Theodore Shoebat is a rabidly homophobic, Muslim-hating Christian fundamentalist probably best known for a seemingly endless stream of YouTube videos in which he calls for “sodomites” to be put to death.
Right Wing Watch does a pretty good job of keeping track of him in articles with titles like “Theodore Shoebat Calls For SWAT Teams To Raid The Homes Of Gay Couples And Seize Their Children” and “Theodore Shoebat Says Jesus Would Personally Beat Gays To Death.”
Well, it turns out that young Mr. Shoebat — son of Walid Shoebat, an anti-Muslim activist and “expert” who says he’s a former Muslim Brotherhood member — also kind of hates women. Or at least women who have rights.
In a recent video, RWW reports, Theodore Shoebat declared that “all these sluts who kill their own children” deserve to be executed.
They had a choice to keep their legs closed. They could have controlled themselves, and they got the abortions and they murdered their own children. Let me tell you something, I believe in the death penalty for these women and I believe that God himself agrees with me.
Here are the highlights of that lovely video:
Not surprisingly, he’s also not too keen on women having the right to vote:
I don’t believe in women voting. I don’t believe in the suffragist movement, I don’t believe in women in politics. If they’re so righteous, let them stay at home and teach their children that righteousness. They have no place on the podium, they have no place in the political sphere. …
We wouldn’t have the crap if women simply taught righteousness to their children as opposed to trying to compete with men all the time in the political sphere and trying to dominate their husbands!
Let’s go to the tape:
Providing yet more evidence for the theory of “Crank Magnetism,” Theodore Shoebat also believes that:
- Homosexuality leads to cannibalism
- Blasphemy also leads to cannibalism
- Gays are trying to”transform the Scouts into a Nazi-like gay youth club,”
- The government should send SWAT teams to shut down yoga studios
Can you guess which candidate he supports for president? I’ll give you one hint: this person’s name starts with “Donald J. Trum.”
Theodore Shoebat hopes that if this mystery candidate is elected, he will institute a “Christian supremacist” regime in which
there’s no free reign for homosexuals, there’s no liberation for perversity and debaseness and just downright weird mutant psychos walking around with clipped liberal dyke hair and men dressing up as women and all that sick, psycho stuff. People who flaunt the Quran in a Christian society would be arrested, at times put to death … .
Stop trying to make “put everyone to death” happen. It’s not going to happen.
@American Red Tory
There is no perfect “life support machine” analogy for pregnancy, but a much better one than the one you provided would be a law that, if you are in a car accident and the other person is injured and needs life support, we are going to hook you up to that person to provide it until they recover.
Weirdly, using other human beings as life support machines has never received much research attention! Maybe because using even willing human beings as life support machines isn’t ethical, let alone using people who didn’t sign up for this and just had an accident! Or maybe it’s because men are just as theoretically useful for this as women!
I mean, we have just never even bothered to explore this possibility as a medical therapy that should be developed. Maybe ask yourself why that might be?
Bodily autonomy. It’s not moral or legal to compel anyone to donate organs, tissue, bone marrow or even so much as a cupful of blood against their will, not even to save a life and not even if it’s a father donating to his own son (um, father and son are technically arbitrary, of course, but specified here for obvs rsns); if dad promises to donate but changes his mind right on the operating table, he gets to keep his kidney.
Hell, if dad didn’t consent to it and get on the donor register before dying, junior doesn’t get that kidney even after the car crash when the old man no longer requires its services.
Only a pregnant woman gets to have fewer legal rights than a corpse.
As people have pointed out the key factors are bodily autonomy and consent. I was identitied as a bone marrow doner a while back (turned out I wasn’t needed in the end). The actual procedure obviously doesn’t involve you being hooked up to the recipient. I wonder if I would have agreed if it did? Probably yes (in this case the recipient was a child, so heart strings and all that) but if it had to be for nine months I’d certainly find it inconvenient. The thing is though that would clearly be my choice; and I don’t think even the most driven utilitarian would argue I should be compelled, even if the recipient was my own child. So why is it an issue when it comes to women and pregnancy?
