The Malta Taghna Lkoll movement is beginning to resemble a sack of ferrets
Imam Mohammad Elsadi, leader of the Corradino mosque – a hotbed for the Labour vote in the last general election, to the point where the prime minister has put a Muslim convert on the state payroll at his office as a reward for persuading Maltese Muslims to vote Labour, has begun a campaign against civil unions.
This campaign is not against civil unions between heterosexuals, you understand, even though that too is against God’s will in both Islam and Roman Catholicism, which are at one in ruling that sexual relations are permissible only in the context of religious marriage.
No, the campaign is against civil unions for homosexuals. The Imam has had a big article published in Times of Malta today, in which he says that he neither wishes to disrupt government policy nor to oppose it, but he believes that the majority of people in Malta do not want civil unions (for homosexuals) and so we should have a referendum to prove this.
Unfortunately, the last man who held this belief – about divorce, this time, and it was Lawrence Gonzi – ended up shocked to find just how wrong he was.
And that is quite apart from the fact that civil rights for minorities should never be put to the majority vote. That in itself is wrong, because it bolsters members of a majority group in the mistaken belief that minorities exist and get their rights at the majoriy’s pleasure.
The Imam says that he is aware both the government and the Opposition committed themselves to introducing civil unions, and so it can be concluded that the electorate, whichever party they voted for, voted for civil unions. But he thinks this is not quite right because people voted for a packet of measures and he thinks that most of them voted because of electricity bills, with civil unions being a side issue.
Quite frankly, this argument is skewed. If civil unions were such a side issue to electors that even transient electricity bills were considered far, far more important, then they are a side issue now and nobody can justify rushing out of the woodwork to say, “Hey, but hang on a minute. I might have thought electricity bills more important than civil unions a few months ago, but I’ve since changed my mind.”
In any case, even the Imam has taken to Facebook – that is the ridiculous extent to which politics and religion have descended among supposed grown-ups in this country – and we now have a Facebook group called Referendum for Civil Unions, or so the Iman tells us in his article.
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The Imam should be careful what he wishes for. In the current xenophobic climate, a referendum on whether to close down the mosque would put him in his right senses.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
You cannot have a referendum on something that is anti-constitutional and goes against human rights.
The fundamental freedoms incorporating the freedom to follow one’s religion (freedom of conscience and worship, association and protection from discrimination amongst others) do not, whether tacitly or expressly, provide for a freedom to build temples as one likes.
For this see the referendum result held in Switzerland effectively banning minarets from being built in mosques. The referendum was held in late 2009 and the constitutional amendment was upheld. Switzerland is a signatory to the ECHR
I think the hobbit is right. Fundamental human rights attach to individuals, and it is unlikely that a court (say the ECHR) would extend them to such things as a right to have a mosque or a church in the case of religious freedom.
The fundamental right here is the right of freedom of religion and to manifest one’s religion.
I don’t agree, hobbit and ciccio.
How silly would a right to freedom of worship be if you can’t have a place to worship in?
Not having minarets is one thing (whether for aesthetic or noise pollution reasons – both probably justified, especially the latter, but neither impinge on the freedom of worship), but refusing the building of a church or mosque is another.
I’m with Antoine Vella on this one.
You’re perfectly correct, Antoine. Unfortunately, that’s not the way most people think.
FP can be with anyone he likes. It makes no difference. There is no fundamental right to build a church or other temple. One may have a right to build a temple or church as much as he has a right to build his own house i. e. within the law (Development Planning Act and all subsidiary legislation etc).
Whereas the right to practise one’s religion can neither be denied or alienated, the right to erect a temple in furtherance of one’s creed may.
Now take that to Antoine, FP and start fiddling with it all you want…
Hobbit, I was expecting a reference to a case where a state signatory to the ECHR bans outright the erection of churches/mosques, thus setting a comfortable example for us to follow by closing down the Mohammad’s mosque.
Banning minarets does not prove the point that you’re trying to make that one can have their freedom of worship but can’t have a place to worship in because the latter is not a fundamental right and the first is.
If we were to close down the mosque on these grounds, which court would you expect to uphold the decision?
The only fiddling I see here is coming from your direction, delving in impractical technicalities that take you nowhere.
I believe it’s this one here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Referendum-For-Civil-Union/154141068109917?fref=ts
The Muslim vote comes back to bite Labour in the arse. Good.
That’s the way with all block votes. Labour was elected by a disparate collection of lobby groups so diametrically opposed it’s a wonder the whole thing didn’t blow up, like matter and anti-matter in the same container.
The black holes are starting to develop. The Labour movement will soon be sucked into their darkness.
Thing is that the rest of us, who saw through Joseph Muscat and his fossils from the outset, stand a very good chance of being sucked in with them.
This is the Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Referendum-For-Civil-Union/154141068109917?fref=ts
[Daphne – Thank you.]
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Referendum-For-Civil-Union/154141068109917
[Daphne – Thanks.]
What are people expecting from Muslims (I mean Muslims not black or north Africans)? Islam is still stuck in the middle ages.
[Daphne – Islam does not differ from Roman Catholicism on this score. Nobody expects any religion to keep up with the times. That is not the purpose of religion. The purpose of religion is to offer the comfort of certainty. Malta is a free country in which religious people may think and believe what they wish. You do not have a right to deny them this belief, no more than they have a right to deny you your lack of similar beliefs or punish you for it.]
