[Active-l] (NEWS) CWU on vacation, but I have to resurface for this

[Dara (R'ykandar Korra'ti)]

I was taking a break from the Cultural Warfare Updates, and I still  
am, really, but I have to surface for this.

Below is a link to photographs of pages from a children's book for  
fundamentalist kids. It teaches the "ex-gay" bullshit theology  
message and that homosexuality is caused by child molestation, and  
that gay people molest kids in order to reproduce. (The first and  
second are foreground messages. The third is background message.) It  
does this for _third graders_. Or that's my guess, anyway. I hope  
that this is fraudulent, but as it encapsulates the whole  
fundamentalist mindset on this perfectly, I'm assuming - for now, at  
least - that it's not.

Also, here are few other items that were sitting queued up anyway:

Anna Quindlen points to an interesting YouTube short: a cameraman  
going around asking anti-abortion-rights protesters about how much  
time a woman who gets an abortion should spend in jail;

Christian Broadcasting Network coverage of the Huckabee-Brownback  
fight; a Huckabee supporter sent mail to a bunch of "evangelicals" in  
Iowa telling them not to support Brownback because he's Catholic.  
Yay, sectarian politics;

"Hikes for boys, pedicures for girls"; Canadian town sets up a hiking  
camp, and then makes it boys-only. Girl who wanted to go hiking told  
to go to get a pedicure at a girl's glamour camp. Mmmmm, brutal sexism.


----- 0 -----
The world's most disturbing children's book?
Jeremy Hertz
DormItem
15 August 2007

http://dormitem.com/blog/193

Browsing the internet leads you to find lots of funny and scary  
things. This is amongst the funniest and scariest. Long live the fine  
line between educational and downright creepy.

Here are some shots of the book.

[More at URL]


----- 1 -----
How Much Jail Time?
By Anna Quindlen
Newsweek
6 August 2007

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20010696/site/newsweek/page/0/

Aug. 6, 2007 issue - Buried among prairie dogs and amateur animation  
shorts on YouTube is a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch? 
v=Uk6t_tdOkwo">curious little mini-documentary</a> shot in front of  
an abortion clinic in Libertyville, Ill. The man behind the camera is  
asking demonstrators who want abortion criminalized what the penalty  
should be for a woman who has one nonetheless. You have rarely seen  
people look more gobsmacked. It's as though the guy has asked them to  
solve quadratic equations.

[...]


----- 2 -----
Huckabee’s Campaign Tells Brownback to Show 'Christian Character'
August 2, 2007
CBN

http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/206546.aspx

For Brody File loyalists, this is required reading. It's a little  
long but make sure you read all the way through. What you're about to  
experience is campaign ugliness. The mud is flying. Be careful. You  
may get dirty.

Mike Huckabee's campaign manager is absolutely blasting Sam Brownback  
and his "Christian character." Read more here about this argument,  
but basically this centers around the fact that a Huckabee supporter  
sent an e-mail to a bunch of Iowa Evangelicals asking them to  
reconsider supporting Brownback because he's Catholic. Huckabee  
issued a statement afterwards but the Brownback camp believed it  
didn't go far enough and wanted him to actually apologize.

[...]


----- 3 -----
Hikes for boys; pedicures for girls -- A 9-year-old N.S. girl is not  
allowed to attend a boys-only camp. Her option? The Glamorous Girls  
program
The Globe and Mail
14 August 2007

<a rhef="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Page/document/v5/ 
content/subscribe?user_URL=http://www.theglobeandmail.com%2Fservlet% 
2Fstory%2FRTGAM.20070810.wcamp10%2FBNStory%2FNational% 
2Fhome&amp;ord=22038738&amp;brand=theglobeandmail&amp;force_login=true"> 
Long URL elided>

Archived here, for the moment (scroll down):
http://forums.scifi.com/index.php?showtopic=2267536&st=28120

Text from that archive posting:

Call it The Girl's Guide to Not Hunting and Fishing.

A nine-year-old girl in Windsor, N.S., has been told she cannot  
attend a one-day camp where participants fish, hike and play golf,  
because it is for boys only.

The camp, run by the Municipality of the District of West Hants,  
north of Halifax, has a separate program for girls called the  
Glamorous Girls camp, which includes a trip to a spa for manicures  
and pedicures.

Families were notified about both camps in flyers sent home with  
school pupils ages 5 through 12 during the last week of school in June.

Lorna Houck said her two children, Lydia, 9, and Jonah, 7, both asked  
to attend the outdoor option to be held on Aug. 13.

"We realized it was for boys only," she said. "But we couldn't  
imagine they wouldn't give [Lydia] the thumbs up to come along."

But when her daughter phoned the recreation director, she was told  
the gender-segregated camp was a pilot program and that she could not  
attend the boys' event.

"They said other communities were doing it and stuff, and that they  
hadn't meant to be discriminatory," Lydia said yesterday. "I didn't  
think they were going to be so firm about it."

Richard Dauphinee, the municipal warden, said the camp was modelled  
on other gender-segregated programs run throughout the province.

"Each year we try and do something new and we survey the children and  
see what they would like," he said. "The girls wanted to make  
jewellery and have pedicures and manicures. That was their type of  
thing. The boys wanted to go fishing and play this par-three golf  
thing."

Mr. Dauphinee said he received only one complaint - from Lydia - and  
it was too late to change the program.

"The flyers were out and everything was done, and we would have gone  
to all the boys and say now there's a girl," he said.

Although he admits the boys most likely would not have objected, Mr.  
Dauphinee said the town had advertised the camp as for boys only, and  
decided to keep it that way.

"I have to go with the majority in my municipality. Out of 18,000  
people, if 17,999 want something, I really can't cater to one  
person," he said. "This was by no means discrimination or anything."

But Ms. Houck and her daughter disagree.

After discussing the issue, the family decided that neither of the  
children would attend the camps, and that they would take a vacation  
together instead.

"It's really quite sad at this age to be stereotyped like that," Ms.  
Houck said. "We're teaching them there's boy things and girl things.  
In 2007, it's kind of hard to believe."

Her daughter is not into glamour, she said, and Ms. Houck does not  
believe gender segregation can be defended as beneficial in a purely  
recreational program.

"It's not an issue of male bonding when you have 5- to 12-year-olds,"  
she said. "I could see how it might be different if they were  
teenagers."

To Lydia, who will start Grade 4 in September and enjoys playing with  
chickens on her family hobby farm, the idea of Glamorous Girls holds  
little appeal.

"It sort of sounds a bit ridiculous," she said. "Some girls do like  
it, but it's not really something that's that interesting. You have  
to stay inside all the time."

Mr. Dauphinee said the municipality will gauge the program's success  
before deciding whether gender-specific camps will be held in 2008.

"Next year, if girls do like to go fishing and they want to play the  
golf, there could be a mixture," he said. "There's a very good chance  
this might never happen again."

And while he sympathizes with Lydia's position, he said she is free  
to pursue her interests on her own.

"The place we're going fishing is five minutes from her house, so if  
there were that big a concern, her mother or her parents could have  
taken her," he said.

"I would have taken her myself but that wouldn't be the thing to do;  
I'd probably get accused of something."