Stoning Ashraf Choudhary

The idiotic pronouncement by Labour MP Ashraf Choudhary that stoning gays and adulters is okay because it is in the Koran and "what the Koran says is correct" demonstrates once again that all cultures are not equal, and Islamic culture perhaps least equal than most -- at least as long as Islamic culture refuses to change and continues to support evil nonsense such as this. As Ruth says: "I agree some stoning is OK - let's start with the Muslim clerics - I don't have a problem with that." Me either.

The fact is that cultures are not beyond criticism (a point made last week by Wellington probation officerJosie Bullock), and nor should they be. We should judge Islamic culture, and indeed all cultures, according to how well they work for those within them.

Thomas Sowell made exactly that point in his book Conquest and Cultures:

Cultures are not museum-pieces. They are the working machinery of everyday life. Unlike objects of aesthetic contemplation, working machinery is judged by how well it works, compared to the alternatives.

Now that's a point worth contemplating.