FSTDT

summerwind #fundie debatepolitics.com

[ The 19-year-old victim was sentenced last year to 90 lashes for meeting with an unrelated male, a former friend from whom she was retrieving photographs. The seven rapists, who abducted the pair and raped both, received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in prison.

The victim's attorney, Abdulrahman al-Lahim, contested the rapists' sentence, contending there is a fatwa, or edict under Islamic law, that considers such crimes Hiraba (sinful violent crime) and the punishment should be death.

"After a year, the preliminary court changed the punishment and made it two to nine years for the defendants," al-Lahim said of the new decision handed down Wednesday. "However, we were shocked that they also changed the victim's sentence to be six months in prison and 200 lashes."... ]

I do not condone it, nor condemn it. It is possible to do neither. If you choose to slant my response that is your problem.

We have some rules here I think are stupid, barbaric, and reprehensible and I even break some of those rules. However if I get caught breaking them (or something awful happens during the course of my breaking them), I would expect to be held accountable even though I think the rules are wrong, unfair, and debilitating to my happiness and health.

"Secondly" she isn't being punished for being a rape victim, she is being punished for breaking a national rule/law. So if a person is shot but not killed by his accomplice while robbing a store, he should not be charged with robbery because he is a victim of a shooting?

I understand everyone wants to spin this to be a punishment for being raped but it has been made clear by the Saudis; her punishment was for breaking a law, not for being a victim of rape.

[ It should be noted that arabic custom places much more responsibility for prevention of rape, adultery, and pre marital sex on women...

I want to get this straight right now, before any of you moral crusaders try and pull a fast one. My next statement isnt at all an attempt to exonerate the guys who did this. Do keep this in mind, if you take my following statement as the opposite of its intention, than you have a particular interest in seeing the world in that particular POV, and therefore are at the lowest end of human wisdom...

At what point does or should a female partake in the responsibility of ones actions??? In this example, to what extent was her being in a car with some guy a partial cause of the incident???

Same thing you hear about when a girl gets gang raped in a drug neighborhood. Does it make what happened any less horrific; of course not. But to what extent was her being somewhere she knew could be potentially dangerous a partial cause for the incident???

What you have here is a clash of cultures. Muslims in most cases tend to put much more of the blame on the females as opposed to westernized nations.

It really says something when people are so adamant in their cultural norms being the best, most just, most dominant etc... Wonder what it says? ]

The other point that seems to be being avoided is that it is law in Saudi that women not go alone without a male relative, she is being lashed for leaving home in the company of a non-relative male. As much as I would never want to have to abide by that stiff rule, it is nonetheless the rules and if they are willingly and knowingly broken the perp should be accountable.

Another point is that I think Saudi laws/punishments are way to harsh, however it is refreshing to see a judicial system that recognizes % of fault and doesn't see thinks in complete 100% black or white terms. I would imagine that many here would love to see lawsuits for example where even if the rich bad guy gets penalized, so does the poor little guy who should've known better, should have had someone who knew better to review, and so on.

Some cases may be 100%-ers but I think they are the exceptions. Considering the punishment of her rapists, it seems her punishment is harsh but not unreasonable.

molten_dragon #fundie debatepolitics.com

I consider rape to be compelling someone to have sex through the use or the threat of force. The dictionary definition of rape.

I don't consider obtaining sex through drugging someone, or taking advantage of a drunk person, or through deception to be rape. Those things are wrong, and they're crimes, but they're not rape. They're different crimes.

WI Crippler #fundie debatepolitics.com

My pro-life stance, is based upon the right to life for a human organism. The names zygote, fetus, baby, toddler, teenager, adult, senior, are just all denotations of a particular stage of a human organisms life cycle. So to answer your question as to when its a "baby", I think thats subjective on the desires of a mother. But its always a human organism.

I had a girlfriend once ask me to rape her. I honestly don't even know how to go about raping someone. It didn't work. I am too nice.

