Remember Ernest Perce? I wrote about him last fall. He’s an atheist jerk who paraded down a Pennsylvania street dressed as “Zombie Muhammad,” and was assaulted by a Muslim man in the crowd. I said at the time that I didn’t feel sorry for him, even though I believe that he had a right to be a public ass without being physically attacked.

Well, Perce’s attacker has faced the bar of American justice — and the judge, an American convert to Islam, let the attacker off scot-free. More:

The Judge neglected to address the fact that the ignorance of the law does not justify an assault and that it was the responsibility of the defendant to familiarize himself with our laws.  This is to say nothing of the judge counseling the defendant that it is also not acceptable for him to teach his children that it is acceptable to use violence in the defense of religious beliefs.  Instead, the judge gives Mr. Perce a lesson in Sharia law and drones on about the Muslim faith, inform everyone in the court room how strongly he embraces Islam, that the first amendment does not allow anyone ” to piss off other people and other cultures” and he was also insulted by Mr. Perce’s portrayal of Mohammed and the sign he carried.

This is a travesty. Not only did Judge Martin completely ignore video evidence, but a Police Officer who was at the scene also testified on Mr. Perce’s behalf, to which the Judge also dismissed by saying the officer didn’t give an accurate account or doesn’t give it any weight.

Interestingly, the Harrisburg paper, in reporting the ruling, says nothing about Judge Martin’s religion, nor gives any background including the judge’s outrageous courtroom lecture. You can here that lecture by clicking on this link, and forwarding to around the 28-minute mark.

The atheists are right: this really is a travesty. That Perce was the victim of a travesty doesn’t make him a gentleman. But he was wronged here by a judge who ought to know that you don’t have the right to assault people in this country because you don’t like their peaceful speech. Judge Mark Martin ought to be strongly disciplined for his courtroom remarks. Unbelievable stuff.

UPDATE:Andrew McCarthy has a full transcript of the judge’s remarks. An excerpt from Judge Martin’s lecture:

Here in our society, we have a constitution that gives us many rights, specifically, First Amendment rights. It’s unfortunate that some people use the First Amendment to deliberately provoke others. I don’t think that’s what our forefathers really intended. I think our forefathers intended that we use the First Amendment so that we can speak our mind, not to piss off other people and other cultures, which is what you did.

I don’t think you’re aware, sir, there’s a big difference between how Americans practice Christianity – uh, I understand you’re an atheist. But, see, Islam is not just a religion, it’s their culture, their culture. It’s their very essence, their very being. They pray five times a day towards Mecca. To be a good Muslim, before you die, you have to make a pilgrimage to Mecca unless you are otherwise told you cannot because you are too ill, too elderly, whatever. But you must make the attempt.

Their greetings, “Salaam alaikum,” “Alaikum wa-salaam,” “May God be with you.” Whenever — it is very common — their language, when they’re speaking to each other, it’s very common for them to say, uh, “Allah willing, this will happen.” It is — they are so immersed in it.

Then what you have done is you’ve completely trashed their essence, their being. They find it very, very, very offensive. I’m a Muslim, I find it offensive. [Unintelligble] aside was very offensive.

But you have that right, but you’re way outside your bounds on First Amendment rights.

Something tells me Judge Martin, peace be upon him, is about to be taken to school by his judicial superiors. Incidentally, McCarthy reports that Judge Martin is allegedly threatening to hold Perce in contempt for releasing an audio recording of the remarks he made in open court. McCarthy adds:

 But one’s “attitude toward Muslims” is irrelevant to one’s right in America to walk the streets and express opinions people may find offensive without being physically attacked and intimidated. And the fact that sharia governments kill people over such expressions of opinion means that they are barbaric, not that we should tolerate additional constraints on our (diminishing) liberties.

