Posted on 12/01/2009 9:08:23 PM PST by Steelfish
EDITORIAL Swiss Ban On Minarets Is Pure Discrimination Sunday's referendum is a reminder that cultural anxieties can be inflamed even in the most tolerant country.
December 2, 2009
Integrating Islamic immigrants has proved to be a multifaceted challenge for European nations unaccustomed to religious and cultural diversity. But there's nothing complicated about the decision of voters in Switzerland to prohibit further construction of minarets. It's religious discrimination pure and simple.
Sunday's referendum, in which 57.5% of voters approved the ban on minarets -- a traditional feature of mosques -- is a reminder that cultural anxieties can be inflamed even in the most tolerant country.
(It also demonstrates the fact, well known to Californians, that direct democracy can burden a society with measures that wouldn't have survived the deliberateness of the legislative process.) One of the referendum's architects called the minaret "a political symbol against integration . . . a symbol to try to introduce Sharia [Islamic] law parallel to Swiss rights."
It would be just as accurate to say that the Christian cross is a symbol of the Spanish Inquisition or the violence committed by Crusaders against Muslims. It's also perverse to complain that Muslims are unwilling to embrace the larger society and then make acceptance of second-class status the price of their assimilation.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
The ban doesn’t go far enough. Absent reciprocity from Muslim nations for construction of Christian faiths and full dignity of Catholics and Christians, I’d canvass for a ban on the mosques as well and demand a complete moratorium on all Third World immigration.
I missed their editorial on religious discrimination in Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, etc.
No one signed their name as author to this LA Slimes editorial.
Why am I not surprised...
Would I let a blood thirsty enemy build a fort in my town? I don’t think so.
I’d add to that list:
Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Malaysia.
The LA times has no problem decrying Christian crosses in the greater LA basin, (or out in the middle of the Mohave Desert) nor do they have problems with the ban on Christian churches ringing church bells
hypocrites
As usual, the LATimes is wrong!! Switzerland is a beautiful country with characteristic architecture that doesn’t require minarets. In addition, unlike the cowards in elected political office here, the Swiss are standing up for their country and their culture.
Somebody should tell our political elites that they could learn a lesson from the Swiss . . . . . BEFORE they learn the lesson from the embedded Muslims quietly overtaking the US!!
Apparently this writer thinks that adding a page to the Building Code in Switzerland is the same as hunting down and executing Christians in Saudi Arabia.
Sure is. The public schools discriminate against Christian symbols and the LAT is OK with that.
Integration means accepting and becoming part of the culture of the country you’ve moved to, not pushing your culture on them. It is not discrimination to insist that if immigrants refuse to accept your culture and language that they can go home.
In Switzerland, Muslims are rocks in a raisin pudding.
This editorial is unsigned. Laughably, the writer uses the argument that banning the minaret sets a bad example to Saudi Arabia, which doesn’t allow any outward observance of Christianity. As if allowing minarets in Switz would do anything to further tolerance in the murderous Islamic country of SA.
There are many towns in the good old USA that actually ban steeples on Churches (various building ordinances)
Have Christians EVER made a big stink about it, calling it discrimination against Christianity?
My only concern
With the Swiss Minaret Ban:
It’s Ineffective.
Ain’t that funny? The LA Times pontificating on a-ssimilation.
I’m sorry, but while I agree on the ban on minarets (and noise regulations should be enforced strictly), I would also say that they are worried about shutting the barn door after the pony already left the farm.
The place to discriminate is at the moment you issue your residence visas. It makes sense to favor people who want to be Swiss. The people who can’t assimilate well should be limited to visitors permits if even that.
If you’ve admitted so many muslims that you now have to regulate the building of minarets, you’re late. And from talking to Swiss, they are waking up and realizing that they’ve slept too long, and are becoming strangers in their own country.
Ok, I’ll go against the grain.
Dangerous territory here.
Community developed building and zoning codes are ok. And if they contain generic restriction that make such structures illegal - I guess those same restrictions would apply equally to all.
But ...
This seems to have many of the qualities that the founding fathers described as “tyranny of majority.” The founders generally frowned on “democracy.”
Remember . . .
When we grant power to Government to restrict the freedoms of those with whom we disagree, that same power is likely one day to be used to restrict our own freedom.
We created RICO laws - because we hated gangsters. Now the laws are used against pro-life organizations and tobacco manufacturers.
We created “Civil forfeiture” because we hated drug dealers. Now you forget your insurance card and they seize your car.
If we outlaw Islamic “shapes” on their own private property, we’re one short step away from outlawing crosses and steeples on Christian Churches.
flame away
it’s too late to argue anyway.
Send the editorial board of the LA Times to Riyadh to tell the Saudis that they're discriminating against Christians or Jews. I would love to see how long they'd last.
I think I’ll go and visit Bern and Zurich; sounds like my kind of a place. Safe, too.
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