http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=574&e=2&u=/nm/20040315/wl_nm/un_gays_dc_1
Sorry, I don’t have much to say on this topic. I just thought Fred might enjoy pointing out the ideological conondrum it creates for liberals who are both multi-culturalistic Islam apologists and gay marriage rights proponents!
PS: I’m safe from that tac because I’m the latter but not the former! 
If you thought that was a sticky tpic what do you make of this? From the Sydney Morning Herald, but an AFP story.
[quote]Soldier arrested for having sex with donkey
March 17, 2004
An Afghan soldier was detained by police after being caught having sex with a donkey in south-eastern Afghanistan.
The soldier was found with the donkey in an abandoned house in a small village of Gardez, the capital of Paktia province, last week, a local police officer said yesterday.
“He was caught in the act by a small boy who immediately told police about what he had seen and police arrested him in action,” the Gardez-based officer told AFP, requesting anonymity.
The soldier claimed he committed the act because he did not have enough money to get married.
He was jailed for four days and then released without charge.
According to tradition in south and south-eastern Afghanistan, a suitor must pay about $7000 to the parents of the girl he wishes to marry.
[/quote]
Thank you Vay:
I do indeed enjoy the squirming that accompanies such conundrums. Any further examples would be most appreciated. Lefties? How will you answer?
[quote=“fred smith”]I do indeed enjoy the squirming that accompanies such conundrums. Any further examples would be most appreciated. Lefties?[/quote]Preservation of Hakka culture v Animal (piggies) rights.
BFM:
How did you know that I was naked right now?
I’m not so sure that it’s such a large conundrum.
In general, I think that, at least in the US, so-called liberals support gay rights and may simultaneously support religious believers to their right of religion. this support does not include the right of believers to coerce others (non-believers) to conform with their beliefs either through law or morality. thus, you are free to practice your religion and respect other religions, but you shouldn’t be able to force your beliefs on others. this applies to ‘bible-belt christians’ as well as muslims.
now in the UN/international arena, there is a different context and different atmosphere. for one, this is agreement between nations, not tolerance amongst citizens intra-society. two, many of these arab societies are homogeneous or more so.
what say you fred. (going to lunch, will explain more later)
What is this set up easy balls for Fred Smith to spike week?
First the nasty comments on the French thread and now this opportunity? What did I do to deserve such bliss this week?
I will tell you why there is a conundrum and why I am filled with such disdain (new word instead of contempt. My programmers put it in). I shall alternate with scorn next.
First, the Left is filled with causes rather than principles and morals. That is why there is so much confusion about these issues. They race to protest one cause and then race to protest another but they never have a moral yardstick inside to know for sure which cause they should or should not be supporting outside the hysterical emotional (sounds like an evangelical church service ironically enough no?) thrashing about to achieve the needed spiritual catharsis. After all what is really the difference between Bible bangers and those banging pots and pans and yelling and screaming and swaying with protest signs. One sings spirituals while weeping, the other weeps while hugging and singing “we will overcome.” Yet the lefties scorn the religious right for being mindless?!
That is why they are tripped up again and again and again by the glaring inconsistencies of supporting one issue against another of equal value.
Now at least for we conservatives, we go by other factors such as security and economic stability and then and only then venture into the murky world of humanitarianism. In these cases, we would benefit greatly from our Leftie friends’ enthusiasm but if we are finally for something then they are against it not because it is a worthy cause but because Conservatives are for it. Now how stupid is that? Hence my scorn for Lefties wearing their hearts on their sleeves because I have disdainful contempt for the commercially packaged outrage and murky reasoning behind their lockstep willingness to buy into such causes. AND the height of my scornful disdain is the fact that so many on the Left shriek with bemusement at the way Middle America is taken in by big corporate ad messages. Wherein really lies the difference between the Left’s “purchase” of certain “causes” when they have no inner moral code that provides uniformity of response to events of similar magnitudes?
Joe Sixpack and Honey Housewife may be stupid for buying a Ford or Doritos but what about Loony Left and Outraged Olive and their similar subscription to “environmental” issues, “Save the Whales” and “Fight Oppression.” It’s all the same ad sale to me.
[quote=“almas john”]If you thought that was a sticky tpic what do you make of this? From the Sydney Morning Herald, but an AFP story.
[quote]Soldier arrested for having sex with donkey
March 17, 2004
An Afghan soldier was detained by police after being caught having sex with a donkey in south-eastern Afghanistan.
The soldier was found with the donkey in an abandoned house in a small village of Gardez, the capital of Paktia province, last week, a local police officer said yesterday.
“He was caught in the act by a small boy who immediately told police about what he had seen and police arrested him in action,” the Gardez-based officer told AFP, requesting anonymity.
