To cut to the chase, these people who excuse or say they do not want to criticize or interfere with barbarism just because it is cloaked by a religious mantle are simply spineless cowards.

Between yesterday's post and this one I've decided that when I'm a very wealthy old bat I'm going to collect muslim girls instead of cats. They can hang around and I'll gather way more than I ought to for the space I have and then lie to the authorities about how many are staying with me. Then as each one moves on with their lives, I'll cry and pack them tuna sandwiches and go find another girl who needs a loving home.

Frak, I do all that for cats already. It's gotta be some kind of sin to be willing to do for cats what you aren't willing to do for people.

@elle - how do the cats carry the sandwiches?

My guess is that these same liberal types who won't interfere with Islam would act differently if it was some fundamentalist christian group trying to marry a young girl off to a 40 yr old. Somehow, to liberals, Islam is too exotic to criticize, while christianity is seen as the religion to fear.

The answer is simple: one of the Left's main goals is the destruction of Western civilization. They will glom onto absolutely anything that shows promise of being able to accomplish that.

Those "liberals" have no problem criticizing any "culture" that is not PC approved. Islam is currently on the do not harm list.

@ brian - in tiny little hobo packs you smartass. :)

If the americans have helped those spolit pretentious afghani brats so much, why do those afghani and other middleeastern african asiatic brats end up ruining the western civilisation?
Indeed there are too many evil cowards and too much greed in their backward brutal world.

Susan Jacoby touches upon a point that Dennis Prager makes all the time, which is that for the Left the most important Principle of all is Equality. And those who believe in Equality are not allowed to judge anyone else for anything. Nada. Never.

This is precisely why you rarely, if ever, hear any official groups on the Left criticize Radical Islam or any of their barbaric practices.

What I found amusing were 3 of the 4 comments after the article. Each author claims to be a liberal but then goes on to state that Ms. Jacoby is full of nonsense. In point of fact, if you are willing to speak out about things like female genital mutilation then you are passing judgment on Islam and are thus not following the #1 tenet of Leftism. Which, by definition, makes you not a Leftist. I wonder what percentages of people who proudly declare themselves to be liberals / progressives / on the Left are really not when push comes to shove? But they prefer to think of themselves that way because it makes them feel better.

I hope conservatives unhappy with the woman who thought it inappropriate to butt into a young girl and her family's decision-making process would be OK if some older person were encouraging a pregnant 17 year-old girl to get an abortion and go to college instead of having the baby and becoming another poor unskilled teenage mom.

Yes, Christopher, an elective medical procedure is *exactly* the same as a legal marriage. And of course no woman who's given birth ever goes to college...*eyeroll*.

The bottom line is that abortion or continuing a pregnancy is a medical decision, one that parents have a right and a responsibility to make either for or with their minor children. Marriage is a decision that only adults have the legal right to make, on the theory that children cannot fully understand the long-term consequences of getting married and having sex. A parent pushing a child into having sex, married or not, is committing abuse.

Those socalled advanced middleastern and asiatic world tried to gain an unfair advantage by ignoring the concept of equality in their country of origin and then have the nerve to demand special privileges and more equal rights in the westernworld when they migrate to the west.
The fact is middleastern, asians and african enjoyed more equal rights in the west than in their own black or oriental countries of origin.

It is ridiculous when I see big bully nations that is full of bullies and abusive islamic people came crying to the west for every little things.

Thank you for providing a response that helps me to make the point I wanted to, Jenny Had A Chance.

It's easy for conservatives to support someone who tells a young Afghani immigrant to go against her cultural traditions and family's wishes and avoid an arranged marriage. A culture that does that is backward and demeans the agency of its young people.

However, support for those actions is support for a more general proposition that it is the place for people outside the family to counsel young people when they are making life-changing decisions. I think this is right. People with more experience counseling young people is part of what provides stability in a society and allows wisdom to be shared between generations. Especially as I matured, I find that the advice of older people is frequently well-taken. I'm fully behind the retired professor in the example cited in the piece. That young Afhgan woman needed to know she was not obliged to marry the man her parents chose.

That said, it's important for people to understand that when they advocate for these things - adults outside the family guiding a child to do something despite her family's wishes - the door is opened for things being conveyed that they may not want conveyed, e.g., that a trusted elder might counsel a young woman who is pregnant to have an abortion when it goes against her family's values. I chose a loaded example for illustrative purposes, but I submit the point stands. You can't condone this well-intentioned meddling and decry other well-intentioned meddling on account of the family's values.

And P.S. regarding this, "And of course no woman who's given birth ever goes to college...*eyeroll*": If you don't think the higher educational prospects for teen moms are dismal compared to their peers who don't have children, you're delusional.

That means we, the nonbelievers cannot trust the predominantly islamic country that we are unfortunate to be living in to help in anything since their own islamic community is so full of evil.

Pardonnez-moi, but I had twins at 17 and still went to school, so I'd say I know a little bit of what I'm talking about here, and that I'm not delusional. Quite a few of my classmates had kids, too. Educational prospects for teenage mothers who have an ounce of drive are anything but dismal, and you've left adoption totally out of the equation, too. I own my own business now. That's the screen name thing, its a goofy song lyric but one I like:

Jenny had a chance, yeah she really did
But instead she dropped out
And had a couple of kids

But anyway, the older woman was counseling the teenager that she had the RIGHT to choose not to marry, which is true. An older woman should point out to a teenager that abortion is legal and that there are groups who would help her obtain one, as long as that's actually true where they are...for what its worth, I think 17-year-olds are free to obtain abortions without parental consent in Florida, so, yes, in this case it would be the same thing. But again, if we're talking strictly medical decisions vs. marital decisions, parents do have in most states and in most cases a right to make or at least veto certain medical decisions for their minor children; they have no right to make marital decisions for their children.

But what if their backward and greedy culture, cloaked under a banner of socalled religion (or just some greedy manipulative islamic brat, who wanted to exploit some rich old man, from their evil exploitive community pretending to cry for help) insist that you have no right to interfere?

"Self-proclaimed political liberal Susan Jacoby wants to know "Why are liberals excusing religious abuses on grounds of cultural relativism?"

Uh, because liberals are really nothing more than America-hating pieces of filth?