I wonder what would happen over this side of the pond. The UK can point to being a 'Christian nation' with the history of a state religion and the Queen as the head of the Anglican church...

Muslims outraged over a Scottish police ad featuring a police dog/puppy.

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...at least it wasn't a cute little pig.

Interesting article, Wrenn. However, after digging around a bit for more detail, I came upon this local piece, which suggests the brouhaha is one muslim's doing -- coincidentally, a local politician. Dunno if it's much ado about nothing or if this article is truly a balanced perspective, but some of the statements about shops owned by muslims selling pork products and dog food...well, I think it's funny.

One concerned resident said, “The story mentioned that Muslim-owned shops and convenience stores were rejecting the card due to the fact that it had a picture of a puppy on it and that Muslims found this offensive as they deem dogs to be ‘unclean.’

“Surely these cannot be the same Muslim-owned shops which have dog food cans and packets on the shelves and bacon and pork sausages in the chill cabinet with the pictures of happy pups and contented porkers beaming from the packaging?”

Perhaps if they had used a comely female trainee instead of the dog to sit on the cap, that would have been more acceptable...only, of course, if she had completed her course of inoculations!

Thanks. I was having a debate over the Japanese monkey cellphone add that African-Americans found offensive (despite the fact that it only aired in Japan). This seems remarkably similar. We can jump in and project our views of prejudice everywhere. Now, maybe advertisements shouldn't alienate people but at the same time.... Interestingly I suspect the only reason the dog is looked down on in Islam is because is sacred to the Zoroastrians. It is "ritually" unclean because only the "pagan" Zoroastrians kept dogs... I MUCH prefer the Zoroastrian perspective here. If I ever get a dog, I will name it "Suno" (Avestan for "dog") and feed it the last scrap off my plate every day.....

Maybe they think the dogfood is made from dogs? :)