Most liked posts in thread: BCWFC Chairman Resigns in 'Ban the Burka' row

Welcome to 2019, the world of the offended.

 

I'm not getting into the detail of his views. But when people are losing their jobs because of their political beliefs - as long as they're lawful - then its a slippery slope....

 

I personally couldn’t care less, the world is a place where everyone is looking to be offended, the fact that ‘someone’ has chosen to search through this persons history to find something to be offended by bemuses me somewhat.
Don’t misunderstand me, i don’t go out of my way to offend people but there will be someone out there that would find some facet of me offensive. Its a fashion these days.
I wonder if the next person to take the role will have their personal lives scrutinised to the last degree to find insult? Because somebody will find something.

 

It's easy to infer that he's a bigoted stereotype. And he may well be - I'm not defending him.

But, playing devils advocate, wanting to 'ban burkhas' in itself isn't necessarily prejudicial. Depends on your motive and your thinking. And Muslims should adhere to 'our' laws. Everyone should. And anyone not wanting to live by UK law should leave. To where, I don't care.

My bug bears are more around the difficulty in having grown up conversations about sensitive topics without being branded prejudiced. And people losing their jobs because of their beliefs rather than their actions in the workplace.

It also seems that whilst airing anything like a right-wing political/social view is chastised, more left wing and liberal views are not only tolerated but embraced. If he'd promoted the need to increase the representation of Muslim (or other minority groups) players in the game, or posted an article criticising 'white privilege' or 'male privilege' and how it needs removing from the game, would he have been sacked? I'm maybe going off on a tangent slightly, but when you start to police speech and remove people from their jobs for legally expressed political views, things can go very bad, very quickly.

 

The same community that doesn’t believe in lgbt

 

Amazes me that in 2019 we still tolerate these mumbo jumbo religious beliefs. If religion was spawned tomorrow it would be laughed off the face of the earth - Science wins every single time and dispels every myth. It is absolutely bizarre...

That said, would banning the Burka be such a bad thing? For security and safety reasons it is quite a dangerous garment to accept in western society. I would fathom a guess that a lot of those who wear it do not choose to do so either....

 

Can’t agree i’m afraid. He should be allowed an opinion on something and that shouldn’t have had an effect in this instance on his employment.

 

I may live to regret this, but...yes, it is clear.

I shall assume you have given accurately the gist, even if not the actual words, of what has been said. In that case, we have three points to discuss, two of which I'd argue are unobjectionable, whilst the third is at least debatable.

1) the burka: this is the debatable one. Is it a religious requirement, sanctified by the authority of Mohammed, or is it a social-cultural construct? It's been a few years since I last read the Koran, and honestly can't remember anything about it in there. There's been a big debate over here, in Quebec, about banning public officials from wearing religious symbols at work; the law passed the other day but is being challenged on various grounds. This falls into somewhat the same area.

Personally, I don't agree with it, and wouldn't mind if it were banned. It strikes me as a very visible way of showing power over another person, as well as being a very visible way of turning a person into a non-person, invisible, nothing. THere is also, as another poster has pointed out, real problems with identification of individuals and security of the whole.

2) Muslims should adhere to our laws: Yes, they should. So should Jews, and Christians, and Rastafarians, and agnostics, and atheists, and so on. Or to put it another way, so should Pakistanis, or Russians, or Canadians, or English, and so on. Whether you are a recent immigrant, or from a family that came over with William, the country's laws and customs should help form your behaviour. Especially if you are an immigrant, it is your duty to fit in. This doesn't mean forgetting your heritage, or nationality, or home country, however. You have to find a way to blend them all together and make it work. I am an immigrant here myself. And I do fit in. Eh!

3) leave if you don't like it: Given there are no exit controls, given that people are free to move out of the UK if they do not like it, then why not leave if UK laws, customs, people, society, are so objectionable? There's a rather large range of countries out there; surely a better fit could be found? Why stay somewhere that is distasteful to you? Yes, I know that finances, family, work etc. may limit movement, but simply taken as a general point, one is free to leave -- unlike in some other countries of the recent past (e.g. Soviet Union).

RCB

 

Please can the season start soon?

 

Norway, Sweden, Finland - All socialist states, high rates of tax, happiest people in the world.

Socialism isnt a dirty word when done fairly. The UK practices socialism every day, the NHS being one. Your bins being collected being two. Benefit system, free bus passes, the army.

 

Racist loses job.

/thread

 

That's just a sweeping generalisation. I know plenty of muslims who are opening minded enough to be fully accepting of LGBT people and at the same time i have known plenty of white british people who aren't accepting. The attack on the 2 women on a bus in London wasn't done by muslims.

This isn't to do with being PC or any of this 'snowflake' rubbish but saying things like 'go back to where they came from' when many of them were born in this country is just racist or bigoted and shouldn't be associated with sports club where they are meant to be inclusive.

 

It's not important to look at what was actually said.

We can all form our opinions without stopping to the facts.

 

Why instead don't we send a message to women thats its alright not to wear the bloody burka and that they are free to walk around with their face on show for all to see? Its the 21st century FFS, women should not have to walk around with their faces covered.

 

So what you're saying is nobody can say anything for fear of offending someone else.

Two words.

Ann Cryer

Thanks to people with your attitude thousands of children have been raped and nobody did a thing to help them for over a decade.

Of course there are good Muslims. Whoever said there wasn't. There are bad ones too. Just like there are good and bad English people, good and bad politicians and good and bad pop stars.

Are you saying that people are never allowed to say things for fear of offending the ones who are good?

Put it this way, if there are bad English people (which there are) I want everyone, from all communities, to feel free to speak out without fear of losing their jobs or being accused of racism or any other ism come to that. I won't be offended. I will be pleased that people feel comfortable to say how they feel and not feel worried that the politically correct thought police will come after them.

 

I spend a lot of time in Spain where the Spanish regularly moan about the behaviour of the English in Benidorm. They don't feel it necessary to keep qualifying that they don't mean every Englishman. Why would they? It is totally obvious. I know they don't mean every English person so I'm not in the least offended. Indeed, I agree with them. The behaviour of English people in Benidorm can be embarrassing.

Why, when people speak about Muslims, do you feel it is necessary to ALWAYS have to qualify that some Muslims are really nice. Of course they are, just like there are many lovely English people who go to Benidorm every year.

Unless you are a racist you don't automatically assume everyone of any colour, creed or nationality is the same. That is pretty weird to even think.

We will just have to agree to disagree as I just don't see all people of any colour, creed or nationality as being the same. There are good and bad amongst everyone.

And I think it is positively weird to say 'but there are nice muslims too' every time the word muslims are mentioned, as nobody seems to feel it is necessary when speaking about any other religion or culture, so it is borderline racist to feel you need to stress it. Of course there are nice Muslims. Unlike you, I don't think it is necessary to have to keep pointing that out.

 

The Burka is banned in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France and Netherlands.

I would consider these nations liberal and progressive. I don't think what Mr Hird said can be considered offensive when some of our allies and European neighbours have banned it.

 

Is that not because Naz Shah is absolute poison and Dianne Abbot is one of the most useless politicians I've ever seen?

 

Again - good point. I'm not a religious person. I think a person's sexuality is 'coded' within them. i.e. you're born that way. Its an irrelevance to me, as long as everything is consensual. But his beliefs are driven by religious conviction. Is he not 'free' to think that way? Are his principles less valid that the freedoms of another religions persons beliefs that dictate how they dress? We're trying to police behaviours and its going too far.