Why are the Jews So Powerful?

By Farrukh Saleem

The writer is the Pakistani Executive Director of the Center for Research and Security Studies, a think tank established in 2007, and son in law of Khalilur Rehman of the Jang Group.

There are only 14 million Jews in the world:

seven million in the Americas

five million in Asia

two million in Europe

100,000 in Africa .

For every single Jew in the world there are 100 Muslims.

Yet, Jews are more than a hundred times more powerful than all the Muslims put together.

Ever wondered why?

Jesus of Nazareth was Jewish.

Albert Einstein, the most influential scientist of all time and TIME magazine’s ’Person of the Century’, was a Jew.

Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis was a Jew.

So were Karl Marx, Paul Samuelson and Milton Friedman.

Here are a few other Jews whose intellectual output has enriched the whole humanity:

Benjamin Rubin gave humanity the vaccinating needle.

Jonas Salk developed the first polio vaccine.

Albert Sabin developed the improved live polio vaccine.

Gertrude Elion gave us a leukemia fighting drug.

Baruch Blumberg developed the vaccination for Hepatitis B.

Paul Ehrlich discovered a treatment for syphilis.

Elie Metchnikoff won a Nobel Prize in infectious diseases.

Bernard Katz won a Nobel Prize in neuromuscular transmission.

Andrew Schally won a Nobel in endocrinology.

Aaron Beck founded Cognitive Therapy.

Gregory Pincus developed the first oral contraceptive pill.

George Wald won a Nobel for our understanding of the human eye.

Stanley Cohen won a Nobel in embryology.

Willem Kolff came up with the kidney dialysis machine.

Over the past 105 years, 14 million Jews have won 15-dozen Nobel Prizes while only three Nobel Prizes have been won by 1.4 billion
Muslims (other than Peace Prizes).

Stanley Mezor invented the first micro-processing chip.

Leo Szilard developed the first nuclear chain reactor;

Peter Schultz, optical fibre cable;

Charles Adler, traffic lights;

Benno Strauss, Stainless steel;

Isador Kisee, sound movies;

Emile Berliner, telephone microphone;

Charles Ginsburg, videotape recorder.

Famous financiers in the business world who belong to Jewish faith include:

Ralph Lauren (Polo),

Levis Strauss (Levi’s Jeans),

Howard Schultz (Starbuck’s) ,

Sergey Brin (Google),

Michael Dell (Dell Computers),

Larry Ellison (Oracle),

Donna Karan (DKNY),

Irv Robbins (Baskins & Robbins) and

Bill Rosenberg (Dunkin Donuts).

Richard Levin, President of Yale University, is a Jew. So are Henry Kissinger (American secretary of state), Alan Greenspan (Fed chairman under Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush), Joseph Lieberman (US Senator), Madeleine Albright (American secretary of state), Casper Weinberger (American secretary of defense), Maxim Litvinov ( USSR foreign Minister), David Marshal ( Singapore ‘s first chief minister), Issac Isaacs (governor-general of Australia ), Benjamin
Disraeli (British statesman and author), Yevgeny Primakov (Russian PM), Barry Goldwater (US Senator), Jorge Sampaio (president of Portugal ), John Deutsch (CIA director), Herb Gray (Canadian deputy PM), Pierre Mendes (French PM), Michael Howard (British home
secretary), Bruno Kreisky (chancellor of Austria ) and Robert Rubin (American secretary of treasury).

In the media, famous Jews include:

Wolf Blitzer (CNN), Barbara Walters (ABC News), Eugene Meyer (Washington Post), Henry Grunwald (editor-in-chief Time), Katherine Graham (publisher of The Washington Post), Joseph Lelyveld (Executive editor, The New York Times), and Max Frankel (New York Times).

The most beneficent philanthropist in the history of the world is George Soros, a Jew, who has so far donated a colossal $4 billion most of which has gone as aid to scientists and universities around the world.

Second to George Soros is Walter Annenberg, another Jew, who has built a hundred libraries by donating an estimated $2 billion.

At the Olympics, Mark Spitz set a record of sorts by winning seven gold medals; Lenny Krayzelburg is a three-time Olympic gold medalist.

Spitz, Krayzelburg and Boris Becker (Tennis) are all Jewish.

Did you know that Harrison Ford, George Burns, Tony Curtis, Charles Bronson, Sandra Bullock, Billy Crystal, Woody Allen, Paul Newman,
Peter Sellers, Dustin Hoffman, Michael Douglas, Ben Kingsley, Kirk Douglas, Goldie Hawn, Cary Grant, William Shatner, Jerry Lewis and
Peter Falk are all Jews.

As a matter of fact, Hollywood itself was founded by a Jew.

Among directors and producers, Steven Spielberg, Mel Brooks, Oliver Stone, Aaron Spelling ( Beverly Hills 90210), Neil Simon (The Odd Couple), Andrew Vaina (Rambo 1/2/3), Michael Man (Starsky andHutch), Milos Forman (One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest), Douglas Fairbanks (The Thief of Baghdad ) and Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters) are all Jewish.

So, why are Jews so powerful?
Answer : EDUCATION

Why are Muslims so powerless?
There are an estimated 1,476,233,470 Muslims on the face of the planet: one billion in Asia, 400 million in Africa, 44 million in Europe and six million in the Americas . Every fifth human being is a Muslim; for every single Hindu there are two Muslims, for every Buddhist there are two Muslims and for every Jew there are 100 Muslims.

Ever wondered why Muslims are so powerless?
Here is why: There are 57 member-countries of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), and all of them put together have around
500 universities; one university for every three million Muslims.

The United States has 5,758 universities and India has 8,407.

In 2004, Shanghai Jiao Tong University compiled an ‘Academic Ranking of World Universities’ , and intriguingly, not one university from Muslim-majority states was in the top-500.

As per data collected by the UNDP, literacy in the Christian world stands at nearly 90 per cent and 15 Christian-majority states have a literacy rate of 100 per cent.

A Muslim-majority state, as a sharp contrast, has an average literacy rate of around 40 per cent and there is no Muslim-majority state with a literacy rate of 100 per cent.

Some 98 per cent of the ‘literates’ in the Christian world had completed primary school, while less than 50 per cent of the ‘literates’ in the Muslim world did the same.

Around 40 per cent of the ‘literates’ in the Christian world attended university while no more than two per cent of the ‘literates’ in the Muslim world did the same.

Muslim-majority countries have 230 scientists per one million Muslims. The US has 4,000 scientists per million and Japan has 5,000 per million.

In the entire Arab world, the total number of full-time researchers is 35,000 and there are only 50 technicians per one million Arabs. (in the Christian world there are up to 1,000 technicians per one million).

The Muslim world spends 0.2 per cent of its GDP on research and development, while the Christian world spends around five per cent of its GDP.

Conclusion: The Muslim world lacks the capacity to produce knowledge!

Daily newspapers per 1,000 people and number of book titles per million are two indicators of whether knowledge is being diffused in a society.

