Brigitte Gabriel’s organization ACT, a supposedly non-partisan and non-religious organization, plans on having an “open a Koran” day at a library near you. Though this may at first sound like an idea to promote intellectual growth and healthy relations with present-day Muslims, it’s actually the complete opposite. Gabriel’s group plans to show in detail the way that the Koran suppresses and mistreats women, with the clear goal to appeal to hard-line Christians and Tea Party members as they look for ammunition to continue their pointless verbal chess game with Islam. Forget the debate as to whether or not Gabriel's standpoint is immoral, irreligious or even (uh oh) blasphemous. I'm more upset with it just being a lame argument at this point, all while bringing up a far more important question for Christians. Do Christians really want others to start digging through the Bible and biblical history to find inhumanity and atrocities against women? My guess is probably not. You can read some detailed examples of why that is the case right here. But the biggest issue is that we’re once again letting the social norms of writers from hundreds and thousands of years ago determine the social customs of today. And this isn’t even a religious issue; it’s a common sense one. Writing from 50 years ago often doesn’t translate to the societal norms of today, yet we still have enthusiastic zealots leading the ignorant and dimwitted around by the hand, pointing to religious works (of any religion) that clearly have more spiritual meanings for today than literal ones. As someone who has grown up under the expansive wings of Christianity, it’s not a wise play to have historical pissing contests when we have a, uh, dubious (at best) history of human compassion. But, if we’re determined to fulfill the ending of the brilliant satire Dr. Strangelove, well, then so be it. Low of the week: The Tea Party and associates like Brigitte Gabriel party wayyy to hard for me….I definitely got off 22 exits ago.
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