The Depravity Of Dog Ownership....

So, I guess that cats really are better than dogs. This is an old story, but I just saw on TV that another Muslim cleric has called dog ownership evil and is calling for outlawing it [I cannot find the new story online just now]...

TEHRAN, Oct 13 (AFP) - A conservative Iranian prayer leader denounced the "moral depravity" of dog ownership and called on the judiciary to arrest all dogs and their owners, the reformist Etemad paper reported Sunday.

"I demand the judiciary arrest all dogs with long, medium or short legs together with their long-legged owners, otherwise I will arrest them myself", the Etemad newspaper quoted the cleric, named as Hojatoleslam Hasani, as saying at a Friday prayer sermon in the northwestern city of Urumieh.

"The abominable people in this country think that liberty means loose morals, for example men and women walk in the streets hand in hand", he added.

Despite official disapproval of dogs, which are mostly referred to as "unclean" in Islam, dog ownership recently has been on the rise and more women are seen in public walking their dogs, particularly in northern Tehran.

In June the police banned the sale of dogs and stipulated penalties for dog walking in public, which is seen by conservatives as a sign of the corrupting influence of decadent Western culture.

Well, I agree with some of what he says. If you walk down the street in France, dog owners rarely clean up after their 'le chiens' and it can be quiet dirty. But I am not too sure that dog ownership is a sign or leads to 'loose morals.' And walking one's dog in public is now a sing of the corrupting influence of Western culture. You just cannot make this up.