Julie Burchill forced to apologise for twitter comments , and pay out a fat wedge .

[danny la rouge]

This is true, though the NI context you talk about is a conflict between two different strands of non-monolithic christianity. Both strands of which are currently voting to enforce (or at least not to challenge) abortion restrictions in the province.

As Eammon McCann said “When it comes to abortion, Sinn Fein have been impaled on the fence for so long they could be torn neatly in half along the perforations.”

 

[Knotted]

I think there's a reasonable sounding idea that it's fine to attack a doctrine but not religious people as a group or individually, in a sort of "play the ball not the players" way (obviously JB did both anyway). I think ignorant attacks on religion are often attempts to characterise the people in a certain way - ie. explaining their beliefs to them (see for example - "Mohammed worship"). The distinction between ideas and people is not always a useful one IMO.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

He lives round the corner from me.

In that jacket potato food van right?

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

I was in a pub once with a friend who asked for a lemonade and a vegetarian pizza. The pizza duly turned up with ham on it. He sent it back and it was returned minus the ham, but the same pizza. Was the publican being racist, anti-Islamic or ignorant? Answers on a postcard please.

 

[8ball]

In that jacket potato food van right?

Tim Pollard - he's Nottingham's "official Robin Hood". Goes to my local.

 

[8ball]

I was in a pub once with a friend who asked for a lemonade and a vegetarian pizza. The pizza duly turned up with ham on it. He sent it back and it was returned minus the ham, but the same pizza. Was the publican being racist, anti-Islamic or ignorant? Answers on a postcard please.

Or doing some kind of performative contempt for vegetarians...

 

[Santino]

I was in a pub once with a friend who asked for a lemonade and a vegetarian pizza. The pizza duly turned up with ham on it. He sent it back and it was returned minus the ham, but the same pizza. Was the publican being racist, anti-Islamic or ignorant? Answers on a postcard please.

What are you actually trying to argue?

 

[Pickman's model]

I was in a pub once with a friend who asked for a lemonade and a vegetarian pizza. The pizza duly turned up with ham on it. He sent it back and it was returned minus the ham, but the same pizza. Was the publican being racist, anti-Islamic or ignorant? Answers on a postcard please.

Yes

 

[8ball]

What are you actually trying to argue?

Ah, the direct approach. I was trying to tease it out by engaging a little..

 

[Pickman's model]

But that's the thing innit, the Christian Church isn't a singular institution and hasn't been since at least 1054. So while I broadly agree with you there, I think it's very possible to do "provocations against christianity" that do function as lobbing bricks at an oppressed minority, especially in the NI context.


Shit, I've now looked this one up and realised I was led astray by Nottingham's habit of sticking Robin Hood on everything. It was actually Doncaster airport that Robin Hood built, apologies for any confusion caused there.

Divided long before 1054, long long before.

 

[hitmouse]

How was the lemonade, any complaints there?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I was in a pub once with a friend who asked for a lemonade and a vegetarian pizza. The pizza duly turned up with ham on it. He sent it back and it was returned minus the ham, but the same pizza. Was the publican being racist, anti-Islamic or ignorant? Answers on a postcard please.

You were there. We were not. So what do you think? Context and that.

 

[danny la rouge]

I was in a pub once with a friend who asked for a lemonade and a vegetarian pizza. The pizza duly turned up with ham on it. He sent it back and it was returned minus the ham, but the same pizza. Was the publican being racist, anti-Islamic or ignorant? Answers on a postcard please.

Not enough information, but based on what we know, they are an ignorant tight arse and I wouldn’t eat it or pay.

 

[belboid]

I know we fundamentally disagree on these issues - and that doesn’t make you a bad person, just wrong - but try to focus on things I’ve actually said instead of getting wound up about stuff somebody hypothetical might have said sometime in history. I already took the piss out of you for association fallacy, but now you’re stretching it beyond breaking point.

I am focusing on what you said, I’m pointing out the (to me) glaring contradiction between your attitudes to Islam and your attitude towards anti-semitism. Insulting one group of people (cos we are actually talking about people not some abstract idea) becomes a matter of essential free speech whereas for the other it is completely beyond the pale. Why is that?

 

[danny la rouge]

Or doing some kind of performative contempt for vegetarians...

Like that cunt Ramsay. I wouldn’t eat at any of his places ever.

