13 Central Florida News reports:
Bary will be turned over to a foster family that’s already set up for her in Ohio. However, her transfer home will remain a secret….Bary’s time in Florida may be short lived, but her parents still have a long way to go to get to their daughter back home.
As you may recall, Bary claimed her parents threatened to hurt or kill her because of her conversion; her parents denied those claims. Here’s the transcript of the police interview of the girl (which has apparently just been released).
Thanks to Religion Clause for the pointer.
PatHMV says:
Has the girl’s birthday been reported? If she was 17 back on Aug. 24 when the police conducted their interview, then at the very outside, she’s got about 10 months before she turns 18. It’s probably less than that. I always assumed that delay would be the best way to handle this case; to avoid making a decision (bad facts make bad law), just let them drag everything out until she turns 18. Then she can do what she wants.
October 26, 2009, 2:30 pmOrder of the Coif says:
When her family kills her, which they WILL do, Florida Governor Christ’s political career in going to end. I hope he can live out a long retirement with her murder on his soul. Government never operates this fast unless the man at the top is pushing it along. Thanks, Gov.
October 26, 2009, 3:58 pmyarrrrr says:
I’ve watched this case pretty closely… I really doubt she has anything to worry about from her family, though I’m not quite sure about the local mosque where there may be extremists… her home life seems rather crappy and she seems emotionally distant from everyone… her dad is gone all of the time(best friend a christian, went to catholic school), her mother seems kind of out of it(rifqa said she was finally glad to get home cooked dinners when describing the family she ran away too), her older brother is what the brits like to call a chav who does nothing but party and goof off(a bunch of his friends are US military)
she apparently had an intense “born again” experience when she was 14 and had hid it from her parents the whole time… and then after attending different churches off and on she somehow got involved with Lou Engle’s group, which is a little troubling IMO… during the summer her parents found out what was going on and then there was an angry confrontation where threats may have been made… and she worked herself up into hysteria and took off…
October 26, 2009, 4:40 pmDangerMouse says:
Pat,
What does turning 18 have to do with anything other than her immediate living situation? They’ll probably still kill her for being an apostate.
October 26, 2009, 5:18 pmEugene Volokh says:
Order of the Coif: I’m curious where you get the conclusion that the family WILL kill her — not just might kill her, not just threatened to kill her (her allegations, which the family denies), but WILL kill her. Also, is it really the case that these sorts of court proceedings usually move so slowly? Any particular data points on that, as to hearings in Florida in which a family seeks to have their runaway children returned to them?
October 26, 2009, 5:29 pmCrackmonkeyjr says:
Religion seems to be a red herring in this case. You can’t kill your kid just because you believe your region requires you to, you also shouldn’t take a kid away from a family solely based on their religious affiliation.
If there is a good reason to believe that these (or any) parents will kill or seriously injure their child, regardless of the reason, CPS should take the child away until the threat no longer exists. Otherwise, a runaway child should be returned to their parents.
October 26, 2009, 5:41 pmOrder of the Coif says:
If she’s in Florida at 18 she can get a pistol carry permit and put up a fight when they come to murder her. Maybe she’ll even take a few with her. That would appear to be a fair result.
October 26, 2009, 5:54 pmPatHMV says:
DangerMouse… Turning 18 has everything to do with it. She hasn’t been seeking a protective order, she’s been seeking permission to live somewhere else. When she turns 18, she can live wherever she wants; her family cannot legally stop her from going to live with the Florida pastor. Today, their parental rights allow them to do that. The only reason the government is involved in this case is because she is a minor.
October 26, 2009, 5:58 pmMike G in Corvallis says:
I wonder how much overlap there is between these two groups: people who think Rifqa Bary should be returned to her parents because she’s “just a child” and they’re sure that her fears are groundless, and people who argue for leniency for Roman Polanski because a 13-year-old girl was mature enough to have sex and “knew what she was geting into.”
Frankly, I don’t understand why (AFAIK) she hasn’t petitioned to be declared an emancipated minor.
October 26, 2009, 6:03 pmBored Lawyer says:
The girl said they threatened to kill her because of her religious conversion. Does that constitute “good reason to believe” in your book?
October 26, 2009, 6:05 pmMalvolio says:
Yeou’ve got a whole bunch of weight bearing down on that tiny word “good”. Look at the instant case: a minor claims she has been threatened with death. Other similarly situated parents have carried through on similar threats. Is that “good reason”? I would say so, except the situation — their being Muslims with apostate children — contains a “suspect category”. If the situation where slightly different, say, the parents were accused criminals whose child was scheduled to testify against them, I’d say, “no problem, better safe than sorry, the kid’s off to foster care”. As it is, I am uncomfortable (and I certainly hope a judge would uncomfortable) saying, “Well, they’re Muslims and that’s that Muslims do.”
