Charlie Fuqua, a Republican candidate for the Arkansas House of Representatives, wrote a book called (frighteningly) God’s Law. It’s not a satire; he really thinks there is such a thing and that he knows about it. One item of god’s law is that rebellious children should be subject to the death penalty.
The Huffington Post quotes from the book via The Arkansas Times.
The maintenance of civil order in society rests on the foundation of family discipline. Therefore, a child who disrespects his parents must be permanently removed from society in a way that gives an example to all other children of the importance of respect for parents. The death penalty for rebellious children is not something to be taken lightly. The guidelines for administering the death penalty to rebellious children are given in Deut 21:18-21:
This passage does not give parents blanket authority to kill their children. They must follow the proper procedure in order to have the death penalty executed against their children. I cannot think of one instance in the Scripture where parents had their child put to death. Why is this so? Other than the love Christ has for us, there is no greater love then [sic] that of a parent for their child. The last people who would want to see a child put to death would be the parents of the child. Even so, the Scrpture [sic] provides a safe guard to protect children from parents who would wrongly exercise the death penalty against them. Parents are required to bring their children to the gate of the city. The gate of the city was the place where the elders of the city met and made judicial pronouncements. In other words, the parents were required to take their children to a court of law and lay out their case before the proper judicial authority, and let the judicial authority determine if the child should be put to death. I know of many cases of rebellious children, however, I cannot think of one case where I believe that a parent had given up on their child to the point that they would have taken their child to a court of law and asked the court to rule that the child be put to death. Even though this procedure would rarely be used, if it were the law of land, it would give parents authority. Children would know that their parents had authority and it would be a tremendous incentive for children to give proper respect to their parents.
See he’s not really urging that children should be executed. He’s just saying there should be a law on the books that would allow them to be executed for not giving proper respect to their parents. Moderation itself.
So killing a bratty child who already has physical autonomy is cool but aborting a fetus is murder?
#1 Just say the fetus was kicking the mother and there you go, a biblical excuse.
Because I am really seven, I have to ask: is his name pronounced the way I think it is? If so, that’s super appropriate.
I’m not familiar with that surname, how should I pronounce it? I’m thinking the first “u” is short and the second is silent so it would come out as “fuh-ka”. Yeah, I’m going with that.
@3 Ah, so it’s not just me then.
I’d rather have the humour of a seven year old than the morals of Mr Fuqua.
@1 – Silly weasel: human rights end the moment a child is born. How else can you explain the obsession of the Moral Right for preserving the pre-born, only to gleefully throw them into the streets with no education, no food and no medical care?
Two sics in a single page, and that doesn’t include “safe guard” (which should probably be safeguard)?
Okay, so that rung a warning bell. I looked up the book on Amazon. Its published by “American Book Publishing,” which, just from googling, appears to be either a vanity press or scam publishing firm (or a combination of both), as there are several links of the “beware of this publisher, they charge huge sums and don’t turn anyone away” variety.
So, no surprise, its not so much a book about law or religion, as it is some rich guy’s self-promoted monograph.
Ugh. There’s… nothing good to say about this. What an awful person.
What exactly (other than atheism) would disqualify a candidate from public elected office in Arkansas*?
*Substitute Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, the Carolinas, Georgia, Oklahoma, or Texas as needed.
I sincerely hope Fuqua does not have any children.
What if the fetus is disobedient?
There’s a major street in southeast Houston named Fuqua. Folks here usually say “few-kwah” or “foo-kwah”.
But back to the OP, this fuquer is just plain nuts.
Does the Republican Party (federal or state) not do any vetting of its candidates at all? Do they just get them day passes from the psych ward?
(No offence intended to the mentally ill.)
Shame on you all! Fuqua, Akin, Perry, Santorum et al are doing a lot more than Benson, Dawkins, Dennett, Harris et al combined to swell the ranks of non-believers. What are you complaining about?
subscribing
Why should children automatically respect their parents? What if their parents are contemptuous assholes?
Mum has to take her foetus to the gates of the city and consult the elders. They will advise her that people should only be killed after they’re born.
While his views are absurd, at least he appears to genuinely not want to carry out the punishment. He reminds me of Talmudic ‘reasoning’ actually, have a law pro forma so as not to contradict god, but then find reasons to never carry it out.
Also while it is fun to mock him, his views appear to be held up as contemptible in a local Arkansas paper. This is not some trend to worry about.
On the other hand, he’s also all for expelling Muslims from the U.S., so I can see Select having some trouble figuring out whether he likes this guy or not.
Nepenthe, I believe there was once a “d” on the end of “Fuqua,” but it fell silent and was eventually dropped.
