ISLAM: A LIFESTYLE CHOICE

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Islam: a lifestyle choice

Here is a secular view of what Tory peer Baroness Warsi said on your front page (Leicester, January 21).

It was simply a demand that Islam is above criticism. She claims "prejudice against Muslims in Britain is at an all time high", but offered no evidence to support this claim, unless you count the e-mail she received as an example of prejudice against Muslims.

But the e-mail was nothing more than a concise sentence typical of hard political debate, that used a play on halal, which is indeed a Muslim custom/superstition hated by many, especially animal rights folk, that seemed a fair way to have a dig at her to me.

This is the e-mail: "Instead of bleating like some halal lamb being led to the slaughter, how about ending the knee bending to Islam at every opportunity."

This is mild indeed compared to the messages sent from Islamists to their critics.

She goes on to confuse race with religion. She tries to draw a similarity between racism to the Jews and criticism of Islam, but she is wrong; criticism of Islam is equal to criticism of Zionism – criticism of an ideology. Does Warsi think Zionism above criticism?

Opposition to Islamic aims, as to how we should all lead our lives are not racist, but ideological, as they are with any political creed we may oppose.

When asked whether she still faces regular discrimination, she said: "On the basis of my race? Less so. On the basis of my religion? More so". So Baroness don't be a Muslim, give it up! It's not compulsory. Here in Leicester it's a free choice, unlike being Jewish or Asian. If Warsi is attacked for being Asian, that is racist and she must be defended from that, but when she is criticized for freely following a lifestyle ideology many of us disagree with, she must expect hard arguments against that choice.

Especially as someone who has excepted an unelected, privileged, and well paid role in the Government on the Tory side!

She states that anti-Islamic sentiment is bigotry, so she can call those of us who are critical of Islam bigots, but we must, in her words, "be urged to be more careful about what they say about religion".

Why? She must extend the same freedom of speech to those of us who disagree with her, as she received on the front page of the Mercury.

Mr Lyn Hurst, Leicester