When Patriarchy Makes the Rules VI

7-year-old Lydia Schottz was tortured and beaten for at least 7 hours until she died. Her 11-year-old sister was severely wounded during the same period.

Who perpetrated this horrific crime? Her parents. Why? The parents are fundamentalist Christians who had read a book by a couple named Pearl, To Train Up a Child. The Pearls assert that if it wasn't good to beat our children with, among other options, 1/4 inch plumbing pipe, their god wouldn't have told us to do so in the Bible.

Fortunately for the Schottz's surviving children, their parents have been sentenced to long prison terms. Sadly for the children, they are now in foster care. Hopefully, they will have the opportunity to grow into decent adults, regardless of the terrible moral standards their parents have taught them.

The Pearls, meanwhile, have been "looking into it," to make sure they receive no blame for little Lydia's death at the hands of her parents.

The Pearls instruct parents to remain calm while beating their children with the plumbing pipe, reinforcing the reasons for their punishment in calm voices. Imagine little Lydia, taking the 7-hour torture session administered by her parents with calm voices and demeanors. Imagine being beaten to death for SEVEN HOURS while being very calmly told that it is for your own good, that you have been naughty, and that you will be happier if you submit and accept the punishment.

What god who thinks this is a good thing is worthy of worship? Wake up, Christians! Your god is an evil, murderous, asshole!

When people ask me in the future how I stop myself from raping, pillaging, and murdering without the guidance of the Bible and submission to their barbaric god, I am going to reply that raping, pillaging, and murdering are their god's methods, not mine, and that they need to re-read their Bible. And then throw it away and practice compassion, kindness, and concern instead.

Sad fact: Based on their magic book, the Schottzes likely believe that all they have to do to get to heaven after they tortured and murdered their own child is to ask their invisible and impotent sky-fairy to forgive them. Justice would at least require that they ask their dead daughter's forgiveness somehow. And try to make it up to their surviving abused children somehow. It's so hard to tell the difference between the four gods of Christianity - father/son/holy spirit and satan. Their MO's are so similar.

When Patriarchy Makes the Rules V

11/11/08 Update: This young woman, the rape and murder victim, is named Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow. I want to always include names when I can find them. These victims should have names so that they are more difficult to forget. Let's not forget Aisha.

Pharyngula has this BBC article today. It is enough to render me speechless, but I'm fighting it.

A 13 year old rape victim was convicted by an Islamic court of adultery in Somalia. Following her family's report of her rape by three men, she was detained. She was placed into a hole up to her neck and stoned by a group of 50 or more men in a football stadium before an audience of at least 1000 people. They dug her up to make sure she was dead. She was not. They returned her to the hole and finished the job.

In further Somalian news, from the same article, two men who helped kill a thief after torturing his mother received 39 lashes, and the man who actually completed the murder paid 100 camels to the dead thief's family and was released.

Penalty for being raped: DEATH BY STONING.
Penalty for torture and aiding murder: 39 LASHES.
Penalty for murder: FINE OF 100 CAMELS.

Among the approximately 1000 fans at the football stadium watching the stoning of the crying, pleading rape victim, exactly NONE stepped forward to try to stop it.

Fucking barbarians.

When Patriarchy Makes the Rules IV: Equal Opportunity

My last two posts addressed various patriarchal idiocies within specific Muslim and Jewish sects. Here, I would like to highlight a variety, well, just two for now, since this started to get pretty long, of patriarchal idiocies within various Christian sects.

On Sarah Palin:

Some group of christo-fascist freaks' blog, which also includes a section entitled "God's Hitlist [sic]":

You can’t call a woman who wants to be President a “lady”. That just ain’t gonna happen. I don’t mean to be a broken record but Sarah Palin’s gotta stay home with that poor little retard child of hers. Ain’t much else you can say about it. - Billy Bob Neck

From the same blog, having nothing to do with Sarah Palin, but I saw it and snorted tea out of my nose:

I noticed [on Conservapaedia] this astute and sobering observation concerning Hussein Obama’s birth certificate:
It’s interesting that they finally give the, so-called authentic, birth certificate number in this supposedly unfaked photo. It is 151 1961 - 010641. The reason I bring this up, and I think the REAL reason this was masked, is because numerological analysis shows something very disturbing. If you add up the three sets of digits thus:

151 + 1961 + 010641 = 12753

and then add the individual digits of the result thus:

1 + 2 + 7 + 5 + 3 = 18

the final result, 18, is the product of three sixes (3 x 6 = 18). Three sixes, or 666, sort of speaks for itself. I just thought this was interesting.

