So This Is What It Takes To Get Hollywood Riled Up (And Other News) *Open Thread*

Finally, there is something that has broken through into the hearts and minds of the Hollywood Elite, and I don’t mean more dopey “Hope and Change.” No, this matter hits them right where they live, and it has sparked both Jay Leno and Ellen DeGeneres into action on an issue that has been a concern to us regular people paying attention out here.

Just what would that galvanizing issue be, you might ask? Well, the Sultan of Brunei owns the Beverly Hills Hotel, among others. Okay, so what of it? That would be something the Brunei government has declared. From HuffPo:

[…] The Motion Picture & Television Fund joined a growing list of organizations and individuals Monday refusing to do business with hotels owned by the sultan or government of Brunei. They’re protesting the country’s new Islamic Shariah criminal law that calls for punishing adultery, abortions and same-sex relationships with flogging and stoning.

The Motion Picture & Television Fund says it won’t hold its annual Night Before the Oscar party at the hotel as it has for many years.

“We cannot condone or tolerate these harsh and repressive laws and as a result support a business owned by the sultan of Brunei or a Brunei sovereign fund associated with the government of Brunei,” the fund’s directors said in a statement.

Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, who owns the Beverly Hills Hotel, has praised his country’s new laws as a “great achievement.”

“The decision to implement the (Shariah penal code) is not for fun but is to obey Allah’s command as written in the Quran,” the sultan said last week. […]

Alrighty then. Since y’all are well informed folk, you already know about Sharia Law, how horrible it is for women, girls, and gays. But just in case you nned a little refresher, you can check out this article, “Top Ten Reasons Sharia Law Is Bad For All Societies.” Here are a few, um, highlights:

[…] 5. Islam commands that homosexuals must be executed.

In February 1998, the Taliban, who once ruled in Afghanistan, ordered a stone wall to be pushed over three men convicted of sodomy. Their lives were to be spared if they survived for 30 minutes and were still alive when the stones were removed.

In its 1991 Constitution, in Articles 108—113, Iran adopted the punishment of execution for sodomy.

In April 2005, a Kuwaiti cleric says homosexuals should be thrown off a mountain or stoned to death.

On April 7, 2005, it was reported that Saudi Arabia sentenced more than 100 men to prison or flogging for ‘gay conduct.’

These homosexuals were lucky. Early Islam would have executed them, as these hadith demonstrate.

Ibn Abbas, Muhammad’s cousin and highly reliable transmitter of hadith, reports the following about early Islam and Muhammad’s punishment of homosexuals: . . .

[…]

4. Islam orders unmarried fornicators to be whipped and adulterers to be stoned to death

24:2 The fornicatress and the fornicator, flog each of them with a hundred stripes. Let not pity withhold you in their case, in a punishment prescribed by Allah, if you believe in Allah and the Last Day. And let a party of the believers witness their punishment. [This punishment is for unmarried persons guilty of the above crime (illegal sex), but if married persons commit it (illegal sex), the punishment is to stone them to death, according to Allah’s law]. (Hilali and Khan).

[…]

An Iranian woman charged with adultery faces death by stoning in the next five days after her death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court last month. Her unnamed co—defendant is at risk of imminent execution by hanging. Amnesty International members are now writing urgent appeals to the Iranian authorities, calling for the execution to be stopped.

She is to be buried up to her chest and stoned to death.

This gruesome hadith passage reports that a woman was buried up to her chest and stoned to death:

And when he had given command over her and she was put in a hole up to her breast, he ordered the people to stone her. Khalid b. al—Walid came forward with a stone which he threw at her head, and when the blood spurted on his face he cursed her . . . (Muslim no. 4206)

[…]

3. Islam orders death for Muslim and possible death for non—Muslim critics of Muhammad and the Quran and even sharia itself. […] (Click here to read the rest of this informative, and disturbing, article.)

Ruh roh. Ahem. Oh well! Criticize it I will. It is abhorrent, plain and simple. And I am delighted that some of the folks out there in Hollywood are starting to clue in to what a despicable institution it is without making excuses for it. Below is a good video regarding the protest. Despite the computer voice recounting the news, it does have the text printed on the screen, so one need not even turn on the volume:

Yeah, it’s about damn time those folks got a clue…

Two more bits of news before I close, both of which were included in the comments on my last post. This one is another clue as to why this Administration just may have been stonewalling a bit on releasing documentation on the whole Benghazi affair, “Why was a Suspected Muslim Brotherhood Spy Copied on the Benghazi ‘Smoking Gun’ E-mail?”(h/t Helen). I think the headline pretty much says it all. But why in the HELL would someone with Muslim Brotherhood connections even have a seat at the table in an American Administration?? That’s the question.

The second one comes via Kenoshamarge, and has me so mad, I can barely speak. How I regret all of the time, energy, and money I gave to this woman believing she actually gave a damn about women and girls:“Hillary’s State Department Refused to Brand Boko Haram as Terrorists; Under Hillary Clinton, the State Department repeatedly declined to fully go after the terror group responsible for kidnapping hundreds of girls.“ Make sure you read the entire article.

Okay – your turn. I’m too mad to say any more…