On Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:51:03 -0400, JR wrote:

jeff miller wrote:
wrote:

OK, let me ask you this - if Obama had been just some guy in Afghanistan
during the Talibani control .....

as your previous links reveal, there appears substantial flexibility in
the interpretations employed by muslim scholars and clerics ...

Could be that stark terror over the repercussions of this
apostasy thingy is what led to the run for the presidency in the
first place.

I think he just didn't want to have to de-ice the Volvo windshields any
more...

I mean, I've heard pretty good protection comes with the job....

And again, I don't think Obama is in any unusual physical danger over
this, but I can see how it can become a major issue _outside the US_.
Moreover, to label the issue as something new because of Obama, some GOP
tactic, "swiftboating," or anything like that is really off-base and
arguably, anti-Islamic. Apostasy has been an issue for Muslims and
Islam for centuries, up to and including today. And it's hypocritical
for westerners to dismiss it off-handedly as "extremist" -
western/secular governments have severe penalties, including death, for
(secular) treason and eastern, non-Islamic states impose the death
penalty for a variety of reasons that many in the US and the west don't
find "extreme" - i.e., they don't take particular exception as to the
state's ruling as to the severity of the crime even if they don't
support capital punishment for that crime. Therefore, if one recognizes
that people are free to choose to live in a state governed internally by
their choice of laws, be it secular, Islamic, or other religious law,
one looks pretty silly to then say that the state in question cannot
impose, in the context instant, Islamic law.

TC,
R

- JR