You’re neglecting the simple fact that that is not the case. For one thing, it is Christianity that is the predominant religion in the US and thus a greater chance of doing wrong. For another, the so-called minority religions are also scrutinized just as much.
To me (a lifelong atheist, btw), this attitude of “Religion is the problem!” isn’t really any more constructive than the OP’s somewhat narrower stance of “Islam is the problem!”
Neither Islam in particular nor religion in general is going anywhere any time in the foreseeable future, so is there really any point in complaining about the very existence of either of them? If we care about defending modern values of secularism and tolerance from the attacks of religious zealots, Muslim or otherwise, shouldn’t we be focusing on the specific subsets of Islamic/religious thought that are actually launching those attacks? And figuring out how to neutralize their threat to secular civil society in a realistic way that doesn’t require the (currently impossible) eradication of the entire belief system from which they spring?
I don’t want to defend Christianity or religion; I am a pretty rabid atheist. Within the leftist community, however, there is just too much BS around things like sensitivity training, “day of silence”, and other nonsense that ends up provoking otherwise moderate folks. Fake controversies like “The War on Christmas” ring true becuase they are only slight exagerations of the sort of crap people see pulled all the time.
That’s one reason I admire the ACLU; they defend the rights of people that they vehemently disagree with such as the marchers in Skokie. I’d like to see progressives get upset when teachers are forbidden from reading the bible at their desks or students are punished for essays that include references to Jesus. If we do that then people will be more receptive when it’s the rights of Muslims, Jews, or athesists that are threatened.
I agree that there could be a peaceful underlayment of religion beneath our secular society if believers put people before faith. And I acknowledge that religion will be around for a while. But that doesn’t change the fact that these problems are based in religion. Extremist religion, sure. But religion nonetheless.
Actually, IIRC, Jesus was pretty much okay with foregoing the implementation of the prescribed death penalty for adultery in favor of a more merciful and enlightened response, wasn’t he? “Let he among you who is without sin cast the first stone”, and all that jazz.
I wonder how compatible those two goals are, though, at least in the short term. We can practice more mutual tolerance without worrying so much about legal rights of religious expression, or we can focus on establishing a clear legal policy that sharply defines our rights of religious expression, but can we do both at once?
Yepper. But then the question becomes, how do we define secular rules? Is it secular to have Sunday and Christmas and Easter, etc., recognized as state holidays? How much of what we call secular civil society is just a modified form of Christian society? And how much of that Christian tradition in the common civil life are we willing to defend in the name of history and custom, and how much are we prepared to sacrifice in the name of broader religious pluralism and secularism?
All very interesting questions, but I was thinking more along the lines of “it is not okay to throw rocks at that person, despite the fact that you’re really, really convinced that God wants you to.” There are ways of dealing with all the issues you raised while increasing people’s rights. For instance, though you may make the majority religious holidays national holidays, you can also ensure that all members of minority faiths can take their holidays without penalty.
The tension described in the OP comes from the rejection of secular society by some groups, and, worse, the idea that it is okay for subgroups within a society to enforce religious rules on members. Since there is no legal authority, violence is used to accomplish this. This causes secular society to want to remove the trappings of the religious subculture. I see ethnic dress all the time in my neighborhood which is now controversial in France and England, and no one is bothered (except for the usual set of wackos) since those who wish not to wear them can choose not to do so.
Well, true, that one should be a no-brainer in any secular society. Even apparently simple issues of cracking down on religiously-motivated physical violence can get murky in some contexts, though. Is it okay to cut off your daughter’s clitoris if you’re really, really convinced that God wants you to? Is it okay to cut off your son’s foreskin but not your daughter’s clitoris?
I don’t see what’s so hard about this. If you move to a country, you are expected to follow its laws. It doesn’t matter if it’s 10 extreme muslims, or 100,000. Or whether it’s Christians, or any other group. You live within the law.
