kimmy

They may have been in the room, but they certainly weren't "with the men". You can look at that photo and tell me you don't find anything unsavory about it, but I don't believe you. -k

It doesn't have to be the most progressive mosque in Ottawa, I'd settle for one that doesn't practice gender segregation. Surely there must be a mosque in Ottawa that would have let the women join the men in front of the Prime Minister? -k

I haven't read anywhere that it's the most progressive mosque in Ottawa. I gather that it's the biggest and the oldest and that it's been the go-to mosque in Ottawa because it's the one the last guy went to. -k

Certainly all of the "Big 3" have shady histories and have deeply rooted misogyny in their scripture. And presently Islam lags behind in adapting to a more modern world. But not all Muslims are stuck in the past. Asra Nomani, the Muslim feminist I quoted earlier, said that only about half of mosques actually practice gender segregation. Wouldn't it have been great if our Prime Minister had attended one of these more progressive mosques? Wouldn't that have been a great response to those who claim that Muslims are fundamentally incompatible with western values of equality? Wouldn't that have been a great way to showcase Muslims embracing Canadian values? -k

As I keep pointing out, while people have the right to their religion, the Prime Minister also had the right to not go to that particular mosque. As I keep asking, why didn't he choose a different mosque? -k

I'm not doing any moderator stuff in this thread other than asking people to stay on topic. -k

You asked what people would do when they find out how sick Hillary really is. I gave you an answer a couple of weeks ago: I think Tim Kaine, or anybody in the line of succession, would be a better President than your candidate, so the answer really doesn't change. Even if Hillary were in a hospital bed or a morgue slab on the day she's sworn in it would be better than putting Trump in the Oval Office. -k

I'm not even going to respond to people suggesting that I'm talking about this because I hate Muslims and not because I care about women. And I'm not going to respond to people suggesting that I wouldn't give Christians the same criticism. I've been on this board for a very long time and I think my track record on both issues speaks for itself. I doubt anybody on the forum has offered more criticism of Christians than I have over the years. -k

Because our Prime Minister graced this mosque with his presence and was present when this photo was taken. I don't disagree at all, as I mentioned in my response to your previous post. -k

Only because the one he provided was an obvious work of fiction. "He tests positive for everything!" is not a phrase a real medical doctor would use, for obvious reasons. What was his latest plan, again? Talk about his health on a reality show with Doctor Phil or some crap like that? uh, no. You can blame Obama for a lot of stuff, but if people vote for Trump when it's completely obvious what kind of clown he is, that's not Obama's fault. You guys could have nominated somebody normal instead of the Yuuuge Cheeto. But noooo. Waiting for Jeb Bush to start trolling Republicans with "Miss Me Yet?" billboards. -k

For a while with just the mosque's photo to go from, I was trying to figure out if the claim of a balcony was false, and whether by Trudeau's phrase "the sisters upstairs" perhaps the main worship floor was a couple of steps down from the back row where some women were shown taking pictures. But after finding the reporter's photo of the event it turns out that there is a balcony and that most of the sisters were indeed upstairs. I think it's telling that the mosque's PR article about the event used a photo taken from an angle that doesn't show the balcony. When you look at the reporter's photo, things certainly don't look as "sunny", do they. If you look at the reporters' photo and tell me you still don't think those women were treated as second-class citizens, I have to conclude that you're either completely disconnected from reality, or a shill willing to say anything to push an angle. I don't get it. You really don't get why people would look at that balcony and find that upsetting? Trying to soft-peddle it by saying "well it's not during all events, just major ones" isn't exactly reassuring either. What message doe it send those women that they have to get out of sight during major events? That little boy sitting with his dad in the picture-- what message does it give that little guy that his mother and his sisters get sent away when something important is going on? Is that a good message to be teaching a little boy about women? -k

I think your point has been made and it is not necessary for the thread to be sidetracked any further. -k

They won't consider it a "real" report until it says what they want to hear. The same way they're still waiting for Obama's "real" birth certificate. -k

Yep, nothing second-class here! Separate-but-equal! -k

Yes, the regular women. You seem to be under the impression that the regular women who attend the mosque aren't treated any different from the MPs who joined Trudeau. That's not the case. To help clarify, I've put my awesome MS Paint skills to work to prepare these two images to explain where the women who regularly attend the mosque were located, vs where Trudeau and the MPs were. Picture 1, as already posted in this thread several times, is from the MuslimLink website's report on the event. Picture 2 is from reporter David Akin's twitter, from a different angle and does indeed show the women watching from the balcony. -k

Certainly there is a difference between requirements imposed on religious officials and requirements imposed on the whole congregation. The Pope wears a giant cone on his head, but not every Catholic man is required to wear a giant cone on his head. Nuns cover their hair, but not all Catholic women cover their hair. Now, certainly there are Christian congregations that do impose requirements on the way women dress, including head coverings as seen in some Mennonite and Amish communities. But Nuns was a poorly chosen example to illustrate the point you were trying to make. -k

