Reply #24: Totally different [View All]

[mobuto]

1. Muslims have not been the subject of widespread and historic discrimination in this country the way they have been in France. Even after September 11, there really is no comparison. Integrating Muslims into French society is by far the biggest crisis facing that country. Everything else, including religious freedom - which is really not endangered in a country as open as France - is subordiante.

2. I'd be screaming bloody murder in this country if this happened, even if we did need something like this - which we don't - simply because it would be illegal. The First Amendment allows for the free exercise of religion, and that would be the issue. But France has no First Amendment.

The purpose of this law is to HELP religious and ethnic minorities escape the grasp of endemic discrimination, not to hurt them. You've got to remember that. Saudi Arabia et al. oppose this law precisely because it will lower the divisions. Because Islamist extremists depend on segregation and discrimination in the West as bete-noir for fundraising and recruitment. Happy French Muslims are a lot less likely to fly planes into office towers than are unhappy French Muslims.