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New Afghan law does not allow marital rape... but lets men refuse to feed wives who deny them sex, says cleric

Here's a link to the article with the above subject. http://digg.com/d1otCK

In Afghanistan the law and religion of Islam - again - appears to be one and the same. Use this article as an example. President Barak Obama did find this law offensive, along with other leaders. The law has since been put 'under review'. I don't know what that means, except to buy time until the headlines go away.
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Here are the first few paragraphs of the article for you:
A new Afghan law that has drawn Western condemnation for restricting women's rights does not allow marital rape as its critics claim, but lets men refuse to feed wives who deny them sex, the cleric behind it says. Ayatollah Mohammed Asef Mohseni's Shi'ite personal status law sparked controversy abroad because of a provision that 'a wife is obliged to fulfil the sexual desires of her husband'. This was read by some as an open door to marital rape, and together with clauses restricting women's freedom of movement denounced as reminiscent of harsh Taliban-era rules.

The law has been criticised by Western leaders with troops fighting in Afghanistan, including U.S. President Barack Obama, who called it 'abhorrent'. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, who signed the law last month, has since put it under review. But Mohseni said the law - which only applies to the 15 percent of Afghans who are Shi'a muslims - has been misinterpreted by critics.
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Many questions arise (again) with this article contents. My reaction in a nutshell is disgust and dismay in the least. If there are such huge protests for a law that only applies to 15% of the Afghans, whey do they need to have such a law? Obviously the women are considered criminal already in this case of 'husband neglect'. How can that be misinterpreted? This is another human rights issue.

Would love to know your thoughts and more about what we can do to get more and more clarification from the Muslim leaders of the world.

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If we want to talk about sex being a sort of 'staple' of life, let's do it, but by no means do I believe that in any relationship it is a 'requirement' for either party to satisfy the other. I do actually believe that sex is a staple of life and extremely important in a relationship and know men and women like myself who agree. However, I DO NOT think it's arguable whether or not a woman should supply a husband with sex when he needs it. NOT AT ALL. This is a one-sided game and is completely disregarding the desires of a woman. A man, dissatisfied, can either try to communicate and create desire in his woman, or leave the relationship. Vice versa.

The issue to me is the religion infiltrating into the law, specifically regarding the sexual role of women toward their husbands completely reducing the "relationship" to a "deal" or "bartering". If this is correct, which I don't think it is, then why don't we have business agreements instead of marriage? Why not prostitution legalized instead of marriage? What is marriage then? What if the tables are turned, the woman wants sex and is denied it? Does she have reciprocal rights? If I understand the article and the laws intention, no, she does not. Now regarding the reflections of this behavior in American Christians, that's fine because it's not a law. I don't agree with it obviously and feel sorry for the women who succumb and demean themselves to this concept but it is their choice. And it's the same for the Muslims, but I don't think it should be a law anywhere.

Now I think some of the points you bring up about America and laws in the US being 'Christian' are probably somewhat true. Not in all states though. In many states you can buy liquor on a Sunday, no restrictions. And in fact, you can buy liquor other days of the week so you can still drink it on a Sunday. Marijuana is a battle and maybe you are right about it being a Christian thing, but I see it as a broader problem where the public has a basic misunderstanding about the benefits of medical marijuana and consider this a step toward legalizing a recreational drug. But overall there are some issues that are religious infiltrations in our own American laws and a great one is the abortion issue and even stem cell research. But that doesn't me we don't work towards freedom and equality in these cases. I don't think that President Obama is at all a hypocrite about this. The Mexico issue seems a real tangent because it has nothing to do with religion.

The other cases you bring up are really outside of the realm of the subject I was trying to address, which is the religious role to bring law into the definition of the role's in a relationship between man and woman. If we open this up into the "religions creating law" category we have a much bigger discussion, which could be cool, but was not my intent. Both of the recent issues which were discussed (this one and the mini-skirt murder) were related in that way and both restrict the womens' behavior and justify the mens'. In a reverse scenario, what if the wife gives lots of sex but the husband doesn't feed her? What if the father embarrasses the daughter?

I think that the United States, although not perfect, has by far and away done an incredibly good job of creating more and more equality among the sexes and keeping religion out of the argument. I think we need to keep pushing for that direction. I think it will continue to be a dilemma but I will continue to point to cases where I feel there is disparity to call attention to it.
The religious beliefs, in our case christian thought, are so impregnated in our life style that is a challenge to free the mind and change our points of view and actions. Those beliefs reflect over several important questions from private to public. It would cost a lot to everybody to change those behaviors, including money I think, because the way things are is good to business. It's not so different from the behavior of middle east people who has been living inside a system for generations and has been used to live their lifes that way.
I can't see the good of those religions! In my opinion they did more bad than good things during centuries. Their only objective is to dominate and to control anyone in their way! They will do what is necessary to keep their power even to explode the whole world in name of those stupid beliefs. They see us as a big prostitute, Babylon the Great, feeding demons with our luxury!!! By the contrary, we are trying to live right and let live too while they are trying to destroy the good things mankind has achieved during centuries. Who is the devil here? We are learning about freedom and respect and they are learning about hate, anger and destruction.
They are still living in the middle age!!! I can't see how a religion that gives support to such things can be considered a good thing or inspired by angels or god himself! They are using the name of god and his angels to justify their crimes! They had and still have a very narrow point of view of most important things of life I think. But the worst about all this is that most of times the people itself gives suppport to such crimes!!! Here where I live I could observe several times that the mothers educate their boys to be sexist men in adult life and reproduce the system oppressing their wifes. It's a very strange thing but it's true. I know it's not the same thing, I mean, it's not the case here, it's another question but I think there is some similarity between the both. I don't believe in holly books as the Bible or the Coran, because they were written by men and men have their flaws. I think that the sacred books were written with one thought in mind: to control people. They were and still are primitive law books, in my opinion a prototype of our modern law system with its extensive behavior codes.
they are asshole and well it sick

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