theguardian: by Ian Birrell.
It is hard to take claims of religious intolerance from Christians seriously when UK Muslims are daily subject to real hate crimes
A recent Chatham House study by Matthew Goodwin, a Nottingham University academic, found fewer than one quarter of Britons perceived Islam as not a threat to western civilisation; just a similar number could be found who thought the religion compatible with our way of life. These are disturbing findings. Other surveys have found Muslims more patriotic than other Britons; it is, after all, a religion that places a premium on hospitality. But such are the ignorant suspicions that make bile against Muslims the acceptable dinner-party bigotry, encourage gangs to vandalise mosques and drive discrimination in the workplace.
It is hard not to laugh. Three Christians are taking a landmark legal case to the European court of human rights because they believe they are being punished for “thought crimes” by our courts acting in conjunction with a Conservative-led coalition. Their claims of persecution, already rejected by various British and European judges, include a nurse who refused to stop wearing a cross dangling from her neck in defiance of health and safety rules and a relationship counsellor who would not work with gay couples.
Categories: CHRISTIANITY, Europe, Intolerance, Islam, UK