Terry said:
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I was trying to use those women as examples of the culture Americans often seem to want to export.
Indeed you did. You mentioned four females as examples of a pernicious American culture that makes America hated abroad, but you didn't mention a single male person. I can only conclude, Terry, that just like so many conservative Muslims, you too think that the "shamelessness of women" poses a great threat to society. It is not too farfetched to conclude that you would like to rein in and control women, perhaps in a way reminiscent of how the Arab-Muslim culture reins in and controls the overwhelming majority of its women. (I note that you felt sympathy, or at least understanding, for the frustration of the Arab man who might contemplate honor-killing his daughter for imitating Lady Gaga.)

Of course I can't know that you want to control women in the same way that women are controlled in Muslim countries, but your reasoning at least supports the possibility that this is what you would like to do.

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Dr. Falwell did not advocate a theological takeover of the government. What he advocated was that men and women with Biblical values be the ones who make the laws and the judicial decisions in the US. D'Souza advocates much the same thing.
It is not for me to say what sort of government America should have. However...

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And I can hear the objection already. "If those Bible-believing people get into government, then the preachers will run the country through them!" Not if they stick to Biblical values, because the Bible is available to everyone, and everyone can open it and point to a passage which will either support or refute a particular preacher's opinion.
As you know, Terry, I have read the Bible quite carefully, particularly the passages that have to do with the treatment and general standing of women. I think that there is very little in the Bible that is not compatible with the often very harsh treatment of women in the Muslim world.

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Could the Bible be used to make Christian women veil themselves? No, not if we are talking about face-covering veils like this one, but other kinds of veils, certainly. There are definitely biblical passages that require women to dress modestly, and in Corinthians 11, Paul demands that women cover their heads, at least when they pray:

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6If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head. 7A man ought not to cover his head,[b] since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man.
It should be noted that the Koran does not explicitly demand that women must cover their heads. So the Bible is no better than the Koran in this matter.

So what about polygamy?

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Would the Bible allow a man to have four wives, in the same way that Muslim men are allowed to have four wives? Certainly! The New Testament doesn't explicitly allow it, but nowhere does it forbid it, either.

What about woman's obedience to her husband?

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Could the Bible be used to require women to obey their husbands? Oh, yes! Paul goes on about woman's duty to obey her husband over and over in his letters!

But surely honor killings could never be justified by the Bible?

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Actually, it is at least possible that the Bible could be used to legitimize honor killings. In Genesis 38, Judah orders his widowed daughter-in-law Tamar to be executed, because she has become pregnant without his permission. The fact that he spares her life has little do with the fact that he finds proof that he himself is in fact the father of her child(ren), and it is more a consequence of an obscure Israeli law that gave a widow like Tamar the right to ask for a child by one of her husband's relatives under certain circumstances.

Even more interesting is a passage in Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 22:13-21, which actually requires that a new bride who does not bleed on her wedding night sheet must be stoned to death by the men in her town. Didn't Jesus repeal that law when he saved the woman accused of adultery? Not necessarily. First, Jesus didn't say that the stoning of women would be forbidden from now on. And second, some scholars question whether that passage about Jesus and the widow is authentic at all, or if it is a made-up addition to the Gospels.

Could a girl be sure that she would be allowed to choose her own husband in a society ruled by the Bible?

An arranged marriage

The Bible makes it very clear that arranged marriages were the custom in those days, and nowhere does it say that such an arrangement is forbidden. The Bible also doesn't contain a single story of a young girl who defies her father by refusing to marry the suitor he has chosen for her. So if we are to live like they do in the Bible, arranged marriages would be a natural thing.

In a society ruled by the Bible, Terry, women would not necessarily have any more rights than they have in a typical Muslim society.

Ann