UPDATE: Andy McCarthy reports that Judge Martin denies being a Muslim (something our reader John E. reported here yesterday after calling the judge’s office). If you listen to the audio recording of his courtroom lecture, it sounds like Martin is clearly saying “I’m a Muslim.” But McCarthy concedes now that it’s possible Martin meant by those words, “If I am a Muslim.” I’ve changed the headline of this blog entry to reflect this information. It does not change the wrongness of Judge Martin’s ruling.

In the UK, it has been discovered that abortionists are performing sex-selective abortions — that is, ending the lives of unborn baby girls because their mothers would prefer not to have female children. British law is supposed to ban this kind of abortion. But of course that is unenforceable. Anthony Daniels, the physician who writes under the name Theodore Dalrymple, says that the “health of the woman” exception in UK abortion law offers a loophole as big as the world. Excerpt from his essay:

In fact, the whole sorry story illustrates the mess we get into when two notions become culturally prominent: on the one hand of rights and on the other of consumer choice.

Whatever the law says, most people now think that abortion is a right under all circumstances and not something that is permissible if certain conditions are met, as the framers of the law surely intended. That particular slippery slope has long been slid down. And the same people now conceive of life as an existential supermarket in which they are consumers, choosing the way they live much as they choose cranberry juice or the flavour of crisps that they want. And the customer in the existential supermarket, as in Tesco, is always right.

Into this poisonous mixture we must add the notion that any form of distress, or even the slightest frustration arising no matter how self-indulgently, constitutes an impairment of mental health: for the mentally healthy person is always happy and never experiences any difficulties in life. In short, inconvenience is the greatest of all threats to our well-being, and must at all times be avoided. It is our right to avoid it.

The Abortion Act was intended as a humane response to genuine hardship: the type of hardship that drove women to back-street abortionists. I supported it, not realising that its intentions would soon be subverted by a change in the character of the population, including that of doctors, who would easily affix their names to declarations they knew or suspected to be false. But now the genie is out of the bottle, and I fear there is no getting it back.

Reader Peter K. sends this depressing essay by a SWPL mom who clearly has a rich inner life. Excerpt:

I am also trying to imagine a similar story being proposed for a book about a boy, or one intended for a boy audience. This brings me to my favorite line of the Cinderella book. When Cinderella receives the ring, the book tells us that “for the rest of the day, she could think of nothing else but the Prince she loved so dearly.” Really? Nothing else? She’s not multitasking even a little bit? Distracted by the latest Facebook post about the castle down the road? Nothing? I try to imagine the Prince having a similar problem. And the only thing that comes to mind is not something I can pitch to Disney.

I realize that there are far more important threats to feminism than this book. I realize that Chris Brown performed at the Grammys, and that Nicholas Kristof has declared on NPR that “The greatest challenge of the 21st century is gender inequity in the developing countries.” I do not think my daughter is scarred by having read this book four times now (and listened to the accompanying CD.) I do not think she will even remember the story, probably because it is so astonishingly unmemorable. I know that not every children’s book needs to be an inspiration for how our children should lead their lives, what they should value and believe in.

And yet, I can’t help but be pissed off that this book exists. That somebody at Disney put resources into it, and somebody at Barnes & Noble gave it a privileged position in a display.

I can’t help but wonder if the stories we tell our children shouldn’t matter to us, just a little bit.

Amy Fox lives in Brooklyn. Has she not heard of the scarification threat from Israeli flat bread and gendered children’s millinery?!

So says the new ABC News/Washington Post poll:

Over the past several weeks, Republicans have watched squeamishly as presidential contender Rick Santorum has waded into multiple controversies that risk alienating half the 2012 electorate: women.

But in fact, Santorum has grown more popular among women while talking about his opposition to abortion, his disapproval of birth control and his view that the federal government shouldn’t pay for prenatal screenings. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows not only that Santorum is doing better among GOP women than he was a few weeks ago, but also that he is less unpopular — and also less well known — among Democratic and independent women than his Republican rivals Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.

