Facing Backlash Brunei Says It Will Not Enforce Gay Sex Death Penalty

Protesters outside the Dorchester hotel in London, owned by Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah.

I continue to see fundamentalist religions of all stripes as a bane on human existence and responsible for far more misery and death than their often pathetic charitable endeavors can ever outweigh. Fundamentalism, be it Christian or Islamic, puts literal interpretations of selective passages from supposed scripture to target those who do not conform or who hold differing faiths,  By both design and default, hatred of others and a division of society are the primary fruits of fundamentalism.  Fortunately, both in the USA and around the world - at least outside of Muslim countries - more and more people are recognizing fundamentalist religion and its message of hate and inhumanity towards others as reprehensible and unacceptable.  This is the lesson the Sultan of Brunei has learned the hard way after implementing "Sharia law" that would subject gays to death by stoning. The backlash to this medieval law has been wide and intense, ranging from boycotts of the top tier hotels owned by the Sultan to nations refusing to have their personnel in Brunei.   A piece in The Guardian looks at the Sultan's announcement that the barbaric law will not be enforced (while an improvement, it needs to be repealed).  Here are article highlights:

Brunei’s Sultan, Hassanal Bolkiah, has extended a moratorium on the death penalty to incoming legislation on punishments for gay sex, after a global backlash led by celebrities such as George Clooney and Elton John.

The country provoked an outcry when it rolled out its interpretation of Islamic laws, or sharia, on 3 April, punishing sodomy, adultery and rape with death, including by stoning.
Brunei has consistently defended its right to implement the laws, . . . . However, in a rare response to criticism aimed at the oil-rich state, the sultan said on Sunday that the death penalty would not be enforced in the implementation of the sharia penal code order (SPCO).

The vastly wealthy sultan, who once piloted his own 747 airliner to meet the former US president Barack Obama, often faces criticism from activists who view his absolute monarchy as despotic, but it is unusual for him to respond.

The sultan’s office released an official English translation of his speech, which is not common practice.

“Both the common law and the sharia law aim to ensure peace and harmony of the country,” he said. “They are also crucial in protecting the morality and decency of the country as well as the privacy of individuals.”

The law’s implementation, which the UN condemned, prompted celebrities and rights groups to seek a boycott on hotels owned by the sultan, including the Dorchester in London and the Beverley Hills hotel in Los Angeles.

Several multinational companies have since banned staff from using the sultan’s hotels, while some travel companies have stopped promoting Brunei as a tourist destination.

Bill Maher: Kim Davis Seeks to Apply Christian Sharia Law

The spectacle of the batshitery coming out of Rowan County, Kentucky, if nothing else, is highlighting the extremism of "godly folk" and their desire to impose the Christian  equivalent of Sharia law on other citizens.  It's the same mind set as the Taliban and it's the same mindset of ISIS.  Behind it all is terror of modernity and anything that threatens their fairy tale beliefs be it based on the only too error filled Bible or the rantings of a schizophrenic in the Koran.  Bill Maher makes this connection in his all too on spot commentary.  Here are highlights via The Raw Story:

During a lively discussion about Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis, HBO’s Real Time host Bill Maher said there is no difference between what the anti-gay government worker is doing —using the Bible instead of settled law to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples — and extremist Sharia law.

“If you say, as Kim Davis and her ilk, and Ted Cruz and all those people say that actually ‘I can ignore the rule of man because the rule book of God said’ —  then you are Iran. Then you are Saudi Arabia. Then you are Sharia law,” Maher explained.

With conservative commentator Linda Chavez — who agreed that Davis is wrong – saying there is a substantial amount of religious people in the U.S. and “you are going to have to bring them along ” slowly, Daily Beast Editor Michael Moynihan jumped in by mocking Davis and her conservative Christian supporters.

