Oh, the burkini stuff again. Took us a while, but Lebanon is finally having a fit about burkinis.

What Happened

A woman and her family booked an expensive $250-a-night room at a resort in Tripoli. She broke out her most fashionable burkini and went down to the beach for her son’s first swim. The lifeguard came and told her she can’t swim there with her clothes on. Next someone higher up the chain of command. Then someone higher. In the end, they agreed to get reimbursed and leave the private resort’s part of a public beach.

Why People Are Defending the Resort

Bikini advocates don’t see what the big problem is. After all, the burkini-loving crew aren’t big on freedom of choice stuff. “Women’s Only Beaches” much?

In other words, religious conservatives hate anyone who isn’t like them. They harass, condemn, threaten even. Just look at the disgusting slime that is hay2at el 3olama2 el muslimin and other similar ISIS-sympathizing groups.

So, it’s only normal to want to give them a taste of their own medicine. I wouldn’t be surprised if a “Phoenician” said the timeless “they can build mosques near the Vatican, but a Christian can’t go into Mecca!”

But then, what would the difference between you and them be exactly?

The Religious Conservatives are Hypocrites. You Shouldn’t Be.

Of course someone who thinks they have the right to tell a woman what she can and cannot wear is going to be a hypocrite. What did you expect? But what’s sadder, is that you’re kinda doing it too by vehemently defending the position the resort took.

It’s no one’s business what a woman wears, or doesn’t. Even if you think the woman’s decision to cover up isn’t one based on true volition, or influenced by social and religious pressures, it’s still their decision to make, not yours. Many women decide to take off their veil on their own accord, others decide to wear them after not being veiled. The problem is when other people want to dictate that outright.

Now, religious people do that. They make you cover up to go into a place of worship that they appropriated from pagans who used to have drunken orgies in it. It’s how they roll. Their concept of freedom of choice only includes their choices, not other people’s. Like the fuss when someone has to cover up to meet a religious figure.

The nice thing about us though, is we don’t force anyone to behave or dress in a certain way to meet and greet us. That’s why we’re better than intolerant religious conservatives. That’s why more and more people grow farther apart from their faiths and sects with each passing day.

You Only Make Them Stronger

If you want to fight a brute, but you’re a pacifist, you’re probably gonna lose. Religious conservatives strive and live off their intolerance and hatred. You don’t. So hating on a woman for wanting to wear a burkini, isn’t gonna be as good as when the cons remove an ad cause it has a bikini in it, or threaten a gay pride event. They created that shit, and it’s what they’re best at. Don’t stoop to their level.

Just look at that electric cable incident in a mosque in Tripoli a few weeks ago. One of the religious fundamentalists cut the electricity to the speakers of the mosque. He then proceeded to accuse the cafe across the street that opens and serves food and drink in Ramadan, of cutting that cable as an “assault on Islam”. It sparked a huge fuss and the religious fundies had their undies up in a bunch. When the police investigated, it turned out they did it themselves to try and violently shut down the cafe. That’s the kind of people the pro-burkini people are. That’s not the kind of people the pro-choice (whether burkini or bikini) people are.

It’s hilariously painful to see the same people who want to force you to fast in Ramadan, who want women to cover up, who censor ads that offend their “sensibilities”, are suddenly crying for individual freedoms and freedom to choose. Then again, people like that aren’t exactly known for their strengths when it comes to critical thinking. So, let them be the hateful hypocrites they are, within bounds of course and as long as it isn’t affecting you or other people who don’t share their conservatism.

At the end of the day, in Lebanon, you can wear whatever the fuck you want. And if a private place has a dress code, whether it’s a club which wants you to dress up, or a place or worship that wants to wrap you with a blanket, avoid them. Fuck them, why go there and spend your money and time? Go somewhere more inclusive. The best way of making something fail, while something better succeed, is by choosing where to throw your money (keyword: choice, not forced, to the pro-banning culture and arts people). That’s why big clubs today in Lebanon no longer have strict dress codes, and the ones of yesteryear that did, are long gone.

In Short

Don’t be like the religious. They ban, censor, oppress, threaten and are petty. We shouldn’t be. If that poor mother really wants to wear her burkini while paying 250$ to take her kid swimming, she should be able to, if not at that resort, at another one. This isn’t Saudi Arabia or Iran. And even though it might make you furious that they enforce things on people you are against, remember, that’s why they suck, and other places don’t.

Discrimination is a thing reserved for religious conservatives, and even though your beastly instinct encourages you to treat them the same, you’re better than that, and you know it.