Islam Archives

A Win for Religious Freedom … Of a Sort

Let’s see if this sounds familiar. An employee is hired for a job, but at some point that employee is asked to do something that is against their religious beliefs. They refuse to do it, and consequences ensue. What consequences? Well, if you’re a baker, a photographer or a pizza company that wouldn’t cater a same-sex wedding, that generally means a hefty fine and sensitivity reeducation. If you’re a county clerk that won’t issue same-sex marriage license, that means jail time. If you’re truck drivers that refuse to deliver alcohol, that means … the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission – the EEOC – goes to bat for you and sues the trucking company for not creating a religious accommodation, and you walk away with $240,000.

What a minute, what? Yup, you heard right. OK, well then, is that progress? In one way, it certainly is, though the federal EEOC is really late to this party. Hobby Lobby, Kim Davis, and various small businesses could have really used help over the past few years, but it’s nice that the federal government is finally waking up. Can we expect this same action in the future?

Well, I guess it all depends. I would like to point out that all these victims were Christians, except the truck drivers that got federal help and the windfall. In a move that makes the feds look like their picking and choosing which religions get protection and which don’t, they were Muslims. Now, this is just one situation, but given all the other opportunities for the feds to help Christians which they passed on, it really does look like they’re playing favorites, which the Constitution forbids.

In a statement, the EEOC said, “We are proud to support the rights of workers to equal treatment in the workplace without having to sacrifice their religious beliefs or practices. It’s fundamental to the American principles of religious freedom and tolerance.” Apparently, as long as you’re not Christian.

Remember this during the next brouhaha about religious freedom. Watch how this administration acts. For those of you who value religious freedom, and that should be all of you, their actions should let you know what they think of the First Amendment.

I’m actually happy for those Muslim truck drivers. They should have gotten a religious exemption. And this is good news for religious freedom in general, because now anyone can point to their case as a precedent. My fear, however, is that this will go down the memory hole the next time a Christian is on the chopping block.

Does Religion Cause the Most Wars?

Sam Harris, says in his book The End of Faith that faith and religion are “the most prolific source of violence in our history.” The three-volume Encyclopedia of Wars, which chronicles some 1,763 wars that have been waged over the course of human history, begs to differ.

For those wars, the authors note the causes of each. Consider this; they categorize 123 as being religious in nature, which is an astonishingly low 6.98% of all wars. However, more than half of them, 66, were fought in the name of Islam. Take those out, and the percentage of non-Islamic religious wars is a mere 3.23%.

So the next time someone tries to use the Crusades as a way to paint religion as the primary source of all war, just ask them, “Is that the best you can do?” Takes quite a bit faith to believe that.

Friday Link Wrap-up

Hobby Lobby could be the next Chick-Fil-A. “Hobby Lobby Sues over HHS Mandate”

Reverend William Owens from the Coalition Of African American Pastors in an interview with John Hawkins: “Again that’s the reason I took such a stand against President Obama. In every election, in every campaign where the marriage amendment has been on the ballot, blacks in large numbers have been against it and Americans have been against it. But he’s not interested in what the people want. He’s interested in what a few people who can give him big money want.”

I don’t usually link to Sojourner’s “God’s Politics” blog for good examples of political opinion, but their non-political item — a discussion on the recent “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” discovery — is quite good. “Five Important Questions About That ‘Jesus Wife’ Discovery”

“Antarctic sea ice set another record this past week, with the most amount of ice ever recorded on day 256 of the calendar year (September 12 of this leap year).” I blame global warming.

UN Secretary General George Orwell Ban Ki Moon: “Freedoms of expression should be and must be guaranteed and protected, when they are used for common justice, common purpose,” Ban told a news conference. “When some people use this freedom of expression to provoke or humiliate some others’ values and beliefs, then this cannot be protected in such a way.”

Bullying works. “The Christian-rooted fast food restaurant [Chick-filA] agreed to stop funding groups such as Focus on the Family that oppose same-sex marriage in a meeting with the Chicago politician who had been blocking the company’s move there.”

