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January 25, 2007

Of Honor Killings and TheoConservative notions

For a long time now I've found it both perplexing and amusing that president Bush has so often touted "liberal democracy" as a value to be striven towards around the world while he and his political base remain steadfastly dedicated to a brand of TheoConservatism which has more in common with those pesky "islamofacists" than with anything resembling a liberal value.

A disturbing news report this morning got me to thinking about this issue once again. A father in Jordan shot to death his 17 year old daughter whom he suspected had been engaging in premarital sex. This despite the fact that doctors had examined her the week prior and vouched for her virginity. An autopsy on the dead girl confirmed that she in fact had never had sex.

Now I know that the popular conception in America, particularly among conservatives, is that this kind of honor killing is an Islamic issue and just one more evidence of the uncivility of Muslims. But in fact not only is it "the antithesis of Islamic morality", but it's far from limited to just Islamic cultures.

In several of the overwhelmingly Christian nations in Latin America one can find similar honor killings. Mexico in particular has a culture which places a very high value upon family honor in the context of women and sexuality. And even where there are laws against such gender-based violence the courts are often reluctant to do anything to enforce those laws.

In Brazil up until 1991 killing one's wife for any reason or for no reason at all was legally considered "noncriminal." In just one year nearly 800 Brazilian men killed their wives. In Columbia, until 1980, a husband could legally kill his wife for adultry without any legal onus to prove her guilt. Legislative decisions allowing a partial or complete "honor" defense could be found in most Latin American countries as recently as 2002 and perhaps still can be today.

Even here in the United States it was perfectly legal for most of our history to mistreat wives and daughters, from severe beatings all the way up to murder. Again, for any reason or for no reason at all. He was the husband/father and that was all the right that his Christian neighbors considered necessary.

Mind you, those are the good ol' days which a multitude of American TheoConservative groups swear that we as a nation must get back to for "moral" reasons.

The irony here of course is that moving away from such archaic views on women in America was an act of liberal democracy.

If allowed free reign to impliment their TheoConservative ideas, how long do you suppose it'd be before it was once again legal to abuse and murder wives and daughters in America?

Posted by Kevin at January 25, 2007 02:45 PM