In a somewhat similar situation, my great-grandparents had a daughter marrying outside their religion; they were Jews and did what Jews did then: they had a funeral for her. They skipped the step of actually killing her, for which I, as the girl’s grandson, am profoundly grateful.
Does the parents’ denying the allegation carry any weight? I suppose any parent crazy enough to repeat a death threat in court would be ipso facto an unfit parent, even if the threat were frivolous. However, I think the vast majority of parents who make such threat, especially sincerely, would be amoral enough to perjure themselves about it as well.
October 26, 2009, 6:20 pmDudeman says:
It isn’t like muslim parents are killing their daughters for being an apostate or being too westernized….well, not all that much.
October 26, 2009, 6:34 pmWhile I am not familiar with Florida specifically, typically in CHIPS cases there a fairly strict and quick time limits.
Steve says:
Look at the instant case: a minor claims she has been threatened with death. Other similarly situated parents have carried through on similar threats.
There are roughly 2 million Muslims in the United States. Roughly how many of them have killed their children for rejecting Islam?
Any time a minor claims her parents are going to kill her, a serious investigation is required. But giving those claims more credence because .01% of Muslims have done the same thing (or, better yet, “I’ve heard it happens all the time in Somalia!”) is not inferential reasoning, it is bigotry.
October 26, 2009, 6:36 pmR Gould-Saltman says:
“If she’s in Florida at 18 she can get a pistol carry permit and put up a fight when they come to murder her. Maybe she’ll even take a few with her. That would appear to be a fair result.”
Yo, Coif. When she’s 18, she’s not a minor. She can move, change her name, get married, enlist, get a job, and and do pretty much anything else she wants with her life. It’s pretty unlikely, notwithstanding your and Dangermouse’s fantasy, that a crack armed cadre of Sri Lankan Muslims is going to make the trip to Florida, there to engage in the shoot-out at the OK Corral, the Tampa 7-11, or whatever.
I’m going to go out on a limb here, and make an educated speculation that of the 2+ million Muslims Pew Research says there are presently in the US, some number of them are families with adolescent kids. I’m also prepared to bet money that the kids’ chafing at the disciplinary restrictions laid down by their parents is an ongoing source of conflict in some of those families.
Lo and behold, after all of this fuss, nobody’s come to court in Florida, or in Ohio, and said “Here’s some real evidence of risk: here’s a hundred, [or ten, or two] instances of Muslim parents’ killing their rebellious adolescent kids among the Muslim Sri Lankan community in Columbus Ohio, or [or in Columbus Ohio, generally, or Ohio, or the U.S.]. ”
Since there are those folks like Coif and Dangermmouse, who simply KNOW that there’s a risk (or in Coif’s case, a certainty) I’m guessing that if there were any real examples to be found, they would have found them.
. . . and I’m still waiting for some explanation, from anyone, how this kid thought that although she was able to wander around Columbus (including to that hotbed of apostate thought, The Ohio State University), and able to get on a bus to Florida, her parents were somehow still going to be able load her onto an international flight to Sri Lanka, over her objections. . . . and some explanation as to why she didn’t report any of the alleged threats and abuse to anyone between Ohio and Florida…
October 26, 2009, 6:54 pmptt says:
I’m betting on a made-for-TV movie…
October 26, 2009, 7:13 pmMalvolio says:
Steve is either joking or very bad at math. If .01% of Muslims killed their children, that would be 150,000 deaths worldwide, making “being a Muslim’s kid” about 30 times as dangerous as swine flu, which is apparently some kind of emergency. If one in 10,000 Muslims, or even one in 10,000 Muslims who have been accused of threatening their apostate children, killed their children, yes, that would in fact be cause for CPS to take immediate action.
(If such a horrendous statistic were true — which, I should emphasize, it isn’t — I would say to the other 99.99% who were falsely suspected, “Hey, join a less murderous religion.”)
October 26, 2009, 7:21 pmSandy MacHoots says:
Change the facts. Seventeen-year-old child of white-supremacist redneck parents flees, claiming her parents said they would kill her after she became pregnant by an African-American. They deny it. There are no corroborating witnesses. Statistics show that only .01% of white supremacist parents actually kill their children.
Do we send her back?
October 26, 2009, 7:57 pmOrder of the Coif says:
xxx
October 26, 2009, 8:00 pmOrder of the Coif says:
QUESTION: There are roughly 2 million Muslims in the United States. Roughly how many of them have killed their children for rejecting Islam?
ANSWER: Way too many.
R Gould-Saltman do your own Googling. Start with “Muslin, honor killing, USA” and go from there.
