29 May 2007 @ 8:05AM >> Some forms of government-mandated segregation just don’t seem to stir that much passion among the world’s do-gooders:

Saudi officials have arrested a man in Mecca for being a Christian, saying that the city, which Muslims consider to be holy, is off-limits to non-Muslims.

Nirosh Kamanda, a Sri Lankan Christian, was detained by the Saudi Expatriates Monitoring Committee last week after he started to sell goods outside Mecca’s Great Mosque.

After running his fingerprints through a new security system, Saudi police discovered that he was a Christian who had arrived in the country six months earlier to take a job as a truck driver in the city of Dammam. Kamanda had subsequently left his place of work and moved to Mecca.

“The Grand Mosque and the holy city are forbidden to non-Muslims,” Col. Suhail Matrafi, head of the department of Expatriates Affairs in Mecca, told the Saudi daily Arab News. “The new fingerprints system is very helpful and will help us a lot to discover the identity of a lot of criminals,” he said.

24 May 2007 >> From London’s Daily Mail, more evidence that multiculturalism is more important than truth to politically correct educators:

Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Government backed study has revealed.

It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.

There is also resistance to tackling the 11th century Crusades - where Christians fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem - because lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques.

The findings have prompted claims that some schools are using history ‘as a vehicle for promoting political correctness’.

The study, funded by the Department for Education and Skills, looked into ‘emotive and controversial’ history teaching in primary and secondary schools.

It found some teachers are dropping courses covering the Holocaust at the earliest opportunity over fears Muslim pupils might express anti-Semitic and anti-Israel reactions in class.

The researchers gave the example of a secondary school in an unnamed northern city, which dropped the Holocaust as a subject for GCSE coursework.

The report said teachers feared confronting ‘anti-Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial among some Muslim pupils’.

20 May 2007 @ 1:25PM >> Last fall, I commented on an ill-conceived proposal in the Netherlands to ban the wearing of burqas in public:

The way to address the fact that there are some Jihadists in the Muslim world who need to be defeated is not to strip all Muslims of their right to wear religious attire. Doing so does nothing to further the integration of Muslims, it only serves as a signal that they are not welcome.

Western cultures will go down a dangerous path if we start outlawing legitimate, non-violent and uncoerced expressions of faith.

I feel the same way about this proposal in Switzerland:

A group of right-wing politicians is gathering signatures to try to force a national vote on banning the construction of minarets in Switzerland.

The planned building of minarets, the towers attached to mosques from which the Islamic call for prayer is issued, in small Swiss towns has sparked local protests.

A group of politicians from the Swiss National Party and Federal Democratic Union are seeking to prevent the construction of minarets in national law, saying they are a symbol of power and threaten law and order in Switzerland.

The campaign has to gather 100,000 signatures by November 2008 to force a national vote on the initiative which, if it gains a majority vote, would then be written into law.

“We have no doubt that we’ll reach the goal,” Ulrich Schlueer, a Swiss National Party parliamentarian for Zurich who is heading the initiative, said.

Muslims living in the West can be our long-term allies against the Jihadists, but only if they are integrated into society as equal members. To treat them as second-class citizens by placing restrictions on the construction on their houses of worship when no such restrictions apply to any other religion is not only short-sighted, it goes against the founding ideals of Western civilization.

It is legitimate to combat those who would seek to destroy us, but it is unfair to treat all Muslims as though they fall into that category.

23 March 2007 @ 10:36AM >> Europe is increasingly surrenduring its own culture and bowing to the mandates of Sharia law.

First, from Germany:

A 26-year-old mother of two wanted to free herself from what had become a miserable and abusive marriage. The police had even been called to their apartment to separate the two — both of Moroccan origin — after her husband got violent in May 2006. The husband was forced to move out, but the terror continued: Even after they separated, the spurned husband threatened to kill his wife.

A quick divorce seemed to be the only solution — the 26-year-old was unwilling to wait the year between separation and divorce mandated by German law. She hoped that as soon as they were no longer married, her husband would leave her alone. Her lawyer, Barbara Becker-Rojczyk agreed and she filed for immediate divorce with a Frankfurt court last October. They both felt that the domestic violence and death threats easily fulfilled the “hardship” criteria necessary for such an accelerated split.