In Pakistan , there are 23 daily newspapers per 1,000 Pakistanis while the same ratio in Singapore is 360. In the UK , the number of book titles per million stands at 2,000 while the same in Egypt is 20.

Conclusion: The Muslim world is failing to diffuse knowledge. 

Exports of high technology products as a percentage of total exports are an important indicator of knowledge application. Pakistan ‘s export of high technology products as a percentage of total exports stands at one per cent. The same for Saudi Arabia is 0.3 per cent; Kuwait , Morocco , and Algeria are all at 0.3 per cent, while Singapore is at 58 per cent.

Conclusion: The Muslim world is failing to apply knowledge. 

Why are Muslims powerless?

…..Because we aren’t producing knowledge,
…..Because we aren’t diffusing knowledge.,
…..Because we aren’t applying knowledge.

And, the future belongs to knowledge-based societies.

Interestingly, the combined annual GDP of 57 OIC-countries is under $2 trillion.

America , just by herself, produces goods and services worth $12 trillion; China $8 trillion, Japan $3.8 trillion and Germany $2.4 trillion (purchasing power parity basis).

Oil rich Saudi Arabia , UAE, Kuwait and Qatar collectively produce goods and services (mostly oil) worth $500 billion; Spain alone produces goods and services worth over $1 trillion, Catholic Poland $489 billion and Buddhist Thailand $545 billion.

….. (Muslim GDP as a percentage of world GDP is fast declining).

All we do is shout to Allah the whole day and blame everyone else for our multiple failures!

Muslims are not happy

They’re not happy in Gaza

They’re not happy in Egypt

They’re not happy in Libya

They’re not happy in Morocco

They’re not happy in Iran

They’re not happy in Iraq

They’re not happy in Yemen

They’re not happy in Afghanistan

They’re not happy in Pakistan

They’re not happy in Syria

They’re not happy in Lebanon

So, where are they happy?

They’re happy in Australia

They’re happy in England

They’re happy in France

They’re happy in Italy

They’re happy in Germany

They’re happy in Sweden

They’re happy in the USA & Canada

They’re happy in Norway

They’re happy in almost every country that is not Islamic!

And who do they blame?

Not Islam…

Not their leadership…

Not themselves…

THEY BLAME THE COUNTRIES THEY ARE HAPPY IN

And they want to change the countries they’re happy in, to be like the countries they came from, where they were unhappy.

Try to find logic in that!

Jeff Foxworthy on Muslims:

1. If You refine heroin for a living, but you have a moral objection to liquor. You are a Muslim

2. If You own a $3,000 machine gun and $5,000 rocket launcher, but you can’t afford shoes. You are a Muslim

3. If You have more wives than teeth. You are a Muslim

4. If You wipe your butt with your bare hand, but consider bacon unclean. You are a Muslim.

5. If You think vests come in two styles: bullet-proof and suicide. You are a Muslim

6. If You can’t think of anyone you haven’t declared Jihad against.
You are a Muslim

7. If You consider television dangerous, but routinely carry explosives in your clothing. You are a Muslim

8. If You were amazed to discover that cell phones have uses other than setting off roadside bombs. You are a Muslim

9. If You have nothing against women and think every man should own at least four. You are a Muslim

 

Does Holy Jihad Entail Killing of All Non-Muslims?

This is a true story and the author, Rick Mathes, is a well-known leader in prison ministry 

The man who walks with God always gets to his destination. If you have a pulse you have a purpose.

The Muslim religion is the fastest growing religion per capita in the United States , especially in the minority races!

Last month I attended my annual training session that’s required for maintaining my state prison security clearance.

During the training session there was a presentation by three speakers representing the Roman Catholic, Protestant and Muslim faiths , who each explained their beliefs.

I was particularly interested in what the Islamic had to say. The Muslim gave a great presentation of the basics of Islam, complete with a video. After the presentations, time was provided for questions and answers then it was my turn. I directed my question to the Muslim and asked:

‘Please, correct me if I’m wrong, but I understand that most Imams and clerics of Islam have declared a holy jihad [Holy war] against the infidels of the world and, that by killing an infidel, (which is a command to all Muslims) they are assured of a place in heaven. If that’s the case, can you give me the definition of an infidel?’  

There was no disagreement with my statements and, without hesitation, he replied, ‘ Non-believers! ‘

I responded, ‘So, let me make sure I have this straight. All followers of Allah have been commanded to kill everyone who is not of your faith so they can have a place in heaven.

Is that correct?’

The expression on his face changed from one of authority and command to that of a little boy who had just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He sheepishly replied, ‘Yes.’

I then stated, ‘Well, sir, I have a real problem trying to imagine The Pope commanding all Catholics to kill those of your faith or Dr. Stanley ordering all Protestants to do the same in order to guarantee them a place in heaven!’

The Muslim was speechless! I continued,’I also have a problem with being your friend when you and your brother clerics are telling your followers to kill me!

Let me ask you a question:

Would you rather have your Allah, who tells you to kill me in order for you to go to heaven, or my Jesus who tells me to love you because I am going to heaven and He wants you to be there with me?’

You could have heard a pin drop as the Imam hung his head in shame.

Needless to say, the organizers and/or promoters of the ‘Diversification’ training seminar were not happy with my way of dealing with the Islamic Imam, and exposing the truth about the Muslims’ beliefs.

In 20 years there will be enough Muslim voters in the U.S. to elect the President!

I think everyone in the U.S. should be required to read this, but with the ACLU, there is no way this will be widely publicized, unless each of us sends it on!

The Dutch Clamp Down on the Muslims

Netherlands, where six per cent of the population is now Muslim is scrapping multiculturalism:
The Dutch government says it will abandon the long-standing model of multiculturalism that has encouraged Muslim immigrants to create a parallel society within the Netherlands .

A new integration bill, which Dutch Interior Minister Piet Hein Donner presented to parliament on June 16, 2012 reads:

“The government shares the social dissatisfaction over the multicultural society model and plans to shift priority to the values of the Dutch people. A more obligatory integration is justified because the government also demands that from its own  citizens.
It is necessary because otherwise the society gradually grows apart and eventually no one feels at home anymore in the Netherlands.

Under the new law, the government steps away from the model of a multicultural society.

The new integration policy will place more demands on immigrants. For example, immigrants will be required to learn the Dutch language, and the government will take a tougher approach to immigrants who ignore Dutch values or disobey Dutch law.

The government will also stop  offering special subsidies for Muslim immigrants because, according to Donner:

“It is not the government’s job to  integrate immigrants”

The government will introduce new legislation that outlaws forced marriages and will also impose tougher measures against Muslim immigrants who lower their chances of employment by the way they dress.

More specifically, the government will impose a ban on face-covering, Islamic burqas as of January 1, 2013.

Holland has done that whole liberal thing, and realized, it may be too late, that creating a nation of tribes will kill the nation itself.

