I never said that the headscarf should be banned, I said that Jacinda Ardern made a poor choice in telling kiwi women to wear them, because A) to Muslims, this appears to be submission to Allah, not solidarity, as most Muslims do not publicly display any sympathy for non-Muslim people affected by terrorism, and B) Muslims didn't change their style of dress to show solidarity with victims of Islamic terrorism.
What you're saying is that the symbolic ornaments of Islam are more important than showing solidarity with the host countries which have taken in Muslims. Got it. Christians may not wear clothing which displays the crucifix symbol in a public position, such as Prime Minister, but wearing a headscarf associated today with Islam is OK.
Giving the middle finger to 'right wing hate mongers', when Islam doesn't recognize women's rights. Brilliant! Even the most right wing Western man like Brenden Tarrant wasn't in favor of treating women like the property of men. So what message are Kiwi women sending out here?
I see you're a Kiwi, so you must have heard by now that Brenden Tarrant wasn't the first terrorist to grace the Christchurch mosque. Attendees at that mosque went off to fight for terrorist organizations, long before Tarrant committed his act of evil. Just think, Kiwi women showed solidarity with those mosque attendees by wearing the headscarf. Nice.
Something I posted elsewhere
1: Prayer already takes place in parliament.
2: Simply having an Islamic prayer in parliament does not make either parliament as a whole or individual parliamentarians 'submitted' in any way shape or form.
3: Islam is a relationship with a community entered into intentionally and deliberately by saying the Shahadah " There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the prophet of God", this must be said with full knowledge of what you are saying and it’s implications and in front of Islamic authority. It cannot be done by stealth nor can it be forced.
4: Having NZers take part, of their own volition, in listening to Muslim prayers is no different than had the attack been on the Hindus or the Sikhs or Jews. Would you insist that listening to the prayers of those faith communities would be submitting ourselves to them or is that nonsense reserved only for Muslims and the Islamic faith?
5: What is wrong with the PM saying that the costs of the funeral will be covered by the government? Either by ACC or some other government department. These folk are NZers who died doing nothing more provocative than praying. We should make provision for such folk and such circumstances.
6: There is a deep strain of xenophobia in NZ. The PM is right in using the actions of this idiot to ask us to face up to it. Moreover she is right to change the gun laws to make a person getting their hands on semi-automatic weapons far more difficult.
7: The gang members who undertook actions to protect the Muslim community were acting on their own behalf. Their actions were timely, compassionate and welcomed by the Muslim community. Who are you to aver that they should not have become involved?
8: Gun laws in this country have been far too lax for far too long. We need to tighten them up. Also please explain to me why a farmer needs a semi-automatic assault carbine. They have access to shotguns and .22 rimfire rifles with 5 round magazines. What exactly do you thing these farmers / hunters are hunting?
9: No one forced anyone to wear head-scarves and in doing so we neither carrying out an act of submission to Islam nor is it a government sanctioned support of the Islamic religion. Many Christian churches ask women to wear scarves, do you think that a visitor wearing a scarf to one of those denominations has suddenly become a member? No, they are simply being polite.
10: In point of fact the word 'Islam' means 'submission to God.' The same submission that Christians espouse when they pray the Lord's Prayer or when Jews repeat the Shema.
11: Finally no one has become a Muslim because they have listened to the call to prayer or watched Muslims pray. No one has submitted to Islam by wearing a head-scarf or by being polite. The PM has no more required submission to Islam than she has asked us to fly. Your post is simply fear-mongering of the worst kind.
Rt. Rev. Raymond McIntyre
Orthodox Old Catholic Church in NZ.