Free Republic

Slavery is acceptable in Islam. The Qur’an has Allah telling Muhammad that he has given him girls as sex slaves: “Prophet, We have made lawful to you the wives to whom you have granted dowries and the slave girls whom God has given you as booty.” (Qur’an 33:50) […] A couple who enslaved a West African girl at their home in Texas for 16 years have been convicted by a federal jury. Mohamed Touré, the son of Guinea’s first president Ahmed Sékou Touré, and his wife Denise Cros-Toure arranged for the child to travel to the US when she was...

MICHAEL LERNER was back on campus at Berkeley. But this time he is a portly Jewish rabbi leading 1,200 mostly middle-aged "spiritual progressives," and not the young Students for a Democratic Society agitator targeted by J. Edgar Hoover in the 1960s. The "Politics of Meaning," Lerner's label for his spiritual liberalism, peaked in the early 1990s, when his supposed fans, Bill and Hillary Clinton, ascended to power. But Hillary disavowed Lerner when his quirky views attracted fire, and the old Berkeley activist, though still publishing Tikkun, seemingly faded. Now Lerner is back. And his "Conference on Spiritual Activism," held at...