Sunday, May 6, 2007

Most ridiculous item of the week (2007-05-06)

There was supposed to be a conference in Norway yesterday between Muslim imams and ministers from the Church of Norway (Lutheran) to talk over some of the misunderstandings between Islam and Christianity and have a sense of dialogue. However, the keynote event -- an exhibition soccer match -- was cancelled after the imams objected to female ministers playing. Well, actually, the church called it off; they agreed to an all male team but then withdrew all together as a matter of principle.

One's religious views are no doubt going to demonstrate themselves into his or her political ones. However, the church was well within its rights to have attempted to field a co-ed team in the first place and should not have backed down. The time to have objected would have been when the conference was being organized in the first place. If one does not believe in the equality of women, they should say so up front.

And given Norway has gone further than most other countries to include women in the political process, one has to suspect there was something deeper going on here.

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