Muslim immigrants leave their  countries of birth because of civil and political  unrest. Countries like Holland and Australia have an established way of life that actually works, so why embrace the unworkable?

If Muslims do not wish to accept another culture, the answer is simple: ”stay where you are!”

Dr Peter Hammond Says that Muslims are Bad News

Adapted from Dr. Peter Hammond’s book: Slavery, Terrorism and Islam: The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat

Islam is not a religion, nor is it a cult. In its fullest form, it is a complete, total, 100% system of life. Islam has religious, legal, political, economic, social, and military components.

The religious component is a beard for all of the other components.

Islamisation begins when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to agitate for their religious privileges.

When politically correct, tolerant, and culturally diverse societies agree to Muslim demands for their religious privileges, some of the other components tend to creep in as well..

Here’s how it works:

As long as the Muslim population remains around or under 2% in any given country, they will for the most part be regarded as a peace-loving minority, and not as a threat to other citizens.

This is the case in:

United States              Muslim 0.6 %
Australia                      Muslim 1.5%
Canada                        Muslim 1.9%
China                           Muslim 1.8%
Italy                             Muslim 1.5%
Norway                       Muslim 1.8%

At 2% to 5%, they begin to proselytise from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups, often with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs.

This is happening in:

Denmark                     Muslim 2%
Germany                     Muslim 3.7%
United Kingdom         Muslim 2.7%
Spain                           Muslim 4%
Thailand                      Muslim 4.6%

From 5% on, they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population.

For example, they will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature halal on their shelves, along with threats for failure to comply. This is occurring in:

France                                     Muslim 8%
Philippines                               5%
Sweden                       Muslim 5%
Switzerland                 Muslim 4.3%
The Netherlands          Muslim 5.5%
Trinidad & Tobago     Muslim 5.8%

At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves (within their ghettos) under Sharia, the Islamic Law. The ultimate goal of Islamists is to establish Sharia law over the entire world.

When Muslims approach 10% of the population, they tend to increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions. In Paris, we are already seeing car-burnings. Any non-Muslim action offends Islam, and results in uprisings and threats, such as in Amsterdam , with opposition to Prophet Mohammed’s cartoons and films about Islam. Such tensions are seen daily, particularly in Muslim sections in:

Guyana                        Muslim 10%
India                            Muslim 13.4%
Israel                           Muslim 16%
Kenya                          Muslim 10%
Russia                          Muslim 15%

After reaching 20%, nations can expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, such as in:

Ethiopia                       Muslim 32.8%

At 40%, nations experience widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks, and ongoing militia warfare, such as in:

Bosnia                         Muslim 40%
Chad                           Muslim 53.1%
Lebanon                      Muslim 59.7%

From 60%, nations experience unfettered persecution of non-believers of all other religions (including non-conforming Muslims), sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia law as a weapon, and Jizya, the tax placed on infidels, such as in:

Albania                        Muslim 70%
Malaysia                      Muslim 60.4%
Qatar                           Muslim 77.5%
Sudan                          Muslim 70%

After 80%, expect daily intimidation and violent jihad, some state-run ethnic cleansing, and even some genocide, as these nations drive out the infidels, and move toward 100% Muslim, such as has been experienced and in some ways is on-going in:

Bangladesh                 Muslim 83%
Egypt                          Muslim 90%
Gaza                            Muslim 98.7%
Indonesia                    Muslim 86.1%
Iran                              Muslim 98%
Iraq                              Muslim 97%
Jordan                         Muslim 92%
Morocco                      Muslim 98.7%
Pakistan                       Muslim 97%
Palestine                      Muslim 99%
Syria                            Muslim 90%
Tajikistan                     Muslim 90%
Turkey                         Muslim 99.8%
United Arab Emirates Muslim 96%

100% will usher in the peace of ‘Dar-es-Salaam’ – the Islamic House of Peace.. Here there’s supposed to be peace, because everybody is a Muslim, the Madrasses are the only schools, and the Koran is the only word, such as in:

Afghanistan                Muslim 100%
Saudi Arabia               Muslim 100%
Somalia                       Muslim 100%
Yemen                         Muslim 100%

Unfortunately, peace is never achieved, as in these 100% states the most radical Muslims intimidate and spew hatred, and satisfy their blood lust by killing less radical Muslims, for a variety of reasons.

‘Before I was nine I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; the tribe against the world, and all of us against the infidels.

It is important to understand that in some countries, with well under 100% Muslim populations, such as France, the minority Muslim populations live in ghettos, within which they are 100% Muslim, and within which they live by Sharia law. The national police do not even enter these ghettos. There are no national courts, nor schools, nor non-Muslim religious facilities. In
such situations, Muslims do not integrate into the community at large. The children attend madrasses. They learn only the Koran. To even associate with an infidel is a crime punishable with death.

Therefore, in some areas of certain nations, Muslim Imams and extremists exercise more power than the national average would indicate.

Today’s 1.5 billion Muslims make up 22% of the world’s population. But their birth rates dwarf the birth rates of Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and all other believers. Muslims will exceed 50% of the world’s population by the end of this century.

What is Next?: Legalizing Marriages with Animals?

With stunning speed, a concept dismissed even by most gay-rights leaders just 20 years ago is now embraced by half or more of all Americans, with support among young voters running as high as 4 to 1. Beginning with the Netherlands in 2001, countries from Argentina to Belgium to Canada — along with nine states and the District of Columbia — have extended marriage rights to lesbian and gay couples.

True, most of the remaining states have passed laws or constitutional amendments reserving marriage for opposite-sex partners. And Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, declares that the fight to defend the traditional definition is only beginning. “Our opponents know this, which is why they are hoping the Supreme Court will cut short a debate they know they will ultimately lose if the political process and democracy are allowed to run their course,” he said.

But that confidence is rare even among the traditionalists. Exit polls in November showed that 83% of voters believe that same-sex marriage will be legal nationwide in the next five to 10 years. Like a dam that springs a little leak that turns into a trickle and then bursts into a flood, the wall of public opinion is crumbling. That’s not to say we’ve reached the end of shunning, homophobia or anti-gay violence.

It does, however, suggest that Americans who are allowed by law to fall in love, share their lives and raise children together will, in the not too distant future, be allowed to get married.

Through 2008, no major presidential nominee favored same-sex marriage.

But in 2012, the newly converted supporter Barack Obama sailed to an easy victory over Mitt Romney, himself an avowed fan of Modern Family — a hit TV show in which a devoted gay couple negotiates the perils of parenthood with deadpan hilarity. When even a conservative Mormon Republican can delight in a sympathetic portrayal of same-sex parenthood, a working consensus is likely at hand.

Down the ballot, elected leaders who once faithfully pledged to protect tradition have lined up to announce their conversions. Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio said he changed his mind after learning that his son is gay. They joined Hillary Clinton and her husband, the former President who signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law during his 1996 re-election bid but is now calling on the Supreme Court to undo his mistake.

