"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality." --Bishop Desmond Tutu

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Bill Donahue is nucking futs!

The mouthpiece for the Catholic League had this to say about Sarah Palin's encounter with the witch-hating Kenyan pastor:
Witchcraft is a sad reality in many parts of Africa, resulting in scores of deaths in Kenya over the past two decades.
Of course there's no evidence of this "sad reality" or of the "scores of deaths" that result from this witchcraft. But leave it to Donahue to come out on the wrong side of the issue. The truth about witchcraft in Africa is much more sinister than Donahue's straw-woman beliefs.

Accusations of witchcraft result in scores of deaths and the displacements of hundreds or even thousands of people. From Wikipedia:
As of 2006, between 25,000 and 50,000 children in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, had been accused of witchcraft and thrown out of their homes. On April, 2008, Kinshasa, the police arrested 14 suspected victims (of penis snatching) and sorcerers accused of using black magic or witchcraft to steal (make disappear) or shrink men's penises to extort cash for cure, amid a wave of panic. Arrests were made in an effort to avoid bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 alleged penis snatchers were beaten to death by mobs. It was reported on May 21, 2008 that in Kenya a mob had burnt to death at least 11 people accused of witchcraft. In Tanzania in 2008, President Kikwete publicly condemned witchdoctors for killing albinos for their body parts which are thought to bring good luck. 25 albinos have been murdered since March 2007.
It is the accusation rather than the practice of witchcraft that is the source of the evil here. It is people like Bill Donahue who seek to persecute and harm people who believe differently than he does that do the most harm in the world.

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