@Ms. Chairs
Reminds me of this Basic Instructions comic, about looking “less like a lesbian”: http://basicinstructions.net/basic-instructions/2009/1/1/how-to-create-a-running-gag.html?currentPage=3
I am sure that if your god exists, it is honored that you allow him, in your huge modesty and meekness, to agree with you. It may even pray you for allowing it to do that. And i am sure that it is happy that you use it as a reason and a justification for all your non humanitarian thoughts and precepts – after all, it is a god, not a human, ha -, the same way your black friend is happy to be used as a justification for your racist jokes and comments.
So glad I’m a vegetarian. I don’t miss dodgy post-pub kebabs.
Both parties cynically used abortion as a wedge issue after Roe v. Wade. Before the politicization people on the right and left had diverse views. The Catholic position solidified into the right.
It’s no surprise at all to see someone using and distorting religion to back up their own hatefulness. Neither is it surprising that women are among their targets.
And related the subject of cannibalism, apparently human flesh is like pork. Someone made a robot that analyzes and guesses foods. Someone else stuck their hand in the scanner and got bacon as the answer.
http://www.wired.com/2006/11/robot_identifie/
It’s neither surprising at all to see someone using and distorting religion to back up their own hatefulness, nor that women are among their targets.
And related the subject of cannibalism, apparently human flesh is like pork. Someone made a robot that analyzes and guesses foods. Someone else stuck their hand in the scanner and got bacon as the answer.
http://www.wired.com/2006/11/robot_identifie/
@ Paradoxical Intention
Sa-WEET, another wrestling fan! High five! Like a Telemundo soap opera, but with bodyslams instead of slapping!
Have you ever heard of Ladybeard? He has become my hero.
His wrestling persona is an adorable five year old girl who likes playing dress up, heavy metal and unleashing destruction and devastation. He also has an awesome band.
He also has a proud history of laying the smack down on homophobic Biffs who would attack him for wearing skirts.
Whoops, double post.
Even *if* every holy book specifically condemned abortion in plain words, it doesn’t matter. We don’t have to care what the Bible says about anything when it comes to the law. It seems like a uniquely American left thing to try and out-bible people when it comes to laws or basic rights (maybe its just very prevelant). I guess if that’s important to you, okay, but in general it doesn’t matter one bit.
“I don’t believe in women voting. I don’t believe in the suffragist movement, I don’t believe in women in politics.”
So can we just talk about how this is a really weird order to put this in? Like yeah man if you don’t believe in women voting or in the suffragist movement We kind of assumed you wouldn’t be for Women in politics. Get your sexist Bullshit in the right order.
I guess we really long pig, then.
@opposablethumbs @Alan Robertshaw
If you ask someone who is anti-abortion why it’s acceptable to compel a woman to continue an unwanted pregnancy, but not to compel organ/tissue donation, you’ll usually get an answer along the lines of “There’s a difference between actively killing and passively allowing to die.” Which seems vaguely reasonable, but I always feel like there’s a version of the Naturalistic Fallacy going on here–i.e. easily preventable deaths are acceptable because the lifesaving measures are “artificial,” and likewise pregnancy is “natural,” so taking steps to end one is “artificial” and therefore bad.
Scratching these people usually uncovers some form of belief that nurturing children is just women’s natural role, so yeah.
American Red Tory:
“*That’s because it is a potential person; but potential persons still have value according to my view, and the view of the Orthodox. ”
If we’re going to go down this road than you had better have never worn a condom or asked your partner to wear a condom during heterosexual sex. You’d better not have ever let your partner be on the pill or been on the pill yourself before you had sex. You also can’t have masturbated of course. In short if s fetus is a so called “potential person” then so is a sperm and that brings forth a load of pretty toxic ideas.
@zatar
Could be he’s going in reverse order? In the US at least, women had been elected to political postions before the suffragist movement nationally gave women the right to vote.
Karalora, I guess there’s always the old violinist thought experiment (why a violinist? Rather than, say, a world-class footballer? I guess its those obvs rsns again, except this time they’re the class ones; a symphony orchestra has more class clout than Real Madrid or Man U. But I digress).
