Daily Archive

Stop behaving as if you have feelings, because religion!

Considering the amount of revenue generated on Valentine’s Day (I’m looking at you 9.99 roses that mysteriously appreciate to 29.99) it can be safely said that Valentine’s Day will never be banned in North America.  However, in societies that still give the religious the time of day, Valentine’s Day is in trouble.  That little bastard Cupid promotes lustful, shameful, immodest-ful behaviour and represents the totality of all the six hundred and sixty six layers of hell.

“LONDON — While much of the world celebrates Valentine’s Day on Thursday, Pakistan’s religious political parties are exhorting the country’s youth to celebrate a “day of modesty” instead.”

You can always count on the religious parties to hoist themselves up by their own flaming petards of assholery.  What is next?  Banning cinnamon hearts for being tools of the devil (who knew?)?  Expressing love and affection is obviously evil evil evil and must be stopped at all costs.

“On Tuesday, the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, a major religious party, condemned Valentine’s Day in Peshawar for encouraging “immodesty” and threatened to shut down any celebrations if law enforcement agencies failed to take action first.”

Tell me again about how we need to have more respect for religious freedom and ideas.

“The growing outrage against Valentine’s Day, which has been observed in recent years by young couples in Pakistan’s major cities, is the latest sign of the culture clash underway in Pakistan.  Condemnation of the day has not been restricted to Peshawar, a conservative city in the northwest. A group of female students at the University of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest public university, called on their peers to mark the day by wearing the hijab. Anti-Valentine’s Day billboards also sprang up this week in the city’s affluent, Westernized neighborhoods.”

Woo!  Let’s embrace dehumanizing garments to show how awesomely modest and “god approved” we are.  See also how god thinks our testimony is worth about half of a man’s.  I’m pretty sure that by embracing the hijab and other allah-approved rituals is the same as pressing the “I win” button for women because further investing in the system of your oppression is totally-awesomely-effective!

“On Wednesday, the government joined the call: Media companies across the country received notices from the media regulatory authority warning them not to broadcast programs promoting Valentine’s Day — which, according to the letter, is “not in conformity to our religious and cultural ethos” and is “perceived as a source of depraving, corrupting and injuring morality of Pakistani youth.” The last-minute timing of the notice, and its claim that it was responding to the complaints of a “large segment of society,” reeked of an official attempt to play it safe ahead the general election, which is expected to take place in May.”

Because traditional practices like oh say, honour killings, acid attacks and gang-rape are in conformity with religious and cultural ethos.  Your noble treatment of people in accordance with cultural and religious “ethos” is nothing to proud of and ejecting these cancerous notions should be fracking priority Number One.

“In November, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority ordered mobile phone service providers to discontinue cheap, late-night calling rates, arguing that these special packages promoted “vulgarity” and went against “social norms” by enabling teenagers to spend hours on the phone with their boyfriends and girlfriends.”

People talking?  To Each Other?  Outrageous!  Dear North American Religious Nutters:  this is what your family values/religious society looks like in action (the only sane reaction to people wanting to be more religiously orientated looks something like this).  You are worried about a loss of rights and religious freedom now?  Let’s elect more idjit theocrats and see how much of our freedom we can sacrifice to make your imaginary friends happy.

 “But in trying to clamp down on young love, Pakistan’s conservatives are fighting a losing battle. Having earned the legal right in 2003 to marry without their guardians’ consent, Pakistani women are increasingly risking everything — even their lives — to marry men of their choosing, not their family’s. The ability to mingle via Facebook or in online chat rooms is also leading to soaring numbers of “Internet marriages” between Pakistani youths.”

At least in this Disservice there is a happy ending.  :)