Fair and Balanced Reporting

I want everyone to know that I am fair and balanced (well, one out of two aint bad). The other day I posted about Saudi Arabia putting a woman on trial for witchcraft and sentencing her to death. Just so I don't give the unfair impression that Saudi Arabia is a sexist, male dominated society (be careful where you step, don't slip in the thick coating of SARCASM) I thought I'd post about this related article that turned up today:

Saudi Arabia arrests 57 men for flirting at mall

I mean, it was only one woman that was accused of witchcraft. They arrested 57 men for flirting. Never mind the fact that even if they're found guilty they'll probably get a slap on the wrist and the women they were flirting with will be stretched on a rack, tortured, hanged, beheaded and burned because they were the evil objects of temptation that caused the men to flirt in the first place. I mean, all that aside, surely this is progress.

Here is the list of charges being investigated:

• "flirting with women in front of a shopping mall"
• "dancing to pop music blaring from their cars"
• "wearing improper clothing (believed to be tee shirts with images and/or (gasp!) English on them)

The ANIMALS!!! Praise the lord that we don't have that kind of criminal behavior here. Now if only we can force the stores inside the malls to put veils and head scarves on the mannequins in the windows of Victoria's Secret and Frederick's of Hollywood I wouldn't have to fear impure thoughts in the heads of the young men attending Bible study group meetings in the mall food court.

Actually what I find most seriously disturbing and terrifying about this article are these two phrases:

"The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice"

and

"the fearsome religious police"

If those two particular combinations of words don't underscore in no uncertain terms the dangers of a state religion and a legal system based on a holy book, I don't know what the hell does.

We should be very, very thankful for the Constitution. And yet...we have a current Republican Presidential candidate who stated that the Constitution should be rewritten to reflect the Bible and the religious right won't back the other Republican candidate because he isn't conservative (the New English to Political Bullshit Translation Dictionary defines this usage as meaning "Right Wing Christian Religious Extremist Nut-job who wants to wage a holy war, make the Bible the law of the land, establish a Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, and unleash the fearsome religious police on the sinners of America") enough. The fact that these people can read an article like the one posted above and see only the differences - and not the vivid crystal-clear reflection of themselves - boggles my mind.

Wake up America. Apathy is going to kill us.