“I don’t think that’s her intention here, to sort of slowly bring people along to this idea of gay marriage,” he explained. “She comes out of jail. Every Republican is waiting to have his photo taken with her. They have a shout-and-holler Cletus ceremony, everyone is holding up crosses, and Survivor’s ‘Eye of the Tiger‘ is playing… well, I’m glad we’re all coming along very slowly.”

Fundamentalist Christians need to be recognized for the clear and present danger that they pose to the rights of others and constitutional government.  They need to become utter pariahs.

ISIS and Islam - A Case Study of the Evils of Religion

As regular readers know, I am no fiend to religion, and fundamentalist religion in particular.  Our the centuries, religion has brought untold needless wars and deaths and countless ruined lives.  Coupled with this is the reality that time and time again we see fundamentalist Christians and Muslims rebelling against knowledge, education and modernity.  Why?  Because they all call into question the myths found in the Bible and the Koran.  They also encourage a debate about the meaning and binding authority of both of these supposed "holy books," something that is anathema to fundamentalists.  With the horrors now being perpetrated by ISIS, it is only natural that Islam is being given harsh scrutiny.  Some apologists for Islam are trying to make the case that the followers of ISIS are not "real Muslims."  That's akin to saying that foul far right Christians in America aren't "real Christians."  Andrew Sullivan has followed the debate and has some dead on reflections (most are also applicable to America's far right Christofascists).  Here are some excerpts:

Hitch’s arguments about what must follow from a religious text still regarded as perfect and pristine and utterly unquestionable, and a caliph or Shi’a theocrat regarded as a “supreme leader”, and a politics saturated in apocalypticism, and a culture marinated in absurd levels of sexual repression, and an endemic suppression of blasphemy and apostasy as unthinkable offenses, stand the test of time.

The totalism of Islam is as dangerous as any other totalism – and liberals better understand that about it.

Yes, it is vital to make distinctions between the various ways in which Islam is practised across the world – which reveals some potential for reform, in the way that Christianity and Judaism have reformed and examined themselves over the past century. But the resilient absence of a collective understanding that religious violence simply is not worth it. . . . is a real problem. 

Until the Shi’a and Sunni love the future more than they hate each other, until the Koran can be discussed and debated there and around the world the way any other religious text is discussed, until apostasy is respected and not criminalized, we will have more trouble in store.

Does this explain everything? Of course not. Culture, history, politics matter just as powerfully and can lead to different manifestations in time and place. Certainly there was a time in which Islam was far more tolerant than Christianity; and in the Middle East too. But that is no more, and central elements in the doctrine of Islam are all too easily compatible with its modern intolerance, and now post-modern virulence.

In another post, Andrew also notes as follows:

What percentage of Muslims across the diverse Muslim world favor Sharia law? The key graph from Pew on executing apostates is on the right. And when you do the math (and yes, fair warning that I usually do it wrong), you find that 63 percent of Egypt’s Muslims, 58 percent of Jordanian Muslims, 78 percent of Pakistani Muslims, and 53 percent of Malaysian Muslims believe that if you decide you don’t believe in Islam any more, you should be executed. Think about that for a minute.

How this disastrous situation can be cured is hard to say.  Education, of course is essential, yet most of these countries will not allow education policies or curricula that challenges a fundamentalist approach to Islam.  While Americans ponder the evils of religion as embodied by ISIS, they need to also recognize that we have our own virulent evil at home: fundamentalist Christianity  which seeks to deprive others of their civil rights and which now ,in the wake of same sex marriage rulings,is calling for "civil disobedience" and a subversion of the rule of law.

The Islamic State is Also Homophobic

the homophobia starts at around 7:25.

