"A thousand bravos… to the brave and dutiful person who attacked the apostate and evil Salman Rushdie in New York," adding, "The hand of the man who tore the neck of God's enemy must be kissed".

[Title: Students at private Sydney school linked to Opus Dei told that masturbation is a disorder, porn puts holes in your brain.
How pressure recruitment is done is also in the article.]

[...]
a piece of sticky tape being passed from girl to girl around the classroom. "By the time it got to the last person, it was handed back to the teacher, and by that point the sticky tape was a bit grotty and not sticky anymore," she says. [...] 'That's what happens to you when you have sex before marriage, when you have multiple partners. You're not useful anymore, you're not valuable anymore, [...] you're dirty and unusable'."
[...]
Students say they were told that watching pornography caused holes in the brain, girls were discouraged from getting a life-saving cancer vaccine, pages on the curriculum were ripped out or redacted from text books, homophobia was rife and there were persistent attempts to recruit school students to Opus Dei.
[...]
HPV cervical cancer vaccine [...] it would promote promiscuity and they were expected to marry as virgins
[...]
masturbation is mentally disordered behaviour, as is homosexuality
[...]
"told that truth and fact is secondary to your ethos."
[...]
told that abortion and the contraceptive pill cause cancer
[...]
shown graphic cartoon videos of abortions without parental consent that showed foetuses with their limbs ripped off, which were inaccurate depictions
[...]
'Men are like cars, it's bad to rev the engine, but then not drive the car or leave it stuck in neutral' [...] focused around teaching us to behave in a certain way that we wouldn't lead men into temptation. [...] that men couldn't control themselves [...] Sex is too powerful an urge to be 'negotiated'. The very notion of rational consent to powerful passions, [...] is absurd [...]"
[...]
constantly told that homosexuality was a grave mortal sin that would damn them to hell
[...]
was encouraged to engage in "self-mortification" — whipping herself
[...]

(Submitter’s Note: This is a quote from a news story.)

“The leader of Falun Gong claims that race mixing in humans is part of an alien plot to drive humanity further from the gods,” says Anna. “He says that when a child is born from an interracial marriage, that child does not have a heavenly kingdom to go to.”

Trump said he ended racial sensitivity training because it was 'racist'

"We were paying people hundreds of thousands of dollars to teach very bad ideas and frankly very sick ideas, and really they were teaching people to hate our country, and I'm not going to do that, I'm not going to allow that to happen," Trump said.

"They were teaching people that our country is a horrible place, it's a racist place, and they were teaching people to hate our country and I'm not going to allow that to happen."

Fanny Alida Beerepoot and her brother Rembertus 'Remmo' Cornelis Beerepoot both refused to pay an estimated $930,000 in income tax on the grounds paying taxes "goes against God's will".

Representing themselves in Hobart's Supreme Court on Wednesday, they said transferring their allegiance from God to the Commonwealth would mean "rebelling against God" and "breaking the first commandment", adding that the payment of taxes was causing Australia to be cursed with "droughts and infertility".

Equality groups have branded comments the Perth Lord Mayor made about transgender people on breakfast radio "repugnant and bigoted".

Basil Zempilas, who was elected to office earlier this month, told listeners of the breakfast show he co-hosts on 6PR it was "wrong" for someone to identify as a different gender to their physical anatomy.

"If you've got a penis mate, you're a bloke," he said yesterday morning.

"If you've got a vagina, you're a woman. Game over."

Mr Zempilas then laughed off a suggestion by co-host Steve Mills that he would likely come into contact with transgender people in his role as Lord Mayor.

Mr Zempilas also called for any women with a penis to ring the radio station for the chance to win a $100 store voucher.

When Mr Mills suggested that people in the wider community may disagree with his stance, Mr Zempilas replied: "Well mate, if you want to go softy, lefty, namby-pamby."

The pair had been discussing an LGBTIQ boxing tournament in Sydney, which led to a debate about parents who did not identify their children as male or female.

A survivor of a cult that killed her daughter and six other people in a remote village in Panama has described how she was ordered to close her eyes and beaten and knocked unconscious during the ritual.

Dina Blanco's account suggests the 14 surviving participants were helpless, bound, unconscious or sightless much of the time.

So the truth about what happened in the bizarre ceremony may only come out at the trials of the nine villagers charged with killing their neighbours in the hamlet of El Terron last week.

Speaking from her hospital bed in the nearest city, Santiago, Ms Blanco said she had gone to previous prayer meetings at the improvised church in a long wooden shed.

But this time, the tone had changed, and she did not go willingly.

