Josh writes:
I dunno, I feel a bit sorry for Ashraf Choudhary. I mean, sure, that was a bloody stupid and somewhat worrying thing to say, but what were his options? The man had been asked, as a Muslim -- the most prominent Muslim in the country -- to denounce the Koran on national television. It was either "stoning homos is good" or "yeah nah, the Koran is shit."
He tried to go for a wishy washy "yes with an if or no with a but" answer, claiming that it's not OK here, but refusing to say unequivoably that it's unacceptable. Obviously that didn't wash, but frankly I can't think of a way out of that situation that would have -- as I recall, when Bri the Bish was questioned about the similarly fucked up bits of the Bible by Kim Hill, he just dodged the question by saying that it's up to the preachers to interpret the Bible for today's society (fair enough, but still doesn't explain why you choose to stick to the bits that say "no fags", but ignore the stuff about keeping slaves and stoning adulterers).
(You could use this to point out problems with holding to a religion in general, but that's another argument entirely.)
The whole situation also provides an interesting response to the "how come you can say mean things about Christians, but it's not PC to mock Muslims and Jews?" bleating one hears from time to time. Here's a Muslim who refused to come out and say that his religion was wrong and is pilloried for it -- would such a question even be asked of a prominent Christian MP?
1 comment:
I see Russell Brown makes basically the same point as me, but makes it better.
And Jellybean articulates the "other argument entirely" I mentioned -- basically "that's what you get for living out of a book instead of thinking for yourself."
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