1 is happenstance, 2 is coincidence, 3 is enemy action. Connect 4 or more to a “religion” that endorses honor killings and you’ve got a pretty good circumstantial case even if the Imam doesn’t hold her hair as the father cuts off her head with a kitchen knife.
The magnitude of the harm is SO GREAT that the probability of it’s occurrence need not be large. It is just too risky for another 6 months of “family life.”
Muslim apologists, have you ever gone to a Middle Eastern web site and watched the new candidate sport for the Dubai Olympics … amateur beheading. It is ghastly to watch even for a military veteran and 20 year VFD paramedic.
OTOH, her lawyers should start an emancipation proceeding right now and ask for a stay of her return until the NEW case is decided. After all, emancipation will do her corpse no good.
October 26, 2009, 8:04 pmArthurKirkland says:
If that does not constitute ample (let alone adequate) reason, I assume you would have no objection to an effort to persuade your minor daughter to move into my fraternity’s chapter house. I have strong reason to believe the brothers (and, later, the pledges) would welcome her enthusiastically.
This thread demonstrates that the membrane separating this site from FreeRepublic is dangerously fragile in some spots.
October 26, 2009, 8:32 pmArthurKirkland says:
Perhaps someone could perform the research that would, by this standard, establish evangelical Christians as an enemy of the United States. The task should require roughly five minutes.
October 26, 2009, 8:34 pmEMG says:
What would constitute adequate evidence that her fear is valid? Why are some of you so willing to bet her life that state bureaucrats – social workers! – would necessarily be able to find such evidence, if it even exists? Do people who threaten murder always broadcast the threat to third parties? Do those third parties always inform law enforcement? The burden of proof you’re putting on her is insurmountable.
October 26, 2009, 8:46 pmSteverino says:
You people do realize that you’re talking about a practice that is actually legal in many Muslim countries? You don’t read about these cases because they simply don’t make the headlines. They are not crimes.
You do realize that if the family doesn’t kill the kid, the government will in the case of apostasy? Or have you forgotten the case of the Afghan man who was sentenced to death in 2006, before being allowed to leave the country when the Italians gave him asylum.
All four Sunni legal schools agree that apostasy is punishable by death. That it is obligatory upon Muslims to kill apostates. When a person who has reached puberty, and is sane, voluntarily leaves Islam, it is a Muslims religious duty to ask the apostate to return. If the apostate refuses, then the person is to be immediately killed.
We’re not talking about something that is aberrant behavior when we talk about Muslims killing apostates, even their own children. We’re talking about something that is a religious duty. We’re talking about something that is a cause for a death sentence under the law in many Muslim countries, and will at least get you imprisoned in a “moderate” country like Malaysia.
I’ve read the transcript of the police interview with Rifqa Bary. It is mind-numbing just how clueless these detectives are. Or many on this forum.
Obviously because she doesn’t think the clueless cops would believe her. And she is right. Apparently they, like many here, think it would be bigotry to actually grasp the reality of the situation.
Women in muslim societies are property. Nothing more. I’ve known far to many who have been forced into marriages despite all the trappings of freedom that lulls many of you into falsely believing that what they claim simply isn’t possible. That is part of the system that enslaves them. That’s why she thought her parents could load her onto a plane against her will; you’re not listening to her objections now. Why would she believe you would then, as you trip all over yourselves trying to prove how culturally sensitive you are. No doubt, she believes you’d be all too willing to help load her on that plane.
October 26, 2009, 8:54 pmKen Arromdee says:
The girl in this case isn’t claiming her parents are going to symbolically declare her dead; she’s worried that she’s going to be killed in a quite literal fashion. Pointing out that other people (in other belief systems) can have funerals without killing doesn’t imply that she too isn’t going to be killed.
October 26, 2009, 8:56 pmR Gould-Saltman says:
Hey-ho,Steverino [couldn't resist], YOU do realize that Sri Lanka isn’t a Muslim country?
October 26, 2009, 8:58 pmEMG says:
You don’t much follow the news from Ontario, I guess.
October 26, 2009, 9:03 pmMalvolio says:
Perhaps someone under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs. No (major) religion other than Islam prescribes death for apostasy. I think Mr Kirkland should spend his five minutes and find out no, evangelical Christians, do not murder their children as a matter of dogma. I suspect that church-going evangelical Christians have a lower level of filicide than the population as a whole (much lower if you count abortion).
Yes, actually, that was my point: most religions, indeed all religions but one, have ways — of varying effectiveness — to discourage apostasy that fall short of bloody murder. The problem, and it is a real, serious problem, is what do about the one that doesn’t.
October 26, 2009, 9:11 pmSteve says:
Okay, I think now we have all seen exactly what type of people are convinced that this girl’s parents intend to do her in.
October 26, 2009, 9:34 pmChrisTS says:
I believe the norm in any such case – whatever the religion of the parents – is for police, social workers, and psychologists to interview parents and minor child. As far as I know, that was done in this case.
