Comment by RobertPiano on February 3, 2013 at 10:24am

The scientology article led me to the wiki story of Paulette Cooper, a journalist who investigated that religion:

Paulette Cooper was the target not only of litigation but of several harassment campaigns including a Scientology campaign known as Operation Freakout, the goal of which was to deter Cooper from criticism of Scientology by having her "incarcerated in a mental institution or jail or at least to hit her so hard that she drops her attacks.

The dark lord Xenu of Teegeeack made them do it.

Comment by wyocowboy50 on February 3, 2013 at 1:13pm

thanks for another sunday school service.  the story about ID and public school was very interesting and the AU article was very inlightening https://www.au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/creationism-commotion-f... such as the Missouri bill's defination for as “biological intelligent design,” states it is "a hypothesis", is that not something that has not been tested to be true yet?  were as, evolution is a theory has been tested.  so when the religious fruit cakes start spouting garbage like that pull the rug out from under neath them. 

Comment by SteveInCO on February 3, 2013 at 1:16pm

I note that the article also references scout leaders.  I suspect that at least with respect to scout leaders, most troops would--if given the option to stop discriminating--would continue to restrict the leadership to straights.

I had a coworker once heavily into scouting (Order of the Arrow, etc., stuff that the in-crowd in the hierarchy gets).  He did not strike me as particularly bigoted against gays but he claimed that if the scouts ever allowed gay scoutmasters, they'd instantly lose half their membership--parents would pull their kids, having visions of their kids being preyed upon by someone during a camping trip.

Is this bigotry (on the part of the parents) against homosexuals?  I don't really think so, unless prohibiting straight male girl scout troop leaders is also bigoted.  If it's legitimate to worry about--and preempt--sexual predation in the one case, it's legitimate in the other.  In both cases you would be expecting people to entrust their children with a male who is sexually interested in that gender and hoping his interest is only in adults.   [Now why so many people are blissfully unconcerned about priests in this regard--in spite of the absymal record in some churches, is another question entirely!  And also schoolteachers--apparently there the expectation is quite different (and some claim that it should not be).]

This is quite aside from bigotry against homosexual scouts and any atheist scouts or leaders, which is problematic.  But scouting is a private organization and can do what they please.  And we are free to boycott it, try to educate the general public about the issues, and so forth.  One legal tool we do have, and that is legitimate, is to ensure the government doesn't aid the scouts so long as they continue to discriminate--no meetings at schools, etc.

Comment by Stutz on February 3, 2013 at 3:25pm

Tons of great stuff this week. I have 10 tabs open right now.

Comment by Colleen on February 3, 2013 at 10:24pm

Great articles this week.  Thank you as always.

One quick note: It's quite a big jump to go from the baby looked at the box to the baby understood what the first person believes and doesn't know.  I'm not so sure that this test measures what they say it measures.  All I see is that after shortly after an item is taken, babies consistently look back at the place from which it was taken.

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