Thursday, August 20, 2009

British Minister under attack after wedding walk-out

British Muslims have launched an attack on the Government minister who recently walked out of a wedding because the guests were segregated.

Jim Fitzpatrick, the farming Minister, walked out of the wedding when he discovered that his wife would have to sit in a separate area at the wedding.

He then accused the Islamic Forum of Europe, which has an office adjacent to the wedding venue, the East London mosque, of promoting hardline Muslim views.

But the Minister has himself come under attack from another Labour figure, the peer Lord Patel of Blackburn, said his attack was ‘cowardly’, and suggested that it had more to do with pandering to anti-Islamic sentiments ahead of the general election.

Meanwhile, Iftikhar Ahmad of the London School of Islamics also joined the row, saying it was a gaffe by the Minister. He said: “The Minister's action is just a stupid, attention-getting stunt appealing to prejudices. This serves only to inflame the prejudices so widespread today.

“People have their customs, and you don't insult them. It hasn't been that long since our society had some public institutions that kept men and women separate. And it hasn't been that long since women in our society typically wore hats with veils. Plenty of Western customs, we accept as normal, are unacceptable or ridiculous to others. 

Muslim marriage is a religious ceremony.”

Mr Fitzpatrick defended his actions: “"The IFE are intolerant, not the community. The community is a very generous and open one. My beef is that the IFE is starting to influence the social and political life of the Bangladeshi and Muslim community.

"I have apologised on camera to the families and to the community for any offence that I may have caused. That was not what I was trying to do."
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