Such switchers have plenty of company among their fellow citizens.

According to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, 1 in 7 American adults say their initial opposition to same-sex marriage has turned to support. The picture of a nation of immovable factions dug into ideological trenches is belied by this increasingly uncontroversial controversy.

Yesterday’s impossible now looks like tomorrow’s inevitable.

The marriage license is the last defensible distinction between the rights of gay and straight couples. But most generals will tell you that when you’re down to your last trench, you are likely to lose the battle.

The rise of same-sex marriage from joke to commonplace is a story of converging strands of history.

The Beginning
You could start the story as far back as Adam and Eve, tracing the twists and turns of society’s struggle to order and regulate the natural imperatives of sex.

For some social conservatives, it would be a tale as simple as the old line that God didn’t make Adam and Steve. But subtler Bible scholars — the sort who wonder why Saul was so miffed at David for “choosing” Jonathan for a love “more wonderful than the love of women” — would say these matters have always been complicated.

Instead, start on May 18, 1970, when a young Air Force veteran named Jack Baker visited the Hennepin County clerk’s office in Minneapolis with his boyfriend of three years, librarian Michael McConnell. Neatly dressed in coats and ties — “neither is a limp-wristed sissy,” Lookmagazine noted — they filed an application for a marriage license, which was promptly denied. The episode was generally dismissed as a stunt, another strange happening in those days of hippies, riots and Woodstock. Homosexuality was still classified as a mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association, and even University of Minnesota professor Allan Spear, a gay-rights pioneer, called Baker and McConnell “the lunatic fringe.” The publicity cost McConnell his job, while Baker, a law student, filed suit.

In an opinion that cited the Book of Genesis, among other authorities, the Minnesota Supreme Court rejected his claim, and his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was turned down “for want of a substantial federal question.” But Baker was onto something. His suit, for the first time, linked the idea of same-sex marriage to an emerging line of high-court precedents establishing a right to privacy in matters of sexual intimacy.

These precedents were both product and fuel of the sexual revolution and gunpowder for the resulting culture wars.

In 1965 the court held that married couples have a right to use contraception. The Justices extended the principle in 1967 as part of a decision to strike down state laws against interracial marriage. By the time Baker was making his appeal, the zone of privacy had been extended to unmarried couples using contraception, and a year later, in 1973, Roe v. Wade invoked the right to privacy in legalizing abortion.

By the mid-1980s, the American Civil Liberties Union believed the concept had advanced far enough to shield the intimate behavior of gay men and lesbians. The group offered to help a Georgia man named Michael Hardwick challenge his conviction on sodomy charges. But the gamble failed. By a vote of 5-4, the high court held in 1986 that states were allowed to enforce age-old sexual taboos.

Writing in dissent, Justice Harry Blackmun, author of Roe v. Wade, argued that traditional moral condemnation of sexual behavior between consenting adults is not sufficient reason to infringe on privacy. True, some “religious groups condemn the behavior” of homosexuals, he wrote. But that “gives the State no license to impose their judgments on the entire citizenry. The legitimacy of secular legislation depends, instead, on whether the State can advance some justification for its law beyond its conformity to religious doctrine.”

Although few recognized it at the time, this concept — that something more than traditional morals is needed to justify laws governing intimate relationships — was a lever awaiting the right moment to pry open the door for same-sex marriage. Yet at the time, marriage seemed impossibly remote to most gay-rights leaders. They had no appetite for such a pie-in-the-sky project when same-sex intimacy could still be prosecuted as a crime.

For that matter, many gay activists weren’t interested in getting married.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, the reigning model of liberated gay culture was found in meccas like San Francisco’s Castro Street and New York City’s Greenwich Village, where people scoffed at the idea of coming out of the closet only to enter the confines of wedlock.

But then another seemingly separate strand of history was woven in: the AIDS epidemic.

Burning outward from the bathhouses, this deadly scourge offered a painful education in the advantages of marriage. AIDS patients and their partners discovered that they weren’t covered by each other’s medical insurance, weren’t entitled to enter the doctors’ offices and hospital rooms of their loved ones, weren’t authorized to claim remains or plan funerals or inherit estates. Grieving survivors were barred from collecting Social Security and pension benefits. Marriage began to be seen as the portal to a wide array of privileges and protections. The bourgeois ideal of stable monogamy could be a lifesaver.

Meanwhile, in other hospital rooms, another thread was emerging as doctors tinkered with the mechanics of procreation. With the arrival of the first so-called test-tube baby in 1978, the age-old business of one mom and one dad making and raising babies the old-fashioned way was quickly joined by a dizzying array of reproductive strategies. With donor sperm, donor eggs, surrogate wombs and so on, lesbian couples created their own baby boomlet, which spread quietly among gay men. Add adoptions and stepkids from earlier opposite-sex relationships, and today there are enough children of lesbian and gay couples in America to fill a couple of football stadiums. Of the roughly 600,000 U.S. households headed by same-sex pairs in 2010, the Census Bureau reports that some 115,000 are raising children.

And so the law was primed for a change, and the value of marriage was made clear by the tragedies and joys of life. What was needed next was for someone to get a serious discussion going — to advance the idea of same-sex marriage as something more than a joke or curiosity. That’s another thread of the story.

The Battle of Ideas
John Boswell was a dashing young member of Yale’s all-star history faculty in 1980 when he published Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, which went on to win the National Book Award. Copiously documented and densely argued, the book was no one’s idea of casual reading. In it, Boswell employed his knowledge of classical and medieval languages to investigate the history of Christian attitudes toward same-sex couples. He concluded that it was not all hellfire and brimstone. In fact, Boswell found scant evidence that the early church condemned homosexuality before the Middle Ages. Most provocatively, Boswell ventured that some Christian churches actually blessed same-sex unions during the first millennium of Catholicism.

Boswell’s ideas transformed a Harvard Law School student named Evan Wolfson. “That book changed my life,” Wolfson has said, because it convinced him that discrimination against homosexuals was “not part of the natural order.” It was the arbitrary invention of a particular time and place — the factious and violent medieval church. Wolfson decided to make a study of marriage laws with an eye to challenging them in court. His 1983 law-school thesis became a road map for the lawsuits to come.

But it was a journalist, Andrew Sullivan, who shoved the issue out of academia and onto the liberal agenda with a 1989 essay for the New Republic framed, arrestingly, as “A (Conservative) Case for Gay Marriage.” Noting that cities and states across the country were crafting elaborate “domestic partnership” laws to answer the problems laid bare by the AIDS crisis, Sullivan argued that this parallel system of almost marriage would do more harm than good. “The concept of domestic partnership could open a Pandora’s box of litigation and subjective judicial decision-making about who qualifies,” Sullivan ventured. Were fraternity brothers domestic partners? What about an elderly woman and her live-in nurse?