Rebekah, you might want to do a little research on Christian Dominionism before you decide that people like this aren’t a threat at all.
Rebekah, don’t issue instructions on what to worry about, ok?
Ophelia – careful, Rebekah doesn’t like it when people disagree with her.
Any minute now she’ll be saying that you’re a Muslim-loving anti-Semite, and that your brain has been poisoned by the twin evils of “leftism” and anti-racism.
I cannot fathom how any American can fail to be. terrified by this upswing in religious conservatism, especially so close to the elections. With actual government officials, elektdd representatives, who believe in forced birth, blood atonement, creationism and Christian dominion, the country k!could well be heading toward a new Dark Ages.
Excuse the spelling errors, please!
My new medications are playing havoc with my phone typing.
No, I know she doesn’t. She’s on thin ice…
Sigh. So now giving my opinion on the relative threat of Christian conservatives is the same as issuing “instructions”. You are just trying to find fault with me. I am waiting for you to actually disagree with one of my ideas instead of constantly faulting my attitude.
Please anyone, present evidence that there is a growing movement to enact these Torah-based punishments in American law and that a growing segment of the American electorate with some chance of forming a majority support this move.
I contend America has always had a minority segment of these religious fundamentalists (a segment that has probably shrunk in absolute terms over the past few decades) and given the narrow party politics of the US (not that the UK is much better) it is inevitable these fringe elements will show up in one party or another.
As I noted he was in the initial link being held up for condemnation by a newspaper in his own rather conservative state. I googled his name and the governor was condemning him and his own party was refusing him more funds:
http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article.aspx?aID=133249.54928.145390.
Must he be drawn and quartered before the threat is sufficiently answered to sate the lowest panic threshold of leftist fears?
***
No Light attacks me for calling out a tired change-the-subject response (to Haredi in Israel) in an article on Islamic misogyny. When Islam is at issue, the standard far left response is to start screaming about some Western subject. I noticed when the Haredi were the actual subject of an article a few days later, No Light did not change the subject to Islam. That speaks volumes.
Ms. Daisy Cutter, Vile Human Being, attacks Select, whose posts seem a perfectly decent articulation of liberal values. Of course I have seen her lecturing us on how Muslims are “brown” (the racial essentialism of the far left never ceases to amaze me) and thus any criticism is verboten. Her linking Select to this rightwinger is just a typical strawman smear when one has no actual rebuttal.
Rebekah, the Arrogant, Condescending, Pompous Jew #24
We don’t have to try very hard. Your contemptuous sneering at everyone else makes it difficult to take you seriously.
Does the name “Tea Party” mean anything to you?
I see those famous reading comprehension skills of yours are hard at word. Your hyperbole of “everyone else” and “everyone who isn’t her” (from the “Stuff of Nightmares” thread) ignores that I have defended Select from unfair criticism in both threads today (and that is despite the fact that Select has criticised me in the past). I would even defend you if you actual made some substantive point with which I agreed.
Still you are clearly so embarrassed by your false attack in the FGM thread that you can think of no response but attacking me anytime I dare comment. Just apologise already and move along.
Since even a cursory analysis of that phenomenon shows that their only shared value was a vague opposition to “government”, your comment is again telling of the level of thought you put into matters. Provide me proof for example that the large libertarian and isolationist contingent of that movement were on board with Christian nationalist policy.
I’m very uncomfortable when I see ethnic slurs directed at someone, even if I happen to disagree with that person’s stance. It takes away from any salient argument against that individuals ideas. Referring to someone’s ethnicity mockingly is different from that person doing it to themselves.
Rabidtreeweasel, I appreciate the sentiment but Rodney’s “Rebekah, the Arrogant, Condescending, Pompous Jew” did not bother me in the least. I constructed my name to sneer at the antisemitic tropes of Jewish deviousness and control that are disturbingly alive and well on parts of the left.
Rodney is just upset because he did not carefully read some of my posts on FGM. I took issue with some false statements and he mistook that, despite my explicitly stating that I am a member of two NGOs fighting FGM, as my defending the practice. Instead of apologising, he has mostly just spewed meaningless venom at me.
Rebekah- As has already been pointed out to you, my comment about haredim was an addition to the growing phenomenon of religious extremism across all three Abrahamic religions.
Women are being silenced, degraded, erased and reduced to ambulatory uteruses. State-sponsored extremism is blossoming. Fundamentalist groups such as the wahabi and deoband, the haredim, and the dominionists are using their influence to affect legislation that will benefit them and restrict the rights of everyone else.
