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Look! They, are telling Us what to do! Please tell me - What's wrong here???

Reader comment on item: Is the Middle East "Freer, More Hopeful, and More Promising"?
in response to reader comment: God bless you, Wendy -

Submitted by Wendy Hill (Australia), Dec 11, 2008 at 02:49

Dear Fellow readers,

Isn't it enough that we must conform when living or visiting their country? If we did not adopt 'their' dress code we would be punished, locked up, or otherwise.

See: http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2008/06/25/muslim-polygamy-in-australia/#comment-115903
A quote from a reader-
How long will Australians take to realize that Bob Dylan was correct when he sang: "you're gonna have to serve somebody, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you're gonna have to serve somebody."

The Lords' yoke is so much more preferrable to the yoke of Islam, as joy is to sadness, or freedom is to oppression.

Or maybe they will be like a yabbie in a pot of water that is slowly brought to the boil, by the time they realise that life in Aus is no longer "nice"……….its too la……..

WAKE UP AUSTRALIA from your secular slumber and name Christ as your King.

Muslims want ban on Christmas trees and Easter eggs - Expatica, Belgium - Aug. 22, 2007
www.expatica.com
ReligionNewsBlog.com • Item 19107 • Posted: Thursday August 23, 2007

ANTWERP – "If headscarves are banned for employees who work at the desk at city services in order to guarantee neutrality of services, then we demand that no Christmas trees be set up in city buildings and that no Easter eggs be given out." Antwerp trade union representative Badia Miri said this on Wednesday in the Gazet van Antwerpen.

Miri is one of the seven Muslim women who were forced to remove their headscarves if they wanted to continue working at the desk. By its very nature, Islam makes it extremely difficult for Muslims to integrate. Islam means submission, and the Quran makes it clear that Muslims expect non-Muslims to submit to Islam. Western values are not compatible with Islam. Throughout Europe, radicalization amongst Muslims has led to what they call ‘Islamphobia' — rather than the other way around. Here's why…

Almost a quarter of UK-based Muslims believe the London metro bombings were justified

Europe fears threat from its converts to Islam

The seductive beat of the militant, Islamic drum

UK mosques are importing Jihad

Europe's angry young Muslims

Europe is learning a hard lesson from Muslim immigrant experience

Research resources on Islam

Three of the seven staff members of the city of Antwerp who wore headscarves agreed to stop wearing one.

And fellow readers, read on please:

Some Muslim workers at Target refuse to handle pork
Submitted by Chris Serres, Star Tribune Staff Writer on Mon, 03/12/2007 - 5:21pm.

How would you feel if a cashier made you swipe your own groceries because of his/her religious beliefs?

I'm a reporter who covers Target for the Star Tribune and the other day, I got a call from someone who said that an employee at the Target store downtown refused to run his bacon through a scanning machine. He was mighty upset, arguing that the cashier had "no right to work as a cashier at Target" if she wasn't prepared to swipe his groceries.

But he was a little vague on the details, so I decided to check it out myself. At the Target store on E. Lake Street, a cashier wearing a hijab looked uncomfortable when I showed up at the cash register with a frozen pepperoni pizza. She immediately called for help, and another employee rang up the pizza and placed it in the basket.

I asked her if it was because she was Muslim, and she nodded her head. "I can't even touch it," she said.

The E. Lake store has only has a few aisles of food. How do Muslim workers adapt in Super Targets where there are full-fledged grocery sections? And is anyone other than this caller bothered by this? Are there some Muslim workers at Target who feel they have to suppress their beliefs to avoid conflicts?

Editor's note: A story about this issue appeared in Wednesday's Star Tribune.

Posted in Business Chris_Serres's blog | login to post comments
Muslim workers at target

Do the Orthodox Jewish workers refuse to handle anything that is not kosher?
I'd check with the company as to the stores policy about what a employee can and cannot refuse to do.
Also how does Target(or other stores) handle employees that may have issues with handling some of the store's products?

From The Sunday Times
September 30, 2007
Muslim checkout staff get an alcohol opt-out clause

MUSLIM supermarket checkout staff who refuse to sell alcohol are being allowed to opt out of handling customers' bottles and cans of drink.