In January, though, a letter arrived from the judge adjudicating the case. The judge rejected the application for a speedy divorce by referring to a passage in the Koran that some have controversially interpreted to mean that a husband can beat his wife. It’s a supposed right which is the subject of intense debate among Muslim scholars and clerics alike. “The exercise of the right to castigate does not fulfill the hardship criteria as defined by Paragraph 1565 (of German federal law),” the daily Frankfurter Rundschau quoted the judge’s letter as saying. It must be taken into account, the judge argued, that both man and wife have Moroccan backgrounds.

“The right to castigate means for me: the husband can beat his wife,” Becker-Rojczyk said, interpreting the judge’s verdict.

And from France, newspaper editor Philippe Val describes the trouble he’s in as a result of publishing those Mohammad cartoons:

A French court is tomorrow expected to decide whether I and the newspaper I edit, Charlie Hebdo, committed a crime by publishing cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed. If the court finds me guilty of “publicly abusing a group of people because of their religion,” in effect racism, as the organizations of French Muslims that are plaintiffs in this case claim, I could be imprisoned for six months and fined thousands of euros. A great deal is at stake, for free speech in France and Europe, in the outcome of this trial.

[...]

Before publication, I was pressured not to go ahead and summoned to the Hotel Matignon to see the prime minister’s chief of staff; I refused to go. The next day, summary proceedings were initiated by the Grand Mosque of Paris and the Union of Islamic Organizations of France to stop this issue of Charlie Hebdo from hitting newsstands. The government encouraged them, but their suit was dismissed.

After the cartoons appeared, the Muslim groups attacked me by filing suit against me on racism charges. President Jacques Chirac, who campaigned for this just-completed trial, offered them the services of his own personal lawyer, Francis Szpiner. Dalil Boubakeur, the rector of the Grand Mosque, who always took orders from the Elysee, was apparently not convinced this case was necessary; he told me as much several times. But Mr. Boubakeur was under pressure from the fundamentalists at the UOIF (Union of Islamic Organizations of France), who had come to dominate the French Council of Muslim Worship, which he heads, and Mr. Chirac. Why? Only he knows. We can only guess. Probably to nurture his friendships in the Middle East and win arms contracts for France, while at home playing to Muslim public opinion that’s supposedly in thrall to fundamentalism.

[...]

Since it is hardly thinkable that the French parliament could be persuaded to re-establish the crime of blasphemy, the plaintiffs chose the legal path to try to obtain a ruling condemning all criticism of religion. But in order to survive, democracy needs to confront dogmas. We saw this happening when rights for women and homosexuals were established; we see it again today in defending genetic research on stem cells, for instance.

This trial is important for all the forms of expression that should flourish in democracy: painting, cinema, literature, journalism, scientific research, and even the free speech exercised in everyday life. The limits to this freedom are already fixed by laws that protect life, and that penalize racism, insults and defamation. In publishing the Danish cartoons, no one broke any of them.

6 March 2007 @ 8:29AM >> Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has taken to injecting religion into his political speeches, a mixture that Democrats usually oppose—when their opponents do it.

It’s interesting to note that when Edwards invokes Jesus, he does it to slam the United States by saying Americans are selfish. This coming from a man with a 28,000 square foot multi-million dollar mansion bought with money he collected as a lawyer whose racket was suing doctors into bankruptcy.

One of the reasons that health care costs have been rising so precipitously is because of trial lawyers like Edwards. So maybe he should spare us the lectures on selfishness and take the advice that Democrats usually give: keep religion out of politics.

15 October 2006 @ 3:59PM >> The New York Times reports that in Europe, “those normally seen as moderates — ordinary people as well as politicians — are asking whether once unquestioned values of tolerance and multiculturalism should have limits.”

15 October 2006 @ 3:50PM >> For British Airways employees, whether you’re allowed to wear religious garb depends on what religion you are:

British Airways has suspended a Christian woman who wears a necklace with a crucifix to work, even though it allows Muslims and Sikhs to wear headscarves and turbans, a newspaper reported overnight.