Don’t want to take a driver’s license test with a woman? Fine. You can walk. Don’t want to hire women in your business? You’ll run afoul of anti-discrimination laws and be prosecuted for it. Don’t want to wear the standard issue police uniform? Fine. Find another job. Don’t want to fill out your forms in one of the official languages? Tough noogies. You want to weir a veil for your driver’s license picture? Guess you’re not going to drive.
If there is evidence of widespread abuse of women in muslim households, set up special womens’ shelters and advertise to muslim women that they have options in our country other than be subjugated by their men.
And if Christian children are not allowed to pray in public school, neither are Muslim children. Sorry. You have all kinds of special religious dietary needs? Fine. Pack a lunch.
We have every bit as much right to defend our culture as muslims do. If you emigrate to American or Canada or any other country, you live by their laws. Period.
We should just even-handedly enforce our laws. We’re a secular society. If you move here, don’t expect a lot of religious accomodation, but you CAN expect that you will not be discriminated against because of your religion, so long as you keep it out of the public sphere. You don’t get special favors, but you also don’t get any discrimination.
What’s wrong with that?
I admire the ACLU because they defend an ideal: that all are entitled to fair treatment under the law.
Where in the US have teachers been prohibited from merely reading any religious books at their desks? Reading the tome out loud could certainly be seen as a form of proselytizing, but silent reading is obviously perfectly fine, unless, of course, the teacher is supposed to be actively engaged in another task at the time.
In what manner did the essay for which a student was punished refer to Jesus and how was the student punished? If I were to submit a paper for, say, an Environmental Science or a Geology class asserting that Jesus created everything, I would certainly expect to recieve a 0% grade on the thing. That’s not punishment, it’s competent grading.
I like to think I’m receptive when anyone’s rights are threatened. It seems to me that the ACLU also is.
Excuse me? The United States of America, to date, does not have an official language.
Neither is prohibited from praying in school.
What is “our culture,” then? There were Muslims present in the United States of America at its founding and there were Jews also. Both of those groups have special dietary requirements. There are plenty of Hindus in the US, practicing Hindus who happen to be quite patriotic individuals, and they also have special dietary requirements. There are also “home-grown” religious groups with special dietary requirements. “Pack a lunch” ignores the fact that some families rely on programs such as subsidized school meals, and it’s discriminatory to cater to one group’s requirement instead of making a meal all can consume.
Unless those laws are unconstitutional or otherwise discriminatory. Period.
See my previous comments in this post. There’s a difference between “special favors” and “discrimination against.” Oh, and the action doesn’t have to be intentional for it to be discriminatory.
Democracy does suffer from that one flaw, at least, namely that it can take time for the outrage to bubble up in the voting booth.
But that doesn’t alter the belief that Western ideals of pluralism, constitutional democracy, and a mostly tolerant cultural outlook are better than theocratic repression. Anyway, Blair is on his way out, and Bush seems to be in bunker mode these days given the change in Congress and one scandal after another in his administration.
Still, I’m willing to admit that Christian Europe wasn’t much to boast about in the 14th century, in terms of tolerance and human rights. Islam is now in its 14th century, so maybe there’s a parallel there.
I don’t think there’s any absolutely correct position to be found here.
Sam was probably thinking of his own country, Canada.
OK, let me explain it to you. See this bit?
This is not about religion. This is about groups who happened to self-identify along religious lines worrying about discrimination from one another. They could have been from different tribes. The point is that it is not that either Hinduism or Islam per se were the issue; it’s not about religion. It’s about how people identify as groups. And if it’s not religion, then it’s something else.
That’s a pretty sad case you make. It’s along the lines of ‘a man beat me. Therefore all men are evil’. It is illogical and unreasonable to condemn all religion because some members of some religions act badly. I could, following that kind of reasoning, decide to conclude all women are illogical and unreasonable because of the statement you just made. But that would be ludicrous, as is your argument.
Like I said, Sam’s thinking of Canada: this harks back to the famed “Sikh Mounties wearing turbans” controversy. (Sikhs aren’t Muslims, of course, but we know what he means.)
