{"id":1954,"date":"2009-12-01T23:55:25","date_gmt":"2009-12-01T12:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/?p=1954"},"modified":"2009-12-01T23:57:42","modified_gmt":"2009-12-01T12:57:42","slug":"swiss-minaret-ban-is-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2009\/12\/01\/swiss-minaret-ban-is-bad\/","title":{"rendered":"Swiss minaret ban is bad"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I am shocked at the vote in Switzerland to ban the construction of minarets. This is a grave restriction on people&#8217;s freedom of religious expression. Surely legislation to limit the height of the minarets to conform with aesthetic and relational issues of &#8216;who has the biggest&#8217; tower could have been readily handled.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said the result of the referendum reflected fears among the Swiss of Islamic fundamentalist tendencies. &#8221;But the Federal Council [government] takes the view that a ban on the construction of new minarets is not a feasible means of countering extremist tendencies.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I could not agree more!\u00a0 This referendum\u00a0result\u00a0is very inflammatory. It does not make for peace. Pray for people of peace to bring peace to this situation. Fear is a destructive colleague.<\/p>\n<p>Further comment at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/world\/swiss-ban-on-minarets-causes-shockwaves-20091130-k148.html\">http:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/world\/swiss-ban-on-minarets-causes-shockwaves-20091130-k148.html<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I am pleased to note that the <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/europe\/8385893.stm\">Vatican has condemned the vote<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I have expressed my concern about the curtailment of religious expression in multi-faith settings previously in <a href=\"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2009\/07\/12\/burqas-and-religious-freedom\/\">Burqas and religious freedom.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Also an optimistic view of recent developments on our living together in a world of diverse views at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2009\/10\/30\/islam-current-trends\/\">Islam: current trends<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Look out for upcoming ABC Compass program re <a href=\"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2009\/11\/25\/multi-faith-society-an-oxymoron\/\">Multi-faith society: an oxymoron?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am shocked at the vote in Switzerland to ban the construction of minarets. This is a grave restriction on people&#8217;s freedom of religious expression. Surely legislation to limit the height of the minarets to conform with aesthetic and relational &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2009\/12\/01\/swiss-minaret-ban-is-bad\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1954"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1962,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954\/revisions\/1962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}