Guys, this thread is not about translations the Quran, or Sharia law, or the state of women's apparel in Turkey. This thread is about Trudeau's visit to a specific mosque, and the policies of that specific mosque. DoP, please stop. Everybody else, please stop responding to off-topic nonsense. -k

The regular women got to stand at the back of the room. The special guests got to stand at the front of the room. To me it matters how the regular women are treated on a regular day, to you that apparently doesn't matter because some special guests got to stand at the front during the media dog-and-pony show. When did I suggest they did? What exactly have I made up? -k

So the first tip off that something is amiss is the name Steven Jones, whose name is synonymous with the 9/11 Truthies and has long ago lost any scientific credibility he had. Aside from his conspiracy theories, he's best known for the Cold Fusion fiasco and for trying to use Carbon Dating to prove that Jesus visited North America after the crucifixion. The last I read from him was some "free energy" nonsense where he's trying to figure out whether a simple circuit called a "Joule Thief oscillator" is actually a perpetual motion machine that creates power from nowhere. The dude has gone mental. The second is that Europhysics News isn't a "renowned physics journal" as the author claims. It's a magazine, not a peer-reviewed scientific publication. Visiting the article in question, the very first thing is a disclaimer from the editors that the article is speculative and not a study at all. It's just more speculation, not new scientific research. Speculation from the same crew of kooks who've been saying the same thing for 15 years. -k

So, first off, did Harper actually attend a gender-segregated event at the synagogue, or did he go on a junket with a rabbi from such a synagogue? From your statement I gather it's the latter. I confess that I don't have a comprehensive list of people Harper may have been on junkets with or what their social views are, but I am sure there are probably some shady ones there. (I suspect that we'll be able to say the same of Trudeau before long as well.) I don't approve of a Prime Minister cozying up to religious fundies as a matter of official business. Or religious figures in general, to be honest, but that's my personal opinion. Not really sure what point is served by a Prime Minister flying a bunch of rabbis to Israel for some kind of dog-and-pony show, and to me that's more questionable in itself than the specifics of which rabbis he was traveling with (and more questionable than Trudeau doing a photo-op at a mosque, as well.) Had I been paying attention when this junket happened, I would have probably complained about the overall point of the trip and not delved into the specifics of what goes on in each rabbi's synagogue. Secondly, I have to point out that Harper has never billed himself as a feminist and was often criticized for being the opposite. So for you to respond to criticism of Trudeau's actions not matching his words by saying "yeah well Harper did it too!" is setting the bar awfully low for Mr Trudeau. As much as you guys might wish it were otherwise, not all of the criticism of Trudeau's choice is coming from kimmy or Argus or Muslim-haters or Trudeau-haters. Some of it is coming from feminists who felt let down or betrayed by him. And even when confronted with that fact on Friday, he couldn't even acknowledge the complaint, couldn't address why feminists were disappointed, couldn't state how he felt his hosts fell short of "that perfect ideal". And I still haven't heard why he couldn't have just gone to a more progressive mosque. Wouldn't that have been a great way to make a point about how Muslims and Canadian values are not incompatible? -k

And Rosa Parks had nothing to get mad about, because, after all, she was on the bus. And Augusta Golf And Country Club wasn't a racist club because they did, after all, let Mr Woods play there once a year. -k

On the contrary, he's not shy at all about letting "majority" Canadians know that we need to improve and be more welcoming, more diverse, more understanding, more ... sunny. -k

So are you leaning "spit in burger", or "steaming load of dog-crap", BC? -k

Hillary might have a long-standing problem with telling the truth or acting transparently, but she's still just the second-biggest liar in this race. "Truth", for Trump, is a purely subjective concept defined entirely by how loudly the audience in front of him is applauding the words coming out of his pie-hole at that moment. If that's the case, then voting for Trump is like turning up your nose at that spit-in burger and going outside to eat a steaming load of dog-crap off the sidewalk instead. -k

I never claimed they weren't there. I initially wrote that they were watching from a balcony, which is something I'd read earlier and might have been a misinterpretation of what "upstairs" meant. As for the women standing at the front of the room, mouths shut and heads covered, I stick by what I said earlier: it's not how much respect they show to Members of Parliament that matters, it's how much respect they show to ordinary women. And it still rankles me that even when pressed by the moderator on Friday he couldn't bring himself to even acknowledge the complaint. "Well nobody's perfect" is the closest he can bring himself to acknowledging the issue. It's all part of an ongoing pattern of make-believe where there's no misogyny in Muslim communities, no homophobia in Islamic communities, no antisemitism in Islamic communities, it's all just awesome and if there is a problem it's ok because nobody's perfect. -k