But … but … I thought all women hated Santorum because of his views on abortion and contraception! That’s what the mainstream media told me! How could the MSM be so out of touch with a large number of women in this country? Where are these so-called “women”? Where indeed?

From the blog Your Lying Eyes:

The Republican Party is basically the party of white America, but of course such an entity as “white America” cannot be acknowledged in mainstream outlets (except of course as a source of some evil). A Republican legislator cannot complain that his constituents are being forced to move because their schools are becoming disabled by excessive numbers of non-English speakers or poorly behaved minorities. So instead he must complain about “illegal” immigration in the vaguest of terms and express displeasure with the failure of schools by blaming teacher-unions (bastions of anti-Republican rhetoric). A Democrat, on the other hand, can freely rile up his constituents by denouncing “discrimination” and favoritism, regardless of the facts.

Similarly, any Democrat politician, black or white, can make unlimited hay over alleged racial profiling among the police or “institutional racism” in the law enforcement. But no Republican politician would dare court white voters by defending the police, pointing out, for example, the disproportionately high levels of criminal behavior in the black community. When it was recently revealed that some NYPD officers had the nerve to complain on a facebook page about having to work during the West-Indian Day parade which annually features gun-fire and police injuries, who came to their defense, pointing out that people who engage in gunfights during a parade deserve to be called ‘animals’?

The essence of this asymmetry in political combat is that Democrats are free to rabble-rouse and demagogue their positions without penalty – indeed, often with great showers of media attention for doing so – while Republicans must rouse their constituents only obliquely through proxies – religious faith, gun rights, opposition to gay marriage, and of course “No New Taxes”. Even then, we often hear pundits denounce the “Three G’s” – Gays, Guns and Gods – so even their proxies are derided.

Steve Sailer adds:

The problem is that when your enemies control the vocabulary of public discourse, it’s hard to maintain a sophisticated private understanding of what is going on. [Emphasis mine — RD]

That’s a really interesting point that deserves elaboration.

We often lament the way Americans today live inside epistemic bubbles, where they only hear what they want to hear, and rarely face a challenge to their positions. It’s a serious problem. It stems in large part from the ideological moralization of American politics, by which I mean the practice of imputing a rigid, black-and-white morality to complex questions in public life, such that those who disagree with you are not only wrong, but Evil. Every conservative perfectly well knows that there is a gross double standard in these things, as Lying Eyes and Sailer point out. Most conservatives who work in professional environments — academia, offices, etc. — quickly become aware of the double standard, because they know their careers depend on not saying or doing anything that could get them referred to the Human Resources Department for sinning against Diversity.   Reason, you learn, has very little to do with any of this. You have to learn the code of behavior, and the speech code, or you could lose your job.

Anyway, I wonder to what extent the harsh policing of speech, in the workplace and in the public square, by liberals, who control the public discourse, contributes to the maintenance of the right-wing bubble. When you cannot openly say what you think is going on, you realize how limited and pre-determined the public discourse is, and you become all the more distrustful of it. Moreover, when you are only able to have these discussions safely (= without risking professional damage, or social condemnation), because to speak openly is to risk being condemned as a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, or some other kind of bigot (all opinions on race, gender, homosexuality, and suchlike that are to the left of your average journalist being ipso facto expressions of bigotry), you retreat into private spheres of discourse.

(How ridiculous is some of this stuff? NPR’s ombudsman wrote a column addressing the freak-out some NPR listeners had over Fresh Air’s airing of a 1970s-era dialogue between Jewish comedians and talk show host David Susskind; these listeners protested that it trafficked in racial stereotypes, and ought not be heard on public radio — this, even though it was Jews making jokes about Jewish behavior.)

