I feel far more threatened by the growing numbers of irreligious drunken youngsters on Friday and Saturday nights than the few religious fundamentalists we have in this country today. Binge drinking, lack of respect for elders, teenage pregnancies, single parent families, neglected children, hundreds of thousands of aborted foetuses every year…where are things heading?

Religion has been practiced by people for thousands of years, so stop knocking it. It deserves some place in society. Man is not infallible. We are not all great scientists or professors who rely on deep thought and reasoning. Religion does provide some basic discipline and moral guidance. Give it respect for that at least.

Agree, keeping quiet does get you up the food chain.
Equally attacking people can do the same, look at Hazel Blears.

Should muslims clear the platform so everybody else can speak for them? And for how long? And how long before muslims become insular again?

They should, without a doubt, be out there speaking off their concerns ie participate fully in what is a democracy. They should be joining Friends of the Earth, and creating an equivalent etc. etc.

If I speak in cliches, its often out exasperation.

ha ha, yeah I saw that earlier. Quite amusing… given the Republicans there are also liable to see all Muslims as terrorists.

I think abortion is a tragedy.

Well, I think eating animals is a tragedy too. But I don’t force people to become vegetarians

Erm, are you an inbred?

Its precisely because the countries don’t value females that female babies and foetuses are aborted.

Pandering to which bigots? Stop writing in cliches Refresh, use your brain once in a while!

If someone was attacking Muslims here, then yes, speak out. Haven’t got a problem with that. My point is here is that in politics its never wise to shoot your mouth off if its gonna hurt your candidate or lose you your goal. Your silly idealism is not surprising but most people who go further up the political food-chain don’t work like that.

First, its important for you to understand that.

Second, what would Muslims lose by not speaking out? You want to put yourself on the side of the Christian Concern for our Nation?

So I take it there are no white Muslim women, and that all Muslim males are brown?

Muslims, like Christians, can be any colour, Sunny.

Abortion has become a sick joke.

When the issue first emerged, and the ‘right’ to abort a foetus ‘won’, the commmon wisdom said that it was “empowerment” for women.

However, nowadays over 80% of the abortions performed world-wide are performed for one reason, and one reason only; to ELIMINATE a healthy female foetus.

In India and China aborting females ( in the hope the next foetus will be male) is now so common that the ratio of males to females is completely out of whack.

Do women posting here ( like Elaine and katy) realise this?

Left-leaning individuals are never very good at thinking through the “law-of-unintended-consequences” angle.

In Third world countries this feminist “empowerment” is now used mostly to kill unwanted females.

10s of millions of unwanted females.

And in the developed world women often undergo abortions in order to please and to keep their boyfriends.

“Empowerment”.

Well done girls!

So its just another opportunity for the usual suspects to share their south asian religion issues with bed fellows secularised products of christian culture in the uk. fair enough, but why bring anyone else into it? aaah shared brownness.

The faithful facing these difficult ethical problems look for enlightenment. not from sunny bunny, but from their own leaderships.

A faithful girl facing the abortion scenario should have the best information and guidance avaiable, who really cares if badly echoed sound bites perturb the coconuts and sellouts?

A scientist on the cutting edge who actually knows about the field and the alternatives would be better able to inform his/her community about the matter.

How long should a whole group of our society ‘keep their head down’? This is pandering to the bigots.

I take the opposite view – if you have something to sensible to say, say it.

And if it means that others concur with your message, even better.

And politically speaking now is the time to speak out, so everyone can see that you have a rational position on issues which everyone else is talking about and that you are not the bogeyman created by US politicos, bloggers and the right wing press.

I think there is a phrase which may also be 3,500 years old. ‘Better to die standing, then live on your knees’.

What matters is that there is not just one way forward, and there is no point in having diversity if you cannot share in it or learn from it.

Someone been reading their Sun-Tzu. 3500 years and its still going strong.

It is about that too. But you have to consider that you may win the battle or stand up for your views this time, but you end up losing the war.

My point here was that my getting involved in this fight, the only thing that British Muslim orgs would invite is further bigotry towards British Muslims, without any gain. Is there any point to that?

That’s a little bit naive, right? Sometimes, politics is also about making a stand on an issue that may not win you support or anything else, but you need to have convictions, even if you don’t always win!!
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Also ELAINE: I question whether deeply religious people can be truly said to have a “view” on anything that is prescribed by their religion.

I know that deeply religious people like secular people can still have opinions and independent thoughts even if they are religious. They haven’t made a Microsoft sotware programme of a standard good Christian/Jew/Muslim/Sikh ready to plug into the Xbox or Wii.

It’s no one else’s business.

Always a time for a Bill Hicks quip:

“You ever look at their faces? “I’m pro-life!”

Boy, they look it don’t they? They just exude joie de vie. You just want to hang with them and play Trivial Pursuit all night long.

You know what bugs me about them? If you’re so pro-life, do me a favour – don’t lock arms and block medical clinics. If you’re so pro-life, lock arms and block cemeteries.

I want to see pro-lifers with crowbars at funerals opening caskets – “get out!” Then I’d be really impressed by their mission.”

Refresh, you don’t understand politics. That is your problem. Neither do you understand the art of warfare.

You pick the battles you can win and avoid the ones you can’t. But hey, if you want to be naive about everything, then go right ahead. Nothing new there.