Not even a World Away

It's crazy how the universe works. Call it fortune or fate. You can't decide what kind of life you're born into. Once you're in that life, yes you can choose what to make of it (to an extent). But, you can't choose your parents.. you can't choose your ethnicity.. you can't choose the country you live in.

I am very fortunate and grateful that by the grace of God, I have the parents I have. I am Filipino, a race not highly praised, nor out-rightly ridiculed. I was born in the United States of America. I could easily have been born in 3rd world Philippines, had my father not opted for the US Navy. Life could be a complete 180 degrees from where I am not.

To hear about things like the following in the news is to some very primitive, inhumane.. but all the same must be respected.

A woman in Iran is sentenced to be executed because she is an adulterer.

If that law were applicable here.. Boy oh boy. Marriage and cheating would take on a whole new respect and a whole new meaning. The population would drop ten fold.

It just goes to show that there is such a different level of respect for a partner, for marriage, and for love here in the United States. I find our attitudes of relationships here much more lax. I, for one, will never engage in such mentality.

It just goes to show that a meaningful relationship between two people can't naturally be seen as sacred anymore. It needs to be beat into a person.. or just turned to the other cheek.

For your reference-

Punishment by stoning explained
Under Iran's penal code, adultery is a "crime against God" for both men and women. It is punishable by 100 lashes for unmarried men and women, but married offenders are sentenced to death by stoning under Article 83.

Adultery must be proven either by repeated confession by the defendant, or the testimony of witnesses - four men or three men and two women. However, the law also allows judges in "hodud", or morality, crimes such as adultery to use their own "knowledge" to determine the case in place of direct evidence. This happened in Ms Mohammadi-Ashtiani's case.

The penal code is also specific about the manner of execution and types of stones which should be used. Article 102 says men should be buried up to their waists and women up to their breasts, and Article 104 states that the stones used should "not be large enough to kill the person by one or two strikes; nor should they be so small that they could not be defined as stones".

What is death by stoning?
The prisoner is buried either up to his waist (if male) or up to her shoulders (if female) and then pelted with stones by a crowd of volunteers until obviously battered to death. Under the terms of most fundamentalist courts, the stones must be small enough that death cannot reasonably be expected to result from only one or two blows, but large enough to cause physical harm. The average execution by stoning is extremely painful, lasting at least 10 to 20 minutes. (Tom Head, author of Civil Liberties: a beginner's guide)