OK, I am confused and I predict that my confusion is shared by many other Christians, Jews, moderate Muslims, freedom-loving secularists and who knows who else. Here is the crunch section of a Washington Post story today on Islam-and-oil battles in Iraq right now as the new constitution comes down to the wire and then over the wire into double overtime.
The draft constitution submitted Monday stipulates that Iraq is an Islamic state and that no law can contradict the principles of Islam, negotiators confirmed. Opponents have charged that the latter provision would subject Iraqis to rule by religious edicts of individual clerics or sects.
The opponents also said women would lose gains they made during Hussein's rule, when they were guaranteed equal rights under civil law in matters including marriage, divorce and inheritance. The draft constitution says individuals can choose to have family matters decided by either religious or civil law.
Supporters say a separate bill of rights would protect women, and provisions of the constitution say no law can contradict democracy or that bill of rights.
So laws cannot contradict Islam, or democracy (I assume this means strict majority rule) or the new bill of rights (another product of democracy and majority rule). So in this majority-rule equation, what happens to the legal rights of women and religious minorities? I have not seen, in the MSM coverage, any mention of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Check out Article 18 if you want to see some really controversial, old-fashioned liberal language.
So I have questions:
What are the conservative Christian supporters of this White House thinking right now? What are they thinking about the war and this possible outcome? Are they getting angry? Have I missed an update on that? Check out this thread over at Open Book. Also, shouldn't we be hearing more about this issue from human-rights activists on the left?
This could be one of those times when the sanctuaries in the red and the blue zip codes have just cause to be mad about the same thing at the same time. Meanwhile, keep one eye on the old-fashioned liberals -- that often makes them conservatives today -- at Freedom House.