Another worrying poll today about how young British muslims are becoming more radical. Apparently 37% of 16-24 year olds want to live under sharia law and the same percentage want to send their children to islamic schools. There are many other equally depressing findings.
No response from the government yet, but the Telegraph report contains this interesting snippet (They’re talking about Tory leader David Cameron):
… in a speech today, Mr Cameron will warn the Muslim community that it cannot use the “screen of cultural sensitivity” to deny women their rights.
And he’s right you know. We have laws about sexual discrimination in this country. And if your religion isn’t compatible with those laws, then maybe you shouldn’t practice your religion in this country. Oh, and that goes for catholic adoption agencies too!
Update: More about Cameron’s opinions:
Mr Cameron calls for a “calm, thoughtful and reasonable” approach to building community cohesion.
“It’s no use behaving like the proverbial English tourist abroad, shouting ever more loudly at the hapless foreigner who doesn’t understand what is being said.
“We can’t bully people into feeling British – we have to inspire them,” he said. “Inspiring as well as demanding loyalty from every citizen will require a new crusade for fairness.”
In his speech later, Mr Cameron will warn that in some parts of Britain’s Muslim community “women are being denied access to education, work, involvement in the political process and surprisingly even denied access to mosques”.
He will go on to say: “We must be bold, and not hide behind the screen of cultural sensitivity to say publicly that no woman should be denied rights which both their religion and their country, Britain, support”.
As Martin points out below, that “crusade for fairness” is an astonishingly bad choice of words.
This is all based on an article from yesterday’s Observer.
Although it was simply astonishing that Cameron’s writers let him use the word “crusade” in the speech he made, considering the audience he was trying to address
Oh yeah. I forgot to mention that. I’ve added more context.
Amusingly, check out the ads this page is serving now! Should we click through and cost them money?
I have to say I am really surprised by your statement: “if your religion isn’t compatible with those laws, then maybe you shouldn’t practice your religion in this country”I don’t know why, it just doesn’t seem to fit what I thought your political and social views were.
Red,I understand what you’re saying. But it works like this:There seems to be a hierarchy of discrimination. People seem to be willing to turn a blind eye to one kind of discrimination if it stops them being accused of another, worse, kind. For example people often turn a blind eye to the sexism in rap culture to avoid being accused of racism.And I see that happening a lot with religion. People are allowed to get away with murder (not, as far as I know, literally) because their religion tells them how to act. This can be the homophobia of catholic adoption agencies, the endemic sexism of muslims or any number of other things.As you know, I think that religion is all nonsense. And I don’t think that you can allow people to get away with discrimination based on a fairy tale. So, yes, you might detect some hardening of my line on things like this.I just hope I don’t find myself agreeing with the Daily Mail too often.