God-botherers draw some unwelcome attention.
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s office has rescinded an honor given to a Muslim cleric who previously pledged to award an honorary title to Osama bin Laden.
Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi received the award on Friday, the 25th anniversary of 9/11, presented by Dame Sarah Mullally for reconciliation and interfaith co-operation.
Interesting timing.
The move is not universally popular
Note the shapeless lump beside the cleric dude. That’s actually a human being!
Is that smiling or…erm…preparing to bite?
Seriously why did the archbish or the church or whoever do this? And why did they include the scary parcel, aka the human being smothered in black cloth as if she were about to be buried? Why does any institution that views and treat women this way get any kind of flattery and rewarding from powerful institutions?
Men in dresses on the one hand, and women in black garbage bags on the other – it’s a pincer movement to wipe out women altogether.
A picture caption from last week stated Mr Ashrafi was being recognized “for his outstanding work as an ambassador of interfaith harmony in Pakistan”.
The National Secular Society (NSS) criticized the honor as “obscene, and almost beyond parody”, noting it was conferred on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 individuals, including 67 British citizens.
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NSS chief executive Stephen Evans said: “We welcome the withdrawal of this award, but it is astonishing that it was given in the first place – on the anniversary of 9/11, no less. This episode reveals not only appallingly poor judgement and inadequate due diligence, but a dangerous naivety about the religious figures legitimised through interfaith engagement. A Church capable of such a serious failure of judgement should not enjoy constitutional privilege, including 26 bishops making our laws. It is time the Church of England was disestablished.”
It is astonishing. What did the archbish think of the woman so obliterated she might as well have been a bolt of cloth? The archbishop is the Church of England’s first female archbishop, yet here she is acting as if a woman treated like an obscenity is nothing to fret about.