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Originally Posted by maleficent
It got back to the familes what these girls were doing.... One girls family just punished her in some odd way, the other girls family did what they thought they had to do for dishonoring the family... the killed her. They drowned her in the family swimming pool. I don't believe that the family was ever charged with her murder because honor killings are well... honorable.
(there was also a Law and Order episode that was pretty similar -- pretty much based on what really happens)
It's a different way of life one I don't think that most people in Western cultures will ever understand... I hope it's changing... and by publicising these stories, ... I hope it will bring about more change.
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It's called honor killing. In certain countries among people of certain faiths, that a girl remains a virgin until her marriage is vitally important to her family's honor. If she is "unclean", by dint of having had consentual sex, having been molested, or having been raped, the male members of her family can preserve the family honor by murdering her.
This has had the effect, in India and Pakistan, of rape victims coming forward only to be executed while their attackers have gone free.
In Iran last year or the year before, two teenage girls came forth to accuse a man of rape, and were subsequently put to death for disrespecting the magistrate in the case when they objected to their attacker being set free.
Defining a group of people as not being worthy of full rights in a society is the only way things like this are possible.
Cynthetiq: Just for clarity, I'd like to know. This post and those in the Gay Teen in Fundamentalist treatment program thread seem to indicate that you are taking a legalistic approach to morality, ie that whatever a society decides is legal according to their laws defines morality within that society/state/municipality. Is this fair? Or do you believe that there is a morality that exists separate from laws?
I believe that the people in Iran, as elsewhere, have every right to develop and live thier own lives according to their own moral code. I also believe, however, that it is immoral to use force of law to oppress, imprison, torture, or kill others merely because they do not live according to another's moral framework. It is entirely possible to believe homosexuality to be an abombination in the eyes of god, or to render any moral judgement on it without causing harm to those who are homosexual, or who belong to any other undesirable group. That is where I draw the line. You are free to believe whatever you like, and to act according to that belief, until you actions harm another. That's where your right to act according to your moral code ends.
Which is to say that I think executing someone because they are homosexual or a rape victim or rude to a judge is wrong regardless of the laws of the community in which the killing takes place.