Month: November 2011

Love blooms in Zuccotti Park: Protesting  Occupy Wall Street lovebirds tie the knot  – NY Daily News. In front of about a dozen friends and onlookers, Emery Abdel-Latif, 24, and Micha Balon, 19, held a traditional Muslim wedding on Trinity Place and Liberty Street, perched on a small bench next to the park’s famous sculpture of a seated man with a briefcase.  “We have to be able to understand truly how unique this relationship is,” said Khalid Latif, the chaplain at New York University who married the eager duo.

Sisters of St. Francis, the Quiet Shareholder Activists – NYTimes.com. Long before Occupy Wall Street, the Sisters of St. Francis were quietly staging an occupation of their own. In recent years, this Roman Catholic order of 540 or so nuns has become one of the most surprising groups of corporate activists around.  The nuns have gone toe-to-toe with Kroger, the grocery store chain, over farm worker rights; with McDonald’s, over childhood obesity; and with Wells Fargo, over lending practices. They have tried, with mixed success, to exert some moral suasion over Fortune 500 executives, a group not always known for…

Rod Dreher » Don’t blame Muslims for Catholic U. suit. A group of Muslims studying at the private Catholic University of America are petitioning the DC Office of Human Rights to investigate the university for not providing them a prayer room free of all Christian symbolism.  Oh wait, except that there’s no evidence that any actual Muslims are offended. Instead, a George Washington University law professor, John Banzhaf, has taken it upon himself to do so on behalf of Muslim students, who have never filed a complaint about this with anybody. Don’t blame Muslim students for this; blame the litigation-mad, publicity-seeking…

Middle Class Dub: Islamophobia and Antisemitism: Same message, different minority.. Below are quotes which highlight the disturbing similarities between Islamophobic and Antisemitic messages.