The cult, which had operated in the village for about three months, changed after a member had a vision, telling the lay preachers they had been "anointed" to exterminate unbelievers.

Ms Blanco said a neighbour, Olivia, came to call her to the meeting of the New Light of God sect on January 13, saying she would have to come "whether you like it or not".

So she went — along with her nine-year-old daughter, who had epilepsy, her 15-year-old son and her father.

[...]

Authorities said cult members used Bibles, cudgels and machetes to hit the congregants. Ms Blanco still bears a broad bruise across her forehead from whatever hit her.

[...]

But the worst was yet to come. Late that night or in the early morning hours of January 14, a sect member approached and told her that her daughter Ins had died.

"The birds of the fields shall dispose of her body," the voice said.

In fact, Ins, like Ms Blanco's pregnant neighbour and five of her children, had been murdered during the ritual and their naked bodies slung into hammocks and dumped in a freshly-dug common grave in the village cemetery.

Nine of the 10 lay preachers detained last week have been charged with murder and kidnapping.

Over the weekend, Bibles still laid open and musical instruments were scattered in the shed where the killings took place.

Indigenous leader Evangelisto Santo has said that during the ceremony, "People were dancing and singing and nobody paid attention because we knew that they were in the presence of God."

{Context: Australian Prime Minister’s comment in response to thousands of women who rallied outside Parliament House for the March 4 Justice protest on Monday.}

"Not far from here, such marches, even now are being met with bullets, but not here in this country," Mr Morrison told Parliament.
"This is a triumph of democracy when we see these things take place."

North Korea claims Kumdang-2 vaccine cures MERS, AIDS, Ebola and 'harm from the use of computers'

North Korea claims it has developed a vaccine that can cure and prevent MERS, Ebola and AIDS, as well as a range of other diseases, state news agency KCNA reports.

The Kumdang-2 vaccine is reportedly able to treat everything from AIDS to tuberculosis and cancer, as well as "harm from the use of computers" and morning sickness, according to the drug's website.

Developed by North Korea's Pugang Pharmaceutic Company - and promoted under the tag line "Everyone has the right to be healthy" - the vaccine is made of extracts from ginseng with the injection of rare earth elements, KCNA said.

"The Kumdang-2 injection, a strong immune activator, which is produced in DPRK, is very effective in curing diseases caused by malignant viruses such as SARS, Ebola and MERS," the report said.

The impoverished communist state, known to have a weak health infrastructure, claims to have been testing this cure-all drug since 1989, and has previously trumpeted the efficacy of the drug.

South Korea is currently battling with an outbreak of MERS, which has killed 24 people while 166 cases have been confirmed - the largest outbreak of the disease outside Saudi Arabia.

North Korea has taken drastic measures in the past to guard against viral diseases, and last year imposed a four-month ban on foreign tourists, purportedly due to concern at the spread of the Ebola virus.

It has recently intensified screening and vowed watertight measures at the international airport and at border crossings to ward off the MERS virus.

Pokemon Go is blasphemous and should be banned, an Indian court was told, because it rewards religious vegetarians with eggs.

Lawyer Nachiket Dave argued that the game offended the religious sensibilities of Hindus and Jains — some of whom do not eat meat or other animal products — by giving players virtual eggs, including in places of worship.

"Those who succeed are rewarded with eggs. Offering eggs to people in temples, even in the virtual world, is highly objectionable and amounts to blasphemy," Mr Dave said after the brief hearing at the court in the western Indian state of Gujarat.

Many Hindus are vegetarian, among them Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while members of the Jain faith usually follow a very strict vegan diet.

Mr Dave, who is acting on behalf of a private individual named Alay Dave, said the court would now ask the Gujarat and Indian governments as well as the San Francisco-based makers of Pokemon to respond to the claims.

(For context, the article being commented on is critical of a suggestion by the Australian government to prioritize taking in Christian refugees from Syria.)

I am sorry but it is entirely reasonable. Muslims would surely be happier in a caring, sharing Islamic environment, such as the ISIS controlled ME. Christians are welcome here with open arms, as they won't be slaughtered, raped and tortured as they would be in the aforesaid ISIS controlled ME. What's hard to understand about that? Fraser left an indelible scar on the Australian psyche with his open arms to Lebanese Muslim 'refugees' in the mid 70s. We suffer the consequences to this minute. Never again.

Indonesian sharia police are "morally rehabilitating" more than 60 young punk rock fans in Aceh province on Sumatra island, saying the youths are tarnishing the province's image.

Since being arrested at a punk rock concert in the provincial capital Banda Aceh on Saturday night, 59 male and five female punk rock fans have been forced to have their hair cut, bathe in a lake, change clothes and pray.