And here is where I part company with Sam’s rather absolutist position. I’m all in favor of defending our cherished modern Western values of individual freedom, secularism in civil society, religious pluralism, and so on. And I have no intention of relinquishing those important parts of our culture just because some immigrants who adhere to certain fundamentalist traditions have difficulty adapting to them.
However, I don’t consider a particular shape of policeman’s hat to be a “cherished modern Western value” or a fundamental part of “our culture”. I have no problem with rationally adapting existing culinary or sartorial traditions, such as “the standard issue police uniform”, so that they’re more accomodating to new citizens with different dress or dietary requirements. If we hold fast to our principles on the big issues like freedom, pluralism, secularism, etc., it won’t hurt us to make a few concessions on the little issues like dress codes and cafeteria menus.
(I like to think that this principled policy position is not in any way influenced by the fact that Sikh Mounties in turbans are way, way hotter than their counterparts in those dorky flat-brimmed hats. But I’m not sure I could swear to that. :p)
Canada prides itself on being a multicultural nation and has a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that legislates against discrimination. We don’t assimilate people. We welcome them to the mix, celebrate their origins with them, and welcome them to join as Canadians in Canadian life. For instance, we allowed Sikh Mounties to wear turbans as part of their uniforms.
You know what happens when you add seasonings to a bland mix? You get flavour and excitement. The most gorgeous people in the world IMHO are Hawaiians who have resulted as mixes of many nationalities.
All this ‘preserving our culture’ blather is tiresome. What about enhancing your culture? What about learning and improving from others?
Hee - cross-post w/Kimstu
Somehow, I missed realizing Sam’s from Canada. Anyway, he did include America and the ACLU in his post.
One of the themes that keeps coming up in this thread is that there are just a very few Muslims who are dickheads and the vast majority are really neat open-minded people.
OK, let’s assume this is true. Then help me understand what’s going on in Saudi Arabia, for example. A woman goes out for a walk by herself, she’s in big trouble. If she tries to wear western clothing or has sex outside of marriage, it’s pretty much off to the chopping block. Same if two boys over the age of four are caught holding hands. Or if anyone has a Christian or Jewish Bible in their possession. And so on.
So, if you have a country of millions ruled by these neanderthal, sexist, tyrannical laws, how can you say it’s just a couple of jerks? How did they manage to gain control, not just in Saudi Arabia, but in several other Muslim nations? Or is it too scary to admit that we’re dealing with more than just a tiny lunatic fringe?
I saw an interview with some of the younger Saudi princes. They want to change things. The impression I got was that they were just waiting for the old men to die off so they could implement modernization policies.
King Abdullah is just another dictator that’s not challenged by the US, that grand bastion of ‘promoting democracy where there are regimes unfriendly to us’. Could be that SA will earn the wrath of Shrubbie after all now that Abdullah slammed US involvement in Iraq but if so, it will be because of Iraq, not because of human rights violations presided over by the King and his crew.
Is anybody here really saying that “it’s just a couple of jerks”? On the contrary, ISTM that pretty much everybody is acknowledging that repressive, militant, fundamentalist-theocratic Islam in various forms is a demographically significant phenomenon, and does represent a challenge to modern “Western” values that modern liberal societies do need to confront.
However, that’s a far cry from saying that all of Islam is like that, or that Islam is essentially and intrinsically like that. Fundamentalist and repressive versions of Islam can dominate particular national cultures—and I don’t think that anybody here would argue that such a version isn’t dominating the culture of, say, Saudi Arabia at present—without necessarily being representative of global Islam as a whole.
Setting up the debate so that we have to choose one of the two extreme positions, either “The problem is that Islam in general is fundamentally and intrinsically bad and oppressive” or “The problem is only a tiny lunatic fringe of extremist Muslim jerks who aren’t numerous enough to make a difference”, would be a false dichotomy. The real situation seems to be somewhere in the middle of those two extremes.