If it's voluntary and all parties involved agreed with it, then why not. I wouldn't agree, so it wouldn't concern me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rudy Tamasz
Printable View
If it's voluntary and all parties involved agreed with it, then why not. I wouldn't agree, so it wouldn't concern me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rudy Tamasz
Hypothetical: A man is brought up on charges of beating his wife. He claims to be a Muslim, and that he's within his rights because she "dis-honored" him. Do you think that he won't just keep beating her until she agrees to go to the Sharia court?Quote:
Originally Posted by Eki
How's that different from non-Muslim men beating up their wives to intimidate them from leaving them or pressing charges against them? That does happen, you know.Quote:
Originally Posted by chuck34
Besides I don't know the Sharia law or what she hypothetically has done, so it may not necessarily be a worse alternative for the wife than the regular law. That much I know that the so called "honor killings" or beating up women aren't part of Islam or the Sharia law, they are older tribal traditions or machismo that still occur also among non-Muslims.
Apparently not even Muslims know or agree what the Sharia law is and how it should be interpreted:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia
Quote:
Sharia (شريعة Šarīʿa; [ʃaˈriːʕa], "way" or "path") is the sacred law of Islam. All Muslims believe Sharia is God's law, but they have differences among themselves as to exactly what it entails.[1] Modernists, traditionalists and fundamentalists all hold different views of Sharia, as do adherents to different schools of Islamic thought and scholarship. Different countries and cultures have varying interpretations of Sharia as well.
Actually there is a big difference between male and female circumcision.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior
Jewish and Muslim males are circumcised as babies, they don't remember the procedure and its only the foreskin anyway.
When girls are circumcised its at puberty, they are not told what is going to happen and is rarely done under anaesthetic. The girls have their legs forced apart and their clitoris cut off with a razor (not the hood, the whole thing) most often by someone untrained. In some cases the labia are then sewn up leaving a small hole for later to ensure the girl can pee so the future husband has the pleasure of knowing the girl is definitely a virgin when he marries her by looking at the size of the hole.
As such frankly I find comparisons between the two sickening and I don't find acceptance of one and rejection of the other hypocritical at all.
It isn't a Muslim tradition btw, its an East African one thats practiced by Muslim, Christian and pagan tribes in places like south Egypt, Kenya, Sudan and Somalia. It isn't practiced in any other part of the Muslim or Christian world and I gather that many Muslims are unaware the practice even exists, let alone agree or disagree with it.
And under British criminal law which takes precedence over civil law which this sharia court is part of, anyone involved in female circumcision whether here or abroad can be imprisoned.
:up: I didn't know that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dylan H
A clitoridectomy, infibulation and circumcision are not one and the same. What you described above is not circumcision (by definition). I can't help that people have come to misuse the word. I live in a country where people misuse the word "socialism" at every turn, so I'm growing used to this. But again, this was a fad surgery which was somewhat popular in the U.S. about 30 years ago among certain women on the fringe of the sexual revolution. They did not have their clitoris removed or their labia sewn shut - which I doubt very many women would volunteer to have done. They were circumcised: the clitoral prepuce/"foreskin" was removed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dylan H
As far as when Jews perform the practice, for those who are born to Jewish families, yes, the practice is performed when they are infants. For those who convert, the practice is performed prior to their full conversion, whether they are children or adults. I know someone who converted to Judaism and he was in his 20's when he was circumcised. I think he was a moron for doing that, but he was an adult and it was his choice to make. If adults want to be members of religions or cults, let them do whatever. I don't care.
And to say that babies "don't remember", and that makes it OK, suggests that they cannot be traumatized by events that take place when they are babies. I'm not aware of any medical evidence which proves that theory.
Again, my bottom line is rather simple: I do not believe in mutilating babies or children of either sex in support of some sort of barbaric, antiquated, quasi-religious reason. By what you are saying here, it would be alright as long as the females were babies and only the clitoral prepuce was removed. That would not be alright with me. People can bark at the moon, refuse to eat bread on Tuesdays and worship a rock for all I care. But when they say it's OK to hit a baby with the holy rock (since they won't remember it anyway), that's where I draw the line. And whether the baby is male or female doesn't influence my feelings one bit.
I believe that in most places you do not need the victim's concent to prosecute. Although it does help to have her testimony.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eki
As far as I'm aware the main reason why Sharia law is wanted for British muslims is for divorce. A muslim couple needs to divorce to go through a Sharia court for it to be valid to their religion.
You're right, I use the term 'circumcision' not in the strict medical sense but in the context of 'religious' practices, though in the female variety its more cultural than religious. The surgery that you describe at length is interesting but is a sidenote and isn't terribly relevant to this particular debate except for clarifying the smallprint.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior
Neither is there evidence that they are traumatised. One would expect there to be certain psychopathologies to be more common in Muslim and Jewish males or in any other male that was circumcised at birth. This isn't the case.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior
You misunderstand me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior
That Jewish and Muslim males should be circumcised preferably just after birth is written in stone in their religions. That girls should be circumcised is not found in any Christian or Islamic religious text at all. I do not mind Jews and Muslims circumcising their babies if its a core part of their religion, especially since circumcising males has also been shown to be beneficial in medical terms. However there is no religious or cultural defence for a barbaric act performed on young girls without their consent and it should be stamped out.
Maybe, but if a battered wife is too afraid to report a physical assault and testify against her husband, then what can you do?Quote:
Originally Posted by chuck34