Muslim Parents Protest

 

The leftist coalition is falling apart. It is losing women, Muslims, Latinos. The striking thing is that most leftists in power are not pulling back from their demand to expose children to transgenderism. Two members of Blair Higgs’s PC cabinet in New Brunswick actually resigned rather than accept that parental knowledge and permission is required for a child to formally change gender--despite polls showing Higgs has a winning issue.  Antifa is in the streets calling Muslims “bigots” for objecting to drag shows in the schools. Despite calling anyone else who criticizes Muslims “Islamophobic.” This is the hill they are ready to die on. It is worth wondering why? What, for them, is at stake?

We used to call the ideology they are fighting for here “relativism.” Or, speaking more plainly, truth and morality are for them a matter of free choice. The idea that a man can decide to be a woman is only the flagship for this flotilla. Having sex with children is also, by this doctrine, perfectly okay. It is this they want to defend; they want to defend the dream that they can have and do anything they want. Any denial of this absolute freedom of choice is “fascist.” It is a wicked angel at the gates of Eden wielding a flaming sword.

Foolishly, they imagined that Islam was an ally. After all, they had a different set of beliefs from Christians, and so their presence discounted absolutism, right? That proved all beliefs are arbitrary, so we must all embrace relativism. Let them all immigrate in a flood. That ought to fix everything.

But Muslims are of course absolutists. While they might disagree with Christians on details, broadly, their beliefs regarding reality and morality are the same, and relativism is the one unacceptable option.

The Al Qaeda terrorists did not fly into the Twin Towers to end the influence of Christian theism. They did so to end the immorality emanating from the West, the unrestricted sex and moral license. 

Read My Lips: No Niqab Ban. Okay, So Maybe You Can't Read My Lips, But Still...

I am not terribly happy to have to say it, but Harper is on the wrong side of the niqab issue.

I like his idea of revoking citizenship for terrorism. That seems to me not so much a matter of introducing two classes of citizenship, as of terra-forming the playing field. We already have two classes of citizen: those who hold two passports, and those whose commitment is solely to Canada. People have chosen this status themselves. Let them live with its logical consequences.

But on the niqab, I cannot follow him.

I understand why Canadians, and especially Quebecers, feel strongly. To wear such foreign dress at a citizenship ceremony looks like a deliberate declaration of no intent to assimilate. This concern is stronger in Quebec, because Quebec has a stronger sense of self than English Canada. There is a mainstream Canadian culture, we ought to be proud of it, and we ought to preserve and promote it.

But the niqab really is a matter of conscience for some Muslim women. Granted, Al-Azhar University, the closest thing to a Vatican in Sunni Islam, has actually banned it. Granted, the tradition of wearing the niqab predates Islam. Granted, there is no clear mention of it in the Qu’ran. But according to Wikipedia’s summary, of four established schools of Sunni Muslim jurisprudence, two officially consider the practice obligatory.

So it is entirely reasonable for a Muslim woman to consider the practice a matter of conscience. Unless there is some overriding public interest, the basic human right to freedom of religion rules.

Granted, we might choose to prohibit Muslims from immigrating in the first place. There is no basic human right to be Canadian. But is that a step we want to take? And what difference would it make? We would still have to grant similar concessions to Canadian Muslims.

If, as some argue, it is an issue of women’s rights, then the feminist demand ought to be that women have the widest possible latitude in how she chooses to dress at a citizenship ceremony. The idea that Muslim women are “forced” to wear the niqab, in Canada, is obviously untrue, and obviously patronizing.

Bottom line: xenophobia. Let her cover her face.