A decision to place the minor in foster care near the parents’ home is a standard response when the determination is (a) that there is no genuine threat of harm to the minor and (b) there is such a degree of irreconcilability – especially for a minor near to majority – that no one will benefit from forcing the minor to return home. This is done whatever the underlying reason for the conflict might be.
By the way, I have known parents who told their kids “I’ll kill you if..” and I have known kids who believed it. In the latter cases, there is usually some history of what the rest of us think of as ‘violence’ and the family thinks of as ‘discipline.’
It has nothing to do with religion of any specific sort, although in my own experience it was the Catholic parents who were most violent in fact and in threat. Nonetheless, I would say that any claim that Catholic parents are more likely to harm their kids than parents of other or of no religious view is bigotry.
October 26, 2009, 10:44 pmOrder of the Coif says:
And what would that be?
October 26, 2009, 10:52 pmSarcastro says:
Yup, some Muslims are horrible. Indeed, some Muslim leaders are horrible. This means all Muslims are horrible! Clearly, we need to nuke Mecca like yesterday.
Also, all Catholics are Pro Life.
And no true Scotsman would buy Orin a beer!
October 26, 2009, 11:07 pmCareless says:
Yes, there are a significant amount of Muslims that try to apply death sentences to various crimes. Thing is, that’s very, very rare in the States. I can’t see any way that you can apply some sort of expectation here, especially when the American Muslim population has a really, really low rate of honor killings.
This really needs a lot more information to be talked about as a potential honor killing
October 26, 2009, 11:24 pmChrisTS says:
Not so careless, after all, eh? :-)
October 26, 2009, 11:37 pmClimax of Rifqa Bary Case | Crossroads Arabia says:
[...] This link goes to the police transcript of their original interview with Ms Bary. (HT, Volokh Conspiracy. Sadly, the comments on the Volokh post have attracted a few [...]
October 26, 2009, 11:43 pmOrder of the Coif says:
XXX
October 26, 2009, 11:58 pmSarcastro says:
Hawt
October 27, 2009, 12:45 amRicardo says:
On all of these threads, I have yet to see a single verified case within the United States of Muslim parents killing their American-born child for rejecting Islam. People like to bring up “honor killings” (a much overused term) but that’s irrelevant here as the girl was a cheerleader in high school and apparently had the complete support of her parents in this.
If anyone has any actual statistics concerning the number of American-born children killed by their parents in the U.S. for rejecting Islam, please post. Until then, I have to assume the percentage in a typical year is close to 0%.
By the way, in an average year, about 500 children are murdered by their parents overall within the U.S. according to the DOJ. How many of these 500 are Muslim (or, preferably, American-born Muslim) children murdered by their parents for straying from religion?
October 27, 2009, 1:14 amMalvolio says:
Aqsa Parvez
October 27, 2009, 2:15 amAmina and Sarah Said
Kandeela Sandal
Palestina Isa
Methal Dayem
Jawinder Kaur
Fauzia Mohammed
Sandeela Kanwal
Ricardo says:
Malvolio, the first three (and I suspect all of the rest) are alleged honor killings, not killings because a child converted from Islam. As I explicitly pointed out, honor killings have no relevance to the current case because the girl here lived, according to all external appearances, a normal Americanized life for years, including being a member of her high school’s cheerleading squad.
October 27, 2009, 2:25 amRicardo says:
I just noticed one of the names in the list of supposed Muslim apostate killings supplied by Malvolio is actually a Sikh name, Jawinder Kaur (Kaur is the female equivalent of Singh, a surname shared by all Sikh females). I suppose they are all the same to some people here.
October 27, 2009, 2:32 amSteverino says:
Yes, but only the Koran says that apostates deserve death. And that is one religion delivers upon the promise.
Not too often, I must admit. But only because the threats are effective. As one commentator asked, how is it Rifqa Bary thought that her parents could put her on a plane and send her off to an arranged marriage? The answer is, that’s what she’s been told since birth. Years of terrorization have their effect.
You only have to make good on the threat if someone doubts it. Any Mafia would know that.
Oh, and bye the way, I especially appreciated the insinuation that I don’t know Sri Lanka isn’t a Muslim country.
I’m sorry to admit I can’t fit the whole world into every post. I hate to discourage those who need the obvious highlighted for them. But I must.
October 27, 2009, 6:41 amRichard Aubrey says:
Ricardo:
October 27, 2009, 10:36 amHonor killings–for dating outside the faith, being too westernized, etc.–vs. apostasy.
Which do you think seems worse to the literalist Muslims?
Which is specifically addressed in Islamic scholarship with the penalty laid out all neat and clear?