Nadia Eweida, 55, told the Daily Mail that she decided to sue her employer for religious discrimination after having been suspended without pay for three weeks.

“I will not hide my belief in the Lord Jesus. British Airways permits Muslims to wear a headscarf, Sikhs to wear a turban and other faiths religious apparel,” Ms Eweida said. “Only Christians are forbidden to express their faith.”

[...]

In a statement, British Airways said: “The case is ongoing, and is still under investigation, and as such it would be inappropriate to discuss it in detail. An appeal is due to be heard next week.

“British Airways does recognise that uniformed employees may wish to wear jewellery including religious symbols. Our uniform policy states that these items can be worn underneath the uniform,” it said.

“There is no ban. The rule applies for all jewellery and religious symbols on chains and is not specific to the Christian cross,” it said. “Other religious items such as turbans, hijabs and bangles can be worn as it is not practical for staff to conceal them beneath their uniforms.”

25 July 2006 >> This past spring, Comedy Central censored the image of the Muslim prophet Mohammed in an episode of South Park. The network’s decision came in the wake of the Cartoon Intifada, in which riots broke out around the globe after a Danish newspaper published cartoons depicting Mohammed.

Recently, in the second installment of an extensive two-part interview, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone discussed the controversy. Trey Parker said:

“This is South Park, and we rip on absolutely everyone in really horrible, terrible ways. And if you’re saying that this is the one thing we can’t do, besides Tom Cruise, because they’re threatening violence, well, then, I guess that’s what everyone should do. Then if the Catholics don’t want us ripping on Jesus anymore, they should just threaten you with violence, and they’ll get their way. That’s why it is such a slippery slope and such a dangerous path to go down.”

Matt added, “I think, too, it was a disappointment because, like Trey said, when that thing flared up in January — we’d actually talked about doing the Mohammed cartoon episode before because those [cartoons] were about a year ago that came out in Denmark. So we’d actually talked about it before it hit the fan in January. When it did, we had this idea where we wanted to show Mohammed’s image, but completely not offensive, just a guy standing there. And that was going to be the point.

[...]

Matt and Trey learned the ridiculous reality that they can show Jesus defecating on George Bush, but they can’t show Mohammed. Matt said, “That’s the point. It’s open season on Jesus.” Trey added, “Yeah. You can do anything you want to Jesus.”

The appeasers at Comedy Central, Viacom and elsewhere are teaching the world a dangerous lesson: if you want your preferred religious figure to get any respect, you’ve got to be willing to kill people to do it.

(Hat tip: Bridget Johnson.)

30 April 2006 @ 6:29PM >> A number of readers wrote in response to Paul Jimerson’s ugly stereotyping in his e-mail criticizing my post Tolerance and Hospitality, San Francisco-Style.

Mr. Jimerson predicted bloodshed if gay groups visited “small-town America”:

If such a thing should ever take place in small town America what kind of reaction do you think they might receive from the town if/when they came back the next year to do the same thing? How about the third year? There would be blood shed and it wouldn’t take long either. You know it and I know it and it’s typical of Christian tolerance or others and good will towards man.

Most of the e-mail pointed out that Paul’s assumptions were not only bigoted, they were flat-out wrong. Here’s a sample.

Forrest writes:

I guess the tolerant Paul Jimerson didn’t hear about Shout, the new Gay and Lesbian film festival here in Birmingham - starting tonight actually. I’m getting so tired of hearing Birmingham being used as an example of Nazi America. Birmingham has a large, thriving gay community. This town has come a long way in the past 40 years.

I’m a straight, white, Southern male - and *gasp* I hang out with my gay neighbor all the time. No beatings, no name calling, not so much as a harsh word.

Jeremy Brown adds:

Your recent post “Inside the Mind of a Tolerant One” was particularly interesting because I just read an article in World Magazine about the homosexual group, Soulforce, visiting and holding demonstrations at Evangelical Christian college campuses. This actually fits well with the hypothetical scenario Mr. Jimerson presented, although the welcome they received is significantly different from the one he suggested would occur.