Of course the liberal congratulates himself on this achievement, having exiled the offending speech from the realm of the righteous (e.g., MSNBC president Phil Griffin, on Pat Buchanan’s last book: “The ideas he put forth aren’t really appropriate for national dialogue, much less the dialogue on MSNBC.”). Meanwhile, the grotesque black liberal Al Sharpton, whose public career has been built entirely on crude racial, and racist, manipulation, continues to prosper on MSNBC. Liberals love to despise Fox, and the Fox effect, and they’re not entirely wrong in their criticism. But it never seems to occur to them that the way they police public discourse, including maintaining the double standard every conservative recognizes, compels conservatives to seek out a public space where their ideas aren’t treated as inappropriate for national dialogue.

(I should point out here that I disagree with Buchanan on some issues, and find some of the things he’s said about Jews indefensible. That said, his is, generally speaking, a voice we need in the public square, as even Stanley Fish said the other day. You are not going to find many commentators who can so well articulate the political and cultural positions held by many white working-class people in this country. But of course those people’s ideas and beliefs aren’t really appropriate for national dialogue, I guess.)

A related problem, though, is that conservatives become so mistrustful of non-Fox news sources that they cease to think critically about the spin their own preferred news sources put on the news. This, I think, is part of what Steve Sailer means when he says it becomes difficult to maintain a sophisticated private understanding of what’s going on. When you cease to trust the mainstream media, that doesn’t automatically make the news sources you do trust fair, accurate, and intelligent.

Which reminds me: Jonathan Haidt’s book is out in a couple of weeks.

Look at that. Great, huh? A friend in town invited me to come over to harvest some Meyer lemons from the tree in her yard. I brought back a grocery sack bulging with the glorious fruit, and a right arm scratched up from sticking my hand into the thorny bush. That photo is from the big pile o’ lemons on my kitchen counter. Man, I love me some Meyer lemons. Ever had a whisky sour made with Meyer lemon juice? How about a punch made with Meyer lemon juice, dark rum, simple syrup, and sparkling water? It’ll put winter in its place, that’s for sure (though we can’t really be said to have had a winter here in Louisiana, not this year; the air conditioner is running in my place as I type this).

I went to bed early last night, and when I woke up this morning, I saw that Julie had packed some of the lemon bounty into jars with kosher salt, to preserve them. By the time Lent is over, they’ll be ready to be chopped up into chicken dishes, tagines, and the like. I’ve never cooked with preserved lemons before, but I’m eager to do so.

Anybody in this blog’s readership ever cook with preserved lemons? What do you do with them? Anybody here like to cook with Meyer lemons? I found a recipe for a Meyer lemon cream pie that uses no dairy, only silken tofu. Perfect for Lent.

John Gray, the philosopher and religious skeptic, reviews atheist Alain de Botton’s new book advocating a more irenic view of religion. Gray says that the militant, Ditchkins-style atheists of today are ignorant knotheads, however formally brilliant:

It is only the illiteracy of the current generation of atheists that leads them to think religious practitioners must be stupid or thoughtless. Were Augustine, Maimonides and al-Ghazali – to mention only religious thinkers in monotheist traditions – lacking in intellectual vitality? The question is absurd but the fact it can be asked at all might be thought to pose a difficulty for de Botton. His spirited and refreshingly humane book aims to show that religion serves needs that an entirely secular life cannot satisfy. He will not persuade those for whom atheism is a militant creed. Such people are best left with their certainties, however childish.

More:

Most people think that atheists are bound to reject religion because religion and atheism consist of incompatible beliefs. De Botton accepts this assumption throughout his argument, which amounts to the claim that religion is humanly valuable even if religious beliefs are untrue. He shows how much in our way of life comes from and still depends on religion – communities, education, art and architecture and certain kinds of kindness, among other things. I would add the practice of toleration, the origins of which lie in dissenting religion, and sceptical doubt, which very often coexists with faith.

Today’s atheists will insist that these goods can be achieved without religion. In many instances this may be so but it is a question that cannot be answered by fulminating about religion as if it were intrinsically evil. Religion has caused a lot of harm but so has science. Practically everything of value in human life can be harmful. To insist that religion is peculiarly malignant is fanaticism, or mere stupidity.