Islamic workers at Sainsbury's who object to alcohol on religious grounds are told to raise their hands when encountering any drink at their till so that a colleague can temporarily take their place or scan items for them.

Other staff have refused to work stacking shelves with wine, beer and spirits and have been found alternative roles in the company.

Sainsbury's said this weekend it was keen to accommodate the religious beliefs of all staff but some Islamic scholars condemned the practice, saying Muslims who refused to sell alcohol were reneging on their agreements with the store.

Islam states that Muslims should not consume alcohol, but opinion is divided on whether it is permissible to be involved in the sale of it.

Mustapha, a Muslim checkout worker at the company's store in Swiss Cottage, northwest London, interrupts his work to ensure that he does not have to sell or handle alcohol.

Each time a bottle or can of alcohol comes along the conveyor belt in front of him, Mustapha either swaps places discreetly with a neighbouring attendant or raises his hand so that another member of staff can come over and pass the offending items in front of the scanner before he resumes work.

Some of the staff delegated to handle the drink for Mustapha are themselves obviously Muslim, including women in hijab head coverings. However, a staff member at the store told a reporter that two other employees had asked to be given alternative duties after objecting to stacking drinks shelves.

Mustapha told one customer: "I can't sell the alcohol because of my religion. It is Ramadan at the moment."

His customers did not appear to have any objection to his polite refusal to work with alcohol. One said: "I have no issues with it at all, it really doesn't bother me."

However, some senior Muslims were less approving.

Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, director of the Muslim Institute and leader of the Muslim parliament, said: "This is some kind of overenthusiasm. One expects professional behaviour from people working in a professional capacity and this shows a lack of maturity.

"Sainsbury's is being very good, they are trying to accommodate the wishes of their employees and we commend that. The fault lies with the employee who is exploiting and misusing their goodwill. It makes no difference if it is only happening over Ramadan."

Ibrahim Mogra, chairman of the inter-faith committee of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), said: "Muslim employees should look at the allowances within Muslim law to enable them to be better operating employees and not be seen as rather difficult to cater for."

A spokeswoman for Sainsbury's, confirming Mustapha's stance, said: "At the application stage we ask the relevant questions regarding any issues about handling different products and where we can we will try and accommodate any requirements people have, but it depends on the needs of the particular store."

* Have your say

what would happen if an english person refused to serve a muslim for halal products we'd be carted of by the police most probably its utterly ridiculous they should follow the laws of our country and religions whilst here as we would be made to over in their country its disrespectful

Liam, manchester, england

Total division here. Almost every Muslim supports this decision, and almost every non-Muslim does not. Muslim-owned corner shops usually sell pork and alcohol products wihtout objection - it seems to become an issue only when they don't take the profits. Why do we put up with this in our great lands

Martin, Eastbourne, England

It is totally ridiculous I have a lot of muslim friends and they do not consume alcohol but they do sell it in their shops and have no problems handling it . I think they people concerned should look for another job as it is time wasting having to wait for someone else to take their place to serve.

Muslim checkout staff can refuse to sell drink
Last updated at 00:37am on 01.10.07

Add your view

muslims checkout drink

Muslims can now choose to steer clear of the alcohol aisle if they work at Sainsbury's

Muslim supermarket checkout staff have been given the right to refuse to sell alcohol to customers.

At least one chain has allowed workers to call in a colleague to take their place when customers are buying beer, wine or spirits.

Those with religious objections to selling drink have been asked to raise their hands so that a colleague can step in.

Staff have also been allowed to avoid stacking shelves with alcohol.

The system by which a checkout worker can raise their hand to avoid selling alcohol - much in the same way staff under 18 have to raise their hand to get the permission of a supervisor to sell drink - has been introduced by Sainsbury's.

The chain operates the practice at at least one store in North London, where one checkout worker is regularly replaced by Muslim colleagues who are prepared to sell alcohol and handle packages or bottles containing it.

Sainsbury's said yesterday that it operates a 'flexible' system in which store managers make their own decisions on what practices suit the needs of staff and the demands of trade.

A spokesman said: "We are flexible and we will accommodate religious needs as far as we can. We don't have a hard and fast rule."

Muslim groups praised the store for its understanding of religious needs.

Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: "By selling alcohol you are not committing a sin. You are just doing the job you are paid for.

