THIS WEEK IN ATHEISM AND
RELIGION...
It's
not often you get to hear good news coming out from the 'ex-gay'
movement (the guys who claim that homosexuality is some sort of
illness curable by Jesus, or what have you), so this story is one I'm
happy to be writing about. John Paulk, the poster boy for this
particularly noxious movement and founder of the Love Won Out
ministry, has issued a formal statement revealing that he is still gay and denouncing the idea of gay reparative therapy.
His statement doesn't pull any punches: Paulk seems keen to distance
himself from the movement he was once so closely associated with and
is quoted as saying “I do not believe that reparative
therapy changes sexual orientation; in fact, it does great harm to
many people.”
To come out like this, to
admit you were wrong about something you once defined yourself by so
strongly, takes a lot of courage, so hats off to Mister Paulk. Gay
reparative advocates will be going full damage control on this one,
but this revelation has struck a serious blow to their credibility.
Not that they had much to
begin with.
-
If only all friends were as
awesome as the one featured in this story. Alexis Smith is suing the Northwest Rankin High School on behalf of a friend,
whose age means that she has to sue through someone who is legally an
adult. The school, through the influence of a large evangelical
Baptist Church called Pinelake that has managed to gain a lot of sway
in the Rankin County School District, brought about an assembly that
What Would JT Do? describes:
“The school did not tell
students in advance what the purpose of the assemblies were, nor did
it allow them to opt out. All three assemblies consisted of the same
Christian video and presentation. The focus of the assembly was how
the students could find “hope” in Jesus, since they couldn’t
find hope elsewhere... One senior recorded the entire assembly on a
cellphone. Faculty and parents stood by the door to the room where
the assembly was held, preventing students from leaving. Several
students actually did try to leave, and were told to sit back down by
the school’s truancy officer. The assemblies all ended with a group
prayer.”
Fans of the United States
constitution might currently be gesticulating wildly at the First
Amendment and making angry noises, and you'd be damn right to do so.
Hence why it's awesome that more people are beginning to take a stand
on this issue. Religious groups have no grounds to pull this sort of
stunt, and so the more people call them out and challenge them on it
the less likely they are to attempt it.
Kudos to the unnamed student
for raising this important issue, and major kudos to Smith for being
so willing to stand by a friend when they need support. This sort of
action makes a difference.
THIS WEEK IN
SCEPTICISM...
The libel suit against
author and scientist Simon Singh by the British Chiropractic
Association has become the stuff of legend amongst sceptics the world
over; the BCA's attempts to silence criticism through legislation
backfired massively and led to a huge surge of support for Singh that
ultimately trigger a change in the libel laws of Britain. It was a
great example of reason and evidence stepping into the arena with
pseudoscience, and even Britain's shitty libel laws couldn't help the
proponents of nonsense.
But I don't think everybody
realises just how massive a gamble Singh took when he decided to
fight this case. Fortunately Nick Cohen of The Spectator does, and he can tell you all about it in this article.
It contains extracts from Cohen's You Can't Read This Book,
which sums up the whole thing brilliantly so I'll just go ahead and
quote it here:
“After
hearing the judge’s ruling, Singh’s friends, his lawyers and
everyone else who had his best interests at heart advised him to get
out of the madhouse of the law while he still could. He had already
risked £100,000 of his own money. If he fought the case, it would
obsess his every waking moment for a year, possibly longer, and he
could lose ten times that amount if the verdict went against him.
Even if he won, he would still lose, because another peculiarity of
the English law is that the victor cannot recoup his full costs. It
was as if the judiciary had put Singh in a devil’s version of Who
Wants to be a Millionaire?...
...No
one would have blamed him for backing down. There would have been no
dishonour in withdrawing from the fray. Thousands of publishers and
writers in England and beyond have looked at the cost and biases of
the English law and thought surrender the only option. Singh said
that if he were a twenty-five-year-old with no money he would have
apologised. But his bestselling books had given him financial
independence. He resolved to refuse to put his name to a lie by
authorising an apology. He knew what his enemies would do with it.
Ernst and Singh had spent years investigating alternative medicine.
No potential patient would spend more than a few days doing the same.
If he apologised, chiropractic therapists would wave his retraction
at potential patients, and say that Singh had admitted that their
philosophy was not gibberish, and their claims to treat children were
not bogus. As shamefully, an apology would also make Singh complicit
in silencing other journalists, scientists and editors, who would
think hard before challenging alternative therapists after seeing how
the law had forced him to retract.”
So
Simon Singh fought the case, even with the looming threat of losing
and having the pants sued off him by the BCA. And he won; the
outpouring of support for his cause and condemnation for the
despicable attempts at censorship by the BCA was massive. Their
attempts to justify their beliefs were torn apart by bloggers and
medical journals. Petitions in support of Singh and against the libel
laws were launched. Over 500 separate complaints against
chiropractors within one 24-hour period, and that later rose to a
quarter of all British chiropractors. In short, it was a catastrofuck
for every chiropractor in the UK; as one of them put it, “suing Simon was worse than any Streisand effect and chiropractors know itand can do nothing about it.”
Singh
seems like a pretty modest man; from the way Cohen describes it he's
not keen to be put on a pedestal. Nonetheless he stood his ground and
fought a case most would have run from, and in doing so helped change
the laws of Britain for the better, so I agree with Nick Cohen in
saying he does deserve all the praise he gets for this case.
That's
all for this week in Atheism, Religion and Scepticism, folks. See you
next time.