While I can agree that fetuses currently have no rights as citizens under the constitution(something we attempt to extend to non-citizens anyway, see:any enemy combatant discussion), it is my opinion that once the sperm and the egg have joined it has begun the process of human life, which does not end until that beings time of death, whenever that may be. Left to its natural course, the embryo cannot become anything but human even though its initial stages resemble nothing of the human form. Thus the embryo is, IMO, a human being. If we are a culture that values life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, then protections for that embryo should be an inherent right.

[on rape]

my wife and I had a similar encounter (after we had been married already). I think I have shared this story before on this board as well. We were both in a friend of ours wedding party. Drinks at the reception were free for the wedding party, and we both drank our fair share. We went back to the hotel room, had some sex and passed out. I woke up a few hours later with some "needs" I started caressing my wife, and her body starts responding in kind. So I get in her, and then she wakes up and asks me what the hell I am doing. I thought she had "consented" through non-verbal body responses. She claims she was passed out and had no idea. Was I raping her? By this definition in this thread, I guess. Was there intent to rape? Absolutely not.

In drunken situations like this, how many guys are going to ask for verbal consent? Can one interpret non-verbal actions as consent?

It's times like these you wish for a Tucker like penis. In court, you could just pull down your pants to prove that rape was impossible.

psychoclown #fundie debatepolitics.com

In general, if you have sex with a girl who is passed out, yeah it's rape. Clearly she could not consent.

However, a scenario like Crippler's is obviously possible and I wouldn't call that rape. But there we're talking about a married couple. If you're out in the world of one night stands and random hook ups, passed out chicks are off limits.

The idea of some women not caring about this struck me as odd, but then I thought about it. I imagine myself as a single dude fooling around with some random hottie. If I passed out before the deed was done and she was still able to have sex with me, I wouldn't freak out about it. Like Aunt Spiker said, I'd just regret that I wasn't awake to enjoy it! Honestly guys, how many of you, if you were already into the girl and wanted to have sex with her, would freak out if you found she had sex with you after you passed out (assuming that was physically possible). I don't think many men would have a problem with that. Again, assuming you knew the girl and were planning on going for it yourself.

gathomas88 #fundie debatepolitics.com

I find it ironic someone turned on by girl on girl could be so against homosexuality. Hypocritical much?

Why?

I like women. I like seeing two women together.

Most heterosexual men do, so I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this is an innate thing.

It's how one reacts to their innate impulses which defines them, not the fact that a person possesses them in the first place

gathomas88 #homophobia debatepolitics.com

[On eliminating homosexuality from the gene pool]

It would arguably "streamline" the human experience considerably by removing our need to adapt to what is essentially useless behavior in the first place. It would also increase the efficiency with which human beings accomplish certain biological tasks.

At the end of the day, the simple fact of the matter is that homosexuality (note that I did not say homosexual persons) is more or less worthless. It is an anomaly at best, and a distraction at worst.

There is no reason why it should have to exist.

Papa Bull #homophobia debatepolitics.com

With all the anguish reported by homosexuals over their lifestyle, I think the humanitarian thing to do would be to cure them if this condition was, in fact, a curable medical condition that something like gene therapy would resolve. The tales of agony and woe by those afflicted with homosexuality are heartwrenching and I look forward to the day no one has to go through that. Since it's not a choice, it should be a very natural and healing process to feel those homosexual urges fade away and natural attactions to the opposite sex take their place. Anything we can do to minimize suffering is a good thing and a cure for homosexuality would do that. Best if we could test for it and correct it during the first three months of pregnancy. Homosexuality would then just disappear and so would all the issues surrounding it.

Papa Bull #homophobia debatepolitics.com

But if it is a biological condition instead of choice, IT MIGHT be something that could be cured even before children are born. Homosexuality isn't a benefit to either parents or the human race, so why not cure it if it's a curable inborn condition? The only people that would think there was anything wrong with that would be homosexuals but there wouldn't be any homosexuals if it could be cured, so there wouldn't BE any complaints about bigotry or angst over homosexuality being a thing of the past. You've got to think past your own experience here.