The Orca’s Thumb

A 13 year old girl was stoned to death for adultery in Somalia.

What’s especially appalling is that the murderers weren’t driven by a fundamental human need. They didn’t kill her because they were defending themselves, or because they were starving, or because she had some real power that could harm them.

She was killed because she offended their sense of sexual propriety: She was a 13 year old girl who had been raped by three men.

You could argue that this was driven by Islamic delusions, that this was simply the act of a primitive society. Yet the same impulse is at work right here in our society as well.

Those people who voted yes on Proposition 8 in California were simply performing a slightly more civilized version of casting a stone at those who offend their moral and religious sense of propriety.