let me be clear - i endorse saletan's premise that the islamic virginity fetish is absurd, and reveals their "faith" to little more than a random collection of brutal and offensive obsessions.

but if we're going to take a stand against islam, is this really where we want to start? i'd suggest there are far more offensive things islam perpetuates . . .

• stoning to death adulteresses
• kidnapping africans and making them house slaves or camel racers
• buying and selling young girls for marriage like livestock
• death or imprisonment for men who express a wish to abandon the islam faith (the most recent wrinkle on this are a rash of legal decisions declaring them "insane" and confining them perpetually to asylums)
• intolerance of even a bible on islamic soil (google "bible in luggage at saudi airport" before you pack one in your carryon bag)

i could go on and on about other offenses - the taleban's use of light artillery to eradicate ancient statuary which predates mohammed; the practice of burning kid's pet dogs alive as a "warning" (dogs are unclean, and forbidden by some branches of islam); street riots and stonings over beauty pageant contestants in costumes which offfend some religious elders; herding christians into churches and then burning them alive by setting fire to the building; random bombings of hotels, embassies, and un missions to drive home the point that outside ideas are unwelcome . . . and so on.

returning a bride over lack of vriginity is a problem, yes (i'm not really aware of putting a non-virginal bride to death, but i'm not saying it could never happen)

but in the grand scheme of things, rejection of an arranged marriage bride by a moron is hardly the worst thing that islam does.

Well gosh then BA, if there are worse things, then of course nothing AT ALL should ever be done about the less-bad (but still bad) things. Typical republicon.

Nevertheless, as long as significant numbers of Muslims are hostile to Western the capitalist imperialist nations, they are still, in a way, progressive and thus deserving of our sympathies.

But wouldn't you agree that the virginity fetish is related to other mistreatment of women by certain Muslim cultures? The obsession with female purity and the lack of equality for women contribute to virginity fetishes, the marriage of underage girls, stoning of adulteresses and rape victims, lack of education for girls, etc. They would all seem to be related.

Kit-Kat:

But wouldn't you agree that the virginity fetish is related to other mistreatment of women by certain Muslim cultures? The obsession with female purity and the lack of equality for women contribute to virginity fetishes, the marriage of underage girls, stoning of adulteresses and rape victims, lack of education for girls, etc. They would all seem to be related.

The obsession with female purity, the lack of equality for women, the marriage of underage girls, and the virginity fetish is not very different from the situation in the U.S. and Europe as it was before the recent Great War against the Kaisar.

The stoning of adulteresses and rape victims is more related to their lack of compassion, their disrespect for human life, and their love of (even misdirected) vengeance.