Religion is a cancer, and it’s rarely the initial tumour that kills. It’s the metastases, growing quietly undercover, that eventually lead to death. Muslim, Jewish and Christian extremism are metastases. While the main tumour may be withering and dying, the mets are resistant to the curative therapies (education, equality, direct experience of “the other”) and are blossoming, like black roses, fed on a diet of ignorance and isolation.
Also, WRT your whinging about me not mentioning Muslims on the post about haredim erasing women, why should I? Anyone who hasn’t been in the Mariana Trench for the last twenty years is aware of Islamic fundamentalism. OTOH, haredim are abusing the fear people have of being labelled anti-Semitic, in order to pull off some spectacular forms we extremism and oppression, while people look at them and think they’re simple, pious people.
It needs to be dragged out into the open and exposed for the twisted fundamentalism that it is, just like extremist Islamic sects have been. People need to be made aware of some of the disgusting beliefs and practices being shielded and going unprosecuted due to corrupt bloc-voting rings, threats and violence directed at whistleblowers, and the abuse of public funds.
When you’ve lived it, then I’ll take your flailing seriously. When you stop Godwinning to back up your bizarre arguments, then people might not see your name and think “Great. Another discussiow ruined”. When you stop using terms such as “anti-racism” as insults, then you might seem halfway toward meeting the minimum standards of human decency.
I doubt anyone will be holding. their breath.
“at least he appears to genuinely not want to carry out the punishment”
I would say he’s fooling nobody, but…
Sorry, Rebekah, if I don’t hold you in the same high regard you think you’re entitled to. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a rather stupid, opinionated person not worthy of debate. If you actually said anything of interest or importance then I’d debate you. Since all you have is an unwarranted high opinion of yourself, then I’ll comment on it.
Actually we both know I’m not sorry but I am trying to be polite. You don’t deserve politeness but I’m feeling generous towards the terminally conceited.
I don’t think feelings one would have when their owner is allowed to do to them whatever he wants, even kill them, would be what we usually consider respect.
You don’t? How odd. Maybe “love” is a better word; that’s what these people call such a relationship when they’re talking about their God.
Rebekah, I focus on your way of talking to people because you started out commenting here by being astoundingly rude to multiple people and you haven’t dialed it down much. I don’t really care about the substance of what you’re saying because you’re so consistently pugnacious and unpleasant. You have to do better or I just won’t let you comment here any more.
anne mariehovgaard,
Of course, I keep forgetting that this kind of people have… different notions about love and respect where both come down to intimidation and fear.
This thread has probably gone too far off the rails for anyone to notice this. But here goes:
I haven’t seen any comment on this which directs the reader to the REST of Deuteronomy ch. 21.
How to place blame if a murder victim is found between 2 towns–which town has to sacrifice a cow to expiate guilt.
How to rape a woman you’ve captured in war.
That you have to favor your oldest son, even if you prefer the wife who has a younger one. (Another example of Biblical marriage)
I would like to see Mr Fuqua justify these bits too.
I don’t doubt he’d find a way to justify them, at least in line with his own concept of justice. I rather wouldn’t see it, though, since it’s bound to cause nausea.
I agree that Rebekah should dial it down. Her tendency to call attention to defects in the intelligence, education, reading skills and dignity of her opponents often leads to gratuitous insult.
On the other hand she has demonstrated on occasion considerable knowledge combined with cognitive skills for interpreting evidence. At (18.) she dares to think outside the padded cell where Mr. Fuqua hatched his bizarre scriptural screed justifying parental legal rights to seek the death penalty from the “elders” for their snotty offspring.
Drawing pertinent parallels with “Talmudic reasoning” by scholars who parse the Talmud to unearth useless theoretical punishments, she gives a specific informative insight into the kind of isolated hothouse environment from the Jewish faith tradition where religious zealotry and fanaticism may flourish.
Also to her credit, Rebekah has exercised thoughtful observation to reach a sound conclusion: “His views appear to be held up as contemptible in a local Arkansas newspaper,” whose readership presumably includes a majority of Christian conservatives. When she later observes that she was commenting on the relative threat of Christian conservatives, I believe she may be pointing out that even for Christian conservatives, Fuqua’s proposals are off the radar screen. Perhaps Christian “extremists” or “crazies” would have been a better diction choice.
Maybe we are being a little touchy about accusing Rebekah of issuing instructions when she says, “this is not some trend to worry about.” My ears heard a far milder statement: Yes, Mr. Fuqua’s ideas have escaped from his padded cell but I don’t see them getting too far down the road in modern America. I agree.
