YOU hardly equate the two morally, but maybe can agree our weblog and myself (at least) have the right of thinking differently and express it.

Your point of view is roughly: It's morally acceptable to kill a person as a murderer, it's not to kill him as a (woman) guilty of adultery. The one of many Nigerian is probably that both are morally okay. Mine (and many other people's one) is that it's not morally acceptable to kill a man (or a woman) for whatever reason, and it makes no difference to know what the reason is supposed to be. I feel the need to fight both the above points of view exactly the same way, because what equals them is way much more of what makes them different.

Probably, if asked, Miss France would share your point of view, not mine. Who can tell? This doesn't change my opinion, and I suppose the one of our webmaster also, and I think he has the right to criticize it.

I'm not sure my English knowledge is up to this daring task, but i'll try to explain why I agree a little bit with both of you. I believe there are different degrees of evil, and therefore different degrees of moral punishement. I do not think that adultery, for exemple, is a crime; in fact, I don't believe it's an offense at all, it is a private matter between two (three...) adults. And I do believe a murder is a crime. My analogy between Texas and Northern Nigeria is exactly that - an analogy. I'm not saying the two countries have the same evil degree, I'm not downsizing the horror of Ms Lawal's sentence and I'm not reducing the American contributions to democracy and civil rights to those of Nigeria.
And yet, I believe that it is morally wrong for a state to execute someone, to commit a murder in the name of the law. It is not very important if the majority wants it so. If we were to make a list of the most important individual's rights, the right to live would top our list, before the right to vote.
I respect Miss France's decision. I certainly respect bolt421's right to leave his/her opinion on the "comments" page. I have edited some of claude's answers, because I will not allow violent postings here, but I think that in the end, every choice is ideological, and therefore it is only natural that even when reading about beautiful women, we are confronted with difficult issues. Let's respect our difference of opinions about those, after all we do respect differences in trivial matters.

SALTYT, while I don't agree with you in that I do believe that a state empowered by the governed has a right to execute murderers, I certainly understand that this is an issue about which reasonable people can (and probably should) disagree. In any case, I believe that executions should be carried out in the most humane and painless way possible; being buried up to your neck and then pelted with stones is one of the cruelest ways to die, and to be sentenced to die in this way by any country is a horror and a scandal.

A do agree with you that adultery is not a crime, but is certainly a private matter between the folks involved (the public attention that celebrity adultery garners notwithstanding).

Finally, though Claude seems to feel that in some way I was attempting to silence you on this issue, on the contrary, since you invited comment, I thought you would welcome feedback on this issue. I am not one of those who respond automatically to any criticism of the death penalty; but I thought that perhaps Miss France deserved a little support for her stance. Whether such weighty issues are appropriate for beauty contestants to speak about is another issue; but certainly, given a podium (or a web site) an individual has a right to express herself.

Well, yes, it was certainly on my mind when I wrote that it's a "ridiculous mix". It is very dangerous to mix ideology and culture. after all, shouldn't Miss France boycott our own country, who killed thousands of arabs during the Algerian war without trial, including torture (is it better than stonning, I wonder?).
But then, isn't your point of view a little misogyn as well? Aren't you considering Miss France totally differently than you would consider, say, Daniel Barenboim boycott of Israel or Richard Gere boycott of Bejing? Just wondering aloud.

IMHO, Miss France is no more or less ridiculous than Daniel Barenboim or Richard Gere. The only reason I singled out a woman in my earlier posting was because her position was the topic at hand. My point is, an athlete or an artist may have admirable talents, but that alone does not make their opinions worth taking to heart. If I want to know about Chinese repression in Tibet, I'll listen to the Dali Lama, not the American Gigolo.

What is particularly troubling about the "beauty contest industry," however, is that it almost forces contestants to take ridiculous politcal stances because of the requirement that contestants have a "platform." This requirement has been explicit in American contests for some time, but it seems to be taking hold in other country's contests as well. I think this is because the people who run the contests want things both ways -- they want to show beautiful women in beautiful clothes & swimsuits and sell advertising, but they also want to appear to be modern and enlightened regarding women's role in society so as to avoid condemnation and the appearance that they exploit women. This is hypocrisy.

The movie industry does not choose its performers based on their political beliefs, only their suitability for the role and their box office potential (poor judgment notwithstanding) although there are exceptions to this -- the Richard Gere movie "Red Corner" comes to mind.