This week on The Devil’s Advocate, I aim to get my head around an Uzbek imam’s address to the Muslim women of the nation:

Normally, when a Muslim cleric speaks to women about their clothes, it’s about wearing more of them. But one imam in Uzbekistan has addressed his countrywomen, telling them not to cover up.

Polygyny is in the news again, this time in Canada, where a defense lawyer says that allowing gay marriage will pave the way for allowing polygamy to be legalized. I try to look on the bright side of polygamy legalization:

Polygyny is often associated with the exploitation of women partly because its illegal status allows for abuses to go unreported. With legalization comes regulation: if we legalize and regulate polygamous marriage like we do other forms of marriage, those in polygamous marriages will no longer be in legal limbo.

At The Devil’s Advocate, I talk about the astoundingly offensive statements made by a Portuguese cardinal warning Catholic women against Muslim men.

This is the most offensive utterance of interreligious hate I’ve heard since the Pope’s Orientalist insult to Muslims last year. Painting Muslim men as always foreign, brutally patriarchal, and “trouble” is a nicely-bundled mess of Islamophobia, xenophobia, racism, and sexism.

I get catty about about Saudi Arabia’s senior cleric supporting child marriages.

Most interesting is Al Sheikh’s statement that, “Our mothers and before them, our grandmothers, married when they were barely 12.” Thus following the mentality of “don’t question tradition” and “if it was good enough for our forefathers (and mothers), it’s good enough for us.”

A man blew himself up at a Shi’a shrine and so authorities have closed the shrine to women for Ashura, one of Shi’a Islam’s holiest holidays. Uh-huh.

I write about ABC’s newest reality show, Homeland Security USA, and why this particular reality show is even less real than most.

I write about Rihanna’s upcoming concert in Malaysia. What does that have to do with religion? Read and find out.

Sale no mobarak (happy new year) to everybody! Enshallah, this year will give us more peace than last year.

I begin this year by reflecting on the gains that Egyptian women have made last year over at ReligionDispatches.

My latest is up at Racialicious; it’s sort of auto-biographical and touches on bi-racial siblings. Enjoy!

I write about why the U.N.’s proposed resolution to decriminalize homosexuality is a bad idea.