>>>I'd rather zap any word in any law inserted on behalf of any religion into nonexistence, and make sure it was replaced with religion-resistant text. Freedom of, freedom from - all welcome but none mandatory.
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>>But but but . . . for most people who read this, those particular words have impact.

I know - but just wanted to remind you that as much as words "VII century" qualify one state of mind, so do words "I century" qualify another.

>Isn't the term "Honor killing" an oxymoron?

Why? Most of the honors were initially gained in the battlefield. In Slavic languages it's obvious even today: the word čast - čest' - češć - whatever the form - means honor, but is related to its root which means "part"... the share of the loot. Even in Serbian, "čast" is "honor" and "deo" is "part" - but the cake is divided "na ravne časti", "on equal honors". Your honor is your share in the loot. That's how nobility came to be, being given land for military success.

And if you think that sort of "honor killing" as is now enforced by the fundamentalists in Iraq as awkward and backward... they're late just a century or two. Which doesn't make them right in any way - they're just another bunch of religious blind fools with adrenalin rush, trying to make sense of a world they don't understand. They're just sufficiently ignorant to be dangerous. Frankly, I don't see how to fix that problem without a firm set of functioning government institutions.