Instead of Worrying About Girls in Bikinis

Perhaps "Ahmedino" from Oman Community Blog should worry about people like those below instead of girls in bikinis bringing "eib" upon not only Omanis, but Muslims everywhere. For the full background, read the story at CNN as hyperlinked in the previous sentence.

Besides the accusation that Kambakhsh disrupted class with his questions, prosecutors also said he illegally distributed an article he printed off the Internet that asks why Islam does not modernize to give women equal rights. He also allegedly wrote his own comments on the paper.
In January, a lower court sentenced him to death in a trial critics have called flawed in part because Kambakhsh had no lawyer representing him. Muslim clerics welcomed that court's decision and public demonstrations were held against the journalism student because of perceptions he had violated the tenets of Islam.

Now, of course, many will point out that these are excesses of the U.S. installed and backed regime. Yes, true. I will not defend the mess that America's foreign policies have caused. Yet, the bottom line is that mind-boggling levels of intolerance, ignorance, and acquiescence predated American intervention in the region. These things are in no way characteristic of the broad sweep of Islamic history. So why are they so prevalent today? Why are bikinis such an issue when journalists are being sentenced to death for suggesting women should have equal rights so nearby? Maybe because people have taken to insane levels of reactionary feeling and unthinking fundamentalism completely inconsistent with the original facts of the religion?