Robert Spencer debates Moustafa Zayed: "Does Islam Guarantee Women Equality of Rights with Men?"

Robert Spencer does a great job in this debate. He stays on topic and refutes the Imam's misinformation about how women are to be viewed and treated according to Islam.  The last quarter of the video consists of a questions and answers session following the debate.

On Infertility: This article hits the nail on the head

This article hits the nail on the head with regards to how hard it is for faithful Catholics to deal with the cross of infertility.  My heart aches so that someday my husband and I may be blessed with a child.  We pray and leave it in God's hands but it is so hard for us...

This week is Infertility Awareness Week. According to the CDC, over 2 million married women in America are currently experiencing infertility. This is a deeply painful experience for any couple, but faithful Catholics face unique challenges in this department—yet in all the discussions about Natural Family Planning and how and when to avoid pregnancy, the struggles of our brothers and sisters in Christ who are not able to achieve pregnancy often get overlooked. So this week I spent some time chatting with friends who are facing infertility, including a woman whom I’ll call “A.,” who chronicles her journey online at This Cross I Embrace. They shared some of the challenges unique to being Catholic and infertile:

Temptation to Use Illicit Treatments: In modern culture, the words “infertility” and “in-vitro fertilization” go hand-in-hand. Even though IVF doesn’t always succeed, and often costs tens of thousands of dollars when it does, the success rates are high enough that it’s widely touted as a solution that is likely to give couples the children they so desperately desire. This is a source of temptation for the women I talked to, even though they understand and agree with Church teaching against IVF on an intellectual level. “I would never do it, but it’s like a punch in the gut when other women go to the IVF clinic and are then planning baby showers seven months later,” one friend said. Added to this, there can also be tremendous pressure from family members who don’t understand Church teaching and see IVF as a path to having grandchildren or nieces and nephews.

Loneliness: Catholics who face infertility often find themselves in a social no-man’s land. In terms of day-to-day lifestyle, they have little in common with fellow Catholics who have kids, and often find that friends with children are so busy that it’s hard to make plans with them. Sometimes it’s possible to find community among fellow Christians who are infertile, but tensions inevitably arise over differing views about IVF and other reproductive technology. Other childless couples tend to be much younger. “The main people you can really relate to are other infertile Catholics who are faithful to Church teaching, and they are few and far between,” one friend told me.  CONTINUED

Crossposted at Tu Ne Cede malis    

Eagle Freedom Links 10-31-10 -- Halloween Style Part 2

Goomba News Network posts music in support of Christine O'Donnell and is pissed and the rationality of anger.

America! Oh How We'll Miss You! shows us a worthwhile endeavor.

Conservative Perspective posts on the absurd with regards to Iran and the U.N.

Creative Minority Report reveals another Obama LIE.

DeanO posts Remember in November.

Let The Truth Be Known has been posting a series called Yes Virginia, there are monsters.

Maggie's Notebook posts on Good Witches and Bad Witches.

Mind Numbed Robot posts on Halloween in Texas.

Pathetically Incorrect shows us about sick dems and voter fraud. 

Reaganite Republican posts on the Projector-in-Chief in fine form on the stump.


Woodsterman shows us a girl on a bike.

The Conservative Hideout posts on Violence, the Left's propaganda, the truth and a righteous rant.





Video H/T The Deacon's Bench

Ali, a courageous advocate for Women, Speaks Out Against Oppressive Islam

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the personification of strength.

Born in Mogadishu, Somalia and raised in a devoutly Muslim household, Ali grew up in an oppressive Islamic society yet surfaced to tell her tale.

Ali, now in her 40s, has lived a life rarely fathomed anywhere but within the pages of an adventure book. After surviving genital mutilation as a child, fleeing to the Netherlands to escape from an arranged marriage in her twenties, condemning her former faith, and surviving multiple death threats, Ali is now a staunch and outspoken advocate for women and human rights in Islamic countries.

Advocating for justice in the Muslim world has not been easy. After receiving asylum in the Netherlands in 1992, Ali earned a degree in political science at the University of Leiden and served in the Dutch parliament from 2003 to 2006 — often speaking out passionately about the plight of women in the Muslim world.

In 2004, Ali partnered with director Theo van Gogh to create a film about the Muslim oppression of women, called “Submission.” Several months after the film aired, a Muslim radical named Mohammed Bouyeri murdered van Gogh on the streets of Amsterdam, stabbing a note to his body warning Ali that she would be next. Since then, Ali has been in hiding, protected by 24-hour security.

Now living, writing, and speaking out in America, Ali continues to reflect on the life she left behind. In a recent conversation with The Daily Caller, Ali explained that she never realized what a risk she was taking when she left Islam and began speaking out against it.

“When I first started publishing and responding to interviews I didn’t know that my life was in danger,” she said. “And when I got the question, ‘So are you, yourself, Muslim?’ The answer I gave was no, I’m secularized and I realized too late that that answer meant, as a Muslim, I am an apostate and inviting violence.”

According to Ali, Islam, as a template for societal organization, is a complete failure.

“If you look at nations that have adopted Sharia law, you see a number of things: you see an upsurge in the violations of human rights — rights of women, gay people, and religious minorities. You see a dictatorship at all times even though it is sometimes presented as a democracy. For instance, because Islamic law is divine law who ever takes control of government puts himself in the position of God,” she said.

Growing up in a culture that shuns women is incompatible with the ideals of feminism, Ali told TheDC, saying that she got the strength to leave Somalia and the culture in which she was raised from within herself and from circumstances in her life that were unusual for women in her situation — specifically having the opportunity to get an education.

“I was sent to school and there are so many Muslim girls who never go to school or never get to finish it,” she said. “Another circumstance which put me in a lucky position is my father left our family when I was about 10- or 11-years old and he returned when I was 21. And that’s the period when most girls get married off. So, if I had been married off at 16 or 17, I would’ve been much more vulnerable — not as strong. But at 22, after having observed what happens to these young women who are married off and how their lives get shattered, that strengthened me even more to say no to these men.”

Ali says that she never reached common ground with her father and has little idea of where her mother is, saying only that she is “somewhere in Somalia.”  CONTINUED

H/T TheDailyCaller