Between religion and the law
“As long as he religiously respects the lives and the money of his fellow citizens, nothing more is asked of him. He may beat his wife, mistreat his servants, ruin his children, and it is no-one’s business. Society condemns only those facts that do it harm; it is not concerned with private life.” George Sand, 1832.
Reflect upon the George Sand quote for a moment to allow the enormous change in perspective to sink in.
Her 1832 statement reflects a basic assumption of our civilization that is integral to that civilization and is captured clearly in the following two quotes which are classic examples of the concept:
“Men unite for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties and estates, which I shall call by the general name – property.” John Locke
“So great is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it; no, not even for the common good of the whole community.” Blackstone.
The legal situation has changed radically, bringing the private sphere under increased scrutiny and rapidly calling the very nature of privacy into question. Obvious to anyone with knowledge of what both young men and women are doing through the net where in sending naked pictures of oneself to a stranger has become the norm and the language in British newspapers would have brought obscenity actions not too long ago.
Along with this “openness”, there has developed a dangerous puritanical legal trend that has turned the desire to protect former victims, as mentioned in the Sand quote, into courtroom heroes, producing a raft of unsafe convictions: tailing innocents in the name of protecting the weak.
Having personally delved into a number of such cases, at great length, has made me acutely aware that the institution of law in the United States requires a total transformation as injustice is now the norm.
Until very recently a Pennsylvania senator, now thankfully retired by his constituents, could argue that there was no constitutional guarantee to privacy, thus officers could arrest two adult males for engaging in sodomy within the confines of their own home.
And a bit farther back in time, I can recall a life sentence meted out in a Southern state for receiving a blow job. Ludicrous, but not to the recipient.
Contrast those two cases with the accepted practise of the father taking the oldest daughter into his bed when his wife died. When I mentioned this practise at a Thanksgiving dinner in France, two English social workers challenged me the way anthropologists used to challenge any reports of cannibalism.
While the above discussion was going on, a local well educated man just kept smiling at me. When I called upon him to comment he was terse and to the point: “It is a common local practice.” The year was 1996.
The problem as raised can only increase as the movement of people upon the earth encysted groups of people who operate under the aegis of religious norms or tribal mores, among a larger policy.
Think upon the practise of ritual female circumcision; the ritual slaughter of lambs to end weeks of Muslim daytime fasting, protest against which has brought Bridget Bardot in conflict with the law; the murder of a disobedient daughter for failing to abide by the father’s choice of a husband or choosing one of her own; or the use of Peyote in religious ritual.
At what point does statutory law have the right to impinge upon religious practise.
I mused upon these issues as I glanced a picture of a prostitute spread across the middle of my op-ed Tribune page for January 5, 2009. she is missing one eye, gouged out by her owner/madam in a fit of anger when the prostitute told her she could not work after a second painful abortion.
Nicholas D. Kristof is trying to help prostitutes and thousands who are in similar situations. In his January 12, 2009 op-ed piece in the Tribune, he describes his purchase of two Cambodian teenagers (for $150 and $203) five years ago, complete with a receipt confirming that one of the girls was now his property.
I would not fight to secure the oil in Iraq (what the war is, was about), but I would certainly fight and risk my life for prostitutes and others in similar situations.
That “fight” is a metaphor as at 69 (in May), I am not about to be sent to war.
The conflicts mentioned above are current. The free pass that religion has had in the West is rapidly been called into question.
The pictured depicted below is indicative of that. The “probable” relates to the British requirement for truth in advertisement. The ad is appearing on 800 British buses.
And never forget: the Catholic Church burned Giordano Bruno in 1600 for daring, among other things, to suggest that the sun was just among many.