The reasons to oppose the self-style "Islamic State" or ISIS are many beginning first and foremost with the fact that it embraces a fundamentalist religious agenda that seeks to force its will and beliefs on others.  Its from this source of extreme Sharia law that all the rest of the horrors and atrocities flow: rape, murder, beheadings, mistreatment of women - and hatred of gays.  Like all fundamentalist strains of Abrahamic religions, gays are targets for hate and murder.  The Washington Post  follows up on the Washington Blade and reminds us that in the minds of the Islamic State - as with the "godly Christian" set in America - we gays are the lowest of the low and deserve death.  Fundamentalist religion truly is a perverse evil that needs to be eradicated from the earth. Here are article highlights:

The young men swarming across Syria and Iraq in black balaclavas commit genocide, chop off journalists’ heads, kidnap aid workers, rape women and seek to impose a theocracy on millions who don’t want it.

And one more thing: They’re homophobic.

In a video first reported by the Daily Mirror in April, a man it identified as a former professional soccer player describes the benefits of jihad. It’s the typical Islamic State recruitment video — an English-speaking adherent trying to bring fellow travelers to the cause.

On Tuesday, the Washington Blade took another look at the video, focusing on its anti-gay content. Toward the end of the video, an Islamic state fighter holds forth on children’s exposure to homosexuals in public schools.

“Who’s gonna teach your children?” the fighter says. “It’s gonna be maybe a gay, maybe a drug dealer, maybe a pedophile, you know? So it’s very important for you to protect your children from these animals, from these dirty people, Allah says that they are the worst of creatures.”

“The treatment of LGBT people by Islamic extremists is one of the most overlooked human rights issues there is,” Jimmy LaSalvia, co-founder of the gay conservative organization GoProud, told the Blade. “Many world leaders routinely site radical Islam’s treatment of woman and religious minorities, we have certainly heard a lot about how ISIS treats Christians, but rarely do political leaders or the media draw attention to the plight of LGBT people in that part of the world.”

Islam’s connection with homophobia is hard to shake. In a list of the “Top Twelve Most Homophobic Nations in the World” published in February, Newsweek included Saudi Arabia for its religious-based anti-gay position. “Basing its law, it says, on a strict interpretation of Islamic law, the current Saudi regime has made gay sex punishable by death by the lash,” the magazine wrote.

Meanwhile, others were critical of those putting the spotlight on the Islamic State’s homophobia. The self-described “right-leaning” Web site Downtrend published a piece critical of of the Blade report.

It's easy to understand why the American right wing doesn't like too much focus on Islamic homophobia - the right wing Christians are peddling a very similar message and some of them have even  argued for concentration camps and/or death for gays.  They don't want the public to connect the dots and realize that it  is fundamentalist religion of every stripe that is the real evil be it Islamic or Christian. Hate, mistreatment of others, the rejection of modern knowledge and the perpetration of evil are the principal fruits either way.

Brunei Boycotts Spread to Milan

Years ago when I was in-house counsel for an oil company I traveled a great deal overseas and had the opportunity to stay at some amazing hotels - my all time favorite is the Plaza Athenee in Paris - including the Principe di Savoia in Milan.  Now, that august hotel is owned by the Sultan of Brunei and is feeling the effects of boycotts like those which have hit the Beverly Hills Hotel and Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles.  A piece in the Advocate looks at the mounting boycott in Milan over Brunei's enactment of Sharia law that as written allows for the murder of women and gays.  Here are excerpts:

[N]ow the city’s preeminent hotel, the 87-year-old Principe di Savoia — associated with a string of legendary guests from Josephine Baker and Eva Peron to Madonna and George Clooney — is facing a mass boycott in protest of the hotel’s owner, the sultan of Brunei.

 

For a hotel that has long been the epicenter of the city’s fashion weeks, this is no small thing—losses from major fashion clients are likely to be in the tens of millions.

 

The boycott stems from the sultan’s decision to introduce Sharia law, which includes the death penalty for sodomy. Brunei has not carried out any executions since 1957, and the specter of public flogging and stoning has prompted international revulsion, as well as fierce rebukes from the U.N.’s high commissioner for human rights and Amnesty International, which said the new law would “take the country back to the dark ages.”

