And why not legalize rape while they're at it?

The people of Iraq are voting on their new constitution tomorrow, October 15. If anything I've said (8/23/2005, 8/28/2005) before just seems like whiny BS to you, THIS shouldn't:

As the constitution was being drafted by rival factions battling for control of Iraq and its future, women, who make up more than 50 percent of the population, were never treated as more than a side issue. None was involved in the backroom dealing. They had to rely on male leaders with other issues on their minds to plead their case.

President Bush has said women's rights is one of the reasons Americans are fighting in Iraq. A Western official in Baghdad said Friday that the proposed constitution was "a good constitution for women, and very frankly that's something we were very insistent upon."

The draft going before voters Saturday specifies equality regardless of a person's sex and aspires to reserve 25 percent of the seats in the National Assembly for women.

But it also gives each Iraqi household the option of using religious law to decide matters of inheritance, divorce, alimony and other family issues. Rights advocates have said they fear women will be coerced by male relatives into accepting the least favorable interpretations of religious law -- forbidding divorce without a husband's permission, for example, or cutting a daughter's inheritance compared with a son's.

The constitution also sets aside seats for Muslim clerics on the Supreme Court, which will weigh the constitutionality of all laws. In a country where an Iranian-influenced Shiite religious party holds the balance of power, that alarms proponents of women's rights.

"They call this constitution a tent, but they pulled Iraqi women out of this tent," said Zakiya Khalifa Zaidi, 73, a well-known actress who is now an activist.

"The constitution was written in a very tense atmosphere," Zaidi said. "That's why we lost many of our rights amid the chaos."

"Women lost ground in the constitution," agreed Hajim M. Hasani, the speaker of the National Assembly.

You know what? A solid guarantee of women's rights would have justified at least some of the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq. We would have truly been spreading freedom. But what have we done?

I am suddenly reminded of A Handmaid's Tale...