Too bad it's not a candy cane

Ahhhh Malaysia, hailed as a moderate Muslim nation. Where attempting to have sex with your FIANCEE can be punished by up to three years in jail. Fortunately for one couple, they're getting off light with only a £1,000 fine each and a public caning.

Islamic religious police caught Mohamad Shahrin Abdul Majid, 29, and Nadiah Najat Hussin, 24, wearing only their underwear in a car at an office parking area in May.

They pleaded guilty to trying to have sex out of wedlock and were sentenced to six strokes of the cane. They were also fined £1,000 each.

Where is the Muslim outcry? Are the moderates concerned? I'm sure they're telling us that it's just a misinterpretation of the text. Or maybe they'll handle it the way many contemporary Christians regard the bible, "Oh, that text was meant for a different culture and it's not necessary today any more." Who decides that? What critical thinking skills did you use to cut off that excess moral depravity and go instead with your evolutionary intuitive moral compass??? Isn't the whole text holy and divinely inspired (if not divinely verbatim/written)? What intuitive moral compass are you employing to claim that this section is out of date but others are not? Why not go a step further and question teachings that you think are fine but that someone else might come along and say are out of date, let's say, the idea of gay marriage?

Then again, when people live their lives by fairy tales it's futile to determine the arbitrary assumptions with which they choose to build their arguments and govern their conscious world. It's based on feelings, not on a pursuit of truth. And for that, I'm thankful to live in a country where *most* laws are not directed by religious teachings.

Shame on you, Malaysia.