All religions are good and kind
On the one hand, it’s a very good thing that Cherie Booth QC is saying that culture and religion cannot be used as an excuse for discriminating against women. (Mind you, she could have waited for JS and me to write our book saying that and then used the opportunity to plug our book, but never mind.) On the other hand she says some absurd counter-factual things in the process.
The human rights lawyer, wife of former PM Tony Blair, said all the major world faiths shared “an insistence on the dignity of all God’s people”.
The hell they do. They share the opposite, that’s what they share. Yes, Christianity too – there are places where it decidedly fails to insist on the dignity of Jews or women. All the ‘holy books’ have passages commanding the smiting of those other people over there; none of them forbids slavery; all of them carve up the world into the good people who Believe and the bad people who don’t. If all the major world ‘faiths’ did share an insistence on the dignity of all God’s people, then why did the first genuine idea of human equality coincide with the Enlightenment? Why, not to put too fine a point on it, did it take so long? Why have all theocratic societies throughout history been so extremely hierarchical?
In a speech, she said discrimination on religious grounds was a “distortion” of the true message of some faiths.
No, it isn’t; it’s obedience of the literal, written-down message of all ‘faiths.’ It’s no good divining what the ‘true message’ is by matching it up to what you want it to be; it is what it is, and that doesn’t happen to be egalitarian or rights-based.
“It is not laid down in the Koran that women can be beaten by their husbands or that their evidence should be devalued, as it is in some Islamic courts,” she said.
Uh…yes it is. Has she been reading a prettied-up version? Is she just deluding herself?
II.282 “Call in two male witnesses from among you but if two men cannot be found, then one man & two women whom you judge fit to act as witnesses; so that if either of them commit an error the other will remember.” IV.34: “Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them. Then if they obey you, take no further action against them. God is high, supreme.”
And then there’s Sharia.
“It is important for judges and political leaders to remind everyone that the philosophical purpose of the Sharia is to protect and promote human welfare.”
No it isn’t. It is important for judges and political leaders to remind everyone that Sharia is a nightmare and we want none of it.
Hey, GT, don’t forget all the “crystal therapy” nonsense, too…who else remembers her “new-age” lifestyle guru chum, Carol Caplin, who had an instant access pass to no.10?
Mrs Blair should never be confused for someone who is consistent in their irrationalism…
“On Islamic veils she pointed out she had been brought up by Catholic nuns who wore veils and had no problem with women covering their heads.”
This British blasé Blair Islamic
‘veil’ evaluation story is sufficient to make ones bleeding blood boil. Just because she is the ex Prime Minister’s wife – and has had no quandary with women covering their heads because of her former familiarity with nuns – does not make the aberrant act of covering of heads with veils (by coercion) – customary. She will subsequently be effectively regaling to all and sundry that she has no difficulty with constrained marriages because that is what she was brought up to believe – that women are subservient to men and therefore as a consequence must obey them at all given times.
Not only is Cherie a right wing rail licker – but by the look of it she is also a right wing vile veil wearer. See: send-up version of Pope Benedicts (all-male) inauguration mass.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ9sJVJMiYM
“But on full-face veils she added:”
Blair, blah blah.
Cover up – O conservative one
Please do keep your veiled mouth closed, for the love of ‘converted’ Tony, – but, especially too for the love of God.
“It is not laid down in the Koran that women can be beaten by their husbands”
“Uh…yes it is.”
Surah 4.34:
“Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more than the other […]. As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them, refuse to share their beds, and beat them!”
“Has she been reading a prettied-up version?”
Yes!
“Is she just deluding herself?”
Yes!
Yes, yes OB, and not only that – this blasé, British, Barrister; Booth-Blair; black Vatican ‘veil’ wearer is deliberately trying to pull the same ‘man’tilla over our eyes.
See:
http://www.islamicity.com/mosque/QURAN/4.htm
Also:
“or that their evidence should be devalued, as it is in some Islamic courts,” she said.”
“German Justice Failures: Paving the Way for a Muslim Parallel. A recent ruling in Germany by a judge who cited the Koran underscores the dilemma the country faces in reconciling Western values with a growing immigrant”
See:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,474629,00.html
“It is important for judges and political leaders to remind everyone that Sharia is a nightmare and we want none of it!
Onwaarschijnlij! Peu plausible! Unwahrscheinlich! Inverosimile! Inverosímil, increíble! Improbable! Improbabile! Improbable, poco probable!
That is not likely to happen!