Friday, March 17, 2006

ISLAM IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH DEMOCRACY

Excerpt from another article from wicked Denmark

Apparently a lot of people in high places in our Democracy have a hard time understanding the simple fact that Islam as traditionally interpreted is not compatible with Democracy. In a reversal of priorities, they are defending Islam's Freedom of Oppression by referring to the Freedom of Religion. Some even manage to bring the immigration debate into play: distancing oneself from the lack of Freedom in Islam is the same as discrimination or even racism.

Why is diminished Freedom acceptable when Religion is involved? Did not the Boers of South Africa call apartheid part of their faith? The Ku Klux Klan maintain their right to lynch black people as part of their faith - are they suddenly sacrosanct? No. None can be allowed to justify violations of Human Rights by invoking `Religious Beliefs'.

Only when it comes to Islam do some get all respectful and considerate of the intolerable. Where are the wrathful demonstrations against the massive oppression of free thought in the Moslem world? Against the grotesque oppression of women? Against the ongoing human rights violations? The standards by which we judge the Islamic world are obviously lower than the standards we apply to the rest of the world. To me, this seems like some kind of reverse racism, a twisted version of Kipling's old saying about `The White Man's Burden`.

Helle Thorning Schmidt said it succinctly: Democracy comes before Religion. That is necessarily the order of things in the part of the world that fancies itself Democratic. A prerequisite for Democracy is that all men and women have their spiritual freedom and the corresponding uncensored Freedom of Speech, answerable only to the courts; it presupposes that no power is above the Democratic power of the state and that all exercise of religion takes place within this framework.

Islam has, alone among the great religions of the world, a problem with these demands. Or to be more precise: These demands are incompatible with Islam in the current official version. This is not about racism or xenophobia, nor is it about offending beliefs or ridiculing Moslems. That is not what this is about - notwithstanding that one of the Moslems' religious taboos has been broken. This is solely about Democracy and its prerequisite, Freedom of Speech.

Islam won't be democratised before it has had its reformation. There is no "Political Islam" contra a "Religious Islam", even though it would be nice to think so. Islam is an unbreakable monolith of religion and politics where the Koran is the source of all legislation, a fact which constitutions in many Moslem countries make no secret of.

Maybe a better illustration is the Islamic Republic of Iran which has democratic plebiscites to elect members of Parliament and the President, but the candidates are expressly limited to those approved by the Council of Guardians. The Mullahs must approve of each candidate in this so-called democracy. That Iran, furthermore, often publicly hangs teenagers for acts explicitly covered by the UN Human Rights Declaration only serves to illustrate that the more legislation is based on Islam, the greater is the bloody oppression of the citizens' Human Rights.

In the Moslem world, religion is always unconditionally above democracy. In spite of all Moslem countries, Saudi-Arabia excepted, having signed the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, that declaration is simply not valid within the framework of Islam. Instead special Islamic Human Rights have been drafted, which there is pressure on the UN to recognise. They've been compiled in the Cairo-declaration of 1990 and they emphasise Sharia as the framework of all Human endeavors.

Freedom of Religion is completely absent from the declaration, on the contrary it starts with these words: "All human beings form one family whose members are united by submission to God and descent from Adam". In the 25 Articles of the declaration, Shari'ah is mentioned no less than 15 times, God is mentioned 9 times and to be on the safe side, the following two closing Articles have been added:

Article 24: "All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari'ah."

Article 25: "The Islamic Shari'ah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification to any of the articles of this Declaration."


It can hardly be said clearer than that: Religion is above all else, Human Rights and Democracy included. Traditional Islam is the absolute contrast to Democracy. There is no use pretending anything else. Islam is the doctrine of the divine order on Earth, and it doesn't tolerate any aberrations. Traditional Islam sees our Democracy as a secular competitor, an infidel adversary and an enemy of the teachings of the Prophet.

Islam is like a one-way street with no exits. If one goes down that road, there is no turning back, no possibility of reforming or renouncing one's faith, no possibility of seeking other solutions and truths than those prescribed in the unchangeable and eternal laws of the Shari'ah. The system is self-perpetuating and completely closed. Islam was created by Muhammed with the intention of making it everlasting and universal.

It's with this in mind that the demand for international legislation against defamation of religions must be viewed. It should be noted that both Nyrup, Elleman, Clinton and Annan support this demand and that the demand is being reviewed by the UN bureaucracy in the form of a resolution proposed by the OIC - the most significant organisation of Islamic countries - who aim to have it included in the Human Rights Declaration. It was OIC who created the special Sharia-based Islamic Human Rights.

The Battle of Khartoon is the perfect pretext for the Islamic countries. Here we have an overt example of a violation of Moslem taboo and thus of the prophet who is worshipped with intense passion - in spite of his own ban on idolatry. The cartoons weren't the reason - this campaign was orchestrated long ago by the OIC as part of their attempt to reconstruct the Nation of Islam and the great community of the ummah. Doubters are free to check the minutes and documents available at OIC's website.

The Islamic world is not content with minding its own affairs; it wants for its religion to spread around the world and the means to do so is the demand for respect for Islam. But respect for Islam leads to submission since all criticism of Islam is the same as disrespect, which again means defaming the prophet. It's hard to understand this for a non-Moslem because we live in the free world. But ask the Moslem dissidents; they know what the price is for transgressing against heavenly laws. Or consider those who are murdered for offending the beloved prophet. Or ask Naser Khader who has around-the-clock protection by the police.