So, a bloke wakes up one day to find that his circulation has been hooked up to that of the world’s greatest violinist (the bloke in question probably assumes the violinist is likewise male; fine, never mind, that will do for the present purpose). The violinist has a unique blood-type for which Bloke is a unique match, and will die if disconnected before violinist is fully over his Hypothetical Thought Experiment condition which just happens to last about 9 months. Violinist is in a coma and will thus not be weighing in on the conversation.
Does Bloke have the right to demand to be disconnected from the violinist, who will die?
Of course anti-choicers will then tend to focus on arguing that a pregnant woman supposedly “knowingly took the risk” of pregnancy by having sex (contraceptive failure and rape don’t exist in their world, or if they do they can be ignored). Though I expect that if an anti-choicer breaks a leg skiing, an activity well known to carry a certain risk for leg-breaking, they will still want and expect medical treatment to remedy the situation. (And they tend to ignore the fact that continuing a pregnancy to term carries a statistically significant risk of any number of medical problems for the woman – up to and including many that are permanent, ranging from minor all the way up to fatal).
You are of course absolutely right; scratch an anti-choicer and you will find some very questionable ideas about what a woman is (for), plus in most cases an unquenchable desire to control women generally and punish them for having sex.
re: ADHD, etc: With the disclaimer that my only expertise in the matter is in having an ADHD diagnosis, I’ve thought that it’s likely not so much a “disorder” as a constellation of traits maladapted to the currently prevalent living conditions.
My (again, very personal and perhaps flawed) evidence:
* I enlisted in the military out of high school. Basic Training is a relatively high stress environment in that you have little to no control and are getting very little sleep and you spend the majority of most days running, jumping, and moving outdoors.
I felt…wonderful…and more clear headed and in control of my focus than at any other point in my life before or after.
While I’ve noticed some improvement at times during which I’ve been able to be significantly more physically active than my baseline, it’s difficult to imagine being able to have a life that consistently incorporates that level of pure physical exertion.
I’ve also wondered if the rate of diagnosis in the US is, at least in part, due to a founder effect (or, really, multiple “waves” of founder effects given immigration trends) in action.
@opposablethumbs
Yeah, I’m familiar with the Violinist Argument. I tend not to use it myself; it’s so painfully contrived that I’m not surprised the antis don’t find it convincing. (And in any case they can always fall back on “natural” vs. “artificial.”) Pregnancy really is quite a unique condition, which is why it’s hard to draw equivalencies during abortion debates.
That said, I think for most people, opposition to abortion boils down to a bunch of halfway convictions that line up into what looks at first glance like a full, coherent argument, but really isn’t. People only sort of believe a fetus is the moral equivalent of a born person – they still count birthdays, not conceptiondays, and they don’t hold funerals for miscarriages. The answer to “How many children do you have?” is “Three, plus one on the way,” not “Four.” They also sort of believe that for women, having sex on purpose for any reason other than procreation is…not wicked, but maybe a bit dodgy, perhaps? Hence rape exceptions. They sort of believe that pregnancy and motherhood are just wonderful awesomesauce and women have to be tricked into having abortions, but they also sort of believe that pregnancy and motherhood are a woman’s just deserts for screwing around, hence the whole “consequences of your actions” line of argument.
With rare exceptions (and those people tend to be horrifying reactionaries in many ways), people who are anti-abortion do not have a fully reasoned position. They have general icky feelings surrounding women’s sexuality and self-determination (because our culture is a misogynistic one that doesn’t like to imagine women as anything but artless ingenues or devoted mothers), and they try to spin those icky feelings into an argument, because if there’s one thing worse than feeling icky, it’s feeling icky for no real reason.
Yeah, I tend to try and talk about whether a father should be compelled against his will to donate bone marrow or something to his son just because it mirrors some of the emotional baggage. The violinist one is just because of the action/inaction thing; plus skiing for the risk :-\ (I agree it’s (too) elaborate, but so many thought experiment set-ups are ridiculous like that – the trolley problem, for example).
