“This is my house. If you want to come in, you should respect me. If you can’t do that, then I won’t welcome you into my house.”

That was essentially what the Federal Treasurer Peter Costello said Tuesday night whilst addressing the Sydney Institute.

From the link below:

… the Treasurer has bluntly called for hard-line Muslims and others who don’t observe Australian values to be stripped of their citizenship.

And he said people coming to Australia should have the same respect for Australian values as visitors to a mosque who are asked to take off their shoes.

And:

“A person who does not acknowledge the supremacy of civil law laid down by democratic processes cannot truthfully take the pledge of allegiance,” he said.

“As such they do not meet the pre-condition for citizenship.”

I agree wholeheartedly. If you have come to live in a Western democracy, then it is highly contradictory for you to hate it. You have freedom of religion, and freedom of dress. You can even practice your form of Sharia law but you cannot expect to impose that on the general populace. And you’d most certainly be prosecuted under the common law if any of your cultural practices harm another person in this country.

There are plenty of Muslims, from all corners of the planet, who have assimilated to the life here in Australia. Extremists and zealots only serve to unfairly put *all* Muslims in this country in a bad light. I can’t claim to speak for moderate Muslims but I can bet you that you are about as welcomed by them as you are by the rest of us – NOT.

The Australian: Costello urges migrant loyalty [February 24, 2006]

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