Did I say YOU had ?? I did not. I was actually thinking of Ken Livingston and the Muslim cleric he welcomed with red carpet and open arms at City Hall. Many Womens Groups and many Gay Groups whom Livingston had courted and regarded as a personal fiefdom were not impressed and rightly so. But doesn't his actions and attitudes like his speak volumes. I think it does. we’re obviously still not ready for certain conversations to take place. From your last post and its tone this would seem to be very much the case. Pity, could be an interesting conversation.

My previous post was perhaps a little too general and you could not in anyway be expected to realize I was thinking of Ken Livingstone and Yusuf al-Qaradawi. I can do no better than quote David Thompson from another discussion on this site -: ‘Also widely ignored are the contradictions of an opportunist alliance between the hard political left and the extreme religious right. Thus we arrive at the perverse spectacle of Ken Livingstone defending Yusuf al-Qaradawi as “moderate” while demonising as “Islamophobic” those who protested against the Egyptian cleric - including, ironically, a number of reformist Muslims. The fact that Qaradawi is the ‘spiritual leader’ of the Muslim Brotherhood, a xenophobic organisation with well-documented historical links with Nazism, somehow escapes attention. And while ever the left defends clerics who are bigoted and irrational (and very nearly insane), real moderate voices are marginalized further still.’ I agree with every word David wrote. Those who are citizens, be it of Australia or the United Kingdom, are entitled to ‘equal access to welfare services and laws which offer protection should anyone fall victim to (or be threatened by) domestic or criminal violence’ as you wrote, and I never have thought anything else. I can understand why a Muslim might feel loyalty first and foremost to his religion, BUT he/she has to recognise that that loyalty to religion and culture must be secondary to the law of the land, and I regret to say that some forget this small caveat. My attitude is very much that of Queen Elizabeth I. Like the Queen I have no desire to have a ‘window into a man’s soul’, but I would expect their loyalty to the State, and that is the basis of our religious freedom – you are free to practise your religion so long as you harm no one else and don’t betray the State. When a Jesuit missionary was arrested and taken to the Tower he was asked a question: ‘If the Pope landed with an Army at Tilbury for whom would you fight – Pope or Queen ?’ This came to be known as the ‘bloody question’ because to say you would fight for the Pope made you a traitor, thus deserving a traitors death. Many of my fellow citizens now feel that there is a section of the population who would, if an Islamic Army landed at Tilbury, take up arms against their fellow citizens. Yes, like David Thompson, I’m Gay, but this is not the reason I oppose Islam, but because I am a Christian. It is not possible for me to acknowledge Mohammed as a prophet, and indeed he was in theological terms an ‘Anti-Christ’. However I assume you are not Gay and as such it may be a little difficult for you to appreciate not only the discrimination and sense of isolation many Gays feel, but also the difficulty caused to many Gays by the clash of their homosexuality with their religion. I was going to say they are strange bed fellows, but that may not be in the best possible taste. Persecution of Gays by the ‘religious’ is not the preserve of Islam of course, but in the modern world they are by far the most zealous and vicious. If memory serves me right only last year 3 or 4 men were beheaded for ‘Sodomy’ in Saudi Arabia and a number of homosexual men were sent to prison in Egypt. These are far from rare events. Last month 2 teenagers were hanged in Iran because they were Gay. And so it goes on. I cannot tell you the number of Gay men I have chatted to in Islamic countries and the miserable lives they lead as a result of the intolerance of homosexuality by Islam. Even on this site a Muslim contributor described Gays as ‘biological failures’ and when it was pointed out where such thinking ultimately lead, and echoed Nazi thinking, she threw a strop. But that merely underlines the thinking of many mainstream Muslims. I think you can understand why I would rather give asylum to a Gay fleeing such persecution than people like Abu Hamzer or Bakri et all.