It’s not just interesting… it blows the whole Obama conspiracy wide open. Do the Demoncrats think that we wouldn’t notice that their candidate was the anti-Christ foretold in the book of Revelation? All it took was the god-given intellect of one Conservapedia reader to bust Obama’s devil-code wide open.

Yours in Christ,

Jimmy Goddard

Oh dear! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

NOTE: I do not recommend you go to this blog. It is mostly just bizarre, and in addition to the numerology crap above, also has a post about Senator Obama being a secret Voodoo practitioner. However, it is also an anti-choice blog and has some nasty photos.

********

From the LA Times:

"The Palin selection is the single most dangerous event in the conscience of the Christian community in the last 10 years at least," said Doug Phillips, president of Vision Forum, a Texas-based ministry. "The unabashed, unquestioning support of Sarah Palin and all she represents marks a fundamental departure from our historic position of family priorities -- of moms being at home with young children, of moms being helpers to their husbands, the priority of being keepers of the home."

and

Some of the debate centers on whether the Bible allows women to serve as civil leaders. Vision Forum leaders argue that it does not. They cite passages in Genesis, Isaiah, Ephesians and elsewhere that they say establishes male headship over women and are critical of female leadership.

I'll leave it there for now since this is long. Readers be aware that I do not support McCain/Palin. I have many, many, many reasons for this (no room here to list - maybe later), though, and Gov. Palin's womanhood is most definitely NOT one of them. She can work where ever she wants as far as I'm concerned, and she has plenty of money to hire nannies and housekeepers. It would be nice, though, if she would at least publicly recognize her privilege, instead of the bogus folksy aw-shucks crap.

When Patriarchy Makes the Rules III

Who'd a thunk there would be two of these brought to my attention in one day?

My previous post was in regard to a Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia who has decided that women wearing black bags over their heads and bodies with only a slit for their eyes is insufficient and that women should cover all but one eye.

Now I've seen this article which includes descriptions of a man breaking into a woman's apartment and violently beating her while hurling death threats for being divorced(this is old news, and one article claims there were at least six other men involved in the beating,) a young woman from Bet Shemesh attacked with pepper spray by a group of men for walking around with some boys in Jerusalem, and rocks, curses, and spit being thrown at another young woman, also from Bet Shemesh, for wearing a red shirt.

As an extra, a Jerusalem store was vandalized by groups of men several times, and finally was torched, but not completely destroyed by a man or group of men, for selling MP4 players.

The divorced woman was under suspicion from the local modesty patrol for possibly having contact with men. Her attackers stole her cell phone, possibly to try to find out who she had called.

The girl attacked with pepper spray horrified the modesty patrol by walking with a group of young men.

The girl in the red shirt was attacked because red shirts draw attention.

The MP4 players might have been purchased and used to access the internet (forbidden!) and download porn.

The store that was vandalized and burned now has signs announcing that it no longer sells MP4 players and is under rabbinical supervision.

In addition to these tales of stupidity, chattelization of women, and haredi men's inability to control themselves, this article adds that stores selling clothing considered immodest have also been vandalized by these modesty patrols whose members throw bleach or otherwise destroy the merchandise.

The photo above, if you can't read it, says the following, transcribed without histrionic capitalization, bolding, and font size:

To women and girls who pass through our neighborhood
We beg you with all our hearts
Please do not pass
Through our neighborhoods in
Immodest clothes
Modest clothes include Closed blouse with long sleeves
Long skirt, no trousers, no tight fitting clothes
Please do not disturb the sanctity of our neighborhood
And our way of life as Jews committed to G-D and his Torah

What it doesn't say is:
Our men are unable to control their impulses
They are like children
Or 19th century sexually repressed Victorian men
Who could go batshit crazy with lust
Upon viewing a woman's ankle
Or wrist
Or arm or shoulder
Or leg or even the shape of a leg
If you tempt our men in such a fashion
We will hurt you
And it will be YOUR fault.

Stupid gits.

Photo credit: Kansas City e-Star, Sebastian Scheiner

When Patriarchy Makes the Rules II

What can one do but laugh to keep from crying:

One Saudi Muslim cleric has called for women to COVER ALL BUT ONE EYE! It seems that allowing two eyes to be seen is just too seductive, or rather, it tempts women to put makeup on those eyes, making them too seductive.

