Reply #13: First,

[manic expression]

what I was suggesting was a bit of perspective. If you live in a country where gays are bludgeoned to death (not to mention routinely ostracized), where women's rights are lessening by the day, then criticism needs to be tempered with recognition of these similar shortcomings.

Amnesty International works to stop governmental abuse. It does not work to change cultures (if anything, if works to preserve them).

Again, I said that there are many important things to keep in mind, not just to you, but to anyone who does walk the tightrope of cross-cultural criticism. That was not as much a condemnation as a statement.

Yes, sometimes cultures change for the worse. So what? The important thing is that the improvement is the goal. This only acknowledges that cultures can change for the better without being subject to unnecessary alteration. That's quite important.

It's a statement that applies to a broad subject, so of course you could call it "blanket". However, there are undeniable commonalities in such a subject, and that is what this kind of statement highlights. Anyway, culture is the background in which humans communicate and exist, as it is the medium of life for an entire society.

I shouldn't have (mistakenly) implied that you condemned anything in my last statement. Perhaps I was talking to people who may or may not be reading this. However, if a law "rooted in religion" is bad, it is bad; if an equally rooted law is acceptable and good, it is acceptable and good. The type of root has little to do with the way a flower blossoms.