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I don't know what point you are trying to make. Yes, I know that the laws are worse in Pakistan than the US. But the US still also has the death penalty and in

I don't know what point you are trying to make. Yes, I know that the laws are worse in Pakistan than the US. But the US still also has the death penalty and in fact uses it to kill people who are mentally ill and unable to defend themselves. I'm not sure what this all proves. Yes, America is ahead of Pakistan on laws. But are we really that great, so great that we wonder why other countries haven't caught up? It looks like blasphemy was at least illegal in some states into the 2000s as well. Not the death penalty, sure, but still illegal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law_in_the_United_St... I'm not trying to say that America isn't more advanced with regards to its laws. We are. But we're not soooo advanced to the point where it makes sense to look down on other countries and wonder why they haven't "caught up yet" when we ourselves were and are doing horrible acts against minorities, even bound up by law.

WalterBright 5y ago
> Not the death penalty, sure, but still illegal. Your source says the last conviction was in 1928, and prosecutions had long since died out except for 3 cases. If anyone tried prosecuting those laws today, they'd just get thrown out. There are a lot of unenforceable junk laws like this on the books because nobody has gotten around to repealing them. They are not examples of a modern medieval legal system. There are also racist real estate covenants. They are unenforceable and hence moot today.
- cryptoz 5y ago
  It sounds like we agree, then? 90 years ago, the US sentenced a man to 3 months in prison for being atheist. Yes, we don't do that today. I know that. I am not at any point trying to say that the US has worse religious or gender laws than Pakistan. I agree that we have better laws. I think also, that we had really horrible laws in our recent past, and it's a bit silly to wonder why the rest of the world hasn't caught up to our 'modern' view of things when the last 100 years of American media dominance in the world espoused much of the hatred of minorities and restrictive laws that we see in other countries today. The US is better with our laws, but we have a recent history of having horrible laws that were actively enforced against religious minorities and others. Systematic racism is still prevalent in the US today, despite our progress. We have a lot of inward looking to do to improve as well. I don't think it's much of a surprise that other countries have backwards gender laws when the United States has a rich and recent history of similar laws.

WalterBright 5y ago

> Not the death penalty, sure, but still illegal. Your source says the last conviction was in 1928, and prosecutions had long since died out except for 3 cases. If anyone tried prosecuting those laws today, they'd just get thrown out. There are a lot of unenforceable junk laws like this on the books because nobody has gotten around to repealing them. They are not examples of a modern medieval legal system. There are also racist real estate covenants. They are unenforceable and hence moot today.

cryptoz 5y ago
It sounds like we agree, then? 90 years ago, the US sentenced a man to 3 months in prison for being atheist. Yes, we don't do that today. I know that. I am not at any point trying to say that the US has worse religious or gender laws than Pakistan. I agree that we have better laws. I think also, that we had really horrible laws in our recent past, and it's a bit silly to wonder why the rest of the world hasn't caught up to our 'modern' view of things when the last 100 years of American media dominance in the world espoused much of the hatred of minorities and restrictive laws that we see in other countries today. The US is better with our laws, but we have a recent history of having horrible laws that were actively enforced against religious minorities and others. Systematic racism is still prevalent in the US today, despite our progress. We have a lot of inward looking to do to improve as well. I don't think it's much of a surprise that other countries have backwards gender laws when the United States has a rich and recent history of similar laws.