This isn’t your blog to moderate, Mr Hart. I’m not taking a vote.
My apologies for failing to discern that “This isn’t your [my] blog to moderate.” I had no idea that I was moderating or “voting.” I naively believed that I was commenting when I posted my comment in the section designated “Comments.”
Rodney Nelson at #25 says:
Rebekah, the Arrogant, Condescending, Pompus Jew #24
Oops, one of our cats did it outside the litter box.
Well look at it again, then.
You seem to have a real blind spot about coming across as bossy and correcty.
Ophelia, your criticism of williamshart is disturbing.
Honestly you seem to find fault with him for one reason and one reason only: he had the temerity to defend my comments. Based on reading your books and blogs I thought you would be better than that.
If “bossy and correcty” comments were really a general concern “Ms. Daisy Cutter, Vile Human Being” would have been kicked off your blog long ago as would a few others undoubtedly.
Ophelia if you want to ban me then that is of course your prerogative. But doing so will just silence a voice that largely agrees with your worldview.
Just look at beatrice’s new moniker: “anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist”. My criticism gets under their skin. I mean changing your username to match the criticism of one specific user is just obsessive and childish. And yet her move exemplifies why my criticism of “utter ignorance”, the phrase that set you off against me, was completely justified.
And william, thank you.
Rebekah @ 43 – you are mistaken.
Tee hee.
Beatrice 1 Rebekah 0.
Oh lord. The pathos of it all. Give it a rest RebekahWilliamHart.
“Rebekah @ 43 – you are mistaken.”
Just telling someone they are wrong with no evidence or argument is the most vacuous sort of rebuttal there is.
As I said you never manage to actual find fault with any of my specific ideas or claims, it is all vague dismissal as above or lectures about my alleged tone.
Meanwhile I have laid at your feet multiple examples of how your criticism of me is being selectively applied given the conduct of others.
The irony of all this given your academic oeuvre and this being a cite called freethought blog cannot be lost on you on some level.
Oh, dear.
Are you capable of conversing without the Sniffy McArchlyWoundedPants app?
Jesus god, Rebekah! You’re a pain in the ass, ok? You’re rude to just about all the commenters you interact with, and you talk as if you think this is an academic conference besides. I don’t have the patience to read every word of your comments (I get too many comments to read all of them carefully these days), and I don’t care anyway – I don’t like the way you talk to people and that’s that. I told you to dial it down right at the beginning, so this isn’t some kind of random prejudice.
I don’t have any “academic oeuvre” (and if I did I wouldn’t call it that). I’m not an academic; I’m not educated at all. I’m a peasant.
Josh, your comments are nothing but meaningless ad hominems that ignore any truth claims or arguments I put forth in this thread.
Nothing I have said or done is any worse than your average PZ Myers put down. Many of the people furiously denouncing me probably admire him, arguably the flagship blog of this site.
The only difference is politics. If I took a more orthodox far left position of reflexive outrage on certain topics I would be home free. But I ruffled the feathers of the smug sort of leftists that are so convinced of their purity and right-thinking nature that they never stop to question if they have strayed from liberal principles. The fact I expose outright ignorance in some instances and their thin-skinned personalities makes me a marked women.
All right Rebekah here’s the deal. No more meta discussion from you, and you can keep commenting. Otherwise, you can’t.
I’ll delete any further meta discussion I see from you.
Josh@47 – you too, huh?
Rebekah – despite your almost otherworldly intelligence and a brilliance that radiates like a million suns, you appear to have missed something that should be blindingly obvious.
Ophelia isn’t PZ.
She has no beard, I’ve never seen her swoon at the sight of a squid (no matter how gorgeous it might be), and I don’t think she has a wife. (Correct me if I’m wrong Ophelia!)
If you want to play by his rules, head over there. If you want to discuss how terrible anti-racism efforts are, and belittle various social justice causes, then head over to The Blaze.
This isn’t Pharyngula though, or The Blaze. So Ophelia gets to set the tone and make the rules.
Oh honey, it’s not all that fraught with drama. You’re tiresome and self-important. That’s all.
Oh, and back on topic, I’ve just twigged to. this from Fuquit:
I call bullshit on that. So do millions of other abused and murdered children.
I think Sean Paddock, Lydia Schatz, and Hana Williams would refute his claim that no parent would execute a “wilful” child. Well, if they could.
I wonder if Mr. Fuqua’s parents are alive, and I wonder how they feel about how he acts.
Rebekah: I told you: no more metadiscussion from you. That’s why the comment you just wrote is gone – it was all meta. Post substantively if you can do it without insulting everyone else, but no more meta.