This has to be the oddest lede for a story about food — in this case, a meditation on Southern-style layer cake — that I’ve seen in ages. From the current issue of Saveur:

Prior to October 7, 2010, my mother and I were the best of friends. A consummate Southern lady, Judy Mims is a fantastic cook, gossiper, and mom — and in her relationship with me she had always drawn on all those talents. But on that October day, I flew from New York City to my childhood home in Kosciusko, Mississippi, to come out, at 25 years old, as a gay man to m parents. As anyone who grew up in the Bible Belt can imagine, the outcome was heartbreaking. My mother and I used to talk at least weekly; now months go by without a call. I miss her. And I can’t help feeling like I’ve lost touch with not only my mother, but also my lifeline to the world I grew up in. Thank goodness I still have the cakes.

Passive-aggressive journalism at its strangest. It baffles me why discussing the manifold virtues of Southern layer cake requires telling a national readership that Judy Mims of Kosciusko, Miss., is a hateful homophobic bitch. If he’s lucky, the author will come to regret having done this cruel thing.

Years ago, when I was around the same age as this author, I wrote a newspaper article focusing on my mother that inadvertently held her up to ridicule. I didn’t recognize what I was doing at the time, but in retrospect, there was a lot of passive-aggression in that piece. I bitterly regretted it, and asked her forgiveness once I was wise enough to see what I had done. Whatever my problems with my mom at the time, and however wrong I thought she was about things, she did not deserve that kind of treatment, not in public. Neither does Judy Mims, whatever her sins and failings.

I feel sorry for people who have writers in the family, and who have to suffer in public our kind working out our own issues involving them. I’m trying to be very, very careful in this respect as I write this book about my sister, our family, and this community. It’s hard, trying to be true to the facts, and to experience, but also respectful of people’s right to privacy.

Jennifer Fulwiler has been a Catholic for seven years, and has never heard a homily on contraception (neither did I, in 13 years). But that all changed for her one recent Sunday. Excerpt:

As we sat listening to Fr. Jonathan’s homily that Sunday, I think we were all surprised to hear such an open discussion of this topic. Not only did he eloquently state the Church’s teaching, but then he issued a gentle message to anyone who may not currently accept this doctrine, challenging them to reconsider their stance. In the tone of a caring father, he suggested that each of us pray for conversion within the broader issue of respect for life and human sexuality, wherever we may be in need of it. He ended by saying, “This is at the heart of our Faith, because it’s at the heart of who we are as human beings.”

When he finished, the church was still. The topic had been hotly debated all over the country in recent days, even among Catholics, and there was an electric silence as we all internalized what he had said. I think many of us also wondered how our fellow parishioners would react. There had been so much media speculation about practicing Catholics’ opinions on this issue, how would the thousand-plus people in this church, located in a politically liberal metropolitan area within the Protestant South, receive this homily?

The question was unexpectedly answered when, as Fr. Jonathan returned to his chair at the side of the altar, the pews erupted in spontaneous, thunderous applause.

Good for them. I could be wrong, but I bet no small number of them disagree with Father Jonathan on contraception, but were just so glad that a priest finally had the courage to explain and to defend the Church’s teaching, clearly and without apology. It’s always good to hear a clergyman with backbone. Once, when I was living in Florida, there was a priest in our parish who was a Roman candle of clerical liberalism, shooting wack-job heretical fireballs out of his mouth at every other homily. Once, though, he gave a powerful, well-reasoned sermon explaining the Church’s social teaching about the rights of labor, and applying it to a local situation. It was a terrific sermon, one that challenged my own prejudices, and used the authoritative teaching of the Church to change my mind. I made a point to stop after mass and thank him for what he preached. I am always encouraged by non-MTD, non-lukewarm preaching. Congratulations, Father Jonathan. (Follow the link to Fulwiler’s blog to hear the homily yourself).