A court in Indonesia has sentenced the editor of Playboy in that country to a two-year jail term for violating moral norms by publishing obscene images and stories. The centerfold of the magazine, who is also Indonesian, is awaiting sentence on the same charge.
The Islamic radicals are not content. They want the death sentence! In the spirit of scholarly investigation, I did my best to find out what the Indonesian edition of Playboy is really like. By Western standards, pretty tame stuff. There is no complete nudity, just what we would call mild erotica. Mainstream weeklies in Europe are more provocative.
But the debate in Indonesia--and remember, this is a relatively moderate Muslim country--shows how conservative are the socail mores in countries outside of Europe and America. This is where my critics like Andrew Sullivan--and even some of the leftists who have become regular responders on this blog--are stumped. However much they might wish it were not so, this is the way there world is, and we have to deal with it.
The simple truth is that the lifestyle to which many Americans on the left aspire is one that is morally revolting to many traditional people in Asia, Africa, South America and the Middle East. I'm not saying anyone should change their way of life to please the Chinese or the Indonesians. But is it too much to ask that you don't thrust your values in their faces? Aren't they entitled to shape their own countries according to their own values?
There's a funny item up now on Talking Points Memo about Nevada's governor Jim Gibbons. Confronted with this Nevada Appeal photo of him embracing the Playboy-model ex-wife of a former Reno mayor, he insisted he was just comforting a friend. 
