Malaysia outlaws "tomboy" behavior

"They must respect God. God created them as boys, they must behave like boys. God created them as girls, they must act like girls."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008309289_tomboys25.html">Tomboy behavior banned by Islamic clerics in Malaysia

homophobia at work. They want to control people, but especially the women. They want to own the women.

:cry:

"Harussani said an increasing number of Malaysian girls behave like tomboys, and that some of them engage in homosexuality. Homosexuality is not explicitly banned in Malaysia, but it is effectively illegal under a law that prohibits sex acts "against the order of nature."

:cry: Homophobic bigots. Poor little tomboys. :(

They end up to be THE HOTTEST WOMEN, personality and body!

and preferred building forts and having mud ball fights and creating all sorts of stinks (and a few controlled explosions) with my chemistry set.

And yes, I turned into quite a dish.

I guess they'd take me out and throw rocks at me until I died.

grow up because that is who they ARE. I wish they could understand that this is the way the world works.

Ignorance is alive and well in the world. Let us hope it will not be the death of us all.......

As this post amply demonstrates.

The far far right wing of the American far right - people like Fred Phelps, who even Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson and the like regard as irrelevant nutcases, and of whom there are only a few - are arguably as bad as the Islamic mainstream in many countries, but only just, if that.

There are some nominally-Christian movements that bad - look at the Lord's Resistance Army in Africa - but not in meaningful numbers in America.

By contrast, in many Islamic countries, this kind of thing is perfectly standard.

Not all religions are equally bad. Too many liberals assume that because rightwingers are (excessively and for stupid reasons, admittedly) hostile to Islam, they should try to defend/support it.

Thats a nice American grown idiocy. Pharmacists refusing to proscribe meds that violate their ethics? The Olympic Park bomber?
Bush running for President because "God told him to"?
The war in Iraq being a new crusade? Obama is a MUSLIM--therefore a terrorist!
Don't delude yourself. The religous crazies are every bit as bad here in the US. The difference? They ones in power have to TRY to pay lip service to separation of church and state. If they didn't--they would be just as bad as the Islamic theocracies.

The religious crazies in the US are nowhere near as bad as Islamic religious crazies - their hot-button issues are things like trying to ban abortion, the right not to prescribe condoms, and banning gay marriage, as opposed to things like executing homosexuals, banning women from getting jobs etc.

There are occasional acts of religiously-inspired violence from the American Christian right; acts of religiously-inspired violence from the Islamic right are two a penny, or rather more.

Bush (speaking figratively) refers to himself as "listening to God"; many Islamic nations are actual theocracies.

Just because the American Christian right is closer to you doesn't mean it's any larger.

and fanatical Islamics is one thing..The US constitution. You don't think that if the Right COULD do what the theocracies do, they wouldn't?
Listen to the Fundie Islamics some time..they sound quite a bit like the Fundies in this country.

:hi:

I am absolutely certain that even if they could get away with executing homosexuals, forbidding women to get jobs, etc, 99.many% of the American Christian right would not advocate doing so.

I agree about the sound, though - the style of rhetoric from Christian and Muslim fundamentalists is fairly similar (although there are differences). The big difference is in the substance.

than any relative niceness of the religions. As you pointed out, there are rabid Christian movements elsewhere in the world. I would also add that Islam in the U.S. doesn't seem to be radicalized.

So it seems to come down to geographical and political differences than any inherent superiority of one irrational supernatural belief system over another.

My two cents, anyway.

Jesus was a mystic primarily concerned with admission to the next world, Mohammed was a warlord primarily concerned with the administration of this one; that the religions they founded are even as similar as they are is surprising.

Jesus (at least as depicted in the Gospels; it's impossible to be certain what he actually thought) didn't much care about this world - he believed the apocalypse was just around the corner; my impression is that he mostly just wanted his followers to keep their noses clean until then, and actively encouraged them to abstain from involvement in society, rather than to try to change it. Liberal Christians often cite the fact that there are no direct quotations from Jesus condemning e.g. homosexuality or abortion in the Bible; actually, there are few direct quotations from him giving explicit instructions on most "issues". He didn't kick the money-lenders out of the temple because of his views on economics; he did it because he thought secular business dealings of any kind had no place in a temple.


Mohammed, by contrast (and here we can be much more confident about what he did and didn't think; his life is much better documented) was a warlord. He wanted to set up a society pleasing to God in this world. An awful lot of his teachings deal with how to administer a society. He believed that he and his successors were on a mission from God to conquer the world, for its own good, and his teachings make that very explicit.


Even in very Christian societies where the Church has in practice wielded temporal power, Church and state have usually been separate; whereas many Islamic countries are theocracies.

The ideal Christians are not the crusader, the theologian or even the bishop, they're the hermit and the martyr; the ideal Muslims are the caliph and the imam. Christ (as depicted in the Gospels) wanted his followers to abjure the world, Mohammed (we can be confident) wanted his followers to improve it.


What Christ and Mohammed would have regarded as ideal societies are a long, long way from what you or I would - we know Mohammed was extremely mysogynist, homophobic etc; we don't have any evidence on Christ's views on specific issues but I'd be surprised if he was very much better. So it stands to reason that the religion founded by the one who left detailed commands will in general do more harm than the one who didn't, and hence made it easier for later generations to reinterpret; and that the one who cared about both bodies and souls, and hence commanded his followers to conquer and compel, will do more harm than the one who only cared about souls, and hence commanded his followers to convert.

I thought you made a very good point with the Christian bloodletting in Africa. Why there and not here? At least, not here any more.

What's your explanation for why Christianity has been so bloodthirsty in other epochs and places? The crusades, inquisitions, holy wars, witch trials, the Thirty years war, the Taiping rebellion, etc. And let's not ignore the church's part in the holocaust via centuries of antisemitism. Have you ever read Martin Luther's http://www.humanitas-international.org/showcase/chronography/documents/luther-jews.htm">On the Jews and Their Lies? Religion of peace? I honestly don't see it. :shrug:

So why are American Christians relatively more peaceful these days, aside from the occasional clinic bombing or murder of a gay? And more to the point, why aren't American Muslims stoning people and amputating limbs?

The only difference I see is geography, a secular government and a post-enlightenment culture, not anything really inherent in these two offshoots of Judaism.

Sounds like a christian apologetic to me. The laws of our land prevent people like Robertson, Phelps, Terry etc from behaving exactly like those of extreme opinion in islamic countries. I have no doubt that if the political tide were to turn in this country to allow religious extremists to exact punishment for what they perceive to be the sins of this nation that you would see just how excessive christians can be. This is one liberal who is not going to defend islam, nor I am going to allow you to defend christianity by some invalid comparison. Thank our secular government, education and development for suppressing christian fundamentalism in this country, there is nothing innate about christian fundamentalism that distinguishes it from islamic fundamentalism. I will raise your beheadings with a pair of witch burnings and a pair of inquisitions.

You will not find much defense from christian history. In many respects, the islamic world is where the christian world was several hundred years ago. And many conservative christians would like to take us back to the "bad old days."

and unenforceable, isn't it?