Hamza Tzortzis explains why it’s ok for a man to fuck a nine-year-old-girl if all the right conditions are met, and how much better that is than the stupid secular way of just having a flat law that nobody can fuck a nine-year-old-girl, period, end of story, never mind if the right conditions are met. Even if her father and her tribe give her to the man, secular law would still say no! Would you believe it?!
That part starts at one hour 56 minutes. The audience applauds enthusiastically.
In case you don’t want to watch, Secular Party of Australia did a transcript of that section. (The debate was in Melbourne.) John Perkins represents Team Atheism.
John Perkins: Look, I’m afraid that your answer makes me feel – upsetting [disturbances from the audience] . . . Your answer . . . Your answer indicating that you condone the abuse of children . . . I just find it appalling . . . I’m sorry [Faraz interrupts, inaudible] Look I started this whole . . . I’ve tried to honestly say how I think Islam causes harm to people. And all I’m getting is denial, and now, and now you’re even endorsing something which seems to me quite abhorrent . . . [more interruption, from either Faraz or Hamza, “No, that’s not fair!”] . . . I find it quite upsetting.
Hamza Tzortzis: There’s other Islamic principles that you have to take into consideration, right. For example, it’s not just about. . . You see, I’ll ask you the question, what age should a woman get married at? [Pause.] You answer me, what age should she get married at? Give me an age!
John Perkins: When she’s old enough.
[Audience disturbance, laughter, Hamza crying out, “What does that mean?”]
Hamza Tzortzis: You give me a number! I want an answer.
John Perkins: The legal age here—
Hamza Tzortzis: [interrupts] Wait a second, what is the legal age? What is the legal age?
John Perkins: Eighteen.
Hamza Tzortzis: In England it’s sixteen. In Spain it’s twelve. In Greece it’s thirteen. In some places in America it’s twenty-one. This is the fallacy of secular law. It’s very arbitrary. This is our law: it’s nothing to do with age. Now listen to the principles. Number 1. Is she physically fit? Number 2. Is she emotionally ready? Number 3. Is she mentally ready? Number 4. Is this socially acceptable? Number 5. All these different kinds of principles that we apply. And it happened, that there was an outlier from the statistics that a nine-year-old was physically fit, was mentally ready . . . was . . . given by her own father and the tribe, so we have principles which makes our law far more typist, rather than putting a number, saying, you can do it when you’re sixteen. There are some sixteen-year-olds in this country that can’t even tie their shoelace. The point is: if that’s all you’ve got, a sexed-up view of sharia law, a Fox News narrative, if you study the situation properly it’s based on principles that you apply to different scenarios, and yes, if you apply them properly, the eight-year-old will not get married, because look you’ve damaged her, because the problem I have, is that there is no harming, so there should be no harm. So the point is this is really about sharia law on the basis of [inaudible] things and BBC News and Fox News and god knows what we have.
[Audience claps and cheers loudly.]
A couple of Islam’s “saints” married and had sex with prepubescent girls, so it’s become part of the dogma. Notice that the only consent required is that of the prospective husband and the girl’s father. The girl’s wishes and concerns don’t enter into the equation.
Wait… so the fact that different secular laws have different legal ages for when people can get married is “arbitrary”, but defining it by whether it’s “socially acceptable”–which would necessarily vary from society to society and country to country–is somehow not?
In no jurisdiction in America is the age for legal marriage 21.
And what kind of monster thinks a 9 year old child could EVER be physically or emotionally mature enough for marriage and marital rape.
Disgusted.
Except for the very rare exception, 9 year olds are never physically mature. The brain is not fully developed until about the age of 25. If you went by this, nobody should get married before age 25.
I assume he didn’t address the problem of age difference.
Oh Crashing Spaghetti Monster. They’re not really making excuses for child rapists now, are they? They couldn’t be. Right? Right?
Truly disgusting.
