All posts tagged: Conservative

Fundamental rights of LGBTQ+ eroding as they’re weaponized by conservative forces – POLITICO

Fundamental rights of LGBTQ+ eroding as they’re weaponized by conservative forces – POLITICO

Published by Sam

In countries like Italy, Belgium or Romania, right-wing conservative groups have been accusing the LGBTQ+ community of “undermining family values and destabilising society” and used discriminatory speeches during election periods. This is then also used justify the introduction of legislation restricting fundamental freedoms and so-called “anti-LGBT propaganda” laws, the report stated. In Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Portugal, local authorities have reported “a significant increase in crimes motivated by perceived sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression,” ILGA-Europe noted. “There is a tendency to instrumentalize the so-called protection of young people as a hope to spread fear and division,” said Italian member of the European Parliament Alessandro Zan of the center-left Socialists and Democrats during an event in Parliament. “The discriminatory measures proposed in Hungary and Slovakia and the successful resolution in Italy against the so-called gender ideology all but spread hate and discrimination across Europe … These measures harm children, families and workers,” he added. Chaber, the executive director of ILGA-Europe, also said that attacks against LGBTQ+ people are becoming “the testing ground …

Somerville challenges UK ministers to ‘get on and deliver’ social energy tariff

Somerville challenges UK ministers to ‘get on and deliver’ social energy tariff

Published by Sam

It has established three separate winter heating payments, the pension age winter heating payment, which replaces the UK’s winter fuel payment, the winter heating payment, which is made to low-income families, and the child winter heating payment, which helps families which have higher energy costs because of a child with an illness or disability. Source link

How Conservative Estimates of Climate Change May Destroy or Save the World

How Conservative Estimates of Climate Change May Destroy or Save the World

Published by skeptic

“We didn’t expect this heating to happen so early in the year and to be so extreme,” Derek Manzello, a coordinator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch, told CNN (Zerkel 2023). This is just one of many articles expressing surprise at worse-than-expected effects of global warming. Scientists have been systematically underestimating the effects of climate change in their statements to the public. They apply scientific terminology to an engineering problem, leading us to evaluate the data inappropriately. I submit that the problem lies with the difference between how scientists and engineers use the term conservative in evaluating data.  The scientists’ use of the term conservative is consistent with the definition “marked by moderation or caution” in that scientists are cautious not to allow uncertainty to inflate an estimate. This use of conservative is common in scientific presentations, such as “scientists have in fact been conservative in their projections of the impacts of climate change. In particular, we discuss recent studies showing that at least some of the key attributes of global warming from …

My Friend Outed Me to Her Conservative Parents

My Friend Outed Me to Her Conservative Parents

Published by José

Editor’s Note: Is anything ailing, torturing, or nagging at you? Are you beset by existential worries? Every Tuesday, James Parker tackles readers’ questions. Tell him about your lifelong or in-the-moment problems at [email protected]. Don’t want to miss a single column? Sign up to get “Dear James” in your inbox. Dear James, A few months ago, I came out to my high-school friend group as bisexual. They were supportive and appreciated my request to keep it on the down-low. (It’s not that I’m ashamed; I just don’t think my sexuality defines my identity, and we live in a conservative area.) Here’s the problem: One of my friends and I recently made plans to hang out, but the day before we were set to meet, she told me her parents had said no. I could tell she was hiding something. When I pressed her on it, she confessed that she had told her parents, who are Christian and very conservative, that I was bi. Now her parents won’t let us hang out, because they think that I’m …

Conservative Christians ‘grieve’ Gaetz nomination, express frustration with leaders’ silence

Conservative Christians ‘grieve’ Gaetz nomination, express frustration with leaders’ silence

Published by skeptic

(RNS) — Christian conservative leaders are hearing mounting criticism for their silence about the nomination of U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz to serve as the new Trump administration’s attorney general, as allegations about drug-fueled parties and sex trafficking involving the nominee continue to swirl in Washington. “Those most vocal about supposedly loving Jesus and embracing Christian values are the ones that are least likely to stand up and object to nominations of this type of individual,” Boz Tchividjian, grandson of famed evangelist Billy Graham and longtime attorney for sexual abuse survivors in religious settings, told RNS on Wednesday (Nov. 20). Shortly after President-elect Donald Trump tapped Gaetz, a Southern Baptist, as his pick to head the U.S. Department of Justice, attention turned to a congressional ethics investigation looking into allegations by a Gaetz associate that Gaetz knew that women were paid for sex at parties he attended and that Gaetz had sex with a 17-year-old in 2017. ABC News has reported that it obtained Venmo records suggesting the former congressman paid $10,000 to two women who …

Is Science Progressive or Conservative?

