Mar. 25, 2007: A Dangerous Tolerance

The dangers of tolerance
Accepting views opposed to freedom and western lifestyle emboldens extremists , Licia Corbella, Mar. 25, 2007

calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/
Corbella_Licia/2007/03/25/3828492-sun.html

In the same week Farzana Hassan was threatened with death, Quebec's chief electoral officer said Muslim women who wear the niqab would not have to show their faces to confirm their identities at the ballot box.

Excellent. A must read article


Giving in is not "reasonable accommodation"; it is appeasement.

Lift face veils or don't vote, Quebec tells Muslims
Faced with death threats, public outrage, chief electoral officer reverses decision Tu Thanh Ha, Ingrid Peritz, Bertrand Marotte, Mar. 24, 2007


www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/
LAC.20070324.QUEBEC24/TPStory/Front

TROIS-RIVIÈRES, QUE., MONTREAL AND SAINT-EUSTACHE, QUE. -- With three days left in one of the most tightly contested elections in decades, Quebec's electoral officer yesterday reversed his decision to allow Muslim women to vote without having to lift their face veils to identify themselves.

Chief Electoral Officer Marcel Blanchet invoked emergency powers to change his mind on one of the controversial minority-rights issues that have roiled the campaign and led to death threats, public outrage and repeated criticism by Parti Québécois Leader André Boisclair.

Mr. Blanchet said his office had been inundated with calls and emails about his decision to allow women to wear the niqab when they voted.

Search: resentment of minorities

Actually, Quebec is the only province that could get away with standing up to Muslims who are encroaching more and more upon the values and traditions of our society, apparently in order to replace them with theirs, the ultimate aim being to change our society. Many have stated they want to make the West Islamic.

This always starts in seemingly insignificant ways; up to now, Canadians have tried to accommodate them. Or it starts with with charges of "discrimination" and people have bent over backwards in fairness to accommodate this minority. It has to end. Thanks to Quebeckers who don't take much pushing from anyone, once they get their backs up, Quebeckers almost invariably win because they have a positive sense of their own culture, less likely to have been subjected to the global guilt classes so prevalent in anglophone schools. Quebec's response is good news for the rest of us. They have done us a service. The time has come for the rest of Canada, TROC, to develop a collective backbone. Based on our Judeo-Christian tradition, Canadians have a Western culture worth protecting, one of freedom and democracy. We all must protect it from those who would attempt to change it. Freedom needs light to breathe.

While campaigning in the Magdalen Islands, Liberal Leader Jean Charest supported the chief electoral officer's decision, saying it did not infringe on religious rights and remained an issue of proper identification of voters.

Shama Naz, a 30-year-old Montrealer who wears a niqab, said the issue has been blown out of proportion. She said Muslim women routinely remove their face veils for security matters. She has done so for her Medicare card photo, and each time she crosses the border to visit her father in New York State.

Related editorial: Voters and the niqab -- Muslim student's refusal uncovers debate , Mar. 24, 2007

www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/
LAC.20070324.ENIQAB24/TPStory/Editorials

Anyone who reads Frost Hits the Rhubarb may guess at the position of the Globe and Mail.




No nude drawings, no art credit , Michael Valpy, Mar. 24, 2007

www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/
LAC.20070324.UWO24/TPStory/National

Draw nudes or don't take the course. Refuse to draw nudes once you're in the course and you fail.

Ms. Mahmud brought a letter from the university's Muslim chaplain stating that prolonged exposure to the nude body of a person who was not one's marital partner was contrary to Islamic teaching. She was willing to take a zero for the part of the course that involved nude drawing. [....]

A report on discrimination against Muslim students made public this week by the Canadian Federation of Students calls it "one of the most egregious stories" of a university refusing to accommodate diversity

[....] "It's hard for us to see how equal treatment means we can say to some students, 'No, I'm sorry you have to read that novel that portrays homosexuality in a favourable light -- but, no, you don't have to do that drawing.' "

Which is evil?

The nude body or Iraq insurgents used children in car bombing: general , Mar 20, 2007

www.forumsvibe.com/elwoodpdowd/view
topic.php?t=3317&mforum=elwoodpdowd

Insurgents in Iraq detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle with two children in the back seat after US soldiers let it through a Baghdad checkpoint over the weekend, a senior US military official said Tuesday.

The vehicle was stopped at the checkpoint but was allowed through when soldiers saw the children in the back, said Major General Michael Barbero of the Pentagon's Joint Staff.

"Children in the back seat lowered suspicion. We let it move through. They parked the vehicle, and the adults ran out and detonated it with the children in the back," Barbero said.

... the first time he had seen a report of insurgents using children in suicide bombings. But he said Al-Qaeda in Iraq is changing tactics ...

A US defense official said the incident occurred on Sunday in Baghdad's Adhamiyah district, a mixed neighborhood adjacent to Sadr City, which is predominantly Shiite.

... parked next to a market across the street from a school, [....]