THE DAILY BLADE: What Freedom Of Religion Means To Muslims
The Washington Times reports that European nations are imposing bans on Muslim women and girls wearing veils and head scarves. One’s first instinct is to condemn these laws for infringing on religious freedom. But Europeans increasingly view the veils and headscarves as emblematic of Muslim immigrants’ intransigent refusal to assimilate:
[T]he Muslim veil is drawing growing criticism in much of Europe. It has been chased from public schools in France and Belgium, and its strictest, face-concealing variation, the niqab [a scarf and veil that covers the head and face, leaving only the eyes visible], has been outlawed in a smattering of European towns.
Even in multicultural Britain, the niqab has sparked ferocious debate after the suspension of a Muslim teaching assistant and remarks by top government officials that the niqab encourages an unsettling social rift. …
Feeding the controversy are a series of incidents pitting Europe's Muslim population against its Christian majorities: Last year's riots in France, the Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, the slaying of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, honor killings in Germany, terrorist attacks in Britain and Spain, and Europe-wide concerns about illegal immigration. …
European politicians critical of the veil cite the importance of integrating ethnic African, Arab and Turkish immigrant populations. That was the message behind French legislation two years ago banning the head scarf and other religious symbols in public schools. ...
Public wearing of the niqab is similarly banned in Italy under anti-terrorist laws, which make it an offense to hide the face in public. In Germany, four states have outlawed public school teachers from wearing head scarves - a ban that applies to all civil servants in the German state of Hesse.
Why should people in the US care about Muslim insistence on importing intolerant religious and cultural practices to non-Muslim countries? Columnist Dennis Prager explains:
In Britain and Australia, Muslim taxi drivers refuse to pick up passengers who have a dog with them - even when the passenger is blind and the dog is a Seeing Eye dog. Nearly all religious Muslims believe that Islam forbids them to come into contact with dogs. …
And in Minneapolis, Minn., Muslim taxi drivers, who make up a significant percentage of taxi drivers in that city, refuse to pick up passengers who have a bottle of wine or other alcoholic beverage with them. …
We are not talking here about Muslim fanatics or Muslim terrorists, but about decent every day Muslims. And what these practices reveal is something virtually unknown in Judeo-Christian societies - the imposing of one's religious practices on others.
Now, many of those with a graduate degree in the humanities, and others taught how not to think clearly, will object that religious Christians do exactly this sort of thing when they try to impose their religious views on abortion, for example, on society.
But there is no analogy between a Muslim not allowing a non-Muslim to bring a bottle of wine or a dog into a Muslim-driven taxi and Christians trying to convince a democratic society to outlaw most abortions.
There is no comparing ritual prohibitions with moral prohibitions. … abortion is a moral issue. Contact with dogs, on the other hand, is a ritual issue. …
Religious Muslims … believe that wherever applicable, non-Muslims should change their behavior in the light of Islam's distinctive laws. …
The implications of this mindset is alarming to Rupert Murdoch, who has made a rather tidy sum looking into the future and discerning trends and events long before the rest of us catch on. Commenting in The New Yorker magazine, Murdoch assesses the relentless attempts by Islamofascists to dominate Western mores and culture:
"These people intend to change civilization, and they are prepared to take a hundred years to do it. We keep having to speak politically correctly about it, saying Muslims are wonderful, it's just a tiny minority. They are not all terrorists, of course, but the frightening thing is that it is the children of those good original immigrants who are being brainwashed in big numbers."
Judge: Veils Not Allowed In My Courtroom
Europeans can adopt laws prohibiting veils with abandon, because their legislative bodies do not have a First Amendment proscribing government interference with a person’s religious practices.
But even the First Amendment does not give carte blanche to Muslim women who want to wear their veils in certain situations. For instance, a Michigan judge dismissed a small-claims court case filed by Ginnnah Muhammad, 42, after she refused to remove her niqab while testifying.
District Judge Paul Paruk told her he needed to see her face to judge her truthfulness and gave her a choice: take off the veil while testifying or have the case dismissed. The Associated Press notes that Michigan law is silent on how judges handle religious attire of people in court, so judges can run their courtrooms as they see fit.
This case brings to mind last year’s ruling by the Fifth District Court of Appeal upholding a lower-court decision requiring a Muslim woman to remove her veil for her driver's license photo, in accordance with Florida law. In his 15-page opinion, Appellate Judge Emerson R. Thompson Jr. wrote:
We recognized the tension created as a result of choosing between following the dictates of one's religion and the mandates of secular law. However, as long as the laws are neutral and generally applicable to the citizenry, they must be obeyed.
Update
Your Tuition Dollars At Work
This one’s a win for all those hard working parents who scrimp and save to put their children through college, only to learn that their hard-earned dollars are paying to indulge the unsubstantiated, incoherent rantings of crackpot professors.
Steven Jones, a Brigham Young University (BYU) physics professor, has resigned. Jones recently published his cockamamie theories about the US government being responsible for the events of 9/11, and about the World Trade Center being brought down by explosives inside the structures, - not two hijacked airplanes slamming into them. BYU had put Jones on leave last month, and is investigating his research.
Trackbacks
-
February 13, 2007
The Stiletto wrote:
The town council of tiny (pop. 1,300) Herouxville, Québec, has issued a declaration informing Muslims and other immigrants from non-Western countries about "normes de vie" (standards of conduct) based on Provincial and Federal laws to which they are expected to conform (quoting from the English translation found in the "avis public" section of the town’s Website): "We wish to inform these new arrivals that the lifestyle that they left behind when in their birth country cannot be brought here with them and they would have to adapt to their new social identity." … "[A] woman ...
Comments