Many self professed feminists believe it is about hating men too, but I assume "no true feminist" would ever do that right?

I wasn't trying to wilfully misunderstand you, but rather to pursue my whole contention about any political/social argument:

Individual People and specific arguments over ideologies always.

When the reverse is true and ideology is placed before people or the specific merits of an argument, the result is dehumanising and anti-intellectual (even if by the slimmest margins sometimes).

That's not to say that, where mutual understanding already exists, ideological terms are completely useless. But the moment individuals disagree, those ideological assumptions are going to get in the way of a productive dialogue.

My whole point I guess is that this seems rather anti-humanist if you will pardon the irony of taking an ideological position.
If as a humanist one believes that the optimal way is for everyone to be judged only on the merits of their individual words, deeds and capacity.

Rather than by culture, race, gender or some other involuntary and/or irrelevant factors.

Assuming you agree in principle with that definition of humanism in terms of goals, then what we are arguing here really is collectivism vs individualism.

You are suggesting we can get better results by pushing the "right" version of said ideology and suppressing the "wrong", correct?

I am arguing ultimately that we seem to get better results in the long term, by encouraging free and critical thought and allowing all ideas (no matter how egregious) a fair fight.

This puts me contrary to many tenets of the various feminist ideologies and concordant with others. Sometimes wildly so.

If I want to try to be a good humanist, I have no choice but to try and understand each on their own terms.

When someone describes themselves as a "Feminist", that could mean anything from "kill all men" to "women should have fundamental legal equality".

It seems almost as redundant as racial and cultural epithets, it tells me very little really important about you or how you really think, to know you are Black, or White or Asian or Polish, Spanish etc. etc. It's just another excuse to put an idea above the person in front of you or to not have to think too much about ones own.

i.e. Collectivist thinking.

I think this may represent the very antithesis of intellectual progress.

However I am a Hegelian and I just defined a Thesis-antithesis relationship............ That means the next great breakthrough should lie in the synthesis of the two.......

................

Collective individualism! All we should need is a mass movement of free critical thought and.....bollocks.

It's over people, we have officially peaked as a species! I'm calling it

>> ^raverman:
Most importantly the state is, constitutionally, in writing and sworn to = separated from the church.
Christian Marriage, Hindu Marriage, Buddist Marriage, Chinese Marriage, Muslim Marriage, Pagan, mother earth goddess - tree worshiping marriage... and Gay Marriage are all equal in law due to freedom of belief and religion.
Choosing to oppose Gay marriage based on Deuteronomy? That's using freedom of religion as a moral guidance to prejudge, and oppose equality.
You can't say, my god says you and your lifestyle is evil and you cannot be legally equal - but I'm not a homophobe, i don't hate you! You're just evil and you do not deserve freedoms.


How does Separation of Church and State have anything to do with me (hypothetically) being against gay marriage? I am neither Church nor State; I can have the opinion that gays should not be married all I want.

A homophobe who says they're not a homophobe is still a homophobe. PHJF's comment is a perfect example of someone being against gay marriage without a drop of hatred for gays. People seem to be getting hung up on the argument that an opinion like the one proposed by PHJF is unreasonable. Whether it is or not is beside the point. The point is that someone can be against gay marriage without being a homophobe and attempting to drown them out by calling them such is a disservice to everyone.

I am very much in support of people who are gay, but I am slightly sick of hearing that when people make voting decisions based on their beliefs, they are somehow violating the "separation of church and state" doctrine, which I believe wholeheartedly in, but which is not an explicit part of the Constitution. Jefferson suggested that the doctrine is an inherent part of the Constitution, and nobody "sw[ears] to" it, but they misunderstand it on a regular basis.

People shouldn't vote on issues that they consider moral based on their religious beliefs? Well, maybe their religious beliefs are wrong, but it is completely unreasonable to suggest that they shouldn't vote based on their beliefs, and it is even more unreasonable to suggest that this is somehow a violation of the separation of church and state. It isn't. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. All laws are enforcements of someone's concept of right and wrong. Granted, this particular issue is based less on ethics and more on faith that almost any other. Although the decisions themselves may be unconstitutional, there is nothing unconstitutional about making them based on religious beliefs. The separation of church and state is irrelevant.

>> ^raverman:
>>> ^xxovercastxx:
You can oppose gay marriage without being a homophobe.I actually agree with everything else in ^xxovercastxx's post except for this.

Most importantly the state is, constitutionally, in writing and sworn to = separated from the church.

