All hail Mrs. Verdonk

A few months ago, our immigration secretary Rita Verdonk was lambasted in the press for daring to comment on an imam who refused to shake her hand.

Now, it seems more people are willing to stand up for their right to be treated as human beings.

An Islamic man in The Hague will not be receiving his Social Security allowance this month for being unwilling to greet female employers of the Sociale Dienst (Social Services). In some Dutch media, the story is being spun as if the man is being punished for not wanting to shake hands. That's not the whole story. The statute of this particular office of the Sociale Dienst allows for religious people who are forbidden to touch women to express themselves in another way, for example by nodding or bowing. But this particular guy didn't want to greet women in any way.

I'd say if you are willing to touch money from female civil servants, you should also be willing to touch the women themselves.

I mean that in a completely non-sexual kinda way, of course. (You wouldn't doubt me if you'd seen the people that work at the Sociale Dienst.)

10:53

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Judge in AHA case: please **** the **** up

I started writing a rant about the judge who didn't convict Ayaan Hirsi Ali, but nevertheless made a remark about how AHA shouldn't have called Muhammad a pedophile, because he only married a 9 year old once. AHA got away with it though because she had called Muhammad a pedophile only once or twice.

Seems to be a 'once is not enough' kinda judge to me, but please, do shut up. Will I get away with a single murder as easily? Either something is illegal, or it isn't. I don't like the concept of blurry limits on freedom of expression.

Now, personally I find the whole debate rather distasteful. I mean, there's a bloke in the Bible who had a harem of 1,000 women (well, actually 700, plus 300 concubines), which is only slightly better than I do on most Saturday nights. Now, are all Christians proponents of polygyny or polyandry? (Well, I am, but I'm a heathen.)

Nobody brings this up anymore because most Christians consider the Bible a metaphorical book. Most Muslims don't feel that way about the Qu'ran (yet). Still, I think it might be more worthwhile to discuss the (im)possibilities of integrating Islam into a democratic system, and not resort to namecalling about apocryphal religious texts which stem from times when it was also quite acceptable to double park your camel, or to stone gay people to death. (Lord knows, did Jews and Arabs wear anything under those desert garbs in those days?)

Nevertheless, if AHA wants to debate on this level, then that's her prerogative. It is not up to a judge to issue implicit warnings about how many times you can call someone a pedophile and get away with it. If AHA wants to think Muhammad was a pedophile, seen from her western perspective, she's entitled to do so (as childish as I may think this way of debating is). Just as much Muslims have a right to think Muhammad was acting in accordance with the rules of that time, and Christians can choose to conveniently ignore how Solomon was able to sleep with a different woman every night, theoretically taking three years to make the rounds.

I was going to say I accidentaly erased my rant, and won't write it again, but that seems to be a rather superfluous remark now.

10:12

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