… the anti-choice position tends to include a rag-bag of assorted bits and pieces, so I guess it needs an assortment of observations. But I’m not much of an arguer at the best of times!
@ opposable thumbs
Is that the one where there’s five people on one track and the signalman’s son on the other? The first time that cropped up in an ethics class we spent quite a lot of time wondering what the signalman’ son was doing there. You’d think of all people, someone who’s dad was a signalman would be aware of the dangers of standing on trolley tracks and avoid doing so.
Now I want to know what patients with ventromedial prefrontal cortex damage think about abortion. They tend to make more utilitarian judgements in the trolley car experiment because they have problems with social emotions.
@Alan Robertshaw
That is a variant. Interestingly people answer differently depending on if they had to push a button to move the track (people tend to want to push the button), or push a person onto the track to stop the trolley (people don’t tend to want to push the person).
The personal connection that makes us celebrate birthdays and not conception days as Karalora mentioned might relate to that.
@mockingbird
This is anecdotal, but ADHD characteristics seem very good for things like military service (putting someone with ADHD on point in a formation would be very good), being an EMT and other fast paced emotionally dynamic situations situations too. It’s also very good for first-person shooter games. I’m convinced it’s a matter of having our perception and memory set up for some things instead of others.
Yannow….I could ALMOST put up with all the anti-abortion shit if I really believed the people spouting it would be good dads. You know they wouldn’t. They’d be the first ones starting reddit forums about how women are evil golddigging cunts for wanting child support to help pay for the child THEY FECKING CREATED!!!!
I could ALMOST put up with the anti-abortion shit if society would either guarantee the mother and the baby care or at least the care of the baby if the mother didn’t want to keep it.
But no.
“If you’re pre-born, you’re fine. If you’re pre-school, youre FUCKED!”
-George Carlin
I’m a little new here, and there’s quite a few comments so I didn’t look through them all.
But please tell me I am not the only one who noticed he is damning “Pro-lifers” in the video while shaking his finger at the camera, then goes on to b!tch about women getting abortions? Did I mishear that? If not it doesn’t make any sense! What’s wrong with these people!? Why do these idiots insist on women being human incubators/living baby containers?
Please clarify for me so I can explain to the creepy little old ladies coming to my door to try preach god to me every other week as to why I have no desire to convert to something that only appears to be anti-female?
@Carr
I love how women have to take responsibility for getting pregnant but if they don’t have sex with men they’re oppressing men, the whole thing just feeds into the whole “boys will be boys and girls will be held responsible” double standard
@sunnysombrera
In the supreme course case going on right now over whether or not TRAP laws are constitutional, a group of moderate Christian and Jewish religious leaders submitted a document to the case pointing out exactly what what you said, that they consider fetuses to be potential lives but not really alive
A lot of evangelical positions form at the intersection of complex, subtle philosophical questions (like “what does it mean to be alive?”) and absolute moral certainty. They’re not comfortable saying “I don’t know,” and how can they be if their immortal soul hangs in the balance, so if you ever bring up something they didn’t think about, they feel the need to make a snap judgment and then defend that judgment adamantly.
The fear of ambiguity also feeds into the religious conservative’s hostility towards scientific discovery, even in cases (such as vaccination) where there’s no particular moral code being crossed. The fact that science literally promises uncertainty as a state of being–today’s rock-bound certainties become tomorrow’s outdated hypotheses, overtaken by newer, deeper and sometimes far more radical understandings, which are themselves built upon sand. I’ve actually had religious conservatives state, without irony, that the constant revision of scientific truth is why they prefer the certitude of faith.
Yep, I’ve heard that too. Also, the related idea that science is intrinsically untrustworthy because sometimes the consensus changes.
@ freemage
They must hate Heisenberg!
Yeah though, there are some weird attitudes. Like how the theory of relativity seems to be rejected because they conflate it with moral relativity.
Well, there are the goofy things from people who just don’t know what words mean, but even completely intelligent and well-educated evangelicals tend to hit a sticky spot due to the aversion to ever letting anything be ambiguous.