"Toleranz gegenüber Sharia ja, Respekt nein"

"There are some aspects of sharia, or Muslim practice, or whatever combination of the two is in operation – such as making girls wear veils or have less value as witnesses, to say nothing about the sharia attitude to apostasy – which I do not respect at all. But while it does not disrupt any British customs and traditions, I think it should be tolerated.

One of the greatest things about this country is its dedication to tolerance, personally, socially and above all in law. Tolerance, however, is not the same as respect. Owing to this great and unusual tradition of tolerance, contracts in this country can be made under the rules of gypsy bonfire jumping, or wiccan incantations or the secret covenants of the ferret fancy, and that is and should be tolerated within the law. But respected?

I feel that this constant demand for respect makes a great many people privately very resentful. Why should respect be extracted from us, for any and every religion, or any and every culture? It amounts to a statutory requirement of hypocrisy.

Besides, we know that from respect it is only a short step to encouragement, to inclusion, accommodation and adaptation – to unwanted change from within. We’ve seen this happening in various ways; to give just one instance, some Muslim men with multiple wives under sharia are being paid welfare benefits for all of them, as wives, in accordance with specific guidelines from the Department for Work and Pensions, even though polygamy is against the law in this country.

What’s astonishing is the way that so many useful idiots in the mainstream culture are so quick to make unnecessary and often unwanted accommodations – allowances that most Muslims would not want or expect – to what they falsely imagine are Muslim sensibilities, as with dropping Nativity plays and children’s stories about pigs."

Minnette Marin, Times online