"We feared that the Islamic sharia law implemented in this province will be tainted by their activities," Banda Aceh deputy mayor Illiza Sa'aduddin Djamal, who ordered the arrests, said.

"We hope that by sending them to rehabilitation they will eventually repent."

Hundreds of Indonesian punk fans came from around the country to attend the concert, organised to raise money for orphans.

Police stormed the venue and arrested fans sporting mohawks, tattoos, tight jeans and chains, who were on Tuesday taken to a nearby town to undergo a 10-day moral rehabilitation camp run by police.

A girl cried as women in headscarves cut her long unruly hair into a short bob, and some of the men groaned as their heads were shaved.

"Why did they arrest us? They haven't given us any reason," said Fauzal, 20.

"We didn't steal anything, we weren't bothering anyone. It's our right to go to a concert."

A 22-year-old man from Medan city who did not want to be named said he feared he would lose his job for staying at the camp for 10 days.

"I've just started with a bank in Medan. I don't even know what to tell them because I don't know why I've been arrested."

Here's a differnt kind of fundy. Aboriginal fundies do exist.
Background: A book was recently published which includes didgeridoo lessons for girls.

"We know very clearly that there is a range of consequences for females touching a didgeridoo, it's men's business, and in the girls book, instructions on how to use it, for us it is an extreme cultural indiscretion."

Dr Rose says the consequences for a girl touching a didgeridoo can be quite extreme.

"It would vary in the places where it is, infertility would be the start of it ranging to other consequences," he said.

George Pell sentenced to six years' jail for sexually abusing two choirboys

Cardinal George Pell has been sentenced to six years' jail for sexually abusing two choirboys when he was Catholic archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s.

Pell, 77, was found guilty by a jury last December of sexually abusing the choirboys after a Sunday mass in December 1996 and then assaulting one of them a second time two months later.

The man who was once Australia's most powerful Catholic sat in the dock dressed in a black shirt and a grey blazer, without a clerical collar, as County Court Chief Judge Peter Kidd delivered his sentence.

The chief judge described Pell's abuse of two choirboys in the sacristy at St Patrick's Cathedral as "a brazen and forcible sexual attack on the victims".

"The acts were sexually graphic, both victims were visibly and audibly distressed during the offending," he said.

"There is an added layer of degradation and humiliation that each of your victims must have felt in knowing that their abuse had been witnessed by the other."

"There was a clear relationship of trust with the victims and you breached that trust and abused your position to facilitate this offending," the chief judge said.

"I would characterise these abuses and breaches as grave."

Pell will serve a minimum of three years and eight months in jail before he will be eligible for parole.

He continues to deny he sexually abused the boys and has lodged an appeal against his conviction on three grounds, including that the jury verdict was unreasonable.

'Breathtakingly arrogant' offending

Chief Judge Kidd said the power imbalance between the victims and Pell as a senior church official was "stark".

"The brazenness of your conduct is indicative of your sense of authority and power in relation to the victims," he said.

"You may have thought you could control the situation by reason of your authority, as archbishop, whether or not that belief was well-founded.

"Such a state of mind would have been extraordinarily arrogant, but the offending which the jury has found you have engaged in was in any view breathtakingly arrogant."

The chief judge said Pell's abuse had had a "significant and long-lasting impact" on the wellbeing of one of his victims, whom he referred to as J.

"J has experienced a range of negative emotions which he has struggled to deal with for many years since this offending occurred — he has found it difficult because of issues of trust and anxiety.

"I take into account the profound impact your offending has had on J's life."

The chief judge said he did not have the benefit of a victim impact statement from his other victim, referred to as R, who died of a heroin overdose in 2014 and never reported the abuse.

"However on the basis of J's account at trial I am able to say your offending must have had an immediate and significant impact on R," Chief Judge Kidd said.

"Whilst it is not possible for me to quantify the harm caused, or articulate precisely how it impacted on R in the long run, I have no doubt that it did in some way."

The chief judge gave permission for the hearing to be broadcast live by media outlets and the court room was packed with abuse survivors, advocates and journalists.

[...]

Pell's crimes committed at cathedral

The court heard that Pell abused the choirboys, who cannot be identified, after celebrating one of his first Sunday masses as archbishop at St Patrick's Cathedral in East Melbourne.

He caught them drinking altar wine in the priest's sacristy, which was off limits to the choir.

One of the former choirboys gave evidence Pell had planted himself in the doorway and said something like "what are you doing here?" or "you're in trouble".

The then-archbishop moved his robes to expose his penis and forced one of the boys' heads down towards it.

The trial heard one of the choirboys asked: "Can you let us go? We didn't do anything."

