Dear God, the French are strage!

[Roopull]

Okay, I've tried to share some lighthearted stories with you this morning, but now it's time for something a little more serious. Okay, it's only mildly serious. Okay okay, so it's not serious at all - at least not to me since I'm not in France. This story is an example of what happens when you 1. let socialist run your country 2. embrace a rabidly secular view of the world.



Luckily, here in Amurrica, you can't even get elected in most states unless you're a regular attendee of some house of worship AND we have that free exercise of religion thingy in our constitution... and we KNOW no one will mess with our constitution.

Proof this is not yet another example of me just making crap up about the frogs.

French panel recommends measures to keep religion out of hospitals

The Associated Press
Published: January 29, 2007

PARIS: A report issued Monday by a government-appointed panel recommended that France adopt a charter to keep religious traditions and beliefs out of its hospitals and other institutions.

Far softer than a 2004 law that banned Muslim head scarves and other "ostentatious" religious signs from public classrooms, the proposed charter is, like the head scarf law, an effort to ensure the secular nature of France.

Tensions over religious beliefs in French hospitals, prisons and elsewhere have mounted in recent years, particularly as Muslim fundamentalists find a voice. With an estimated 5 million Muslims, Islam is the second religion in France.

Plans to draw the line on what is considered unacceptable behavior in hospitals, carrying risks for patients, were first raised three years ago during the debate over Muslim head scarves. Jean- Pierre Raffarin, who was prime minister at the time, said that hospitals were the next target.

In May, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin asked the High Council on Integration to prepare recommendations to ensure secularism in public institutions. It submitted its proposal for a charter on Monday.
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Male doctors, particularly in maternity wards, say they are increasingly subject to insults, even blows, most often by men opposed to nudity or physical contact with their wives and daughters.

The conviction last week of Fouhad Ben Moussa highlighted the issue. He pulled Jean-François Oury, head of the maternity ward of Robert Debré Hospital in Paris, from a hospital room in September and slapped him after the doctor examined his wife, who had hemorrhaged after giving birth, according to court testimony.

"In my religion, a man doesn't touch a woman," Ben Moussa screamed, according to the testimony. In court, Ben Moussa, expressing regret, said his real motivation had been modesty, not religion. He was sentenced to a six-month jail term that can be partly served at home.

"I think the Oury case was the straw that broke the camel's back," said Emile Daraï, secretary general of the National Congress of French Gynecologists and Obstetricians.

The group, unusually, issued a statement in October asking, "Do gynecologists and obstetricians now need police protection to practice?"

The statement affirmed that male and female doctors would treat patients "whatever their sex," and said it was the woman who had freedom "to determine contraception, abortion, sterilization without the opinion of her husband."

The experts recommending a charter for public institutions measured their words, affirming the rights of patients, but stressing the need for a "balanced approach."

The report said there was no need to legislate on the issue, but stressed that respect for the functioning of the hospital was vital. It suggested a charter laying out the constitutionally guaranteed principle of secularism be adopted and that pertinent sections be posted at the relevant institutions.

If it's not okay to pray when you're on your death bed, exactly when is it? What about the Catholic "last rights?" Are they just going to let all the Catholics burn in a fiery hell for the sake of keeping everyone unoffended? And why didn't they just arrest that crazy moonbat who slapped the OBGYN who examined his wife? Aren't there laws on the books in France regarding assault?

What a strange little world we live in... and before you Yanks, Brits & Aussies get all bloated after reading this, ask yourself... would you have been any more surprised if this was a story out of your own country? I know the surprise would only be a little more intense, but not much. As for that #1 & #2 up there... we're not far from it.