Posted on 05/08/2002 10:47:31 AM PDT by buffyt
WHEN Andrea Pia Yates drowned her five children because, she claimed, she wanted to save them from hell by killing them in the innocence of their youth, it was either mental illness or cold-blooded murder. Certainly, it was a misguided application of the Christian faith Yates practiced.
Her crime seemed like a clear result of mental illness to me. To jurors who evaluated the evidence, it sounded like murder, and they sentenced her to life in prison.
When 15 schoolgirls burned alive in March because religious police in the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca prevented them from fleeing a blazing building because they were bare-headed, was it insanity - a sickness imbedded in the Saudi religion, culture and society? Or was it a crime committed by overzealous enforcers of Islamic precepts?
It would be interesting to know what percentage of the Saudi public would defend the actions of the mutaween religious police, the so-called Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. The officers reportedly beat girls who were not wearing proper Islamic dress - head scarves and black robes - to keep them inside the burning building.
Obviously, the mutaween's behavior was outrageous. Saudi media condemned the police for preventing bystanders and firefighters from rescuing the girls. Their grief-stricken fathers were furious. Clearly, the religious police had enforced a complete distortion of Islam.
At the same time, it is highly unlikely that this tragedy will spur the general Saudi populace to advocate for a wholesale change in the status of women in that nation where women are not allowed to drive, are considered dependents of their fathers or husbands and may not travel, attend college or get a job without written permission of a male guardian.
And yet, unless Saudi women are given full equality with men, they will continue to be vulnerable to atrocities like the one that occurred at Mecca. No nation can call itself truly civilized as long as it supports religious interpretations that imply that it would be better for a woman to be killed than to break a tenet of the faith that might be impossible to keep.
That's a question for Sudan, where judges sentence women to stoning for adultery. Apparently, evidence of pregnancy can be sufficient grounds for a sentence of death by stoning if the woman is a widow or her husband has a job in another city.
It's a question for Nigeria, where at least two women have been sentenced by religious courts to stoning for giving birth out of wedlock. One woman's sentence was overturned. The other upheld. Rape or the fact that a woman has dependent children can be insufficient to prompt these judges to relent.
It's a question for Pakistan, where conservative Islamic society ignores thousands of so-called honor killings in which women and girls are killed, burned or maimed by male relatives who lash out for transgressions such as unfaithfulness, attempted divorce or refusal to submit to an arranged marriage.
There's no reason to pick only on Islam. Religions widely practiced in the United States also have their quirks that place women on a rung below men. Catholics have strictures against women in the priesthood, and some Orthodox Jews make it virtually impossible for women to divorce. Some fundamentalist Christians believe women are duty-bound to submit to their husbands. But the laws of this country insist that women are equal under civil law.
That should be the standard that the United States should encourage in its allies. So, what does it mean that the Bush administration works to develop a relationship with Saudi Arabia's rulers in order to thwart terrorism, but fails to denounce the kingdom's imposition of an interpretation of Islam that imposes terror on its own female citizens?
It is important to be respectful of the religious practices of the Earth's various peoples. But respect does not require one to condone religious-based crimes against women.
At the end of the day, however, even devout practitioners of a faith will question extreme violence against women in the name of their religion. It is getting people to see the error of limiting women's right to live as complete human beings that is the challenge.
[for discussion only]
"Do you sell Valentine Day's gifts?" - petrified the salesman. He wordlessly pointed to his colleague and disappeared. The colleague, apparently more schooled at assessing real buyers from undercover religious police agents, smiled broadly and said: "Officially, there's no Valentine here; it's banned. But there are a lot of Valentine items you can choose from."
The prohibition on Valentine's Day (news - web sites) is part of carrying out the strict and ascetic school of Islam the kingdom has followed and applied to daily life for 100 years.
Like Valentine's, all Christian and even most Muslim feasts are banned in the kingdom, the birthplace of Islam, because they're considered "religious innovations" Islam doesn't sanction.
The feared muttawa, or religious police, ensure that everyone behaves. Sexes are segregated in public: in schools and universities, at cultural festivals, in restaurants and even at fast-food outlets - screens separate the women's takeout lines from the men's.
Dating is taboo, and unmarried couples caught together will be dragged to jail.
But that doesn't mean that Saudis don't find ways to squirm out of the shackles.
Take Valentine's. With a young generation more exposed than their parents to the outside world through travel and satellite television, banning people from observing the lovers' holiday is becoming harder. Half the population is below 18.
The rules, though unwritten, have been mastered by buyers and sellers over the last few years.
Everyone knows that as Feb. 14 gets closer, the chances of finding a Valentine's gift or any red-colored present decrease. It's not because stores cannot meet the demand; it's because that's when the religious police begin looking for anything suggesting the holiday.
To get around this, stores begin selling the gifts weeks in advance.