But instead Pell moved onto the other choirboy. He pushed the boy's head down to his crotch and orally raped him.

After a few minutes, Pell ordered the boy to remove his pants and then molested him as he masturbated.

Pell abused that boy a second time two months later, after another Sunday mass when he pushed him up against the wall of a corridor in the back of the cathedral and groped him briefly.

Evidence of the abuse came from that former choirboy alone, who was the victim of two assaults.

The Court of Appeal is expected to hear Pell's appeal over two days in June.

During a talk about the meaning of Bible verses on male headship — where men are leaders in the home and the church — an image of newly-shorn actress Kristen Stewart flashed onto an overhead screen.

Was this platinum blonde buzz cut, asked the speaker, Carmelina Read, appropriate for a woman? Was it feminine and submissive, or instead flagging independence and rebellion?

But what disturbed some attendees more — roughly 3,000 Anglican, Presbyterian and Baptist women were there, with an estimated 1,600 watching by livestream — was that another thread had emerged at the Sydney Convention Centre: that women should also consider themselves "helpers" of men in the workplace.

While it is generally accepted amongst conservative Christians that "headship" means women should submit to men at home and in the church, extending the idea to the world beyond is considered controversial, a form of mission creep.

Eternity reported that one conference speaker said if a woman became a CEO, "she should perform her role in a way that was helpful to men".

And a video was shown in which a female minister said, "what makes her happy is when she is able to make her male colleagues 'shine'".

What is the doctrine of headship?

The doctrine of headship means, in short, that men are to be the heads of women in the church as well as in marriage.

The idea of headship has long divided Protestants in Australia, with the conservative pockets — where women are not allowed to be priests, such as the Sydney Anglican diocese, and Presbyterian church — adhering to it most vigorously.

Those who argue for male headship are called complementarians; the idea being that women and men are equal before God, but have different and complementary roles to play (as per literal interpretations of verses in Ephesians 5, where wives are told to submit to their husbands as their heads, and 1 Timothy 2, where women are told not to teach or have authority over a man).

Those who believe those verses should be read in their cultural context and were never intended to permanently ouster women from leadership — and that the hallmark of a Christian marriage is mutual submission, not male headship — are called egalitarians.

Many complementarians are wary of feminism, and Ms Read reportedly said her experience showed her that it is not possible to be Christian and a feminist.

Feminism would "trick me into thinking that God's design isn't good," she said, leading her to indulge in sinful thinking: "I want headship; I want control."

It's not enough to say Islam does not condone domestic violence. We must also challenge the idea of male headship that normalises the violation of women's rights.

"More and more the world thinks in a gender-neutral way that we're people and not men and women," she said.

Pauline Hanson visits healthy reef to dispute effects of climate change

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has been ridiculed for visiting a healthy section of the Great Barrier Reef while denying the effects of climate change.

Senator Hanson and other One Nation senators donned wetsuits, snorkels and masks for a tour of the reef in a show of support for Queensland's tourism industry.

Senator Hanson disputed claims from the world's leading scientists that the reef experienced its worst ever bleaching event in 2016.

She said the publicity surrounding bleaching events was hurting the tourism industry.

"If you actually go deeper, 12-20 metres deeper in the ocean, the reefs there are in pristine condition," she said.

"And they're growing all the time."

Senator Hanson is also not convinced that global warming contributed to this year's bleaching event that wiped out about 22 per cent of the reef's coral.

"We can't have these lies put across by people with their own agendas," she said.

But the section of reef they visited was off the coast of Rockhampton in central Queensland, about 1,000 kilometres south from where a serious bleaching event occurred near Lizard Island.

The WWF's Richard Leck said Senator Hanson and One Nation appeared to be on a voyage of climate change denial.

"I suggest to the senators that they actually get to a place that did bleach," he said.

The Australian Marine Conservation Society's Imogen Zethoven said One Nation is in denial about the health of the Great Barrier Reef.

"I'd really ask her to get off the SS Ignorance and come back to shore," she said.

"Head up to Port Douglas or Lizard Island see what it really looks like right now and accept that climate change is real, it's having an effect on the reef."

I'm left with the impression that LGBT+ (am I the only one who thought this was a way you got the Internet and a phone call out of the same wall socket?) people are a lot more miserable and disenchanted these days after having "come out" than they ever were when they lived in closets.

[On a Victoria Police report stating the Catholic Church protected paedophile priests and dissuaded their victims from filing police complaints]

I don't accept the police description of that. We certainly accept wrong decisions were made, but they were made because of a lack of appreciation of the significance of sexual abuse and it impact on people, on victims and their families.