Domestic-partner laws would further weaken the ideal of marriage in a world already rife with divorce, cohabitation and single parents. Marriage, by contrast, is crystal clear: “You either are or are not married; it’s not a complex question,” he wrote. If conservatives truly care about traditional relationships, Sullivan argued, they should welcome same-sex couples seeking to honor an ancient tradition. What could be more traditional, more conservative, than wanting to be married?

Fits and Starts
Still, gay-rights organizations remained leery of the marriage issue, preferring to attack less formidable barriers like the ban on homosexuals in the military. When Wolfson graduated from Harvard and later went to work for Lambda Legal, the leading gay-rights legal organization, he says his bosses advised him to pursue his marriage strategy on his own time.

So he did — with what seemed at first to be disastrous consequences for his cause. With Wolfson’s quiet assistance, an attorney in Hawaii filed suit on behalf of three same-sex couples, arguing that it was a violation of the state constitution to limit marriage to opposite-sex partners. When, in 1993, the court found potential merit in the complaint and ordered a hearing, the backlash long feared by gay leaders erupted.

Traditionalists worried that Hawaii would set off a chain reaction. Under the “full faith and credit” clause of the U.S. Constitution, other states would be expected to honor Hawaii’s same-sex marriages. And the federal government made a practice of relying on state decisions in determining who is married. To head off the possibility that same-sex marriage in one state might quickly lead to married gay and lesbian couples everywhere, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was introduced. Passed by large bipartisan margins, DOMA relieved states of the obligation to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere and adopted the traditional definition of marriage for federal purposes.

This setback, coming on the heels of the Pentagon’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, demoralized Elizabeth Birch, then executive director of the leading gay advocacy group, the Human Rights Campaign. Sullivan tells of crossing paths with Birch at congressional hearings on DOMA. “She called the hearings hell week,” Sullivan recalled. “I said, ‘No, it isn’t. This is our chance to put this in the middle of the public debate.’”

The more she thought about it, however, the more Birch began to see the long-run value of the marriage movement. Maybe it was a mistake to build a protected enclave of antidiscrimination laws apart from straight society. Maybe the more potent message was simply to ask society to recognize the loves and families of same-sex couples.

It was at this moment of setback and soul-searching that the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in again with its first major gay-rights decision in a decade. Romer v. Evans, in 1996, struck down a ballot measure in Colorado that would have barred cities and towns from including homosexuals in their antidiscrimination statutes. Writing for himself and five of his colleagues, Kennedy held that the measure was “a denial of equal protection of the laws in the most literal sense.”

Rights of Women Under Islam in Egypt

During its decades as an underground Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood has long preached that Islam required women to obey their husbands in all matters.

“A woman needs to be confined within a framework that is controlled by the man of the house,” Osama Yehia Abu Salama, a Brotherhood family expert, said of the group’s general approach. Even if a wife were beaten by her husband, he advised, “Show her how she had a role in what happened to her.”

“If he is to blame,” Mr. Abu Salama added, “she shares 30 percent or 40 percent of the fault.”

Now, with a leader of the Brotherhood’s political arm in Egypt’s presidential palace and its members dominating Parliament, some deeply patriarchal views the organization has long taught its members are spilling into public view. The Brotherhood’s strident statements are reinforcing fears among many Egyptian liberals about the potential consequences of the group’s rise to power and creating new awkwardness for PresidentMohamed Morsi as he presents himself as a new kind of moderate, Western-friendly Islamist.

In a statement on a proposed United Nations declaration to condemn violence against women, the Brotherhood issued a list of objections, which formally laid out its views on women for the first time since it came to power.

In its statement, the Brotherhood said that wives should not have the right to file legal complaints against their husbands for rape, and husbands should not be subject to the punishments meted out for the rape of a stranger.

A husband must have “guardianship” over his wife, not an equal “partnership” with her, the group declared.

Daughters should not have the same inheritance rights as sons.

Nor should the law cancel “the need for a husband’s consent in matters like travel, work or use of contraception” — a reform in traditional Islamic family law that was enacted under former President Hosni Mubarak and credited to his wife, Suzanne.

The statement appeared in many ways to reflect the Brotherhood’s longstanding doctrine. Feminists said its statement also may reflect the views of most women in Egypt’s conservative, traditionalist culture.

During its decades as an underground Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood has long preached that Islam required women to obey their husbands in all matters.

“A woman needs to be confined within a framework that is controlled by the man of the house,” Osama Yehia Abu Salama, a Brotherhood family expert, said of the group’s general approach, speaking in a recent seminar for women training to become marriage counselors. Even if a wife were beaten by her husband, he advised, “Show her how she had a role in what happened to her.”

“If he is to blame,” Mr. Abu Salama added, “she shares 30 percent or 40 percent of the fault.”

Now, with a leader of the Brotherhood’s political arm in Egypt’s presidential palace and its members dominating Parliament, some deeply patriarchal views the organization has long taught its members are spilling into public view. The Brotherhood’s strident statements are reinforcing fears among many Egyptian liberals about the potential consequences of the group’s rise to power and creating new awkwardness for PresidentMohamed Morsi as he presents himself as a new kind of moderate, Western-friendly Islamist.

In a statement Wednesday on a proposed United Nations declaration to condemn violence against women, the Brotherhood issued a list of objections, which formally laid out its views on women for the first time since it came to power.

In its statement, the Brotherhood said that wives should not have the right to file legal complaints against their husbands for rape, and husbands should not be subject to the punishments meted out for the rape of a stranger.

A husband must have “guardianship” over his wife, not an equal “partnership” with her, the group declared. Daughters should not have the same inheritance rights as sons. Nor should the law cancel “the need for a husband’s consent in matters like travel, work or use of contraception” — a reform in traditional Islamic family law that was enacted under former President Hosni Mubarak and credited to his wife, Suzanne.

The statement appeared in many ways to reflect the Brotherhood’s longstanding doctrine, still discussed in classes like Mr. Abu Salama’s and in the group’s women’s forums. Feminists said its statement also may reflect the views of most women in Egypt’s conservative, traditionalist culture.

The government objected to the United Nations declaration condemning violence against women only over issues like whether to describe restrictions on abortion as an act of violence against women. That offended the cultural norms in many Arab and African countries, according to one Morsi adviser.

Asked about the statement’s apparent attempt to shield marital rape from legal prosecution, the female adviser brushed off the issue as an irrelevant foreign concern.

“Marital rape? Is this a big problem that we have?” she said, suggesting that it might be a Western phenomenon, while sexual harassment in the streets was a far greater concern in Egypt.

“Should we import their concerns and problems and adopt them as ours?” she asked. “We’re talking about things that aren’t widely agreed upon, like abortion. We can’t give women the freedom to have abortions whenever they want.”

Do not pick issues not pressing in Egypt, she said, “and then tell me that I’m in a conflict with the international community.”

Some Egyptian feminists, though, called the statement a vindication of their warnings that the Brotherhood might lead Egypt in a more conservative and patriarchal direction.

