XENA....

now that was a pretty good attempt at avoiding the issue.

I'll take it on the chin before I re-issue the challenge to honesty on your part.
Firstly, even IF all that you quoted (mostly it was accurate) were 100% true, and applied in full today, nothing in any of those texts is suggestive of INSTITUTIONALIZED DOMESTIC VIOLENCE as it is in the Quran. At worst, a scalf (dare I say Hijab :) and a quiet manner during worship wow.. what a terrrrrrible cruel and harsh and miserable and painful existence that is eh....

We may struggle (as I do) with some aspects of those biblical passages, -call them wierd, stupid, patriarchal whatever
it still does not change that fact that there is nothing allowing a man to BEAT his wife.

And this is the crucial point.

On uncovered heads. There were very clear connections between worship of Dionysus the god of wine and debauchery and head covering.
Here is a link describing the worship:

http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/euripides/euripides.htm

scroll down until u come to a long discourse by 'MESSENGER' which begins with "The grazing cattle..." read it right through.
Paul instituted customs which would distinguish Christians from the mystery religions.

http://www.spiritualabuse.org/issues/standards/hair/greek_god.html
you may wish to peruse this one also.

You can regard the 'women' issue as a peculiarity of our faith.. thats cool, but it is not about 'physical violence or beating'.

So, back to sincerity and honesty. I'll talk to some (very liberated) girls/ladies in our fellowship about their feelings on the passages u quoted, and you talk to ur Muslim friends about the Quran and beating

Then we can compare notes. I'll give you honest feedback, can you do this ?

BD - you are such an easy target. BTW don't you have any WOMEN in your fellowship? No such thing as liberated girls or LAAADIES.

;-)

I hope my memory is not that bad, but I seem to recall being educated in my youth by women who not only wore full veils bit an all over highly starched uniform to hide all parts of their bodies except their faces. These women were called nuns, and while I am glad to see most nuns have moved on from wearing such restrictive clothing, it was hardly a threat to national security. Interesting enough when nuns stopped wearing the veil, conservatives, many of whom are in Ms Bishop's political party, complained bitterly.

Part 1
It's about time people with a high profile (and some backbone) criticized (albeit naively) Islamic dress codes. Bronnie and Soph probably haven't studied the Qur'an, hadith, and sira, but then, neither have a lot of the posters to this forum, judging by their naive grasp of Islam.
First, let's look at female head/body covering in general:
Mohammed said women are 'awra' (pudendum in Arabic - imagine they outcry, in Australia, if any non-Muslim publicly stated that women were basically c#@ts). People cover their genitals, but not the rest of their body. Muslim women who cover all their body are saying that they're vagina from head to toe. It's too embarrassing to let men see their hair that's reminiscent of pubic hair.
Women for Mohammed were nothing but sex objects and servants that give men orgasms and children.
...Women who violate Iran’s strict Islamic dress code will be flogged immediately, prosecutor’s offices in provincial centres announced on Tuesday. In the city of Shahin-Shahr, the prosecutor’s office posted huge notices on billboards and shop windows warning women that dress code violators will appear before an Islamic judge immediately after arrest to receive a sentence, usually 100 lashes in public..... This behavior must be condemned, not encouraged!
Maybe some Iranian women want to be individuals!
Recently in France: Headscarf ban is judged success as hostility fades:
Fathima, who is 16, agrees. “In the end I really don’t think it was a bad law at all. I wear my voile until I get to the school gates and then I take it off. School is not a place for religion. It is a place where we are all French and we are all equal. After lessons, I put the scarf back on again. There’s no difficulty.” CONTINUED.

Part 2
The claim that the HIJAB is an essential part of the Muslim faith is totally false.
The hijab has nothing to do with Islam as a religion. It is not sanctioned anywhere in the Qur'an or the hadith.
It was invented in the early 1970s by Mussa Sadr, an Iranian mullah, a leader of the Lebanese Shi'ite community. In an interview in 1975, Sadr said that the hijab was inspired by the headgear of Catholic nuns..... Sadr's idea was that, by wearing the headgear, Shi'ite women would be clearly marked out, and thus spared sexual harassment and rape, by Arafat's Palestinian gunmen who controlled southern Lebanon. This fake Islamic hijab is nothing but a political prop, a weapon of visual terrorism, the symbol of a totalitarian ideology inspired more by Nazism and Communism - as symbolic of Islam as the Mao uniform was of Red China.
Multiculturalism is working against women in religious minorities with misogynist practices. It shows how many of those who consider themselves liberal or left-wing become loquacious when it comes to Bush-bashing, but lose their voice when women's rights are threatened by religious obscurantism.
From (in some cases) the age of 6, these poor girls have to wear, what amounts to a sack, on their heads
A ban on hijabs would perhaps convince many Muslim girls to renounce Islam and start to think for themselves, marry or co-habit with whoever they liked, listen to music, read books, without some zealot telling them not to, become astronauts, Atheists, stand-up comediennes, tennis legends, lead guitarists......
Where are the feminists that once advocated the burning of bras, as a means of thwarting 'male dominance', but are now strangely silent on this issue?

Good-on-yer Irfan Yusuf!
I applaud in essence your article - for the mealy mouthed wannabee's who have skirted the 'real' issue, and totally LOST the plot with their snipping-and-bickering, they have themselves to blame !
All this kefuffle over Islamic school children wearing their religion on their proverbial bodies, is just so much fickle hyperbole.
Who really cares, except enigmatic Bronwyn Bishop ? Demoted Minister of the Crown,exmember of John Winston Howard's " inner cabinet",pseudo-sophisticate, drag-queen and Dorothy Dixer she has ignited a swarm of criticism Oz wide.This churlish attitude is atypical of the media-tart, she is - except, in her sub-conscious she is in reality, a shiela from the sticks.A variable 'country-bumbkin'.
My Pater,bless his soul, a WWII veteran - used to make our lives miserable by railing against BB when she was Veteran Affair's Minister. For Days, we would hide in the chookpen, while Dad droned on about how incompetent, ineffectual and heartless she was ! C'est la vie.
BTW, Dad sported a Vandyke, wore a McDonald's tartan kilt,sans sporran and kirk, while Mum wore a chignon, maxi dress and Bali sandals. Does all this trivia sound like a fashion statement ? It is, except that I simply luv my ' Doc Martens' !!
Whether, Islamic school girls prefer the chador,hijab,burqa, abaya et al.. why take exception in a Democracy, we call 'home' ? Since when do Clannish traditions over-ride the 'old-school-tie' ?
Apart from the Islamic traditions, and cultural differences that go much further than ' three-score-and-twenty ', and Capt Cook, it's customery to respect other peoples domain, at the very least.

Sensation-seeking,, to discredit a bunch of pre-pubescent school girl's from Lakemba, Marrickville or whereever, does her NO credit. Her Christain up-bringing unseats her.

In the meantime,those who throw 'sticks-an-stones..' should take good stock of their own short-comings. We live in an imperfect World, and particularly in Oz, show sympathy, charity and understanding. This trivial persuit in 'new-australian-bashing', went out in the 50's. It's a mindless,hedonistic, and bird-witted endeavour that demeans us.
As they say in Kiwi, " KI-ORA ". j'y suis,j'y reste.