lagaco, Interesting post, and I am sorry for the delay in replying. Been away. You may have got the wrong end of a few sticks, so I will try and answer the questions you ask. Multiculturalism is, to me, a nonsense. What passes for such here, or rather the way it has developed here, has resulted in nothing more than 'cultural apartheid', which is why I used the phrase. This is actively encouraged by the various agencies of the State and as a result we have a situation where the population leads 'parallel lives' where there is little or no interaction between different communities. My view is old fashioned, that I freely admit, but I feel the Muslim community has to bend its ways to that of the 'host' culture. To recognise that you are British does not, in someway, invalidate your Muslim identity and cannot see why you cannot be a ‘British Muslim’. I do not think it is too much to ask and to expect that you show loyalty to the State and your fellow citizens no matter what race, creed or colour they may happen to be. What has happened with the dogma of Multiculturalism is that the left (it is one of the lefts toys) have used it as an effective weapon to beat the host society. They have denigrated their own societies to such an extent that you are almost not allowed to be English – and it is really a hate of England and the English which underpins much of it. I also think one has to be rather wary of thinking that many of the things you regard as 'Islamic' are actually that. There is a big difference between Islamic customs in say Saudi Arabia and say Egypt. You mention the veil and yet in Egypt they have belly dancers don't they ?! So it is hardly the norm. What is perceived as ‘Islamic’ is mostly a version of Islam promoted by the Saudis and is a very hard-line and extreme version. I would also make another point on Islamic dress. The other week I read an article in a newspaper which quoted a girl at a school in Luton where the school dress code had been taken to court. Now a Muslim girl has 'won' the right to wear the headscarf, which is all well and good you may think. Yet now all the other girls are being forced by their families to wear the damn thing because they can no longer go home and say ‘we can't because the school rules forbid it’. One girls desire is now imposed on the many and their freedom and liberty has been impinged. So now, with that knowledge, what would you rather see ? I would plump for what happened before. I also think that because all children where then 'equal' regardless of race or colour. By wearing the scarf you make yourself different and apart, thus erecting a barrier between yourself and your fellow pupils. There are around 200 members of the Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir in Sydney and so they’re hardly in a position to take us over. Nor are we under any threat of an invading army. Is it really that different in England??? May be so, but that is not really the point I was making. There are 1.6+ million Muslims in Britain and the activities of relatively few has lead to an impression now amongst many people that a large chunk of this Muslim population hates and despises the very community and society which welcomed them. This worries me. Homosexuality and Religion is a big topic and a very difficult one. I'm an Anglican and it has a more tolerant attitude to Gays than many Christian churches, be they non-conformist or Roman Catholic, but it does cause many Gays much heartache. Many of the proscriptions against Homosexuality, which are so oft quoted, are drawn from the Old Testaments and are actually mistranslations, or when the texts were written the word had a different meaning. As to the New Testaments Christ himself never mentioned the subject and there is a school of thought that two of the disciples were Gay. Many Gays go through a ‘torment’ because of the churches teaching, or rather its perceived teaching, and I have met many Gays who find it hard to reconcile the two. You are right to say I have never discouraged a Gay from seeking counselling or support and I have tried to help many such people merely by listening and encouraging, but it is not an easy task. There is no perfect solution and we all have to arrive at our own solution, to square our own conscience and make our own peace with God I suppose. My own way of doing this is strongly disapproved of by someone I have chatted to on the Net, and yet for all his bluster and ‘piety’ I do not believe myself he has squared his own particular circle. As to Gays and Islam this is again an emotive issue. As I say Gays, like Christians to a lesser extent, are persecuted and hounded in many Islamic countries and the cases I mentioned were fact not fiction. A simple net search will bring up more details for you. ‘I definitely don’t like to hear about teenage boys leading miserable lives because of the intolerance towards homosexuality they encounter’ - with respect this is not what I said. The two teenage boys I mentioned were hanged because they were homosexuals. There was probably some spurious reason given, but one of them was just 16. Had he been executed in America these pages would be full of bile at how cruel and unjust American society was, and yet because it is a Muslim country no one gives a toss. I also think you have misunderstood my comments on Islam. As a Christian it is not possible for me to acknowledge Mohammed as a Prophet and he is technically an ‘Anti-Christ’, because he rejected the divinity of Christ which is a central tenant of Christianity. It is basic logic really. I have no problem with any Muslim practising his or her religion in England, providing they do not interfere with any other citizen and that they abide by the law of the land. You mention Iraq. I have never stated that I believed it was right to wage war against Saddam to free Gays. My reasons for supporting the war have been given endlessly and I reaffirm them. I believe Saddam was a cruel and wicked tyrant and that to free the Iraqi people was a moral thing to do. I also think that trying to bring some form of democracy to Iraq was a noble cause and would, finally, help to avenge the cruel and brutal murder of King Faisal II in 1958.