Society's ChildS


Alarm Clock

Boy Scouts may soon welcome gay youths, leaders

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© Photo: Courtesy GLAAD/Change.org
Local troops could decide for themselves whether to change their membership policy or continue to exclude gays

As early as next week, the Boy Scouts of America may announce it will allow gay Scouts and troop leaders, a spokesman for the group has told USA TODAY.

If this policy shift is approved by the national board meeting next week, it will be a sharp reversal of the Scouts' decades' old national policy banning homosexuals.

"The policy change under discussion would allow the religious, civic or educational organizations that oversee and deliver Scouting to determine how to address this issue," BSA spokesman Deron Smith said in a statement to USA TODAY.

Heart - Black

Men who hate women: Punishing rape victims with jail time

If you're looking for evidence that the differences between men and women are greatly exaggerated, the fact that women are equally capable as men of mind-blowing misogyny should erase all doubt. New Mexico state Rep.
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© UnknownCathrynn Brown
Cathrynn Brown proved that this week by introducing a bill aimed at throwing rape victims in jail if they refuse to honor their rapist's right to control their body by carrying his child. This sort of insult to rapists will not stand, so Brown, standing up bravely for rapists who want the suffering they've inflicted to carry on and on for their victims, has proposed banning abortion for rape victims on the phony grounds that it's "tampering with evidence".

Of course, the entire idea that having a rapist's baby would somehow be treated as proof of a rape is beyond silly. After all, the defense against the charge of rape is rarely to claim that the penis didn't go into the vagina, but to accuse the victim of consenting and then, due to the unique viciousness of women, claiming it was rape for the lulz. Or to conceal her epic sluttiness by having the police grill her about her sex life, the defense attorney question her about it for the public record, and the entire community gossip about what a big slut she must be to press rape charges. I suspect Brown knows this, coming from the same anti-choice circles as Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin, where the belief is that women are deceitful creatures who will lie and kill to conceal how much fun sex they're having.

Brick Wall

Saudi authorities order shops to erect sex-segregation walls

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© AFP Photo
Saudi authorities have ordered shops employing both men and women to build separation walls to enforce the strict segregation laws of the ultra-conservative kingdom, local press reported Monday.

The order that was issued by labour minister Adel Faqih also had the stamp of Abdullatif al-Sheikh, the head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, commonly known as Mutawa and religious police, several dailies reported.

It stipulated that a separation barrier, not shorter than 1.6 metres (over five feet), should be erected to divide working men and women.

Bizarro Earth

Listeners and employees quit Georgia public broadcasting as mind-control conspiracy theorist takes over

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Georgia residents have begun canceling their donations to Georgia Public Broadcasting after a recent report revealed that a former Republican state senator - who believes the United Nations is planning to turn the U.S. into a communist dictatorship using mind control - is receiving a salary of $150,000 to run part of the network.

GPB announced last month that then-State Sen. Chip Rogers (R) would be heading a new initiative to tell the story of Georgia businesses on public radio, but it wasn't until the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that his salary would be higher than Gov. Nathan Deal's (R) that employees and Georgia residents began to express outrage.

GPB member Sandy Wood recently cut off her $20-a-month donation and received a letter from GPB Vice President Yvette Cook, who claimed that Rogers' position would be funded with taxpayer money instead of listener contributions.

Pistol

Loophole allows dealers to hijack Seattle's gun buyback with makeshift gun show

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The so-called gun show loophole which allows guns to be sold without a background check allowed private dealers to effectively hijack a weekend effort by Seattle police to get guns off the street.

Following the mass shooting at an elementary school in Connecticut last month, Seattle raised $120,000 to hold the first gun buyback effort in 20 years at a downtown parking lot on Saturday.

The plan was to trade gift cards for guns that would later be destroyed, but a number of dealers set up a mini-gun show just a block away in a effort to buy up the guns and keep them in circulation.

"I pay cash, I don't give Amazon gift cards," one dealer told a gun seller in video captured by KING.

Sheriff

Chicago trauma center protesters accuse cops of roughing them up

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Protesters accused University of Chicago police of excessive force during a demonstration against the school's medical center on Sunday.

According to The Chicago Tribune, authorities arrested four protesters but also allegedly attacked others, including the woman whose family tragedy inspired the campaign against the University of Chicago's youth trauma center.

Sheila Rush said campus police shoved her to the ground during the protest, an attempt to stage a sit-in at a $700 million addition to the facility, which only serves patients 16 years of age or younger. She said the age restriction leaves the city's south side without a similar treatment option for adults.

Cow Skull

Texas public schools: Still teaching creationism

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© Williac/Flickr
In Texas public schools, children learn that the Bible provides scientific proof that Earth is 6,000 years old, that the origins of racial diversity trace back to a curse placed on Noah's son, and that astronauts have discovered "a day missing in space" that corroborates biblical stories of the sun standing still.

These are some of the findings detailed in Reading, Writing & Religion II, a new report by the Texas Freedom Network that investigates how public schools in the Lone Star State promote religious fundamentalism under the guise of offering academic courses about the Bible. The report, written by Mark Chancey, a professor of religious studies at Southern Methodist University, found that more than half of the state's public-school Bible courses taught students to read the book from a specifically Christian theological perspective - a clear violation of rules governing the seperation of church and state.

Health

Seven still missing after 'freak wave' capsizes Russian fishing boat off Japan

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© Image from trud-ost.ruThe Chance-101
Fifteen fishermen have been saved after a Russian vessel with 30 on board sank in the Sea of Japan Sunday afternoon. Survivors say eight fellow crew-members died of hypothermia and their bodies were eventually dumped to unburden a lifeboat.

The crew is thought to have consisted of 19 Russians and 11 Indonesians.

The Chance-101 would not contact its office at the regular time on Sunday. Ten hours later, the crabber was found floating upside down. According to the rescued fishermen the vessel had been maneuvering in the open sea when it was hit by a "fatally powerful" wave.

Attention

Three-mile oil sheen follows barge crash on Mississippi river

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© Screenshot via WLOX-TV
An oil sheen was spotted up to three miles away after two barges smashed into a bridge near Vicksburg, Mississippi on Sunday, the Coast Guard said in an advisory.

The Old Vicksburg Bridge was not significantly damaged, but officials said that one of the barges carrying up to 80,000 gallons of crude was seriously damaged and spilled an unknown amount of oil into the river.

Question

Cops question 'hoarder' after homeowners find human remains in backyard

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© AFP Photo
Police questioned a Southern California man after the people who bought his former home found a human skull and bones buried in the backyard, KNBC-TV reported Sunday.

"It's scary to know," one neighbor told the station. "You don't know who that person was, how long they've been there."