 

Although the all-powerful sultan, with his $20 billion, can afford to weather almost anything, the boycott comes at a moment when gay rights have created a clear fault line between the west and Russia, Africa, and much of the Middle East. While the Dorchester Group, which owns the Principe, as well as the Beverly Hills Hotel and Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles, claims that it is being unfairly singled out from other brands that depend on foreign investment, the boycott reflects a growing consciousness among American and European consumers of the role they can play in a globalized world.

 

But it’s not just individual consumers choosing to stay away. The Virgin Group was among the first to announce a boycott, quickly followed by Kering, which owns Gucci, Alexander McQueen, Bottega Veneta, Puma, and Saint Laurent, among many others. That decision has electrified others in the fashion world, including Anna Wintour, Love magazine editor Katie Grand, and designers like Tomas Meier, creative director of Bottega Veneta, who told The Advocate that he would be staying somewhere “more human rights-friendly” on his next trip to Milan.

 

As the ultimate party magnet for models, editors, and designers alike, this kind of fallout has got to sting.

 While I feel bad for the employees, I support the boycott and hope that it spreads to every hotel owned by the Sultan.

Sultan of Brunei Owned Beverly Hills Hotel Claims It Is Being Bullied

Whining douche bag, Christopher Cowdray

As previously noted on this blog, the nation of Brunei in Southeast Asia - which is ruled by the Sultan of Brunei - has passed Sharia based laws that among other things will impose the death penalty for homosexual acts.  The Sultan of Brunei is among the most wealthy men in the world and holds far flung investments, including the Dorchester Collection which owns the Beverly Hills Hotel and other high end hotel properties.  In the wake of Brunei's barbaric legislation, boycotts have sprung up against the Beverly Hills Hotel and other Dorchester properties.  Now, taking a page from the Christian persecution myth, the manager of the Beverly Hills Hotel, Christopher Cowdray, is whining that the hotel is being subjected to bullying.   Gays are facing execution as Cowdray is whining.  Perhaps Cowdray needs to get his head out of his ass and get in touch with reality.  The Hollywood Reporter looks at Cowdray's despicable whining and the growing backlash against the hotel chain and other businesses owned by the foul Sultan of Brunei.  Here are highlights:

Amid protests against the Beverly Hills Hotel, the CEO of parent company the Dorchester Collection is saying the Hollywood hotspot doesn't deserve to be targeted despite the company being owned by the Sultan of Brunei, who has instituted a severe new penal code based on Sharia law that calls for death by stoning for homosexuals and adulterers.

Christopher Cowdray told CBS This Morning that the hotel "has done absolutely nothing wrong."

"I feel totally unfairly picked on," Cowdray said in a report that aired on Tuesday's edition of the morning show. "All they are doing is hurting a local business."

Cowdray declined to comment on Brunei's new law.

What began as a grassroots movement two weeks ago, with designers asking their Instagram and Twitter followers to boycott the Dorchester Collection of hotels, which the Beverly Hills Hotel is part of, has gained momentum, with prominent organizations dropping plans to hold dinners and fundraisers at the landmark hotel.

On Monday, the Motion Picture & Television Fund said that it would not hold its glitzy Oscar-eve fundraising party, the Night Before, at the hotel. Other events that have moved from the hotel to other locations include the Feminist Majority Foundation's Global Women's Rights Awards, the Independent School Alliance for Minority Awards and a Teen Line fundraiser honoring Sony Pictures Entertainment co-chairman Amy Pascal. The Outgiving Conference, a meeting of LGBT donors, was the first event to pull up stakes. And the Human Rights Campaign Fund has urged other groups to follow suit. 

The Hollywood Reporter has also notified the hotel that it will no longer hold its annual Women in Entertainment breakfast there.

Actions need to have consequences and just maybe a financial message - along with diplomatic ones - will be sent to Brunei.   Meanwhile, these new laws underscore my belief that fundamentalist religious of all faiths are a scourge on mankind and need to be eliminated.

