cloudsoup

Hot on the heels of Home Secretary Harriet Harman’s proposal to legalise sex discrimination in employment comes news of my local council’s non-white swimming sessions:

A council has been fiercely criticised for holding ethnic-minority only swimming sessions.

Wolverhampton City Council employs special life-guards and instructors for the sessions, which are open to the city’s black and Asian residents only.

It claims the weekly periods are for women and children with “religious or cultural issues which would otherwise prevent them from taking part.

But furious pool-users say they amount to racial segregation and claim they are being prevented from using the pool – simply because they may be white.

The Evening Standard, Row over ethnic minority only swimming sessions for women and children

Police sniffer dogs will have to wear bootees when searching the homes of Muslims so as not to cause offence.

The Times, Sniffer dogs to wear ‘Muslim’ bootees

But why? Even if rover is usually haram, Muslim authorities make exceptions so that a common list of situations in which doggies are allowed is, for example:

1. A trained dog for hunting. Remember in Islam we are only allowed to hunt for food; there is no such thing as hunting for fun, for we are not allowed to kill or torture animals or drive them out of their habitats for the fun of it
2. A trained dog as a guide. This would be the case if a person is blind and he/she has no choice but to keep a dog for essential services. In this case, it is permissible for him/her to keep a dog inside the house once it has been trained for service, but it is still recommended that the dog have its own sleeping arrangement.
3. A dog trained for police duties.
4. A guard dog to guard houses or property.
5. A dog used by farmers to shepherd cattle and sheep.

IslamOnline.net, Muslims Owning Dogs: Permissible?

And Ibrahim Mogra, an Imam quoted in the articles, says, I think Acpo needs to consult better and more widely. So if Islamic religious authorities are able to relax the (admittedly silly) prohibition, whence the Association of Chief Police Officers’ difficulties?

I think it probably comes from the politically-correct diversity trainers, whose immunity to common sense is truly impressive.