Great, they posted an article about this... so how long until their religious police read about this... or find out... and then start using the same tech. to find people a new way.

For us to learn about it, nothing bad at all, but for the 'cops' in that country... ya, shit list.

I think its great that the Islamic non-conformists finally have a way to come out of their respective closets and can now at least talk via technology to the other non-conformists.

The religious police should have nothing against this. For all the men and women know, they could be talking to others of their same sex, or to the religious police themselves.

I find it troubling, though, when people of nations not ruled by a religion (like the USA) speak out against the religious practices of people whose nation is based on a religion (like Saudi Arabia), expecially when that religion is not something they know much if anything about.

My feeling is that if that religion becomes the basis of political action, the gloves are off, and it's fair game. The safe harbor for religion is over. By that reasoning, we couldn't say anything about the Taliban, because we didn't understand their religion.

And I'll use this as my thumbnail sketch of the standard any government should be held to.

I agree with all of that.

What I"ve read about this suggests that the religious police know, and they have made efforts to ban these things, but other considerations keep them from doing it. I'm sure they already know this is going on, and are doing what they can, but it's hard to stop.

Having lived there, the difficult thing for the Western world to grasp is that by the Islamic calendar it is only 1422. If you were to compare their religious and cultural ideals to the European's of the same time, you would find strong similarities.

The difference being, that they have mashed together medival mindsets with 21st century technology.

The country has only been in existance for less than a hundred years, and only wealthy in the last fifty. I had friends who's father still knew how to slaughter a goat, and had lived as a nomad.

It's nice and all to sit in our relatively liberal countries and turn our noses up at the practices of other cultures, but it is difficult to actually understand them with out a bais.

The women do cover themselves head to toe, and their daughters idolize them for that reason. I've heard about 7 year olds who harrass their mothers about getting their first abaya. This is something that they've grown up with and have accepted as life, however backwards it is.

There are places in Europe which look at the United States and Canada as being still very much Puritans, where sex is only in the last twenty to thirty years becoming more and more open.

sgc is the religious police.

I'm glad to hear that part of the story, I'm just worried how long it will be before they find a way to stop it anyways.

Why should I have to know anything about a religion to know that stoning people is wrong?

Exactly. I recall television commercials 20 years ago had topless women in their shampoo commercials. No one even flinched (except me who was watching it for the first time). That wouldn't go over here unless it were the Playboy channel. It was government owned and run t.v. there.

my thoughts exactly

No, by that reasoning we couldn't say anything about the Afghanistans. The Taliban is/was a religious sect that were ruling the Afghanistanis. The way you say it, it would be like stating that we couldn't say anything about the Republicans (if they all had the same religious beliefs), the group currently running the US.

i am sad for those countries.

As I understand it the Saudi government has problems introducing democratic elements. People tend to vote for leaders distinctly more conservative than the current rulers. So the spin of the original post, that the people are suffering under a repressive government, is a touch off. I'd love to have the option to buy drugs, but my own repressive government won't allow it, and most people want it that way.