Ever since Barack Obama became President, I've been saying that whenever he does something right, I'll accept it. I can't condemn something just because Obama does it. And so, I have to differ with Gregory Kane, who wrote a column that appeared in Wednesday's Washington Examiner entitled “Obama becomes 'Silent Cal' on Libya, sharia.”
President Obama has been backing (I think not forcefully enough!) the rebels who deposed Muammar Qaddafi in Libya. And now that they have won, they want to put forth a constitution that recognizes Sharia (Islamic law) as the “basic source of Libyan legislation.” Now, there are certain aspects of Sharia that I don't like — cutting off the hand of a thief, for example. But Libya is a majority-Moslem country, and if the majority wants their laws to be compatible with Sharia, that is only democracy. The question is, will the rights of non-Moslems be respected? So far, we don't know. Until we do, we cannot condemn Libya, or Obama's support for the Libyan rebels.
This stance is particularly galling coming from Gregory Kane. He has sometimes written things that seem, in my eyes, to favor a Christian theocracy in this country. Certainly, he wants to make the Catholic Church's teachings on abortion into law. And he ridicules the concept of separation of church and state regularly. Apparently, it's ok for the majority religion to impose its views on the minority if that group is Christian, but not if it is Moslem. As a member of a non-Christian, non-Moslem religious group, I can say that neither is anything different from the other. Both Christians and Moslems have, at different times, had horrible human rights records regarding nonmembers of their own religious groups.
So don't trash Obama for this position. This time he is right. Getting rid of Qaddafi was a service to the world.
President Obama has been backing (I think not forcefully enough!) the rebels who deposed Muammar Qaddafi in Libya. And now that they have won, they want to put forth a constitution that recognizes Sharia (Islamic law) as the “basic source of Libyan legislation.” Now, there are certain aspects of Sharia that I don't like — cutting off the hand of a thief, for example. But Libya is a majority-Moslem country, and if the majority wants their laws to be compatible with Sharia, that is only democracy. The question is, will the rights of non-Moslems be respected? So far, we don't know. Until we do, we cannot condemn Libya, or Obama's support for the Libyan rebels.
This stance is particularly galling coming from Gregory Kane. He has sometimes written things that seem, in my eyes, to favor a Christian theocracy in this country. Certainly, he wants to make the Catholic Church's teachings on abortion into law. And he ridicules the concept of separation of church and state regularly. Apparently, it's ok for the majority religion to impose its views on the minority if that group is Christian, but not if it is Moslem. As a member of a non-Christian, non-Moslem religious group, I can say that neither is anything different from the other. Both Christians and Moslems have, at different times, had horrible human rights records regarding nonmembers of their own religious groups.
So don't trash Obama for this position. This time he is right. Getting rid of Qaddafi was a service to the world.
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