That's a very different thing from deliberately moving someone to avoid the situation. And that certainly is something that hasn't been part of the history for a long time.

...There is a clear and consistent and strong encouragement of victims to go to the police. [And] support is provided for them in doing that and ongoing support and counselling is provided during that time.

There is much in the police submission which is seriously misconceived and plainly wrong and which I will correct and refute in my submission.

West Australian Liberal MP Don Randall is under fire over comments he made about Julia Gillard's religious views.

The member for Canning says many people in his electorate and across the country do not like the fact Ms Gillard is an atheist.

...

"It's a criticism of the fact that the electorate has deep concerns about an un-godly leader leading Australia," he said.

Mr Randall says Australia was built on Christian values, which provide the basis for being a better leader.

"We expect out leaders to convey and portray good Christian values," he said.

Poet's shrine bombed over female visitors

Suspected militants have blown up the mausoleum of a 17th century poet revered in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, apparently because women visited the shrine.

The ethnic Pashtun poet, Abdul Rehman, is commonly known as Rehman Baba, and is loved by Pashtuns for his mystical verse.

People regularly go to his white, marble mausoleum on the outskirts of the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar to pay their respects, but no-one was hurt in the pre-dawn blast.

"The structure of the shrine has been badly damaged but there were no casualties," police officer Zar Noor said.

Militants had warned people to stop women visiting the shrine, a resident told DawnNews television.

Militants have been stepping up attacks in Pakistan in recent years, especially in the Pashtun-dominated north-west.

As well as battling the security forces, the militants in many areas have tried to stamp out what they see as inappropriate practices such as music and dancing.

Radical Muslims such as the Taliban also consider paying homage at graves to be heretical.

Abortion clinic bombers not terrorists: Palin

Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who has accused Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama of "palling around with terrorists," has refused to call people who bomb abortion clinics by the same name.
Asked by NBC television presenter Brian Williams whether an abortion clinic bomber was a terrorist, Governor Palin heaved a sigh and, at first, circumvented the question.

"There's no question that Bill Ayers by his own admittance was one who sought to destroy our US Capitol and our Pentagon. That is a domestic terrorist," Governor Palin said, referring to a 1960s leftist who founded a radical violent gang dubbed the Weathermen and who years later supported Senator Obama's first run for public office in the state of Illinois.

"Now, others who would want to engage in harming innocent Americans or facilities that it would be unacceptable to ... I don't know if you're gonna use the word 'terrorist' there," she added.

...

[Australian fundie politician wants his opponent to declare her sexuality, bases spurious argument on 'values' or some rubbish or other]

The Family First candidate in the far north Queensland seat of Leichhardt says voters have a right to know the sexual preference of all candidates contesting the federal election.

A report in today's Courier-Mail newspaper says Family First's Ben Jacobsen demanded that the Liberal candidate Charlie McKillop declare if she is gay.

Mr Jacobsen, who is against gay relationships, says he was not targeting Ms McKillop, but speaking generally about every candidate.

"Look I think this is a public office, this is a person that's going to represent Leichhardt in our House of Representatives," he said.

"I think the public have a right to know the values that you're going to pursue in Parliament."

Campaigning in Cairns today, federal Treasurer Peter Costello says Mr Jacobsen's comments are unfortunate and says he is attempting to seek political advantage by raising the issue of sexual preference.

"I think upon reflection, that candidate will want to apologise for those remarks," he said.

Ms McKillop refused to comment.

Nationals candidate Ian Crossland says a person's private life should remain private.

Earlier in the campaign Mr Crossland told the media the seat was no place for a woman, a pointed reference to Ms McKillop.

God escapes day in court
Posted Thu Jul 12, 2007 0:26am AEST

A Romanian murderer who sued God for "fraud" and "betrayal of trust" for failing to answer his prayers has had his case dismissed in court, a newspaper has reported.

The daily Evenimentul Zilei says 40-year-old Mircea Pavel brought charges against "the defendant God, who lives in the heavens and is represented in Romania by the Orthodox Church" for failing to free him from evil.

Mr Pavel, who is serving 20 years in jail for murder, accused God of "fraud, betrayal of trust, corruption and influence peddling".

"At my christening, I made a deal with the defendant aimed at freeing me from evil," he wrote.

"But the latter has not respected that agreement until now, although he received from me various assets and numerous prayers."

The court in Timisoara, in western Romania, dismissed the case, ruling that "God is not subject to law and does not have an address".

A Pentecostal priest lashed out at the [gay wildlife] exhibition, saying taxpayers' money used for it would have been better spent helping the animals correct "their perversions and deviances."