“They do not believe that when domestic violence is present, the women should resort to the justice system or the legal process,” said a member of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights. “It should be kept at home and under the protection of the family — that is their claim. And there is no such thing as marital rape because a husband is entitled to have sex with his wife any time that he wants.”

“This is the first time we have heard it said publicly on the world stage,” she said, “but this has been in their rhetoric for ages.”

Mr. Abu Salama justified the group’s approach to marriage by explaining that Islam also required husbands to be compassionate, just as it required women to be obedient.

Quoting Muhammad’s injunction that a man “must not fall on his wife like an animal,” a textbook in Mr. Abu Salama’s class said Islam instructed men to engage in foreplay before sex and attend to their partner’s satisfaction. As for inheritance, Islamic scholars have argued that a son should have a greater share, but also an obligation to look after the financial well-being of a sister.

But Mr. Abu Salam also argued that husbands should keep their wives under tight control. “It’s the nature of the weak to overstep the required framework if she is given the space and the freedom, like children,” he said. Most of the women nodded in agreement.

Closing its statement on the proposed United Nations declaration, the Brotherhood appeared to go even further. The provisions discussed are “destructive tools meant to undermine the family as an important institution,” the statement concluded, and “would drag society back to pre-Islamic ignorance.”

What Led the Chechen Brothers to Terrorism in Boston?

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was an all-star wrestler at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School.

The younger one — the one their father described as “like an angel” — gathered around him a group of friends so loyal that more than one said they would testify for him, if it came to that.

The older one, who friends and family members said exerted a strong influence on his younger sibling — “He could manipulate him,” an uncle said — once told a photographer, “I don’t have a single American friend. I don’t understand them.”

A kaleidoscope of images, adjectives and anecdotes tumbled forth on Friday to describe Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, the two brothers suspected of carrying out the bombings at the Boston Marathon that killed three people and gravely wounded scores more.

The one who was on the loose was taken into custody on Friday evening. He was the younger of the two, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19. The elder, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a confrontation with authorities, but not before participating in the fatal shooting of an M.I.T. police officer, the carjacking of an S.U.V. and the shooting of a transit police officer, who was critically injured.

They were from Chechnya. Tamerlan was a boxer; Dzhokhar, a college student.

What no one who knew them could say was why the young men, immigrants of Chechnyan heritage, would set off bombs among innocent people. The Tsarnaevs came with their family to the United States almost a decade ago from Kyrgyzstan, after living briefly in the Dagestan region of Russia. Tamerlan, who was killed early Friday April 19, 2013 morning in a shootout with law enforcement officers, was 15 at the time. Dzhokhar, who was in custody the same evening, was only 8.

In America, they took up lives familiar to every new immigrant, gradually adapting to a new culture, a new language, new schools and new friends.

“A picture has begun to emerge of 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev as an aggressive, possibly radicalized immigrant who may have ensnared his younger brother Dzhokhar — described almost universally as a smart and sweet kid — into an act of terror.”

Dzhokhar, a handsome teenager with a wry yearbook smile, was liked and respected by his classmates at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, where celebrities like Ben Affleck and Matt Damon had walked the halls before him. A classmate remembered how elated he seemed on the night of the senior prom. Wearing a black tuxedo and a red bow tie, he was with a date among 40 students who met at a private home before the event to have their photos taken, recalled Sierra Schwartz, 20.

“He was happy to be there, and people were happy he was there,” Ms. Schwartz said. “He was accepted and very well liked.”

A talented wrestler, he was listed as a Greater Boston League Winter All-Star. “He was a smart kid,” said Peter Payack, 63, assistant wrestling coach at the school. In 2011, the year he graduated, was awarded a $2,500 scholarship by the City of Cambridge, an honor granted only 35 to 40 students a year.

For Tamerlan, life seemed more difficult.

A promising boxer, he fought in the Golden Gloves National Tournament in 2009, and he was noticed by a young photographer, Johannes Hirn, who took him as a subject for an essay assignment in a photojournalism class at Boston University. “There are no values anymore,” Tamerlan said in the essay, which was later published in Boston University’s magazine The Comment. “People can’t control themselves.”

Anzor Tsarnaev, the brothers’ father, who returned to Russia about a year ago, said in a telephone interview there that his older son was hoping to become an American citizen — Dzhokhar became a naturalized citizen in 2012, but Tamerlan still held a green card — but that a 2009 domestic violence complaint was standing in his way.

“Because of his girlfriend, he hit her lightly, he was locked up for half an hour,” Mr. Tsarnaev said. “There was jealousy there.” Tamerlan later married and had a small child. He was interviewed by the FBI in 2011 when a foreign government asked the bureau to determine whether he had extremist ties.

Yet Dzhokhar admired and emulated his older brother.

Peter Tean, 21, a high school wrestling teammate, said that he thought Dzhokhar’s intense interest in rough-and-tumble sports came from a desire to be like his brother.

“He’s done these violent sports because his brother’s a boxer,” Mr. Tean said. “He really loves his brother, looks up to him.”

At the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Dzhokhar began to struggle academically.

According to a university transcript, he was failing many of his classes. The transcript shows him receiving seven failing grades over three semesters, including F’s in Principles of Modern Chemistry, Intro to American Politics and Chemistry and the Environment. According to the transcript, Dzhokhar received a B in Critical Writing and a D and D-plus in two other courses.

San, 22, a former classmate at the university who would identify himself only by his first name, said that Dzhokhar had told him he was having trouble in some courses.

“He was talking about how he wasn’t doing as good as he expected,” San said. “He was a really smart kid, but having a little difficulty in college because going from high school to college is totally different.”

San said that he would be willing to testify on Dzhokhar’s behalf. “I feel like all of his friends would do that,” he said.

In Cambridge, where Dzhokhar lived in the third-floor unit of a caramel-colored wood-frame triple-decker on Norfolk Street, the brothers were often seen together. It is a multicultural neighborhood where hardware stores and butcher shops are mixed with cafes and Brazilian and Portuguese restaurants. Neighbors said that people were constantly coming and going at the apartment and that they were uncertain who lived there and who was just visiting. Sometimes they saw people from the unit in the backyard. Tamerlan was fond of doing pull-ups on the trellis, they said.

The brothers’ uncle Ruslan Tsarni, 42, said that on the night before he was killed, Tamerlan had called Mr. Tsarni’s older brother. “He said to my brother the usual rubbish, talking about God again, that whatever wrong he had done on his behalf, he would like to be forgiven,” said Mr. Tsarni, who lives in Montgomery Village, Maryland., outside Washington. “I guess he knew what he had done.”

Both brothers had a substantial presence on social media sites.

On VKontakte, Russia’s most popular social media platform, Dzhokhar described his worldview as “Islam” and, asked to identify “the main thing in life,” answered “career and money.” He listed a series of affinity groups relating to Chechnya, where two wars of independence against Russia were fought after the Soviet Union collapsed, and a verse from the Koran: “Do good, because Allah loves those who do good.”