What’s it got to do with Islam? The news-peg here is that Joseph’s Grand Coalition is creaking at the seams.
Notice how all of the associations in the Coalition Against Spring Hunting all supported Labour pre-election, overtly or implicitly?
So was the hunting lobby.
So was Kenneth (I just love to talk about him). So was Joe Demicoli.
Let’s sit back and watch Joseph trying to square the circle.
Let’s sit back and watch Joseph’s movement melt down slowly like an ‘ice cube’ under the August sun.
Joseph will do no such thing. He’s delegated prime ministerial responsibility to Louis Grech. He’s hung onto the prime ministerial authority bit, though.
What until my religion takes over the island.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
http://www.venganza.org/
Bollocks. The Flying Spaghetti Monster cannot hold a candle to the Great Juju on the Mountain [with apologies to Richard Dawkins].
Ha! I pray to the four winds… and you?
You probably pray to Crom, and he doesn’t listen. What good is he then?
You say he is strong and that if you die, you’ll have to go before him and he will ask you the Riddle of Steel, and he’ll cast you out of Valhalla if you don’t know it.
But my god is greater. He is the everlasting sky. Your god lives beneath him.
The role of religion is to offer the certainty of a goal you can never reach and of berating you about your inability to reach it.
I may not have the right of denying people whatever screw-ball belief they may have, but I certainly have every right to criticize them for having it.
While fundamental beliefs remain unchanged, Roman Catholicism has evolved and continues to do so, even if not rapidly enough for most people’s liking.
Islam will inevitably follow suit. Islam came about some 700 years after Christianity. The overriding interpretation of Islam today still stands where Catholicism and Christianity in general stood during the Middle Ages. However, Islam interpretation and practice are visibly evolving in many areas e.g Turkey, the Balkan states as compared to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran.
The rise of Islamic fundamentalism is a reaction to the uncertainty that accompanies any process of change and it should subside significantly over the span of a single generation.
THIS is multiculturalism!
[Daphne – There are more Roman-Catholics in Malta who oppose both homosexual sex and civil unions than there are Muslims, Joe. They are free to hold that opinion, but they are not free to impose it on others. THAT’S multiculturalism.]
The imposition of religious belief is by definition the exact opposite of multiculturalism.
Gauci Cunningham’s page must be a spectacle today.
The Imam has dumped a bawzer hara on both him and Kenneth.
Poor Joseph is in dilemma. It is either the gay or the Muslim vote. Which one will he lose?
Some people really are an aggressively anti-religious lot. The imam has a right to comment on such things and even propose others. It’s called freedom of speech.
And yet people are harking Malta’s Islamicisation and going on and on about how religuous people in general should not express themselves without realising the real crux of the matter: In trying to be everything to everybody, Joseph’s Labour government set itself up to fail by trying to please factions with opposing views. Now it seems that not even a year has passed and the cracks are clearly visible.
Freedom of speech includes the right to criticise religious beliefs.
But not in a way that hurts or ridicules, as many of the comments in these instances tend to do. After all, the libery to swing your arm ends where one’s nose begins.
Calculator, no one has the right not to be offended. If one does not wish to be ridiculed for what one says, one should keep his views to himself.
The freedom to go public with one’s views goes hand in hand with the freedom for others to ridicule your public views.
Taking offence should not be a pretext for stifling free speech. Would a priest stop preaching about hell if I told him that the idea of a benevolent God who sends anyone to eternal torment offends me?
I hope you get the picture.
Where is Cyrus Engerer, and that committee which he chairs?
Any religion has every right to express what’s morally wrong, same goes to divorce, the Catholic Church has always and will always oppose divorce, that is the Catholic Church.
It’s called freedom of expression and the Imam has the same right.
Yes, r meilak, the Imam has a right to express ridiculous views (as anyone else does). And we have the same right to expose them to ridicule.
And how will this ever contribute to civilisation?
No wonder we’re stuck at the inifinitesimal of a second to the incident. Recognisable order essential, pity the limits of technology have become the science.
And as long as philosophy’s useless or reduced to Russell’s inability to conceive the impossible we’ll remain stuck.
Dark ages indeed, scared shitless of harvesting suns because nature’s evil and contaminated.
Still, everyone in need of a paper keeps scrambling onto a jesuit telescope.
Don’t panic.
That’s liberal too, but what is civil law does not mean is right, pornography is legal in certain countries, but it does not mean that it is not wrong.
What has pornography got to do with the right to ridicule the absurd?
Josef, would you please translate that to English? And while you’re at it, how about you surpassing Russell’s limited wisdom and explaining the impossible.
Sophistry only works with the ignorant.
Useless trivia of the day: A group of ferrets is known as a “business”. Quite fitting when referring to the context above.
At least when one believes in God almighty he has the comfort of knowing that God is just and He will conduct the final judgement on what one delivers with his talents here on earth.
The way things are at present, Joseph Muscat is intentionally trying to grab as much for himself and his own in the first months of this legislature.
I am sure that he realises that the country’s finances will soon come to a certain collapse after which he will do an Alfred Sant and get the PN to sort them out again, for the next generation of MLP diehards.
Hence I find comfort in the religion of the Roman Catholic church which makes one think about leading a good life and the final judgement day.
Signs of things to come! These people are intolerant and once they get larger in numbers we have had it. You the goody goodies are doing your damn best to foist them on us and to create a future like other countries who trusted them are having.
[Daphne – For a moment there I thought you were talking about Joseph Muscat’s government.]