And finally, competing mottos (from Chuck Asay, click for a larger version):

Friday Link Wrap-up

[FYI, Part 2 of my "after-birth abortion" article will appear Monday, for both of you waiting for it. Smile ]

Obama: ‘Drill Drill Drill won’t work. And you can thank Me that it did.’

America’s per capita debt is worse than Greece. And Greece’s credit rating is in the basement.

BBC: We’ll Mock Jesus But Never Mohammed. (Because Christians won’t cut off their head or burn things.)

For all the talk about crude names called at Sandra Fluke, the war on conservative women goes merrily unreported. Meryl Yourish refers to this as the new Exception Clause.

No wonder liberals think their unconstitutional ideas are constitutional. They don’t understand the document’s intent.

Like all generalizations, it’s not true of every single case, but James Q. Wilson asks an interesting question: Why Don’t Jews Like the Christians Who Like Them?

Just as Jews were once expelled from Arab lands, Christians are now being forced from countries they have long inhabited.

And finally, the return of the political cartoon to Friday Link Wrap-ups.

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Friday Link Wrap-Up

If Samuel L. Jackson voted for Obama because he’s black –  using as his reasoning, "’Cuz that’s why other folks vote for other people — because they look like them … That’s American politics, pure and simple." — then is it OK for white folks to vote for white guys just because they’re white? Could those white folks expect the non-reaction to their reasoning as Jackson got for his?

Albert Mohler takes Nicholas Kristof to civics class.  The Constitution protect freedom of religion as a basic right, not only when it’s convenient.

"Actor Sean Penn criticized Republican presidential candidates during a visit to Venezuela on Thursday, saying that right-wing policies in the United States aim to benefit the wealthy." No, we want to make as many people as possible wealthy, as opposed to Venezuela’s socialism, which is making as many people as possible poor.

Stoning Christians on the Temple Mount. No, not Jews. One more guess.

Germans are discovering that, when they need their solar energy most, during December and January, it doesn’t help that they don’t get much sunshine then.

Sign of the Times: "For Women Under 30, Most Births Occur Outside Marriage" Perhaps Rick Santorum isn’t as kooky as some are making him out to be.

Do You Think It Would Matter?

Jen Engel asks a pointed question. Do you think that Tim Tebow would be subjected to the same ridicule and scorn from other football players, sports journalist and other pundits if, instead of being a Christian who thanks God for his talent, he was a Muslim facing Mecca after every touchdown?

Yeah, me neither. Read the whole thing.

Friday Link Wrap-up

Relative bias in the media vs actual bias. A new book from a UCLA political science professor demonstrate how, because the media is so generally slanted to the left, outlets like Fox appear more right-slanted, when in reality they’re far more centrist.

Rosalina Gonzales had pleaded guilty to a felony charge of injury to a child for what prosecutors had described as a "pretty simple, straightforward spanking case."

Trevor Phillips, chairman of Obama’s Equality and Human Rights Commission accused Christians, particularly evangelicals, of being more militant than Muslims in complaining about discrimination, arguing that many of the claims are motivated by a desire for greater political influence. Hmm, define "militant".

What if Charles Schultz had done cartoons of Doctor Who characters? The result would probably have looked like this.

"Smart" diplomacy; cozy up to dictators, snub our friends.

Democrats pilloried George W. Bush for "not listening to his generals" when he made decisions counter to the Pentagon. When Obama does it, not so much.

Would ID requirements for voting amount to a Jim-Crow-style poll tax on blacks? E. J. Dionne thinks so. James Taranto wonders if ID requirements for Amtrak, hotels, air travel and employment are equally as "racist"?

Nancy Pelosi said that they had to pass the bill before we could find out what’s in it. Apparently, some surprises are buried in there.

President Barack Obama’s health care law would let several million middle-class people get nearly free insurance meant for the poor, a twist government number crunchers say they discovered only after the complex bill was signed.

