New Pakistani rape laws anger Islamists
PAUL GARWOOD, AP / ISLAMABAD, Pakistan
Pakistani lawmakers passed amendments to the country’s rape laws Wednesday, ditching the death penalty for extramarital sex and revising a clause on making victims produce four witnesses to prove rape cases.
Human rights activists are not totally happy, but they definitely feel that Pakistan is moving in the right direction.
Speaking for myself, I am divided on the situation. Certainly we could never justify the death penalty for adultery, and yet stoning was the punishment enacted by the ancient Jews. Such a terrible censure is part of our history and the record of Scripture. Flogging is also eliminated by the new laws. The Pakistani compromise will permit a judge to try a case either in an Islamic or a criminal court. The police can no longer detain people suspected of fornication and adultery.
Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch contended that “The Pakistani government remains in violation of its international obligations on ending discrimination against women.” The article states: “Consensual sex outside marriage remains a crime punishable by five years in prison or a $165 fine.” That sounds fine by me, such acts “might well” be criminalized, although five years might be steep and the fine a bit cheap. Can you imagine what would happen in our culture if this became the case? Adultery used to be against the law and it is still an offense that can earn a disreputable discharge and punishment under the United States military code of conduct. At least into the 1980’s, it was a violation of state law in Virginia for unmarried couples to cohabitate and have sexual relations. One case made the news because a court order was obtained on suspected drug dealers, not on evidence of drugs, but by using the anti-cohabitation law as an excuse to enter the home and do a search. Otherwise, the law was never enforced anymore.
We have become too soft as a Church on those who live in sexual sin. There are exceptions, of course, as when couples who are living together are denied a Church wedding and Mass. One diocese will still permit the marriage, but only with a few witnesses and in the rectory. The scandal of people who are living in mortal sin and treating the Church and her rituals as ornaments is utterly offensive to those who are faithful to Christ and living a moral life.
The second point in the article is less problematical. But why would religious extremists want to make rape so difficult to prosecute? The article mentions a “2002 gang-rape of a woman, Mukhtar Mai, who was assaulted after a tribal council in her eastern Punjab village ordered the rape as punishment for her 13-year-old brother’s alleged affair with a woman of a higher caste.” This is a monstrous demonstration of evil. The change in the law will better safeguard the victim.
You are out of your cotton-pickin’ mind!
You would like to see sex outside of marriage criminalized?
You would fill the prisons with teenaged boys and dirty old men! Girls would run to get abortions for fear of arrest and prosecution!
Would you set up a scale of fines?
I can see it now:
HOLDING HANDS = a dime
KISS ON CHEEK = a quarter
LICKING EAR = 35 cents a minute
FRENCH KISSING = 50 cents a minute
HEAVY PETTING = A buck-seventy-five cents & public service hours
GROPING = 20 dollars for each instance & public whipping
INCOMPLETE SEXUAL ACT = $100 & public confession of guilt
FORNICATION = $500 and up to three weeks in jail
ADULTERY = $10,000 and six months in federal prison
RAPE = Confiscation of all property and public hanging
HOMOSEXUAL ACTS = Court ordered orientation reversal therapy
PEDOPHILIA = Relocation in Church abuser protection program
Oops!