The Dish

A reader interjects:

I agree with all the points, all of them, outlined in your Time article. But the trend in the Muslim world is of such a different magnitude to what is happening in the West as to compare a farm pond with the ocean. Yes they are both wet, but so what? The two trends are so different it is not fair to compare them.

Islam softened the harsh tribal customs of the Arabian peninsula at the time, but also codified them (guaranteeing that they would be locked into place without evolution). Christendom was during most of its history hardly Christ-like (especially in the Middle Ages) but it evolved for the better over time. Islam has not. Islam is fundamentally different than Christianity or modern Judaism. While Mohammed made the burden of proof for adultery high (four witnesses are required of the actual act) which implies a degree of tolerance, an un-married pregnant woman can even today be stoned to death. Christ avoided direct confrontation with authority and even preached a "give onto Caesar standard" which led over time to separation of church and state. 

As contemptible as Rick Santorum and Reverend Dobson are, neither is sawing the heads off living women, promoting honor killings, or doing anything close to what radical Islam allows. No mainstream Christians I am aware of supported Eric Rudolph, but millions of Muslims support bin Laden and at least tens of thousands of Iraqis support Zarqawi. Until Islam reforms itself, I resent you grouping Christian fundamentalists with Muslim fundamentalists. What we deem "extreme" Christian fundamentalism is mainstream Islam. Christianity does not tolerate a "death cult" in its midst like Islam does.

This point is well-taken, and I have made it myself. But the main difference is simply that Christianism operates in America under the Constitution, which is our main buffer, and a very good one, against the kinds of excesses we see in the Middle East. But constitutions can be amended, as they were in America to prohibit alcohol, not a century ago. And they can be weakened by non-enforcement, hence the Christianist obsession with limiting judicial power. And faiths can also mutate. The kind of politicized evangelicalism today would have been unrecognizable to Billy Graham’s generation. And the partisan appropriation of God is a particularly corrosive innovation. I take all the reader’s points; and yet I remain concerned. 

Brink Lindsey tries to look on the bright side.

They’re doomed, I tell you. Well, Bo Cowgill thinks so.

Who needs the law when you’re the King? Some of us have long been worried by the Bush administration’s contempt for the rule of law in its legitimate efforts to protect Americans from terrorism. And we’ve been dismissed and criticized for it. But the more you know, the more troubling it gets. In all this, trust in the president’s word is important. That’s gone. For good reason. You don’t abandon limited government, enable torture, declare the executive above the law, pile up countless signing statements to undermine the Congress … and then take pains to protect Americans’ privacy. This monarch, already eager to perpetuate a dynasty, needs more scrutiny. It may require voting Democrat this fall to give it to him.

(Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty.)

The results are now in for "sheep sex" (Ireland wins); "goat sex" (Pakistan); and "pornography" (Salt Lake City has the third highest global ranking). You could do this all day, and some of you are. A couple of good points along the way:

The impression I get from the Google Trends data is not that Muslims are more sex obsessed, but that they are less sophisticated in their porn searches. After a decade of experience searching for smut, I would never waste my time searching for something as broad as "sex" when I can use a more refined search, like "shaved midget twinks."

Actually, that phrase is too obscure to find anything. But "shaved" is first in Australia, "midgets" are American, and "twinks" have a big fan-base in northern England and Scotland. Don’t know what a twink is? Here. Another blogger observes:

Your posting on Google trends is something I had been noticing myself with my blog. I have been blogging for about 2 years, and I write about politics, music, pop culture, sex,and I post the occasional "hottie" picture. I have been noticing through my site stats that I have been getting enormous numbers of viewers from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt and other Muslim countries. Are they looking for my take on the Mohammed cartoons or the Iraq War? Nope. They want pictures of Jenna Jameson and Jessica Simpson. I think it’s true what Bill Maher says, these Islamo-crazies just need to GET LAID!

I don’t think that point can ever be made strenuously enough.

I’m sorry, but this is pathetic:

KING: On domestics — what’s the rule — what’s the law in Virginia?

CHENEY: Actually I’m not sure what the law is in Virginia. I should know that.

KING: Does your partner have — if you’re in the hospital, god forbid, does your partner have rights?

CHENEY: My partner and I have living wills, regular wills, powers of attorney, everything that quite honestly any couple married or not should have.

I have no personal issues with Mary Cheney. But, really. She lives in a state which has gone through a wrenching debate these past few years over the rights of gay couples, and has passed the most draconian law imaginable designed to curtail and destroy all the legal documents she says she has. And she is utterly unaware of this debate, let alone attempting to do something about it. Sad.

Howard Dean earned a very good reputation among gay people when he supported civil unions in Vermont. But those who have dealt with him face-to-face know his aversion to marriage equality for gay people. He outmaneuvered marriage advocates in Vermont skillfully and adeptly. His position is that his party’s interests come first, and so I’m not surprised to see him going on Christianist Pat Robertson’s show and misrepresenting the Democrats’ position. There’s a fascinating battle going in within Democratic ranks on the marriage issue right now. I can see Hillary attacking gay couples’ equality in the future as a way to score short-term political points. She learned such tactics from her husband.

For me, the deeper lesson is now and always has been the following: the gay rights movement is a moral movement. It is about education, and persuasion, and moral witnessing to the truth about our lives. We should engage members of both parties as much as we can. But we should never become a wing of one party. It tarnishes the movement and leads to such gut-wrenching betrayals as the Defense of Marriage Act and "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell," the two most significant anti-gay events of the last decade – both signed by a Democratic president. Engage, but don’t trust. And whetever you do, don’t trust Howard Dean.

(Photo by my friend, Callie Shell, Aurora for Time.)

Type the word "sexe" into Google Trends and the first two countries are Algeria and Morocco. Really, these Muslims are sex-obsessed.

We’re British. The nanny-state, so much bigger under nanny-in-chief Blair, just got nuttier in the UK.

Judge Michael Luttig saw first-hand this administration’s cynical, hollow and morally corrupt policies on military detainees. So he went into the private sector. Here’s an important, revealing profile in conservative integrity.