All Religious Fanatics Are Equally Disgusting

I found this disturbing article via Mike’s blog:

The New York City Parks Department took down 16 signs because they were illegally bolted to city-owned trees on Bedford Avenue in the South Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. As translated by the Jewish watchdog blog Failed Messiah, the signs read: “Precious Daughter: Please move to the other side when you see a man come across.” Another translation ended with: “Move to the side when a man approaches.”

A local resident told the Brooklyn Paper that the signs were intended not as an insult to ultra-Orthodox Jewish women or to make them feel like second-class citizens, but rather “to be respectful.” Abraham Klein, 18, told the New York Daily News: “The signs don’t bother anybody. Men and ladies don’t go together. It’s just our religion.” Faye Grwnfeld, 70, told the Daily News that the signs were “a private thing” — even though they were posted on public property. “It’s taking away freedom of speech,” she said.

Apparently a group of hard-line rabbis may have been behind the signs as part of a campaign to demand “modesty” by women; last June, the group issued a decree against tank tops, according to the Brooklyn Paper.

If the sign is a “private thing”, then hang it on your private property and don’t insult everybody by using public spaces for your ridiculous, hateful bigotry. The tax payers of New York cannot reasonably be expected to pay for the stupidity and hatefulness of a few crazed fanatics.

It doesn’t matter what religion hateful zealots practice. The petty squabbles they engage in with fanatics belonging to other religious groups mean nothing in the face of one shared trait: they are all woman-hating vile jerks of the worst caliber.

What is it with these religious freakazoids and their obsession with “modesty”? Wouldn’t they be better off practicing what they preach and modestly removing all public displays of their disgusting fanaticism into their synagogues, churches and mosques where they wouldn’t be able to offend the sensibilities of those of us who don’t happen to be nasty bigots?