This reminds me of how William Lane Craig feels obligated to justify the God-ordered genocide in the Old Testament. Because of the nature of his faith he feels that he can’t condemn *anything* his god does and, instead, has to contort himself to find ways to claim genocide is moral. Hamza Tzortzis seems to be doing the exact same thing, where he can’t condemn Mohamad for marrying a 9 year-old, so, instead, he goes into torturous motivated reasoning to justify why doing so is the very height of morality. :-p
The juxtaposition of the content of this post with the title of the previous one is artistic.
> You see, I’ll ask you the question, what age should a woman get married at? [Pause.] You answer me, what age should she get married at? Give me an age!
Funny, my first reaction would be to take umbrage at the implication that women should necessarily get married. How about: “if and when they, themselves, want to, and can be assumed to make an informed decision?”
Well, that was my first reaction, too, AlexSL When do people have agency to make such a decision as whether they should get married is a much better question than “At what age should a woman be given away by their fathers to get married?”
Surely both males and females should be at least older than the “age of consent” because marriage is a bit more of a long-lasting decision than whether or not to have sex.
Pubescence is not the same as the “age of consent,” now, is it?
Pubescence is not the same as the “age of consent,” now, is it?
Only for those “old enough to bleed, old enough to breed” assholes.
Ew, some rather disgusting ableism in that speech too:
“There are some sixteen-year-olds in this country that can’t even tie their shoelace.”
And the pedant in me wants to change it to “shoelaces”.
I am perpetually aware of the way in which male rights enthusiasts, including Islamists and other fanatical monotheists, confuse the difference between girl and woman. Whenever I read someone who moves from the one to the other, with reference to the same person, I know I’m reading the words of a monster. Such people are not interested in whether a female person is a child or an adult. Anyone who thinks that the question of the age at which a woman “should” be married has anything to do with a nine-year-old is either sick or wicked. Notice that the issue involved is not about when a female — of whatever age or degree of maturity, and who knows the difference between everyday reality and childhood fantasy — feels herself able or willing to marry, but merely whether Tzortzis or “society” (and we know who they are) thinks she is “ready” (I have a horror of what might be implied in that word). Tzortzis cannot be aware of the fact that his “law”, for what it’s worth, can be added to all or at least most of the others he calls up as just another one in the whole disgusting mess of universal male dominance. It’s a problem that he can rely on lots of enthusiasm from people who only want to hear that God’s in his heaven and never mind the pain for someone else.
yikes, 12 and 13.
but notice how he latched onto the “legal” thing. he asked specifically for a number, then said numbers are arbitrary…
arbitrary, as if no one could reason that the legal age should be raised in those places. he didn’t show it to be arbitrary, it was just declares so as a hasty way to ignore reasons for a higher age.
i don’t think he cares as much about rape as he does about trolling on “secularists”. it’s like it’s a game to him…
I found Faraz Nomani still worse – at least in a sense, as perhaps Tzortis’s greater subtlety, rhetorical agility, is more chilling. But Nomani just quite calmly asked ‘had she reached puberty’ (with reference to the little girl in Yemen) and when someone asked the obvious question ‘does it matter’ replied that of course it mattered.
Would this make any difference to Tzortzis and other men’s rights (over women) activists?
“Girls younger than 15 are five times more likely to die during child birth or pregnancy than older women. Pregnancy-related deaths are the leading cause of mortality for girls aged 15 to 19 worldwide.”
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/341/facts.html
At nine, is she physically fit for for sex and childbirth? NO sex may kill her!
Is she emotionally ready? Well she will need to live another nine years until she can go see an r rated movie, so I would say not
At nine she is probably learning long division so, I guess maybe she is mentally ready to run a household
Is it socially acceptable, not yet, but I am sure the Islamic-nambla coalition might get us there, but I think nine is probably too young for nambla.
Other factors? Hmm let me think. Can she consent? Well, she can’t vote, drive, serve in the military, rent an apartment, she still needs a permission slip from her parents to do … anything. I would say her ability to consent is lacking.
Only religion is so inflexible to force people into these kinds of moral pretzels. Shame.