Periculitis,

How about the demands for prayer rooms at universities in Australia?
At RMIT, Muslims got prayer rooms but then protested because they had to share them with infidels.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/prayer-room-protest-planned-at-uni/story-e6frf7jo-1225692522870

In Britain, Muslims are demanding segregated change rooms, segregated swimming, etc, for their children.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-437431/Schools-accused-ignoring-Muslim-pupils-wishes.html

In the Netherlands, Muslims are demanding and receiving segregated theatres.
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1338480?eng=y

Muslim footbaths are being increasingly demanded at airports in the U.S.
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57935

Muslims are demanding prayer time at their jobs
http://www.labornotes.org/node/1946

Muslims are of course demanding that Islam be placed above criticism
http://europenews.dk/en/node/13092

There are more than 750 Zones Urbaines Sensibles in France where the French authorities have effectively ceded control to Muslim immigrants.
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2006/11/the-751-no-go-zones-of-france

British Muslims have demanded and received the authority to implement Sharia law.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article4749183.ece
Imagine you’re a British Muslimah whose husband beats her, in accordance with Islamic law, effectively no longer having access to the British legal system because of Muslim community pressure to resolve the problem in accordance with Sharia law.
There’s progress for women!

A personal anecdote was related to me by a Lebanese Christian professional photographer who was doing an assignment in a park in Sydney when he was told to exit the park via another route because he was entering a “Muslimah zone”.
He acquiesced, but only after the Muslim males, who were having their version of a large-scale picnic,
started to get physical with him.

If you think Australia is somehow immune from the demands which follow Muslims wherever they go,
then you are delusional.

Well new year has certainly started with a "bang" in Pakistan.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126235458971812713.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLTopStories

Quote:

"A suicide bomber drove an explosive-laden truck into a crowd of people gathered to watch a volleyball game in a village in northwest Pakistan, killing at least 75…"

End quote

Kyoko,

Was this a "desperate attempt" to prevent football?

There also appear to have been a "desperate attempt" to stop cartoons.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/01/world/AP-EU-Denmark-Cartoonist.html

Quote:

"Police foiled an attempt to kill an artist who drew a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad that sparked outrage in the Muslim world…"

End Quote

Would you agree that we must not allow Muslim vigilantes to censor free expression?

HermanYutic,

If a university wishes to accommodate the religious eccentricities of its students I see no reason why it should not do so – provided it is done in an even handed fashion.

However a PUBLICLY FUNDED theatre should not be party to segregation of the sexes.

Your tale about the Sydney park is interesting. I am inclined to believe you having seen similar incidents in South Africa but are you able to provide any corroborating evidence?

Kristin,

You have met the challenge put to you by bushbred and Pericles. It will be interesting to see whether they will respond. My guess is they'll try to muddy the waters by alluding to Christian demands.

stevenlmeyer,

Unfortunately I cannot provide a link to the Sydney park story as it was personally related
to me by the photographer circa 2000.
He may have mentioned the location or name of the park but as I am unfamiliar with Sydney these would be meaningless and are anyway forgotten
He'd just had an appointment with a couple in the park to plan their wedding photo shoot (to be held in the park).
He attempted to exit the (public) park in the most direct manner but was blocked in the manner previously described.
He also related another personal story to me.
He sometimes listened to an Arabic radio station broadcasting in Sydney which had an Islamic Q&A talkback program.
A kind of Dorothy Dix for Muslims, except it was a male.
The radio listener told the radio disc jockey (camel jockey?) that he was defrauding Centrelink by collecting benefits while working a cash-in-hand job.
He asked if this was okay to do because he also knew many other people who were doing it.
The DJ replied "In the land of the infidel, all is permitted",
according to the Lebanese Christian professional photographer.
Clearly these stories become apocryphal to anyone else but myself.
However, I had no reason to doubt the person relating them to me as his personal experience
and I believe them to be true.
Furthermore, they are consistent with many things I’ve since heard and read.
The story was related to me prior to my Islamophobic epiphany but I guess it now feeds into it.

In relation to the university prayer rooms, “evenhandedness” is not enough :
“There are already eight Muslim prayer rooms across the university's three campuses...
Muslims get preferential access to two of those rooms...
Gestures of good faith have been rejected...
Multi-faith spaces are commonly accepted as supporting a range of religious practices, including those of the Muslim faith.
"It is disappointing that the RMIT Islamic Society chooses to reject established multi-faith principles,"”

kristin:

thanks for your post. i am not able to respond properly now. i may write more tomorrow, depending upon whether cj or pericles responds, and on whether i can stand the smell of the otehr posters. however i will say the following:

*) i am no fan of the RRT Act. it has an anti-blasphemy component which i find abhorrent. however, to blame this primarily on muslim groups is drawing a very long bow. do you have any evidence of such strong muslim influence?

as for "western anti-blasphemy laws", the most obvious and explicit new one is ireland's. who are you blaming for that one?

