Speaking of fundamentalist religious insanity... From PZ comes the news of the site MarryOurDaughter.com, where you can whorepimpenslavesell Biblically engage your young teen daughter to any worthy man who can pony up the money! This site has to be a joke, right? [Update: It is, but the point I make below still stands...] Look at the testimonials:
“Our 15 year old daughter Mary wasn’t very popular and did nothing but mope around the house bringing everybody down, so we decided to marry her off through your site. Now our house is a lot cheerier and we love our new swimming pool and Jaccuzi [sic]! We’ve told our youngest that when she turns 15 we’re going to marry her off too!" —Mrs. James P.
I mean, c'mon. It has to be a joke! But there's the funny thing: even with sites like Landover Baptist and Jesus' General, it's still really hard to distinguish complete over-the-top sarcasm and satire from real fundamentalist lunacy. When you have people -- and I use that term loosely -- like the truly evil and sick Fred Phelps, then how can you ever satirize fundamentalist religion again? But then, the Bible does say you can sell your daughters. But who would ever take the Bible word-for-word literally? Sigh. And yes, I know other religions have incredibly foolish notions about arranged marriages, selling women, and the like. I will say this out loud and squarely: any institution -- government, religion, or otherwise -- that treats women as anything less than men should be derided and humiliated publicly, and not issued a deferment because of any notion of social relativism. Anyone who treats 50%+ of the population -- or any percentage, no matter how small -- as chattel should be taunted out of existence.