Their father said that Tamerlan would take his younger brother to Friday Prayer, but dismissed the idea that Dzhokhar had become devout, saying that they sometimes caught him smoking cigarettes.

“Dhzokhar listened to Tamerlan, of course, he also listened to us,” he said. “From childhood it was that way. He had his own head on his shoulders, he was a very gifted person. He had a gift of kindness, calmness, fairness — you understand, goodness? For him to do what they’re saying, it doesn’t it doesn’t fit him at all, it is not possible. Not at all.”

In Kyrgyzstan, the Tsarnaevs were part of a Chechen diaspora that dates back to 1943, when Stalin deported most Chechens from their homeland over concerns they were collaborating with the invading Nazi Army. Most returned to Chechnya in the 1950s, after the death of Stalin and lifting of the deportation order, but some stayed. The deportation was a searing, and in some cases, radicalizing experience.

Adnan Z. Dzarbrailov, the head of a Chechen diaspora group in Kyrgyzstan, said in a telephone interview that the Tsarnaev family lived near a sugar factory in the small town of Tokmok, about 40 miles from Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. The last member of the family left years ago, he said. He described them as “intelligentsia” and said that Dzhokhar and Tamerlan’s aunt was a lawyer.

Yet that history does little to explain how the brothers became wanted criminals in a horrific act of terrorism, their images captured on grainy surveillance tape and broadcast across the nation.

Gilberto Junior, who owns an auto body shop in Somerville, just saw them as “regular kids,” even if they had a taste for expensive cars.

So it did not especially alarm him when Dzhokhar rushed in on Tuesday, April 16, the day after the bombing, and said he needed his car immediately, never mind that the repairs had not been done and the white Mercedes wagon had no bumper and no taillights.

The younger Tsarnaev brother seemed nervous, he said. He was biting his nails and his knees were bending back and forth a bit; it occurred to Mr. Junior that he might be on drugs.

“At the time I didn’t think about anything,” Mr. Junior said. “How could I judge him? I knew that he was nervous.”

One Zaur Tsarnaev, identified as a 26-year-old cousin of the suspects, said, “I used to warn Dzhokhar that Tamerlan was up to no good.” Tamerlan “was always getting into trouble,” he added. “He was never happy, never cheering, never smiling. He used to strike his girlfriend. He hurt her a few times. He was not a nice man. I don’t like to speak about him. He caused problems for my family.”

But what about that image of Dzhokhar as sweet?

On Friday, BuzzFeed and CNN claimed to verify Dzhokhar’s Twitter account. The tweets posted on that account give a window into a bifurcated mind — on one level, a middle-of-the-road 19-year-old boy, but on another, a person with a mind leaning toward darkness.

Like many young people, the person tweeting from that account liked rap music, saying of himself, “#imamacbookrapper when I’m bored,” and quoting rap lyrics in his tweets.

He tweeted quite a bit about women, dating and relationships; many of his musings were misogynistic and profane. Still, he seemed to want to have it both ways, to be rude and respectful at once, tweeting on Dec. 24, 2012: “My last tweets felt too wrong. I don’t like to objectify women or judge anyone for their actions.”

He was a proud Muslim who tweeted about going to mosque and enjoying talking — and even arguing — about religion with others. But he seemed to believe that different faiths were in competition with one another. On Nov. 29, he tweeted: “I kind of like religious debates, just hearing what other people believe is interesting and then crushing their beliefs with facts is fun.”

His politics seemed jumbled. He was apparently a 9/11 Truther, posting a tweet on Sept. 1 that read in part, “Idk why it’s hard for many of you to accept that 9/11 was an inside job.” On Election Day he retweeted a tweet from Barack Obama that read: “This happened because of you. Thank you.” But on March 20 he tweeted, “Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.” This sounds like a take on a quote from Edmund Burke, who is viewed by many as the founder of modern Conservatism: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had strong views on the Middle East, tweeting on Nov. 28, “Free Palestine.” Later that day he tweeted, “I was going to make a joke about Hamas but it Israeli inappropriate.”

Toward the end of 2012, the presence of dark tweets seemed to grow — tweets that in retrospect might have raised some concerns.

He tweeted about crime. On Dec. 28 he tweeted about what sounds like a hit-and-run: “Just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching my car into reverse and driving away from the accident.” And on Feb. 6 he tweeted, “Everything in life can be free if you run fast enough.”

He posted other tweets that could be taken as particularly ominous.

Oct. 22: “i won’t run i’ll just gun you all out #thugliving.”

Jan. 5: “I don’t like when people ask unnecessary questions like how are you? Why so sad? Why do you need cyanide pills?”

Jan. 16: “Breaking Bad taught me how to dispose of a corpse.”

Feb. 2: “Do I look like that much of a softy?” The tweet continued with “little do these dogs know they’re barking at a lion.”

Feb. 13: “I killed Abe Lincoln during my two hour nap #intensedream.”

The last tweet on the account reads: “I’m a stress free kind of guy.” The whole of the Twitter feed would argue against that assessment.

 

World’s Most Expensive Virginities

Virginity is the one skill for which no experience is highly valued.

Next, a list in chronological order of girls that auctioned their V-cards for really good money.

Some completed the transaction and some backed out at the last minute.

Is there another industry for which someone will pay a fortune for having absolutely no experience?

1. Cathy Cobblerson

In 2004, 24-year-old Cathy Cobblerson from Texas broke virginity auction records when she placed the ad for $100,000 on eBay. The auction was taken down and it was not clear whether or not another auction from the same girl took place elsewhere.

2. Rosie Reid

In 2004, 18-year-old Rosie Reid from London sold her body to a bidder, a 44-year-old BT engineer (a divorced man) who paid a reported £8,400. It was the girl’s first time with a man. However, she already had a lesbian lover who reportedly waited outside the door while Rosie was “obliged” to please her customer. It was also reported that the lesbian lovers “just cried and cried” the next morning.

3. Graciela Yataco

In 2005, 18-year-old Graciela Yataco, a model from Peru, was responsible for her mother’s medical bills and also had to support her younger brother. So she decided, in an unprecedented move, to sell her virginity to the highest bidder. She auctioned her v-card for $1,300,000.

4. Natalie Dylan

In 2008, 22-year-old Natalie Dylan received a bid of $3.7 million after auctioning her virginity through Moonlite Bunny Ranch to fund her master’s degree. She publicized her auction on The Howard Stern Show.

 

Maybe Natalie Dylan was for real, but the whole thing did seem strange. If a girl was really going to hold out until 22 to lose her virginity, would she be the type to sell it to the highest bidder in a nationally publicized auction?

5. Alina Percea

In 2009, 18-year-old Alina Percea from Romania auctioned her virginity so that she could afford to pay for her computing degree. She received £8,800 from an Italian man. The 45-year-old man paid for her trip to Venice. She even went through two medical exams to prove that she’s still a virgin before the big event.

