Muslims Not Green When It Comes to Liberties

Well, in light of my recent blog post on The Greens and their desire to squeeze out space in Australia for alternate ethical communities it seems that the Muslim community gets what many Christians who pushed back on me don’t get, or at least don’t want to say they get in public.

My stated concern was NOT that religious groups have a right to anything per se, but that The Greens are actually incapable of allowing true difference to thrive within the community in their push for a vanilla once-size-fits-all secular conformity.

This is a matter of public theology, and how difference is played out in the real world. This is stuff we need to think about and discuss.

Whenever I write a blog post such as this I press “Publish” with a sigh, knowing I’m going to get some flak. And I wasn’t disappointed.

My concerns were dismissed primarily by those who said  that Christians are out of line to even mention it.  One of the primary concerns was that no other group in the country apart from The Greens has any concern for voiceless Muslims fleeing tyranny, so we have no right to critique them. In other words, give them a hall pass on this one, because of all the good stuff they do.

Fortunately our Muslim fellow-citizens see the matter more clearly. So how about we let Muslim people in this country speak for themselves on the matter, as a senior member of the country’s top Islamic representative body did today.

Here’s Keysar Trad,  the treasurer of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils seems to have a better grasp of public theology and how it plays out in a secular democracy than most Christians.  Here’s what he says.

The Greens are pandering to niche politics.

AND

This is no different to the submission to powerful lobbies that they criticise other parties of doing. In the interest of basic human rights, the Greens need to respect the majority as well as the minorities.

AND

The Greens have always maintained that they are pro-choice in a variety of matters including marriage, abortion, etc. It would seem that they have become very selective about this choice.

Brave words in the current clime. Brave, but necessary.

Yes it’s good to speak up for the voiceless in our communities, and The Greens often do that, don’t get me wrong.  But speaking up for the voiceless is one thing, but speaking over the top of their voices, sticking your fingers in your ears to avoid hearing what they are actually saying when they have a voice that disagrees with you;  that’s cultural over-reach right there.