Religious Fundamentalism - This Is What You Get.

Iran to Stone to Death Mother of Two.

This is what happens when you let a group of people decide for us all what is "morally right" and what is not.  We can all agree that certain acts should be crimes, robbery, murder, assault, etc.  But in others, where you have two consenting adults, should the act be a crime against society?  And then even so, should the penalty be death?

Mind you, Proposition 8 is based largely on the same, hate filed, grounds - legalization of religious fundamentalist ideology.

Will an international campaign save Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani? The 42-year-old Iranian mother of two could be stoned to death at any moment. Ashtiani pleaded guilty to adultery in 2006 and was lashed 99 times; however, her lawyer contends that she did not understand the court proceedings—she is Azerbaijani and speaks Turkish, not Farsi. According to CNN , she will be buried up to her chest and “the stones that will be hurled at her will be large enough to cause pain but not so large as to kill her immediately.”

She was forced to confess after being subjected to 99 lashes, human rights lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei said Thursday in a telephone interview from Tehran.


She later retracted that confession and has denied wrongdoing. Her conviction was based not on evidence but on the determination of three out of five judges, Mostafaei said. She has asked forgiveness from the court but the judges refused to grant clemency.

Article 74 of the Iranian penal code requires at least four witnesses -- four men or three men and two women -- for an adulterer to receive a stoning sentence, said Ahadi, of the International Committee Against Stoning. But there were no witnesses in Ashtiani's case. Often, said Ahadi, husbands turn wives in to get out of a marriage.