[West Ender]

Is anyone else as fed up as I am with hearing about this and about any other perceived "insults" to Muslims? It could be argued that women walking around with their faces covered is an insult to non-Muslims who find the practice strange, unnecessary and, to some, offensive but who in the public eye would dare to say so without being branded "racist"?

Why do we make all this fuss? Why do we hear, yet again, that Muslim leaders are outraged and demanding an apology?

I'm not religious. I am, in fact, an athaeist but I was brought up Catholic and I went to a Catholic school. By the time I was 9 years old I was used to the odd taunt and sneer from other, non-Catholic, children for no other reason than that I was RC. I didn't understand why - any more than they did if the truth be known. My father wasn't Catholic and I knew some of his family had been less than happy that he married my mother, who was. It didn't make any sense to me but my dad would just say that people who were bigoted were simply ignorant, more to be pitied than blamed. I didn't go to the Press when ever I was on the receiving end of irrational sectarian prejudice. The Parish Priest didn't shout from the pulpit that his parishioners were offended. When the Iain Paisleys of this world screamed that the Pope was evil, who really gave a damn?

We on this forum, and the whole of the media, are arguing and discussing the fact that a Western man says he asks Muslim women to uncover their faces. Why on Earth is that such a big deal? Is it any worse than inviting a devout, non-drinking Baptist to have a beer or offering a Jew a bacon sandwich?

So why does this country make such a meal of everything that upsets a Muslim cleric or his flock? Why do we give them air-time? Isn't it time we started to treat Islam as just another religion, which is all it is, and to demand a bit of respect for the rest of the population as well as being expected to give respect with no return? This country should start to get its priorities right and to stop treating anything concerned with Islam as universally sacred and precious.