Of course the imams are losing control, muslim children go to school with Australian children and want to grow up and live normal lives like Aussis kids do, so the clerics have to threathen the parents. The life-blood of islam is literally running out the door with the children. New converts are psychopaths, prison inmates, or wannabe terrorist scum like Jack Roach, a migrant from Britain with an Indonesian wife living on welfare who was to set up an al Qaida cell in Oz, whose attempt to plant an explosive device at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games was aborted due to 'not enough volunteers' - We do have the genuine article also - like the 'palestinian' youth who threatened to blow up our ASIO offices and has just been sentenced to spend a few years cooling his heels in an Aussie jail.
As for homosexual marriages being recognized by the church, that's a new one on me. I do have homosexual friends, two very nice young men who live in Cairns. To satisfy my curiousity, I will ask them if what the imam said was true...I'm far more inclined to believe what they tell me than what an imam might say, and that shouldn't surprise you.
The day I worry myself over anything that islam might disapprove of, I quit. Let them tidy up their own sh*t heap first.
>"The day I worry myself over anything that islam might disapprove of, I quit. Let them tidy up their own sh*t heap first."<
ROTFLM*O!
This does raise an excellent point in its own right: should we be openly rooting for the Muslim youth to be diverted and misdirected away from the intrinsic opressiveness of muhammadism into the mainstream of Western culture and society by the magnetic, yet somewhat perverse allure of achievement, and the wealth and materialism which can grow out of it, and travel further down the road of spiritual desolation that can overtake many...?
Or do we hope that somewhere along the line they will have a positively transforming encounter with an honest witness for Christ?
In my perception, it seems that the average Islamist parent would much rather their male children pursue the pleasures of the flesh (which can later apparently be justified away as part of their necessary 'taqiyyah') than to take Christ into their hearts which carries the penalty of death for the apostate Muslim and whomever "converted" them?
Their female children, on the other hand, are apparently quite disposable either way if they shame the family...
I think I have already long since earned the death sentence, because years ago, a girlfriend and I gave an NIV Bible to an Iranian girl (Flora) who was a fellow student at college. Some of Flor's Muslim male friends at college were openly critical of me for giving it, and her for keeping it, but this was back in the day when those little pr**ks knew to behave themselves in America, so despite the menacing glances and vaguely-worded threats, she kept it - and she read it!
How do I know? Because I met her again some 19 years later - no longer a Muslim, and no longer married to the rigid, emotionally abusive, and restrictive Iranian Muslim man she had been with - but a single Christian woman, working in the real estate business.
She's making a nice living, slender, well-dressed, and fabulously good-looking.
So there is hope for our culture and our religious examples to triumph in many of their lives, IMHO - but we better not lay aside our vigilance, nor our suspicions to bet the farm on it.
What was the operative phrase in the Reagan administration, after Gipperus Ronaldus Magnus succeeded in getting the Soviets' attention with his "Evil Empire" observation, and his unforgettable,"Ladies and gentlemen I'm pleased to announce...bombing begins in five minutes." comment - made "accidentally" (oh yeah, right!) on air just ahead of a scheduled radio address...
Oh yeah, now I remember, "Trust, but verify."
*Sigh! The world could use hearing some tough talk like that again...Personal friends of mine in Russia - including a former Soviet Admiral, Sergei Aleksandrovich (no kidding!) whose command was all the sub and frigate fleets in the Indian Ocean, a former Soviet fighter pilot, Kostya, and a former KGB assassin, Pavel (whose work was limited to domestic front targets in the USSR only) all agreed when the leadership in the Kremlin heard those words, they literally began to shake in their poorly cobbled boots, worried that Reagan might actually mean it and have the guts to back it up.
Said more succinctly, Teddy Roosevelt-style, "Walk softly and carry a big stick."
A.A.C.
(In the trenches, you can count on me. I've got your back!)
"I'm far more inclined to believe what they tell me than what an imam might say, and that shouldn't surprise you."
Not at all, but it also will prove a point that militant Imans will lie to THEIR OWN people when they get desperate enough.
No doubt a "rocky" relationship... ;-)