Also, it’s pretty sad when worshippers of YHWH are considered enemies as a matter of course.

While I clearly hold a different perspective than yours on the issue, I do agree that this argument is a distraction from the main thrust of the post.

Back to the main point:

Comparing fundamentalists in different religions is a VERY different thing than referring to a Christian fundamentalist as an Ayatollah.

One, depending on how it is handled, can serve as a guide to when any organized group of people starts hurting other people based on rhetoric (something which has occured in attempts to remove religion, as well as within science and other non-religious organized groups). There is a strong history of such studies in Anthropology and Psychology and they are chilling.

The other uses another culture as a rhetorical “worse than us” and “do you want to be like THAT” point that, given the choice of culture being used, is clearly both racist and religiously bigotted. In other words - Not only is Huckabee like a BROWN person who has influence in other countries, but the religion is STRANGE and the media tells us it’s major sacrament involved BLOWING PEOPLE UP.’

The reason why simply using this rhetoric damages the argument in question is that it is hinging on the same bigotry and colonialism which mobilizes the religious right (embodied here as Huckabee). If you want to oppose the religious right, one would think NOT reinforcing their rhetorical points by using them would be a good start.

If you’re saying that we can’t make any meaningful conclusions about the rule of religion, I suppose I’d be OK with that: I’ll stop claiming it’s bad, if others stop claiming it’s good. Sounds like a fair trade to me and I suppose it isn’t especially easy to support either side. I think it’s a reasonable conclusion though, based on the limited evidence and information we have.

if you’re saying that we can’t conclude that it’s bad (but that we could conclude that religion is good) then that makes no sense to me.

My belief in God is based on faith and personal spiritual experiences.

Robert, it’s a conclusion. Based on, I don’t know, quite a few years of school, reading news, living in the world, interacting, studying, etc. What do you mean by the question?

(OK, I tried to stop myself, but I can’t resist: Is your belief in god a conclusion or an assumption, and what data do you base it on?)

I’d insert the word “organized” in there.

What data do you use as the basis for this conclusion?

(Is it a *conclusion*, in other words, or just an assumption?)

Now, it happens that women in Buddhist places are still frequently second class citizens, so we know that not all misogyny is religiously inspired. Indeed, religion is probably just a cover. But it’s the cover that is most likely to inspire misogynistic rules and laws in our midst, so I think it’s okay to call out Mike Huckabee and others on it.

Religion is often used as a cover to justify whatever people want to do, even when those viewpoints are diametrically opposed. In the early part of American history quotes from Scripture were often used to justify the institution of slavery; but then, they were also often used to oppose it. Indeed, the leader of abolition in England was an Anglican priest, and plenty of clerics in the Northern states led opposition to slavery, and you can’t get anymore mainstream than the Anglican church in England, or the Episcopal church in the U.S. at the time of the Civil War. Here in the present day Evangelical Christians are involved in leadership of efforts to maintain traditional views regarding homosexuality. But there are also plenty of people both lay and cleric in other Christian denominations that are leading efforts to change those views and our laws, such as the Episcopal Church (my own denomination), the United Church of Christ, etc. Religion as a whole in the U.S. is not limited to any one set of philosophical viewpoints or role in political efforts.

It is often presented as a given on left-oriented blogs that religion is wholly repressive and has not been a force for good in society. I suspect people who think this are reflecting only on their own personal experience and haven’t really looked hard at American history.

In Iran there is an actual theocracy. In the U.S. it’s prevented by the closing clause of Article VI, paragraph 3 of the U.S. Constitution:

but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

As well as the First Amendment, which prohibits Congress from making laws that establish any particular religion as the state religion.

Maya, are you saying that, on historical grounds, it is not appropriate to use the word “Ayatollah” to mean “religious scholar participating is a Shi’a theocratic state”? I mean, that may be over the heads of most of people, or most Americans, or most Pandagonians, but … my understanding is that the term Ayatollah itself originally referred to those Iranian religious scholars who participated in the constitutional revolution after 1905. I do not think, for example that Ayatollah and Imam mean the same thing, and I don’t expect that you do, either. Am I mistaken about the origin of the term, or do you claim that it is no longer proper to use Ayatollah as a specific reference to Iranian theocracy, and if so are you arguing for a definition that is defined entirely in relation to religious scholarship without regard to relation to a state? Or are you saying something else?

