Quickies

Ok, this really made me giggle. A controversial cleric in Cairo (usually a fairly liberal Muslim country) has delivered the edict that nudity during sex is taboo. Married couples engaging in sex whilst completely unclothes actually annul their marriage.

India has banned miniskirts, among other things. This really made me laugh, and anyone who has seen music videos from India will note that it's not being followed at all.

No one is actually paying a whole lot of attention to these bizarre fatwas (any more than they paid to Pat Robertson when he said we should assasinate foreign leaders or that god struck down Ariel Sharon). But still -- what did this guy think was going to happen? Four milion couples in Cairo are going to suddenly wear body-stockings to bed? Does it count if the lights are out and the room is completely dark? What if only one person is unclothed?

This is ridiculous on a couple of levels:
1. How do they intend to enforce this fatwa against nakedness?
2. People have been having sex naked since long before religion was involved. Why has this become an issue now? How does seeing body parts have anything do to with marriage?
3. There is no command in the Koran or in any teaching that I can find that requires modesty of this sort in the home. What exactly did they extrapolate this rule from?

Or is it just a bunch of guys sitting around the table seeing who can be stricter than the other one, more demanding and thus more religious than the rest? Most of these edicts -- whether from imams or christian evangelists -- seem to be based on control and power,not any particular basis in faith.