Which brings me back to that sense of icy rage at modern intolerance, accepted and even sometimes encouraged in the name of delicacy or diversity. Sainsbury’s are allowing Muslim check-out staff to opt out of touching even sealed bottles containing alcohol. Worse, some Muslim medical students refuse to attend lectures or answer exam questions on alcohol-related or sexually transmitted diseases, and a few will not help patients of the opposite sex. The BMA and GMC confirm that such demands are being made. They have been turned down; moreover, the Muslim Council of Britain and the Muslim Doctors and Dentists Association condemn the requests and say rather nicely: “The prophet said, Learn about witchcraft but don’t practise it.”
But there it is: a terrible self-righteous minority who must not be indulged: not ever, not at all. Myself, I would not only fail such students but demand repayment of all the money spent on their training.
This is not an Islamophobic observation; intelligent Muslim scholars distance themselves from this nonsense. They also say the shopworkers “exploiting and misusing” Sainsbury’s goodwill. It is also not Islamophobic because precisely the same applies to Christians ”“ who also have been known to behave with disgraceful intolerance, and not only in the 16th century.
Last week’s statement by the Archbishop of Mozambique, Francisco Chimolo, that condoms are secretly infected is downright wicked. Simply because his co-religionists believe that fidelity and abstinence are the best life, the Archbishop utters nonsense like: “I know that there are two countries in Europe, they are making condoms with the virus on purpose . . . they want to finish with the African people.” He also claims that retroviral drugs sent from Europe to help Aids victims are infected with HIV. Similarly, there are US Christian charities that will not help African prostitutes; and closer to home, we have had plenty of soi-disant Catholic and Protestant Irish bombers who thought it fine to kill innocents, and clerics who did not condemn them.
Well, yes. And no. Surely, for example, Catholic pharmacists have the right quietly to call another colleague rather than dispense the morning-after pill? The emotive power of the cases cited by Libby Purves seems to me to be rooted not in the religiously principled refusal to conform, but the attitude that goes with it. The Muslim doctors are rejecting not just the cases they encounter, but the whole Western culture, and doing it with contempt, even as they profit from it. The Catholic archbishop of Maputo is showing a blinkered, race-based prejudice, rather than basing his behaviour on any religious principle. Much as I like what Libby Purves says, I think she has confused the issues. And behind this, I think, lies another attitude, which I have often noticed: that we cannot criticise Islam unless we also criticise Christianity at the same time.
Secularists reject any decision making that is not made in accordance with secular presuppositions. They are as intolerant as anyone else.
There’s a big difference between what you learn about and what you do. You should not be expected to perform abortions or dispense contraceptives, or facilitate alcohol-consumption in violation of your conscience. But you should have the same basic knowledge of abortion, contraception, alcoholism, and the physiological effects of alcohol as other medical school graduations. Thus, for example, although I would not perform abortions, I should nonetheless know how to diagnose, treat, and communicate with other doctors about the complications of an abortion.
A secular analogy underscores the point. We don’t want doctors using or dispensing illegal drugs. But we want them to know how to diagnose, treat, and communicate with other doctors about drug abuse.
(Side Note: As a pro-life Christian, I would want to know the reality of what abortion involves. If pro-life doctors can’t speak knowledgeably about abortion, then to whom will we leave the speaking?)
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The reference to “religious intolerance” in the heading is unfortunate, as it evokes the PC classification of strong moral disapproval as “intolerance.”
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The Islamist complaints discussed here remind me of the Somali taxicab drivers in Minnesota who asked passengers whether they had alcohol in their luggage and refused to carry those who did. Yet there’s evidently no mainstream Islamic teaching against transporting people with alcohol in their luggage.
What was really going on? I suspect that the Somali cab drivers— although enjoying a far safer, cleaner, healthier, and more prosperous life in Minnesota than in their poor, war-torn homeland—experience the cultural disjunction and sense of alienation that often accompanies immigration. Booting passengers becomes a way of asserting one’s own identity, value, and even moral superiority. But the cab drivers should consider: Are your motives really religious—or is this a way of acting out resentment and pride? And in any event, if you’re so at odds with Western culture, why are you here?
I wonder how she would classify some stores’ refusal to sell milk from cows that use growth hormones. How about those who only sell FairTrade items? Intolerance? Certainly. Religiously based intolerance? Many of these people are religious and connect their moral principles on these matters to their faith.
Isn’t her logic fraught with illogical peril, like saying, “I love everyone in the world, except, I hate bigots.” Or more to the point, “You must tolerate everyone’s religious sensibilities, unless those sensibilities conflict with my own personal moral choices, in which case, I’m right and you’re intolerable.” How can you defend tolerance and then characterize folks with religious sensibilities as a “self-righteous minority who must not be indulged”?
The only way I can defend my right to practice my faith, is to defend others’ right to do the same. Even though I’m right. 😉
The phrase “Zero tolerance for intolerance” sounds like it could have been thought up by George Orwell. There is a minor industry in the U.S. that has adopted this as their motto without any irony or sense of contradiction, and which convinces major corporations to pay them to conduct re-education seminars wherein they browbeat the hapless corporate employees required to attend.
And I wonder if Mrs Purves might still have her “sense of icy rage” if Archbishop Chimolo, instead of making wild & incredible accusations, had merely stated that condoms are unreliable because they can break & these activities are immoral anyway. He would still be “intolerant”.