[phoenix_fire]

Wow. I think that nine steps would probably prefer living in an Islamic theocracy with all of its atrocities against women.

Hmm...the OP very much reminds me of my thread on Moral Relativism.

To address an earlier argument, it is true that some, and probably many, Muslim women will tell you that they prefer the conditions in which they live. But you have to understand that they have been conditioned that way. Most people don't know enough about other cultures to understand what a different kind of cultural conditioning can do to you.

According to Islam, women are believed to be born worthless. And if you hear it enough times from people you love and respect, you'll probably start to believe it. They try very hard not to make themselves sexually attractive to men because if you get raped or for any reason have sex with someone that's not your husband, it's over. If you survive, you'll probably be cast out of your family and be forced to beg since women usually can't have jobs. (stop me if I'm wrong) At least, that's the worst case scenario.

At any rate, acceptance of most of this stuff is deeply embedded. It would probably be a mistake to just thrust a new culture on them, but that does not change the fact that it is unjust. That, I think, is where the crux of the situation lies.

As far as American women go, you have to look at a little more closely. True feminists (and there aren't very many any more) are very much incensed about this situation. But "feminist" may not necessarily mean "liberal" and certainly doesn't mean "Democrat" which is the more important distinction. Not all feminists are liberals, not all liberals are Democrats, and not all feminists are Democrats. Democrats have their own agendas. Just like most of them like to curry the favor of the Greens without actually doing anything about the environment (check out the energy usage stats on Al Gore's houses sometime), they also like to curry the favor of feminists without actually serving the cause of women's rights at all. Their main objective has always been to take down the Republicans. The Republicans don't like Islamic theocratic culture for various reasons. So the Democrats find themselves defending it.

Or on the other hand, you have the atheists. Though most of them will never admit it, even to themselves perhaps, many of them have a fixation on hating Christianity. They take every opportunity to take Christianity down. And sometimes this puts them on the side of defending Islam. (Although, if they lived in an Islamic theocracy, their focus would almost certainly change). Having never experienced how unpleasant such a government can be toward non-believers, they are able to relativistically assume that the occasional annoyance by a well-meaning evangelist here is far more dangerous than the atrocities of Islamic theocracy there. Some even mistakenly believe that Muslim extremists would grant them some form of clemency for being theologically "neutral". They wait to throw down flowers before their tanks. So for the sake of their continuing vendetta with Christianity, they will smooth over the worse aspects of radical Islamic culture.