Thought of the Day 03.30.10

The other day, I was driving on Indian School Road when I happened to see a Muslim family walking past a storefront. The mother was wearing a Jilbab and Hijab (head scarf and loose-fitting robe), while the father and two young boys were wearing ordinary American attire, polo shirts and shorts. The mother was walking with one of the boys and they had their arms around each other in the universal demonstration of reciprocal love. All this was quite beautiful.

What I found horrific about the scene was the storefront they were passing, which happened to have a full-size painting of a pin-up girl on the wall. All I could think of at that moment was the terrible frustration for these parents, and especially this mother, having to daily expose their sons to a culture with such flagrant disregard to the moral-visual development of young boys.

I don’t endorse the Muslim view of women, but I certainly share their concern that sexual imagery is very dangerous to both women and men. And at that particular moment, I was embarrassed by a culture which claims to be Christian in its heritage.