6. Raffaella Fico

In 2009, Raffaella Fico, a 20-year-old Italian model and star of Big Brother Italy 2008, put her virginity up for auction to buy a house in Rome and pay for acting classes. She swore she’d never had a boyfriend. Fico promised to drop her panties for $1.8 million. She said, “If I don’t like him, I’ll just have a glass of wine and forget about it.”

7. Unigirl

In 2010, a poor New Zealand student, who was only known by her pseudonym “Unigirl,” successfully auctioned her virginity to help pay for her university fees. After receiving 1,200 bids on her purity, she accepted an offer for $32,000, which she said was “way beyond what I dreamed.” She was also grateful for the many bidders who took interest in the ad. Hey, it’s no $250,000, but it should cover books.

8. Catarina Migliorini

Now, in 2012 a Brazilian student sold her virginity for a staggering $780,000 after she put it up for auction online. A man called Natsu, from Japan, fended off strong competition from two American bidders, and an Indian big-spender, to secure a date with 20-year-old Catarina Migliorini. She insists she is not a prostitute and that she is only doing this to make a positive impact on the world by raising money to build homes for poverty-stricken families in her hometown. The physical education student has sparked a controversy by having an Australian film crew follow her every move for a documentary entitled “Virgins Wanted.”

France Prime Minister on Muslim Radicals: Accept or Leave

Muslims who want to live under the law of the “Islamic Sharia” have recently been told to leave France in order to guard against possible terrorist attacks, the government has targeted radicals.

Apparently, the Prime Minister, Francois Fillon has angered some French Muslims in stating:

Those immigrants, who are not French must adapt. Take it or leave it, I’m tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Our culture has developed with struggles and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom. Our official language is French, not Spanish, or Lebanese, or Arabic, or Chinese, or Japanese, or any other language. Therefore, if you want to be part of our society, learn the language! Most French people believe in God. This is not some Christian obligation, influence by the rightists or political pressure, but it is a fact, because men and women founded this nation on Christian principles, and this is clearly documented. It is then appropriate to display this on the walls of our schools’. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your home, because God is part of our culture. We will accept your beliefs without question. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live in peaceful harmony with us. This is our country, our land, and our lifestyle. And we offer you the opportunity to enjoy all this. But if you’re tired of our flag, our commitment, our Christian beliefs, or our lifestyle, I strongly encourage you to take advantage of another great French freedom, The right to leave. If you are not happy here then leave. We did not force you to come here. 

You asked to be here. So accept the country you chose. 

Misyar Marriages Getting Popular in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia’s conservative society stands divided on the issue of misyar, a no-strings marriage of convenience that has become increasingly popular in the kingdom.

Misyar is a form of marriage that allows couples to live separately but come together for sexual relations. For the women who accept it – spinsters, divorcees and widows – it’s a something-is-better-than-nothing option, though they waive almost all the rights that a normal Muslim marriage entitles them to. For men it offers an opportunity for a bit of fun on the side, in secret, and at a huge discount.

Reasons for popularity of misyar include the high cost of marriage – the dowry, several dinners, parties, decoration of a flat or a villa and the honeymoon. All this may set back the groom by several hundred thousand riyals. Misyar for cash-strapped men is a boon.

Hamdan, distraught and depressed after the break-up of his first marriage, entered into a succession of misyar marriages. None lasted for more than six months. He confided that he had hoped to find a compatible partner for a permanent relationship but it didn’t work out. He also said that misyar wives are crafty and inclined to extract money and gifts. In his words: misyar marriages are not cost-effective. The colleague is now married again – in a normal marriage – and hopes to live happily ever after.

Thanks to Bluetooth technology, friendly websites and an abundance of furnished apartments in major cities like Riyadh and Jeddah, there are tales of misyar wives who have clandestinely entered into more than one misyar contract. These enlightened ladies say misyar husbands never tell their full-time wives about their relationships so why can’t misyar wives have similar arrangements? Clerics view this as a dangerous trend.

Website ads for misyar marriages often reveal the immaturity and desperation of those looking for partners:

• Young man, 21, excellent monthly income, seeks marriage as soon as possible to single girls up to 70 kgs, living in Jeddah.

• Saudi clerk, 38, from a well-known family, seeks pretty, white, delicate, businesswoman or clerk for misyar marriage. With Allah’s help, if things work out, the marriage will be official.

• Accountant, 30, seeks misyar marriage with Saudi woman. Age, experience, number of children, widow or single or divorced unimportant. What is important is her ability to satisfy the needs of a man who desires things permitted by religion (halal).

Misyar is popular in the kingdom because in a society where extramarital and premarital sex is a cardinal sin it legitimises sexual relations outside the framework of conventional marriage. It was legalised through a fatwa (religious edict) issued by late Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Baz, then the chief mufti of Saudi Arabia. ‘Urfi (unofficial marriage) in Egypt and muta’h (temporary marriage) in Iran are variations on the same idea.

The Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights says misyar is an insult to both men and women and a sanction for the trafficking of women. Clerical opinions vary.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Qatar-based Egyptian scholar, says:

Misyar should be viewed as a form of legal relationship beween man and woman regardless of any description attached to it … But I do have to make it clear that the above statement does not make me a protagonist of misyar marriage … There is no doubt that such marriage may be somehow socially unacceptable, but there is a big difference between what is Islamically valid and what is socially acceptable.

Emirates-based scholar Sheikh Ahmad al-Kubaisi says that while misyar marriage is correct Islamically, it also compromises some values. Al-Kubaisi believes that misyar can solve the high rate of spinsterhood in the Arab countries:

 The only difference (with a normal marriage) is that the woman abandons voluntarily her right to housing and support money. There is nothing wrong in relinquishing one’s own rights.

In 2006, after years of deliberation and a fair degree of dissent, the Mecca-based Muslim World League’s constituent body, the Islamic Jurisprudence Council ruled that misyar marriage was legal.

Samirah, a Saudi media personality (not her real name) described the decision as unfortunate. She thought the jurists had a difficult problem to resolve but this wasn’t the best way out. Rula Dashti, head of the Kuwaiti Economic Society describes misyar as an arrangement that destroys the fundamentals of family. Ghada Jamshir, a Bahraini activist who lobbies for reduction of clerical influence in family affairs, thinks liberals should object to misyar marriages.

To misyar or not to misyar? Saudi society is certainly confused on this issue, as is apparent from the following conversation reported in a Saudi newspaper:

Years ago, I overheard one of my son’s friends talking about marriage and girls and he asked: ‘Why buy a cow when milk is free?’ They were talking about loose girls and there not being any meed for marriage with them around,” said a university professor. 

With misyar marriage, haven’t we just legalised the ‘why-buy-the-milk-when-the-cow-is-free’ syndrome? And we are supposed to be civilised?

In Islam all acts – including misyar – are judged and will be judged on the merit of motives and intentions.