We will probably have, yet again, to establish a policy of containment against the Islamic countries to stop further spread of this anti-democracy - but we cannot limit ourselves to minding our own affairs. To give an example that has a slight touch of humor to it:

Muhammed has been depicted on the Supreme Court building in the US with a sword in one hand and the Koran in the other since the 1930?a as part of a friese about historic lawgivers. Within the last 10 years, big Islamic organisation in the US have demanded that the relief be removed several times, with no succes so far. They see it as offending and it is likely to be removed if the OIC is succesful with their resolution against defamation of religions.

As part of the same process, Islamic countries also want a ban on islamophobia as part of international law. Islamophobia is a neologism which directly translated means fear - clinical fear even - of Islam. I don't see why the Danish People's Party should have a letter of patent on this phobia; I have no problem calling myself an islamophobe and I don't see why it should be considered derogatory.

I fear that our way of life won't survive the clash with the medieval absolutism of Islam if we don't resist it and gain clarity about what our values are and what principles our democracy operates by. Let's turn around the meaning of Islamophobia and make it a positive word, on the order of "democrat", since Islam doesn't recognise and will not be brought to recognise that Democracy is above religion. Democracy should be Islamophobic because Islam has nothing good in store for Democracy. On the contrary.



ADOPTION, KIDS, AND THE HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA

By Jeff Jacoby

In psychology, "projection" occurs when someone attributes to others his own unpleasant beliefs or motivations. It is projection, for instance, when a liar assumes that everyone he deals with is dishonest, or when a man tempted by adultery accuses his spouse of planning to deceive him. Projection occurs in the public arena as well, as when supporters of racial preferences label "racist" those who believe the law should be strictly colorblind.

A fresh example of projection arrived the other day by way of a news release from the Human Rights Campaign, one of the nation's largest gay and lesbian political organizations. On March 10, Catholic Charities of Boston had announced that it was being forced to shut down its highly regarded adoption services, since it could not in good conscience comply with the government's demand that it place children for adoption with homosexual couples. Caught between the rock of Catholic teaching, which regards such adoptions as "gravely immoral," and Massachusetts regulations, which bar adoption agencies from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, the Boston Archdiocese had hoped to obtain a waiver on religious-freedom grounds. But when legislative leaders refused to consider the request, the archdiocese was left with no option but to end a ministry it had been performing for a century.

Whereupon the Human Rights Campaign issued its news release. It was headlined "Boston Catholic Charities Puts Ugly Political Agenda Before Child Welfare," and a more perfect illustration of psychological projection would be hard to imagine. For the political agenda driving this affair is the one favored by the Human Rights Campaign and its many allies in the media and state government: the normalization of homosexual adoption. So important is that agenda to its supporters that they will allow nothing to stand in its way -- not even the well-being of children in dire need of safe and loving families. Catholic Charities excels at arranging adoptions for children in foster care, particularly those who are older or handicapped, or who bear the scars of abuse or addiction. Yet the Human Rights Campaign and its friends would rather see this invaluable work come to an end than allow Catholic Charities to decline gay adoptions.

Note well: Catholic Charities made no effort to block same-sex couples from adopting. It asked no one to endorse its belief that homosexual adoption is wrong. It wanted only to go on finding loving parents for troubled children, without having to place any of those children in homes it deemed unsuitable. Gay or lesbian couples seeking to adopt would have remained free to do so through any other agency. In at least one Massachusetts diocese, in fact, the standing Catholic Charities policy had been to refer same-sex couples to other adoption agencies.

The church's request for a conscience clause should have been unobjectionable, at least to anyone whose priority is rescuing kids from foster care. Those who spurned that request out of hand must believe that adoption is designed primarily for the benefit of adults, not children. The end of Catholic Charities' involvement in adoption may suit the Human Rights Campaign. But it can only hurt the interests of the damaged and vulnerable children for whom Catholic Charities has long been a source of hope.

Is this a sign of things to come? In the name of nondiscrimination, will more states force religious organizations to swallow their principles or go out of business? Same-sex adoption is becoming increasingly common, but it is still highly controversial. Millions of Americans would readily agree that gay and lesbian couples can make loving parents, yet insist nevertheless that kids are better off with loving parents of both sexes. That is neither a radical view nor an intolerant one, but if the kneecapping of Catholic Charities is any indication, it may soon be unsafe to express.

"As much as one may wish to live and let live," Harvard Law professor Mary Ann Glendon wrote in 2004, during the same-sex marriage debate in Massachusetts, "the experience in other countries reveals that once these arrangements become law, there will be no live-and-let-live policy for those who differ. Gay-marriage proponents use the language of openness, tolerance, and diversity, yet one foreseeable effect of their success will be to usher in an era of intolerance and discrimination.... Every person and every religion that disagrees will be labeled as bigoted and openly discriminated against. The ax will fall most heavily on religious persons and groups that don't go along. Religious institutions will be hit with lawsuits if they refuse to compromise their principles." The ax fell on Catholic Charities just two years after those words were written. Where will it have fallen two years hence?



Pizza chain thinks outside box to get into schools: "A national fast food chain has found a way to get pizzas back into Queensland schools, despite a state government program to stop students eating junk food. The Queensland Government singles out pizzas as one of the main causes of child obesity in its Smart Choices program, aimed at curbing the sale of junk food in school tuckshops and encouraging healthy eating. But the Brisbane-based Eagle Boys pizza company has had three of its varieties - Hawaiian, chicken supreme and veggie delight - checked for nutritional value by the testing company Food and Agricultural Laboratories of Australia. Eagle Boys marketing director Greg Bowell said the testing company found the three varieties met the nutritional guidelines set by Smart Choices. "This will allow our franchises to negotiate with schools to sell these three varieties of our pizzas at their tuckshops," Mr Bowell said yesterday".

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