The soldier claimed he committed the act because he did not have enough money to get married.
He was jailed for four days and then released without charge.
According to tradition in south and south-eastern Afghanistan, a suitor must pay about $7000 to the parents of the girl he wishes to marry.
[/quote][/quote]
There’s definitely the beginning of a bottom-up ground swell of support for my oft ignored turn the Arab world into a brothel idea. It’s going to be a tough sell but eventually the world will come round to my way of thinking. Oh yes.
fred,
i fail to see how you’ve even remotely addressed my points. quit smoking crack, come back to earth, and let’s have a healthy, rational debate. 
Apology ordered for Muslim’s TV comment
A television channel has been ordered to broadcast an apology for comments on air by a visiting Muslim lecturer who advocated death for homosexuals.
Speaking on Triangle Television’s Voice of Islam, Brother Abdullah Hakim Quick said Aids was caused by homosexual practices, that homosexuals were dropping dead from Aids and wanted “to take us all down with them”. They were “sick” and “not natural”.
In the programme, broadcast last September, Mr Quick said the Islamic position on homosexuality was death.
“Muslims are going to have to take a stand (against homosexuals) and it’s not enough to call names.”
But Blueface:
It is all right for Muslims to kill. It is in their nature and we should do more to “understand” the root causes of why they want to kill people like homosexuals. Their religion after all says its okay so who are we to judge.
Fred, please see my post on Rupert Murdock in the Paul Wellstone thread to see what I think of the Right’s so-called “morals and principles”. Or, as another example, let’s take hypocritical horn-dogs like Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh with their how many ex-wives who claim to stand for “family values”.
Or let’s take Bush, who’s so outspoken on religion. Yeah, well, no wonder. Other than senior citizens, probably the most reliable voting base you could have, once you’ve swayed them emotionally. Funny though - in Acts it has this to say:
“And the multidude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul; neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus; and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he needed.”
In fact, the Bible says a lot about compassion and generosity. It also says give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. It doesn’t say anything, far as I can tell, about ‘get rich by any and all means and screw the other guy’. I don’t agree with all of Ayn Rand’s ideas, but at least she and her Objectivist followers were honest enough to face up to the reality that unregulated Capitalism is somewhat incompatible with Christian doctrine.
Show me a liberal administration other than Carter since WW2 when the economy wasn’t booming.
Fred, I’ve heard you poke fun at Leftist hippy pseudo-intellectuals innumerable times on these threads. Would it surprise you to know that I despise these guys as much if not more than you? You see, for you, such people are great ammunition for sweeping attacks against Liberalism. For me, they are traitors to the cause. Let me give you an example:
When I was in college, I remember seeing an editorial in the student newspaper. I’m paraphrasing from memory, but basically this is what it said:
“When I was growing up in Korea, I was taught that the Japanese were my hated enemies. But now, I realize that it is in fact the imperialist hegemonist American regime and its European lackies who are my historical oppressors. In light of this, I would now like to join hands with my Asian brothers and sisters in defiance of their lies…” Blah blah blah.
When I saw that letter, my reaction was something like: "You naive little (*$#&). You grew up in a country which you yourself have just said educated you to be racist and ethnocentric. Then you came to America, a country which provides, I am proud to say, a liberal, self-critical education. There you were taught to question the dominant paradigm. You were given the intellectual tools of skepticism, rational argumentation, the empirical method, etc. However, instead of using these tools to go back and attack the anachronistic mentality of the land you grew up in, you instead turned and bit the hand that enlightened you.
Now, Fred, admit it: if you had seen that editorial, you’d giggle gleefully and thank heavens that such morons call themselves Liberals. Let them go on spouting such nonsense: we’ll use it to alienate the average Joe and make him think he’s closer to us, even though we drive SLK’s and he drives a Pontiac!
Generally if you ask a Republican what they stand for they can tell you:
Now naturally there can be exceptions to the rule but remember after all that it was the Republican party under Eisenhower that forced civil rights down the throats of the Southern Democrats. This after another Republican Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves in the first place and President Johnson followed up with a tough Reconstruction Program to make sure that they got their rights. And who gets credit from the Blacks? The Democratic Party of course.
Now if you ask most though not all Liberals what they stand for you get…? or x but only in situations q r and w subsets with qualifications that if x is in fact occuring in nation y it is acceptable only for q and w but not r and if occurring in country z is acceptable all the time, etc. Who the hell knows?
If you look at Iraq and Afghanistan from the conservative point of view, all makes sense unless you are an isolationist.
If you look at the Liberal support for Bosnia and Kosovo, and then again split 50-50 for Afghanistan and then 100 percent against for Iraq, but now 100 percent for in Haiti, what the hell kind of conclusions can you draw except my convoluted subset approach to issues?