Civil Rights

A Sudanese woman facing 40 lashes for wearing trousers in public made her first appearance today in a court packed with supporters, in what her lawyer described as a test case in Sudan's decency laws.

There were chaotic scenes as Lubna Hussein, a former journalist who works for the United Nations, attended the hearing wearing the same green slacks that got her arrested for immodest dress. Indecency cases are not uncommon in Sudan. But Ms. Hussein has attracted attention by publicizing her case, inviting journalists to hearings and using it to campaign against dress codes sporadically imposed in the capital.

The case was adjourned as lawyers discussed whether her status as a UN employee gave her legal immunity.

After the hearing, defence lawyer Nabil Adib Abdalla said Ms. Hussein had agreed to resign from the United Nations in time for the next session on Aug. 4 to make sure the case continued. "First of all she wants to show she is totally innocent, and using her immunity will not prove that," Mr. Abdalla told reporters. "Second she wants to fight the law. The law is too wide. It needs to be reformed ... This is turning into a test case. Human rights groups will be watching this closely."

According to James Randi Educational Foundation blogger Jeff Wang, a Euless, Texas Denny's offered a 10% discount and a 10% donation to the church of any customer who attended that church. When Wang asked how a non-believer might take advantage of the offer, the Denny's crew was stumped. (see the flyer)

ME: I'm wondering how the millions of people like me who don't attend church can take advantage of this offer.

MANAGER: I'm sorry, you can't. It's for people who go to church.

ME: With this promotion, Denny's is encouraging people to go to church. Is that right?

MANAGER: No, it's just a way to bring in more business.

ME: How is this different from offering a discount to white people?

(I'm aware that there are differences between racial discrimination and religious discrimination, and this probably wasn't the wisest thing to say. However, it is what I said.)

Wang followed up with letters to Denny's corporate offices, including an assertion that the practice may violate 1964 Civil Rights Act: Title II.

A bit ago, he was contacted by Montreal freelance writer Josef K. Radomski, who brought some history of the problems of religious-based discounts.

I've been following your story about Denny's on Twitter today and just saw your Swift post. It spurred me to put my old journalism hat on and do some research on other cases like this, given this is a serious issue. I don't know what the outcomes were, but here is some raw material for you: (...)

The Southland Church in Valdosta, GA has a promotion on its website offering a 15% discount at specific Papa John's location with their church bulletin. (...)

Meanwhile, the King, NC Chamber of Commerce is promoting a special at the Tokyo Japanese Grill and Sushi where a church bulletin gets you 10% off your order

PS: I don't think you overreacted in any way.

We all know Glenn Beck has the critical thinking skills of a screwdriver (but isn't nearly as useful), but he goes off the deep end (again) in claiming that gay marriage will naturally lead to polygamy (see video at the bottom of this post). He does not address how exactly this happens except to say that 'changing the formula' will make any number of other marriage arrangements legal (it would not). He also conveniently forgets the numerous examples of traditional marriage's Biblical ties to polygamy.

In the Bible, numerous icons of Christianity were polygamists.

• Genesis 4:19 - "Lamech married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah."
• 2 Samuel 12:7-8 - "Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms."
• 1 Kings 11:3 - "He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray."
• Genesis 26:34 - "And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite"
• Genesis 29:21,30 - "Then Jacob said to Laban, "Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to lie with her. (...) He finished the week with Leah, and then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife"
• Judges 8:30 - "And Gideon had threescore and ten sons of his body begotten: for he had many wives."
• Genesis 16:1-4 - "Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. And Sarai ... gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived."
• 2 Chronicles 24:3 - "Jehoiada took for him two wives..."

There are other examples of God-sanctioned polygamy in the Bible, none of which required the existence of gay marriage to come into being. Abraham, Jacob, and Gideon are some of the most respected figures in the Judeo-Christian canon, and all were allowed by God to be polygamists.

Not once, repeat, not once is gay marriage explicitly mentioned in the Bible. 1 Corinthians 7:1-4 and Ephesians 5:23-33 (and others) spell out marriage as one man and one woman, but by the listed examples above, the accepted, God-sanctioned polygamy of Abraham and others clearly shows the Biblical concept of marriage to be contradictory at best.

Homosexuality is clearly 'immoral' in the Bible (see Leviticus 18:22, Romans 1:26-27, and others), but never does God say same-sex marriage is disallowed. Homosexuals are already sinners in the eyes of God, there was no reason to doubly damn them over gay marriage. Polygamy, however, is clearly acceptable to God at times, though, as usual, God's stance isn't exactly crystal clear here.

But it is too much to expect a bloviating moron like Beck to know all this. He's doing really well to remember how to get to work each day. His reasoning here, like his reasoning on pretty much everything, follows the time-tested logic of the Underpants Gnome model:

Phase 1: Gay Marriage
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Polygamy!

A Saudi judge recently explained why there appeared to be an increase in the domestic violence towards women in the nation.

Arab News reported that Al-Razine made his remark as he was attempting to explain why incidents of domestic violence had increased in Saudi Arabia. He said that women and men shared responsibility, but added that "nobody puts even a fraction of blame" on women, the newspaper said.

Al-Razine "also pointed out that women's indecent behavior and use of offensive words against their husbands were some of the reasons for domestic violence in the country," it added.

Allah forbid you might consider having the husband and wife sit down and talk about overspending. When a society (and specifically the harsh and bitter Sunni Islam found in Saudi Arabia) believes its women should feel shame and behave like slaves, this sort of ass-backwards way of living in the world shines through time and again.

"This is how men in Saudi Arabia see women," she said in a telephone interview from the Saudi city of Dahran. "It's not something they read in a book or learned from a friend. They've been raised to see women this way, that they're less than a person."

Al-Huwaider added that "I'm not surprised to see a judge or a religious man saying that - they've been raised in the same culture - a culture that tells them it's ok to raise your hand to a woman that this works."

Another Saudi judge, in the city of Onaiza, was the source of a separate recent controversy: he twice denied a request from the mother of an 8-year-old girl that the girl be granted a divorce from her 47-year-old husband.

Last month, after human-groups condemned the union, the girl was granted the divorce.

So here we have a religion which allows wife-slappery for 'overspending' as well as officially-sanctioned marriage for an 8-year-old child. Morals, huh. What a crock of shit.