Bronwyn Winter wrote:

"First, Muslims are no more nor less able to live within democracies than are followers of other faiths; the battle for secular democracy was a long and violent one within Christianity also, and is by no means over, as was demonstrated by the former Howard government’s relentless re-Christianisation of public space, community services and government funding directions (such as increased funding to Christian schools)."

The School Chaplaincy Program which allows missionaries into the public schools, and the increased funding of religious schools have been continued by the current Labor government. They are continuing the re-Christianisation of public space. Actually Australia has not always been so Christian. From the first fleet in 1788 until 1820 no Christian church was consecrated. According to Tom Frame's "Church and State" government assistance to church activities including education ended in South Australia in 1851, in Queensland in 1860, in New South Wales in 1862, in Tasmania in 1869, Victoria in 1870 and Western Australia in 1890. Let Australia be resecularised.

AN APOLOGETIC...for Islam. Yep..thats what the article is, but it's more.

It's also an apologetic for a particularly secular, historic revisionist way of looking at Islam. (and defining it)

So there is the first problem... what IS...."Islam".

The author makes reference to:

<<Islam is as is internally diverse as other religions, and has ultra-fundamentalist anti-democratic factions just as it has pro-democracy, pro-secular schools of thought.>>

PROBLEM. She is confused, her terminology should be fixed. It should read:

"The Muslim community is.....diverse"

STARTING POINT. Only a secularist or secularly educated Muslim would venture to suggest that 'Islam' could be diverse. Islam, if it is anything, begins and ends with:

-MOHAMMAD it's founder (one would expect him to be the final authority on all things "Islamic")
-THE QURAN... it's "constitution"

-THE HADITH... filling in the gaps about personal behavior, based on what Mohammad "said" (Oral tradition) and 'did' also conveyed by this oral tradition, until it was all codified.

Anything other than this...is not 'Islam' but some philosophical mess produced by confused people.

The whole principle on which Islam is based is.. "Submission to the One True God" and that's all there is to it.

Submission can only be based on...the knowledge of what Allah says, and he 'says' it through the Quran, according to all Muslims.
While there might a be a group called Ahmadiyas (just banned in Indonesia) which claim a subsequent prophet after Mohammad, they still are based on the Quran.

LESSON TIME... All secularists should examine the teaching of the Quran, not the opinions of intellectually soft western educated Muslims, to decide the question of 'compatibility' to the West.

DAR UL HAAB and DAR UL ISLAM are 2 terms which might prove very educational to the secularist who feels it is compatible.
These terms are based on Surah 9:29 which you might like to read some time, and then 9:30 would be helpful.

I never thought I would find myself in broad agreement with a militant feminist; but in this case I am.

I can differ with Bronwyn Winter on points of detail but her broad thesis is right on the money. The best defence against sharia, or any other imposition of religious law, is secular democracy.

NB: A secular state is not an atheist state. It is a state that is neutral with respect to religion. A secular democracy guarantees its citizens both freedom of religion and freedom from religion.

Now, should a secular democracy be funding schools that are affiliated with a religion?

Should we be funding Imams who teach kids to stone gays or adulterers?*

How about an Imam who tells them:

Allah's Apostle said, "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him."

HADITH Sahih Bukhari [4:52:177] Narrated Abu Huraira:

I am sure OLO posters can cite examples from other faiths and will do so with relish.

But the BOTTOM LINE is this. Do we want our taxpayer dollars spent on propagating this sort of thing?

How about tax breaks for religious organizations? Why should they be excused from paying property taxes?

*In Iran the penal code is very precise about the procedure for stoning. Article 102 explains that prior to the stoning, men must be buried up to their waists in a pit, and women up to their breasts, so their upper bodies are exposed but they cannot move. Article 104 explains that the stones must be large enough to inflict pain, but "not large enough to kill the person by one or two strikes." Most death take around 20 minutes.

(See Haaretz, 14 Feb 2008

Dear BOAZ_David,

You really don't know what you are talking about. - you seem to think that there is only one way to interprete a text - provided we all read the same text we will all believe the same thing. Not really plausible is it. May be you should try going out into the sunshine, speaking to a few human beings, in general getting a life!

boaz, is christianity diverse? if so, then what permits christianity a diversity impossible for islam?

Why is prejudice against Moslems described as "racism"? Islam is a religion, an ideology, this is stetching the definition to breaking point. A necessary condition for religious freedom is the existence of a secular state. It doesn't appear to occur to any of the various competing religious loonies that if their side loses the battle, in a theocratic state, their future might be very dire indeed.