"Muslim employees have a duty to their employer and in supermarkets most people would accept that in selling alcohol you are merely passing it through a checkout. That is hardly going to count against you on the day of judgement."

Bill Muehlenberg's commentary on issues of the day…
Muslim Polygamy in Australia

An Australian Islamic leader has announced that polygamous marriages should be recognised by the Australian government. Keysar Trad from the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia said that polygamous relationships in the Muslim community should be legalised. He said this would make things safer for Muslim women.

He said, "If this woman has wilfully chosen to enter into this relationship and make a lifelong commitment to this person to be married, it shouldn't matter. If it was a business and the business had four partners we'd recognise that, but why don't we recognise it when it comes to consensual relationships amongst adults?"

His thoughts were echoed by Sheikh Khalil Chami of the Islamic Welfare Centre in Sydney who also said polygamous marriages should be recognised in Australia.

This raises what many consider to be the two major assaults on the Judeo-Christian West today: the push for sharia law, and the push to redefine the institution of marriage. Both are major areas of concern, and both must be fiercely resisted.

The first is the ongoing push to make sharia law the law of the land in Australia and around the Western world. All true Muslims want to see the rule of Allah spread throughout the earth, and want all infidels to submit to his laws. And bit by bit we see the encroachment of sharia law in Western nations. It of course does not help when Christian leaders such as the Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams says that this is inevitable, at least partially.

Increasingly Western societies are ceding freedoms in order to placate Muslim minorities. And given the fact that Muslims tend to have larger families than non-Muslims, many are predicting that Muslim majorities will rule in many Western nations before the century is out. Indeed, one recent headline put it this way: "Britain to be an Islamic State by 2038".

The move to legalise Muslim polygamy is just part of the greater spread of Islam throughout the Western world. At the moment it does not look like much is standing in the way of this continuing to gain momentum.

Of course the other alarming feature of this is the war on marriage. For years we have been battling various attacks on the institution of marriage. When there was debate over allowing de facto relationships to have similar status to married couples, pro-family forces warned this would be the thin edge of the wedge, and that the next thing you know, there will be demands for same-sex relationship recognition. Of course they were laughed out of court.

And when same-sex unions were recognised, pro-family forces said the next logical step will be to legalise polygamy. We too were ridiculed and mocked for suggesting such things. But one simply has to google the word polyamory to see this is no laughing matter.

There are voices all over the world – including academics, lawyers and other elites – calling for the recognition of group love and/or group marriage. Indeed, if we accept the logic of same-sex marriage, then the logic of polygamy is identical.

Both involve adults freely entering into a sexual relationship. It is consensual union, they will argue, and hurting no one else. So why not? The case for polygamy is based on the very same premises as the case for same-sex marriage. And if Muslims are now arguing for it, it seems that it is just a matter of time before the entire institution of heterosexual marriage is cast onto the scrapheap of history.

Of course Muslim men today in Australia do have up to four wives, as they are allowed in the Koran. And many of these extra wives are already getting government (that is, taxpayer funded) benefits already, especially in the Sydney area.

And Muslim men think this is fine. One newspaper account says this: "Mr Trad's mother was a third wife in a polygamous relationship overseas and he said the women had admiration and respect for each other and supported each other." Most women in polygamous affairs would beg to differ.

Most Muslim women despise such arrangements, and usually there is one woman that is singled out for special treatment by the husband, while the other three languish. It is this inequality of love and affection which makes polygamy so miserable for the majority of women involved in it. Jealousy, tensions and strife are common in such scenarios.

Polygamy is all about the lusts of the males, but not the wellbeing of the females. Right now polygamy is illegal in Australia. To legalise it will not only set in cement the misery many Muslim women already experience, but it will be a further nail in the coffin to heterosexual marriage, and the near universal principle of one man, one woman for life.

It remains to be seen how well received this recommendation will be. Many politicians are already overly sensitive to, and worried about, Muslim feelings. Thus many might be tempted to go along with this idea. And the fact of political correctness, along with the homosexual war on marriage, will simply add more pressure for this sort of idea to gain further currency amongst our ruling elites.

The war against marriage has just got even more intense. What is needed more than ever are leaders with common sense, guts and principle to make a stand before it is too late. Whether such leaders still exist is the question of the hour.

Submitting....

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".

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