mannen gearresteerd en twee politieagenten geschorst. Maar elke 22 minuten wordt iemand verkracht in India, en de politie, de rechterlijke macht, en zelfs ministers laten ons in de steek!
Voor de verkiezingen was er een massale beweging op gang gekomen om dringende maatregelen af te dwingen om geweld tegen vrouwen te stoppen. Deskundigen stelden een "Womanifesto" op -- een plan gebaseerd op gezond verstand met hoognodige hervormingen om een einde te maken aan de verkrachtingsepidemie. Het gaat in op wetgeving, politiewerk, medische en psychologische ondersteuning, en het allerbelangrijkste -- onderwijs en voorlichting. Andere belangrijke partijen hebben hun naam eronder gezet, maar Modi negeerde het.

Zelfs het personeel van Modi staat achter de hoofdmoot van het plan. Nu moet Modi het alleen nog uitvoeren.

Tot nu toe heeft Modi nog niets gezegd over de beledigende uitspraken van zijn partijgenoot, maar de president van India heeft aangegeven dat deze nieuwe regering “een zerotolerancebeleid voert wat betreft geweld tegen vrouwen.” Laten we een grootschalige petitie opzetten en Varanasi volplakken met aanplakbiljetten om op te roepen tot onmiddellijke vertaling van deze belofte in een actieplan. Teken nu:


https://secure.avaaz.org/nl/womanifesto_modi_ob/?bIyfhib&v=41939

De schok bij het zien van deze foto kan ons verlammen met bedroefdheid, of het kan ons aanzetten tot actie. Overal in mijn land eisen vrouwen dat er een einde komt aan deze cultuur van verkrachtingen, en zij strijden om tot gelijkheid en veiligheid voor iedereen te komen. Alsjeblieft, sluit je bij ons aan om dit geweld te stoppen!

Met hoop, 

Marcus en Alaphia, met het Avaaz-team

Thursday 28 July 2011

Consequences of Breivik's mass murder

Breivik's mass shooting on the holiday island of Utoeya targeted youth members of Norway's Labour Party, which heads a relatively pro-immigrant, pro-multicultural government in coalition with the Socialist Left Party and the Center Party.
Utøya - killing spree's sequence of events ins...
Utøya - killing spree's sequence of events inscribed onto the island (Photo credit: quapan)


Breivik's actions could help the current government, and in particular the Labour Party, analysts said.
"In the short term, the parties are not going to touch the immigration issue ... I think it's going to make politicians quite cautious in their wording, their rhetoric," said Hanne Marthe Narud, political science professor at Oslo University.


"In a time of tragedy, voters normally flock around the established parties, particularly those in office. The Labour Party has been particularly harmed by this, and the way the prime minister has acted is extremely good. His popularity will spill over to the Labour Party," she added.

Norway's Muslim leaders were hopeful for the future, seeing Breivik's violent call for Europe to shun Muslims as actually more likely to bring Muslims and Christians together.
"I think minorities will think of themselves as more Norwegian ... religion, ethnicity, color will go into the background. The Norwegian identity will be strengthened," said Mehtab Afsar, Islamic Council of Norway general-secretary.
"We are standing shoulder to shoulder with our Christian brothers and sisters in Norway," he added.

Breivik_GP3
Breivik_GP3 (Photo credit: Uppdragsmedia)

Read more:

  1. Breivik geen enkeling

  2. Christian fundamentalism as dangerous as Muslim fundamentalism

  3. Problems by losing the borders

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    2013 update:

    Breivik, held in isolation in a high security prison near Oslo for killing 77 people in twin attacks in 2011, placed an application to create an association he wanted to call "The Norwegian fascist party and the Nordic league."
    But Mette Siri Brønmo, a spokeswoman for the body that registers such applications, told the Aftenposten daily that Breivik's bid fell short of the legal requirements.
    "To be an association, you need to have two people or more ... and in this case, there's only Breivik," she said.

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Wednesday 27 July 2011

Religion, fundamentalism and murder

The self-confessed mass murderer of 76 people in Norway was an apparently normal youth who showed no signs of what he was planning even in the months right before the massacre, his ex-stepmother Tove Oevermo told The Associated Press.

Oevermo and Breivik's father divorced 10 years later, around the time Breivik claims, in his 1,500-page manifesto, that he became estranged from his father. Oevermo, 66, recalled the split, but declined to comment on what precipitated it. She did say, however, that she got the feeling Breivik wanted to have a relationship with his father, though he never spoke of their relationship.

Breivik would often speak of a book he was writing, Oevermo said. He was proud of the book, but was evasive about its contents.

Breivik spoke about politics "like every normal person does, not more than that. He never touch Islam and this hatred for it he must have had for it," Oevermo said.
As for the attack itself, Oevermo said she was horrified to learn the "quite informed and well spoken" man she had known.
"People say, 'I'm shocked.' They don't know what shock is all about, physically and psychologically. It was so unreal. I couldn't believe it. I refused to believe it," she said. "If I'd had some kind of suspicion — some kind of idea that something was not right with him, it would have been easier, I think."

Not only in Italy were there is still a strong fascist group we could find some reactions to think of.

A politician in a party in Italy's governing coalition called some of Norway massacre suspect Anders Behring Breivik's ideas "great" while the leader of a British far-right group to which Breivik claims links called the attacks a sign of "growing anger" in Europe against Muslim immigrants.

Mario Borghezio, a European parliamentarian who belongs to Italy's right-wing Northern League party, told a mainstream Italian radio station that he sympathized with some of Breivik's ideas.
"Some of the ideas he expressed are good, barring the violence, some of them are great," he told Il Sole-24 Ore radio station.
The Northern League, the junior partner in Premier Silvio Berlusconi's government, has caused a stir with its increasingly virulent anti-immigrant, anti-Islamic rhetoric.
Meanwhile, Stephen Lennon, leader of the English Defense League, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he does not condone Breivik's rampage but "the fact that so many people are scared - people have to listen to that."
"People should look at what happened in Oslo and understand that there is growing anger in Europe," said Lennon, 28. "You suppress people's rights you suppress people's voices and people will just continue to go underground - but that doesn't make the problem go away."

Also Patrick Buchanan gives us something to look out for, as he wrote:
"Breivik is evil - a cold-blooded, calculating killer - though a deluded man of some intelligence, who in his 1,500-page manifesto reveals a knowledge of the history, culture and politics of Europe. ...
But, awful as this atrocity was, native-born and homegrown terrorism is not the macro-threat to the continent.
That threat comes from a burgeoning Muslim presence in a Europe that has never known mass immigration, its failure to assimilate, its growing alienation, and its sometime sympathy for Islamic militants and terrorists.
With her native-born populations aging, shrinking and dying, Europe's nations have not discovered how to maintain their prosperity without immigrants. Yet the immigrants who have come - from the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia - have been slow to learn the language and have failed to attain the educational and occupational levels of Europeans. And the welfare states of Europe are breaking under the burden. "

*

Mr.Buchanan's writing is the biased idea of the predisposed general people opposing a growing cultural amalgam and a danger and prevention to cultural diversity. It are those ideas which are also a threat for the evolution of a inter-cultural global society
He is clearly creating a soil for anger against something which can only be attributed to a few fundamentalist groups which sickens all the rest.


Others should look out and also be careful for the extreme right wing ideas.

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Read more:

Christian fundamentalism as dangerous as Muslim fundamentalism

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Breivik geen enkeling


Please do also to Read:

Pat Buchanan: Norwegian Right-Wing Terrorist ‘Breivik May Be Right’


and
Related articles
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2013 update:
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