 

[danny la rouge]

I am focusing on what you said, I’m pointing out the (to me) glaring contradiction between your attitudes to Islam and your attitude towards anti-semitism. Insulting one group of people (cos we are actually talking about people not some abstract idea) becomes a matter of essential free speech whereas for the other it is completely beyond the pale. Why is that?

You are wrong about that.

 

[8ball]

Like that cunt Ramsay. I wouldn’t eat at any of his places ever.

While I still think he's a massive knobhead, I believe his stance on that sort of thing has changed a lot over the intervening years.

 

[killer b]

I am focusing on what you said, I’m pointing out the (to me) glaring contradiction between your attitudes to Islam and your attitude towards anti-semitism. Insulting one group of people (cos we are actually talking about people not some abstract idea) becomes a matter of essential free speech whereas for the other it is completely beyond the pale. Why is that?

Is it possible for you to have this debate without implying the person you're arguing with is a racist?

 

[Pickman's model]

Like that cunt Ramsay. I wouldn’t eat at any of his places ever.

I would. I'd order something and demand ketchup so he'd roar out of his kitchen incandescent with rage

 

[8ball]

I have more time for Ramsay than Oliver.
Though we're talking milliseconds in both cases.

 

[danny la rouge]

While I still think he's a massive knobhead, I believe his stance on that sort of thing has changed a lot over the intervening years.

Not enough for me to be able to trust what I was eating if he’d made it.

 

[killer b]

Is it possible for you to have this debate without implying the person you're arguing with is a racist?

(I know the answer to this is 'no', which is pretty ironic when only a post ago you were piously intoning that danny's posts 'wont win anyone over and is actually more likely to push them away.')

 

[8ball]

Not enough for me to be able to trust what I was eating if he’d made it.

I think you'd be pretty safe these days - he's pretty astute when it comes to watching in which direction the money is moving.
But your stance is understandable.

 

[Santino]

I think it says something sad about our society that Ramsay's public personality is that of a bully, a literal bully, and he gets lauded and rewarded for it.

 

[Sue]

I sometimes feel a bit sorry for KillerB, who in the unlikely event of him ever logging back in here will find a deluge of alerts from people who were hoping to tag me. Then I read his single post here and don't care so much.

It's like marty21 and his near namesake all over again .

 

[killer b]

It's like marty21 and his near namesake all over again .

it did occur to me that I had a narrow escape from a similar fate to marty21, now forever tainted by a whiff of wrong 'un.

 

[ska invita]

I'm not trying to be pedantic or difficult here, but the beard and robes are part of cultural heritage, not an intrinsic part of Islam. Others from the same part of the world may dress similarly and get similar negative responses yet adhere to a different or no faith at all.
Yes, halal food might not be always readily provided, but neither is vegetarian or vegan or gluten-free.
I do agree that there has been more specifically anti-Muslim feeling in recent decades, coinciding with British involvement in Iraq in particular and the rise of Isis. But Asian friends of mine from Hindu and Catholic backgrounds have also experienced racism (surprise, surprise) - all down to their skin colour.

Beard growing is part of Islamic practices as is clothing, both male and female.

Are beards obligatory for devout Muslim men?

Hizbul-Islam militants in Somalia have ordered men in Mogadishu to grow their beards and trim their moustaches. Is this a Muslim obligation?

www.bbc.co.uk

As with all religions there is a spectrum to how things are observed and considered, Hasidic Jews are an example within the spectrum of Judaism.
In countries where there is little separation of church and state religious practice overlaps and melts into other cultural practices.
Islamaphobia is real in the UK - Atheistphobia isn't. What Ash experienced was Islamaphobia.
I can assure you that a white british man who converted to Islam, changed his name to a Muslim sounding one, wore robes to mosque and grew a beard would suffer new found additional oppressions.

 

[belboid]

Is it possible for you to have this debate without implying the person you're arguing with is a racist?

I am pointing out a contradiction. Is there a contradiction there? Sure looks like it. In which case the obvious question is, why? Unconscious biases are a thing, it doesn’t make that person evil. Being ‘a racist’ involves a lot more, IMO, than simply having a dubious outlook on one particular question. Without wanting to pun, it isn’t simply black and white.

 

[danny la rouge]

Is there a contradiction there?

No.

 

[danny la rouge]

You owe me an apology for repeating a baseless lie. But I know I won’t get it.