Christian Marriage, Hindu Marriage, Buddist Marriage, Chinese Marriage, Muslim Marriage, Pagan, mother earth goddess - tree worshiping marriage... and Gay Marriage are all equal in law due to freedom of belief and religion.

Choosing to oppose Gay marriage based on Deuteronomy? That's using freedom of religion as a moral guidance to prejudge, and oppose equality.

You can't say, my god says you and your lifestyle is evil and you cannot be legally equal - but I'm not a homophobe, i don't hate you! You're just evil and you do not deserve freedoms.

>> ^xxovercastxx:
You can oppose gay marriage without being a homophobe.


I actually agree with everything else in ^xxovercastxx's post except for this.

Most importantly the state is, constitutionally, in writing and sworn to = separated from the church.

Christian Marriage, Hindu Marriage, Buddist Marriage, Chinese Marriage, Muslim Marriage, Pagan, mother earth goddess - tree worshiping marriage... and Gay Marriage are all equal in law due to freedom of belief and religion.

Choosing to oppose Gay marriage based on Deuteronomy? That's using freedom of religion as a moral guidance to prejudge, and oppose equality.

You can't say, my god says you and your lifestyle is evil and you cannot be legally equal - but I'm not a homophobe, i don't hate you! You're just evil and you do not deserve freedoms.

It seems acceptable for smart states to legalize equal marriage and thus funnel money from the not-smart states.

It's similar to how California and then a few other states brain-drained the rest of the country when they created their own stem cell research institutes after Bush restricted the research.

Great post!

What is nice about this post is that it highlights the close relationship between all the Abrahamic faiths - Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Christians and Muslims are held in high regard in Islam and were referred to as insan al-kitab - people of the book. On several occasions Muhammad prayed in churches, and the the constitution of Medina - the first Islamic state - which was drawn up by Muhammad, guaranteed legal equality and freedom of worship to Christians, Jews and pagans. The verses of the Qur'an which are critical of Jews and Christians were revealed at a time when certain Jewish and Christian groups were persecuting the Muslims. These verses are often taken out of context and exploited by extremists - so called Muslims or Christians - in order to justify certain political acts.

Firstly - the issue of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). This is an appalling crime, and one that is sadly prevelant in some parts of the Islamic world (I have studied FGM under the leading expert on women's rights in Africa - Dr Fareda Banda). However, it is important to be clear about the position of the Shari'ah with regards to FGM - and to do this I am going to have to provide a detailed explanation of some aspects of Islamic law.

Male circumcision is advocated by Islam - as it is by the Jewish faith. There is no dispute about this. However, there is a great deal of dispute about FGM. There is nothing in the Qur'an which advocates FGM. The most important source of Islamic law after the Qur'an is the hadith - sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. The hadith were compiled about 300 years after Muhammad's death. While some are authentic and beyond dispute, others are not and have been held by scholars of Islamic law to be weak. The only possible justification for female circumcision is the following hadith:

"A woman used to perform circumcision in Medina [Madîna]. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said to her: 'Do not cut severely as that is better for a woman and more desirable for a husband." (Sunan Abu Dawûd, Book 41, #5251.)

It is important to look at the authenticity and strength of this hadith. The hadith is found in the Sunan of Abu Dawud - an important collection of hadith. However, the compiler himself - Abu Dawud - classified this hadith as "weak". A hadith can be classified as weak for a number of reasons - but normally it is because the chain of transmission (isnad) from the Prophet to the compiler is broken or incomplete. When this happens, it is often suspected that the hadith could be fabricated. Consequently, one cannot derive a legal ruling from a weak hadith. Therefore, the vast majority of experts in Shari'ah law believe that there is no justification for FGM in Islam.

However, FGM still exists in parts of the Islamic world, and the above quoted hadith is sometimes used to justify it. What is important to note is that in those countries where Muslims advocate FGM and justify it by reference to Shari'ah law, Christains also practice FGM and justify it by reference to the bible. In reality, FGM is a practice who's origins lie not in the religious texts of the major world faiths but in the barbaric traditions of traditionally male-dominated societies.