It must be quite satisfying to imagine yourself superior to the rest of the country, so this information could be profoundly disturbing to Mr. Jimerson. Out of respect to him, I will not pass it along.

If ignorance is bliss, I’d hate to ruin his good time.

28 April 2006 @ 12:58PM >> Last month, I noted the greeting that a Christian group received when they arrived for a week-long retreat in San Francisco. (A sample, courtesy of Assemblyman Mark Leno: “[T]hey’re loud, they’re obnoxious, they’re disgusting, and they should get out of San Francisco.”).

A gentleman named Paul Jimerson took issue with my highlighting the rude welcome put out by the supposed world capitol of tolerance. Here’s his e-mail, with my responses interspersed:

Hello Mr.Maloney,

As a liberal, progressive and especially as a resident of San Francisco I was most interested in reading your interpretation of the events you detail in your “Tolerance and Hospitality, San Francisco-Style” editorial.  After reading your article I thought about it for a few minutes and would like to share with you my thoughts on the matter.

First, Evangelical Christians who choose to come to San Francisco do so because they’re looking for a fight ....or for a confrontation at least.  By bringing their message to San Francisco they were attempting to soil our progressive nest with what we see as hate speech.

So, what you’re saying is, your “progressive nest” has no room for people who disagree with you. And that people who disagree with you are engaging in “hate speech.”

They had no intention of proselytizing or converting people.  Their actions were provocative and antagonistic....the only metaphor that seems appropriate is “flipping the bird”.  I hardly think that any of those in attendance  were surprised by the reception they met.  A lot of the people here came from small towns and I’m sure a lot of them came here to escape the animosity and hatred of the Evangelical Christians in their home town.  They were victimized, humiliated, beaten, and despised by Evangelical or other Christians until they came here.

All Christians are brutal thugs who beat people up. I’m glad to see that “progressives” have moved beyond the simple-minded stereotyping that exists everywhere else in America.

The counter-protesters were superior in number and they could have done anything they wanted with the Evangelical group who would have been helpless against them.  If you consider how Evangelicals have treated homosexuals throughout history in the countless situations where the homosexuals were the helpless ones, I’d say that your Evangelical Christians were treated VERY WELL.  I bet they didn’t even get spit on.

Wow! San Francisco is tolerant! You don’t beat people up who disagree with you! And you might not even spit on them, but you’re not sure about that.

Consider the following hypothetical scenario .... a small group of gay and lesbian activists come to a small very religious town and start making speeches and  broadcasting sentiment that condemns evangelical Christians for nothing more than being evangelical and christian....while this goes on they pass out leaflets that state un-categorically that God hates evangelical Christians because they engage in un-natural cannibalistic practices every Sunday.....Cannibalism hasn’t been socially acceptable for thousands of years and only the most savage and primitive of peoples today practice it (or so the fliers would say) and those who still eat human flesh ought to be wiped off the face of the earth for the good of all mankind.  After making their speeches and passing out their leaflets the group then proceed to hold a noisy protest/rally on the steps of the nearest big church in town. While they are there they form an effective block of the entrance and nobody can get in or out of the Church until they leave.

That’s a rather extreme hypothetical scenario I’m sure you would agree but these are extreme times and the scenario’s events were intended to be as offensive to you as the Evangelicals visit to San Francisco was to us.  If such a thing should ever take place in small town America what kind of reaction do you think they might receive from the town if/when they came back the next year to do the same thing?  How about the third year?  There would be blood shed and it wouldn’t take long either.  You know it and I know it and it’s typical of Christian tolerance or others and good will towards man.

I’m having a little trouble understanding your bizarre fantasy. On the one hand, you condemn a fictional town for being intolerant of gays in your hypothetical scenario, but at the same time, you applaud San Francisco for being intolerant of Christians in reality.

Either you want a country where a group of citizens can meet openly wherever they want without being harassed, or you don’t. Which is it?

And, I must congratulate you once again for showing such a great understanding of what it means to be a “progressive.” Being a progressive used to mean that you’ve progressed beyond hateful stereotypes. But you’ve just replaced one set of stereotypes with another. Can’t you see that you’re exactly the same as someone who hates a gay person simply for being gay?

