An Interesting Demonstration

[BigCountry]

I drove by the federal building and saw a group of muslim woman protesting their right to wear veils. I never even thought this right had to be protested and that it was a given. What does everyone think?

[Chief Seeway]

What exactly were they protesting? I remember a story out of Florida I think about the state forcing muslim women to unveil for their driver license/ID pictures. Was this the case here?

[BigCountry]

Probably something to that effect. I didn't really have time to read the signs.

[frankez99]

All over the world Muslims are protesting the bill in French government that bans all religious articles from French schools...to include headscarfs, crosses, Jewish headgear, etc.....

[NamVet4]

And now we can all thank Al-Qaeda for yet another intrusion... And don't you think those bastards are laughing at us still!
Almost every government in the free world is being impacted, thousands and thousands of dollars are being spent...
Terrorism by intimidation!!!!
May be it's time every political party in the US understood this, put aside petty differences and made the war on terorism a reality

[BigCountry]

If this was only the head scarves it might pass but there' no way they're gonna be able to bad crosses and yamaca's too.

[rskinsfan10]

I think that this demonstration was at least nationwide, which frankez seems to be aluding too. I saw something on the local news last night that showed something happening here in DC as far as Muslim women, but I wasn't listening at the time so I'm not sure.

[RedskinsDave]

Here ya go kids:

link

[Spence]

France has had a reputation for secularism and hostility to expressions of organized religion in state institutions that dates back to 1789. [By backing the reactionary monarchy and the ancien regime during the French Revolution, the Catholic Church made a mistake it is still paying for. Headscarves, large crucifixes, yamulkes--anything that is a prominent display of religiosity--is not going to be allowed in French schools.

[Ford]

Wow .. what an awful government.

[Skinzaholic]

It would be a great day in history if we wuld sever our ties with this poorly run nation once and for all.

[Spence]

As an American I confess I have a problem with the French ban on prominent religious clothing. However, it is only fair to take every country's particular circumstances into account. The French have a very large Islamic minority. It's nothing like the Islamic minority in this country. Islam is huge and growing in France. A huge number of Muslims in France are immigrants from north Africa and the Middle East and their sense of religion is very, very strong. Since established Christian churches are stagnant or disappearing, there is a lot of fear that Islam will continue to spread throughout France [indeed it will] and that it will replace France's liberal traditions with something far different. Something alien and non-western.

I have no problems with moderate Islam [or any moderate religion], but if I thought militant Islam was on the rise in the United States it would worry me. I have studied the militant Islamists and the kind of world they want and it does not look anything like the country I live in now. It is not something to be taken lightly.

France, by the way, is not the only country that does this sort of thing. Modern Turkey was founded by Kemal Ataturk in 1922 and he banned all forms of religious clothing or headdress in every public institution. Those laws still exist in Turkey and they are still enforced. Only two or three years ago one of the largest political parties in the country was banned outright because it espouses Islamic Law in Turkey--something which is prohibited by the Turkish Constitution.

It may seem like the governments of France and Turkey go to great lengths to stifle the emergence of a dangerous Islamic militancy in their countries, but they do live much closer to that problem than we do and perhaps they know a few things we do not.