Ya know, if you are a man and you see two female eyes through a slit in a black bag over a woman's head and you just can't control your lust, it is not the problem of the woman.

Ya know, women wearing black bags over their heads and bodies, as required in Saudi Arabia, has not, not, not stopped rape from being a common occurrence in that country.

I could go on and on and on about just Saudi Arabia alone, and its backassward WOMEN = PROPERTY crap. And now dude says showing two eyes is too seductive. What the fuck ever, dumbass. Learn to control yourself.

It seems that Islam, at least in this particular sect, makes children of men, unable to control their childish and barbaric impulses. And of course, it's the women's fault! Even when they're wearing black bags.

Ridiculous and sad.

When Patriarchy Makes the Rules I - UPDATE

Pakistani police have disinterred two bodies of murdered women, whose plight is detailed here.

The two murdered women are:
Izzat Khatoon and Mai Siyani.

Four men have been arrested, two of whom pointed police to the shallow graves.

Investigators have conflicting reports in regard to the number of women killed. The Asian Human Rights Commission originally stated that five women were killed, but it is now suspected that either the two whose bodies have been found were the only victims, or that one more woman was murdered, or that the two were murdered while a third escaped.

Investigations confirm that the women were kidnapped using a government vehicle, which adds to the suspicion that Pakistani People's Party Minister Sadiq Umrani's brother, Abdul Sattar Umrani was involved. Abdul Sattar Umrani is suspected by some to have been involved in another murder in January, 2006, under similar circumstances in that the three murdered were a couple on their way to be married in civil court and their taxi-driver.

I can only say that at least this is being investigated, though I have little faith that justice will prevail. I am also disgusted as usual, but never surprised that things of this nature are not followed in the international, and especially the US, press. I would love to be proven wrong.

When Patriarchy Makes the Rules I

This appeal from the Asian Human Rights Commission describes a recent atrocity in Pakistan. In the province of Balochistan, five women were buried alive, allegedly by a relative of a provincial minister who is a prominent leader of the ruling Pakistan People's Party and his accomplices.

The five women are:
Fatima, 45
Jannat Bibi, 38
Fauzia, 18
A young woman between 16 and 18
Another young woman between 16 and 18.
I will provide names as they become available.

When the possibility of a probe was broached in Pakistan's parliament

Senator Israrulla Zehri told a fellow Senator, Bibi Yasmin Shah, to keep quiet when she took up the issue. “This is part of our Baloch traditions. We will not let anyone interfere with this,” said Zehri on the floor of the house.

Another Senator, Jamal Khan Leghari, protested, saying

I am also a Baloch but would not link the Baloch traditions to such kind of act against humanity. No Baloch can dare to even think of taking such action."

(source for both quotes above)

Abdul Sattar Umrani is a brother of Minister Sadiq Umrani is the alleged murderer, along with six or more unknown accomplices, and apparently used a Balochistan government vehicle to transport the victims to a remote area, where they first shot the three teens and began to bury them, wounded but alive. When the other two women, one an aunt of one victim and the other the mother of another, protested, they, too, were thrown into the pit and buried alive.

The supposed reason for Abdul Sattar Umrani to have abducted and murdered these women is that the three teens had expressed a desire to marry men they had chosen rather than be married to men of their fathers' choosing, as required by Baloch tribal tradition.

These types of barbaric tragedies must be stopped! This is patriarchy in its ugliest and most abominable form! When women can't or won't be controlled by men, kill them. Unacceptable in any society! Unworthy of any tradition!

The site linked above, belonging to the Asian Human Rights Commission, has a button for sending an appeal letter to President Musharraf, Prime Minister Gillani, and others. Please go there and use it!

UPDATE: HERE

New Title For Bringing Barbaric Asshattery to Public Attention: When Patriarchy Makes the Rules

First of all, I am changing the name of When Religion Makes the Rules to the above name. This will be a series of blog posts regarding various incidences of asshattery, barbarism, or other disgusting behaviors perpetrated on individuals anywhere in the world by other individuals who use various patriarchal "traditions" as excuses for such behavior.

The first of such blog posts was this one written in regard to Rand Abdel-Qader's murder.

The second addressed the murder by god-mandated neglect of Madeline Neumann.

The third was a follow-up to the Rand Abdel-Qader tragedy in which I wrote about the murder of Rand's mother, Leila Hussein, who had been in hiding since Rand's murder.

My next post will be the FIRST of the series, though these previous posts are obvious precursors.