(from Oct 19, 2010)

When some of us jokingly refer to the Gayle Ruzickas, and others in Salt Lake City and the State of Utah’s ruling oligarchy, as the Mormon Taliban, many might think we go too far, in suggesting any such comparison.  While others, no doubt, think we slander the Taliban.

The truth is, that much of Christian history, world wide, is soaked in the blood of innocent victims of religious dogma, and fanaticism. All the way from the European Crusades, and Inquisitions, to the Salem witch trials.  As well as from those Mormons murdered in Carthage, Illinois, to those numerous murderers committed at the hands of Mormons, and the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

All of the governing institutions of mankind can be placed on a continuum, that runs from total religious control, on one end, to those societies based on the recognition of an individual’s right to exercise personal choice, in matters of conscience, on the other. And the only thing that separates the two, is the recognition of individual human rights, and the civil rule of law.

The attached video, is a news clip about a movie that’s been made, that graphically depicts the public stoning of  Soraya M., an Iranian woman.

Despite the fact that this is an-on going practice, that claims hundreds of lives every year, the movie and it’s makers have been angrily denounced by both the religious and secular leaders of Iran. And it has been banned in many Muslim countries.

As mentioned, it’s graphic – so it’s not for children or the faint of heart. But it is a good look at the other side of the divide. The one that separates the often barbaric practices, that can be dogmatically imposed – whenever and wherever religious licence is given full reign – and those secular values of tolerance, civility, and the rule of law.  Plainly, it is a line of demarkation and separation that we need to keep.

The stoning of Soraya M