Gift arrangements include teddy bears with "Love" and "Me" respectively traced on each paw, clocks and frames decorated with hearts, huge "beating" hearts fitted with blinking lights and baskets of plastic red fruits: apples, strawberries and grapes. Most come with torrid messages of love expressed in poetry.
In most cases, the gifts are not presented on Valentine's Day. A woman may not get permission from her parents to go out that night. Stores call up the recipients in early February and ask them to pick up their presents as soon as possible. They don't want to be saddled with the incriminating items when the muttawa begin making the rounds.
As Feb. 14 gets closer, the flush of red slowly fades. Every heart, every rose and every item that's red or that suggests love and romance descends underground, to the black market, where its price triples and quadruples.
Entrepreneurs who take the risk of maintaining a red hue in their stores could end up spending days in jail.
In schools, students are sternly warned against marking the day or even wearing an item of clothing that's red, including ribbons or socks. Restaurants receive leaflets from the muttawa, ordering them not to light red-colored candles or decorate the tables with red roses, dim the lights or play any kind of music. Music is banned in public places.
This Valentine's season, the muttawa have been giving restaurants a gift - CDs with a recording of the sound of running water. One restaurant manager said the police told him the CD is meant to calm the nerves of the diners and protect the management from the temptation of playing music.
But it didn't turn out to be so soothing, he said. "The diners kept saying: 'Turn off the taps. Why are you wasting water?'"
Flower shops are ordered not to carry red flowers of any kind - some have had their supply destroyed for disobeying.
In a column for last Valentine's Day, Dawood al Shirian, regional manager of the Saudi-owned, London-based Al Hayat daily newspaper, noted that the problem can't be solved by eliminating red socks and ribbons. After all, he wrote from Riyadh, some Saudis eat egg sandwiches with ketchup and pepper sauce, not to mention traffic lights, stop signs, and the emblem of the Saudi Red Crescent Society.
Saudi authorities don't have the right to "deprive people of the color red that Allah has sanctioned, or prevent them from riding their red cars, wearing their red-checkered headdresses, eating delicious watermelons, enjoying the taste of red American apples, smelling red roses," he wrote, "because those things have nothing to do with the redness of hearts and love".
I think what Paul was facing in his ministry, which caused him to say he did not permit a woman to "teach or have authority over a man," was some kind of specific Satanic influence, probably a mystery female cult (reminiscent of certain new-age screaming feminists today). I think this is the case, because Paul used the rationale of Eve's being deceived [by the serpent] in this context.
Heaven in Islam is the place where a Muslim man will be reclining, eating meat and delicious fruits, drinking exquisite wines, and engaging in sex with beautiful women, (and eternally-young beautiful boys or young men "Wildan or Ghilman," according to some Muslim theologians). There is no mention of women's rewards.
"As to the righteous, they will be in gardens, and in happiness...(to them will be said:) "Eat and drink ye, with profit and health, because of your (good) deeds." They will recline (with ease) on thrones (of dignity) arranged in ranks; and We shall join them (in the original: marry them) to companions with beautiful, big and lustrous eyes... And We shall bestow on them, of fruit and meat, anything they desire. They shall there exchange, one with another, a cup free of frivolity, free of all taint of ill. Round about them will serve to them youths (handsome) as pearls well-guarded." Surah 52:17, 19, 20, 22-24 (see also Surah 4:57; Surah 76:12-22; Surah 55:54-56; and Surah 47:15)
Gal. 3:26-29
You are all sons of God though faith in Christ Jesus; for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are ALL ONE IN CHIRST JESUS. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
No mention of Eve, here. Paul is releasing us from the Laws of Old Testament, because we are saved by Grace alone - by Christ's death and resurrection. Males and Females are equal!
I am much more comfortable in a church where women are equal to men... NOT bosses over men, just equal, in God's eyes! I am a feminist, but FAR right feminist, for equal rights and pay and opportunity ONLY. Not for affirmative action, now a NOW gal or a feminazi who hates men. More of a Walter Williams than a Jesse Jackson!
Perhaps when a woman dies for the sins of the world, this will change.
No, it was far easier fot the theo-fascists to chivvy these frightened young people back into the conflagration they had just escaped by dint of force, fear, and intimidation, themselves remaining safely out of harm's way. This bespeaks rank cowardice, and no one need respect these "religious policemen" as they've completely failed to earn any...
the infowarrior
Sheesh.
I have known a lot of female pastors but only two (RevNan being one) had a solid belief in the Gospel. The rest fell into the "Just because the Bible says it doesn't mean it's true" category. I've known three pastorettes in town and one is a lesbian, one is leaning that way(she is splitting with the Progressive Baptists because they are too conservative) and one doesn't believe in a literal Resurrection.
Paul wanted women to be silent in church "for it is unseemly for a woman to speak in church." and he wanted them to be submissive. If they wanted to know anything; go ask your husband. Read it in 1 corinthians ch14 line 34 - Tom
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