In Memoriam

If a Christian or Jew leaves their faith, or marries someone their parents don't approve of, the reaction will vary.  There might be mild disappointment, or furious argument.  In the most extreme case, their family might disown them.

They won't be hunted down and killed.  Unlike under Islam.

An honor killing is the killing of a person by other members of her/his family or community, due to the belief by the perpetrators that the victim (or an act the victim is perceived to have committed) has brought dishonor upon the family or community. Honor killings are seen across religious communities and are not limited to one group. Honor killings are directed primarily against women and girls and are most often premeditated murders intended to restore the family’s social position and ‘honor’ through ‘cleansing the shame’ which the woman or girl is said to have brought, by erasing her very existence.

These killings occur in societies where the men’s status is judged by their ability to control women’s behaviour, and by the level of which women are conforming to social norms. Expressions of independence by a member, particularly in seeking to make decisions around relationships and sexuality is perceived as effecting the family’s reputation becoming tarnished within the community. Women can become targets of honor based violence for choosing their own life partner, spending time without family supervision, leaving a marriage, for becoming the subject of gossip, becoming ‘Westernized’ and many other reasons.

The UN conservatively estimates that 5,000 women and girls are killed each year globally by members of their own family, often by fathers, brothers, uncles and male cousins – and also mothers and other female relatives. The primary purpose of ‘honour crimes’ is to maintain men’s power in families and communities by denying women basic fundamental rights to make their own decisions about their own lives.

"Not limited to one group?"  Perhaps.  But, of the three major religions in the world, I've only heard of one doing it.  Even here in the USA.  Even in Arizona.  (Which begs the question, if you don't want your kids to be "Westernized," why did you move to America?  You came here voluntarily, we do things differently here, and we will not conform our laws to the standards of 7th-century cavemen.  Get with the program or get the hell out.)

May God bless and keep the souls of these women, who spent their lives in the shadow of an evil, twisted shell of a 'faith,' and were eventually consumed by it.  Their stories should steel our resolve to eradicate every trace of this Satanic philosophy from the Western world, and eventually the Earth.