I mean your position is rather funny actually.  Christians come to San Francisco and do little more than flip the bird at the entire gay community .. they do it every year on a schedule and then complain when people here get upset about it and give voice to their anger.   If the Perpetual Sisters of Indulgence got dressed up in their full regalia and marched through downtown Biloxi, Mississippi or Birmingham Alabama, all the while shaking their butts in the faces of the city’s residents and carrying on like the outlandish queens they are, taunting and ridiculing the people for being heterosexual, I seriously doubt that all of them would leave those cities alive.... such a thing couldn’t even take place without the National Guard coming in and lining the streets.  That is how tolerant you folks on the right are and you know it.

Yes, everyone on the right is exactly the same. They’re a bunch of intolerant neanderthal murderers. Thanks for pointing this out repeatedly. I was beginning to get the mistaken impression that people should be judged as individuals. But that’s pretty time-consuming. Your technique of condemning large masses of society is much more efficient.

If we on the left were as kind as you some Evangelical Christians would have perished when they first started coming here.  I think it might even be a good idea for the Evangelical Christians who came here to write a thank you note to San Francisco for treating them so well.  They should be especially thankful they didn’t receive a more christian welcome.  I’m a firm believer in treating people in the same manner they have shown to me.  It’s lucky for you that the gay and lesbian community here don’t hold to that philosophy, or the Christians would have all left here for the nearest hospital.  Please don’t misunderstand me ......I don’t engage in or condone violence Mr. Maloney.  I don’t savagely beat people who are different from the norm in my society.  But I have been beaten because I was the different one.  When you folks come here you’re the different ones, and yet we do not beat you for it.

Well, I’m very sorry to hear that you were beaten simply for being who you are. There’s no excuse for that, and I hope whoever did it got what was coming to them, several times over.

I am also very sorry that the lesson you’ve drawn from this is to assume that anyone who calls themselves a Christian is a hate-monger who will beat you up. If you dislike the stereotyping that led to your beating, then why do you continue to engage in it yourself?

It’s funny...... we on the left literally turn the other cheek when struck, we did not treat you as we have been treated by you.  Christian principles come naturally to those on the left it seems even though the last thing I would ever call myself is a Christian.  You should read what Gandhi said about Christians and Christianity sometime.   I couldn’t agree with him more. 

Sincerely,

Paul Jimerson

Thanks for the e-mail, Paul. I hope your future is happier than your past has been.

1 April 2006 @ 4:42PM >> In a parallel universe, this likeably unlikely combo is the top-rated reality TV show:

Although [the Dalai Lama] appeared not to approve of the war in Iraq, he was admiring of [President George W.] Bush.

“He is very straightforward,” said the monk.

“On our first visit, I was faced with a large plate of biscuits. President Bush immediately offered me his favourites, and after that, we got on fine. On my next visit, he didn’t mind when I was blunt about the war.

“By my third visit, I was ushering him into the Oval Office. I was astonished by his grasp of Buddhism.”

30 March 2006 >> An evangelical Christian group is welcomed to San Francisco by the city’s noble statesmen:

Assemblyman Mark Leno [...] told counterprotesters at City Hall on Friday that while such fundamentalists may be small in number, “they’re loud, they’re obnoxious, they’re disgusting, and they should get out of San Francisco.”

[...]

Earlier this week, the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution condemning the “act of provocation” by what it termed an “anti-gay,” “anti-choice” organization that aimed to “negatively influence the politics of America’s most tolerant and progressive city.”

So, because the group might not agree with the politics of the people who run America’s most tolerant city, they should just get the hell out. (I’d hate to think of the reception they’d get if San Francisco weren’t so tolerant.)

Christian Gallion, a 15-year-old in town with his Assembly of God youth group from Humboldt County, shrugged off being called “fascists” by counterdemonstrators.

“It doesn’t bother me,” Gallion said. “It’s a beautiful city, and we don’t have anything against the protesters.”

The adults who run San Francisco could probably learn a little something about tolerance from this 15-year-old boy.