Brunei Law To Allow Death By Stoning For Gay Sex

I condemn conservative Christians who are best defined by their hatred of others frequently on this blog.  But Christian fundamentalists are not the only foul force in the world.  Right along side them are the Islamic fundamentalists who likewise cling to ignorance, spew hatred towards others and fight a rear guard battle against modernity itself.   The latest example is what is happening in Brunei where an extreme sharia law penal code has been enacted which imposes the death penalty for an array of offenses including same sex relations. If anyone deserves the death penalty, it is those who passed the new penal code and those who advocated for it.  Huffington Post looks at this development which violates international law:

The United Nations has responded to the nation of Brunei, a sovereign state in southeast Asia, where officials are reportedly set to roll out a new penal code including death by stoning as punishment for same-sex acts.

Other offenses referenced in the revision of capital punishment regulations reportedly include "rape, adultery, sodomy, extramarital sexual relations for Muslims, insulting any verses of the Quran and Hadith, blasphemy, declaring oneself a prophet or non-Muslim, and murder." 

The revised penal code is slated to go into effect April 22, according to Gay Asia News and other media outlets.

“Application of the death penalty for such a broad range of offenses contravenes international law,” Rupert Colville, spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement. “We urge the Government to delay the entry into force of the revised penal code and to conduct a comprehensive review ensuring its compliance with international human rights standards,” he told a news conference in Geneva.

Brunei is the latest in a series of countries to pass anti-gay laws that could result in extreme punishments for those engaging in same-sex acts. In February, Uganda's president signed a bill that calls for first-time offenders of same-sex acts to be sentenced to 14 years in jail, and "repeat offenders" could receive life in prison. Additionally, Nigeria has a similar anti-gay law that makes same-sex relationships illegal and sets penalties of same-sex acts at up to 14 years in prison.

Conservative/fundamentalist religion is always an evil.  The public needs to open its eyes to this reality and not be distracted by charitable activities that in no way outweigh the evils done and by claims of "religious freedom" on the part of those who seek to oppress others. 

North Carolina GOP: Anti-Sharia Bill and Extreme Abortion Restrictions

Republicans had not controlled the North Carolina legislature for 100+ years until recently.  Now, with the GOP in control, the flood gates for far right and Christofascist (a/k/a Christian Taliban) extremism and batshitery of all kinds have been opened.  Abortion, gay marriage and Sharia law are but a few of the North Carolina GOP's obsessions.  One can only wonder what is going to happen to the state's former pro-business atmosphere now that the culture wars seem to trump all else.  As Think Progress reports, an insane anti-Sharia law bill is being used to assault abortion rights as well.  Here are some story excerpts:

The North Carolina legislature is advancing a package of stringent abortion restrictions that appeared in the Senate this week without any public notice. The anti-abortion measures popped up on Tuesday night, tacked onto a controversial measure to ban Sharia law, and caught women’s health advocates completely off-guard.

House Bill 695, which would prohibit the recognition of Sharia law in family courts — an increasingly popular conservative tactic that essentially serves to demonize the Islamic faith — was slated for consideration in a Senate committee on Tuesday. As soon as that committee convened, it quickly approved several abortion-related amendments to the legislation. HB 695 now combines several different anti-abortion measures that were in different stages in the legislature into one omnibus measure.

The new amendments would prevent insurance plans on Obamacare’s health marketplaces from covering abortion services, ban “sex-selective” abortions, impose unnecessary restrictions on doctors administering the abortion pill to women, and require the state’s abortion clinics to adhere to complicated new regulations that would likely force most of them to close. 

As the News Observer reports, several supporters of the bill — like lobbyists and representatives from the N.C. Values Coalition, the N.C. Family Policy Council, and N.C. Right to Life — were present during the committee meeting when the new amendments were proposed. But the pro-choice lobbyists in opposition to the measure “were not told it was being debated.” A few hours after the committee agreed to tack on the amendments, Senate Republicans decided to bring HB 695 to a floor vote.

