Alcyone and others, I agree that this kind of topic is exactly the one where I myself will be at my most intractable and maybe even unreasonable.
However, Alcyone, my point was not so much that we should condemn certain religious people and regard them as monsters. My point was rather that we should not always give religions the benefit of the doubt just because they are, well, religions. I think that we see precisely this tendency in large parts of the world. I suspect that some of you don't respect the UN so much anyway, but I personally was shocked when the UN included an entirely new rule about "respect for religions" in its statutes last year or so. I'm not talking about the right for the individual to belong to any religion that he or she chooses and not be treated badly because of it, because that right has been acknowledged by the UN to be one of the fundamental human rights since 1948. No, I'm talking about the religions as such - Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hiduism, Taoism, etcetera - to have the right to ask for special protection from the UN in the name of human rights. By extension, I think that Warren Jeffs could perhaps ask the UN to protect his fundamentalist polygamist sect in the name of human rights. Polygamists and child-rapists everywhere could ask the UN to protect their "human right" not to have their religion violated and thus not to be interfered with when they rape children. Because they do it in the name of their religions, and religions themselves have the right to ask for human rights. Never mind that religions are not people!
(Can you imagine political systems asking for protection from the UN in the name of human rights? Can you imagine Capitalism asking for protection from the UN, because Capitalism should have human rights, too? Or Communism? It boggles the mind, doesn't it?)
Again, Alcyone. I'm not talking about branding religious people as monsters. I'm talking about stopping our societies from giving special protection to religious people just because religions deserve special protection. I don't see why we should ever do that. If we consider a particular act as bad, we should not say that this very act is not bad when it is being committed by people in the name of religion.
Our societies would not give special protection and special consideration to people just because they like to collect stamps, or because they like to listen to hip hop music, or because they take part in pie-eating contests, or because they drive monster trucks, or because they try to protect spotted owls from extinction, or because they like to watch and write stories about and discuss LnC. You name it - other beliefs and interests won't give people special protection or special consideration from authorities. Why should we hestitate to say to religious people that their religions don't give them the automatic right to do things that most of the rest of us would consider improper or absolutely wrong?
In Sweden, the authorities fall all over themselves to give Muslim girls and women the right to wear the headscarf everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. Other people are not allowed to wear their favorite clothing absolutely everywhere. Teachers, for example, are instructed to order boys to take off their baseball caps in school, but headscarves are allowed everywhere and always. Public swimming baths do not allow other people to wear big bulky clothing when they swim in the swimming pools, but no restrictions stop Muslims girls from wearing full headscarves and bulky "body suits". Workplaces have to design Muslim uniforms with headscarves for Muslim women. Because heaven forbid that Muslim women should not be allowed to go absolutely everywhere, and do absolutely everything, dressed in their Muslim headgear. Why should we give them this protection and consideration, when we would never give it to people who can't quote religion to justify their clothing preferences? Why should religions be exempt from criticism? It irks me no end.
And one more thing about polygamy. If polygamy and child rape is forbidden in the United States, then authorities should break up polygamous and child-raping sects right away. They should not stop to consider whether or not these sects consider themselves religious, and whether or not the sect members therefore have their human and religious rights violated if they are not allowed to continue their practice of raping children.
Ann