*) whatever the shortcomings, it is a massively huge leap from RRT to sharia law. again, where are the muslim demands of which you speak?

*) do you honestly think your flawed example, important that it is, compares to the demands and influence of australian christian groups?

>> My guess is they'll try to muddy the waters by alluding to Christian demands.

meyer:

are you being deliberately moronic? the whole point of my/pericles' question to kristin was which australian religious groups were making the most demands and having the most influence.

and, you couldn't help yourself. you had to do the guilt by association thing with the pakistan bombing. that has NOTHING to do with AUSTRALIAN muslims generally. seriously, your post was disgusting.

yutic:

it was about australia, you twat. the uni prayer rooms is worthy of discussion, but everything else you wrote was irrelevant and/or nasty garbage.

i don't know why you think linking dodgy sources on irrelevant issues is worthwhile. you really should grow up.

I do know that in the UK they actively opposed their abolition, Kristin.

>>Do you know of any mainstream Christian denomination that seeks the re-introduction of anti-blasphemy laws in Western countries?<<

The most prominent anti-blasphemy activists in the UK have always been Christian.

The most recent attempt was only a couple of years ago, when the Christian Voice attempted to sue the BBC for broadcasting "Jerry Springer: the Opera", which includes a scene where Jesus confesses to being "a bit gay".

The last successful prosecution there was Mary Whitehouse's prosecution in 1977 of the editor of Gay News, for publishing a poem. The judge came very close to sending him to jail.

The blasphemy laws were eliminated in the UK in 2008.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-blasphemy6mar06,0,6072221.story

The reason?

When the British Prime Minister protested against the Sudanese government's conviction of an English schoolteacher for naming the class teddybear "Mohammed", he realised that she could have been tried for the same offence in the UK.

The biggest protest against their abolition came from Christians.

"'Noble lords may cry freedom, but I urge them to pause and consider that the freedom we have today was nurtured by Christian principles, and continues to be guided by them,' [Detta O'Cathain] said."

And you couldn't resist this old chestnut, could you?

>>In Germany and Britain de facto sharia courts operate.<<

In the UK, they are voluntary administrative tribunals, whose determinations can only be enforced with the agreement of both parties.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article6721158.ece

They don't exist at all in Germany, by the way.

Uk Jews, incidentally, use the same provisions of the Arbitration Act

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7233040.stm

So, yes, this is a very good question...

>>how can you refuse Catholics the option to have cases heard under canon law?<<

Perhaps we shouldn't refuse them.

So long as (as with Sharia and Beth Din) we are talking civil actions, where both parties agree to be bound by the outcome, and it is all conducted within the law of the land.

Or are you totally opposed to all forms of tolerance?

And HermanYutic, you're clutching at straws again.

>>How about the demands for prayer rooms at universities in Australia?<<

You would like us to believe that one tiny isolated incident at one University in one city is somehow a nation-wide ambit claim?

What unmitigated rot.

If that's the best you can do, when set against the preferential treatment given to the christian community across Australia, you are clearly not being serious.

And stevenlmeyer, your trivialization of the suffering of others is contemptible.

>>Was this a "desperate attempt" to prevent football?<<

This was a terrorist attack on civilians, who were uniting in their resistance against the Taliban and al Qaeda.

What's your point? That their killing doesn't matter, because they are just another bunch of Muslims?

Your observations on the attack on the Dutch cartoonist are equally off-target.

>>Would you agree that we must not allow Muslim vigilantes to censor free expression?<<

A man attempted to murder another man. He was prevented from doing so, and arrested.

Your comment might be valid if i) the assassin had succeeded and ii) he was then allowed to get away with it. What in fact happened was simply what should happen, when a crime occurs.

What is your problem with that?

>>Your [HermanYutic's] tale about the [“Muslimah zone” in a] Sydney park is interesting.<<

Have you ever tried to have a quiet beer in a bikie pub? Or - you must try this sometime - instead of the beer, order a campari and soda?

Picking up on one isolated - and uncorroborated - incident of territorialism, provided by someone with a known bias, simply illustrates how easy it is for you to be blindly selective in the "injustices" that you perceive.

Even HermanYutic is becoming aware that his credibility is paper-thin.

>>Clearly these stories become apocryphal to anyone else but myself.<<

Beautifully put.