Women’s health advocates, who had no idea these measure would be taken up on Tuesday, denounced the last-minute legislative move. They pointed out that state lawmakers are attempting to avoid massive outcry by quietly sneaking through unpopular abortion restrictions right before a holiday weekend.

Now that the abortion amendments are folded into an entirely unrelated measure on Islamic law, some Republican lawmakers are already claiming that “a vote against the abortion restriction bill is vote for Sharia law.”

Even if North Carolina Republicans may have hoped to avoid mass protests against HB 695, activists in the state are already loudly voicing their disapproval with the GOP-controlled legislature. Over the past several weeks, thousands of people have been participating in a series of “Moral Monday” protests to stand up against ongoing conservative attacks on the poor, minorities, women, and the environment.

Attacks on the poor, minorities, women, and the environment.  That is today's GOP agenda.   And what makes it all so dripping with hypocrisy is that these "godly folk" wrap themselves in Christianity even as they betray virtually every aspect of Christ's Gospel message.

WTF Is in the Water in North Carolina?

The Virginia General Assembly is nothing to be proud of.  But of late, the North Carolina Legislature seems to be working over time to win the prize for insanity and batshitery.  It goes without saying, that this insanity directly correlates the fact that the North Carolina Legislature is now controlled by the GOP.   The latest demonstration of what the GOP is doing to North Carolina's reputation and image around the country and the world comes from House Bill 695, entitled "Foreign Laws/Protect Constitutional Rights,"which seeks to cure a problem that doesn't exist.  Instead, its purpose is to bash Muslims and by extension immigrants in general.  The lunacy is mind boggling and yet another example of why I embarrassed to have ever been a Republican.  WRAL.com has details.  Here are highlights:

Raleigh, N.C. — The latest version of a bill intended to protect the constitutional rights of North Carolinians from "foreign laws" is on its way to the House floor after a contentious hearing in the House Judiciary C Committee. 

House Bill 695, entitled "Foreign Laws/Protect Constitutional Rights," is the most recent iteration of legislation intended to keep courts from recognizing Islamic Sharia law in North Carolina. 

Similar measures have been filed or considered in more than 30 other states, but only a few states have voted them into law. 

The first version of the legislation was passed by ballot initiative in Oklahoma. It specifically named Sharia and was promptly blocked by a judge who declared it unconstitutional because it singled out a religion.

Since then, newer versions of the measure in states from Arkansas to Florida have been more carefully worded. House Bill 695 makes no mention of religion at all, and it wasn't mentioned in committee.

In 2011, Rep. George Cleveland, R-Onslow, ran the same bill. It, too, passed committee but wasn't taken up before the crossover deadline.

At that time, critics and legal experts warned that the broad language of the bill regarding contracts and foreign venues or courts could violate international treaties and admiralty laws and wreak havoc in international business relationships.

The same issues were raised again Wednesday by Kim Crouch with the North Carolina Bar Association, who said the association's Business Law and International Law committees are opposed to the bill.

The North Carolina Values Coalition spoke in favor of the bill. "We do want to protect our citizens," said Laura McGee. "This bill re-clarifies that."

After House Rules Committee Chairman Tim Moore signaled that the bill was unlikely to pass, Cleveland and co-sponsor Rep. Chris Whitmire, R-Transylvania, agreed to amend it so that it would apply only to family law and child custody issues under sections 50 and 50a of state law.
 
GOP Rep. Moore said he didn't know of any cases in which North Carolina courts have allowed Sharia or any other foreign laws to infringe on anyone's constitutional rights, but he said the sponsors were trying to prevent that from happening.

The danger of the encroachment of Sharia law is a popular topic on right-wing radio and blogs, but to date, there's little evidence that it's actually happening.  Muslim groups say it's a scare tactic used by anti-Muslim activists.

North Carolina once was viewed as a pro-business state.  Now, it is going to be known as a haven for nutcases and religious extremists.