If Iran is hanging gay people for no other reason than that they are gay, that would be considered genocide.

Wow, great Nazi sympathizing. Clearly, since those crimes weren't named when the Nazis committed them, it was okay for them to do what they did!

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"Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states...Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."



~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

This strikes me as an impeccably multiculturalist approach. But I have no multiculturalist tendencies, so I do not feel at all constrained about criticising such barbarity, and doing so in the strongest possible terms.

When citizens of other countries--indeed, other cultures--commit such atrocities as "honor" killings or the genital mutilation of women, and the governments of those countries look the other way; when foreign governments impose the death penalty upon those who proselytize for any religion other than Islam; or when they stone to death adulterers, it can only be described as shocking to all civilized people's sensibilities.

Is there anything we can do about it? No, of course not. Other sovereign nations may behave barbarically toward their own citizens if they wish, if those citizens fail to rise up and overthrow such tyranny. But that does not mean we should consider it tolerable behavior. In fact, I find it so outrageous that I would decline to establish (or continue, if already established) diplomatic relations with any country that behaved in such an outrageous manner--even if we coveted their oil, or some other hugely important commodity.

What if they loose count?

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

8 women and 1 man - seems to me that there are some men walking. You know that a man can't be convicted or rape without 4 male witnesses testifying against him - swearing they had witnessed it.

It sucks to be female in some Islamic countries!

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Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
- Robertson Davies

If a 12 year old girl holds hands with a boy, she has defiled the family and they have to kill her. Some freakin bizarre mindset!

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Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
- Robertson Davies

It is, after all, the culrure that gave birth to hashish - and the hashishim (assasin). A nice teacherly tidbit!

__________________
Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
- Robertson Davies

Well, the Hindus do have that nasty custom of sutteee - burning the widow when her husband dies. It's illegal but it still happens. Some pretty brutal bride deaths too, if the dowry is deemed too small.

Then there is female circumcision - usually done on a small child with no anesthesisa and rusty, unclean tools. That's tribal - not religious.

Looks like there is cancer enough to go around.

__________________
Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
- Robertson Davies

And Christians have that nasty symbolic cannibalism thing...

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"When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation... We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...."
- The Declaration of Independence

Ahmad who?

Got some examples?

The 4 witnesses applies to men and women. The act of penetration must be withnessed by the 4 witnesses or there is no case. There is also harsh punishment for false accusation. That said, I don't know how much Sharia is in Iranian law since they are Shia and have made a lot of stuff up themselves.

????? Put the bottle down, you're drunk again.

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"Well done Dubya. You freakin' imbecile." - ViolaLee

1. Menstruation is a sickness. Don't have sex with menstruating women. 2:222

2. Have sex with your women whenever and as often as you like. 2:223

3. Women have rights that are similar to men, but men are "a degree above them." 2:228

4. A woman is worth one-half a man. 2:282

5. Marry of the women two, or three, or four. 4:3

6. Males are to inherit twice that of females. 4:11

7. Lewd women are to be confined to their houses until death. 4:15

8. You may not forcibly inherit women, unless they flagrantly lewd. 4:19

9. Instructions for exchanging wives 4:20

10. "All married women (are forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hands possess."
11. You can't have sex with married women, unless they are slaves obtained in war (with whom you may rape or do whatever you like). 4:24

12. Men are in charge of women, because Allah made men to be better than women. Refuse to have sex with women from whom you fear rebellion, and scourge them. 4:34

13. Don't pray if you are drunk, dirty, or have touched a woman lately. 4:43

14. Women are feeble and are unable to devise a plan. 4:98

15. They invoke in his (Allah's) stead only females. 4:117

16. "Unto the male is the equivalent share of two females." 4:176

17. When it's time to pray and you have just used the toilet or touched a woman, be sure to wash up. If you can't find any water, just rub some dirt on yourself. 5:6

18. Lot offers his daughters to a mob of angel rapers. 11:78

19. Lot offers his daughters to a mob of angel rapers. 15:71

20. You don't have to be modest around your wives or your slave girls "that your right hand possess." 23:6

21. A husband can accuse his wife of adultery with only one witness. 24:6

22. Believing women must lower their gaze and be modest, cover themselves with veils, and not reveal themselves except to their husbands, relatives, children, and slaves. 24:31

23. Women must cover themselves when in public. 33:59

24. Those who "did wrong" will go to hell, and their wives will go to hell with them (no matter how they behaved). 37:22-23

25. But the single-minded slaves of Allah will enjoy a Garden filled with lovely-eyed virgins. 37:40-48

26. Female companions await those who enter the Gardens of Eden on the Day of Reckoning. 38:52

27. Allah will reward those in the Garden with beautiful wives with wide, lovely eyes. 52:20

28. Those who disbelieve in the afterlife give female names to angels. 53:27

29. Allah will reward believing men with "fair ones" (beautiful women) in heaven. 55:71-72

30. Those in the Garden will be attended by immortal youths with wide, lovely eyes. 56:17-23

31. Allah made virgins to be lovers and friends to those on his right hand. 56:36-37

32. Your wives and children are your enemies. They are to you only a temptation. 64:14-15

33. You don't have to be chaste around your wives or your slave girls. 70:29-30