Comments on: When is enough enough? http://polizeros.com/2007/12/03/when-is-enough-enough/ Musings on politics: anti-war, global warming, peak oil and otherwise Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:57:51 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: DJ http://polizeros.com/2007/12/03/when-is-enough-enough/comment-page-1/#comment-146012 DJ Mon, 03 Dec 2007 15:51:15 +0000 http://polizeros.com/2007/12/03/when-is-enough-enough/#comment-146012 Religious fundamentalism isn't limited to Muslims. Buddhist extremism is the root of the ongoing war in Sri Lanka. Hindu extremism has worsened inter-religious relations in India. And of course, we've got our own brand of hate-filled religious extremism at home-- of which some high-level politicians and military leaders are believers. One Pentagin genera called the Iraq occupation a "holy war." Yikes! As to injustice, when a teenage boy got sentenced to 10 years in prison for performing consensual oral sex on a teenage girl, people rightly protested the severity of the sentence. But no one protested that the law had been applied unequally-- the girl was not charged for engaging in the same behavior to him. I think the law itself is over the top, criminalizing sex between consenting teenagers. But for prosecutors to apply it unequally to only one participant is worse, a manifestation of the fundamentalist religious belief that sex is evil and women are subject to their men and therefore not real persons. Religious fundamentalism isn’t limited to Muslims. Buddhist extremism is the root of the ongoing war in Sri Lanka. Hindu extremism has worsened inter-religious relations in India. And of course, we’ve got our own brand of hate-filled religious extremism at home– of which some high-level politicians and military leaders are believers. One Pentagin genera called the Iraq occupation a “holy war.” Yikes!

As to injustice, when a teenage boy got sentenced to 10 years in prison for performing consensual oral sex on a teenage girl, people rightly protested the severity of the sentence. But no one protested that the law had been applied unequally– the girl was not charged for engaging in the same behavior to him. I think the law itself is over the top, criminalizing sex between consenting teenagers. But for prosecutors to apply it unequally to only one participant is worse, a manifestation of the fundamentalist religious belief that sex is evil and women are subject to their men and therefore not real persons.

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