…and the events of the last month haven’t made me less torn.
There are many basic things here, all are important and none of it makes this easy:
A parents right to raise their children as they see fit.
The right to practice Religion without fear.
The long history of Honor Killing in Islam
The fact that this particular Christian sect seems shall we say, odd
If they are able to take the kid because they don’t like a religion then it is a precedent that can be used on other religions that can be a disaster.
If they return her and these people ARE fundamentalists this girl is likely dead.
I feel for the parents if they are telling the truth, in one sense, no matter what happens, they lose, if they lose custody, they lose, if they gain custody, their girl doesn’t trust them, so they lose.
I feel for Rifaq no matter what, if she is wrong than she is being used and her life is unlikly to be normal, if she is not then she is obliged to live in fear even IF she wins her case. After all the various fatwa’s linked by Pam Geller don’t specify the family has to kill her, any believing Muslim can.
And it’s a WHOLE lot easier to kill a single girl once the publicity has died down that it is to fire off a bomb, and her eye makes it a whole lot harder to hide her from potential assassins, from heavy duty radicals to devout fundamentalist members of her extended family back home coming here to “restore family honor.”
There is only one solution as far as I can see, here is what I would do:
Many times in the courts people accused are allowed to be tried as adults. I think Rifqa has to be given adult status 10 months early and allowed to make her own decision. I really don’t like this but I can’t see a better solution. It’s a horrible precedent as I’ve said but that’s where the situation leaves me.
All of this breast beating comes down the one simple fact that prevents this from being a simple custody case. It is the elephant in the room that we ignore officially:
Radical Islamic fundamentalism is NOT compatible with Western Civilization in general and American democracy in particular.
There are no two ways around it. This is the source for the war on terror, the problems in England and Europe and the whole kit and caboodle. Why is this simple truth not voiced officially? Likely because of a second basic truth.
There is absolutely no constitutional way to address this issue. Furthermore any amendment or extra constitutional method to get around it will damage America worse than the problem itself.
So what can we do? Since the only acceptable solution is reform of Islam and that has to be done within Islam. We can only do what we can.
Aggressively enforce existing law.
Be vigilant in cases of suspected terror.
Closely watch groups that preach it in the same way we keep an eye on the Klan and the Militia movement
Fight Islamic terror abroad using every and give aid to those that encourage reform
And when we have tough cases like this, handle them on a case by case basis.
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