To say that certain religious fundamentalists have nothing in common with each other is frankly stupid — but even that’s not close enough, because it’s not all religions. Buddhists, for instance, don’t do stoning or hanging or even outlawing abortion (from what I know). Now, it happens that women in Buddhist places are still frequently second class citizens, so we know that not all misogyny is religously inspired. Indeed, religion is probably just a cover. But it’s the cover that is most likely to inspire misogynistic rules and laws in our midst, so I think it’s okay to call out Mike Huckabee and others on it.

As to the NHS — I can’t even tell what Maia is saying here. That we shouldn’t care about women whose main obstacle (from what I could tell from reading the piece) is that they don’t speak English and therefore can’t be evaluated by English speaking doctors and nurses who are not reflexively sympathetic to the husband) because we in the West were once and might still even be just as bad? Sorry ladies — you must be content with your lot in life at the hands of your husband because we were once just as bad, and those of us who are really well connected might still be just as bad. You lose. Well, that would make ME feel much better about the loss of my freedom, really.

Look, blogs are not a forum in which people speak with nuanced subtlety. If this bugs you, read books instead.

Jess McCabe - I had forgotten that post, and I’m glad you wrote it. But I still don’t think that really mitigates reprinting the Times anecdote and stating that it is ‘relevent’ to the debate on Sharia law in Briain. Reprinting the Times anecdote and discussing the powers the mental health act gives over families would have been quite different. But that post accepting the Times framing as defining rebellious women as mad being something Muslim people did, and I think that’s unacceptable.

Amanda - Other people have pointed out why what you said isn’t replying to what I objected to, so I won’t repeat myself. But there is one thing I’m unsure of, you have shifted from ‘ayatollah’ to Iranian theocracy. Were you treating the two as synonymous, were you expecting your readers to do the same? Isn’t there enough woeful ignorance of Islam already? Do you need to add to it?

Posting that story, in the context that she did, implies that the central fact here, is the religion of those involved.

The central fact is the religion of those involved. The allegation is that because of their religiously inspired views on gender segregation Muslim psychiatrists and GPs and performing inadequate evaluations, and are wrongly sectioning women. It’s a pretty appropriate cautionary tale given what the Archbishop is proposing.

You can bluster all you want about what families with connections to the medical establishment have always been able to do, but these cases have nothing to do with that. Do you really think immigrant Muslims have connections to the medical establishment? This is straight forward mistreatment of women by doctors whose religion renders them incapable of doing their job and treating women fairly.

Why is it so hard to acknowledge the bigotry? The level of denial in the comments to this post is already staggering.

Just because it bears repeating.

The argument, “well, I’m an equal opportunity attacker of religions, I don’t discriminate.” is strikingly similar to the arguments made by bigots—”it’s ok to say n****r, because I also say h*nky, s**c, d*go, k*ke, g**k, etc. See? I can’t be bigoted, because I insult everybody.” No.

There is absolutely, positively no need to use the word “ayatollah” in this instance. Huckabee is not a Muslim fundamentalist. It’s disingenuous to claim that past practice of pot-shots at any and all religions exempts one from relgious bigotry. Maia was spot-on with her interpretation (”so misogynist, as misogynist as a Muslim”). I live in the United States, and it has been my experience that fundamentalist, protestant, evangelical Christians are far, far more misogynist than the Muslim population here—to the point where it would be better to phrase a critique of Huckabee’s misogyny as “so misogynist, as misogynist as a fundie Christian”. Feeding into pre-existing bigotries and false assumptions about Islam isn’t “progressive”. It’s as progressive as the perennial “where the women bloggers at?” questions. Tired!

Why say it? Why assume that no Muslims could possibly be reading your blog, or if they are, that it is impossible for them to be anything but fundamentalist? Why? Why the cheap shot? Especially during a time when it’s Muslims, not Christians who are under the gun here in the U.S.. I don’t recall hearing of any Christians getting pulled over and searched “on suspicion”, or getting extra scrutiny in the airport, or having their phones tapped. Haven’t heard of any plans to spy on congregants in churches. You know? It isn’t the Christians who are assumed to be terrorists—though we know plenty of “Christians” have committed crimes against humanity that accurately fall under the terrorism definition, right here in the U.S. KKK, anyone? The execreble excuses for “people” that have been burning down black churches (and increasingly, mosques) consider themselves as “Christian” and “doing God’s work”.

That’s all. Just call it like it is. Huckabee isn’t an ayatollah; he’s a Christian fundie whose interpretation of his professed religion is at striking odds with most of the rest of U.S. Christians. Why not work with that, instead of dragging bigotry against Muslims into it?