Monday, May 9, 2011

Religious paper removes Clinton from iconic photo

A religious newspaper removed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from the now-iconic Bin Laden raid Situation Room photo - and the edit was brought to my attention by Jezebel.com, which said about the incident:

"The religious paper never publishes pictures of women, as they could be considered 'sexually suggestive.' Apparently the presence of a woman, any woman, being all womanly and sexy all over the United States' counterterrorism efforts was too much for the editors of Der Tzitung to handle... Audrey Thomason, the counterterrorism analyst seen peeking out from behind another onlooker in the back of the original photo, was also airbrushed away, due to all of the sexy man-tempting that her very presence in a photograph would do."

The paper in question is the ultra orthodox Hasidic newspaper Der Tzitung. But it could have been any of a number of religious newspapers - there are sects of Christianity, Islam and who knows what else that believe the same thing about the evils of women (though they usually justify it as respect for women - go figure that one out...).

The comments on the Jezebel.com post are interesting as well. While everyone wants to be respectful of different belief systems, what about respect for WOMEN?! And what kind of outrage would there be if this was a newspaper that had removed President Obama, saying that their readers would have been offended to see a black man in a room with white people - including white women? Southern newspapers in the USA and newspapers in South Africa would have never published such a photo once upon a time for that reason, and outrage would have been oh-so-loud. But it's okay for religion to discriminate against women, but not okay to condemn them for that 'cause, you know, then you aren't being respectful to religious beliefs.

Another day I'm Joyful To Be Atheist.

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