It would seem that apostasy would attract more attention and generate a higher sense of duty (spit) than getting down with makeup and the Spirit Club.
And if becoming westernized will get you killed, it would seem apostasy will get you killed quicker.
Thing is, some of the honor killings were of women or girls who hadn’t left the faith, so there was no opportunity to kill them for apostasy. But they’re still dead.
ArthurKirkland says:
I do not contend that evangelical Christians murder their children as a matter of dogma — I contend they murder physicians and receptionists, using bullets and bombs, as a matter of dogma. They also establish organizations to cultivate murders and to safeguard murderers. In the United States, these religious killings steeped in Christian dogma appear to be more prevalent than religious killings of the type relevant to the Rifqa Bary case.
By the way, should not the adult male Floridian who hid a female minor from parents and police for weeks have been placed in a jail by now? If Florida authorities are not up to the task of enforcing the law in this context, federal intervention seems overdue.
October 27, 2009, 10:51 amMalvolio says:
You’re joking, right? “Sure, Bob killed the mailman and the iceman and the milkman, but that’s no reason to expect him to kill the UPS man!” The girls on that list were killed for minor doctrinal disagreements with their parents — not wearing a hajib, socializing with non-Muslims — you think that would give any comfort to someone having a severe doctrinal disagreements her parents?
I was working from a list of both Sikh and Muslim victims. I deleted the other Sikh names, but I missed one, so I must be a racist.
October 27, 2009, 11:01 amyarrrrr says:
NYTimes: “Dr. Tiller’s death is the first such killing of an abortion provider in this country since 1998, when Dr. Barnett Slepian was shot by a sniper in his home in the Buffalo area.”
Unwanted, alive, viable BABIES(not fetuses) are more likely to be MURDERED by a shady abortionist than an abortionist is to be shot by a Christian fundamentalist… and there is nothing that says Christians should murder abortionists…
October 27, 2009, 11:43 amDudeman says:
ArthurKirkland:
A simple google search will inform that Christians condemn Dr. Tiller’s murder, but why let facts get in the way of a cheap shot a Christians.
October 27, 2009, 12:11 pmArthurKirkland says:
Those must be different Christians than the ones who venerate Dr. Tiller’s murderer, or facilitated Eric Rudolph’s murderous crusade, or facilitated Clayton Waagner’s murderous plans, or celebrated Shelley Shannon’s crime, or supported Shannon’s hero, murderer Michael Griffin?
Scott Roeder’s supporters are said to be arranging an eBay auction — featuring his Army of God manual, and a cookbook developed by Shelley Shannon, who shot Dr. Tiller years ago — to raise money to benefit Mr. Roeder.
If you are arguing that an entire religion should not be condemned because some religiously motivated nuts take dogma as a prescription for violence, you might have a point.
October 27, 2009, 12:40 pmR Gould-Saltman says:
Hey-Ho, Steverino:
When you say, in response to a discussion of a threat to send a kid “back to Sri Lanka”, and whether that constitutes a plausible threat of death:
“You people do realize that you’re talking about a practice that is actually legal in many Muslim countries? You don’t read about these cases because they simply don’t make the headlines. They are not crimes.
You do realize that if the family doesn’t kill the kid, the government will in the case of apostasy? ”
it at least supports an inference that you believe that Sri Lanka is one of “many Muslim countries”, and that “the government” of Sri Lanka might “kill the kid” for “apostacy” from Islam.
Last I checked, Islam is a minority religion in Sri Lanka, and the government of Sri Lanka, whatever else it may be doing for good or ill, is not enforcing Sharia.
October 27, 2009, 12:48 pmrj says:
If I ran away every time one of my parents said, “if you do [X], I swear to God I’d kill you,” most of my high school career would be spent in court or foster homes.
What is missing here is that while we have no idea whether the parents were serious (and given how assimilated she seemed to be while living at home, I’m not convinced). Also, there’s a second factor: the preacher who harbored this young woman. As many of the commenters here have proven, stereotypes and hysteria allow people to make judgments about individual cases without learning the facts or hearing both sides of the story.
Clearly, the preacher has a lot to gain – if he hasn’t passed the (virtual or literal) collection plate around for this, he will soon. He’s certainly increased his media profile.
This isn’t to say that there isn’t merit here, and it isn’t saying that the preacher is lying or exaggerating. I’m just unconvinced that we know enough about this family to say anything that doesn’t fall back on generalizations.
October 27, 2009, 1:49 pmCrackmonkeyjr says:
I would need to know much more than that. One interested, juvenile witnesses testimony is hardly enough to decide a case under most standards of proof (and I would assume the standard of proof would be high before relieving parents of custody of their child).
