Friday, August 23, 2002

Fundamentalist Attacks On Women Tolerated in Florida and Nigeria Fundamentalist Attacks On Women Tolerated in Florida and Nigeria   Someone may ask Jeb Bush during this election campaign what Florida has in common with Nigeria, Iran, and Pakistan.  If he answered that all four governments act out fundamentalist views of women as sexual chattel, he would be correct.   The fight for human rights all over the world is not for the rights of political activists, but for the rights of ordinary women to be free and independent persons.  In extreme fundamentalist societies like Pakistan and Nigeria, women who commit adultery can be stoned to death, raped for punishment, or simply killed by male relatives.    The most recent international case is of a young Nigerian mother sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery because her child was born out of wedlock.  There is an international outcry, and over 34,000 people have signed a  electronic petition  demanding the President of Nigeria intervene to preserve her life.   But fundamentalist attacks on women are tolerated in Florida as well.  A current example is Florida’s notorious “Scarlet Letter” law, which requires any woman putting up a child for adoption to publish a list of sexual partners and  times and dates of sexual liaisons for four weeks in local newspapers.  The Republican controlled Florida legislature passed this bill over the unanimous opposition of all professional adoption agencies and adoption workers in the state.  The only justification is that like fundamentalist Islamic Sharia courts, the life, dignity, or privacy of a woman does not matter when other religious or social goals exist.   Can this be laid at the feet of Jeb Bush.  Unfortunately yes, because after the highly publicized debacle in  Florida's child welfare agency, he appointed an extreme fundamentalist as its new head.  According to the Miami Herald, Jerry Regier, when head of the Oklahoma Dept. of Social Services, infused the state  agency with his religious beliefs, including physical spanking of children (because it is done in the bible),  embrace of marriage as the only acceptable role for women, and of course, militant opposition to a women’s right to control her own pregnancy.  Thanks to Hesiod's blog called Counterspin Central for some good background on this.   In my view, all fundamentalisms have elements in common—whether Christian, Islamic, or Jewish. Everything is viewed through a prism of religous ideology.   This is why fundamentalists like Reiger and their supporters like Jeb Bush keep getting into so much trouble in a secular society.  They are threatened by women who lead their own lives outside the Christian or Islamic homily, and have an inalienable right choose their own path to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.    6:55:44 PM   comment []    Are Rumsfeld & Co. Acting Like Newt Gingrich Are Rumsfeld & Co. Acting Like Newt Gingrich Don't miss todays Washington Post column by David Ignatius.  He says "The current hawk-o-mania reminds me of the mood among conservatives on domestic policy issues during the brief heyday of Newt Gingrich after the Republican triumph in the 1994 congressional elections. Gingrich espoused a go-for-broke philosophy that treated compromise and moderation with scorn. Conservatives cheered, but their program quickly collapsed -- because its extremism and intolerance were out of step with the country's mood." 12:27:03 AM   comment []

© Copyright 2002 Toby Sackton. Last update: 12/26/2002; 9:29:44 PM.