Fuck Judge Mark Martin of Mechanicsburg, PA

Last October there was a Halloween parade in central Pennsylvania where a guy named Ernie Perce dressed up as Zombie Mohammed, as one does. Talaag Elbayomy, an outraged local Muslim attacked him and Perce reported to incident to police in the area. They then arrested Elbayomy for harassment. This is pretty much what one would expect to happen. It’s sad that Elbayomy reacted in the way he did, but at least justice was served in the end. Right?

Well, no. Jonathan Turley is bringing this case up because Judge Mark Martin threw the case out on the grounds that Elbayomy was the true victim here, not Perce. And to be clear, this doesn’t appear to be a case where the defense lawyer is obscuring the basic facts of what happened. A video of the incident itself was even admitted into evidence. Everyone agrees about what actually happened. Martin sided with Elbayomy because he thinks he was right to attack Perce in defense of his boyfriend Prophet Mohammed.

Killing for God in Pakistan

Naushad Valiyani, a doctor in Pakistan, is being held on blasphemy charges. Usually these kinds of charges are used for some nonreligious reason, similar to how sex and drug charges can be used to target political dissidennts in the West, and this case is not an exception to that rule. From The Independent:

Asia Bibi

OK so there’s this Christian woman in Pakistan named Asia Bibi. She is a Christian and a mother of five.

You can probably already see where this is going. She’s been sentenced to death by hanging for the “crime” of blaspheming the alleged prophet of Islam.

Based on the article, it’s not entirely clear how she was supposed to have blasphemed Mohammed. Bibi is denying it. But everyone seems to agree on a few facts. Bibi worked as a farmhand with other women who happened to be Muslim. She was sent to get some water. But when she returned, some of the women decided that they didn’t want to drink the water since it was brought to them by a non-Muslim and was therefore “unclean.”

Today is Blasphemy Day

OK, buddy. As long as it’s this “God” thing punishing us and not you.

Four years ago today, some Danish newspaper printed some drawings of Mohammed and yada yada yada, a bunch of people burned shit down and then yada yada yada, now it’s Blasphemy Day.

The Center for Inquiry is having a Blasphemy Contest. The deadline is midnight tonight for verbal submissions (< 20 words), and the cartoon version is yet to be fully described.

There have been a lot of issues regarding blasphemy still, which is just completely fucking insane. This isn’t just about remembering some cruel past where people were severely punished or even killed because of what they said.