I don’t really know the facts here, but my point is that the reason for their alleged threats are irrelevant. If there is good reason to believe that parents are credibly threatening to kill their child, it doesn’t matter if its based on their religion, their dating preferences, how they are doing in school or whether they will clean there room, the kid should be put someplace safe. The converse is also true.
October 27, 2009, 3:25 pmCrackmonkeyjr says:
My point doesn’t really have to do with how high to set the burden of proof, that is for another discussion. My point is that religion is a red herring in this discussion. Set the standard of proof somewhere, then decide if the allegations of the parents threats meet that standard of proof.
The fact that apostasy is punishable by death in under certain interpretations of Islam, and that this is still practiced by certain groups of Muslims is relevant, but unless you can show that these parents buy into that interpretation and are likely to carry out their threats, it isn’t really all that relevant. Keep in mind that Leviticus calls for stoning people for plenty of minor infractions and we don’t take away Jewish children from their parents just because they did “work” on Saturday.
October 27, 2009, 3:40 pmRichard Aubrey says:
Crackmonkey.
October 27, 2009, 4:52 pmRef Leviticus and stoning.
We don’t have a recent history of Jews stoning anybody for anything, much less the strictures in Leviticus.
Different situation.
Crackmonkeyjr says:
My point is that just because a punishment is in a religion’s holy book doesn’t mean that adherents to that religion still follow it.
October 27, 2009, 4:57 pmEMG says:
Eugene,
I’d like to repeat my question from your Sept. 4 post on this topic, which you didn’t take up at the time, in the hope you will now:
I think the issue of burden of proof is also relevant in this regard. Nobody, these days, demands “good reason” to believe that an adult woman’s husband (or other relative) is a danger to her before allowing her to move out. (I am deliberately ignoring, and ask anyone who responds to me to also ignore, complicating issues with restraining orders and child custody/access to property; what’s clear is, she doesn’t need to prove anything to anyone in order to exercise her own established preference about where to live.)
October 27, 2009, 5:03 pmSteverino says:
If you are arguing that an entire religion should not be condemned because some religiously motivated nuts take dogma as a prescription for violence, you might have a point.
October 27, 2009, 5:45 pmCrackmonkeyjr says:
Having a “persistent opinion” isn’t really a good standard, 3-year-olds can have persistent opinions on things and most people would agree that we should generally not defer to them. There is a case made that the state should not be allowed to “tell anyone capable of having a rational opinion on the matter whom they have to make their home with.” The question then becomes how to determine if someone is capable of being rational.
Again most people would agree that at birth, we are not capable of making rational decisions, that our ability to make rational decisions generally increases with age, and that people in their 50s are generally capable of making rational decisions (there are, of course, exceptions at least to the later to statements). This leaves open the question of how to determine when someone is enough unlike a 3-year-old and enough like a 50-year-old to start making decisions that the state should defer to. There are arguments on both sides as to whether this should be a bright-line test (e.g. at a certain age) or a more subjective test (e.g. you prove to someone that you are capable of rational decision making). One argument in favor of a bright-line test is that what constitutes a “rational decision” is so open to interpretation that using a subjective test would lead to vastly different results depending on the tester and would open itself up to serious abuse. In any case, for most purposes, in the U.S., we use the bright-line test.
The next question is, before you can make your own decisions, who gets to decide for you. For a variety of reasons, including the reason that we generally trust parents to look out for their children’s best interest, we default to the parents, until such time as they show that they are not looking out for their children’s best interest (and we usually require this showing to be quite objective).
To sum this up, we typically don’t listen to teenagers about where they want to live for the same reason that we don’t ask three-year-olds if they would prefer to eat vegetables or birthday cake – because they tend to come up with stupid answers to the question.
October 27, 2009, 5:47 pmSteverino says:
My point is that just because a punishment is in a religion’s holy book doesn’t mean that adherents to that religion still follow it.
October 27, 2009, 5:52 pmEMG says:
Crackmonkeyjr, you’re begging the question. It’s not that I don’t understand current doctrine; restating it isn’t an argument.
You don’t think a three-year-old’s* – or a seventeen year old’s – reasons are good enough. But what you don’t give is a reason why their reasons should have to be good enough for you (or for the relevant agent of the state). A fifty-year-old may have reasons that are patently irrational and crappy, but we don’t withhold her freedom on that basis. There are classes of people whose preferences about where to live are measured against “rationality”, and those who are free to live with whomever they please, however indisputably irrational it may be. So it can’t be rationality itself that’s the reason for distinguishing the classes. Rather, it’s some hidden premise about the inherent rights of various classes of people, and that’s what I’m trying to bring out.
