Usually I think Richard Dawkins is a buffoon, and wrong. But here I agree with him 100%.
When Islamic (or lest it go unsaid, Christian) culture oppresses women, to hell with that culture. I don’t give a fuck why it does so or the fact that other liberals think I should respect how Islam treats women because that’s “just how they do things.”
Cultural relativism can be good, neutral or evil — and in this case, it’s pure evil.
Again, that doesn’t mean I think we should be bombing people to freedom or that Dawkins is right about many other things, such as his belief that women in Western countries shouldn’t fight for equal rights because Muslim women have it worse.
But there does have to be some absolute standard for human rights (as a Twitter commenter pointed out), and I don’t give a damn who that offends in the liberal or the conservative camp.
But that’s me — if I ain’t making enemies, it’s not a day of the week.
Thankx for the reminder that just because tea party types hate Muslims doesn’t mean I should side with them, at least other than the basically secular ones for whom it is a cultural tradition and not a set of literal beliefs. Not that I need such a reminder, but solidarity in these matters confers strength. We should all be so helpful to each other.