Goddess

Dietary restrictions and preferences are not anywhere near the same as wearing the symbol of extreme Islam, and the denigration and dehumanization of women. Whether a person eats pork or not - how does that affect society? Forced burka/niqab DOES affect society, it affects the women who wear it, it affects their children, it affects men and how they view/treat women, it is an affront to women and a reminder of how easily we can go back to women being second class citizens, barely human. The essence of a democratic society is that civic participation is extended to all. Deliberately preventing an entire gender from participating in society as identifiable individuals is a slap in the face to the entire foundation of our society. The essense of the burka is that women are not recognized as individuals, not empowered to make their own decisions. The whole point of it is to impede interaction outside the home. While authorities cannot interfere witih what people do inside their homes, the public wearing of burkas is a statement that women are unequal and must be segregated. Like a KKK march or the wearing of swastikas, it is an assault on the legal place of women in society and an intimidating statement of bigotry against them. If radicals are prevented from making public statements about the inferiority of certain races, why should they be permitted to assert the inferiority of an entire gender? Muslims are free to believe whatever they want but a public display that dehumanizes women as a gender by treating their faces and bodies as obscene is a violation of the norms of our society. Islamophiles can deny it all they want, but a French study found that 77% of girls who wear the hijab do so because of threats. http://www.weeklystandard.com/article/14126 Many women who defy the burka and hijab by posting pictures of themselves without it are threatened with blackmail and violence. The burka divides women into "good girls" and "whores" and gives rapists religious ammunition to justify their crime. In response to a gang rape, the Cheif Mufti of Australia said, "If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred." The burka doesn't just isolate the woman, it also covers up abuse. In Afganistan, 87% of women report being victims of domestic abuse. http://section15.ca/features/news/2008/07/04/afghan_women/ In Pakistan, that number goes as high as 90%. This is an especially vital issue in Western countries where spousal abuse is a serious crime, so the abuser has even MORE motivation to hide the abuse. The Muslim community is in denial about its abuse rates and the burka is one of the reasons why. Do you still want to compare it to whether someone chooses to eat pork or not?

None of us do - Jews, women or gays. There's a Muslim on another thread here outright saying that LGBQ people should be treated (or threatened, we're not sure) to force them to live a "normal" life because they are "perverts". Only one person here had the balls to say anything to him/her/it/them. Funny how when Muslims spout hatred, the silence is deafening.

"treat"....."threat"......same thing in this case.

No, because you haven't provided one damn cite.

I think we are gradually dealing with our problems with patriarchy in Western culture. Women have fought and continue to fight against it. But how do you deal with it when it is religiously mandated that women are second class and must be covered at all times, and that mentality is brought to a new country and being actively promoted where that sort of thing is not acceptable to the local culture because no one wants to go back to stone-age religious or cultural beliefs? Men have never had to deal with what women have had to deal with in regard to patriarchy. Given enough influence, I can easily see society going BACK to these kinds of archaic beliefs - you will have Muslims wanting it and you will have Westerners - both men and women - who are content to shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, since it's done in the name of a religion and we have religious freedom here, so there is no harm to anyone." I think religious freedom should have limits. Others feel there should be no limit to religious freedom. Their priority is religious freedom over all else.

How do we do that?

Look how easy it was for him to just disappear into the woodwork - just didn't show up for hearings in the US or Canada and neither country had enough time/resources to track him down. https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/10/03/edmonton-terror-suspect-had-been-deported-form-us-in-2011.html

The Edmonton guy was not born here. He was a Somali refugee.

Jews are responsible for this? I'd like to see a cite once in a while, please. Not just your own opinion all the time.

Fake news. They also let Muslim cops shoot unarmed white women in their jammies.

Not fair when they're sitting on a list for 12 years while we let in hundreds of illegals, either.

** enters thread, puts on a Luther Vandross CD, lights candles, leaves **

I nominate HE to get in touch with all the media outlets and ask why nanothermites have not been been included in the coverage of this tragedy.

Did I say that Muslims have a religious requirement to kill people? Did I say Christians have a rleigious requirement to kill people? Did I say Athiests have a religious requirement to kill people? No, I said he did not have a religious reason for doing this. And yet, You ddidn't have any kind of problem with Altai for saying OUTRIGHT that he had a Christian requirement for doing this. Take a chill pill and untwist your shorts there, before you have a heart attack over nothing.

He wasn't following any religious requirement to kill other people.

I provided the proof by quoting your statement and showing why it is hypocritical and bigoted. Maybe if you had a university education, you could comprehend and wouldn't have to resort to personal attacks.

Talk about stunning hypocrisy. There we have it right there - the soft bigotry of low expectations. You think other people are inferior to us, therefore need to be babied and all their wrongs are dismissed because they are soooo inferior to us that they cannot be held responsible for anything they do, and should be protected from the consequences of their bad choices.

Except that it has always been promoted by Islam as a way of oppressing women, long before the West was around. I don't think that Islamic agenda has changed. Except that now, they are smart enough to promote it to Western countries as "empowering" and part of "religious freedom" and "personal choice". And some of us are gullible enough to buy that baby.

1. It's a garment long used to oppress women. 2. It's currently experiencing a revival all around the world because Islamic extremists are promoting it and Muslims and people who don't really care about what it represents are all buying into it.

He got caught red-handed in terrorist activities in Aghanistan and hauled off to Guantanamo and apparently "Canada" didn't save him from Guantanamo. Here's an idea - maybe if you don't get involved with terrorists, you won't get hauled off to Guantanamo.

They're hard to find because countries that enforce the burkas dont' keep stats on it, but there is information out there about the number of women who are hit by cars because they can't see in the burkas, women who injure themselves by tripping up in it and home accidents with fires, etc. I imagine how awful I would feel if I hit a woman in a burka who couldn't look for traffic.....some people would be traumatized by such a thing. Also, I dont' think they should be allowed to drive in a burka or niqab. I was nearly sideswiped recently by a woman driving in a hijab (just the headscarf, for MH ). She turned her head to look, but her scarf turned with her and blocked her view of me in the next lane. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2080365/Burka-ban-Muslim-woman-fined-driving-veil-told-bad-eating-sandwich-wheel.html

There's also the political aspect of burkas/niqabs. They are the physical representation of political, fundamentalist, extreme Islam.