Do the name callers who label people “Islamaphobic” support Qur’an-instructed violence against women and girls?
To be “anti-Islam” (and “anti-Shari’a”) is to reject submission to Allah and the Qur’an. To be anti-Islam is to be for protecting women’s rights and human rights. To be anti-Islam is to advocate for children who are powerless and voiceless, to liberate everyone enslaved by Islamic totalitarian ideology.
There is nothing bigoted, racist, or fearful about opposing a political ideology that rejects universally accepted human rights laws.
If the European Court on Human Rights has repeatedly ruled that Shari’a law is “incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy,” then why defend it?
What alternatives are name callers suggesting that “Islamaphobes” should consider? None. Defenders of Islam (and Shari’a law) are anti-women and anti-girls. They endorse:
- Female genital mutilation (genitals being cut and sewn shut),
- Honor killings (fathers or brothers kill their daughters/sisters),
- Child marriage (girls under age 12 are married to adult men),
- Slavery (girls are sold for “protection” by their parents and/or kidnapped and sold at slave bazaars),
- Shari’a Councils (Imams marry girls – even for one hour– to men, then divorce them only to marry them to another man and divorce them again),
- Wife abuse and domestic violence (husbands are instructed to beat their wives as a form of punishment); husbands are permitted to rape their wives,
- Non-legal status for women who are considered property (a wife’s legal rights equate to only half of her husband’s),
- Discrimination, punishment, and death for everyone based on sexual and religious orientation, especially if they will not “convert” to Islam.
Those who oppose Islam support policies and laws that protect women and children from violence — exposing the evils of child marriage, slavery, female genital mutilation, honor killings, and institutionalized prostitution and sex trafficking. The least safe countries for women are Muslim majority countries (2012 World Economic Forum report).
Those who oppose Islam seek to aid and protect refugees who have survived genocide and slave bazaars (Open Doors reports 2014 was the worst year in the modern era for persecution of Christians).
Being anti-Islam equates to supporting democratic freedoms — including free speech — not hate speech — and demanding that government officials who have taken oaths to defend the U.S. Constitution actually protect citizens from Shari’a law.
Naming and fighting evil is rooted in love — love that seeks to safeguard the innocent and offer an alternative to those influenced by evil. Out of love, people name and fight evil, which seeks to destroy what is good, in order to safeguard and promote that which is life-giving.
As Margaret Thatcher once articulated, those who are anti-Islam are for: “… a society where people are free to make choices, to make mistakes, to be generous and compassionate. This is what we mean by a moral society...”
Mislabeling supporters of freedom and human rights advocates as “hatemongers,” “fear mongers,” “bigots,” “ignorant,” or “phobic” of some kind only expresses irrational hatred without offering an alternative to their diatribe. Worse still, name callers enable, permit—and even ensure—that hate crimes will increasingly occur and victims’ voices, especially girls’, will continue to be silenced.