The following quote is from a report presenting the Seattle Planning Commission’s findings and recommendations for Seattle concerning affordable housing. I wonder where else this is happening.
"Pursue strategies that address disparities related to wealth, education and culture in homeownership opportunities. As example, the city could work with nonprofit providers to develop culturally-sensitive mortgage products and underwriting processes to growing numbers of prospective buyers, such as observant Muslims who cannot pay for or collect interest under Sharia Law. "
I will end up paying hundreds of thousands in interest on my home loan over its 30 year lifetime. The municipal government of the city in which I live is looking into ways (ergo spending the tax dollars collected, in part, from me) to let someone, based on their religion, purchase a home without having to pay the same amount as others who are not part of that religion.
This is not a matter of "cultural sensitivity' as the quote above suggests. Islam is not a culture, it is a religion. This municipality seams to be supporting sharia law. This municipality seams to want people one religion financially favored over another or none.
Guess I'll be contacting a few folks in the local government. Sigh. Do you think this is an appropriate activity in which a secular government should engage?
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This seems counter to what a secular Government is about.
For what it is worth: "mortgage products and underwriting processes" to me sounds like a thin veneer designed to obscure interest payments from the final payer. I'm betting something along the lines of:
You want to buy a house that costs $100k, but your nutjob religion won't let you pay interest. So I get the mortgage instead, I take my monthly payment and multiply it by the length of the loan (lets say that is $300k), then I offer to sell you the house 'interest free' for $300k. You make your 'interest free' payments to me, and they 'just happen' to match up with the normal principle + interest payments I have to make. Furthermore, since I am assuming some risk, I will probably tack a fee (we'll just call it a fee instead of interest, why not) on, so maybe $350k price tag now. Not unlike a credit default swap, where we wrap one asset/liability inside another to hide its true nature so we can avoid violating arbitrary rules. So now you can go back to your wackadoodle church/mosque/temple and brag that you have an 'interest free' house loan.
That being said, why bother? If your wackjob religion makes it hard for you to get along in the modern world, that is your problem.
Does this fit into the subject?
"Here's the list of all U.S. Senators who this afternoon voted to allow our nation's LGBTQ youth to continue to be bullied – these are the NAY's. You'll notice that each NAY is from a Republican Senator"
http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/davidbadash/did_your_us_senator...
Could it possibly be that they voted "NAY" because of their religious faith?