Secondly, I will try and qualify what I think Farhad means when he says that "Sharia is no in no way representative of the religion of Islam." Shari'ah in many of its modern manifestations is not representative of the rich traditions of Islam. Much of the rigidity which people associate with Shari'ah law is a relatively recent phenomenon brought about by a number of factors. For example, there was an inherent flexibility in classical Islamic law. For example, there were five schools of law (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali, Zahiri) who differed in their opinions on certain issues, and this gave Shari'ah an inherent pluralism. Judges could choose between the positions of the various schools, and exercise their own judgment in order to reach fair judgments. However, in the 19th Century there was an enormous amount of pressure put on the Islamic world by the West to reform its legal system - either directly, in the form of colonialism, or indirectly in the form of economic/military pressure - to change its legal system in order to facilitate trade with Europe. The result was that the Ottoman empire, during the Tanzimat reforms, instead of working within the rich Islamic legal tradition, simply got rid of Islamic law in many areas and replaced it with European style legal codes. The Islamic law which was kept was that which would be called in Western legal systems the law of personal status - family law, inheritance. But, what the Ottomans did was codify this law - they codified one of the key Hanafi manuals of Islamic law. A similar codification occured in India under the British resulting in what was referred to as Anglo-Muhammadan law.This codification - which has continued in recent years throughout the Islamic world - has removed the inherent flexibility and pluralism in Islamic legal thinking. It has meant that judges only have one opinion to choose, and it has also meant that many judges have stopped practising ijtihad - deriving the law from its sources. All progressive scholars in the Islamic world agree that the Islamic tradition of ijtihad must be revitalized. Scholars must turn back to the sources - Qur'an and hadith - and derive Islamic law which is appropriate for modern times, and which is flexible.

There are some important examples of ijtihad worth mentioning. In the sub-continent, the prevailing legal tradition is Hanafi. Under Hanafi law, the grounds on which a woman could apply for divorce were limited. However in a landmark case, the judges used ijtihad to ensure that women could divorce much more easliy. What they effectively did was adopt a position from Maliki law and extended it. In Tunisia, women have complete legal equality with men - in marriage, divorce, no polygamy, etc. Morocco has also made important advances similar to those taken by Tunisia. In both cases it is important to note that instead of replacing Islamic law, scholars instead embraced the flexibility and pluralism inherent in the classical Islamic legal tradition. They derived new Islamic law - based on the Qur'an and the hadith - which provided full equality for women.

Bigots such as yourself, Jozeph, always seem to think/speak as if the millions of Black people in this country immigrated or even sought refuge here from their homeland trying to create a new, better life, but decided instead to become poor and uneducated.

It's really very apparent that human beings are simply animals when considering how many of us supposedly intelligent people so easily possess such prejudice and ignorance. Racists such as yourself always find it so easy to discount the fact that millions of Black people were taken forcibly by slave export companies in Africa and enslaved for hundreds of years (I'm sure if you had it your way they'd still just be slaves) and during that time they were strictly restricted from any form of education and treated equally to mere livestock. This could not help but result in evolving new, unique social traditions, cultures, and attitudes different from any non-slaves, White or not. (This is also the origin of the still common dialect inherent in many Black communities. The were only able to pick up pieces of the "proper" English spoken by their captors.)

Once slavery finally ended in America, which happened only recently, relatively speaking (150 years ago - a mere 8 generations), Black people were still treated as animals throughout the nation, released onto their asses without a prayer for a "normal" life with a home, job, or education. It was all but impossible to make any type of personal advancement when they were all treated as sub-human creatures by everyone around them.

They were brought to this country with absolutely nothing and after hundreds of years of slavery and just a few generations free from it, finally (only a couple of decades ago) they were legally given equality in every way (meaning education, segregation, etc.). Just because they have gained legal equality does not mean they have it any better when having to navigate life in a country still filled with hatemongers like yourself. The government has been attempting to help advance the African American societies it has held back for so long through housing, employment, and other programs as a simple attempt to help increase opportunities for advancement; it's the least that can be done in attempt to provide some measure of equivalence and some means to try erasing the past.

In short, you and people like you, Jozeph, are convinced that since the government finally, begrudgingly granted legal equality 40 years ago (in part, through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965) there is nothing more preventing all Black Americans from immediately achieving affluence and your apparent idea of social equality. However, given all of the history that got them where they are today including the vast racism/hatred/prejudice still inherent in most non-Blacks, they are severely handicapped with regard to their ability to achieve true equality. All the communities that have evolved from bigotry/slavery are expected by bigots to wipe their history and all of its influences clean while they are still being looked down on just for being Black and having that history imprinted in them.

They are not who they are because they are Black. They are who they are because they were forcibly made that way over hundreds of years and through millions of lives. The very best that can be done to help the situation is to forcibly undo in decades what took centuries to do, but, unfortunately, even that gives you cause to hate. The only way people like you will truly be satisfied is if they are all victims of genocide.