http://news.smh.com.au/muslim-women-denied-to-pool-compensated/20080130-1ox2.html

Two Muslim women blocked from a Goteborg swimming pool for refusing to shed some of their clothing won more than 20,000 kronor ($A3,520) each in damages on Tuesday.

The Court of Appeal in Western Sweden, overruling an earlier lower court decision, ordered Goteborg to pay the women damages and their legal costs for discriminating against them.

The women - dressed in headscarves, sweatpants and long-sleeved T-shirts - accompanied their children to the public pool on two separate occasions in April 2004 but were asked to leave after refusing to change their clothes.

Lifeguards told the women they were not welcome unless they got changed into something lighter because their clothing did not comply with the pool's safety and hygiene regulations.

Hi mantra and welcome back.

The law is not the ultimate determinant of morality. Just because something is written in law does not mean it is just and should be obeyed. To say the guy should have known better kind of misses the point. These people are struggling for basic human rights. Every free modern society on earth owes it's freedom to people who gave up their lives for it. By opposing unjust law they have given you the freedoms you take for granted. Yes it was crazy for them to risk their lives, but they were doing the right thing.

There are for example countries where women get stoned to death if they 'tempt' men into raping them, even if they took every reasonable precaution against getting raped. Would you tell these women that they 'have to' obey the law and accept the punishment for their crime?

We need to support human rights and freedoms in other countries. This is something we can do without making it a battle between religions and cultures. Every country, no matter how backwards, has people struggling for freedom and many more who will join in or support it when they get a taste of freedom and realise it won't destroy them. This is the only potentially successful way to combat the problems the modern world is facing.

freediver wrote on Apr 27^th, 2007 at 6:44pm:


There are Mormon fundamentalists, known as FLDS (the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) who still practise polygamy, and have occasionally been engaged in violence, such as Warren Jeffs. The mainstream LDS Church abandoned polygamy in 1890 (though it was practised on a small, and covert scale, until 1904). The LDS Church also accommodated in 1978 when it lifted the ban on blacks holding the priesthood. Societal pressure undoubtedly had some influence in this. No, Mormons are certainly not extremists, but some breakaways are.

I view Muslims in the same way. The majority are benign. The extremists give them a bad name, but one bad apple doesn't infect the whole box, especially if you can extract it quickly enough. I know, and work with many Muslims, and they are no different than any of us - they want peace, for themselves and their families, and to be able to exercise their freedoms in Australia, one of which is to worship as they please. Though I work with many of them, not once, in any way, have any of them tried to convert me to their way of thinking. I imagine the extremists would. In fact, many of the Muslims I know have been very critical of extremists, and believe they give Islam a bad name.

Hi Ray A and freediver,

Ray - I am guessing the FLDs do not maryter themselves ? Nor is that recommended in whatever Bible they use ?
Polygamy vs beheadings ?? Make love not war I say.

many muslims have tried to revert (they call it) me.  They call it revert as they believe we are all born muslims, onlt some have "strayed" since birth. How arrogant is that ?
Query your muslim workmates about aisha, abrogation or taqiya. You'll see another side to them.
I very rarely hear any words against terrorism from muslims.
In aussiemuslim chatroom, they were openly supporting the melbourne terrorists.


Freediver - funny that God should give instructions to mohammad that in later years is backward.
You'ld think God would know what was right and recommend that.
Unless mohammad made it all up anyway, hence abrogation.

islam is ironfast in its demands.  islam is the politics AND religion lumped together.
They control everything, or want to.
remember the public protests of over 1,000,000 people opposing sharia law there ?
They want their freedom and a sectarian state. They USED to have muslim law there, now are free and do not want to return.

mohammad was a political leader, a religious leader, a paedophile, had people assassinated and a was a mass murderer.
That's all in the koran and hadiths.

Sprintcyclist wrote on Feb 25^th, 2008 at 1:27pm:


Sprint, I hear what you're saying and I will make more inquiries. The Muslims I work with are largely "traditional" (in the social sense) Muslims, or cultural Muslims. A few are very dedicated, and one I know just arrived back from Mecca, so he is the one I'm keen to talk to about this, and I'll get back to you about our conversation. I am open minded on this particular point. I'm also posting (but very rarely) on a  Muslim message board (I think located in the US), and I'll do some more reading there too, since firsthand information and opinions are valuable. What I've encountered so far seems rather narrow-minded, and boards like that are not my "natural environment". They don't like being questioned or criticised.

No, the FLDS are not as violent as radical Muslims, but sexual abuse and manipulation are a problem. FLDS don't interest me that much, but I've studied a lot into Utah Mormonism (the main body of Mormonism), and Mormons are certainly no where near the league of radical Muslims. Apart from a 19th century massacre (the Mountain Meadows Massacre),  there's next to nothing you can pin Mormons down on as far as violence is concerned. While Mormons don't believe everyone is "born a Mormon", they do believe that more valiant souls in the spirit pre-existence were chosen to be born among Mormons, or to become Mormon, and that they belong to "the only true and living Church upon the earth". However, these exclusive beliefs have not encouraged violence, and Joseph Smith was in fact murdered by a mob of anti-Mormons.

I did work with a more devoted Muslim a few years ago in Sydney, and although I didn't see his reaction, workmates tell me he was estactic when the twin towers were flattened. I had several long talks with him about the Qur'an, and he said that he felt "inspiration in every verse". What "inspires" people to approve of violence, I am not sure.  No doubt you would say the Qur'an, and maybe there is some truth in that, but this comes back to how literally Muslims take the Qur'an.

Sprintcyclist wrote on Feb 25^th, 2008 at 3:07pm:


This is what I find kind of disturbing, Sprint. I like the ideas and approach of C.S. Lewis. His book Mere Christianity is a great read. The way he phrases it gives Christianity both an intellectual and spiritual appeal. I don't see much of this in Islam, at least in chat forums. All I'm against is categorising all Muslims in the same boat. My uneducated guess is that the Muslims who go to chat rooms or MBs are more than likely the passionate ones. I think you should criticise them, but I also think that you should give some leeway and not think all Muslims are like this.

Case in point: I know a Muslim who is actually atheist! But he still observes the traditions, like Ramadan, for family reasons. He is Lebanese, and Muslim by birth, but he got into a fight at his former workplace because of someone who targeted him solely because he was Muslim, and Lebanese. And that's the irony - he would normally agree with the arguments against Islam, the religion of his birth. But if anyone insults him, or his religion-by-birth, he takes great offence! Muslims like him think Hilaly is a prick, but if they are attacked, in toto, with stereotypes, little will be accomplished.

Ray - C.S. Lewis was a great author.  I liked the screwtape letters, not sure if I read mere christianity.
I agree not all muslims are the same, for sure. Same as not all "anyones" are the same.
It is the extremists that run muslim/islam. If there were no muslims in a country, there would be no terrorist attacks.
Not all muslims are terrorists, but 98% of terrorists are muslims.




freediver - Hey, my kid has to wear a school uniform too.     ASSIMILATE    OR    LEAVE
To the headmaster - good on you, stand your ground mate.
muslims wanted the whole ANU UNI. schedule changed to assimilate to their prayer times in todays paper.
their arrogance is astounding.