*[The three-year-old example is spurious. Not only do three-year-old's never want to leave non-abusive parents, they often don't even want to leave abusive ones. And we're not talking about cases where children have to be unwillingly removed for their own protection. And where a three-year-old does have an established preference in conflict with some adult's "right" - such as the miserable toddlers we see on the news every few years, screaming and clinging to the only parents they know in defiance of a court order to reverse an adoption or such - well, I don't advise you to stake your argument on the justice of such scenarios! We keep being told that parental "rights" exist for the benefit of the children, but when cases like this come up, parental rights are preserved even at the cost of making the children deeply (even if only subjectively and "irrationally") miserable. Kind of like the rights of a husband in the nineteenth century.]
October 27, 2009, 6:22 pmRichard Aubrey says:
Crack monkey.
October 27, 2009, 6:46 pmPoint is, we do have a recent history of Muslims following their holy book in that they kill apostates.
Maybe I’m not being clear enough on the difference.
The references in the Holy Book, whichever it is, are one thing. Whether the adherents are paying active attention is another….
Nope. Don’t think that will work, either.
davod says:
John D. Guandolo,at the Center for Security Policy, a 12 ½ year veteran of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, reviewed the report of Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s investigation of the parents.
I recommend you read the complete report.
Also included at the link is the FDLE report.
4. This is a statement of facts regarding this matter:
There are requirements in Islamic Law regarding someone who deserts Islam.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s objective is the implementation of Islamic Law in the United States.
Rifqa Bary has left Islam and become a Christian.
Rifqa Bary has made statements to FDLE officials and others that her parents have threatened to kill her because she has left Islam.
The Bary’s appear to be adherent to Islamic Law.
The Bary’s appear at an interview with two Muslim Brotherhood representatives doing business as CAIR, a group known to be hostile towards the United States which is also an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism financing trial in U.S. history.
The Muslim Brotherhood supports the killing of Muslims who publicly leave Islam
5. It is my professional opinion that sufficient Probable Cause exists to believe that Ms Bary’s concerns for her personal safety are based in a realistic and factual understanding of her situation, and, therefore, a further criminal investigation is warranted.
You might also be interested in the transcript of the
October 27, 2009, 7:13 pmFDLE interview of Rifqa Bary.
Richard Aubrey says:
The two CAIR guys: Attorneys? Moral support? Leg breakers?
October 27, 2009, 8:58 pmIOW, why were they there and does it have a bearing?
crackmonkeyjr says:
Take on faith? no. But considering how much diversity there is in belief among people who worship from the same holy book, and how frequently people seem to flat out ignore or reinterpret certain portions of scripture that appear outdated, I’m not willing to take a person’s holy book as particularly strong evidence of what they really believe.
October 27, 2009, 9:32 pmRichard Aubrey says:
crackmonkey.
October 27, 2009, 11:30 pmSuppose an alarming number of them do what they’re told to do in their founding documents?
Seems we have two issues here–think I tried this before–one which is the existence of an instruction in the book and one which is following that instruction sometime in the last, say, week.
That’s different, but this is just me, from an instruction that nobody follows in a book some years old.
nyccine says:
Um, you do realise that this statement only makes sense if 100% of Islamic children leave the faith, correct?
October 28, 2009, 6:36 amdavod says:
“The two CAIR guys: Attorneys? Moral support? Leg breakers?
IOW, why were they there and does it have a bearing?”
The FDLE Summation of Activities, includes the following:
“Mr. Babak Darvish, Executive Director of the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Columbus and Mr. Romin Iqbal, Staff Attorney for CAIR OHIO were present.”
WRT punishment for leaving Islam. Mr. Bary and Mr. Iqbal said this:
“On August 27, 2009, Mr. Bary was asked if there was any Islamic punishment for conversion from Islam to Christianity. Mr. Bary answered “absolutely not” and “there is no such thing as honor killing.” An attorney present at the time, Mr. Romin Iqbal, characterized the concept as cultural and tribal, not related directly to the Islamic religious practice.”
Additionally:
“He (Mr. Bary)stated that(If she returned)because she is still under age and living in his home he believed she should continue to study and practice Islam.”
The FDLE had this to say about its enquiry into possible threats from the Islamic community:
“The Islamic community was not investigated. An investigation into any person, religious or social organization without a specific identifiable criminal predicate is inappropriate. Investigators checked with the local, state and federal law enforcement communities in the Columbus, Ohio and Orlando, Florida areas and have not been made aware of any identifiable threat to Ms. Bary or the Bary family regarding this allegation.”
Contrast the FDLE statement to the INVESTIGATION AND INTELLIGENCE MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF PETITION FOR DEPENDENCY concerning the Noor Islamic Center, the Bary’s Mosque.
