Keep religions out of politics and civil laws
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A belated Selamat Hari Raya to all Malaysians – I’ve been away on personal matters, to attend a funeral, that for the father of my friend – more about this much later in another post.
Today, on reading The Malaysian Insider I was intrigued by an article The adulteress, the accusers, politics and Afizal, written by Rama Ramanathan. It’s about the inexplicable unprecedented Appeals Court judgement in the case of rapist Noor Afizal Azizan, where the word ‘consensual sex’ was even raised and shockingly, accepted in a charge of statutory rape.
‘Consensual sex’ means both parties (in the case discussed in this post, included one mere 13 year old) had agreed to have sex with each other.
It shows the pathetic pariah-ish poverty of our legal system where the term ‘consensual sex’ was allowed to be employed in a case of statutory rape, in which one person, 13 years of age, was well below the age required to legally consent to the act. In fact, in statutory rape, unlike forcible rape, there is no requirement to prove force or threat preceded or was involved in the rape. The laws automatically presume coercion, because a minor or an adult who doesn’t have normal mental capacity is legally incapable of giving consent to the act.
Perhaps Ramanathan was teasing the readers into drawing a parallel between the court releasing the rapist on a bond of RM25,000 (thus compassionately forgiving him for his crime) instead of jailing him for raping a minor, with the biblical story of Jesus saving a female adulterer from being stoned.
While some bibles do not include the verses of this tale, some do, like the King James version (KJV), which tells us (no worries, this is not a biblical lesson for I’m an atheist wakakaka, but merely an essential component of my post):
And early in the morning He came again into the Temple, and all the people came unto Him; and He sat down, and taught them.
And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto Him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, They say unto Him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the Law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest Thou?
This they said, tempting Him, that they might have to accuse Him.
But Jesus stooped down, and with His finger wrote on the ground, as though He heard them not. So when they continued asking Him, He lifted up Himself, and said unto them, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”
And again He stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
When Jesus had lifted up Himself, and saw none but the woman, He said unto her, “Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee?”
She said, “No man, Lord.”
And Jesus said unto her, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” (John 8:2-11 KJV)