Is Science Progressive or Conservative?

Published by skeptic

In our modern world, we consider science to naturally go hand in hand with progress.1 These two concepts are almost perceived as synonyms. Science is progress; I believe in science as I believe in progress. We then consider ourselves progressive, as supporters of progress, “moving forward” in the etymological sense of the word. Progress is often opposed to conservation, with the latter being seen as a symbol of inertia, i.e., resistance to change. In the eyes of the general public and progressive intellectuals, science—which is constantly advancing—cannot be conservative. By conservative, I mean preserving, safeguarding, and maintaining things, structures, and unchanging ideas. But is science only progressive? Scientific ideas are often seen as revolutionary, wiping away the past, the tabula rasa. However, while ideas evolve, change, and modify, they still preserve certain older ideas that inspire the new ones. In this sense, we will see that science preserves more than it changes. But this is not opposed to progress. Actually, the foundation of science itself obeys a law of conservation, despite being in constant motion. …

Conservative Humanists vow to keep freedom of religion or belief on party’s agenda

Conservative Humanists vow to keep freedom of religion or belief on party’s agenda

Published by skeptic

The Conservative Party Conference was held at the International Convention Centre, Birmingham At the Conservative Party Conference, Humanists UK hosted a fringe event where humanist members of the Conservative Party met to discuss their role in the party and politics as a whole, particularly in relation to issues like freedom of religion or belief (FoRB), freedom of expression, and defending civil liberties.  The fringe event, which was co-hosted by Conservative Humanists (one of several independent party-political humanist groups affiliated to Humanists UK), saw speakers pay tribute to the outgoing government’s commitment to international FoRB, including for humanists at risk, which was made a special focus through dedicated government roles as such as the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on FoRB. Conservative Humanists pledged to be a torchbearer for humanist values in the party as it charts its future direction following a general election which returned a Labour government after 14 years of Conservatives in power. Humanists in the party also vowed to make progress with their colleagues on issues such as faith-based discrimination in schools and …

New French Interior Minister embodies the conservative right

New French Interior Minister embodies the conservative right

Published by Sam

Bruno Retailleau, in Paris, on September 19, 2024. CYRIL BITTON / DIVERGENCE FOR LE MONDE Even his critics acknowledge that Bruno Retailleau is cultured, curious and uncommonly polite. When the new interior minister takes a stand, he does so with an almost old-fashioned elegance. In April 2017, while managing the presidential campaign of conservative candidate and former prime minister François Fillon, Retailleau debated then-presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron on France 2. He compared his “en même temps” (a refrain Macron commonly uses for positioning himself as a unifying centrist) approach to the zigzag flight of snipes, sharing a hunting anecdote dear to his grandfather: “He always told me that when the snipe went off in the zig, you had to shoot in the zag.” The president of the conservative Les Républicains (LR) group in the Sénat, known for his carefully chosen words, has frequently taken aim at this so-called “new world” Macron claimed to embody. A staunch defender of traditional right-wing values, he criticized it as recently as July: “When you mix napkins and tea towels, in …

The Most Conservative Branch | Jed S. Rakoff

The Most Conservative Branch | Jed S. Rakoff

Published by skeptic

Reading the Constitution, the latest book by the recently retired Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer, bears the subtitle “Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism.”* But an alternative subtitle might have been “Why I Got Beat by Nino.” Much of the book is devoted to a defense of Breyer’s dissenting opinions in Supreme Court cases over the past several decades in which the majority opinions were written by Justice Antonin “Nino” Scalia or his acolytes. Breyer’s essential point is that whenever the meaning and scope of a statute are in dispute—which is true of most cases heard by the Supreme Court—a reasonable jurist will not only consider the words of the statute, which are frequently ambiguous, but also look to whatever other information is available, such as the legislative history of the statute, the purpose it was designed to serve, and the practical implications of the alternative interpretations being offered. This is hardly a novel point of view. The same point was convincingly made by, among others, Robert A. Katzmann, the former chief judge of the …