I recommend reading the full petition. However, the following is included:
“Regardless of the moderate sentiments and beliefs of the majority of Muslims in Central Ohio, the extensive evidence presented herein concerning the ideology promoted by this specific mosque and its direct connection and relationship to the Bary family should be given considerable weight to this court and to the State of Florida in its consideration of this case…
…Considering Mohammad Diini’s education at the extremist Institute for Arabic and Islamic Sciences; his spiritual leadership position at the extremist Dar Al-Hijrah mosque in the Washington D.C.-area; his current public support of the two imams at the center of the largest counterterrorism investigation since 9/11; and his current position as Somali youth leader at the Noor Center, adds to the present concern of returning Rifqa Bary to a religious atmosphere directly connected to her family that features so many elements of extremism and promotion of terrorism and violence.
With leadership directly tied to international extremist organizations, such as the Muslim Brotherhood; the direct and ongoing spiritual influence of well-documented extremists, such as Salah Sultan and Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, who openly associate with designated international terrorists and have promoted violence in their teachings; that regular features speakers who aggressively promote radical Islamic interpretations; and with the Noor Center officials actively and openly supporting individuals who are the focus of the current nationwide FBI investigation into terrorist recruitment in the U.S., it is not only reasonable, but prudent to assume that the Noor Islamic Cultural Center represents a specific and identifiable threat to Rifqa Bary’s safety if she were returned to her family in the Columbus area.”
October 28, 2009, 10:03 amRichard Aubrey says:
nyccine.
October 28, 2009, 11:22 amNot sure I follow.
Could be a presumption that .01% of Muslim kids leave the faith and are all killed.
Could be a presumption that an unknown number of Muslim kids leave the faith and enough are killed to amount to the 150,000.
Let’s presume there are 300,000,000 Muslim kids. 100,000,000 are of an age to think about leaving the faith.
One percent do. That’s one million. It would seem unlikely that 15% of them are killed.
One and a half percent? Considering that we’re talking about the entire world and not merely the US. Beyond the bounds of reason?
Consider further that we could usefully presume that not only parents are involved, but extended family–which we see in honor killings–or unrelated thugs from the local mosque. If we restrict it to parents, yeah, it could be a pretty low number, lower than 150,000. But not zero. IMO, the restriction is artificial and not useful, considering the kid in question is considering his or her chances in the world at large, or at least the township, not simply her parents’ atavistic urges.
Stretching them. But not busting them.
Malvolio says:
Well, it’s literally true as written. In context, yes, it would be fair to consider what kind of behavior would trigger murder in that murderous fraction. Examples from the US include not only full apostasy, but also lesser offenses like refusing to wear a hijab or having non-Muslim friends. That consideration would bring the number down to, what, 50,000?
Even at that level, I believe and hope (but do not know for sure) that Steve was greatly over-estimating the size of the cohort involved.
October 28, 2009, 11:28 amEStanson says:
I have watched this case closely. I have several children, I am married to a Muslim, I am a teacher working specifically with troubled children and have worked extensively with several Muslim families, one of which was African American, the others various nationalities. I am concerned about the particular groups of Christians that this poor girl is connected with–they are outside of mainstream Christianity and are even suspect in most Evangelical Christian circles. Miss Bary’s comments, as reported on various websites and legitimate news venues, grow progressively more dramatic and hysterical. The people supporting her make some fairly outlandish comments that make me raise my eyebrows and doubt their own stability. I have concluded that they are using her, that they are manipulating her understanding of her parents (not hard to do when there is conflict in a family with teenagers) and have helped her get to a point where she has made tremendously public lies that would be nearly impossible for a more mature person to gracefully take back, let alone a troubled, confused young girl. Some of the accusations (such as the mosque her family attends occasionally being a hotbed of terrorists) have been denied by agencies such as the FBI. Do you believe a 17 year old girl backed by end time fringe Christians or an established government agency? Children can and do make up scary stories of abuse and can and do work themselves into hysterical states of mind where they half believe what they’re saying. They can cause a lot of damage to their families and need help to keep reality in sight.
Please consider the possibility that the majority of Muslims can and do contextualize the more dramatic phrases in the Qu’ran in a way that is much the same as how Christians and Jews contextualize the Bible that has more than a few phrases calling for the killing of apostates or how Catholics don’t follow the conclusion of St. Augustine that apostates should be killed. Consider that this family is part of that mainstream of Muslims that doesn’t call for blood, that their family and community culture isn’t cruel. Consider the possibility that this girl is trapped by the situation she and others have created.
And who in the world is this Pamela Geller woman? Atlas Shrugged? Funny how Evangelical Christians and an Ayn Rand fan can team up when it suits them. Gives me chills.
I’m worried that no matter what, this girl will not have a normal life. She’s made a mess of things and an emotional ‘Christian’ group with a strange thought process is helping her make a bigger mess.
I’m so sorry that this poor girl chose the avenue she did. I don’t think her life is in danger, but I do think her quality of life is.
November 15, 2009, 11:52 am