Saudi Rape Victim To Get Additional 110 Lashes For Speaking to News Media

which is kinda circular. because there's a ton of support in islam for the notion that religion and government are inseparable.

 

the problem is that a woman has to follow muslim traditions there, even the outdated ones. she doesn't have to follow any religious tradition here.

 

its not circular, they don't have to have that in their law. their law could be religion free if they wanted. there are muslims in this country, obviously they aren't in the majority but they aren't trying to inact religious traditions in the law.

 

all true.

but there is ample support for it in the faith tradition itself. including Muhammad, who is revered as God's supreme prophet, who actually DID combine military/political power with religion. i'm not sure how much of the Koran you've read...but there seems to be a lot to me that suggests that Allah is saying that there is to be no division.

 

I understand what you're saying. but that is an argument on semantics. are all muslim countries ruled by islamic law? I honestly don't know. Is there an example of a country with mostly muslims that has separation of church and state?

 

good question....pakistan?

i can't think of one in the middle east that isn't a theocracy.

 

Turkey - but there is a strong fundamentalist movement there to revert back from that, and there have been shootings of christian priests and stuff.

 

Pakistan, Egypt, Morocco, Syria, Algeria the previous and current Iraqi government.

 

I think a majority of Muslim countries have a separation of church and state, in practice if not always in name. Countries like Syria and Egypt are officially secular and openly hostile to Islamic organizations. While the Jordanian government is an Islamic monarchy operates independent of a religious structure and also has opposed radical Islamic groups. I don't know exactly what is the relationship between the Emirs and a religious structure but the Gulf Emirates don't seem very willing to enforce religious laws. The Palestinian goverment is also technically secular though that could change if Hamas ever gets control.

 

i don't think americans would feel like egypt, syria and algeria are anything but muslim states.

for example, here is something from Egypt's constitution:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_theocracy

On May 22, 1980, the text of Article 2 was changed to read, 'Islam is the religion of the State, Arabic is its official language, and the principles of Islamic Shari’a are the principal source of legislation.'

I don't think that's separation of church and state as we know it...in fact, i don't think that gets past even the establishment clause.

 

Neither would Europeans. I have been to Egypt, and it clearly does not strike me as a country where church and state would be separate as we would be used to it according to Western standards. Turkey would probably be the closest to that.

 

That is also discriminatory against women. It is simply a matter of degree. Not being allowed to be a priest < not being allowed to attend the same worship services.

Your original question to me was are Muslim women being oppressed in the US, not are they being oppressed by the government. Obviously our government is not oppressing them, because our government is not founded on Islam. Their families and mosques are oppressing them because those institutions do have a foundation in Islam. Saudi Arabia is oppressing the women there, also based on an Islamic foundation. The common thread in the cases of oppression is Islam, not the lack of separation between church and state.

 

that's how you want to look at it. I can go into a prison and say most of these criminals are black, some would say most of them were poor, still others would say most of them didn't have proper education. its all how you look it at.

 

People being oppressed at their mosque or at home in the US cannot find that oppression to be based on the lack of separation between church and state, because we have that. In this case, the only way you can say the common thread is lack of separation between church and state is to be wrong.

It would be like me going into that prison and saying that all of these people were convicted of crimes, and you countering by saying nuh uh, they are all in here because they are [black, poor, uneducated]. Sometimes things are just factual.

 

you're missing the point, there are women oppressed in other religions, in this country. but not legally. some of the practices of some religions in the country may be deemed oppressive, but people have the right to practice that religion or not. Muslim women are not oppressed in this country, they choose what clothes to wear, they choose what mosques to attend. in saudi, there is no choice.

and as someone else stated, not all countries dominated by islam are oppressive to women. so no, its not factual, its your opinion

 

While Egypt might give some lip service to Islam, I don't know about Syria and Algeria, in practice they are hostile too extremely religious Islamic organizations. Egypt has fought a decades long conflict with the Muslim Brotherhood and has generally been suspicious of religious organizations. Nasserism also advocated a secular version of Arab nationalism and that is still the philosophy of the regime ever since. I don't know about the Syrian Constitution but as it is a Baathist dictatorship the Baathist philosophy is secular.

Just to add further the one thing to keep in mind with countries like Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Algeria and the former Iraqi regime is that while they are all majority Muslim those regimes, with the exception of Jordan, all came to power at a time when of the Arab Nationalism movement that advocated modernity and industrialization and was suspicious of the old theocractic traditions. All of those countries have subsequently been fighting insurgencies in their own countries by Islamic radicals who see these regimes as betraying Islam. So while they don't meet our definition of the seperation of church and state for practical purposes they are not only separate even hostile to church in a way that we don't have here.

 

I'm not saying they're radical. I'm not suggesting they support terrorism.

But when your constitution defines that Islam is the official religion and Shari'a is the basis of all law, then you're talking about a theocracy...and that is a far cry from what Americans think of when they consider separation of church and state.

 

They are not oppressed by the government. You are assuming that they choose which clothes to wear and which mosque to attend.

 

what a stupid logic so american women are all oppressed because we dont know if they are coerced to act a certain way

 

The Saudi government is a joke.