From Gary Bauer's "End of Day" daily email — November 5th 

Two weeks ago, I wrote an item in this report critical of the treatment of women in Islamic society.  Just in case anyone thought my comments were exaggerated, the folks at the Middle East Media Research Institute recently posted a video of a Saudi cleric instructing three young men on the “right way” to beat their wives.  

The cleric does note that beating your wife should not be the first resort in disciplining her.Muhammad Al-Arifi says husbands should, “Admonish them – once, twice, threetimes, four times, ten times.  If this doesn’t help, refuse to share their beds.”  

If that doesn’t work, there is a third option – “light beatings.”And, just so you know, there is an “etiquette” to the beatings.The beatings should be light and “must not make her face ugly.”  “He mustbeat her where it will not leave marks.  …He should beat her in some placeswhere it will not cause any damage.  He should not beat her like he wouldbeat an animal or a child.”

Most telling about the Islamic view of women was that Al-Arifi began his diatribe on the “how-to’s” of wife beating by comparing women to animals:“Beating in the face is forbidden, even when it comes to animals.  Even if you want your camel or donkey to start walking, you are not allowed to beatit in the face.  If this is true for animals, it is all the more true when it comes to humans.  So beatings should be light and not in the face.”

Seeing this video and reading the transcript is shocking.  But this is the same ideology that compares Christians and Jews to monkeys and pigs, that turns its children into homicide bombers, that turns airplanes into weapons of mass destruction, that vows to “wipe Israel off the map” and refers to the United States as “the great Satan.”