The change would affect early retirees: A married couple could have an annual income of about $64,000 and still get Medicaid, said officials who make long-range cost estimates for the Health and Human Services department.

Whenever there is a budget shortfall, taxes are always on the table. How about we take them off just this once?

Medicare spending is unsustainable, and the CBO itself admits that its tools for determine any consequences from Obamacare are flawed. Yeah, that should "fix" health care.

And finally, define "emergency" (click for a larger version):

Vacation Link Wrap-up

Last week was Spring Break for us, but that doesn’t mean I stopped reading the news.

The long arm of “Pastor” Terry Jones. Obama bombs a Muslim country, and all’s quiet, but one nut half a world away burns a Koran, and gets disproportional media coverage for it, and Afghans riot, killing at least a dozen people.  Jones may be overreacting, but he’s got nothing on the angry mullahs in Afghanistan. And after all, according to NBC, burning the Koran is worse than burning the Bible because the Bible was written by men, not God. (Where do they get their religion experts?)

A new Broadway musical attacks Muslims! This could spawn more riots! Oh, wait. It attacks Mormons. Well then, never mind.

Say it isn’t so! The New York Times is getting its “facts” from left-wing websites and not checking said “facts” for accuracy. Oh, that liberal media.

The Obama Doctrine; looking more and more like the Bush Doctrine. (And the Bush Doctrine is really just common sense.)

Name the Senator who used to think that a war without congressional authority would be “monarchist”? Click here for the video.

Carbon emissions dropped 21% from 2000-2009, without cap-and-trade. Gee, wonder who the President was during that time.

Jimmy Carter equates Christianity with Islam in how both religions view women as inferior. Really, Jimmy? I guess if nations that are (or were) historically Christian would do things like, oh, allow women to vote, or hold jobs, or drive, or not have to cover their entire bodies with tents, then perhaps we can revisit this question.

And finally, two nuclear questions. (Click for a larger image.)

Friday Link Wrap-up

The Left has been energized lately about Charles and David Koch; the brothers who run Koch Industries and give to right-leaning causes. What’s interesting is that the Left simultaneously ignores the money that comes in from George Soros. Personally, I don’t mind rich people giving their money away to causes they agree with, whether liberal, conservative or otherwise.  But the Left has been apoplectic over the Kochs, or, as John Hinderaker says, they have an unhealthy Koch habit. Charles Koch wrote an op-ed in the Wall St. Journal on Tuesday laying out what his issues are; getting rid of "crony capitalism" and massive government spending & debt so that entrepreneurs aren’t stifled at the expense of the politically connected. So…why is the Left against this?

Medicare is losing $48 billion a year from fraud and otherwise improper payments. And Democrats want to give the government more control over our health care purse? Really?

A Christian politician in Pakistan, the country’s minister for minorities’ affairs, was assassinated yesterday for speaking out against the proposed blasphemy law, that would make it a crime to insult the Prophet Muhammad. This is the second high-profile murder related to this law. This may have been perpetrated by Islamic militants, but moderates within the "religion of peace" are getting a bad name from all of this. The problem is, there are a lot of those militants all over the world.

And finally, a civics lesson. (Click for a larger image.)

The Insult

From National Review:

Reuters is reporting that the ancient Cairo-based Sunni center of learning al-Azhar has broken off dialogue with the Vatican after Pope Benedict expressed objections to church massacres in Iraq and Egypt and “urged Christian communities to persevere in a non-violent manner in the face of what he described as ‘a strategy of violence that has Christians as a target.’”

Al-Azhar issued a statement with the following explanation: “[Al-Azhar’s] Islamic Research Council reviewed in an emergency meeting Thursday the repeatedly insulting remarks issued by the Vatican Pope toward Islam and his statement that Muslims are discriminating against others who live with them in the Middle East. . . . The council decided to freeze dialogue between al-Azhar and the Vatican for an indefinite period.”

Because nothing it more insulting that urging people to be non-violent, and pointing out that, indeed, Christian are indeed being persecuted.

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