This is photo of Laura Bush and a group of Muslim breast cancer survivers appears to be an image in contrast, but it's not. Still, I bet many conservatives saw this photo and thought "Oh, those poor Muslim women. Their religion suppresses them."
I guess they have the right to bad mouth how other religions treat their women folk - seeing as they are damn pro-equality themselves, right?
Laura Bush may not have a burgha covering her up, but her necon husband has done more to hurt women's rights than any President since...since...? Damn. Who?
Much like how Mary Cheney stood by her father's anti-gay agenda, Laura Bush has stood by silently and watched her husband strip women of their rights. And she hasn't been alone. Many conservative, Christian women have helped men erode women's rights with such subservient attitudes reflected by one Fort Worth seminary which believes "Men make decisions. Women make dinner."
So, maybe the Muslim women pictured are covered up by the burgha but Laura Bush has helped cover and suppress many American women. So, really, what's the difference? Except that perhaps some of those Muslim women are actually trying to get out from under the veil.
Yes. That's right. Dan Patrick, the reichtwing radio talk show host whose "baby buying" bill was first reported by TexasKaos' moiv and has since brought widespread condemnation of Patrick, the Texas GOP and (of course) Texas, walked out on the very first Muslim prayer held in the Senate and then had the audacity to call himself tolerant!
"I think that it's important that we are tolerant as a people of all faiths, but that doesn't mean we have to endorse all faiths, and that was my decision," he said later, "I surely believe that everyone should have the right to speak, but I didn't want my attendance on the floor to appear that I was endorsing that."
Patrick was the only Texas Senator to walk out on him.
Ok, let me get this straight. You want to show your tolerance for religious freedom...by turning you back literally on it and walking out it?!? The man, like his buddy Rick Perry, is either a bumbling idiot or a political genius. I'm going with idiot.
What adds to the irony is the fact that the lawmaker who invited the Muslim cleric, Imam Yusuf Kavakci of the Dallas Central Mosque, was a Jewish woman and fellow Republican, Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano.
So go ahead, Dan. Explain to everyone in only your delusional, "baby buying" world how your actions make sense. Explain how a Jewish woman can invite and listen to a Muslim cleric but a fundamentalist Christian cannot. Explain why she has no problem this occured before the holy Jewish celebration of Passover but you and your fellow wingers are incensed a Muslim man spoke at the Senate days before Easter. Exactly when would it be ok for a Muslim man to speak, Dan?
link Part I: Mainstreaming Islam in the U.S.
By Erick Stakelbeck
CBN News
March 20, 2007
It wasn't just history, but a foreshadowing of the future, when America's first Muslim congressman, Rep. Keith Ellison, took the oath of office. It signaled the entrance of Muslim grassroots politics into the mainstream and embraced a core American value: the ballot box.
This is an odd article, it seems this voice of Pat Robertson's 700 Club wants to both proclaim that American Muslims have entered the (political?) mainstream and to warn us to beware of them.
None. They were scholars and what prompted their removal was a note passed by one anonymous passenger to the flight attendant. I expect bigotry and ignorance from some passengers. And hell, it could've been a joke. Who knows. But is that really enough for the Captain to demand the men get off his plane?
Proving that Christianity isn't the only faith with crazy religious fundamenaltis giving religion a bad name, a Muslim cleric compared women who leave their head bare to "uncovered meat."
I have Muslim friends, some cover their heads and some don't, and they do not believe they - or any woman covered or not - are uncovered meat. No woman is.
Furthermore, no woman is "asking" to be raped as the good Shiek has been accused of implying with his analogy. Muslims and non-Muslim Aussies have criticized the Shiek for his comments. The Shiek has denied condoning rape but if you are comparing women to meat and blaming them for being "attacked by cats" - then I'm not sure what else you could be saying.
Look for Christian fundies to use this against the Islamic faith. I do believe social reform needs to occur in the Muslim world - but it needs to occur in the Christian one, the Jewish one, the Hindu one, the Buddhist one - every damn one of them.
We can start by getting all these guys to stop blaming women for problems MEN cause or are equally responsible for.
Read the caption on this British newspaper: "Pakistan helps UK foil terror plot"
Not "UK foils terror plot" and not even "UK gets help from Pakistan". It's Pakistan - first - helping the British.
That seems like semantics but it clearly makes Pakistan an equal respected partner and makes clear that without their aid, thousands of British and Americans citizens would have died.
Now that a Georgia judge has struck down a popular Bigot Empowerment Act, can assassination be too far behind? It's GEORGIA, fer cryin' out loud. One of the most conservative guys I ever met got the everlovin' shit scared out of him when, as a young law student, a Georgia cop said of his civil rights "Boy, this heah is Jawgeah. Y'ain't got none o' dat stuhf heah."
But far be it from me to single out one of the Deep South states that we Texans look down our noses at, 'cause there are other places like that in this world.
The Muslims I know don't like talking about Moussaoui or Bin Laden or any of the Islamic terrorists we see flashed daily on Faux News. Images of brown, hairy men have become a completely acceptable means of cowing the conservative - & let's admit that it's a very white - crowd.
It is apalling that the inherent racism in that tactic - not reporting of news but of using images of Mexican or Muslim or even today black Americans for fear, for the Willie Horton effect - is so widely condoned by reichtwing groups.
Associated Press
Baylor University police are investigating a report of a Muslim student who said she was attacked on campus, officials said.
The senior said she was walking alone Saturday night when a white man who appeared to be in his 30s grabbed her head scarf and threw her on the ground, yelling ethnic slurs at her, said Ibrahim Hooper of the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The man, who did not appear to be a student, slapped her face, kicked her ribs and threatened to kill her if she made noise, but she screamed and he ran away, Hooper said.
